No Tet Offensive

Both Ho Chi Minh and Vo Nguyen Giap seem to have had serious reservations about the plans for the 1968 Tet offensive:

"Giap has often been assumed to have been the planner of the Tet Offensive of 1968, but this appears not to have been the case. The best evidence indicates that he disliked the plan, and when it became apparent that Le Duan and Van Tien Dung were going to push it through despite his doubts, he left Vietnam for medical treatment in Hungary, and did not return until after the offensive had begun." [44] Pribbenow, Merle (2008). "General Vo Nguyen Giap and the Mysterious Evolution of the Plan for the 1968 Tet Offensive". Journal of Vietnamese Studies 3 (2): 1-33... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vo_Nguyen_Giap

Unfortunately, only the first page of Pribbenow's article is available online for non-subscribers. http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1525/vs.2008.3.2.1?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents The fullest summary of it I have been able to find comes from a Trotskyist website:

"Based on 'a number of Vietnamese histories, documents, and sources have become available' in recent years, author Merle Pribbenow shows that as Tet 1968 approached, Giap and many leaders, including Ho Chi Minh, had great reservations about the idea of the offensive, as they believed the conditions were not ready for popular uprisings in the cities (Pribbenow, Journal of Vietnamese Studies, 2008, vol. 3, issue 2, pp. 1-33, for this and the paragraphs below regarding Tet).

"As background, in June 1966, the Politburo war subcommittee met with the Central Military Party Committee and outlined a plan to win a decisive victory. It consisted of 'main force' units attacking the enemy on four main battlefields, to be combined with attacks and insurrections in three main cities.

"While Giap agreed with fighting 'big battles' as one part of an overall strategy, he stressed that 'the attacks on the cities should start with small military attacks and only gradually build up to the 'insurrection' stage in certain specific areas and cities, once communist military forces had attained local superiority in those areas'.

"In January 1967, the Central Committee approved Resolution 13, which called for 'an all-out effort ... to win a decisive victory in a relatively short period of time', by inflicting heavy casualties on US forces, destroying a major portion of the South Vietnamese army, before inciting a 'general offensive--general insurrection' in the cities--there was no consideration given to launching urban insurrections before some decisive military defeats of the enemy, understanding this would mean the revolutionary forces would be smashed by the US military.

"The resolution made clear that this should occur 'at end of a gradual, step-by-step process: 'In coordination with the political struggle, [we must] build up our strength, gradually and systematically gain control in the cities, weaken the enemy's controls, intensify our movement in the cities, and create conditions to enable us to advance toward launching a general offensive--general insurrection.'

"Resolution 13 underlined that the aim of winning such decisive military victories was to force the US into negotiations--which they considered urgent given the upcoming US elections in 1968--in a situation where the Vietnamese would thus be in a stronger negotiating position. The party thus had a political-military-diplomatic strategy.

"However, there was a basic problem in the plan--their military forces were not yet in a position to impose such massive defeats on the American military, in particular quickly enough to meet the timetable for an urban offensive/insurrection at Tet--Vietnamese Lunar New Year--which was to fall in late January 1968. General Van Tien Dung, recognising this problem, went behind Giap and conferred with Le Duan, who proposed the entire set of intermediate stages, including military victories, be dropped, and instead to move immediately to the final stage of general offensive/insurrection. The insurrection would coincide with main force military attacks all round the country to divert the enemy, but would not need to wait for them to cripple the enemy's forces.

"Le Duan was thus proposing a radically ultraleft 'insurrectionist' strategy, one that had no relation to either Moscow or Beijing views, and no relation even to the party disputes, since it called for ignoring not only popular support and guerilla struggle, but even main force military victories--but with the aim of forcing the Americans into negotiations.

"When the plan was put to the Politburo, there was significant opposition, including from Ho Chi Minh, who stressed, among other things, that they still needed to pay attention to fighting a protracted guerilla war, and that 'we must also pay attention to the need to preserve the strength of our people. If our people and our resources become exhausted, then we will not be able to fight, no matter how many troops we have.' Due to reservations of many members, Politburo approval of the full plan was delayed until December 1967, when both Ho and Giap were out of the country for medical treatment--Ho in China and Giap in Hungary.

