Land reform derailed by corruption. Post-Tet constitutional government consumed by corruption. Post-Tet military success ruined by looting (ie. corruption). Aid programs undermined by corruption. President Thieu corrupt. VP Ky smuggling and planning a coup. No government services without a bribe (or simply no services at all because the money is stolen). All the money paid for a new party stolen (according to a CIA report, no less). Does anyone sense a common thread here?
1
You're describing communist Vietnam. Today if you don't slip some money in your visa document when you hand it to airport personnel then your luggage will be held up for long inspection and you might miss your flight. If you don't pay off your local "law enforcement" officers then your business will be vandalized and your complaint will fall on deaf ears. Extortion by traffic cops is a fact of life like tax and death. In some villages and towns the entire bureaucratic structure of local government is held by people in the same extended families. Officially the salary of government officials is peanut but their residences would rival the palace of Versailles. Prostitution and human trafficking are rampant. Communist Vietnam today is a mini Russia in SE Asia.
The real story of how the war was going is still locked away in the DIOPS (Daily Intelligence and Operational Summary). They were all classified secret and still have not been declassified, and worse they are all exempt from Freedom of Information requests.
They alone will tell us who knew what and when they knew it, including the Whitehouse, military leaders and analysts.
1
the viet cong ruled the night while isa troops encamped at dark, thus the VC(sir charles) came out of tunnels and organized country side folks into their efforts. it worked very well for them. such strategies kept isa military frustrated to the max.
as a draftee infantryman our tour was 365 days, for communists and nationalists
the war was every day, 24/7 Xs forever.
I sure do miss part of my leg. I got my bone spurs after coming home.
If you were in combat and were not profoundly changed and affected, you were really never there
1
I agree that this was a very good article, but the remark "Hoping to dislodge Communist resistance, American air and artillery strikes leveled the city of Nha Trang" isn't even remotely true. There was some sharp fighting in Nha Trang during Tet but the city was not leveled, not even close.
3
The Thieu-Ky feud, starting from 1966, was inevitable. The 1967 presidential election intensified their hostility as Bunker and then President Johnson abandoned their "boy" in about July 1967. Ky's heroic actions during the Tet--while Thieu went to My Tho for vacation--were in vain. General Lansdale's memo of February 28, 1968 officially terminated Ky's political career. From that day on, the "clever" Thieu maliciously played the game of deceits to consolidate his power. He even declared that he would only stop to fight Communist when the Americans cut the aids. However, when Johnson ceased the bombings of North Vietnam and Beijing agreed for Ha Noi to fight-talk/talk-fight, Thieu did not send his representatives to the Paris talks. It was reported that Nixon had employed a Chinese woman to convince Thieu, via Bui Diem, or Nguyen Van Kieu, Thieu's older brother.
As for a chance to turn over the situation, it's highly problematic.
Political opinions are not facts, no matter how often they are repeated.
I guess we should forget the Vietnamese that were being deliberately shelled on the Highway of Terror during 1972 by the NVA, the re-education camps where so many died, and those who risked their lives on boats getting away from the communist government that still exists today.
Inconvenient facts always seem to get in the way.
2
The author characterizes "Vietnam [as] home to millions of fervent but factionalized anti-Communists, mostly concentrated in urban centers and provincial capitals." How many more people were living in the countryside than in those cities? Except for some of the larger provinces, the assertion about provincial capitals is dubious as well. Particularly in the Mekong, the communists moved fairly freely in the provincial capitals. Remember that the expression, "It became necessary to destroy the town to save it." was made about Ben Tre, a delta provincial capital. The urban anti-communist populations was surely a definite minority.
Some American people appears to be easily influenced and hypercritical. A few fake news in social networks are enough to change the outcome of a presidential election. A few articles in newspapers and TV documentaries are enough to convince people that they are already experts in the Vietnam War to readily pass judgment on the matter with condescending attitudes. The squabble between the American opposing political parties is considered the cornerstone of democracy, yet, the struggle for the political self-determination of the people of South Vietnam is a subject to be ridiculed.
No wonder some people even think that with a friend like some Americans they don’t need enemy.
Sad!
8
Yeah, sure and massive indiscriminate civilian bombing, agent orange, napalm, cluster bombs and leveling of villages had nothing to do with the outcome of the war. The people of Vietnam loved us for all that. They also loved their authoritian corrupt governments propped up by our dollars almost as much. Wasn't General KY implicated in drug smuggling too? By the way, expanding the war to Laos and Cambodia surely meant that Nixon could have won any election he ran for in Vietnam. Your writing is a classic example of revisionist historical nonsense. Just because someone says they qualify themselves as an historian doesn't mean they understand history. Reminds me of those cold warrior academes termed " the best and the brightest"; fools that they were.
