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<h1 class="reader-title">Vietnam Will Win: End of an Illusion</h1>
<span class="post_author_intro">by</span> <span
class="post_author" itemprop="author"><a
href="https://www.counterpunch.org/author/wilfred-burchett/"
rel="nofollow">Wilfred Burchett</a> - March 29, 2018</span></div>
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<p>When North Korean naval forces boarded, seized and made
off with the U.S. intelligence ship <em>Pueblo</em>, on
January 23, 1968 – the first time such an indignity had
been perpetrated against an American naval vessel for
150 years – the world shuddered and awaited the
thunderbolts from the Pentagon. Minds naturally went
back to a much more nebulous incident in the Gulf of
Tonkin almost four years earlier in which it was
claimed, but never proven, that torpedoes had been fired
at the U.S. destroyer <em>Maddox</em>. Within 48 hours,
North Vietnam’s cities had been bombed in retaliation
and the U.S. Congress presented President Johnson with a
“blank check” for carrying out war measures in North and
South Vietnam. But there was nothing nebulous about what
the North Koreans had done. They had physically seized
and made off with a ship which contained everything most
secret in electronic espionage instruments and had hit
the United States in one of its most sensitive spots,
the Navy, the very heart of the country’s pride and
prestige. Nothing since Pearl Harbor seemed so
“outrageous.”</p>
<p>Secretary of State Dean Rusk denounced the seizure as
an “act of war” and some senators demanded an ultimatum
to the North Korean government of Kim II Sung to free
the <em>Pueblo</em> within 24 hours “or else.” Others
suggested the dispatch of a naval task force into Wonsan
harbor – where the vessel was being held – to free the <em>Pueblo</em>
and its crew. South Korea’s President Pak Chung Hi
demanded the simultaneous bombing of all North Korean
cities as a preliminary punishment. The U.S. Navy’s
nuclear-powered aircraft carrier <em>Enterprise</em>
headed toward North Korean shores. While the world held
its breath and waited for the lightning to strike, the
North Koreans replied that not only would they continue
to hold ship and crew but that the latter would probably
be tried on charges of espionage. After a few days of
ultimatums and bluster, the <em>Enterprise</em> made a
180-degree turn and sailed away from North Korean
waters. What had happened?</p>
<p>It was the end of an illusion. Senator Fulbright put
his finger on it within a few hours of the seizure, in
what must be considered a model of understatement:</p>
<p>“The U.S. commitment in Vietnam,” he is quoted as
saying, “caused other countries to feel more free than
normal from serious retaliation…”<a href="#_edn1"
name="_ednref1">[1]</a></p>
<p>If there was no “gunboat up the Yangtze” follow-up, it
did not signify any sudden coyness in the Pentagon, but
rather that no “gunboats” were available. Total U.S.
combat air strength in South Korea comprised just eight
planes, and these were nuclear bombers. There was not a
single American fighter-bomber in South Korea or
anywhere else in the area within flying and combat
distance of North Korea. It took three days for
President Johnson to scratch up a total of 36 planes and
dispatch them to South Korea. Only by calling up Air
Force reservists could he get enough pilots to fly them
and crews to service them. Unlike North Vietnam, the
DPRK<a href="#_edn2" name="_ednref2">[2]</a> has mutual
defense pacts with both China and the Soviet Union. But
even without these, as things stood in early 1968, North
Korea was easily capable of standing up to everything –
short of nuclear weapons – that the U.S. could mobilize
in the way of air, naval and ground forces in that
corner of the world. For ground forces, the Pentagon had
two divisions (apart from one company of Thai troops,
all that remained of “United Nations” forces in South
Korea). But these were down to about half strength
because effectives had been siphoned off quietly to
replace Vietnam battle casualties.</p>
<p>The illusion shattered by the <em>Pueblo</em> affair
was that the United States with its great military and
economic might, could play the role of a global super
gendarme. One “little war” against an underdeveloped
country had proved too much. The illusion that U.S.
armed forces could be whisked around the world to move
into every situation where U.S. interests, imaginary or
otherwise, were threatened, has been destroyed by the
Vietnamese people and confirmed by the North Korean
people.</p>
<p>When emergency measures were taken to shore up the U.S.
