Facts About the Vietnam War that Liberal Historians Ignore

[rampart]

That's what I'm saying. The front lines are where you begin. The Pacific Islands were taken inch by inch during WW2. Korea was mismanaged but the strategy was to outflank the N.K and take real estate and keep it. The Vietnam conflict was a hodge podge of missions and exaggerated claims of "kills" and successes while the V.C. merely withdrew and took their dead and returned.

the whitehall challenge : name any war since kadesh that has not been mismanaged. generals fight their last wars. napoleon

"know your enemy. and yourself" sun tzu

i still think we do not know either in the cold wat and its proxies.

 

[0311]

Hilarious

No very true, at one point LBJ had to approve targets.

 

[otto105]

No very true, at one point LBJ had to approve targets.

Your thinking of major operations such as Rolling Thunder.

 

[0311]

Your thinking of major operations such as Rolling Thunder.

And others. LBJ at point wanted to OK bombing sites.

 

[mikegriffith1]

Read: I'm not interested in your propaganda about it.

"Propaganda"??? Uh, have you read any of the scholarly books that I cited in the OP? Any of them? No, you have not.

Did you bother to go to my Vietnam War website and read any of the numerous primary source documents on the war that I make available on the site? No, of course not.

"Propaganda" is what you liberals have been peddling about the war even before it ended.

Liberals betrayed 19 million South Vietnamese to Communist tyranny, death, and destruction, and you guys are still trying to cover your tracks (or those of your predecessors).

 

[0311]

"Propaganda"??? Uh, have you read any of the scholarly books that I cited in the OP? Any of them? No, you have not.

Did you bother to go to my Vietnam War website and read any of the numerous primary source documents on the war that I make available on the site? No, of course not.

"Propaganda" is what you liberals have been peddling about the war even before it ended.

Liberals betrayed 19 million South Vietnamese to Communist tyranny, death, and destruction, and you guys are still trying to cover your tracks (or those of your predecessors).

You do not know jack shit about Viet Nam.

 

[otto105]

"Propaganda"??? Uh, have you read any of the scholarly books that I cited in the OP? Any of them? No, you have not.

Did you bother to go to my Vietnam War website and read any of the numerous primary source documents on the war that I make available on the site? No, of course not.

"Propaganda" is what you liberals have been peddling about the war even before it ended.

Liberals betrayed 19 million South Vietnamese to Communist tyranny, death, and destruction, and you guys are still trying to cover your tracks (or those of your predecessors).

I have read books on Vietnam including the definitive one from Stanley Karnow. Addressing the issue of communism, you would betray 76 million Ukrainians to it today.

Cry me some tears.

Also, you're dealing in a fool's gold of rewriting history if you claim the war was winnable.

 

[0311]

Your thinking of major operations such as Rolling Thunder.

NO. Johnson micromanaged the war. He gave himself final say-so target over in North Viet Nam. His outright ridiculous decision making on targets resulted in the deaths of Americans in South Viet Nam. His WH over controlled the war.

 

[otto105]

NO. Johnson micromanaged the war. He gave himself final say-so target over in North Viet Nam. His outright ridiculous decision making on targets resulted in the deaths of Americans in South Viet Nam. His WH over controlled the war.

LBJ did manage major operations and troop levels but didn't pick targets. Much like Nixon had to do with operations in Laos and Cambodia.

 

[0311]

LBJ did manage major operations and troop levels but didn't pick targets. Much like Nixon had to do with operations in Laos and Cambodia.

Sorry dude your wrong. LBJ micomanaged the bombing and shelling of North Viet Nam. At one time he decided what be and what not be bombed in North Viet Nam.

 

[mikegriffith1]

Nowhere. There were no "Front Lines", that is why it is counter insuurency warfare. Closest thing that was the TET offsensive of 1968.

You have no clue in Kentucky what you're talking about. Holy cow. Did you forget about the Easter Offensive in 1972? How about the Cambodian incursion in 1970? How about the set-piece battles in the A Shau Valley? How about Ia Drang?

And, BTW, the southern insurgency was virtually destroyed by 1970. From 1970 until the Easter Offensive in mid-1972, nearly all of South Vietnam was stable and secure.

The VC and NVA actually seized Hue City. It tooks to reclaim the city, but before the Dowager Empress had escape with clothes on her back.

Yes, they did seize Hue--for about five weeks, and they suffered enormous casualties in doing so.

How about all the other cities and towns they attacked during Tet, huh? They attacked over 100 cities and towns, but in nearly all cases, their attacks were severely repulsed.

In the few cases where the NVA/VC took an objective, they only held it for a matter of hours or a day or two, except for Hue, and suffered heavy losses, especially after they began to flee.

The VC did take control of the U.S. Embassy.

No, they did not take the U.S. Embassy. This is inexcusable ignorance. Even most liberal books on the war no longer repeat this myth.

Right before TET, General Wastmoreland actually came out and said the VC was NOT an effective fighting force.

Uh, that's because the VC had proved to be ineffective as a fighting force in the Tet battles, which were set-piece battles. Many of their attacks were uncoordinated because some units misunderstood the start date. Some units arrived late because they got lost. In a number of cases, NVA officers had to take over because the VC officers were so incompetent or ineffective.

By the end of TET, the VC had become a diminished fighting force, but it was VC who took the embassy and attacked MACV (Miliatry Assistance Command Viet Nam) Headquarters.

Again, no, the VC did not take the embassy. They never set foot inside the building. Even Peter Arnett eventually corrected this report and admitted his error. How can you not know this?

