Where the Domino Fell: America and Vietnam 1945-1995

by James S. Olson

  But Westmoreland was never more certain that victory was at hand. By the end of 1967, the enemy death toll was more than fifteen times the 16,021 GI lives the war had taken. Nearly half of all the enemy battalions, Westmoreland claimed, were no longer combat-effective. The border battles were proof of American superiority. Enemy supply lines had been so decimated by American firepower that enemy troops had to keep close to the Laotian and Cambodian borders and the Demilitarized Zone. The communists were no longer capable, Westmoreland was convinced, of bringing the war to the heart of South Vietnam.

  Johnson needed advice. Like Eisenhower and Kennedy before him, he listened to hard-liners and advocates of a scaling back, and he charted a middle course, hoping to secure the political integrity of South Vietnam without triggering a Soviet or Chinese intervention. Yet that middle course led inexorably to steady escalation. For another opinion, Johnson turned to the Wise Men.

  On November 1, 1967, they assembled at the White House, the “best and the brightest” of two generations. Dean Acheson was there, as were McGeorge Bundy, Maxwell Taylor, Henry Cabot Lodge, W. Averell Harri-man, and George Ball along with General Omar Bradley, World War II hero and chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff during the Korean War; Supreme Court Justice Abe Fortas, one of Johnson’s closest advisers; Clark Clifford, another intimate of Johnson who had been a trusted Truman aide and head of the Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board during the Kennedy administration; Douglas Dillon, former secretary of the treasury under Kennedy; and Robert Murphy, a prominent career diplomat.

  Johnson asked the Wise Men whether he was on the right course, and they responded as he had expected. Straight from Acheson, the old cold warrior from the Truman administration, came the opinion that “We certainly should not get out of Vietnam.” McGeorge Bundy concurred, arguing that “getting out of Vietnam is as impossible as it is undesirable.” While he listened to the Wise Men, Walt Rostow became exultant, urging Johnson “to have a full leadership meeting of this kind, introduced by yourself, after which you could put the whole thing on television.” They all told Johnson what he wanted to hear, all except one. Former Undersecretary of State George Ball suddenly stood up and shouted: “I've been watching you across the table. You're like a flock of buzzards sitting on a fence, sending the young men off to be killed. You ought to be ashamed of yourselves.”

  Ball was a minority of one. Withdrawal was still out of the question if there was to be any hope for the survival of a noncommunist government in South Vietnam. Nor would Johnson’s personality permit it. He was too proud, too committed to presidential greatness to give up. Bundy suggested a possibly workable course: abandoning the big-unit sweeps that brought such heavy casualties. Smaller unit operations, designed to reduce American casualties, should go with a concerted effort to transfer major combat responsibilities to ARVN. That way the American people would tolerate politically an effort that might take five or ten years to accomplish. For the first time in years, Johnson began seriously to reconsider his commitment to Westmoreland’s strategy of attrition. But for the short run, he needed a big victory to salvage his administration, something akin to what the battle of Antietam had done for Abraham Lincoln in 1862 or the Normandy invasion for Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1944.

  Military intelligence indicated that North Vietnam had massed nearly 40,000 troops around Khe Sanh in western Quang Tri Province, eighteen miles south of the DMZ and eight miles east of Laos. The North Vietnamese 325C Division was northwest of Khe Sanh; the 304th Division was to the southwest; and elements of the 320th and 324th Divisions were ready for reinforcement. Westmoreland thought Khe Sanh to be of great strategic significance. It could be used for covert operations into Laos and reconnaissance flights over the Ho Chi Minh Trail, and as a base to cut off infiltration along Highway 9. Perhaps a battle there would be of the conventional kind for which the military longed. Johnson hoped for Khe Sanh to provide him the victory he was seeking. He had a scale model of Khe Sanh built in the White House situation room so he could follow the battle day by day and eventually hour by hour. The press called Khe Sanh “another Dienbienphu.”