military posture in South Vietnam, necessitated by the
NLF’s Lunar New Year offensive, the U.S. public perhaps
realized for the first time just how deeply the war had
eaten into U.S. military might, how frail were the
reserves. Therein lay the real reason for the “soft”
reaction to the <em>Pueblo</em> affair.</p>
<p>“In the event of another emergency outside Vietnam, the
army would not have even one complete infantry division
ready for immediate deployment overseas,” reported Neil
Sheehan of the <em>New York Times</em>.<a href="#_edn3"
name="_ednref3">[3]</a> Sheehan pointed out that
President Johnson’s decision to airlift another 10,500
Army and Marine troops to South Vietnam had “seriously
depleted this country’s trained force of active,
strategic reserve divisions.” After the Dak To battle,
the Pentagon had already committed the remaining two
brigades of the 101st, one of the Pentagon’s two reserve
airborne divisions, intended for the defense of the
United States itself. After the Têt offensive, one
brigade of the remaining airborne division, the 82nd,
was also rushed out. This left only two more brigades of
the 82nd and three other divisions, the 1st and 2nd
Armored and the 5th Mechanized divisions, inside the
United States, none of the latter three in any way
suitable for the jungle, rice paddy or street warfare of
South Vietnam. Although on paper there were still three
Marine divisions available, in fact, after the dispatch
of the 27th Regiment of the newly formed 5th Marine
Division to make up the 10,500-man emergency force,
there existed only a little more than one Marine
division in the United States. Effectives had been
siphoned off the 2nd, 5th and even the reserve 4th
Marine divisions to replace battle casualties and to
inflate what were officially only two Marine divisions
in South Vietnam, but which in terms of effectives
(83,000 including the 27th Regiment) were the equivalent
of more than four divisions.</p>
<p>Replacements for the very high ratio of casualties the
Marines were taking, plus rotation, plus a drastic
falling off in volunteers in the Marine Corps, had
reduced Marine units within the United States to mere
skeletons. During all of 1967, Marines had been quietly
transferred from one division to another, from
home-based units to combat units to cover up the heavy
battle losses. The same had been happening inside Army
divisions, as was revealed when the 82nd Brigade was
dispatched. Many of the effectives involved were non
voluntarily sent on a second tour of duty, without the
stipulated two years out of a war zone which was
supposed to follow one year’s service in Vietnam. Many
of the 82nd Brigade men had just returned from Vietnam
service with other units. They had hardly time to
receive family congratulations on their survival than
they were off again on another venture in which the
risks of non survival had sharply increased, the average
weekly toll of American dead, as officially reported,
having doubled from the end of January 1968.
Incidentally, the addition of 10,500 to an existing
force of 500,000 U.S. troops was obviously not going to
make any difference to fortunes on the battlefield, but
it did mean that armed strength within the United States
itself had been reduced far below the minimum six
divisions and two brigades the government is supposed to
maintain for national security.</p>
<p>There was no shortcut out of the dilemma. In the event
of another crisis in the Caribbean for instance, or the
Middle East or anywhere else except Europe, there were
no trained units, planes or pilots available. By early
1968, the United States had become badly “overextended ”
The situation would not be cured by simply calling up
manpower. It takes ten months to a year to form, train
and equip a combat-ready U.S. infantry division.</p>
<p>This situation was also a contributing factor to the
American “soft” reaction to the Warsaw Pact forces
invasion of Czechoslovakia. More important even than
Johnson’s obsession of letting nothing interfere with
his plans for a face-to-face meeting with Kosygin on
nuclear disarmament, was the impotence of the U.S.
military posture in Europe, at least as far as
conventional military affairs were concerned. U.S.