Yes, the VC attacked the MACV HQ--and what happened? They got crushed.

The VC was not just a "diminished" fighting force after Tet. The VC never recovered from Tet, as former VC officials have admitted. After Tet, most of the VC ranks had to be filled by North Vietnamese regulars. See, for example, the book A Viet Cong Memoir by former high-ranking VC official Truong Nhu Tang. Among other things, Tang noted that the VC suffered "irreplaceable losses" during Tet (p. 192).

55,000 Americans, Men and Women were killed, over 1,000,000 Viet Namese were killed as well. In the end Nixon and Kissinger sold out the South Vietnamese. Viet Nam was a disaster for our country.

Nixon and Kissinger sold out the South Vietnamese???!!! No! The anti-war majority in Congress sold out the Vietnamese by making it impossible for Nixon to enforce the Paris Peace Accords and by slashing aid to South Vietnam in violation of our pledge of aid in the Accords.

Nixon and Kissinger fought tooth and nail to try to get Congress to restore our promised aid to South Vietnam. Even Dr. Stephen B. Young, who excoriates Kissinger for the flaws in the Paris Peace Accords, acknowledges that Kissinger did all he could to get Congress to provide adequate aid to South Vietnam.

 

[0311]

You have no clue in Kentucky what you're talking about. Holy cow. Did you forget about the Easter Offensive in 1972? How about the Cambodian incursion in 1970? How about the set-piece battles in the A Shau Valley? How about Ia Drang?

And, BTW, the southern insurgency was virtually destroyed by 1970. From 1970 until the Easter Offensive in mid-1972, nearly all of South Vietnam was stable and secure.


Yes, they did seize Hue--for about five weeks, and they suffered enormous casualties in doing so.

How about all the other cities and towns they attacked during Tet, huh? They attacked over 100 cities and towns, but in nearly all cases, their attacks were severely repulsed.

In the few cases where the NVA/VC took an objective, they only held it for a matter of hours or a day or two, except for Hue, and suffered heavy losses, especially after they began to flee.


No, they did not take the U.S. Embassy. This is inexcusable ignorance. Even most liberal books on the war no longer repeat this myth.


Uh, that's because the VC had proved to be ineffective as a fighting force in the Tet battles, which were set-piece battles. Many of their attacks were uncoordinated because some units misunderstood the start date. Some units arrived late because they got lost. In a number of cases, NVA officers had to take over because the VC officers were so incompetent or ineffective.


Again, no, the VC did not take the embassy. They never set foot inside the building. Even Peter Arnett eventually corrected this report and admitted his error. How can you not know this?

Yes, the VC attacked the MACV HQ--and what happened? They got crushed.

The VC was not just a "diminished" fighting force after Tet. The VC never recovered from Tet, as former VC officials have admitted. After Tet, most of the VC ranks had to be filled by North Vietnamese regulars. See, for example, the book A Viet Cong Memoir by former high-ranking VC official Truong Nhu Tang. Among other things, Tang noted that the VC suffered "irreplaceable losses" during Tet (p. 192).


Nixon and Kissinger sold out the South Vietnamese???!!! No! The anti-war majority in Congress sold out the Vietnamese by making it impossible for Nixon to enforce the Paris Peace Accords and by slashing aid to South Vietnam in violation of our pledge of aid in the Accords.

Nixon and Kissinger fought tooth and nail to try to get Congress to restore our promised aid to South Vietnam. Even Dr. Stephen B. Young, who excoriates Kissinger for the flaws in the Paris Peace Accords, acknowledges that Kissinger did all he could to get Congress to provide adequate aid to South Vietnam.

You have no idea what you are talking about. There were no "Front Lines", the very nature of Counter-Insurrency Warfare precludes that idea.

The Viet Cong (V.C. aka "Charlie") lived the vilages and hamlets. By day they farmers, by nght they ran ambushes. While there set piece battles (Khe Sanh Hue City for examples), the fighting the jungles made the idea battle lines beyond ridiculous. After the end of the 1968 TET Offensive, the V.C., as a viable fighting forces was greatly diminshed. Which what North Viet Nam wanted.

There are no front lines in the jungle, you do understand that right? The Navy ran H&I (harassment and Interdiction) missions up and down the Mekong, attempting to stem the flow of arms and supplies from up north. The V.C. had established trails they used to ferry supples down. As a Veteran of Viet Nam I know what I'm talking about. One of the main reason for My Lai (Me-Lie) was the snipers that would hid in villages and take pot shots at U.S. Troops as moved through. Kids on Water Buffalo would tip off the V.C. in villages and they hide their weapons. There V.C. and NVA in South Vietnamese Army. You are woefully uninformed.

 

[mikegriffith1]

For you liberals who are still repeating Communist propaganda about the war, here's a dose of reality for you.

Although you will probably refuse to do so, you liberals, along with newcomers to the subject, can learn much about the Vietnam War, and about the brutality that North Vietnam imposed on the South Vietnamese after the war, from a book written by a former high-ranking Viet Cong leader: A Viet Cong Memoir: An Inside Account of the Vietnam War and Its Aftermath (San Diego: Harcourt, Brace, and Jovanovich, 1985), written by Truong Nhu Tang. Tang was a high-ranking Viet Cong official and served as a leader in the National Liberation Front and as the minister of justice in the Provisional Revolutionary Government of South Vietnam (PRG).

When Tang could no longer stomach the “reign of terror” (his words) that the North Vietnamese Communists were imposing on the South, and when he realized that his protests against the brutality were pointless, he quit his position as the PRG minister of justice and eventually fled the country.

