Word: saigon
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...will choose to ignore the negotiating position of Hanoi and the Provisional Revolutionary Government. He will take his "pleas for peace" to Peking and Moscow, and in the meantime he will soothe the American public with gentle reassurances that their boys will not be dying in Vietnam much longer. Saigon can fight...
...Destroy Is to Save. The extensive television coverage of Tet brought home to many Americans for the first time the bewildering contradictions of a bitter and seemingly unendable war. The summary execution of a Viet Cong prisoner on the streets of Saigon by a South Vietnamese police chief-seen in full color -seemed to dissolve the moral distinctions between friend and foe. "News would travel at 300,000 times the speed of a bullet in flight," writes Oberdorfer. The ultimate irony came from the American major who insisted that "it became necessary to destroy this village to save...
From a purely military viewpoint, the Tet offensive was a major defeat for the North Vietnamese. More than 67,000 troops were committed to battle in at least 100 cities and villages, in hopes of creating a general uprising that never happened; the Communist assaults on Saigon and Hue were bloodily repulsed. But the Viet Cong and North Vietnamese soldiers were able to strike at will all over the country and penetrated Allied lines with ease. This was dramatic evidence that Westmoreland's "success offensive" and his claim of imminent victory had been greatly oversold. The impact...
...rich but raw instant history, Oberdorfer devastatingly exposes the illusions about supposed enemy weaknesses that beset the American military command in 1968. Although U.S. officials in Saigon knew well in advance that a general offensive was being planned, they refused to believe that the North Vietnamese could mount one. The Communist general order of attack was intercepted and then published as a U.S. embassy press release-25 days before Tet began. Still, the order was officially dismissed as "internal propaganda" designed solely to inspire the Communist troops...
...South Vietnamese response, according to Oberdorfer, was hardly more perceptive. President Thieu, for instance, actively believed that the U.S. military had conspired with the Communists to bring about the Tet campaign. He suspected that a Communist success would force a coalition government on Saigon, and thereby speed up the prospect of American withdrawal. When Ambassador Ellsworth Bunker appeared on Saigon television to deny "this ridiculous claim," it was confirmation to many South Vietnamese that the rumors and accusations were true...