troops had gradually been siphoned off, if not for
direct dispatch to Vietnam, at least to replace other
units in the United States that had been assigned to the
bottomless pit of South Vietnam.</p>
<p>These were chilling thoughts for the Pentagon, where
the Têt offensive had precipitated something of a
“revolt” by the “Young Turks,” who clamored for a
pullout from Vietnam and a return to the old policy of
“massive retaliation.” They complained that Johnson had
destroyed or crippled a major part of U.S. armed
strength in the Vietnamese “meat-grinder” in an
adventure having nothing to do with U.S. national
interests, leaving virtually defenseless vast areas
where the “Young Turks” believed vital national
interests were involved. There must have been some other
chilling thoughts in the Pentagon as the full-scale U.S.
commitment dragged into its fourth year.</p>
<p>Air power as a decisive, or even effective, instrument
of military policy had proven to be a myth. After three
years of bombing the North at a shattering cost in
planes and pilots, the Saigon communiqués still listed
the same targets as in the first weeks of the attacks:
Dong Hoi radar installations, Vinh airfield, road and
railway bridges in the “panhandle,” trucks and barges.
And month by month, year by year, the Pentagon reported
a steady increase instead of a decrease in the volume of
supplies moving south. Air power could destroy, but used
with unprecedented force against the North it had
demonstrated its impotence to halt production or the
movement of supplies.</p>
<p>In the South, air power could also destroy but it could
not occupy. It could influence tactics on the
battlefield but it could not produce decisive results.
And if reflections on the inefficacy of air power in the
North were sobering for Air Force generals, then what
must be the reflections of Army generals who speculate
about the performance of U.S. combat troops if they had
to fight without a monopoly of air power, as would
undoubtedly be the case if they were involved in ground
fighting in North Korea or in China or against Soviet
troops in Europe. If U.S. forces were able only to
achieve such meager results against “Vietcong” in spite
of an absolute monopoly of strategic and tactical air
power, the performance would logically be substantially
worse if these monopolies were canceled out. Air support
has often robbed the NLF forces of otherwise clear-cut
victories on the battlefield. On the other hand, air
power has never enabled the U.S.-Saigon forces to win a
clear-cut victory on the battlefield, nor has it enabled
them to occupy territory – the real aim of military
operations, notwithstanding the double talk about “fix,
find and destroy,” “search and destroy” and other
tactical phrases that had been used by Westmoreland to
cover up his inability to secure and occupy territory.</p>
<p>Specifically, in South Vietnam, the monopoly of
airpower used on a scale unprecedented in military
history has not enabled the American military commanders
to achieve what was one of their prime strategic
objectives – establishment of a military front, a
definite line behind which they could say: “That is
ours; a secure, stable rear in which we can establish
bases, mobilize manpower and resources that will
multiply as we move our line forward.” Harkins, Maxwell
Taylor and Westmoreland all were unable to achieve this,
and so U.S. bases and military installations still
remain scattered, isolated islets in a totally hostile
sea.</p>
<p>Another byproduct of the U.S. inability to occupy
territory has been the gradual changing of relations of
strength, even in air power, between North Vietnam and
the United States. In August 1964, when the first
“retaliatory” American raids were made after the Tonkin
Gulf “incident,” North Vietnam had no air force. It
still had none when the regular bombing attacks started
in February 1965. There was a complete U.S. monopoly of
air power over the North as there was over the South.
But after some months, pilots from a fledgling North
Vietnamese Air Force began to measure their skills
against some of America’s finest air aces. American air
“monopoly” was de-escalated to air “superiority,”
although U.S. air superiority included the ability to
bomb the North’s airfields at will. In spite of the
immensely superior firepower of America’s latest jets
compared to the outmoded MIG-17s; and in spite of the
immeasurably greater experience of American pilots, the
young air force of the North continued to grow in
quantity and quality and by the end of 1967, more and
more MIG-21s were making their appearance. The vigorous,
young North Vietnamese Air Force had become something
that American pilots had to take into account.</p>
<p>The DRV Air Force started from scratch like the
guerrillas in the South, with the same unrelenting
process at work, resulting in a steady change in the
relation of forces in all spheres. Concerning the
continued growth and activity of the young North
Vietnamese Air Force, the American press occasionally
reported that destruction of the MIGs on the ground was
being averted by their being flown to “sanctuaries” over
the border in China and there were rumors of “hot
pursuit” into China and even the bombing of the Chinese
“sanctuaries.” But these rumors quieted somewhat when it
was pointed out that the United States was using
“sanctuaries” in Thailand, from where an estimated 80%
of bombing attacks against North Vietnam and most of the
B-52 attacks against the South were being mounted.