What makes Tang’s book so important, and at times so annoying, is that he never stopped believing in the justice of the Viet Cong cause, and that he remained an admirer of Ho Chi Minh for many years after he fled the country. He had met Ho Chi Minh as a young student in Paris and was mesmerized by him. Only years later, long after he left the country, was Tang able to bring himself to acknowledge the ugly truth about Ho Chi Minh, such as the mass executions and bloody purges that Ho carried out in the late 1950s in North Vietnam (pp. 298-302).

Here are some of the other things we learn from Tang’s book:

-- After Saigon fell in April 1975, the North Vietnamese imposed a “reign of terror” on the South that included “outrages of every description” (pp. 280-281).

-- These outrages caused Tang to realize that North Vietnam’s Communists were not interested in a genuine national unity government but in “the ruthless consolidation of power” (p. 281).

-- Tang said the Communist terror included “a wave of arbitrary arrests that scythed [slashed] through the cities and villages” (p. 279).

-- Tang said that at least 300,000 people were put into brutal “reeducation camps” (i.e., concentration camps), and he noted that this figure only counted the number of former government officers, state officials, and members of South Vietnam’s political party who were formally summoned for reeducation (p. 282). He added,

This figure does not include people who were arrested in the sweeps by governmental organs and military authorities that terrorized both Saigon and the provinces during that period. (p. 282)

Note: Subsequent research puts the number of South Vietnamese sent to concentration camps at over 800,000.

-- The “reeducation” camps were “vicious” and “destructive” (p. 274). Tang complained about the camps to the PRG president, Huynh Tan Phat, but was told that the camps were necessary and would continue (pp. 274-276). He even complained about the camps directly to North Vietnam’s prime minister, Pham Van Dong, but to no avail (pp. 280-282).

-- One reason Tang was so upset about the camps was that he had personally persuaded many former South Vietnamese officials, functionaries, and professionals to report to the camps on the basis of North Vietnam’s and the PRG’s assurances that they would only be there for 30 days (pp. 277-279). He even persuaded two of his own brothers, Bich and Quyhn, to report to the camps on the same assurance.

-- When Tang saw his brothers at the Long Thanh detention camp, he was disturbed that they were “pale and thin” and looked “frightened,” and that the other prisoners looked “dazed” (p. 279). (Tang was eventually able to get Bich released, but Quyhn spent another 10 years in the camps. Quyhn’s “crime” was that he was a doctor who had attended a political gathering that the Communists did not like.)

-- Another reason that Tang became increasingly troubled and distraught over the concentration camps was that the former officials, functionaries, and professionals whom he had persuaded to report to the camps were not released after one month or even after one year, and he was ashamed that “this all happened during my tenure as minister of justice” (p. 282).

-- Even over a year after Saigon’s fall, Communist brutality against the South Vietnamese continued:

Over a year had passed since the intentional sabotage of our reconciliation policy, and still the wave of official terror continued to swell. (p 287)

-- Tang felt terrible that he had convinced his family, all of whom lived in Saigon, that life under Communist rule would be better than life under the Diem and Thieu governments. His own mother and his friends confronted him on the matter:

[His mother asked him] What had possessed me to inflict this misery on my family and my people? “Your Communist friends are full of double-talk—lies and violence.”

She had applauded the liberation of Saigon in April 1975, but in the intervening year her sympathy for the revolution had turned to repugnance.

My mother’s feelings were hardly unique. Talk about what was happening enveloped Saigon. And among my friends, much of it seemed directed at me. [Said his friends,] “At least under Diem and Thieu there was honor among thieves. But these [Communist] Party people are wolfing everything in sight.”

“Do you think it was such a wonderful idea to chase the Americans out? At least when the Americans were here, we had food. Now what do we have?” (pp. 287-288)

-- The mid-1973 Case-Church Amendment, which effectively assured North Vietnam that the U.S. would not intervene to stop another invasion of South Vietnam, played a key role in North Vietnam’s decision to resume military operations against the South, in violation of the recently signed Paris Peace Accords (p. 229). Hanoi’s leaders followed U.S. Congressional debates very closely (pp. 229-231).

-- However, the Communists initially resumed their attacks on South Vietnam in a limited manner because they were not certain to what extent the Case-Church Amendment “might actually control American conduct, especially if there were to be a major escalation in the level of fighting” (pp. 229-230). The North Vietnamese were particularly worried about “the return of American air power” (p. 230).

-- Once it became apparent that the U.S. Congress would not authorize further military operations to protect South Vietnam, the Communists decided to launch a full-scale assault on the South (pp. 230-240, 248-257).

-- Tang spends considerable time talking about how pleased North Vietnam was with the American news media and the American anti-war movement, and the fact that the Communists viewed our news media and the anti-war movement as valuable allies (e.g., pp. 145-148, 207-216, 282-286).

-- The 1968 Tet Offensive was a military disaster. The Viet Cong “suffered agonizing and irreplaceable losses during the frontal assaults of Tet” (p. 192).

-- Tang deeply regretted the Hue Massacre committed by Communist forces shortly before they retreated from the city toward the close of the fighting of the Tet Offensive (pp. 154-156).

-- In the 1972 Spring Offensive (aka the Easter Offensive), the Communists suffered “prodigious” losses (pp. 211-212).

-- The Communists were thrilled and grateful when the U.S. Congress “prohibited funds for American operations in Cambodia and Laos” after the highly effective U.S. attacks on North Vietnamese forces and bases in eastern Cambodia and Laos (p. 211).

