Michael Griffith

46 minutes ago, Matthew Koch said:

Michael I believe the answer to your "Whys" is somewhat covered in Eisenhower's farewell address.

Since WWII we see a new form of limited conflict that does not use the traditional means of declaring war thus preventing war profiteers from profiting. Vietnam was a massive transfer of wealth from the public sector to the private. It was high level racketeering, this is the beginning of the 'rise of the Deepstate' we will see Darpa form just before this and that may be what Eisenhower was warning about. We see a similar quagmire again occur in a similar fashion 2001 in Iraq with another Texas President with a lot of the same war profiteering companies who had simply changed their names like Brown and Root to Halliburton.

The trap was getting in, because there wasn't a way of getting out without damaging the prestige of The United States and it's military. JFK knew this and was trying to avoid it with a secret withdrawal. This was too much for the conspirators imo after a secret missile deal. Meanwhile LBJ like in the USS Liberty Incident clearly didn't give a damn and went along with what the people pulling his strings wanted.. 
 

The point is that the Deep State, such as it was at the time, was unable to change LBJ's horrible handling of the war. If the Deep State killed JFK because of his Vietnam policy, the Deep State was not strong enough to change LBJ's disastrous handling of the war. 

And, JFK's withdrawal plans were not secret. He talked about the planned partial withdrawal twice in news conferences in 1963, and numerous stories about the withdrawal appeared in the press, even in The Stars and Stripes. 

If you're referring to the alleged secret plan to abandon South Vietnam regardless of the situation and consequences after JFK was reelected, that's a subject for a different thread (such as my thread on Oliver Stone's JFK Revisited documentary and the Vietnam War).

Something that caught my eye about Ruth Paine was that she studied Russian at Middlebury College in Vermont. Many government agencies send people to Middlebury for language training, and Middlebury is not cheap. 

When I was in the military, I was slated to attend a Hebrew course at Middlebury, but then I came down on orders for a PCS move (permanent change of station move), and so I was not able to attend the course. Military linguists view Middlebury as the best language school they can attend.

For years I took it for granted that one of the plotters' main motives for wanting JFK dead was his Vietnam policy. However, the closer you look at the relevant facts, the more unlikely this theory appears to be, IF--again IF--we assume that the plotters were as powerful as many of us believe they were, especially if we assume that LBJ at least knew and approved of the plot.

If one of the plotters' main motives for wanting JFK dead was his Vietnam policy, and if the plotters wielded great influence in the federal government, especially in the Pentagon and the CIA, it is very hard to fathom the following:

-- Why the plotters would have allowed LBJ to so horribly mismanage the war effort, especially why they would have allowed him to impose absurd, self-defeating restrictions on our military operations against North Vietnam.

-- Why they would have allowed LBJ to retain Robert McNamara as Secretary of Defense.

-- Why they would have allowed LBJ to pick General Westmoreland as the commander of American ground forces in South Vietnam, instead of one of the three other candidates submitted to LBJ by the Pentagon: General Harold K. Johnson, General Creighton Abrams, and General Bruce Palmer. Westmoreland was clearly the least qualified of the four, had limited experience as a combat commander, and had little formal training in strategy and tactics. Johnson, Abrams, and Palmer would not have used the same approach that Westmoreland used.

-- Why they would not have insisted that LBJ fire Westmoreland after his first three years as commander in South Vietnam. After Westmoreland's third year in command, it was obvious to most observers that Westmoreland was incompetent and that his search-and-destroy strategy was badly flawed. Some progress was being made in South Vietnam, but much more could have been made with a different strategy. (This is not to say that Westmoreland did nothing right, but his bad decisions far outweighed his good ones.)

-- Why the plotters would not have pushed the Joint Chiefs of Staff to be much more vocal in objecting to LBJ's limited-warfare, gradual-escalation approach.

Another possibility is that JFK's Vietnam policy was indeed a major motive of the plotters but that the plotters were not strong enough/were not in a position to control LBJ's handling of the war. If the plotters consisted mainly of Allen Dulles, Mafia elements, and rogue CIA elements, with the knowledge and approval of LBJ and J. Edgar Hoover and elements of the Secret Service, this could explain why the plotters were unable to exert more influence on LBJ's handling of the war. 