  Westmoreland added 6,000 marines to the force already at Khe Sanh and launched Operation Niagara to pulverize the enemy. For the next two months he sent more than 5,000 aircraft sorties against the North Vietnamese positions, detonating over 100,000 tons—200 million pounds— of explosives on less than five square miles. On January 21, 1968, the North Vietnamese artillery bombardment began. It was just what Westmoreland had expected. As at Dienbienphu, an intense artillery attack would be followed by an infantry assault. The marines dug in and waited. Westmoreland waited. Lyndon Johnson waited. But the attack did not come. Instead, tens of thousands of Vietcong were sneaking into the cities and provincial capitals of South Vietnam. In the early morning hours of January 31, while Americans waited for the attack on Khe Sanh, the Tet offensive began.

  8

  Tet and the Year of the Monkey, 1968

  If this is a failure, I hope the Viet Cong never have a major success.

  —Senator George Aiken, February 1968

  It was January 24, 1968, and in Saigon, Robert Komer offered an assessment of the war at the “five o’clock follies,” when the press gathered to hear the latest “General Blimp” reports. Komer was at his optimistic best: “We begin 1968 in a better position than we have ever been.” At the White House, Lyndon Johnson was in his bathrobe, unable to sleep, pacing the floor as he read the cables on Khe Sanh. A Pentagon photographic analyst was on hand waiting for one of the president’s requests to explain something in an aerial photograph. A table model of Khe Sanh, with small flags posted on the periphery, indicated the presence of several NVA divisions. In the middle, poised on the plateau, were the insignia of marine battalions. Khe Sanh was Johnson’s obsession. “I don’t want any damn Dinbinphoo,” he told Earle Wheeler.

  William Westmoreland was no less obsessed. The border battles of late 1967 and early 1968 at Con Thien, Loc Ninh, Dak To, and Khe Sanh had convinced him that the enemy shift to conventional warfare was at hand; the invasion would begin just south of the Demilitarized Zone. For two months Westmoreland transferred combat units north. By early January 1968 more than half of all American combat units were in I Corps.

  The real target was not Khe Sanh. It was all of urban South Vietnam.

  In mid-1967 North Vietnam had contemplated a major attack. American fire-power was inflicting massive casualties on communist troops, and the Thieu-Ky government seemed to be stable. North Vietnam was weary of the bombing and yearned for peace. United States troops controlled the cities, and the narrowness of the country, along with the recent innovations in helicopter and air cavalry operations, allowed the Americans to attack a wide range of targets and to do so at their pleasure. Hanoi also worried about a possible American invasion of North Vietnam. Rapid urbanization in South Vietnam was shrinking the number of people available in the countryside for Vietcong recruitment. The communists wanted a dramatic military event that would undermine the Saigon regime and force out the United States.

  The nature of that event was intensely debated. Nguyen Chi Thanh went to Hanoi in June 1967 to call for a massive attack on the cities of South Vietnam using local Vietcong guerrillas, Main Force Vietcong, and NVA regulars. He predicted tactical as well as strategic success. Thanh felt sure the communists could inspire a peasant uprising in South Vietnam, undermine the Thieu-Ky regime, force an ARVN surrender, secure a military foothold in the major cities and provincial capitals, and inflict enormous casualties on Americans. Thanh also wanted to bring the war home to the South Vietnamese cities. In the Politburo, Le Duan supported Thanh, but Vo Nguyen Giap opposed him. The United States was at the height of its power. If the massive attack failed and Main Force Vietcong and NVA units were destroyed, the revolution would be set back years. Giap offered an alternative. NVA troops would create diversions in border areas, drawing American combat units out of the cities, while Vietcong guerrillas, with some Main
Force support, launched the general offensive. Thanh retorted that Giap was sacrificing the Vietcong, most of them southerners, while North Vietnamese regulars were safe in diversionary activities. The debate was intense until July 6, 1967, when Thanh died suddenly. Giap’s view prevailed.

  North Vietnam also devised a series of diplomatic diversions. In the fall the National Liberation Front initiated secret contacts with the United States embassy and mentioned the possibility of peace talks. In December 1967 Pham Van Dong announced Hanoi’s intention to sit down and talk about the war once the United States stopped the bombing. The North Vietnamese were trying to drive a wedge between the United States and South Vietnam, which did not want peace talks of any kind, and to raise hopes among Americans that a negotiated settlement was near.