-- North Vietnam’s bases in Cambodia and Laos were absolutely crucial supply points and staging areas for the Communist war effort against South Vietnam (pp. 159-170). When Nixon authorized attacks on those bases, the attacks caused great damage and were very concerning to Hanoi (pp. 170-173, 179-184). (No wonder North Vietnam was so happy when our Democrat-controlled Congress forbade further attacks on those bases.)

-- The Soviet Union began supporting North Vietnam’s Communists in 1948, and when China fell to the Communists in 1949, this enabled Russia and Red China to begin supplying large amounts of weapons to Ho Chi Minh’s forces (pp. 25-34).

-- The B-52 attacks authorized by Nixon did severe damage and caused many troop casualties. However, assistance from Soviet intelligence prevented the B-52 attacks from being even more damaging. Soviet intelligence ships in the South China Sea provided advance warning of approaching B-52 raids in many cases (pp. 168-170).

-- Before the last phase of the final offensive against South Vietnam, the Soviets supplied North Vietnam’s army with enormous amounts of weapons and supplies. This massive injection of war material “altered the balance of military forces” in favor of the Communists (pp. 232, 250-251). This was happening at the same time our Democrat-controlled Congress refused to honor our Paris treaty commitment to resupply South Vietnam’s army if the North invaded.

-- The North Vietnamese attacked and seized the key southern province of Phuoc Long in January 1975 and were “jubilant” that the U.S. did not respond (p. 250). The fact that the U.S. did not respond to the attack on a key province that bordered Saigon was a clear signal that the Communists had nothing to worry about from the U.S.

-- South Vietnam’s shortage of supplies, especially fuel, was a major disadvantage in the final months of the war (pp. 229-232, 248-253).

-- When the Americans left Cambodia, this enabled the murderous Khmer Rouge to take over that country (pp. 176-181, 254-255).

Finally, it is important to keep in mind that Tang was a genuinely moderate member of the National Liberation Front (NFL) and of the PRG. He admired Marx and Lenin, but he was not a hardcore Communist. He believed Hanoi’s promises that under Communist rule, the southern part of Vietnam would be allowed to form its own regional government that would be part of a national unity government, and that the southern region would have a genuine voice and influence on national policy.

It is surprising how many times in his book Tang tacitly and overtly acknowledges that there were significant long-standing differences between northern Vietnam and southern Vietnam. He was shocked and disillusioned when he realized that North Vietnam had no intention of keeping its promises to the NLF and the PRG regarding a degree of autonomy and self-rule for the South, and he was furious over the brutality that the Communists inflicted on the South.

 

[whitehall]

the whitehall challenge : name any war since kadesh that has not been mismanaged. generals fight their last wars. napoleon

"know your enemy. and yourself" sun tzu

i still think we do not know either in the cold wat and its proxies.

It depends on your definition of "mismanaged". Shit happens in war but Harry Truman's choice of a geriatric WW1 general was criminal. The U.S. had Korea won in a year and even captured the N.K. capital but MacArthur decided to send ill equipped Troops on a wild goose chase and into the biggest ambush in history at the Chosin. Truman and MacArthur managed to grasp defeat from victory at a cost of anywhere from 35,000 to 50,000 in three years and we ended up where we started.

 

[0311]

For you liberals who are still repeating Communist propaganda about the war, here's a dose of reality for you.

Although you will probably refuse to do so, you liberals, along with newcomers to the subject, can learn much about the Vietnam War, and about the brutality that North Vietnam imposed on the South Vietnamese after the war, from a book written by a former high-ranking Viet Cong leader: A Viet Cong Memoir: An Inside Account of the Vietnam War and Its Aftermath (San Diego: Harcourt, Brace, and Jovanovich, 1985), written by Truong Nhu Tang. Tang was a high-ranking Viet Cong official and served as a leader in the National Liberation Front and as the minister of justice in the Provisional Revolutionary Government of South Vietnam (PRG).

When Tang could no longer stomach the “reign of terror” (his words) that the North Vietnamese Communists were imposing on the South, and when he realized that his protests against the brutality were pointless, he quit his position as the PRG minister of justice and eventually fled the country.

What makes Tang’s book so important, and at times so annoying, is that he never stopped believing in the justice of the Viet Cong cause, and that he remained an admirer of Ho Chi Minh for many years after he fled the country. He had met Ho Chi Minh as a young student in Paris and was mesmerized by him. Only years later, long after he left the country, was Tang able to bring himself to acknowledge the ugly truth about Ho Chi Minh, such as the mass executions and bloody purges that Ho carried out in the late 1950s in North Vietnam (pp. 298-302).

Here are some of the other things we learn from Tang’s book:

-- After Saigon fell in April 1975, the North Vietnamese imposed a “reign of terror” on the South that included “outrages of every description” (pp. 280-281).

-- These outrages caused Tang to realize that North Vietnam’s Communists were not interested in a genuine national unity government but in “the ruthless consolidation of power” (p. 281).

-- Tang said the Communist terror included “a wave of arbitrary arrests that scythed [slashed] through the cities and villages” (p. 279).

-- Tang said that at least 300,000 people were put into brutal “reeducation camps” (i.e., concentration camps), and he noted that this figure only counted the number of former government officers, state officials, and members of South Vietnam’s political party who were formally summoned for reeducation (p. 282). He added,

This figure does not include people who were arrested in the sweeps by governmental organs and military authorities that terrorized both Saigon and the provinces during that period. (p. 282)

Note: Subsequent research puts the number of South Vietnamese sent to concentration camps at over 800,000.