1
And wasn't the CIA also implicated in drug smuggling, not just in Vietnam, but also in many places including Los Angeles years later?
Some American people appears to be easily influenced and hypercritical. A few fake news in social networks are enough to change the outcome of a presidential election. A few articles in newspapers and TV documentaries are enough to convince people that they are already experts in the Vietnam War to readily pass judgment on the matter with condescending attitudes. The squabble between the American opposing political parties is considered the cornerstone of democracy, yet, the struggle for the political self-determination of the people of South Vietnam is a subject to be ridiculed.
No wonder some people even think that with friends like some Americans they don’t need enemy.
Sad!
3
Yes, the much maligned Republic of South Vietnam and its Armed Forces. Though the ARVN suffered many desertions, the appears to be no record of them switching sides to the communists. Apparently they just went home.
Nor is there a record of the thousands of Chieu Hoi's switching back to the communist side.
Of the AFVN that stuck in out and fought, 250,000 died.
2
The obvious purpose of this essay is an effort to legitimize America's abandonment of the RVN.
The Republic of Vietnam was never a republic and never represented the will of the South Vietnamese people. Had the Southerners reformed their political system at anytime after 1954, the South had a good chance of staying independent of the North.
1
Indeed, the failure of the South Vietnamese government to comprehensively and effectively govern led to it’s declining popularity and defeat, but to point to one moment as the key in two decades of this failure seems a bit reductive. Granted, the Post-Tet panic briefly drove internecine adversaries into each other’s arms, but fear is a poor binding agent, and with no group capable of securing rural support, no coalition could counter the strength of the NLF in the countryside, and none would abide. Was this then a missed opportunity, a key political failure? If so it was one of many such failures and wasted opportunities; so much so that one begins to wonder if, composed and constituted as it was, the notion of a secure, well governed and fully democratic Vietnam, standing as a bulwark against an aggressively expanding world communism, was ever more than a fairy tale dreamed up by feverish and virulent anti-communist imaginations. I’m not sure the political failure of the government in Saigon after Tet was the knock out punch to the nation. It is an interesting conceit, but in any case a purely academic one. Surely the ham-fisted, disorienting infusion of American money, capitalism and military might, the patronizing Orientalism and hapless patronage of inept, corrupt and self-serving strong men, were the blows that softened the body politic of an already frail and unfit contender, one that Washington itself threw into the ring.
2
All other issues aside, the Vietnamese Civil War was fought by one side allied with the West and fully collaborationist, and another side while relying upon the support of outside powers was fully and intrinsically Vietnamese.
Our family moved to Saigon for two years, 1955-56, when I was 12. It was common knowledge among us kids that the Vietnamese government was corrupt, because our parents discussed and gossiped about it all the time. There seemed to be an attitude of "Our side may be vicious criminals, but the Commies are worse." I could not understood what we hoped to accomplish, but I was just a kid, what did I know? Today, after reading histories like Archimedes Patti's book, "Why Vietnam?" and watching Ken Burns' documentary it has become clear that the war should never have happened. But if you want to play out alternative scenarios, here's the one I like: after WWII we prevent the French from re-colonizing Vietnam, and let Vietnamese sort out their country themselves, without our interference. Without the wars, all nations would be better off and a lot of people would still be alive today.
9
A well-detailed article.
I disagree that South Vietnam has been "mischaracterized as an American client regime". More precisely, South Vietnam was an American client government throughout its regime changes. We and the French created South Vietnam - the agreement was for general elections, which we knew the Communists would win. We gave RVN enormous quantities of aid. RVN therefore limited their actions. When An Quang Buddhists, attained a position of government influence, they dropped demands for immediate American withdrawal, because without America the government would collapse.
Being a client government does not imply anywhere near the same degree of control as being a puppet government or a colony does. The RVN had its own governmental policy. But as history shows, even when RVN split from an official US government position, it was allying itself with another American government faction. RVN reversed its position in favor of peace talks in 1968 because Nixon as candidate secretly told them to, offering benefits if they would trust him. Later, the opening of the Paris Peace Talks was long delayed by squabbles about the shape of the negotiating table. South Vietnam was backed in this regard by powerful men in the American government who wanted the talks delayed or derailed
Although the author says residents were incensed by Communist executions, no mention is made of those by the US (including 61,740 officially "neutralized" by the Phoenix assassination program) and RVN.
2
Blaming the South Vietnamese for their loss to North Vietnam? What a bad joke.
