To Chris Mathews, Howard, et all: The Vietcong had nothing to do with the fall of Saigon, nothing.

[grantcart]

With everyone making broad comparisons about Vietnam and Afghanistan (Mathews and Howard Fineman just spent 10 minutes talking about how the Vietcong are comparable to the Afghan resistance).

The plain, unrefutable fact is that after the Tet Offensive the Vietcong were destroyed as a military force. What was not known until after the war was that the design of the campaign exposed Viet Cong military units in vulnerable urban areas while keeping NVA forces in Khe Sanh and Hue leading some to conclude that the destruction of the military units of the Viet Cong by the North was intentional.


Here are the facts:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viet_Cong

The offensive was undertaken in the hope of triggering a general uprising, but urban Vietnamese did not respond as the Vietcong anticipated. About 75,000 communist soldiers were killed, according to Trần Văn Trà, commander of the "B-2" district, which consisted of southern South Vietnam.<61> "We did not base ourselves on scientific calculation or a careful weighing of all factors, but...on an illusion based on our subjective desires," Trà concluded.<62> Earle G. Wheeler, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, estimated that Tet resulted in 40,000 communist dead<63> (compared to about 6,000 U.S. and South Vietnamese dead). "It is a major irony of the Vietnam War that our propaganda transformed this debacle into a brilliant victory. The truth was that Tet cost us half our forces. Our losses were so immense that we were unable to replace them with new recruits," said PRG Justice Minister Trương Như Tạng.

. . .

Aside from some districts in the Mekong Delta, the Vietcong failed to create a governing apparatus in South Vietnam following Tet, according to an assessment of captured documents by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency.<66> The breakup of larger Vietcong units increased the effectiveness of the CIA's Phoenix program (1967–72), which targeted individual leaders, as well as the Chiêu Hồi Program, which encouraged defections. By the end of 1969, there was no longer any communist-held territory, or "liberated zones," in South Vietnam, according to the official communist military history.<67> There were no predominantly southern units left and 70 percent of communist troops in the South were northerners.<68>

After the war I had a singularly unique opportunity to discuss this with both Viet Cong and North Vietnamese leaders after the war.

I met former Viet Cong Justice Minister Truong Nhu Tang (cited above) and had lengthy discussions with him at Galang Refugee Camp in Indonesia. He detailed how after the war no Viet Cong were given any real positions of power but a few were given symbolic positions. The North dissolved the PRG without even bothering to call for a meeting. Nguyen Hu Tho was the big winner of the symbolic Viet Cong award and eventually became one of the Vice Presidents and Vice Chairman of the national assempbly. Truong was resettled to France.

Viet Cong's leading general Tran Va Tra (also cited above) would later write about the strategic failures of the North in supporting the Viet Cong. Tran Va Tra would become a token member of the government as vice minister of defense. After publishing his version of the Tet Offensive he would spend the rest of his life under house arrest.

Another example is Dương Quỳnh Hoa who was a cabinet member in the Viet Cong Provisional Government who was bitterly disappointed with the North Vietnamese post war government. After the Tet offensive she fled and survived in the jungle. She latter said of the North Vietnamese :"I have been a communist all my life, but now I've seen the realities of Communism, and it is a failure — mismanagement, corruption, privilege, repression. My ideals are gone.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duong_Quynh_Hoa

Later I would visit and negotiate logistical arrangements with the new leaders in the North. When I asked them about the Viet Cong and their leaders their normally difficult-to-read faces produced some very uncharacteristic chuckles. One of them noted how "coincidental" it was that General Giap was out of the country getting treated in Eastern Europe when the most important combined campaign of the war took place.



If your going to go on national TV and talk about the Viet Cong you should be aware of the facts of its fate that are now well documented. The Viet Cong were not significantly involved in the fall of Saigon. The military offensive that unified the country was undertaken by regular elements of the NVA in the campaign known as the "Ho Chi Minh Campaign".

[cliffordu]

1. Please refrain from posting the truth here.

Mofos get all upset and shit.

[PDJane]

2. Thank you.

It's important that the truth come out somewhere. It's certainly not going to be in the mainstream.

[Lint Head]

3. That's great information. Basically we lost regardless of the reason.

The human toll and the toll related to the national dialog between the government and the people was compromised.
That era changed peoples relationship with the federal government.

The lies we were told were despicable. We heard the Domino theory. "If we lose this we will be speaking Vietnamese." was the right wing
war hawk mantra. Of course we now trade with Vietnam. We could have opened dialog and traded without Vietnam without a major conflict.
But, the corporate war machine would not have it.