Attacks against “sanctuaries” could work in two
directions. Any U.S. attacks on real or imaginary
“sanctuaries” in China would certainly be countered by
retaliatory Chinese air attacks against the much more
venerable American air “sanctuaries” in Thailand.
Washington was well aware of this and so took another
“soft” line toward rumors that North Vietnam’s MIGs were
flown across the border for protection and servicing in
China. Three years earlier, when the North Vietnamese
Air Force was still in gestation, the Pentagon was
yearning for such rumors to justify “hot pursuit” and
“denial of sanctuaries,” the official jargon used to
camouflage hawkish hopes of hitting China.</p>
<p>In other words, overextension in Vietnam was having a
sobering effect on Washington’s posture in many areas
and at many levels.</p>
<p>Official indignation and public frustration over the <em>Pueblo</em>
affair were still rankling when the NLF launched its
generalized offense against the main strongholds of
American power in the cities, dealing a blow to U.S.
prestige which only added to the humiliation of the <em>Pueblo</em>
incident. The scope of this simultaneous offensive
throughout the length and breadth of South Vietnam; the
complete secrecy with which it was prepared and
executed; the cooperative or quiescent attitude of
Saigon military and administrative organs towards the
NLF in many regions; the catastrophic military and
political setbacks inherent in the temporary seizure in
whole or in part of 140 cities and towns – all this gave
the lie to the “military progress,” “increasing popular
support” and “end of the war in sight” myths which had
been fed to American and world opinion for months
preceding the offensive. To many people it was clear
that the United States could not play the role of a
world super gendarme and it was extremely conjectural
how much longer Washington could continue its role of
gendarme in South Vietnam.</p>
<p>What, from a military viewpoint, was the significance
of the offensive against the towns? This was a question
I put to Nguyen Van Hieu, former secretary-general of
the NLF’s Central Committee, released from that position
to become chief NLF spokesman abroad. At the time I met
him he was representative of the NLF with ambassadorial
status in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. As such he was in very
close touch with events on the other side of the
frontier. A round-faced, plump person with a calm,
reflective expression and a fine analytical mind, Nguyen
Van Hieu, a former Saigon professor of mathematics, is
very typical of the militant intellectuals within the
top leadership of the NLF.</p>
<p>“If we speak exclusively of military results,” he said,
“the Americans themselves have admitted that they were
forced to withdraw troops everywhere from the
countryside to try to defend the towns. They and their
Quislings have been forced to abandon even that small
part of the countryside they still controlled at the
time of our offensive.</p>
<p>“Enormous human and material losses were inflicted on
American and puppet troops. The Saigon army started to
disintegrate. Two hundred thousand deserted in the week
following our first blow. Some went back to their
villages. Others came over to our side as units,
including one unit with its tanks. But one of the most
important military results is that our forces have
secured new bases in and around the cities themselves. A
new phase in the war has started.”</p>
<p>I pointed out that the second wave of attacks on
February 17-18 seemed much weaker than the first
offensive and was widely interpreted as signifying a
decline in NLF strength because of losses incurred in
the earlier action.</p>
<p>“On the contrary,” replied Nguyen Van Hieu, “The second
attacks were a logical consequence of the success of our
first action. Rocket and mortar fire was directed with
great precision against virtually all the most important
American military installations from positions our
forces secured in the first attack. We were able to hit
airfields, munitions dumps and oil storage depots, port
facilities, radar installations and transmission and
communications facilities, without infantry assaults as
in the past.</p>
<p>“We will continue to hit such installations from new
positions secured in our generalized offensive around
all U.S. bases and logistics centers throughout South
Vietnam.”</p>
<p>I then asked Hieu to explain the chief features of the
“new phase in the war” to which he had referred.</p>
<p>“The war has moved from the countryside into and around
the cities and American bases,” he said. “Before, the
Americans considered the cities as their safe rear from
which they could launch attacks against our forces in
the countryside. Now the cities are front line areas.