There was clearly much more going on with the Tippit shooting than the implausible, superficial WC version of the event. I used to be open to the idea that Oswald shot Tippit but that he did so only in self-defense, but now I suspect he was not even at the scene but was already at the theater trying to meet his contact. 

On 10/15/2022 at 7:08 AM, David Von Pein said:

Only if a person wants to believe that Dorothy Garner had her eyes fixed on the TSBD staircase every single second just after the assassination.

From a 2014 discussion:

"Why in the world would anyone think Dorothy Garner had her eyes transfixed on the STAIRS every single second immediately following the President's assassination? How silly would that be, considering what had just happened outside those fourth-floor, SOUTH-SIDE windows just moments earlier? Why would she (or anyone) have kept a vigil on the staircase? Therefore, since it makes no logical sense to think that Garner (or ANYBODY ELSE) had their eyes peeled on those stairs every second, Oswald could have easily been on that 4th-floor landing for a matter of--what?--five seconds and not been seen by anyone who was on the same floor. Or do conspiracy theorists REALLY want to contend that Dorothy Garner never took her eyes off those stairs between 12:30 and 12:32 PM? That's incredibly silly to believe that's the case (even if she DID catch a glimpse of Truly and Baker)." -- DVP; Oct. 2014

http://jfk-archives.blogspot.com/Adams & Styles

This is just sad. Nobody who was on or near those stairs during the time under discussion saw or heard Oswald coming down the stairs. 

Jack Dougherty was working on the fifth floor near the stairway, and he heard no one coming down the stairs. Sandra Styles and Victoria Adams went down the stairs from the fourth floor at the same time Oswald would have been going down the stairs, but they did not see him. Dr. David Wrone:

           To make their scenario seem to work, officials had to render invisible the testimony of three witnesses. They omitted from the evidence the testimony of Jack Dougherty, who was working on the fifth floor near the stairway and heard no one come down the stairs. They also eliminated from their consideration the testimony of two secretaries, Sandra Styles and Victoria Adams, who had been on the fourth floor. After the last shot, they had fled to the stairway and were in fact on the stairs at the time Oswald had to have been there—and, according to Adams, he was not. (170)

And you know, deep down, that you cannot get Oswald through the second-floor foyer door without being seen by Truly when Truly reached the second-floor landing. No way. Just no way. Anyone who clears their mind and considers the evidence objectively will realize this, even if they can't bring themselves to publicly admit it. 

Finally, any reenactment that assumes that the sixth-floor gunman could have simply dropped the rifle into its hiding place is fiction on that basis alone. 

Here's what Sylvia Meagher said about the Coke issue:

         The timing of Oswald's purchase of a coke from the dispensing machine on the second floor is very important in evaluating the assertion that he had sufficient time to descend from the sixth floor and encounter Truly and Officer Baker, and in assessing Oswald's "escape." The original story out of Dallas was that Oswald had a bottle of coke in his hand when he was stopped by Baker. Leo Sauvage wrote in Commentary (ibid., p. 56) that the "police officer and the manager of the building had described Oswald as holding a Coca-Cola bottle in his hand," and that that was one of the details announced by Chief of Police Jesse Curry on Saturday, November 23. The Warren Report, however, insists that Oswald had nothing in his hands when Baker and Truly saw him. (WR 151) That is what both Baker and Truly said when they testified before the Commission, whatever they may have said on earlier occasions.

          Baker, for some reason, was asked to provide a further statement attesting to his
encounter with Oswald, only a few days before the Warren Report was released. In that
brief handwritten statement of September 23, 1964, Baker states that he entered the Book
Depository to determine if the shots might have come from that building and that on the
second floor he "saw a man standing in the lunchroom drinking a coke." However, a line
is drawn through the phrase "drinking a coke," so as to delete it, the deletion being initialed
by Baker. (CE 3076) The very fact that Baker said spontaneously that Oswald was drinking
a coke, regardless of the later deletion, has self-evident significance of great persuasiveness. (Accessories After the Fact, p. 74)

On 10/10/2022 at 4:42 PM, James DiEugenio said:

IMO, this is the best documentary ever made on the subject.  If you have not seen it, you should.

