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Posted by Ronald Peters --Previous Message--
on 1/4/2006, 8:15 am, in reply to "You've heard it all before so here it is again"
217.189.131.141
Yeah, it is so true, that is the biggest weakness of Democracy. The elected leaders are subject to public opinion.
: Interview of Bui Tin conducted by Stephen
: Young
: "How North Vietnam Won the War,"
: Wall Street Journal, August 3, 1995, page -
: A8
:
:
: What did the North Vietnamese leadership
: think of the American antiwar movement?
:
:
: What was the purpose of the Tet Offensive?
:
:
: How could the U.S. have been more successful
: in fighting the Vietnam War?
:
:
: Bui Tin, a former colonel in the North
: Vietnamese army, answers these questions in
: the following excerpts from an interview
: conducted by Stephen Young, a Minnesota
: attorney and human-rights activist.
:
:
: Bui Tin, who served on the general staff of
: North Vietnam's army, received the
: unconditional surrender of South Vietnam on
: April 30, 1975.
:
:
: He later became editor of the People's
: Daily, the official newspaper of Vietnam. He
: now lives in Paris, where he immigrated
: after becoming disillusioned with the fruits
: of Vietnamese communism.
:
:
: Question: How did Hanoi intend to defeat the
: Americans?
:
:
: Answer: By fighting a long war which would
: break their will to help South Vietnam. Ho
: Chi Minh said, "We don't need to win
: military victories, we only need to hit them
: until they give up and get out."
:
:
: Q: Was the American antiwar movement
: important to Hanoi's victory?
:
:
: A: 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.
:
:
: Q: Did the Politburo pay attention to these
: visits?
:
:
: A: Keenly.
:
:
: Q: Why?
:
:
: A: 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.
:
:
: Q: How could the Americans have won the war?
:
:
: A: Cut the Ho Chi Minh trail inside Laos. If
: Johnson had granted [Gen. William]
: Westmoreland's requests to enter Laos and
: block the Ho Chi Minh trail, Hanoi could not
: have won the war.
:
:
: Q: Anything else?
:
:
: A: Train South Vietnam's generals. The
: junior South Vietnamese officers were good,
: competent and courageous, but the commanding
: general officers were inept.
: Q: Did Hanoi expect that the National
: Liberation Front would win power in South
: Vietnam?
:
:
: A: No. Gen. [Vo Nguyen] Giap [commander of
: the North Vietnamese army] believed that
: guerrilla warfare was important but not
: sufficient for victory. Regular military
: divisions with artillery and armor would be
: needed. The Chinese believed in fighting
: only with guerrillas, but we had a different
: approach. The Chinese were reluctant to help
: us. Soviet aid made the war possible. Le
: Duan [secretary general of the Vietnamese
: Communist Party] once told Mao Tse-tung that
: if you help us, we are sure to win; if you
: don't, we will still win, but we will have
: to sacrifice one or two million more
: soldiers to do so.
:
:
: Q: Was the National Liberation Front an
: independent political movement of South
: Vietnamese?
:
:
: A: No. It was set up by our Communist Party
: to implement a decision of the Third Party
: Congress of September 1960. We always said
: there was only one party, only one army in
: the war to liberate the South and unify the
: nation. At all times there was only one
: party commissar in command of the South.
:
:
: Q: Why was the Ho Chi Minh trail so
: important?
:
:
: A: It was the only way to bring sufficient
: military power to bear on the fighting in
: the South. Building and maintaining the
: trail was a huge effort, involving tens of
: thousands of soldiers, drivers, repair
: teams, medical stations, communication
: units.
: Q: What of American bombing of the Ho Chi
: Minh trail?
:
:
: A: Not very effective. Our operations were
: never compromised by attacks on the trail.
: At times, accurate B-52 strikes would cause
: real damage, but we put so much in at the
: top of the trail that enough men and weapons
: to prolong the war always came out the
: bottom. Bombing by smaller planes rarely hit
: significant targets.
:
:
: Q: What of American bombing of North
: Vietnam?
:
:
: A: If all the bombing had been concentrated
: at one time, it would have hurt our efforts.
: But the bombing was expanded in slow stages
: under Johnson and it didn't worry us. We had
: plenty of times to prepare alternative
: routes and facilities. We always had
: stockpiles of rice ready to feed the people
: for months if a harvest were damaged. The
: Soviets bought rice from Thailand for us.
:
:
: Q: What was the purpose of the 1968 Tet
: Offensive?
:
:
: A: 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.
:
:
: Q: What about Gen. Westmoreland's strategy
: and tactics caused you concern?
:
:
: A: Our senior commander in the South, Gen.
: Nguyen Chi Thanh, knew that we were losing
: base areas, control of the rural population
: and that his main forces were being pushed
: out to the borders of South Vietnam. He also
: worried that Westmoreland might receive
: permission to enter Laos and cut the Ho Chi
: Minh Trail. In January 1967, after
: discussions with Le Duan, Thanh proposed the
: Tet Offensive. Thanh was the senior member
: of the Politburo in South Vietnam. He
: supervised the entire war effort. Thanh's
: struggle philosophy was that "America
: is wealthy but not resolute," and
: "squeeze tight to the American chest
: and attack." He was invited up to Hanoi
: for further discussions. He went on
: commercial flights with a false passport
: from Cambodia to Hong Kong and then to
: Hanoi. Only in July was his plan adopted by
: the leadership. Then Johnson had rejected
: Westmoreland's request for 200,000 more
: troops. We realized that America had made
: its maximum military commitment to the war.
: Vietnam was not sufficiently important for
: the United States to call up its reserves.
: We had stretched American power to a
: breaking point. When more frustration set
: in, all the Americans could do would be to
: withdraw; they had no more troops to send
: over. Tet was designed to influence American
: public opinion. We would attack poorly
: defended parts of South Vietnam cities
: during a holiday and a truce when few South
: Vietnamese troops would be on duty. Before
: the main attack, we would entice American
: units to advance close to the borders, away
: from the cities. By attacking all South
: Vietnam's major cities, we would spread out
: our forces and neutralize the impact of
: American firepower. Attacking on a broad
: front, we would lose some battles but win
: others. We used local forces nearby each
: target to frustrate discovery of our plans.
: Small teams, like the one which attacked the
: U.S. Embassy in Saigon, would be sufficient.
: It was a guerrilla strategy of hit-and-run
: raids.
:
:
: Q: What about the results?
:
:
: A: 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.
:
:
: Q: What of Nixon?
:
:
: A: Well, when Nixon stepped down because of
: Watergate we knew we would win. Pham Van
: Dong [prime minister of North Vietnam] said
: of Gerald Ford, the new president,
: "he's the weakest president in U.S.
: history; the people didn't elect him; even
: if you gave him candy, he doesn't dare to
: intervene in Vietnam again." We tested
: Ford's resolve by attacking Phuoc Long in
: January 1975. When Ford kept American B-52's
: in their hangers, our leadership decided on
: a big offensive against South Vietnam.
:
:
: Q: What else?
:
:
: A: We had the impression that American
: commanders had their hands tied by political
: factors. Your generals could never deploy a
: maximum force for greatest military effect.
:
:
:
:
:
:
:
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