Our bases are established in the outskirts of Saigon and
other cities and will remain there. Our rear is now
partly in the cities themselves. In other words, our
bases in the outskirts are organically linked with our
rear bases in the jungle and mountains on the one hand,
and with the urban population in the cities on the
other. The jungle and mountains and the cities are now
united.</p>
<p>“Our first wave of attacks entirely changed each side’s
strategic situation. Before, it was a big problem for
our main forces to approach major American bases. Now
the problem of approach no longer exists. Our forces are
there permanently. That is why we can launch rocket and
mortar attacks against Saigon’s Tan Son Nhat airfield
even in broad daylight. We attacked this super guarded
base nine times in the week that followed our second
round of attacks…</p>
<p>“Such attacks will continue and will grow in intensity,
not only around Saigon and American installations there,
but in and around all other bases.</p>
<p>“American forces are dispersed in fixed positions more
than ever. Because of our generalized offensive against
the cities and subsequent actions made possible by this,
the American forces have still further lost their
mobility and capacity for offensive action.</p>
<p>“The United States Army, as an ultramodern army, also
requires an ultramodern infrastructure, with efficient
supply, communications, transport and transmission
facilities, radar installations and so forth. Even with
a small interruption in communications and transmission,
for example, the U.S. army loses much of its efficiency.
Much money and time were spent building this
infrastructure in South Vietnam. Now it is all
disorganized. Radio and radar installations have been
destroyed, all strategic roads and the main river ways
are controlled by our forces, logistic centers including
port facilities are in ruins. The result in lowered U.S.
military efficiency was immediately noticeable… in lack
of coordination between American and Saigon forces; lack
of coordination between their own ground units and
between ground units and air support; and frequently a
total absence of support for platoon and company-sized
units caught in our ambushes. They will replace some of
the installations, open a road here or there, but for
every installation they replace we will destroy two or
three more from our positions around these bases which
we consolidated in the first month following the
offensive, which are now permanent and win be
strengthened every day.”</p>
<p>Professor Hieu mentioned another example of the
changing relation of forces. “At the moment that their
communications deteriorate, ours improve. We captured
many tens of tons of transmission equipment alone, not
to mention hundreds of trucks. But if we lost all this
again, we can still go back to our bikes and foot
runners, while the Americans have no such reserves to
fall back on.</p>
<p>“We estimate that in our attacks against 45 airfields
in our first two big assaults, we destroyed 1,800 planes
and helicopters on the ground. At many of these
airfields, which included 11 of the 14 major American
air bases, we actually occupied the terrain for hours
and even days and we were able to destroy all aircraft
in the parking lots. This had a dramatic effect on
American air activities over the whole of South Vietnam.
Except for attacks around the besieged marine positions
south of the demilitarized zone and attacks against
Saigon, Hué and some other cities, the air space over
the rest of South Vietnam is free from the noise of
American planes for the first time in many years. Our
troops are able to move along roads and river ways in
broad daylight without even a reconnaissance plane to
worry them. They may replace the planes, but it will
take time and in the meanwhile our forces are
consolidating their positions around all the air bases
to keep them permanently under fire.”<a href="#_edn4"
name="_ednref4">[4]</a> About the time Nguyen Van Hieu
gave this interview, an American officer was telling
correspondents in Saigon that to establish a security
belt around Saigon’s Tan Son Nhat airbase, sufficiently
wide to protect it against “Vietcong” rocket attacks, it
would require 200,000 U.S. troops in permanent position,
with no other task than that of guarding the base,
because of the seven mile range of NLF rockets.</p>
<p>I asked Nguyen Van Hieu to comment on official
Washington claims that NLF forces did not receive the
support they expected from the urban population in their
initial assaults against the cities.</p>
<p>“Nonsense!” he responded. “We could not possibly have
carried out an offensive of such tremendous scope
without the support of the people in the towns. In fact,
this support was the decisive factor in our success.