-- The “reeducation” camps were “vicious” and “destructive” (p. 274). Tang complained about the camps to the PRG president, Huynh Tan Phat, but was told that the camps were necessary and would continue (pp. 274-276). He even complained about the camps directly to North Vietnam’s prime minister, Pham Van Dong, but to no avail (pp. 280-282).

-- One reason Tang was so upset about the camps was that he had personally persuaded many former South Vietnamese officials, functionaries, and professionals to report to the camps on the basis of North Vietnam’s and the PRG’s assurances that they would only be there for 30 days (pp. 277-279). He even persuaded two of his own brothers, Bich and Quyhn, to report to the camps on the same assurance.

-- When Tang saw his brothers at the Long Thanh detention camp, he was disturbed that they were “pale and thin” and looked “frightened,” and that the other prisoners looked “dazed” (p. 279). (Tang was eventually able to get Bich released, but Quyhn spent another 10 years in the camps. Quyhn’s “crime” was that he was a doctor who had attended a political gathering that the Communists did not like.)

-- Another reason that Tang became increasingly troubled and distraught over the concentration camps was that the former officials, functionaries, and professionals whom he had persuaded to report to the camps were not released after one month or even after one year, and he was ashamed that “this all happened during my tenure as minister of justice” (p. 282).

-- Even over a year after Saigon’s fall, Communist brutality against the South Vietnamese continued:

Over a year had passed since the intentional sabotage of our reconciliation policy, and still the wave of official terror continued to swell. (p 287)

-- Tang felt terrible that he had convinced his family, all of whom lived in Saigon, that life under Communist rule would be better than life under the Diem and Thieu governments. His own mother and his friends confronted him on the matter:

[His mother asked him] What had possessed me to inflict this misery on my family and my people? “Your Communist friends are full of double-talk—lies and violence.”

She had applauded the liberation of Saigon in April 1975, but in the intervening year her sympathy for the revolution had turned to repugnance.

My mother’s feelings were hardly unique. Talk about what was happening enveloped Saigon. And among my friends, much of it seemed directed at me. [Said his friends,] “At least under Diem and Thieu there was honor among thieves. But these [Communist] Party people are wolfing everything in sight.”

“Do you think it was such a wonderful idea to chase the Americans out? At least when the Americans were here, we had food. Now what do we have?” (pp. 287-288)

-- The mid-1973 Case-Church Amendment, which effectively assured North Vietnam that the U.S. would not intervene to stop another invasion of South Vietnam, played a key role in North Vietnam’s decision to resume military operations against the South, in violation of the recently signed Paris Peace Accords (p. 229). Hanoi’s leaders followed U.S. Congressional debates very closely (pp. 229-231).

-- However, the Communists initially resumed their attacks on South Vietnam in a limited manner because they were not certain to what extent the Case-Church Amendment “might actually control American conduct, especially if there were to be a major escalation in the level of fighting” (pp. 229-230). The North Vietnamese were particularly worried about “the return of American air power” (p. 230).

-- Once it became apparent that the U.S. Congress would not authorize further military operations to protect South Vietnam, the Communists decided to launch a full-scale assault on the South (pp. 230-240, 248-257).

-- Tang spends considerable time talking about how pleased North Vietnam was with the American news media and the American anti-war movement, and the fact that the Communists viewed our news media and the anti-war movement as valuable allies (e.g., pp. 145-148, 207-216, 282-286).

-- The 1968 Tet Offensive was a military disaster. The Viet Cong “suffered agonizing and irreplaceable losses during the frontal assaults of Tet” (p. 192).

-- Tang deeply regretted the Hue Massacre committed by Communist forces shortly before they retreated from the city toward the close of the fighting of the Tet Offensive (pp. 154-156).

-- In the 1972 Spring Offensive (aka the Easter Offensive), the Communists suffered “prodigious” losses (pp. 211-212).

-- The Communists were thrilled and grateful when the U.S. Congress “prohibited funds for American operations in Cambodia and Laos” after the highly effective U.S. attacks on North Vietnamese forces and bases in eastern Cambodia and Laos (p. 211).

-- North Vietnam’s bases in Cambodia and Laos were absolutely crucial supply points and staging areas for the Communist war effort against South Vietnam (pp. 159-170). When Nixon authorized attacks on those bases, the attacks caused great damage and were very concerning to Hanoi (pp. 170-173, 179-184). (No wonder North Vietnam was so happy when our Democrat-controlled Congress forbade further attacks on those bases.)

-- The Soviet Union began supporting North Vietnam’s Communists in 1948, and when China fell to the Communists in 1949, this enabled Russia and Red China to begin supplying large amounts of weapons to Ho Chi Minh’s forces (pp. 25-34).

-- The B-52 attacks authorized by Nixon did severe damage and caused many troop casualties. However, assistance from Soviet intelligence prevented the B-52 attacks from being even more damaging. Soviet intelligence ships in the South China Sea provided advance warning of approaching B-52 raids in many cases (pp. 168-170).

-- Before the last phase of the final offensive against South Vietnam, the Soviets supplied North Vietnam’s army with enormous amounts of weapons and supplies. This massive injection of war material “altered the balance of military forces” in favor of the Communists (pp. 232, 250-251). This was happening at the same time our Democrat-controlled Congress refused to honor our Paris treaty commitment to resupply South Vietnam’s army if the North invaded.

-- The North Vietnamese attacked and seized the key southern province of Phuoc Long in January 1975 and were “jubilant” that the U.S. did not respond (p. 250). The fact that the U.S. did not respond to the attack on a key province that bordered Saigon was a clear signal that the Communists had nothing to worry about from the U.S.