 

As I said, this documentary is trash. Getting your information on the Vietnam War from the likes of Daniel Ellsberg, J. William Fulbright, Clark Clifford, and a few of the small minority of disgruntled Vietnam vets is like getting information on the civil rights movement from the Ku Klux Klan. Here are just a few of the facts that the documentary fails to mention:

-- The North Vietnamese army (NVA) and the Vietcong (VC) frequently shelled fleeing civilians and also purposely shelled civilian residential and commercial areas even when they knew there were no U.S. or Allied soldiers in those areas, whereas we did not do these things (R. J. Rummel, Statistics of Democide, University of Virginia, 1997, chapter 6).

-- South Vietnam never launched a large-scale invasion of North Vietnam, but North Vietnam launched three large-scale invasions of South Vietnam.

-- I mentioned this in my first reply about the Hearts and Minds documentary, but it bears repeating: The North Vietnamese would have been unable to wage war against South Vietnam if the Soviet Union and China had not provided them with massive amounts of weapons and supplies and billions of dollars of financial aid to keep them afloat. Also, China stationed over 100,000 support troops in North Vietnam, and Russia provided over 1,000 military advisers to help operate Hanoi’s Russian-made SAM batteries. These facts are profusely documented, but if they are new to you and you doubt them, here are a few of the references that discuss them:

- “Chinese and Soviet Economic and Technical Aid to North Vietnam, 1955-1960,” Russian Journal of Vietnamese Studies, volume 5, number 2 (2021), pp. 88-106, available online at https://vietnamjournal.ru/2618-9453/article/view/87090#

- Lien-Hang Nguyen, Hanoi’s War (University of North Carolina Press, 2012)

- Andrew Wiest, The Vietnam War 1956-1975 (Osprey Publishing, 2014)

- James Robbins, This Time We Win: Revisiting the Tet Offensive (Encounter Books, 2012)

- Mark Moyar, Triumph Forsaken (Cambridge University Press, 2006)

- Nghia N. Vo, The ARVN and the Fight for South Vietnam (McFarland Press, 2021)

- Mark Woodruff, Unheralded Victory (Ballantine Books, 2005)

- George J. Veith, Black April: The Fall of South Vietnam, 1973-1975 (Encounter Books, 2013)

- International Communist Aid to North Vietnam (CIA, 1968), available at https://www.intelligence.gov/assets/documents/tet-documents/cia/INTERNATIONAL_COMMUNIST_A%5B15617751%5D.pdf

- Paul Combs, “The Little Known Role of the Soviet Union in the Vietnam War,” Medium (October 22, 2021), available at https://medium.com/perceive-more/the-little-known-role-of-the-soviet-union-in-the-vietnam-war-2da12f2b6c4e

- The VC alone killed far more civilians than did American and Allied forces, and the VC usually did so deliberately as part of their campaign of terror, whereas the vast majority of civilians killed by American-Allied forces were unintentionally killed/collateral damage in combat operations against the NVA and the VC (W. P. Davison, Some Observations on Viet Cong Operations in the Villages, The Office of the Assistant Secretary Defense and the Rand Corporation, 1968, available online; Center for Research in Social Systems, Insurgent Terrorism and Its Use by the Viet Cong, Defense Documentation Center, 1969, available online; Patrick Shaw, Collateral Damage and the United States Air Force, School of Advanced Air Power Studies, Air University, 1997, available online; Fred L. Borch, What Really Happened on 16 March 1968? A Look at the My Lai Incident Fifty Years Later, Army Historical Foundation, 2018, available online; Brent Scher, “That Time John Kerry Defamed America and American Soldiers,” The Washington Free Beacon, January 2, 2017, available online; Gary Kulik and Peter Zinoman, “Misrepresenting Atrocities: Kill Anything that Moves and the Continuing Distortions of the War in Vietnam,” Cross-Currents: East Asian History and Culture Review, 2014, available online [this is a thorough, 37-page critique of Nick Turse’s sleazy book Kill Anything that Moves]).  