  Late in July the Politburo voted to launch the attack early in 1968. By September the North Vietnamese were infiltrating huge volumes of supplies and hiding them near provincial capitals and major cities. More than 84,000 Vietcong troops moved into position while NVA troops distracted Westmoreland with the border battles. Tran Van Tra headed Vietcong forces in South Vietnam. He had first assumed command of Main Force Vietcong in 1963. Nguyen Chi Thanh took over in 1964. When Thanh died, Tra was back in power. As operational planner of the offensive, Tra selected Tran Do, a commander beloved by his troops because of his willingness to live in the field with them.

  American intelligence realized that more supplies than ever were moving down the Ho Chi Minh Trail, but the specialists were convinced the attack would come at Khe Sanh. As the end of the year approached, the communists appealed to ARVN and MACV for a cease-fire during the Tet holiday so that Vietnamese could celebrate the new year. Believing in the sincerity of the foe, South Vietnam sent half of ARVN troops home for the holidays. That was a mistake. The Vietcong had infiltrated five armed battalions into Saigon alone. In the week before Tet they drifted into the city on foot, bicycles, and mopeds. The leadership established a central command post and a field hospital underground at the Phu Tho racetrack in Cholon.

  Just after midnight on January 30, 1968, the Vietcong attacks began. In addition to assaults on thirty-six of the forty-four provincial capitals and five of six major cities, they struck the United States embassy, Tan Son Nhut air base, the presidential palace, and the South Vietnamese general staff headquarters. In I Corps they hit Quang Tri City and Tam Ky, seized Hue, raising the National Liberation Front flag over the Citadel, and attacked the marines at Chu Lai and Phu Bai. II Corps was shaken by assaults on Tuy Hoa and Phan Thiet as well as the American bases at Bong Son and An Khe. In III Corps the Vietcong went after ARVN headquarters at Bien Hoa and United States Field Force headquarters at Long Binh. The attacks in IV Corps—the Mekong Delta—were fierce. The Vietcong hit other provincial and district capitals. The extent of the surprise is caught in a comment to reporters by General John Chaisson, an aide to Westmoreland, three days after the beginning of the Tet offensive: “Well . . . the intelligence did not indicate that we were going to have any such massive attacks as this . . . . We were quite confident that something would happen around . . . Tet . . . but . . . intelligence at least never unfolded to me any panorama of attacks such as happened this week.”

  The most spectacular attack was on the American embassy in Saigon. At 1:30 a.m. on January 31, the Vietcong blew a hole in the embassy wall and poured through carrying explosives and automatic weapons. All night long a battle raged between guerrillas and the troops from the 101st Airborne, who helicoptered onto the embassy roof. By 9:00 a.m. the embassy was secure. Bodies littered the compound. Bloody footprints marched up the external stairway. Reporters were everywhere. Kate Webb of the UPI described the scene as “a butcher shop in Eden.” Westmoreland marched into the compound at 9:20 and claimed an American victory, insisting that the communists were being slaughtered throughout the country and the attack on Saigon was only a diversion before the main attack near Khe Sanh. The journalists were dumbfounded. How could the commander claim a victory when the Vietcong had gotten into the embassy compound, supposedly the single most secure place in South Vietnam? The next day General Nguyen Ngoc Loan, head of the South Vietnamese police, saw ARVN troops escorting a Vietcong soldier down the street. Loan walked up to him, placed a revolver to his temple, and blew his brains out. Eddie Adams, an Associated Press photographer, and a Vietnamese cameraman for NBC News filmed the whole incident. Millions of Americans watched the killing in their living rooms that night or read about it the next morning. Together with clips of Westmoreland on the embassy grounds, the image of the shooting became symbolic of the Tet offensive.

  February 2, 1968. ARVN Colonel Nguyen Ngoc Loan pulls out his pistol and executes the Vietcong on the spot with a single shot to the head. (Courtesy, Library of Congress.)

  The battle to drive the Vietcong out of Saigon was bloody. More than 10,000 ARVN troops moved into Cholon in a house-to-house search. On February 3 MACV declared much of Cholon a free fire zone and told civilians to get out. The next day American and South Vietnamese aircraft conducted a massive bombing of Cholon to dislodge the enemy. After six days of bombardment, the 199th Light Infantry Brigade moved into the neighborhood, attacked the Phu Tho racetrack, and wiped out the rest of the Vietcong. Much of Cholon lay in rubble.