-- South Vietnam’s shortage of supplies, especially fuel, was a major disadvantage in the final months of the war (pp. 229-232, 248-253).

-- When the Americans left Cambodia, this enabled the murderous Khmer Rouge to take over that country (pp. 176-181, 254-255).

Finally, it is important to keep in mind that Tang was a genuinely moderate member of the National Liberation Front (NFL) and of the PRG. He admired Marx and Lenin, but he was not a hardcore Communist. He believed Hanoi’s promises that under Communist rule, the southern part of Vietnam would be allowed to form its own regional government that would be part of a national unity government, and that the southern region would have a genuine voice and influence on national policy.

It is surprising how many times in his book Tang tacitly and overtly acknowledges that there were significant long-standing differences between northern Vietnam and southern Vietnam. He was shocked and disillusioned when he realized that North Vietnam had no intention of keeping its promises to the NLF and the PRG regarding a degree of autonomy and self-rule for the South, and he was furious over the brutality that the Communists inflicted on the South.

The depth of you lack of knowledge is equal that of person who gets his history from Riech Wing Website.

 

[rampart]

It depends on your definition of "mismanaged". Shit happens in war but Harry Truman's choice of a geriatric WW1 general was criminal. The U.S. had Korea won in a year and even captured the N.K. capital but MacArthur decided to send ill equipped Troops on a wild goose chase and into the biggest ambush in history at the Chosin. Truman and MacArthur managed to grasp defeat from victory at a cost of anywhere from 35,000 to 50,000 in three years and we ended up where we started.

there seem to be other considerations in these proxy wars. the offensive to chosin reservoir triggered the deployment of the people's army, including most of the equipment lent leased and given to the koumintang.

actually occupying a considerable portion of the north could have triggered could have triggered a wider war with more destructive weapons.

mc arthur, remember, was relieved rather than allow him to strike first. it just was not going to happen.

my father got his silver star and purple heart at the chosin. he would wake in the middle of the night shouting "the bugles the bugles." seemed funny until i grew up and had my own nightmares.

 

[braalian]

Here are some facts about the Vietnam War that most liberal historians ignore:

-- Ho Chi Minh was not the most popular Vietnamese leader after WWII ended. Huynh Phu So, the charismatic founder of the Hoa Hao and of the Vietnamese Democratic Socialist Party, had far more followers than did Ho Chi Minh. However, the Communists murdered Huynh Phu So in April 1947.

-- The French only decided to work with and recognize the Viet Minh, i.e., the Communists, because the Viet Minh were the only nationalist group that was willing to allow France to deploy troops in Vietnam. The other major nationalist groups opposed allowing French troops to return to Vietnam.

-- After the signing of the Geneva Accords in July 1954, North Vietnam began to violate them almost as soon as the ink was dry on them.

-- Although the Geneva Accords called for Vietnam-wide elections in 1956, and even though Communist propaganda attacked the U.S. and South Vietnam for refusing to hold elections in 1956, the North Vietnamese themselves had no intention of holding free and fair elections in 1956 (or in any other year), and, equally important, they knew that no elections would take place. Furthermore, the U.S. and South Vietnam were not bound by this provision of the Geneva Accords. Historian Guenter Lewy:

There are strong indications that nobody at the conference took the idea of an early unification through free elections seriously. Why have a massive exchange of population if the two zones were to be unified within 700 days or so? Why was the machinery for settling future disagreements on the implementation of this agreement so haphazard?

“The provision for free elections which would solve ultimately the problem of Vietnam,” wrote Prof. Hans J. Morgenthau in 1956, “was a device to hide the incompatibility of the Communist and Western positions, neither of which can admit the domination of all of Vietnam by the other side. It was a device to disguise the fact that the line of military demarcation was bound to be a line of political division as well. In one word, what happened in Germany and Korea in the years immediately following 1945 has happened in Vietnam in the years following 1954.”

The likelihood that the provision for a political settlement in Vietnam through free elections in 1956 was indeed a hastily improvised afterthought to help save face for the Viet Minh is strengthened by the fact that the final declaration remained unsigned and was not even adopted by a formal vote. Five of the nine delegations present at the final session failed unreservedly to commit their governments to its terms. Laos, Cambodia and the DRV [North Vietnam] did not expressly associate themselves with the declaration.

The South Vietnamese delegate filed a protest against the armistice agreement which he asked to have incorporated in the final declaration. South Vietnam specifically objected to the date of the elections and reserved “to itself complete freedom of action to guarantee the sacred right of the Vietnamese people to territorial unity, national independence and freedom.” Undersecretary of State Walter B. Smith stated that the U.S. government “is not prepared to join in a declaration by the Conference such as is submitted.”

The American representative insisted that elections to be free and fair had to be supervised by the United Nations. “With respect to the statement made by the representative of the State of Viet-Nam, the United States reiterates its traditional position that peoples are entitled to determine their own future and that it will not join in an arrangement which would hinder this.” (America in Vietnam, Oxford University Press, 1980, pp. 8-9)

-- North Vietnamese sources confirm that the American war effort in South Vietnam was going quite well from early 1962 until December 1963, until a few weeks after the murder of South Vietnam’s president, Ngo Dinh Diem.

-- North Vietnamese sources confirm that the Hanoi regime decided to launch the 1968 Tet Offensive because the Communist war effort had gone badly in 1967, and because the Hanoi Politburo concluded that the protracted war strategy was not going to work.