When the French were driven out of Vietnam the US justified its intervention based on the domino theory, which said that letting one southeast Asian country become Communist would lead to a similar conversion of other nearby countries.
How many American and Vietnamese lives and billions of dollars would have been saved if we had kept out of Vietnam? And what was the result? North Vietnam prevailed and the US has recognized and deals with what is now the Socialist Republic of Vietnam.
And, of course, the US is still fighting in and spending on Afghanistan, which the British and Russians were unable to conquer/pacify.
So much for the idea that people are intelligent enough to learn from history; I guess politicians don't read or understand history.
2
Well raises this question of what would have happened if we had stayed out of Vietnam. We went in because Harry Truman reversed the strongly held position of FDR who, in a memo to Secretary of State Cordell Hull, said: "Indo-China should not go back to France but that it should be administered by an international trusteeship. France has had the country-thirty million inhabitants for nearly one hundred years, and the people are worse off than they were at the beginning." Truman reversed it upon taking office.
Actually, the British technically let the French back into Vietnam towards the end of 1945/on into 1946. The Americans probably didn't have an opinion at the time, or were Eurocentric, feeling they had to be supportive of France's aspirations (along with getting them a security council seat and an occupation role in Germany). Substantive aid didn't commence until 5 years later. To quote the Pentagon Papers: "The United States decision to provide military assistance to France and the Associated States of Indochina was reached informally in February/March 1950, funded by the President on May 1, 1950, and was announced on May 8 of that year. "
Sean Fear's persistent misuse of 'communist' (like today's 'terrorist'), pretty much defines his not very credible appraisal of South Vietnam's defeat. A more realistic recognition of the players involved (far fewer 'communists' than he would have us believe), would help.
6
Actually, in light of facts coming out about the regime in the North during the war, "Communist" seems a very accurate designation. Then there is the fact that a severe Marxist Leninist Dictatorship was formally put in place in the North in the 1950s, and then extended over the south in the mid-1970s (formally in 1976 I believe).
I have the distinct impression that supporters of America's miserable and quasi-genocidal policy in South Vietnam are revising and distorting the history of that war.
(I know that calling our policiy "quasi-genocidal" isn't exactly the apogee of moderation, but large swaths of South Vietnam, which we were ostensibly defending, were deemed "free fire zones" where we killed everything that lived, all people and all plant life as we poisoned the land with agent orange and other defoliiants)
This article suggests that there was a huge anti communist movement in South Vietnam. I suggest that the author listen to Robert Kennedy's impassioned speech at the University of Kansas: Bobby asked why American boys fight and die in Khe Sang when South Vietnamese boys made money by selling US contraband in the black market.
There were always plenty of avaricious merchants in the cities which were anti Communist, but many of them were also Catholics who suppressed the Buddhists and did not fight the communists.
Senator Eugene Mc Carthy had it right when he said that South Vietnam was a public relations job. It was a farce of a state that was a wholly owned subsidiary of Lyndon Baines Johnson and the Amreican war machine.
One final thing: So many conservatives tell us that the Tet Offensive was a failure for the communists. Rubbish. If it was a failure, why did the Joints Chiefs of Staff recommnend a swift infusion of an additional 200,000 troops in the wake of Tet.
5
Obviously, you have not read Sun Tzu & Clausewitz.
You strike when the enemy is weak, ergo the 200k additional troops.
Sorry- not correct to blame LBJ. Share goes to the continued arrogance of the Kennedy team, and continued by Nixon and Kissinger. Folly and tragedy over 3 administrations
4
But LBJ is the tyrant who increased our troop levels from less than 20,000 to Half a million. LBJ is the man who embarked on Rolling Thunder and the bombing of North Vietnam (And all of IndoChina for that matter), and the bomb tonnage we dropped exceeded the total bomb tonnage dropped by all combatants in the whole of World War Two. LBJ was the boorish, vulgar man who said of Vietnam, "Hang the coonskin on the Wall."
1
We will not be defeated so long as we keep fighting. So off to Iraq to once again to prevent the Viet Cong from taking Saigon.
Don’t you love farce? - Sondheim
3
The "communists"?
The Vietnam War was a civil war and you reduce the North to simply an economic ideology? They were fighting for their country, not for the right to attend boring lectures.
That was the way the war was sold in the US, as well, and it was just a PR move to hide the fact that the US was intent on tricking the American people into using its blood and treasure to use the Vietnamese people as pawns in an international conflict.
Hugh Massengill, Eugene Oregon
5
Look at how the leaders of the North privately described themselves. Look at their actions. They were very much Communists who believed in wielding substantial power over civil society, and in establishing/continuing a Marxist Leninist dictatorship.
