Word: dienbienphu
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Nonetheless, there are analysts who fear that Westmoreland may be falling into a trap set by North Viet Nam Defense Minister Vo Nguyen Giap, hero of Dienbienphu and strategist of the current offensive. Indeed, there are some chilling parallels between Giap's winter-spring offensive in 1954 and the current Red strategy. While the Communists built up their strength at Dienbienphu to 40,000 men-the estimated force now around Khe Sanh-they simultaneously launched assaults against the French throughout Indo-China. The Tet offensive was a similar widespread assault by the Communists which may have been aimed...
...mountains ranging from 4,000 to 8,000 feet. Separating the enemy looking down on Khe Sanh lie deep ravines and draws, layered with a triple canopy of foliage on teak and mahogany trees as high as 200 feet. In topography, Khe Sanh looks like a smaller version of Dienbienphu, but the terrain and underbrush are far worse for an attacker. The Communists must go downhill through terrible maneuvering grounds, cross the ravines, then climb the plateau on which Khe Sanh sits?all in the face of intensive artillery fire and air attack that the French at Dienbienphu...
...Impression of Stalemate. There was no doubt about who was the strategist behind the Communists' desperate thrust: North Viet Nam's Defense Minister General Vo Nguyen Giap, the charismatic victor over the French at Dienbienphu in 1954 and creator of the North Vietnamese army. In its surprise, its boldness, the sweep of its planning and its split-second orchestration, the general offensive bore all the unmistakable marks of Giap's genius. All the evidence indicated, in fact, that probably for the first time since the war against the French, Giap was personally directing the entire campaign in South Viet...
...hoped that the cost in allied lives would also be great; he has long since proved that he considers one American life worth five of his own in the campaign to weary the U.S. of the war. That, too, characterized his war against the French, where at Dienbienphu he even budgeted 100% casualties?and took 8,000 dead to wipe out 2,000 of the camp's defenders...
...force (Vo) and armor (Giap). The commander of North Viet Nam's armed forces and the overlord of the Viet Cong, he is a dangerous and wily foe who has become something of a legend in both Viet Nams for his stunning defeat of the French at Dienbienphu. He is one of the principal developers-along with Mao Tse-tung and Cuba's late Che Guevara-of the art of guerrilla warfare, a tactician of such talents that U.S. military experts have compared him with German Field Marshal Erwin Rommel. "You know when he's in charge...