Walter Cronkite's Ridiculous Spin on the 1968 Tet Offensive in South Vietnam

[Hector12]

It was a valuable and important treaty for a region whjcih was impostant to our secutity and evonokmy youer claim is a proven lie

the Australians fought with us the indonesians fought with us the south koreans fought with us and others..

Their involvement was minimal. It did reinforce the belief of most South Vietnamese that the Communists represented Vietnamese nationalism.

 

[John Edgar Slow Horses]

The SV government lost the war because it was not committed to winning it as was the North.

 

[Soupnazi630]

Their involvement was minimal. It did reinforce the belief of most South Vietnamese that the Communists represented Vietnamese nationalism.

it was significant in fact, especially the australians

That was not the berlief of most South Vietnamse

 

[mikegriffith1]

The SV government lost the war because it was not committed to winning it as was the North.

This is rather obscene fiction. The Saigon government lost the war because the Democrat-controlled Congress shamefully and treacherously slashed our promised aid to South Vietnam after the Paris Peace Accords, while the Soviets and the Chinese continued to provide North Vietnam with all the weapons and supplies it needed.

Anyone who wants to learn how fiercely and bravely the under-supplied South Vietnamese army fought in 1974 and 1975 should read Dr. Geore Jay Veith's book Black April: The Fall of South Vietnam, 1973-1975 and/or watch Dr. Veith's presentation on the subject (LINK).

Dr. Andrew Wiest's book Vietnam's Forgotten Army: Heroism and Betrayal in the ARVN also debunks the myths that the South Vietnamese army usually performed badly and that the army put up little resistance against the final North Vietnamese invasion in 1975.

 

[Hector12]

it was significant in fact, especially the australians

That was not the berlief of most South Vietnamse

American troops in Vietnam often encountered enemy villages. American troops in France during the Second World War did not encounter enemy villages. Even in Italy, which had recently been an ally of Germany, American troops were greeted as liberators.

 

[Soupnazi630]

American troops in Vietnam often encountered enemy villages. American troops in France during the Second World War did not encounter enemy villages. Even in Italy, which had recently been an ally of Germany, American troops were greeted as liberators.

No the US troops encountered enemy controlled villages who very often greeted them the same way the french did

 

[Hector12]

No the US troops encountered enemy controlled villages who very often greeted them the same way the french did

Can you post a contemporary news story of that happening, or a personal account by a Vietnam veteran about entering a South Vietnamese village where the villagers greeted American troops with applause and thanks?

 

[John Edgar Slow Horses]

mikegriffith1's obscene denial, along with those of Thomas Paine, are just sickening.

You wanted a full American presence in SV forever. Nope.

 

[Tom Paine 1949]

mikegriffith1's obscene denial, along with those of Thomas Paine, are just sickening.

You are really stupid to link me up with mikegriffith1 here. What am I “obscenely denying”? What is “sickening” to you about my views?

As most here know I was an early and longtime activist in the anti-Vietnam War Movement and in subsequent anti-imperialist movements … and got myself beat up and went to jail and got a COINTELPRO file for my trouble.

I do not agree at all with mikegriffith1 ’s opinions or arguments. Some of his facts are wrong, too, and almost all are presented, imo, in very misleading ways.

I’m just not interested anymore in debating these old questions further, especially not with a rather obsessive “better dead than red” rightwing warmonger like mikegriffith1 … or with presumptuous semi-Stalinist liberal romantics either. My comments on this thread already present my views quite adequately on Vietnam.

 

[John Edgar Slow Horses]

Neither of you really understand the era in which the war took place, or in Souheast Asis, or in the US.

 

[Tom Paine 1949]

Neither of you really understand the era in which the war took place, or in Souheast Asis, or in the US.

Well, that may be, or seem to be — for a young guy like yourself. You are 45 years old I gather? I am 75 and my life and many of my political views were shaped by that period and that disaster of a war.

Those were years not only of friends dying or killing themselves, of riots and massive demonstrations, but also the years of assassinations: Medgar Evers, JFK, Malcom X, RFK, Fred Hampton. They were years of the Chinese Cultural Revolution and China developing its own atomic bomb. And yet there was certainly no “Revolution” in the U.S. — merely a mainstreaming of middle class youth culture and identity politics, while the country moved steadily rightward in subsequent years. Today MAGA threatens us with its own “insurrection” / “counter-revolution.”

I don’t know why you think you understand that history better than those who lived it — though I grant you living through it and understanding it are two entirely separate things. I think in some ways mikegriffith1 illustrates this point, despite all his studying of documents from the period. Some of us never change our views, or are stuck in the past.

 

[John Edgar Slow Horses]

You are a poser, nothing more.