They described themselves as the real-deal nationalists and thought it takes a Communist to make one, if you want to know. Now attend to the affairs of some country a little neaer to yours.
Sounds remarkably similar to post-2003 Iraq and post-2001 Afghanistan
3
According to H.R. McMaster in his book about how-we-got-in-deep, the JCS saw problems with the SVN government less than a year after the 1963 coup against Diem. By early 1965 no less a figure than Maxwell Taylor, now ambassador there, saw doom for US policy after about five could and three more unsuccessful ones in that short space of time. But, higher body counts and more bombing would win Vietnam's civil war.
The article's rendition of the ARVN fleeing the enemy's assault at Tet and other provincial cities, then returning to loot and pillage the population once the communists had withdrawn, is particularly evocative. So much for military interventions that replace local forces with our own.
3
We said to South Vietnam; 'Communism is bad for you. You don't want that!. Then helped maintain a right wing fascist government.
Classic.
Sad.
10
This analysis seems to me to be factual and a valid take on one of the ways to look at the defeat of South Vietnam by the communist North. Those with a perennial ideological axe to grind against the United States of course will prefer a more blame-America first explanation.
Vietnam was mainly a peasant society, where as the author concedes the Communist were popular and ruled. The small pro-Western urban elite never had a real chance and were isolated from the mass of poor people who made up the population. Given the level of corruption, greed and authoritarianism of the South Vietnamese government their defeat was the best outcome. Vietnam thrives today.
1
Better than the usual times fabrications in this series but still flawed. South Vietnam no more lost the war due to internal divisions than France fell to Nazi germany due to internal divisions. Both were beaten by overwhelming outside military force. Perhaps the times will someday acknowledge that fact. Right does not always beat might. But losing doesn’t change the moral equation. Still I’d enjoy a times article explaining how if they’d only been more united the Belgians would have repelled the Germans in 1914.
In 1975, the South Vietnamese army (ARVN) had about 1.1 millon soldiers. In addition there were several million part-time militia. All this out of a population of only 18 million. The Communist forces which crushed this mammoth army had about 200,000 North Vietnamese soldiers and perhaps at most about 100,000 southern Communists under arms (the Vietcong). The ARVN was supported by a powerful air force which was bombing the Communists down to the last days of the war. The Communists had no air force in South Vietnam and for most of the war no motorised transport. ARVN had lots of trucks and helicopters. The Communists mostly lived on rice with salt and, if they were lucky, dried fish. The Communists had no helicoptered evacuation of the wounded as ARVN did. As for ammunition, ARVN complained of shortages but abandoned no less than 130, 000 tons of it to the Communists in 1975, along with other arms estimated to value 6 billion dollars- about 30 billion dollars in today's prices. The Communists had outdated Soviet tanks and transport vehicles.
Still think the Communists had it easy? Read George Veith (an anti-Hanoi historian), "Black April".
Gee, nice to know it was more the fault of the South Vietnamese than us.Oh. and by the way - the reason we were there was --? It would be interesting to know which of our military "genius" leaders since WW2 was remotely one. The scorecard is pretty much zippo on occupying countries where we are not wanted or needed. And of course, ever spending one thin dime on things in this country would be an obscene waste of money compared to throwing it in the dirt around the planet just to show we can (I guess).
4
"Still routinely mischaracterized as an American client regime, South Vietnam was home to millions of fervent but factionalized anti-Communists" ???
Mischaracterized? When Vietnam held elections and Ngo Dinh Diem received "98.2%" of the vote (600,000 votes were cast by 400,000 voters in Vietnam), did the United States refuse to recognize this corrupt leader? On the contrary, the US recognized him right away and propped up the regime with guns and money. So claiming that S. Vietnam wasn't a client state is, at best, a distinction without a difference.
4
This is fascinating and it fits into the greater story that the US as world policeman containing communism and now terrorism, is easier theorized than done.
1
One of the reasons the reactionary CIA murdered President Kennedy was to reverse his de-escalation orders on Vietnam (NSAM 263). What could ever have caused such a reaction? The two billion dollar-a-year opium fields that have funded this rogue, unconstitutional, most murderous human-rights violator that history has ever known. Four days after JFK's most public murder, arch-criminal Lyndon Johnson reversed the decision with NSAM 273, thus insuring the continued flow of heroin to the US, and in turn, dollars to these fascist criminals. South Vietnamese government? Thieu was on the CIA payroll. "Democracy" in newspeak means being fed propaganda on a daily basis.
Mischaracterized as a client state? Really?
