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Is It Possible, Could America Have Won the Vietnam War In '1968?
Article by: Gene Kuentzler '1999 ^
| 3/17/02
| Gene Kuentzler
Posted on 03/17/2002 2:25:49 PM PST by Mom_Grandmother
Is It Possible, Could America Have Won the Vietnam War In '1968?
By '1968, North Vietnamese morale was at it's 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 (Senior General Vo Njuyen Giap) and NVA viewed the Tet '68 offensive as a "failure", they were on their knees and had prepared to negotiate a "surrender."
At the 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 NVA. They were completely and totall amazed at hearing tha 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. Further reports indicated that riots and protesting on the streets of America.
According to General Giap, these distorted reports were insperational 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.
Remember, this decision was made at a time when the U.S. casualties were fewer than 10,000, at the end of '1967, beginning of '1968. Today, there were 58,000 names on the Vietnam Wall Memorial that was built with the donations made by the American public.
Although General 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 that names of those who helped in placing those additional 48,000 names there: Jane Fonda, Tom Hayden, Walter Cronkite, and other's.
Gene Kuentzler, '66-67, S-3 Operations 19th Combat Engineer Battalion
TOPICS: Activism/Chapters; Crime/Corruption; Foreign Affairs
KEYWORDS: protesters; reporting; traitors; vietnam
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To: Mom_Grandmother
And if the military had been honest with the media from the start, maybe Cronkite would not have just assumed they were lying when they told him Tet was a failure.
2
posted on
03/17/2002 2:29:20 PM PST
by
xm177e2
To: Mom_Grandmother
I think we would have won if we let the military do its job. That would have included invading north vietnam and wiping out the root of the problem.
To: Mom_Grandmother
"Is It Possible, Could America Have Won the Vietnam War In '1968?"YES.
4
posted on
03/17/2002 2:32:30 PM PST
by
elbucko
To: Mom_Grandmother
It became a political instrument, used by politicians for political purposes. Had the military been allowed to conduct it as a "war," it would have been won. But they were subjected to the political persuasions of the politicians who were micro-managing and conducting it from their offices in Washington, DC.
5
posted on
03/17/2002 2:35:32 PM PST
by
TomGuy
To: Mom_Grandmother
The US concentrated too much on "body counts". The Communists weren't that much concerned about bodies -- they had lots of cannon-fodder. What they DIDN'T have that much of was cash.
If the US had concentrated on economic targets (destroying the dikes in North Vietnam and ruining the rice harvest; taking out the warehouses in Haiphong; etc) and gotten the North too busy keeping its own people from starving to look for trouble down South, things might have been different
To: Mom_Grandmother
We NEVER lost the war. We left.
To: Mom_Grandmother
Walter Cronkite sold out America February 28, 1968, when he stated that we could not win in Vietnam.
4 years later we implemented Linbacker II, after North Vietnam walked out of the peace talks.
After intensive bombing of North Vietname (known as the Christmas offensice), the North Vietnamese ran back to the peace talks and signed the peace agreement.
We did NOT lose in Vietnam.
8
posted on
03/17/2002 2:48:30 PM PST
by
Tuco-bad
To: SauronOfMordor
I agree. I'v got a question for anyone that would care to answer. All of the fighing seemed to be focused in South Vietnam, why. Would we today, if we declared war on North Vietnam, take it to North Vietnam, instead of killing the South. It was the South that wanted free of the North.
Now I certainly am no expert when it comes to war, but I would have knocked the he** out of the North. It was politics, right, all politics? Seems to me we were totally destroying the wrong part of Vietnam.
To: Mom_Grandmother
they were on their knees and had prepared to negotiate a "surrender. This is not a credible statement!
10
posted on
03/17/2002 2:51:46 PM PST
by
verity
To: freedomtrail
Your so right, they were pulled out! To this day my husband will never understand. Vietname 70'-74'.
To: Tuco-bad
I don't understand, if we won, why is the South still overrun and ruled by the North and Russia. I have a friend that came here by homemade boat in 1983, she said it became unbearable and dangerous because of the North and the Russians, their's and their children lives were in danger all the time. They stayed hungry and desperate, who's lying? Thank you.
To: Mom_Grandmother
We had that war won and snatched defeat from victory at least three times. The first defeat for us was Kennedy's assassination of Diem. The second was McNamara's defeatest military strategy. Nixon's bombing of the north was bring about capitulation until it was shut off here.
go here
http://freedom.orlingrabbe.com/lfetimes/rlkocher_index.htm
for a 190 page analysis of the Viet Nam War complete with recently released Kennedy tapes documenting the assassination.
13
posted on
03/17/2002 2:58:45 PM PST
by
RLK
To: verity
This statement was make by "Senior General Vo Njuyen Giap" NVC commander. It is in his book.
To: RLK
Thank you RLK.
To: Mom_Grandmother
The truth is that as of October 1967 the war was over, in that North Vietnam could not win it and they knew it. Tet 68 was their last gasp and if we had not been sold down the river we would have won AND we would not be wondering today about MIA's and a lot of other things. The veterans of "the conflict" would have been treated like heroes and Hanoi Jane would have been... (I guess I was just dreaming)
16
posted on
03/17/2002 3:02:17 PM PST
by
OldEagle
To: xm177e2
maybe Cronkite would not have just assumed they were lying when they told him Tet was a failure. 2 posted on 3/17/02 3:29 PM Pacific by xm177e2
Cronkite is an avowed Socialist
17
posted on
03/17/2002 3:03:57 PM PST
by
uncbob
To: uncbob
True enough...
18
posted on
03/17/2002 3:05:28 PM PST
by
xm177e2
To: freedomtrail
We NEVER lost the war. We left.We left = We lost the war in Vietnam
To: Mom_Grandmother
Gene Kuentzler is either lazy or relies on Doris Kearns Goodwin to do his research. According to
records, by the end of 1967 there were 19,560 KIAs alone and by the end of 1968 there were 36,152 KIAs.
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