 

[Tom Paine 1949]

You are a poser, nothing more.

What gives you the right to speak like this?
What the fuck do you know asshole?

The only thing you have going for you is that you at least seem to despise Donald Trump. Congratulations. You are right about one thing.

 

[John Edgar Slow Horses]

I have every right here to expose you as I have.

You should oppose Trump. That part is right.

 

[Tom Paine 1949]

I have every right here to expose you as I have.

You should oppose Trump. That part is right.

It’s a free country. You can be as obnoxious as you wish.

 

[John Edgar Slow Horses]

And you can be as wrong as you get.

 

[mikegriffith1]

To show how truly embarrassing and inexcusable it is for anyone to still deny that the North Vietnamese imposed a reign of terror after they won, let us consider the open letter that numerous former anti-war activists sent to the Hanoi regime in 1979.

To their credit, a number of liberals who played roles in the anti-war movement during the Vietnam War condemned the Hanoi regime in 1979 when they finally--some would say belatedly--became convinced that the Communists were brutalizing and oppressing the people, especially people in the south.

In an “Open Letter to the Socialist Republic of Vietnam” published in five major newspapers on May 30, 1979, Joan Baez and other former anti-war activists called out Vietnam's Communist leaders for serious human rights violations. The letter was written by Joan Baez and Ginetta Sagan and was signed by numerous other prominent liberal anti-war activists, including Norman Cousins, I. F. Stone, Norman Lear, Cesar Chavez, Edward Asner, and Daniel Berrigan.

Guess which anti-war activists condemned the letter or declined to comment on it? Shamefully, the list is very long. A small sampling: Jane Fonda, Dave Dellinger, Abbie Hoffman, William Kuntsler, and Tom Hayden condemned the letter--they actually blamed the U.S. for the oppression in Vietnam (some anti-war activists even argued that the CIA was behind the voluminous refugee accounts). Musician John Lennon and his wife Yoki Ono and actors Donald Sutherland, Michael Alaimo, and Peter Boyle declined to comment on the letter. Vietnam Veterans Against the War leaders John Kerry, Ron Kovic, Jan Barry, and Al Hubbard also declined to comment on the letter.

Of course, Kerry, Fonda, Hayden, and their ilk had specifically assured everyone that Communist rule would not include large-scale executions, concentration camps, widespread oppression, etc. In one TV debate, Kerry said that only a few thousand radical anti-communists would be killed if North Vietnam won. Indeed, some of them even said that Communist rule in the south would actually be an improvement over Saigon's rule.

Perhaps these delusional, false assurances were the reason Joan Baez later complained that she had been "used" by the Left during the Vietnam War.

To her further great credit, Joan Baez led the effort to persuade President Jimmy Carter to help the Vietnamese boat people and other Vietnamese who were fleeing from the Hanoi regime's tyranny. She eventually persuaded President Carter to send the Seventh Fleet to rescue the boat people who were still at sea.

Baez became convinced that the growing mountain of accounts of Communist brutality in Vietnam, especially in southern Vietnam, were true when her good friend and Amnesty International official Ginetta Sagan personally interviewed numerous Vietnamese refugees (see https://scholars.unh.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1152&context=dissertation). Baez and Sagan teamed up to form Humanitas, which sponsored the open letter. Here is a portion of the open letter:

Thousands of innocent Vietnamese, many whose only «crimes» are those of conscience, are being arrested, detained and tortured in prisons and re-education camps. Instead of bringing hope and reconciliation to war-torn Vietnam, your government has created a painful nightmare that overshadows significant progress achieved in many areas of Vietnamese society. . . .

We have heard the horror stories from the people of Vietnam from workers and peasants, Catholic nuns and Buddhist priests, from the boat people, the artists and professionals and those who fought alongside the NLF. The jails are overflowing with thousands upon thousands of detainees. People disappear and never return. People are shipped to re-education centers, fed a starvation diet of stale rice, forced to squat bound wrist to ankle, suffocated in connex boxes. People are used as human mine detectors, clearing live mine fields with their hands and feet. For many, life is hell and death is prayed for. . . .

Many victims are men, women and children who supported and fought for the causes of reunification and self-determination; those who as pacifists, members of religious groups, or on moral and philosophic grounds opposed the authoritarian policies of Thieu and Ky; artists and intellectuals whose commitment to creative expression is anathema to the totalitarian policies of your government.

Requests by Amnesty International and others for impartial investigations of prison conditions remain unanswered. Families who inquire about husbands, wives, daughters or sons are ignored. (Open letter to the Socialist Republic of Vietnam by Joan Baez 30. mai 1979)

To get some idea of the shocking scale of North Vietnam's reign of terror in the south, read the research done by Jacqueline Desbarats and Karl D. Jackson in their book Political Violence in Vietnam: The Dark Side of Liberation. Desbarats and Jackson have also published several articles on the subject in various journals, some of which are available online.