LBJ's wise men council met on March 25,1968 to discuss aftermath of Tet and Westmoreland's request for more troops and a widening of the war into Laos, Cambodia, and North Vietnam, mining of harbors and escalation of the air war in a operation dubbed "Complete Victory". Among those present were Former Korea and WWII commander Matt Ridgeway and UN Ambassador Goldberg. They questioned Westy assistant General DePuy and current JCS head Gen. Wheeler.
Gen. DePuy claimed almost 80,000 killed and Goldberg and Ridgeway were skeptical. They asked what typical KIA to WIA ratio was and DePuy replied about 3 to 1 and how many were still in the field and Depuy said about 230,000. Goldberg got agitated and said " I am not a mathematician but with 80,000 killed and with a wounded ration of 3 to 1 or 240,000, for a total of 320,000, WHO the hell are we fighting?"
Wheeler claimed the Pentagon was not seeking a "classic military victory in Vietnam." Dean Acheson bellowed " Then what in the name of God do we have 500,000 troops out there for? CHASING girls."
No one out did Nixon. After winning the 68 election he met with his Defense Secretary to be Melvin Laird and told him " I've come to the conclusion that there's no way to win the war. But we can't say that of course.
2
The US should have learned from the French failure. The US should have partnered with Ho who asked the US first. The US should gone with the 1956 unification election. Instead the US went with the US war machine.
It worked so well we are repeating it in more than half the countries in the world today and now have our own police state.
us army 1969-1971/california jd
3
Washington, with the decisions made there, was every bit complicit on the bloody debacle of defeat in Vietnam. Too obtuse to learn the noxious lesson of our ignorant, ideologically-driven intervention in a culture we totally misunderstood at the time, we plunged head first once again into an even more murderous adventure in Iraq.
It appears quite possible that we are again on the cusp of mindless catastrophe in Iran and North Korea.
2
“For all its flaws, the _________ was no mere puppet, and as a generation of American statesmen discovered, control of ___________’s purse-strings in no way bestowed control over its politics.”
We’re not short of names to fill in the blanks. Maybe the next generation of “statesmen” could be trained with some kind of chant, their tendency for rote thinking and self-delusion thereby being redirected towards a more useful form of common sense.
The U.S. lost because the U.S. never had any reason to be in Vietnam. In the service of our leader's lost cause, our leaders forced hundreds of thousands of young people, against their own wills, to throw their lives on the trash heap of history, much as the Taliban, Al Qaeda, Boko Haram and ISIS have thrown their young people on the trash heap of history. The Vietnam War was all about enriching and defending the power of the wealthy, at the expense of everyone else. That's why Donald Trump FAILED to heed the nation's call are record five times.
2
"Still routinely mischaracterized as an American client regime..."
FOIA documents clearly show that the CIA assassinated Diem and installed the Washington-friendly Thieu as president. There can be no other way to describe the South Vietnam government from that point on, than a US client regime.
Even with out Thieu's heroin dealing and other corruption, the outcome would still have been the same. The author is simply re-writing history.
2
Please read (or reread) "A Bright And Shining Lie". To paraphrase an American officer quoted in the book: "We had to destroy the country in order to save it".
1
This is one of the more poorly written pieces in this otherwise captivating series of articles. It is academic prose at its worst-- hyper-accurate, fusty, layered with intellectual qualifiers. I don't doubt the points he makes but who cares when you have to fight your way to yet another nuanced conclusion? It reads like an undergraduate term paper.
The best of these essays are written by people who were present, had first hand knowledge and write about it in simple declarative sentences. It is quite apparent that many are uncomfortable with the written word but that only adds to the veracity of the piece. I hope we can have more of them.
4
South Vietnam was controlled totally by the US in all facets of both political and military. That said, the US failed to understand or believe the intensity of the north's efforts for re-unification.
McNamara spoke about this some years ago in a documentary of his time as Secretary of Defense.
1
A North Vietnamese invasion with tanks and artillery had something to do with it.
1
Interesting, but it reminds me of the blind men who tried to describe the elephant. None was wrong, none was right. Graham Greene came a lot closer in his prescient novel (The Quiet American, 1955) in which his protagonist corrected the idealistic young American. It went something like this, 'The Vietnamese want enough to eat, they don't want to be shot at, they want one day to be pretty much like another, and most of all, they don't want our white skins here telling them what they want.'
7
Dr Fear is a careful, thoughtful scholar. Yet most of the comments here come from men who think that they already know it all. Even among NYT readers (at least when VN is the topic), it seems, respect fair serious academic expertise is scant. A pathetic situation. But congratulations to Dr Fear on this article.
1
How much was the U.S. misled by language problems? Initially, U.S had lots of decisionmakers who spoke fluent French and few who spoke Vietnamese. Lots of South Vietnamese spoke French, but they tended to be more adamantly anti-Communist than those who did not speak French.