Even General Westmoreland belatedly admitted that he was
caught by surprise. ‘Tactical surprise,’ he said, but in
reality it was a strategic surprise.’ The fact is that
we attacked more than 140 towns. The Americans claimed
we infiltrated eight or nine battalions into Saigon
alone. Westmoreland also acknowledged that ‘the tactic
of infiltration into the population centers was used to
a far greater degree than anticipated…’ What does this
mean? Our forces have no modern transport, no logistics
system as generally understood. It was the local
population of Saigon and other cities who helped carry
supplies; who hid our arms and munitions; who protected
and fed our troops. Many hundreds of thousands of people
in the towns all over South Vietnam helped our troops
for days on end before the attack was launched. And
there was no betrayal. Absolute secrecy was maintained.
It is difficult to imagine any greater demonstration of
the total support our forces received from the local
population.”</p>
<p>“How do you evaluate the main political results?” I
asked Professor Hieu.</p>
<p>“There are many,” he replicating they are developing
very quickly, in most varied forms. The collapse of
Saigon’s power in the countryside is one important
result. The destruction of whatever grip the Quisling
regime still had on the cities is another. This is
illustrated by Thieu and Ky collaborating with the
Americans in ‘destroying cities to save them,’ as one
American general expressed it. People in the towns,
within a few hours or days, saw with their own eyes the
barbarities that have been inflicted on our people in
the countryside by the Americans and the Saigon regime
for years past. Loudspeakers mounted on helicopters
ordered people out of their homes, shooting them down
when they tried to flee, while American bombers reduced
whole city blocks to rubble. They saw with their own
eyes the fascist ferocity of the American and Quisling
troops and the heroism of the NLF forces.</p>
<p>“The fact that Thieu and Ky try to cling to power by
calling in American tanks and troops in the streets of
Saigon, Hué and other cities; by American helicopters
mowing people down from the rooftops; by American bombs,
napalm and naval gunfire used to destroy the city of
Hué; and the fact that the Mekong Delta cities like Ben
Tre and My Tho were smashed to bits by American bombs
and shells – all this has exposed the true face of the
Saigon Quislings as never before. They will never
recover from this and eventually win suffer the fate
history reserves for such traitors.</p>
<p>“The collapse of Saigon’s power is very significant.
For the type of neocolonialist war the Americans are
waging, they need the myth of local administration and
army; they need the existence of a local power structure
which they can claim they are there to support. For this
they needed to maintain a power base in Saigon and the
countryside. This was one of the imperatives of
‘pacification.’ The base has now collapsed and can never
be restored. This is a strategic political defeat of
primary importance for the Americans, which even
Washington seems slowly to be recognizing.</p>
<p>“The natural remit of the collapse and discrediting of
the Saigon administration has been the creation of new
political and administrative organizations. People’s
self-management committees sprang up in the cities to
take care of day-to-day affairs like public health and
food distribution. Those will continue to exist even if
the Thieu-Ky clique manage to partially restore
administrative services in some places. New political
forces like the League of National and Peace-loving
Forces in Saigon<a href="#_edn5" name="_ednref5">[5]</a>
and a similar body in Hué, have emerged with a program
which coincides with the main points of our political
program, that is: the overthrow of the Thieu-Ky regime,
the withdrawal of American and satellite troops, the
setting up of a coalition regime with the NLF and peace
based on the total independence of the country. We
welcome the formation of such new political forces and
support them. The extent of the isolation of the
Thieu-Ky regime can also be seen by the arrests of a
number of prominent political, religious and trade union
personalities, including former members of the Saigon
government; these arrests are also a measure of the
increasing opposition even among circles considered
close to the regime. The ouster of two of the four
military zone commanders and the rumored imminent
dismissal of the remaining two are in the same order of
things. Thieu and Ky are badly worried about further
large-scale revolts and defections within their armed
forces. All this is a result of our generalized
offensive against the cities, which succeeded beyond our
expectations.”</p>
<p>What also emerged from the conversation with Nguyen Van
Hieu was that the tactics of exploiting contradictions