Of course, there are plenty of other sources on the Communists' brutalization and oppression of the South Vietnamese, including books and articles by former Viet Cong officials and by former pro-communist South Vietnamese anti-war activists who managed to flee to America after the war.

 

[mikegriffith1]

mikegriffith1's obscene denial. . . .

Is this what you tell yourself to excuse your cheerleading of the betrayal of 19 million South Vietnamese to brutal tyranny?

Every excuse you've offered for the betrayal of South Vietnam has been pitiful, invalid, and morally blind. Every criticism you've offered to excuse your opposition to keeping South Vietnam free could be made against the Korean War.

You wanted a full American presence in SV forever. Nope.

You mean like the American presence in South Korea to keep that wonderful Asian democracy free and to prevent North Korea from resuming the war? Yes, I absolutely think that would have been the moral, humane, ethical thing to do in South Vietnam.

Until your anti-war buddies in Congress made it impossible, we had intended to leave a residual force and sufficient air assets in South Vietnam to ensure the peace. But the anti-war majority in Congress were determined to do all they could to sabotage South Vietnam and to help North Vietnam win. And they did just that.

We know from North Vietnamese sources that they would not have invaded South Vietnam if they knew we would respond with massive air power the way we did during the 1972 Easter Offensive.

 

[John Edgar Slow Horses]

I was on the side of the US and SV, you boob. Our inability to craft a winning policy to the SV entitlement corruption of the governing classes there made defeat inevitable.

 

[mikegriffith1]

Vietnamese-American author Taoxi Xie notes that even LBJ believed the media’s coverage of the Tet Offensive and of the war in general was biased:

President Johnson’s recollection of the Tet reporting further substantiates the political damage this reporting did to the Vietnam War efforts. In his recollection of the Tet reporting, Johnson maintained that the media had been “exaggerated” and “emotional.” Undoubtedly, President Johnson distrusted the integrity of the press, especially the New York Times. Johnson accused the media of focusing only on the most “depressing” and “lurid” accounts of the Vietnam War. (“Mandelbaum, the Tet Offensive and Media Reporting,” LINK)

A version of the common mistaken belief that Tet turned the American people against the war is still found even among some Vietnam veterans who support the war effort. They assume the validity of the claim that public support for the war began to drop after Tet, but they blame biased media coverage, not Tet itself, for the alleged shift in opinion.

Robert F. Turner, a retired military historian and Vietnam veteran, repeats this position in the excellent AVVBA documentary Truths and Myths About the Vietnam War. He was apparently unaware of the research of two of the other scholars who appear in the documentary, James Robbins and Mark Moyar, that shows that most of the actual polling numbers contradict this claim.

To be fair, Turner may have been thinking of the polls that showed that support for LBJ’s handling of the war dropped after Tet. This decline in support for the handling of the war corresponds with the increase in support for escalation/a more vigorous war effort. Moreover, it goes without saying that opposition to the handling of a war is not necessarily the same thing as opposition to the war itself.

For example, during the first 18 months of the American Civil War, Northern public approval of Lincoln’s handling of the war was erratic, severely plunging at times and rising at other times, as the Union lost several key battles, including the embarrassing routes at First Bull Run and Second Bull Run and the disastrous defeat at the Battle of Fredericksburg, but no one has ever argued that those marked changes in support for the handling of the war meant opposition to the war itself.

A key fact is that we now know from North Vietnamese sources that Le Duan and other Hanoi Politburo radicals launched the Tet Offensive because they had concluded that the protracted-war strategy was not working and was going to fail, and that they needed to try to win the war with one massive, bold stroke. We also now know that Le Duan and other Politburo radicals truly believed that after the offensive began, the South Vietnamese people would welcome the NVA and the VC as liberators and would help overthrow the Saigon government, and that the South Vietnamese army would quickly collapse.

On a side note, we have known for years now that Ho Chi Minh and General Giap strongly opposed the Tet Offensive, but by that time Ho was nothing but a figurehead, since Le Duan had deposed him several years earlier (certainly by 1963). Similarly, Le Duan and his gang had severely curtailed Giap’s influence several years earlier. Giap was so upset over the decision to launch Tet that he left the country for several weeks before the offensive began and did not return until after it was over.

Yet, many history books still say that Giap commanded the Tet Offensive. Generals Van Tien Dung and Tran Van Tra were the two principal Tet commanders. During Tet, Giap was in Hungary on a self-imposed exile to protest the offensive.