"Indeed, Giap was allegedly so opposed to the plan that he extended his stay there until just after the offensive begun, to underline his displeasure with this course. Once in operation, he returned to lead it as well as he could. General Tran Van Tra, who led the southern National Liberation Front forces, those who were decimated in the offensive, later criticised the northern leadership for not giving the NLF sufficient time to prepare for the offensive.

"While it is true that the political impact on the US government and anti-war movement was ultimately enormous, it is also true that Le Duan's forcing of the 'insurrection' did not lead to urban uprisings (though it was more successful in many smaller rural towns), and did lead to a US counter-attack which decimated the southern revolutionary forces. In Hue, both the excesses of the incoming revolutionary forces [1], and the extremely vicious US air attack, imposed no less than catastrophe on that city.

"It is a very difficult thing to look back and suggest how things may have turned out better if the Ho-Giap strategy had been adopted instead, and the offensive was thus delayed. But while Giap, as a loyal party member, always publicly defended the offensive for its impact politically, the facts show he cannot be blamed for a strategy that resulted in so much death."

http://www.internationalviewpoint.org/spip.php?article3168

I can't be certain how accurate this is as a summary, or for that matter how accurate Pribbenow's original article was, but he is a retired CIA expert on Vietnam who appears to be a respected scholar; see for example his writings for the Wilson Center at http://www.wilsoncenter.org/staff/merle-pribbenow

So suppose both Ho Chi Minh and Vo Nguyen Giap are in better health in December 1967, instead of being out of the country for medical treatment, and insist on scrapping the Tet Offensive as we know it for a more gradualist strategy? (To begin with--does LBJ decide to seek another term?...)

[1] A polite way of referring to the events described at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Massacre_at_Huế
 
It'd be hard to imagine...

In layman's term, let's say like this. In Vietnam, there were 2 types of Vietnamese (politically speaking, may be 3 if we dig deep enough)
  • Unificationists: Follow the idea of "there is only one Vietnam, therefore we must unite our Motherland"
  • Separatists: North and South Vietnam are 2 countries. Period*
* This group seemed to appear in RVN (South Vietnam) only

Among the unification group, I'm not very sure about in the RVN. In an interview in 2001, former Prime Minister (and Air force General) Nguyen Cao Ky (of RVN) said that "... and they [other ARVN officers], just like me, hoped for a final victory so that we can unite our land. Because it was the historical mission of each Vietnamese." But overall, you can say that the DRVN wanted unification, and RVN wanted separation.

The goal of DRVN, as written in a poem by Ho Chi Minh [and as a poem to celebrate Tet in 1968, no less - some say that this poem was the signal to launch the attack], was "Đánh cho Mỹ cút, đánh cho Ngụy nhào" [Fight to kick the American out, fight to topple the Puppet regime]. Looking back at how DRVN fought in OTL, I, as a citizen of SRVN, would say that the fight was a combination of political, military and diplomatic. That would (partially) explain the Tet Offensive.

Now, assume (for whatever reason) the Tet Offensive was not launch, things would still be... stalled. There was no shock to make the US population asking for a withdrawal (I think that every leader of DRVN believed that they couldn't defeat US via conventional means), and therefore, the war would drag on for a long time. The only way for the said shock to happen was the capture of Khe Sanh base - said to be the first time VPA and US Army fought on divison level (6000 US Marines in Khe Sanh base vs ~17k VPA soldiers sieging the base).

In my opinion, no Tet Offensive = no change in US populace opinion = no anti-war movement = war drag on at least 15 more years.

Regarding the "Hue Massacre"... Until now, the general response of the Vietnamese government was "No, there was no order to kill mass citizens in Hue". I'd say that all sides were to blame
  • Inaccurate attack (artillery strikes, firearms attack)
  • Saturation fire by US artillery
  • Deployment of heavy weapon within the city
  • Fate of NLF supporters remain in the city (remain a mystery until this day)
  • Spontaneous (or "alone") actions of NLF soldiers aiming for personal vengeance
Also, please note that NLF/VC soldiers had to burry their deceased comrades along dead civilian in mass graves. That would muck up the numbers greatly.
 
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