1
The Vietnam war was a nationalist war. The United States intervened without any real thought about the Vietnamese, their factions, their shared desire and vision for a united, independent Vietnam. The critical period for intervention in Vietnam was the Eisenhower administration. The French had been defeated and political intervention, with financial aid, directed at creating an independent, united Vietnam could have ended the war.
The US notion that nation building begins only after military intervention and victory is one that failed in Vietnam and Iraq and is now failing in Afghanistan. The US cannot sustain military intervention in every war in which the people of a country rise up against a colonial administration, an occupying power or a totalitarian regime. Until we learn that nation building is the alternative to wars of intervention and occupation, we'll repeat the tragedy of the Vietnam war.
11
Interesting article, fascinating perspective on the Tet offensive. With respect to the bigger issue, the failure of South Vietnam as a state, wasn’t that inevitable given that it was never more than a temporary fiction created by the US?
12
Wrong, ngo dinh diem had already successfully unified south Viet nam before the US meddling. He implemented numerous reforms that led fewer prople turning to Communism. It was due to the US entering Viet nam and US endorsement of killing ngo dinh diem and his brother's that causes south Viet nam to become unstable and Communism rising again. And it was primarily US strategic failure on military/diplomatic and political turmoil at home that caused the fall of Vietnam. South vn gov had many weaknesses, but it was moving in the right direction. all it need was time
2
This is desperate American face saving, not Vietnamese history. Diem was a Catholic fanatic who drove the buddhist majority to desperation and self-immolation. nor did Saigon lack ammunition, as you say elsewhere. Read CIA Saigon military analyst Frank Snepp's book on the fall of South vietnam, "Decent Interval" (1977). He thoroughly exposes the myth that the ARVN ran short of arms. Nor was the NVA was well armed. George Veith's book "Black April" (2012) exposes that myth. The Soviets were mean towards their ally, denying them the latest Soviet tanks. When South Vietnam fell, 130,000 tons of ammunition was captured by the communists, along with 6 billion dollars worth of arms. That is around 30 billion dollars worth in today's money ! See Emmanuel Todd, "Cruel April".
Saigon had all the time in the world, like Hanoi. Still has. What Vietnam did not need was a 550,000 man invasion from a superpower that smashed the place to bits with 4 times the tonnage of bombs as in the whole world in World War II. Let Saigon fight all it wants. Americans stay home.
As an Army draftee who served overseas in 1968, I'm tired of reading still another: "We'll we could have won the war if only.....blah, blah, blah." The war was mostly a nationalist movement.....Vietnam for the Vietnamese. There are apparently still (too many) people trying to push some other possible winning outcome. No wonder we keep getting involved in losing propositions across the globe. I suppose it's just the military industrial complex that Eisenhower warned us about trying to sell their military hardware and please their stockholders.
24
Thank you, Jerry, for your common sense comment. The prevalence of American exceptionalism, in one form or another (as espoused across the spectrum, from Sarah Palin to Hillary Clinton), given the utter failure of America's globalist ambitions in Southeast Asia and the Middle East (basically the countries Israel's considers its enemies). When will we learn?
Thank you for this interesting article. Some observations: It would increase ease of reading by better editing language such as, “In the cities, where the initial shock inspired renewed determination, but the offensive was a severe psychological blow in much of the...".
This statement is questionable, "...and even then, the Communist retreat was tactical as much as imposed." Not all retreats are imposed, but most of them are, and often caused by betrayals, massive killings, lost and missing soldiers and equipment. Tet 1968 is no exception, unless we consider communist human losses of greater than 50,000 a blip on the screen; then also think of just how demoralizing it would be to watch your dead comrades being hauled-off as so much fodder, in rope nets from the mounts of helicopters designed to haul tanks, and 175 mm artillery pieces.
“The breakthrough came from Saigon’s de facto recognition of the Communists’ own wildly popular land redistribution efforts, implemented across the South years or even decades earlier." The base fact of this statement is pointed and rarely recognized by historians, but the characterization of the communist efforts as wildly popular is just wrong. By his own words, Ho Chi Minh supported communist land reforms which were brutal, arbitrary, and never really worked. Had the South undertaken such efforts, someone had to know in advance it would fail miserably.
6
Vietnam was already lost when the us refused to listen to ngo dinh diem advises to not enter vietnam and, to not signed agreement on Cambodia and Laos, then later endorsed his and his brother death. Saigon gov had many weaknesses, but the primary fall of Saigon are mainly due to us strategic military/diplomatic failure
6
If South Vietnamese disunity was sufficient to cause the fall of Saigon, explain why the North was so careful in its 74-75 offensive to make sure that the US would not respond as it did to the 72 Easter offensive.