-- South Vietnam, for all its faults, was far less repressive than North Vietnam; the South Vietnamese were definitely the good guys, and the North Vietnamese were most assuredly the bad guys (Lien-Hang Nguyen, Hanoi’s War, chapters 1-3; Nghia N. Vo, The ARVN and the Fight for South Vietnam, chapters 1, 7, 11-14; Nguyen Duy Hinh and Tran Dinh Tho, The South Vietnamese Society, Washington, D.C.: U.S. Army Center of Military History, 1980, available online).

-- In a survey conducted by the Veterans Administration after the war, 92% of the veterans who responded said they agreed with the statement that political leaders did not let our armed forces win the war, and 90% said they were glad to have served in Vietnam (Panel Discussion on Ken Burns’ Vietnam War Documentary, 54:01-54:52).

Anyone who believe that Hearts and Minds is "the best documentary ever made on the subject" is woefully uninformed about the war and cannot be taken seriously until they educate themselves by expanding their research. 

10 hours ago, Bill Brown said:

 

Baker had to retract his initial claim that Oswald was holding a Coke when he approached him in the lunchroom.

There was never an "original claim" that Oswald was "holding a Coke".

Baker never said such a thing.

Several early news accounts said that when Baker saw Oswald in the lunchroom, Oswald was holding a Coke in his hand. Where did those news accounts get that information, if not from DPD sources?

In the first statement that Baker wrote directly by himself without the filter of a third party, he initially wrote that Oswald was drinking a Coke when he saw him. Granted, Baker wrote this statement on 9/23/64, but it was the first statement that he himself gave directly. Then, Baker lined out the part about the Coke. 

During a radio program on December 23, 1966, Albert Jenner, a former senior WC counsel, said that when Baker saw Oswald in the lunchroom, Oswald was holding a Coke in his hand. Said Jenner, "the first man this policeman saw, was Oswald with a bottle of Coke" (Sylvia Meager, Accessories After the Fact: The Warren Commission, the Authorities, and the Report, New York: Bobbs-Merrill, 1967; Vintage Press, 1976., p. 226). My, my, how interesting.

Anyway, the larger point is that the Baker-Oswald encounter was very problematic for the WC. The plotters surely wished it had never occurred, and surely wished they could have suppressed it before it became known and documented. 

On 10/10/2022 at 4:42 PM, James DiEugenio said:

IMO, this is the best documentary ever made on the subject.  If you have not seen it, you should.

This documentary is trash. It could literally have been made by North Vietnam's propaganda arm. It is loaded with errors and distortions and ignores numerous facts that don't fit its anti-war narrative. I have already debunked many of the film's claims in previous replies. It would take many pages to discuss all the errors in the film, not to mention the distortions and glaring omissions. 

As just one example of the errors, the documentary shows Daniel Ellsberg making this inexcusably ignorant claim:

        A war in which one side is entirely equipped and financed by foreigners is not a civil war. The only foreigners in that country were the foreigners we financed in the first part of the war and the foreigners we were in the second half of the war. (1:22:50-1:22:57)

Ellsberg had to know better than this nonsense. By 1954, Communist China had tens of thousands of troops in northern Vietnam. Chinese generals essentially ran the Vietminh's military operations (including the assault on Dien Bien Phu). By 1965, China had over 100,000 support troops in North Vietnam. The Soviets stationed over 1,000 AAA technical advisers in North Vietnam to help operate the North Vietnamese SAM batteries and had special forces units there as well. The Soviets and the Chinese provided North Vietnam with massive amounts of weapons and supplies (including tanks, SAM batteries, artillery, trucks, mortars, grenades, land mines, etc.). The Soviets and the Chinese literally kept North Vietnam from economic collapse with hundreds of millions of dollars (yens, rubles) in financial aid. The North Vietnamese Communists would have been a small footnote in history had it not been for the massive support they received from the Soviets and the Chinese.

19 hours ago, John Deignan said:

A question back on topic-once Truly showed Baker where the stairs were, why did Truly go up the stairs ahead of Baker? Baker has his gun drawn going up the stairs expecting to possibly run into the shooter. Was he going to shoot through Truly?

Truly did go up the stairs ahead of Baker, and this made the Baker-Oswald encounter even more problematic for the WC. Truly told the WC that he had already started up the stairs to the third floor when he noticed that Baker was no longer running behind him. Truly also said there was slightly more distance between him and Baker on the second floor than there was on the first floor.

