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If I have dinner with Kari I'll suggest it. If I remember . . . |
Rush states he is right 90% of the time so I figured I had a 10% chance of being wrong.
I think it would be quite difficult to prove or disprove the claim that Giap never conceded what has been suggested because just about everything he ever said or wrote 1)was uttered either in Vietnamese or French and 2)was uttered to friendly individuals/groups.The Vietnam war was,in part,a proxy war.A proxy war in that our true adversaries,the Russians and Chinese,had allowed (compelled?) their revolutionary brothers and sisters in Vietnam to do the fighting and dying.
You can check McCain's biographies, for example. McCain and Jeremiah Denton later noted that they could tell when the bombing was having an effect, even from inside their prisons.
Supposedly the quote is posted and documented at the Vietnam War Memorial in Hanoi. Someone who has been there just needs to speak up.
...former Colonel Bui Tin who served on the general staff of the North Vietnamese Army and received the unconditional surrender of South Vietnam on April 30,1975, confirmed the American Tet 1968 military victory: "Our loses 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 reelection. 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 reestablish 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." On strategy: "If Johnson had granted Westmoreland's requests to enter Laos and block the Ho Chi Minh trail, Hanoi could not have won the war. It was the only way we could 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, etc. 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. 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 time to prepare alternative routes and facilities. We always had stockpiles of rice ready to feed the people for months if a harvest was damaged. The Soviets bought rice from Thailand for us. And the left: "Support for 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 9AM to follow the growth of the antiwar movement. Visits to Hanoi by 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 would struggle along with us ... those people represented the conscience of America ....part of it's war-making capability, and we were turning that power in our favor."
Victory at Any Cost: The Genius of Viet Nam’s Gen. Vo Nguyen Giap (The Warriors) (Paperback)
by Cecil B. Currey (Author)
I think that this is one source of the quote.
Just think how truly wrong America was, via its liberal democrat nuts, to deny our allies support so they could defend themselves against a communist ofensive. The liberals are not happy unless friends of America are killed, imprisoned, and their countries turned into enemies. That is how insane the left is.
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If I have dinner with Kari I'll suggest it. If I remember . . . |
As I recall, Gen Giap defintenitely stated that they had lost massively, the Tet Offensive, until they saw the media coverage that is.
The bombing during Linebacker I and Lb II I haven’t heard a comment on, but I would bet that it came about during the Paris “Peace” Accords if it was said at all.
The beat goes on:
By 1968, NVA morale was at its lowest point ever. The plans for “Tet” ‘68 was their last desperate attempt to achieve a success, in an effort to boost the NVA morale. When it was over, General Giap and the NVA viewed the Tet ‘68 offensive as a failure, they were on their knees and had prepared to negotiate a surrender.
At that time, there were fewer than 10,000 U.S. casualties, the Vietnam War was about to end, as the NVA was prepared to accept their defeat. Then, they heard Walter Cronkite (former CBS News anchor and correspondent) on TV proclaiming the success of the Tet ‘68 offensive by the communist NVA. They were completely and totally amazed at hearing that the US Embassy had been overrun. In reality, The NVA had not gained access to the Embassy—there were some VC who had been killed on the grassy lawn, but they hadn’t gained access.... According to [General] Giap, these distorted reports were inspirational to the NVA. They changed their plans from a negotiated surrender and decided instead, they only needed to persevere for one more hour, day, week, month, eventually the protesters in America would help them to achieve a victory they knew they could not win on the battlefield... Today, there are 58,000 names on the Vietnam Wall Memorial that was built with the donations made by the American public. Although Giap did not mention each and every protester’s name in his book, many of us will never forget the 58,000 names on the Wall. We will also never forget the names of those who helped in placing those additional 48,000 names there: Bill, Jane, Tom, Cronkite, and others. Those of us who rotated prior to Walter Cronkite’s report on “Tet-68” can clearly state, “We were still winning when I left!”— Gene Kuentzler, ‘66-67 S-3 Operations
ping for reference
“We were elated to notice your media was definitely helping us......”Don’t know if the quote is accurate,but the essence of what he said is accurate.The North could not have won w/out the active and vigorous support of the mass media,celebrities(Fonda,Baez,etc),and leftists/marxists in our government.
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He also knew that he could get his ass kicked and still win politically and that's exactly what happened.
Whether he said these exact words or not is of little consequence. He knew he was a loser militarily and could only win politically, he just didn't expect to be so thouroughly beaten militarily while reaping such huge political rewards courtesy of the American media and left.
Thta's the truth of the matter and nothing John Kerry, Snopes or anybody else says will ever change it.
It wasnt Gen Giap, it was col Tin.