-- Two of the other reasons that the Hanoi Politburo decided to launch the Tet Offensive were that they were certain that the South Vietnamese army (ARVN, pronounced ar-vin) would collapse as soon as they were attacked, and that the majority of the South Vietnamese people would rise up against the Saigon government (South Vietnam’s government).

-- Hanoi’s leaders were so certain the Tet Offensive would succeed that they made the astounding mistake of not making any retreat plans.

-- General Vo Nguyen Giap, North Vietnam’s commanding general, thought the Tet Offensive was a bad idea, but Le Duan and his fanatical allies overruled him. Giap was so opposed to the offensive that he left North Vietnam for several months and played no role in the offensive.

-- We now know from North Vietnamese sources that even Ho Chi Minh opposed Le Duan’s plans for the Tet Offensive. However, by 1967, Ho was merely a figurehead, and Le Duan was the driving force in the Hanoi Politburo.

-- In late 1967, Le Duan and other Politburo hardliners jailed dozens of officials and officers who opposed the Tet Offensive.

-- The 1968 Tet Offensive was a crushing military defeat for the Communists.

-- After nearly all the Communist assaults were quickly and severely repulsed, the North Vietnamese and the Viet Cong suffered unusually high casualties in flight because they had no retreat plans.

-- The Viet Cong never recovered from their losses in the Tet Offensive, and from that point onward North Vietnamese soldiers filled most of the ranks of the Viet Cong.

-- Much to the Hanoi regime’s surprise, if not shock, ARVN fought well in most cases during the offensive, and the vast majority of the South Vietnamese people stayed loyal to the Saigon government.

-- By 1970 and 1971, the vast majority of South Vietnam had been pacified and was stable.

-- The collapse of the southern insurgency was one of the main reasons that the Hanoi Politburo decided to launch the Easter Offensive in spring 1972.

-- North Vietnamese sources reveal that another reason that the Hanoi Politburo decided to launch the Easter Offensive was that they did not believe the U.S. would intervene in a significant way. They were stunned by the massive aerial campaign that the U.S. waged in support of South Vietnam.

-- North Vietnamese sources confirm that the North Vietnamese army suffered such horrendous losses in the Easter Offensive that for a few months a majority of the Hanoi Politburo actually turned against Le Duan and other fanatics and voted against continuing large-scale warfare against South Vietnam. However, this changed when the U.S. Congress began to slash aid to South Vietnam, and when Congress placed severe restrictions on President Nixon’s ability to enforce the Paris Peace Accords.

-- After the Paris Peace Accords were signed in January 1973, the U.S. Congress shamefully began to slash vital aid to South Vietnam. The devastating impact of these cuts is discussed in an official history of the Vietnam War published by the U.S. Marine Corps History and Museums Division:

During Fiscal Years (FY) 1974 and 1975, the U.S. Congress slashed budget line items providing military aid to South Vietnam. Although not cut entirely, the funding equaled only 50 percent of the administration's recommended level. During FY 1973 the United States spent approximately $2.2 billion in military aid to South Vietnam. In FY 1974, the total dropped to $1.1 billion. Finally, in FY 1975, the figure fell to $700 million, a trend that was not misread in Hanoi. As General Dung very candidly phrased it, "Thieu [South Vietnam’s president] was forced to fight a poor man's war."

Perhaps more distressing, as far as the recipients of the military aid were concerned, was the fact that by 1975 the dollars spent for certain items were buying only half as many goods as they had in 1973. For example, POL costs were up by 100 percent, the cost of one round of 105mm ammunition had increased from 18 to 35 dollars, and the cost of providing 13.5 million individual rations exceeded 22 million dollars. Considering the steady reduction in funding and the almost universal increase in prices, the South Vietnamese in 1975 could buy only about an eighth as much defense for the dollar as they had in 1973.

In June 1974, just before the start of FY 1975, Lieutenant Colonel Anthony Lukeman replaced Lieutenant Colonel Strickland as Chief, VNMC LSB. Almost immediately he began to notice the effects of the reduced funding, less than a third the size of the 1973 budget. In September, in a letter to HQMC, he penned his concerns:

"Briefly, the current level means grounding a significant part of the VNAF [South Vietnamese Air Force], cutting back on the capabilities of the VNN [South Vietnamese Navy], and running unacceptable risks in the stock levels of ammunition, POL, and medical supplies. I am concerned it will mean, in the long run, decreased morale, because replacement of uniforms and individual equipment will start to suffer about a year from now, and the dollars spent on meat supplements to the basic rice diet will be cut way back. At this point, the planners have concentrated (understandably) most of their attention on shoot, move, and communicate but have lost in the buzz words a feel for the man who will be doing those things."

The South Vietnamese attempted to adjust to the decreased funding and rising costs, but each of these adjustments had the effect of placing them in a more disadvantageous position relative to the strengthened North Vietnamese forces. The tempo of operations of all services, most particularly the Air Force, was cut back to conserve fuel. The expenditure rate of munitions also dropped. Interdiction fire was all but halted. The decreased financial support forced the South Vietnamese to consider cutting costs in all areas of defense, including the abandonment of outposts and fire bases in outlying regions.

The overall impact of the budget reduction on the allocation of military monies was readily apparent. In FY 1975 at the $700 million level all of the funded appropriations were spent on consumables. There was nothing left over for procurement of equipment to replace combat and operational losses on the one-for-one basis permitted by the Paris Accords. (https://www.marines.mil/Portals/1/Publications/U.S. Marines in Vietnam_The Bitter End 1973-1975 PCN 1900310900_1.pdf)

-- South Vietnam actually held its own in 1973, with no U.S. intervention, which proved that South Vietnam could survive if the U.S. provided adequate aide. But, as mentioned, the U.S. Congress began to slash aid to South Vietnam in mid-1973, and the disastrous impact of those cuts began to be felt in early 1974.