between dispersal and concentration were employed during
the attacks on the cities. The case of Hué was an
example. For prestige reasons Westmoreland concentrated
all available forces and took 25 days and three
battalions of decimated Marines to retake what the NLF
forces seized in a couple of hours and practically
without firing a shot. But while the marines were
battling their way into the Hué citadel and destroying
the old Imperial City block by block, NLF forces took
over the rest of Thua Thien Province of which Hué is the
capital, including solid positions in the western
outskirts of the city itself.</p>
<p>In Saigon, diversionary attacks were carried out
against the U.S. Embassy, the Presidential Palace and
other buildings, where the U.S.-Saigon Command had to
concentrate its forces, while the NLF seized priority
targets like the munitions depots to get arms and
strategic points in the outskirts which could be
transformed into future bases. While the U.S.-Saigon
forces concentrated on defending or recapturing
objectives of prestige value, the main body of NLF
forces was busy setting up permanent positions in the
various city outskirts, around airfields and other major
U.S. bases and military installations. In the past,
attacks against these bases were of a “hit and run”
type; everything was worked out so that approach, attack
and withdrawal would be effected in the hours of
darkness, because by dawn the attacking force had to be
out of sight of U.S. planes. In the future the bases
could be hit by day or night, the attackers maneuvering
around within their permanent spider web complexes of
trenches and tunnels, or withdrawing temporarily to fade
out into the cities in an emergency.</p>
<p>Scores of thousands of arms were seized and distributed
to new units formed from among the urban youth. From the
time of the offensive against the cities, new terms
appeared in the NLF communiqués. There were frequent
references, for instance, to actions by the
“revolutionary armed forces,” a term applied to a
combination of NLF armed forces, units of the Saigon
army which had crossed over to the NLF and new units set
up from urban workers and students, armed from the huge
stores taken from captured munitions depots and
arsenals. During the attacks around Saigon, there were
NLF news bulletins with sections like the following:
“thus in two days the revolutionary armed forces of the
7th ward<a href="#_edn6" name="_ednref6">[6]</a> killed
110 GIs, wounded many more and burned out one M-113
tank…” Units began to be identified by the city district
on which they were based. News items often identified
city streets in which ambushes had taken place. The war
had indeed entered a new phase with the cities and bases
as the focal points of military activity.</p>
<p>In the weeks that followed the offensive, main American
efforts, apart from trying to retake prestige targets,
were directed at trying to reopen road and river
communications and to clear areas around their bases.
The question of trying to restore some semblance of a
Saigon presence-power would not be the appropriate term
– in the countryside, was admitted by U.S.
correspondents on the spot to be a hopeless task for a
foreseeable future.</p>
<p>“In effect, South Vietnam has temporarily abandoned its
own countryside. If not dead, the vital pacification
program is in a state of suspension<em>…</em>
Ironically, the Vietcong achieved this setback to the
important pacification program by directing its
offensive not at the ‘priority pacification areas’ in
the country but at South Vietnam’s major cities and
towns . .” reported Charles Mohr, February 15, in the <em>New
York Times</em>. And the <em>International Herald
Tribune</em> (Paris), on February 26, after describing
the collapse of Saigon power observed that “<em>…</em>
the enemy has demonstrated with appalling clarity that
pre-Têt convictions were bunt on sand<em>…</em></p>
<p>“The picture is the same everywhere in Vietnam.
Americans are waiting, holding defensive positions,
stretched thin trying to occupy the ground that
pacification maps carried as occupied months ago. No
troops are left to go out and chase the enemy. It has
never been more clear that he fights when and where he
chooses<em>…</em>”</p>
<p>All this sounded like a confirmatory postscript to
certain analyzes and predictions of General Vo Nguyen
Giap and President Nguyen Huu Tho quoted earlier.</p>
<p>The generalized offensive against the cities and its
aftermath with the almost continuous hammering of
American bases and the political bankruptcy in Saigon,
represent the most complete application, at the time of
writing, of the political-military strategies and
tactics of the Front analyzed in depth in the preceding
chapters of this book.</p>
<p>Reactions to all the setbacks in Vietnam by the men in
the Pentagon were typical of frustrated military men.