The WC had no choice but to admit that since Truly was running up the stairs to the third floor when Baker saw Oswald in the lunchroom, Oswald must have entered the vestibule/foyer door before Truly reached the second-floor landing:

        Since the vestibule [foyer] door is only a few feet from the lunchroom door, the man [Oswald] must have entered the vestibule door only a second or two before Baker arrived at the top of the stairwell. Yet he must have entered the vestibule door before Truly reached the top of the stairwell [leading to the second-floor landing], since Truly did not see him. (WCR 151)

But the Commission never explained how Oswald could have done this. If Oswald had gone through the foyer door before Truly reached the top of the second-floor stairs, he would have been several feet beyond the door by the time Baker reached the landing, and thus would not have been visible to Baker through the window. And, if Oswald had entered the door "only a second or two" before Baker reached the top of the stairwell, then Truly could not have missed seeing him. Nor did the Commission explain how Baker could have been the least bit unsure about whether or not Oswald had gone through the foyer door if Baker spotted Oswald right next to the door and if the door was in any kind of motion at the time.

I suspect that Belin realized that it was obvious that Oswald could not have made it from the sniper's nest in time to walk across the second-floor landing and go through the vestibule/foyer door without being seen by Truly while walking toward the door, and that Oswald would have been well beyond the foyer door by the time Baker reached the landing after Truly had begun heading up the stairs to the third floor.

An excellent source on the 1970 incursion against NVA bases in Cambodia is General Tran Dinh Tho's book The Cambodian Incursion (Washington, DC: U.S. Army Center of Military History, 1979). General Tho was the Assistant Chief of Staff J3 of South Vietnam's Joint General Staff, and he helped plan the operation. His book is available online at https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/pdfs/ADA324718.pdf.

Sihanouk's professed posture of neutrality was phony, but his declaration of neutrality resulted in the protection of the North Vietnamese army (NVA/PAVN) bases along Cambodia's eastern border:

For several years Cambodia, under the leadership of Prince Norodom Sihanouk, had condoned the use of part of its territory by the Vietnamese Communists for infiltration routes and logistic bases. These bases supported enemy activities in South Vietnam's Military Regions 3 and 4 and a significant part of Military Region 2 but were protected because of Cambodia's declared neutrality. (p. v)

By the early months of 1970, the situation in South Vietnam had improved considerably, and things had been improving since 1965:

The situation throughout South Vietnam in the early months of 1970 was one of continuing improvement, dating back to the introduction of United States combat troops into the war during 1965. This was in marked contrast to the dismally bleak prospects of the Republic of Vietnam in late 1964 and early 1965 when few believed that the new nation could escape Communist conquest.

To counter the RVN [South Vietnam] and U.S. battlefield successes, North Vietnam switched strategy in 1967, and conceived a bold strike at the cities in order to liberate the countryside. Executed during the 1968 Tet holidays, this offensive strike at the cities of South Vietnam had unexpected consequences for both sides. To our enemy, it was a tragic military defeat. Not only had his General Offensive-General Uprising [the Tet Offensive] failed but he also lost significant amounts of weapons and many human lives. In addition, his infrastructure suffered extensive damage.

On the RVN side, the population felt greatly stimulated by the enemy's defeat; morale and self-assurance grew. The GVN [South Vietnam's government] took advantage of this opportunity to call reservists to active duty and decreed partial mobilization. Popular response to military duty was enthusiastic.

The American people, however, reacted adversely to the Vietnam war, apparently under the influence of press, radio and TV reports. It was perhaps this animosity toward the war that influenced President Johnson to order the cessation of U.S. bombing above the 19th parallel on 3 March 1968. (p. 1)

Considerable progress was made in South Vietnam after the failure of the Tet Offensive:

