SwiftVets.com

[homesteader]

I am doing editorial letter battle with the local Code Pinkers who have managed to get a Troops Out Now question on the local ballot for Nov. I need help with what Gen. Giap is supposed to have said about Tet in his memoirs. A google search (Gen. Giap memoir) debunks as rumor that he ever claimed the Commies were about to give up the fight when Cronkite and the US anti-war movement saved the day for them. The debunking statement could be clever parsing "Giap never mentioned Cronkite (or Kerry) by name" which may be true but we all know who he meant. They debunk as rumor that he ever said "they were about to give up the fight". Again, he may not have used those exact words thus the statement is true but not what he meant.

Can anyone help me with this or point me in the right direction ?

[LewWaters]

Since Giaps Memoirs were written only in Vietnamese, that claim is indeed speculative. However, others have come forward hinting at a similar possible conclusion to the war.

On page 38 of the October 2005 edition of VIETNAM magazine, there is an interview with retired North Vietnamese General Nguyen Duc Huy where he is asked, “After the war, Giap told a group of Western reporters that Communist losses in the Tet Offensive [of 1968] were so devastating that if the American forces had kept up that level of Military pressure much longer North Vietnam would have been forced to negotiate a peace on American terms. Do you agree?”

General Huy replied, “If the American army had fought some more, had continued, I don’t know. Maybe. I can’t say what would have happened.”

Along these same lines, we have the August 3, 1995 Wall Street journal account of the interview with Colonel Bui Tin. When asked what was the purpose of the Tet Offensive, he replied, “To relieve the pressure Gen. Westmoreland was putting on us in late 1966 and 1967 and to weaken American resolve during a presidential election year.”

Asked about the results of the Tet Offensive, he said, “Our losses were staggering and a complete surprise;. Giap later told me that Tet had been a military defeat, though we had gained the planned political advantages when Johnson agreed to negotiate and did not run for re-election. The second and third waves in May and September were, in retrospect, mistakes. Our forces in the South were nearly wiped out by all the fighting in 1968. It took us until 1971 to re-establish our presence, but we had to use North Vietnamese troops as local guerrillas. If the American forces had not begun to withdraw under Nixon in 1969, they could have punished us severely. We suffered badly in 1969 and 1970 as it was.”

In part, Col. Tin, who defected from Viet Nam after becoming disillusioned with the communist, when asked the question, “Was the American antiwar movement important to Hanoi's victory?” Answered Tin, “It was essential to our strategy. Support of the war from our rear was completely secure while the American rear was vulnerable. Every day our leadership would listen to world news over the radio at 9 a.m. to follow the growth of the American antiwar movement. Visits to Hanoi by people like Jane Fonda, and former Attorney General Ramsey Clark and ministers gave us confidence that we should hold on in the face of battlefield reverses. We were elated when Jane Fonda, wearing a red Vietnamese dress, said at a press conference that she was ashamed of American actions in the war and that she would struggle along with us.” “Those people represented the conscience of America. The conscience of America was part of its war-making capability, and we were turning that power in our favor. America lost because of its democracy; through dissent and protest it lost the ability to mobilize a will to win.”

http://www.grunt.com/scuttlebutt/corps-stories/vietnam/north.asp
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Clark County Conservative

[homesteader]

Thanks Lew,

That helps a lot. Any other inputs or references would be appreciated.

[Bob51]

Homesteader,

You might find it useful to look at Google Link

You'll also find plenty of material at Google Link

note: URL's hyperlinked/me#1

A book I own and would recommend is: Giap: The Victor in Vietnam (1992) by Peter Macdonald. Macdonald spent 30 years in the British Army.

page 328:

"At the 19th Plenum, held at the end of 1970, Giap had made an assessment that the American policy of Vietnamization was making progress, that pacification was making gains, and that the Vietcong were demoralized after their drubbing during the Tet Offensive. On the credit side, from his point of view American ground troops would be out of South Vietnam by the end of 1972, and President Nixon was under severe pressure from the antiwar dissenters".

[Bob51]

You will also find it interesting to read the analysis by Col. Herbert Schindler. This is titled "The Tet Offensive - The Illusion is Fully Exposed" and appears from page 362 in "Argument Without End - In Search of Answers to the Vietnam Tragedy" by McNamara, Blight, Brigham, Biersteker and Schandler.

"Since March 1967, Hanoi and its NLF allies in the South had been planning the Tet Offensive - what the communists called 'the general offensive, general uprising.' Hanoi sought a decisive victory in order to create the military , political, and psychological conditions that would destroy the political foundations of the Saigon regime in the South and political support for the war in the United States".

P.366
"The president understood, even if General Wheeler did not, that dissent, dis-satisfaction and disillusionment with the war was growing rapidly in the country."