-- Although the Saigon government was hardly a model of democracy, it was far less oppressive than the Hanoi regime. There were 15-20 independent newspapers in South Vietnam, a number of which routinely lambasted government corruption and malfeasance, etc. There were no independent newspapers in North Vietnam.

There were opposition parties in South Vietnam; they held seats in South Vietnam’s national assembly, and they frequently criticized government actions. In North Vietnam, only the Communist Party (the VWP) was legal and allowed to operate.

In South Vietnam, private schools were allowed to operate, and public schools had some flexibility in deciding on their curriculum. North Vietnam did not allow private schools and strictly controlled all public schools.

-- Over and over again during the war, Hanoi’s leaders insisted that they had no desire to conquer or occupy South Vietnam but only to expel the “foreign invaders.” Over and over again, Hanoi’s leaders promised that South Vietnam would have its own government and substantial autonomy after the “foreign invaders” were gone. Yet, the Hanoi regime egregiously broke these promises immediately after South Vietnam fell.

-- After South Vietnam fell, the North Vietnamese executed at least 60,000 South Vietnamese and sent at least another 800,000 to brutal concentration camps (“reeducation camps”), where the death rate was at least 5%.

These facts are documented in hundreds of books. Below are a few of the better and more-available books that document these facts (all of the books below are available in Kindle form on Amazon):

America in Vietnam (Oxford University Press, 1980), by Dr. Guenter Lewy.

Hanoi’s War (University of North Carolina Press, 2012), by Dr. Lien-Hang T. Nguyen.

Vietnam’s American War (Cambridge University Press, 2018), by Dr. Pierre Asselin.

Kissinger’s Betrayal: How America Lost the Vietnam War (RealClear Publishing, 2023), by Dr. Stephen B. Young.

Black April: The Fall of South Vietnam, 1973-75 (Encounter Books, 2013), by Dr. George Jay Veith.

America and Vietnam, 1954-1963: The Road to War (McFarland Publishers, 2022), by Colonel Michael M. Walker (U.S. Marine Corps, Retired).

The Vietnam War Reexamined (Cambridge University Press, 2017), by Dr. Michael Kort.

Losing Vietnam: How America Abandoned Southeast Asia (University Press of Kentucky, 2013), by Major General Ira Hunt (U.S. Army, Retired).

Vietnam: An Epic Tragedy, 1945-1975 (Harper Publishers, 20180, by Dr. Max Hastings.

This Time We Win: Revisiting the Tet Offensive (Encounter Books, 2010), by Dr. James Robbins.

I have numerous sources on the Vietnam War on my website The Truth About the Vietnam War.

TL;DR

 

[whitehall]

there seem to be other considerations in these proxy wars. the offensive to chosin reservoir triggered the deployment of the people's army, including most of the equipment lent leased and given to the koumintang.

actually occupying a considerable portion of the north could have triggered could have triggered a wider war with

my father got his silver star and purple heart at the chosin. he would wake in the middle of the night shouting "the bugles the bugles." seemed funny until i grew up and had my own nightmares.

The mission was to liberate South Korea and the U.S. had the conflict won in about a year. NK troops were flanked at Inchon and pushed back across the original border and Pong Yang was captured. That should have been the end of it and Pong Yang should have been liberated and occupied and a line drawn across the peninsula to the Wonsan harbor as the new NK/SK line. MacArthur never spent a single night on the Korean peninsula and depended on "intelligence" from sycophant Army officers. The Chinese threatened to enter the conflict if Americans approached the Chinese, Korean Yalu river line but Truman seemed confused and allowed MacArthur to proceed. Truman even let MacArthur issue threats of nuclear retaliation against China before he was finally relieved of duty.

 

[0311]

there seem to be other considerations in these proxy wars. the offensive to chosin reservoir triggered the deployment of the people's army, including most of the equipment lent leased and given to the koumintang.

actually occupying a considerable portion of the north could have triggered could have triggered a wider war with more destructive weapons.

mc arthur, remember, was relieved rather than allow him to strike first. it just was not going to happen.

my father got his silver star and purple heart at the chosin. he would wake in the middle of the night shouting "the bugles the bugles." seemed funny until i grew up and had my own nightmares.

McA wanted to use Atomic Bombs, a lot of them on North Korea. He wanted push all the way up to the N.K./Communist Chinese Border. Never mind that Russia had the bomb as well. I met a Marine at the Pentagon who was at Chosin. Left side of his face horribly scared. But he also that blue and white ribbon, a cetified bad ass.

 

[rampart]

The mission was to liberate South Korea and the U.S. had the conflict won in about a year. NK troops were flanked at Inchon and pushed back across the original border and Pong Yang was captured. That should have been the end of it and Pong Yang should have been liberated and occupied and a line drawn across the peninsula to the Wonsan harbor as the new NK/SK line. MacArthur never spent a single night on the Korean peninsula and depended on "intelligence" from sycophant Army officers. The Chinese threatened to enter the conflict if Americans approached the Chinese, Korean Yalu river line but Truman seemed confused and allowed MacArthur to proceed. Truman even let MacArthur issue threats of nuclear retaliation against China before he was finally relieved of duty.

does a great general officer allow sycophants to mislead him or tell him what he wants to hear?

not if he wants to win.