Exploiting further the RVNAF [South Vietnam's armed forces] success during the 1968 general offensives, the GVN initiated a three-month accelerated pacification program for the last quarter of 1968 and a similar program for 1969. As a result, by the end of 1969, population control had risen to 92% as compared to 67.2% for the period prior to the 1968 Tet offensive. By contrast, confusion reigned among enemy ranks after their defeat. During 1969, a total of 47,000 enemy personnel rallied to the GVN, compared to 23,000 during 1968. Aided by improved security across the country, the GVN resettled or returned to their home villages in excess of 1.5 million people displaced by the war. Most significantly, the GVN-initiated People's Self-Defense program received wide acceptance. Approximately 2.5 million people volunteered to join the program, pushed by their eagerness to protect their own communities. (p. 3)

The nature of North Vietnam's war against South Vietnam:

The war in South Vietnam was waged by North Vietnam under the disguise of national liberation. Hanoi created the instrument for it in late 1960 by establishing the National Liberation Front of South Vietnam. This disguise was aimed at justifying the war before world opinion. North Vietnam claimed that this was an uprising of South Vietnam's people against the RVN regime, not an aggression from the north. But it was North Vietnam that in fact directed the war effort and supplied the manpower, material and financial resources for this effort through its local executive office, the Central Office for South Vietnam (COSVN). (p. 6)

NVA POWs and defectors (aka "ralliers") disclosed NVA intentions for 1970 before the incursion into Cambodia:

On top of these typical activities during the first quarter of 1970, enemy prisoners and ralliers disclosed that COSVN had been planning two offensive campaigns for 1970, in May and July respectively, with the objective of pressing the Paris peace talks toward an early settlement. However, the sudden change of government in Phnom Penh had forced our enemy to abandon these plans and turn his efforts toward Cambodia.

Beginning in April 1970, therefore, there was a flurry of enemy activity in Cambodia. This activity indicated that the enemy was hastily dispersing and concealing his supply storage points in the border base areas and displacing his most valuable materiel deeper inside Cambodia. At the same time, the enemy was endeavoring to control a corridor east of the Mekong River leading south in an apparent attempt to secure movements of supplies for his units in MR-3 and MR-4 [MR = Military Region]. Evidently, the closing of Sihanoukville by the new Khmer regime was beginning to have an adverse effect on the enemy supply system. Additionally, the enemy realized that the supplies already in Cambodia would be of even greater significance to his immediate combat plans. (p. 12)

The importance of the port of Sihanoukville to NVA supply operations:

The other major logistic route besides the Ho Chi Minh Trail was through the port of Sihanoukville. It originated in the port of Sihanoukville, and led across lower Cambodia toward enemy base areas on the Cambodia-South Vietnam border. As far as the enemy was concerned, this port route was the safest and most secure because it lay entirely on Cambodian soil. (p. 21)

More evidence that Sihanouk's claim of neutrality was bogus and that he was allowing his country to play the role of a hostile combatant:

North Vietnam and the Viet Cong had made overtures to Sihanouk as early as the rupture of relations between the RVN and Cambodia in l963 aimed at securing the use of Cambodian territory. In February 1968„high ranking Viet Cong and North Vietnam officials went to Phnom Penh to negotiate the establishment of bases in Cambodia and the movement of supplies and equipment through Cambodia to these bases. In March 1968, Sihanouk himself announced that he had approved these requests because, as he said, Cambodia and North Vietnam and the Viet Cong were facing the same enemy: the imperialist American aggressors. Then, during an inspection trip to Takeo the same year, he openly declared that Cambodian authorities would voluntarily overlook trade activities by the Cambodian population to supply the Viet Cong with food and he would even authorize the use of Cambodian hospitals by VC and NVA wounded until they were fully recovered.

The port of Sihanoukville was a major point of entry for NVA supplies and materiel. It was estimated that the tonnages moving through Sihanoukville were sufficient to meet 100% of the requirements of enemy units in the RVN III and IV Corps areas, and perhaps two-thirds of the requirements for enemy units in the II Corps area of South Vietnam. . . .