"the South's lavishly equipped military"
The South's military had weapons, but by 1975 it had no ammo and a severe shortage of oil and lubricants to keep the weapons operational. They were rationing bullets. On paper the South might have had plenty of equipment to repel the North, but in the way of usable equipment they had very little.
13
by 1975, the south completely depleted most of it heavy weapons and oil. the north was fully supplied by China and Russia. the south viet nam didn't need american soldiers, they needs weapons, supplies, and money.
1
The Communists captured 130,000 tons of ammunition when the Saigon army collapsed. They were incredulous how well equipped the Saigon forces were compared to themselves. General Van Tien Dung, the NVA commander, was dazed by what he found when he visited ARVN headquarters. "They had so many resources we could not even dream of ", he commented, "even computers !" See Emmanuel Todd's book "Cruel April", and frank Snepp's "Decent Interval". the communists captured 6 billion dollars worth of arms ; about 30 billion in today's money.
1
History according to Rambo. The Saigon forces abandoned 130,000 tons of ammunition and 6 billion dollars worth of arms to the Communists as they ran away in 1975. See Frank Snepp: "Decent Interval"; or Emmanuel Todd, "Cruel April".
1
Thank you very much for this summary.
Did you write this with today's political climate in mind in mind?
'' Far more than any decision in Washington, the South Vietnamese government’s failure to unite and inspire core constituents or to attract a rural base provided the knockout blow.''
You could replace South Vietnamese Government, with Democratic Party.
Our own corruption is unabated favoring powerful interests over the good of the people
It too will cause our downfall.
8
Which regime operated more efficiently or ruthlessly, the communists or Saigon? Which one excelled at coopting the rural inhabitants of the country? These questions preoccupy Professor Fear's analysis of the downfall of the Thieu government, and his discussion of them provides valuable insights into Hanoi's triumph.
But another theme, running through this essay like a scarlet threat, seems more important than either of these two, especially from the standpoint of human welfare. Both sides claimed to represent the interests of the Vietnamese people, but their behavior proved otherwise. By 1968, if not earlier, it became clear that, whichever government won the war, the population would lose.
The Saigon regime, allied with an American military that substituted firepower and environmental destruction for strategy, allowed petty squabbling and corruption to defeat any initiatives designed to improve the lives of the people it governed. The communists, for their part, proved more effective at controlling the countryside, but also used their power to engage in often indiscriminate slaughter, especially during the Tet offensive.
The communist victory freed Vietnam of the lethal presence of the Americans, but in practice, the people of the country merely exchanged one set of masters for another. A Saigon victory would have had the same result. The Vietnamese people might well have issued the following verdict on the contending parties: "A plague on both your houses."
7
What this article mainly leaves out, except for one reference to the "Communists’ own wildly popular land redistribution efforts," is the role of the political and military coalition called the Provisional Revolutionary Government." The PRG was the anti-thesis of the corrupt "elected" government which was heavily dependent on US funding and support.
A combination of democratic nationalists and communists, the PRG pushed land reform and reunion of the country which artificially divided by the western winners of WWII. The article conveniently forgets that there already was a civil war in the country, a guerrilla war just like in so many other countries of Africa and Asia in that complex period of breaking up the old colonialist system. The military arm of the PRG was the National Liberation Front, and initially supplies and soldiers from the north of the Viet Nam had little to do with the revolts which were already occurring in the countryside.
5
This is the most salient article yet for it illuminates the political quagmire inherent in SV politics that was beyond America's competence to solve. We often failed to see that fear or rejection of the VC did not necessarily mean approval or support for the Thieu regime which offered little except self-interest to command the support of the rural populace. The author is correct in that the violence of Tet ( for the first time unlike in the French war wholesale destruction came to the major cities) unleashed pent up anger at the VC but this was only temporary and the American center offensive backed by tremendous firepower that resulted in destroyed homes and property and engendered refugees in areas like Cholon district of Saigon blunted some of the criticism of the VC. He is correct again in that some successes like land reform after Tet (land to tiller program) were had only to be dashed a few years later as govt appointees begin to feed at the corrupt trough. Correct again in contrary to popular belief the VC infrastructure was not destroyed only militarily damaged not politically eradicated. Our military intel specialists in Bing Duong and Choung Thien reported that while the VC suffered military defeat and setback their presence and influence in the countryside has " not correspondingly diminished." Their expectation was that at a later date the government gains will be easily reversed and at the present time chose not to contest pacification now.
