Book excerpt: As America confronts an unpredictable war in Iraq, Randolph returns to an earlier conflict that severely tested our civilian and military leaders. In 1972, America sought to withdraw from Vietnam with its credibility intact, with President Nixon and National Security Advisor Kissinger hoping that gains on the battlefield would strengthen their position at the negotiating table. Randolph's intimate chronicle of the commander-in-chief gains us unprecedented access to how these strategic assessments were made and played out.