  In Hue, where the bloodiest fighting occurred, 7,500 communist troops went on the offensive. Most of them were NVA regulars. Formerly the imperial capital of Vietnam, the center of Vietnamese cultural life, Hue was the leading symbol of Vietnamese nationalism. It was cosmopolitan and exotic, famous for its wide boulevards and pagodas. It was also difficult to defend. Isolated by the Annamese mountains and bordered by Laos to the west and the Demilitarized Zone to the north, Hue had no access to a major port. Just before 4:00 A.M. on January 30, North Vietnamese artillery began blasting away. The NVA 6th Regiment attacked MACV headquarters in Hue and the field offices of the ARVN First Division. Other NVA troops blocked Highway 1 north and south of Hue. When dawn broke, the gold-starred flag of the National Liberation Front was waving above the Citadel, the centuries-old home of the Vietnamese imperial family. Hue had fallen. The bloodbath began immediately. The communists rounded up 2,800 citizens of Hue—intellectuals, government officials, random civilians, and religious leaders—and systematically slaughtered them. Instead of leaving the bodies on public display, as they had always done in the past for political assassinations, they buried the victims in shallow graves. Another 2,000 people were never seen again. Local Vietcong cadres, not NVA regulars, carried out the massacre. Most victims had connections to the South Vietnamese army or government or worked for the American military.

  Within hours elements of the 1st Air Cavalry Division, the 101st Airborne Division, the ARVN 1st Division, the 1st Marine Division, and ARVN rangers and marines began a house-to-house assault on Hue. For more than three weeks the artillery barrage continued, reducing Hue to rubble. On February 24, 1968, Westmoreland declared victory. By that time little was left. More than 10,000 civilians were dead, killed by enemy terrorism or random American bombardment. Half the buildings in the city were destroyed, and 116,000 of the city’s 140,000 people were homeless. The communists suffered 5,000 combat deaths, to 216 for the United States and 384 for ARVN.

  After the recapture of Hue, the Tet offensive stuttered and declined. The Vietcong started a new series of attacks beginning February 18, but they were primarily rocket and mortar bombardment. They launched “Tet II” in May and a smaller offensive in August, but American and ARVN forces easily beat them back. Giap was right. The American military had proved far more responsive than Nguyen Chi Thanh ever thought possible. When the Tet offensive was over, as many as 40,000 Vietcong were dead, compared to 1,100 Americans and approximately 2,300 South Vietnamese. The civilian toll was even worse. Up to 45,000 South Vietnamese were dead or wounded, and more than one million people had lost their homes.

  The Tet offensive was a tactical disaster for the communists. They achieved none of their major objectiv
es. The South Vietnamese did not rise up and welcome them as liberators; the government of South Vietnam did not collapse; ARVN soldiers did not surrender; and the cities did not fall under communist control. When Tet started, ARVN troops left the countryside to fight in the cities, and when they withdrew from villages, Vietcong political cadres headed into the vacuum to recruit peasants. But ARVN and American forces quickly returned to the villages, and Vietcong agents were exposed and many arrested. That process, as well as their horrendous battlefield casualties, badly debilitated the Vietcong. In fact, they never again fielded full battalions. After the Tet offensive, NVA regulars assumed a far greater role in the fighting. For South Vietnamese communists, it was about time. They resented Giap for not committing the NVA divisions to the campaign. Had Nguyen Chi Thanh lived, they believed, the offensive would have been a different story.

  But tactical disaster did not mean strategic defeat. Tet was an overwhelming, if unforeseen, strategic victory for the communists. General Tran Do recognized the contradiction: “We didn’t achieve our main objective, which was to spur uprisings throughout the south . . . . As for making an impact in the United States, it had not been our intention—but it turned out to be a fortunate result.” Americans were in no mood for more talk about victories. Johnson’s pronouncement at a press conference on February 2 that “we have known for some time that this offensive was planned by the enemy” convinced very few people.