7
I spent six months in Vietnam advising the South Vietnamese government after the US troops withdrew. I still can't help wondering if the US had had a more realistic approach to defending the important parts of the South and if the US had honored its promises to provide air and logistical support to the South Vietnamese forces could there have been a stalemate (like the Korean War). One of the major reasons for the collapse of the South was that, at the urging of the US military, they tried to defend ALL of the South all the way to the DMZ. If they had withdrawn to the South and defended Saigon and the Delta and if the US had attacked North Vietnamese forces as they extended their lines of communication and provided the logistical support they had promised at the "peace" negotiations perhaps they could have fought to a draw. We now know that the Vietcong had taken massive casualties during the Tet Offensive (indeed some believe that the North deliberately sacrificed most of the cadres that could have provided a communist South Vietnamese government). This was one of the reasons why the South ended up with a very subordinate position to Hanoi
6
With the impeachment of Nixon went secret promises of aid and cooperation. The North knew then their victory was in sight.
1
That's all we needed. A Vietnam cut in quarters are thirds. It was difficult enough when it was cut in half.
The Communist Southerners were never beaten. The Vietcong took a knock in 1968 but their infratructure laregly remained. Theyoften taxed the populationmore effectively than the government, recruited from it and propagandised it. Well over half of the 1.1 million Saigon army was tied down in the villaghes to prevent the Vietcong taking back the rural population. That was why the Saigon army never had the reserves to defeat the North Vietnamese army offensives. UIf the US stayed in there bombing the fighting would just have gone on for longer, with millions more killed and the same outcome. And for what purpse? To keep Vietnam divided to suit your friend Red China?
South Vietnam got a different kind of leadership from what they had before 1975. But they probably got the same type government. One state was organized, the other was chaos, surprised by who won. Communists lost in Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand so I think it's about leadership and providing some sort of rule of law.
1
Thanks Mr. Fear for a short, but concise summary of RVN's internal politics. None of it was apparent during the 14 months I spent there from April 1969 until June 1970. Although we transited then Saigon going to, and returning from Long An Province, to the South, 99% of my units time was spent outside any metropolitan areas in Long An and then Long Khanh provinces, and that time in hamlets.
I don't remember seeing any material evidence of the central governments presence in any of those hamlets. That kind of evidence may have been a bad idea given that when we, or the ARVN units we sometimes operated with, were no longer in the hamlets NVA and or VC units could be, and by our observations frequently were. Nevertheless, once beyond the concentration of U.S. and ARVN military around Bien Hoa, Long Binh and Ho Nai communication infrastructure was scant. I don't see how RVN's governments could persuade, capture and control the populations we were exposed to.
Quite frankly, agricultural work and family life devoured the hours of the Vietnamese we experienced when we weren't simply out in triple canopy jungle or patrolling the rubber plantations to interdict NVA supply lines. I would be very surprised to learn that at that time very many of them realistically any longer cared about the outcome of the war.
Disappointed as I was in April 1975, I was not at all surprised.
8
Rather hilarious that the New York Times of all papers decided to mark the half century of the Tet Offensive with an exercise in Rambo History !
A great example of how the US can solve its problems: break it up into regions, each with its own constitution. Each with its own currency, each with its own international trade agreements. Each with its own militia, but some banning guns from personal ownership, others banning trade with old US regions using offshore labor.
The southwest can be absorbed into Mexico, the midwest can be absorbed into Canada, the northeast can try to sell its banking ideas the the rest of us, and silicon valley can be absorbed into the ocean. The southeast can become a tourist destination like lower Italy and Greece.
Sometimes change is good. I'll go with Canada. NY can be absorbed into Britain if it so desires, but most likely will remain an independent financial island like Island.
This has been decades in the making.
3
It is a now very old story,
America fears revolution/insurrection because of a combination of ignorance, fear of loss of control, or some abstract ideology issues, or a misplaced sense of vital interests.
America throws support to warlord(s), thugs or military takeover of government. Said rulers, backed by American military hardware, soldiers and raw force indulge in corrupt, illegal practices, repress rights, fail to deliver security or services in a consistent way, and conduct somewhat regular atrocities. American forces do same.
Add time, and voila! American public sours on the involvement, no progress is made and defeat is produced. Civilians are slaughtered, further repression ensues and Americans go home having achieved nothing other than wasting blood and treasure, all the while reinforcing the world view of US being a reactionary empire.
That is your script. Defined in Vietnam, refined in Iraq and now being perfected in Afghanistan. Who knows who you will "liberate" next.
44
Explain South Korea.
1
This piece is quite illuminating and refined. I believe your response is just a re-statement of Hollywood stereotypes, but endorsed by the cave dwellers.