[Old and In the Way]

4. Had we carpet bombed them with $20.00 bills, we could have

undermined communism, saved 100's of thousands of American lives from death and ruination, and created a reliable trading partner. Probably have cost the taxpayers a lot less in the long run, too. Sad we can't seem to think/act outside of the neocon worldview. :-(

[Jackpine Radical]

8. I have argued exactly that for years.

We should have let them have their 1956 unification election (we stopped it because we knew Uncle Ho would win) I then started sending aid followed by trade. In Realpolitik, Vietnam's #1 problem for the last 1500 years or so has been China. Vietnamese history is the story of successive waves of Chinese invasion followed by native rebellions. That's why the north never let significant numbers of Chinese military in, by the way. So Vietnam was looking for an ally--any ally but China. The further away the better. The Russians served the purpose, but we would have served it much better, if only because we made better tractors than the Russians. The trade alliance was there for the asking. But no, we couldn't tolerate the idea of pressing a Communist to our bosom.

[grantcart]

9. Our military left in 1973. The South Vietnamese proved unable to defend themselves

Nevertheless we made great mistakes.

[Old and In the Way]

5. Fascinating personal insight....thanks for sharing!

[Jackpine Radical]

6. Maybe Tweety and the Duck don't know the difference between VC & NVA.

I didn't see the show, so I have nothing beyond this thread for my speculation.

[grantcart]

10. Which is completely understandable. However if that is the case then they should

refrain from using it as a historical reference.

[Jackpine Radical]

15. There are some who are not only abysmally ignorant, but

are also abysmally ignorant of their ignorance.

I am always reminded of the interesting finding that people of low ability levels always tend to overestimate their own competence, while those on the high end of the scale are racked by self-doubt.

[Bandit]

24. I spent two tours there and Never once encountered VC

We encountered NVA regulars almost daily though..We were engaged against the third largest fighting force on earth at the time and everyone seems to think fighting civilians in Iraq or Afghanistan is the same thing..It is not..

[pinboy3niner]

25. That's mostly how it was after the Tet Counter-offensive

I recall one battle against an NVA regiment at the DMZ in December 1969. After the battle, troops recovered the body of an Army Major from the People's Republic of China (along with his radio and codes). The Chinese Major was advising the NVA regiment, just like MACV advised ARVN units...

[Jackpine Radical]

26. Yes, we were occasionally finding Chinese advisers with the NVA in 1967-68.

The Vietnamese didn't want mass numbers of Chinese troops, though. for reasons I mentioned elsewhere.

[pinboy3niner]

27. You made an excellent point about VN's distrust of China

Perhaps a corollary was China's effect in serving as a constraint on U.S. policy in Southeast Asia. It's funny, but the only one among the cable punditry I've heard make that point was Pat Buchanan (!). (I think it was when a guest suggested the U.S. should have invaded North Vietnam.)

[grantcart]

31. well that mistrust was pretty spot on as the Third Indochina War proved

In one month the Chinese lost 26,000 almost half of what the US lost in 8 years of war.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sino-Vietnamese_War

[Winterblues]

34. We actually encountered quite a few of what we called Nungs

Chinese Nungs, although they lived in Vietnam and were basically mercenaries for the NVA. We used Montagnards and they used Nungs.

[Jackpine Radical]

35. Yes, the Nung are an ethnic group that migrated from China to Vietnam

in about 1954, when the French abandoned their Vietnam war after the fall of Dien Bien Phu.

[WillyT]

7. Off To The Greatest Page With You !!! - K & R !!!

:kick:

[UTUSN]

11. K&R #8 for, Tweety "admits" he ONLY went into the Peace Corps to escape.

Now, I give him a PASS because his generation of Irish-Cath kids were truly inspired by JFK. But, Tweety has a LOT to pay for.

[mopinko]

12. this is why i come here

that, and avoiding work.

[grantcart]

17. well it makes my day to think I helped rob your boss of your productivity

[mopinko]

20. sadly, i am my own boss

which explains a lot.

[bullwinkle428]

13. How silly of you to think that FACTS & RESEARCH have anything

to do with Tweety's daily blather! ;)

Seriously, the historical perspective is certainly appreciated by me, as someone born in the mid 60s.

[alcibiades_mystery]

14. Regular elements of the PAVN

Of course, Giap's doctrine of "People's War" always premised a transition from irregular to regular units, and much of the NLF cadres were absorbed into PAVN units after 1970, especially as infiltration became easier in the border regions.