"On March 31, 1968, during a speech to the nation and the world, the president implied that he had , in fact, seen the pursuit of military victory in Vietnam for what it was - an illusion. During this televised speech, he announced four major decisions: (1) he would make only a token increase in the size of American forces in Vietnam,...
(2) he would make the expansion and improvement of the South Vietnamese forces the first priority of the U.S. effort in Vietnam; (3) he would order a halt to the bombing of North Vietnam north of the 20th parallel... and (4) he would not accept his party's nomination for another term as president."

"The illusion of victory in Vietnam had been fully exposed. Psychologically, U.S. withdrawal from Vietnam began at that moment even though it took several more years to physically complete the task".

Col. Herbert Y. Schandler (U.S. Army, Ret.) Professor in the Department of Grand Strategy, Industrial College of the Armed Forces, National Defense University, Washington, D.C. A graduate of West Point, he served two tours of duty in Vietnam between 1966 and 1970, following which he earned a Ph.D. from the Government Department, Harvard University (1974). He has published widely in military journals on the Vietnam War.

[Bob51]

Google Link

note: URL hyperlinked/me#1

[homesteader]

Thanks Again. What an avalanche of information to dig through. What I want to be able to do is refer directly to Cong or NVA leaders who state that the anti-war movement prolonged the war and cost the US tens of thousands of dead.

Would the following statement be true and supportable?

"The leaders of NVN and Communist forces in S VietNam during the war have stated in interviews or writings that South VietNam and the US had the Communist forces essentially defeated in the late sixties. The rise of the US anti-war movement, which they tracked daily through news reports, encouraged them to hold on and not pursue a negotiated solution. By the mid-seventies and 40,000 US dead later, the US withdrew. The genocide of millions and displacement of millions more followed. In other words.....the Communist leaders have, maybe unintentially admitted, that the US anti-war movement led to a longer war and the deaths of millions."

[Me#1You#10]

It does seem apparent that the Giap "quote" is unsupportable and needs to be deep-sixed. However, that the growth of the "anti-war" movement steeled their resolve and ultimately mandated United States capitulation to the sham "Paris Peace accords" and subsequent wholesale US de-funding of an independent South Vietnamese resistance seems unassailable.

[homesteader]

Lew,

In your reply above you wrote that a Gen. Huy was asked about a statement by Gen. Giap to Western reporters after the war regarding Tet.
Was the premise or accuracy of the question ever challenged? Did Gen. Huy deny that Giap ever said what the question repeated? Did the Western reporters ever publish Giap's statement?

Thanks for the help.

[Bob51]

[Deuce]

Lew,
as usual you're a fund of knowledge and spot on...and Homesteader, I think your question to Lew is almost self answering...yes the interviewer was quoting Gen. Giap...and yes Gen. Giap made that statement, It's been on some documentaries recently on the History Channel and elsewhere. For the consummate fund of knowledge for such quotes, see the Bibliography in "We Were Soldiers Once, and Young" by Col. Hal Moore...I seem to remember Giaps' quote referenced in his book also.

so NO, don't 'deep six' that quote, ever!!! Johnson, his advisor, Clark Clifford[?], and Kronkite the Kommie pretty much led the snatching defeat from the jaws of Victory campaign for the communization of South Vietnam [not to mention the USA]...along with their treasonous minions and useful idiots, Kerry, Fonda, et al.

g'luck,
Deuce

[LewWaters]

I sent Homesteader a pdf copy of the complete article from Vietnam Magazine. If any others desire it for your files, just email me and I'll gladly forward it to you as well.

Another read filled with information about the anti-war movement is at Kerry's Soviet Rhetoric
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Clark County Conservative

[homesteader]

Thanks all for all the input. It has lead to some long nights of interesting reading. Too young to have been to VietNam and not familiar with SEA culture, history and dynamics it is good to get the info that validates the true story of what happened and discredits the "alternate reality" story that has held sway for so many years.

I am familiar with Arab and Islamic cultures. After the fall of the Baath regime in Baghdad, there was a window of opportunity to capitalize on the mob mentality that salutes and follows the current Zaim (warlord). We were the Zaims and had the mob's attention for an instant. There were several reasons why that stature was diluted (unwillingness to shoot looters) but the main factor was the back-stabbing, second quessing, and simple disrespect that certain Americans displayed toward our President. In the first days after the fall of Baghdad there was chaos but no insurgency. The insurgency, though it may have been planned and hoped for by Saddam to reinstate him, was really birthed and nurtured by the anti-war, anti-Bush vitriol of the US left. It started with the hand wringing over a sandstorm. Within minutes of a Kerry or Kennedy spouting off about VietNam or quagmire, it would be repeated by a Zaim wannabe in Iraq.

Insurgency strength in Iraq now is a direct result of the US anti-war movement.

Just got the most recent issue of The Intercollegiate Review Vol.41 No. 2. It included a great article "The US Victory In Vietnam: Lost and Found" by James Kurth. The same issue also had a good piece "The Myth of the Andalusian Paradise" by Dario Fernandez-Morera about the Moorish (Islamic) occupation of Spain.