One headline from <em>US. News & World Report</em>
sums it up: “The Real Reason Why War Has Dragged On? Big
Differences Between U.S. Military Men And Their Civilian
Superiors.” The story that followed was a rehash of the
familiar lament of captains of war when victory eluded
their grasp: “If only civilians and politicians had not
tied our hands!”</p>
<p>Generals Harking, Maxwell Taylor, Westmoreland and
their chiefs in the Pentagon, if they were realists,
could have taken one grain of comfort. No other generals
and Pentagon planners would have done less badly! Having
covered this type of war in Asia for the past 27 years,
I am convinced this is so.</p>
<p>Only by ridding itself of the illusion that
colonialism, neocolonialism or anything similar can be
re-imposed on the Vietnamese people, or that destiny has
designated the United States to become the super
policeman of the world – we had enough of that with
Hitler – can Washington put itself in the right frame of
mind for a realistic and reasonable solution. Much more
blood will unfortunately be spilled before this happens.
Once the change of mind comes about, whoever is in the
White House will find the leaders of the NLF and the DRV
surprisingly reasonable and generous people to deal
with. Pierre Mendès-France, then prime minister of
France, found this to be true at Geneva in 1954, even at
the moment of the Vietminh’s greatest triumph at Dien
Bien Phu. Mr. Harriman could also have discovered it at
the Paris talks if Johnson had given him the slightest
chance to act as a real negotiator, instead of making
him a postman for the former President’s latest whims.
There is every indication that Harriman actually
discovered just this and made recommendations
accordingly. But they were rejected by Johnson, who
preferred to take the advice of hawks like Bunker in
Saigon and his counterparts in the Pentagon and State
Department.</p>
<p><strong>Notes.</strong></p>
<p><a href="#_ednref1" name="_edn1">[1]</a> <em>International
Herald Tribune</em>, Paris, January 24, 1968.</p>
<p><a href="#_ednref2" name="_edn2">[2]</a> Democratic
People’s Republic of Korea, as distinct from the ROK
(Republic of Korea) in the South.</p>
<p><a href="#_ednref3" name="_edn3">[3]</a> Published in
the <em>International Herald Tribune</em> on Feb. 16,
1968.</p>
<p><a href="#_ednref4" name="_edn4">[4]</a> Nguyen Van
Hieu was obviously speaking of the period immediately
after the Têt offensive. Within a few months, the
U.S.-Saigon Command was able to divert considerable air
power, especially B-52s, from use against the North to
carry out bombing raids of unprecedented violence
against the South, especially in the immediate
neighborhood of the big cities.</p>
<p><a href="#_ednref5" name="_edn5">[5]</a> Later a single
Alliance of National, Democratic and Peace Forces was
set up on a national level, incorporating the former
Saigon and Hué organizations. It held its first congress
in the Saigon-Cholon area on April 20-21, 1968, and a
second congress on July 30-31, 1968, at which a
Political Program was approved, similar to but not
identical with that of the NLF. The formation of the
Alliance was supported by the NLF and the DRV, as were
also the main points of its Political Program.
Significant for future developments was an NLF
Communiqué of September 13, 1968. Referring to the
fighting in Tay Ninh Province, the communiqué mentions <em>“Les
Forces Unifiées Nationales du Commandant Huynh Thanh
Hung.”</em> The latter is a leading figure in the Cao
Dai sect who recently placed his armed forces at the
disposal of the NLF and Alliance and undertook decisive
military action during the recent Tay Ninh offensive in
releasing some 200,000 Cao Dai believers from a huge
camp in which they had been concentrated in starvation
conditions by the U.S.-Saigon administration. That other
sections of the Saigon armed forces will rally to the
side of the NLF and the Alliance is certain. The U.S.
Defense Department, in a statement on September 20,
admitted that desertion rates in the Saigon Army had
jumped 25% during the first half of 1968.</p>
<p><a href="#_ednref6" name="_edn6">[6]</a>
“Arrondissement” in the original of the NLF’s French
language bulletin of March 3, 1968.</p>
<p><strong>NEXT: Epilogue</strong></p>
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