Indeed, Giap already told us exactly what would happen in his explanations of the French campaign: irregular units would be absorbed into regular units, just as had happened with the Viet Minh. The "Viet Cong" (or the military arm of the National Liberation Front) can be read in two ways: first, as a spontaneous force resisting the rather outrageous actions of the Diem regime, and the several regimes shortly thereafter, through 1964 or so, then as a tactical arrangement designed to deal with asymmetry in the theater (1965-70). This doesn't mean that the PAVN "intentionally sacrificed" the NLF units during Tet (PAVN units occupying Hue were decimated, in any case), but that Tet was a transition moment in the general movement in the People's War strategy. In any case, PAVN units were already involved in the first major engagement of US ground forces (the Ia Drang campaign), and were increasingly involved thereafter (in Dak To, for instance). NLF cadre were most effective in the areas not readily susceptible to infiltration, especially in III and IV Corps. The war in northern I Corps was almost wholly a war against regular PAVN units, though the coastal villages were certainly run by the NLF.

In any case, your major point is correct: the final campaign in the Spring of 1975 was pure conventional military, a PAVN sweep. Of course, and again, that's what Giap always said it would be. I suspect that he wanted to actually end it much earlier (say, 1969 or 1970), but supply problems and Sino-Soviet relations, combined with the vicious US air campaign (which Giap did not think the US morally capable of) prolonged the conflict far beyond his timeframe.

[era veteran]

16. Tet, an American military victory, destroyed the VC

However it was a communist propaganda triumph, the NVA, laughing and sitting in the wings. Use that research staff for something Chris.

[Bigmack]

21. I have a hard time with "victory"...

of the US during Tet.

After Tet, proclamations by American commanders suffered from what became known at the time as the ‘credibility gap’. General Westmorland had regularly briefed the world’s press on the major defeats suffered by the NLF and PAVN; such optimistic accounts excluded the possibility of such nationwide attacks. In particular US public opinion was utterly shocked, not only by the scale of the offensive but by the brutal scenes in Saigon shown on their television screens. The eventual withdrawal of US troops was made certain by this event.

Tet simply showed us... and the world... that the war was un-winnable.

[era veteran]

22. Military victory over the VC, who were destroyed, is fact

All their cadre were dead. I agree with you on the rest. It was not looked at like a victory stateside.

[HughMoran]

18. Good post

thanks for spending the time to correct the record on this issue.

[PavePusher]

19. Chris Mathews is on the other side of the coin from Bill O'Reilly.

In the currency of "Blowhards'R'Us".

[pinboy3niner]

23. K&R! There was one film that "got" it: The Siege of Firebase Gloria

The Siege of Firebase Gloria

The Siege of Firebase Gloria is a 1989 film starring Wings Hauser and R. Lee Ermey that was filmed in the Philippines. According to a question and answer period in Sydney, director Brian Trenchard-Smith said that R. Lee Ermey wrote the screenplay.

Plot

A Marine patrol stops at an Army Firebase Gloria at the start of the Tet Offensive during the Vietnam war. With the firebase attacked, the patrol remains to help defend it. The Soldiers and Marines barely hold off the VC (Viet Cong), but in the end, hold the base with tenacity and help from the 1st Air CAV. They're subsequently forced to abandon it, having lost too many men in the process of defending it. Meanwhile, the Viet Cong commander discovers that he is in a similar position: it was never his mission to win the battle, but to lead his men to their deaths in order to allow the North Vietnamese Army to take a more substantial role in the war.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Siege_of_Firebase_Gloria

[grantcart]

28. great reference - the movie never made it to Thailand lol

[pinboy3niner]

29. Hey, it barely made it HERE, lol

[pinboy3niner]

32. I neglected to mention that in the movie...

...the realization that dawns on the VC commander is dramatized by one of the closing scenes, in which one of his men reports they've suffered massive casualties, their unit is wiped out. The Colonel responds by saying (from my memory, possibly not exact), "I wonder if that was not Hanoi's plan all along."

[DefenseLawyer]

30. too... complicated... not... black and white... must ... stop... reading... n/t

[11 Bravo]

33. Spot on! The VC were largely a motley crew of rag-tag chicken shits ...

great at terrorizing villes, and beheading papa-sans or village honchos who didn't toe their line; but nothing to sweat in terms of a firefight.
The NVA, on the other hand, were as tough, smart, and well-disciplined a fighting force as any in the world.