Intelligence reports subsequently confirmed that some Cambodian military vehicles and troops even assisted the Viet Cong in transporting weapons, ammunition and foodstuff toward base areas along the border. Cambodian troops and officials at outposts and checkpoints along the border were bribed by smuggler groups into letting contraband merchandise, such as rice and medicine, pass into Viet Cong base areas. Business was brisk and lucrative because the Viet Cong usually paid higher prices. These smuggling activities were conducted mostly by Chinese entrepreneurs residing in Cambodia. (pp. 21-22)

Many Cambodians resented the NVA's presence and demonstrated against it:

On 8 March 1970, several demonstrations took place in the Cambodian provinces along the border. The demonstrators demanded that North Vietnamese Army arid auxiliary troops withdraw from Cambodia. Two days later, the same demonstrations resumed in earnest. In Phnom Penh, angry demonstrators marched to the North Vietnamese Embassy and smashed its windows with rocks. (p. 29)

Sihanouk's fall from power and the new government's demand that NVA forces leave Cambodia:

Chief of State Sihanouk, meanwhile, was undergoing medical treatment and vacationing in France. The direction of governmental affairs was assumed by General Lon Nol and Deputy Prime Minister Sirik Matak.

On 12 March 1970, General Lon Nol sent an official message to Hanoi asking for the withdrawal of NVA and auxiliary forces within 72 hours; the deadline was set for 15 March. On 16 March, other demonstrations took place with the same demand that NVA/VC forces immediately vacate Cambodian territory. On 18 March 1970, the Cambodian National Assembly passed a resolution stripping Prince Sihanouk of all governmental powers. General Lon Nol took over as prime minister and Prince Sirik Matak continued to serve as deputy prime minister. (pp. 29-30)

The NVA responded to the demand that they leave by launching an attack on Cambodia. (Be advised that the word "Khmer" by itself is simply another word for "Cambodian"):

Then, beginning in early April, NVA forces openly attacked Khmer outposts along the border and other towns east of the Mekong River. On 20 April, they overran Snoul, 16 km north of Binh Long Province. On 23 April, NVA troops attacked and seized Mimot after destroying an important bridge on Route 13 connecting Snoul with Kratie. On 24 April, they attacked the coastal city of Kep, north of Ha Tien, and on 26 April they opened fire on ships and boats sailing on the Mekong River. On the same day, they also took the town of Ang Tassom northwest of Takeo City and attacked Chhlong City northeast of Phnom Penh.

On 17 April 1970, the new Khmer regime officially announced to the world that North Vietnamese troops were invading Cambodia. By that time, three out of Cambodia's seventeen provinces had been occupied by NVA forces who were also exerting heavy pressure on five others. At the same time, Cambodia appealed to the United States and other nations of the Free World for help in resisting North Vietnam's aggression. (pp. 30, 32)

Lon Nol's appeal for help against the NVA provided a welcomed opportunity to finally deal with the unjust situation that Sihanouk's pro-Communist actions had created:

The Cambodian appeal for help in resisting NVN aggression came indeed as a most welcomed opportunity for South Vietnam to redress an unjust situation in which it had been victimized by Sihanouk's prejudice. For years Sihanouk had closed his eyes to North Vietnam's freedom of action on Cambodian territory, allowing our enemy to establish supply bases and sanctuaries in order to pursue his war of aggression against South Vietnam. Every Vietnamese serviceman wondered then why we did not have the right of pursuit into Cambodia. But all this had changed.

We were delighted when the new Khmer government asserted a hard line policy against our enemy, demanding that he withdraw his troops from Cambodia. We welcomed the new Khmer government's appeal for help to which we would certainly respond because RVN had found in the new Khmer regime not only a friendly neighbor but also a comrade-in-arms who shared our cause and fought against the same enemy. Surely, the United States could not ignore this plea. As the leader of the Free World, the U.S. could not let Cambodia or any other free country fall into Communist hands. (p. 32)

Some of the reasons that the U.S. and South Vietnam needed to defend Cambodia and to attack the NVA bases in the eastern part of the country:

What would happen if North Vietnam succeeded in overthrowing the Lon Nol regime and installed a pro-Communist government or reinstated Sihanouk in its place? If this were the case, I am sure that it would have brought very great difficulty for South Vietnam. Then the 600-mile infiltration corridor which ran the length of South Vietnam's western border from the Tri-Border area to the Gulf of Siam would allow North Vietnamese troops and weapons free access into South Vietnam and Cambodia would be an effective staging area for continued and unimpeded attacks against our country. During the previous few years, NVA units in South Vietnam were able to quickly replenish their materiel losses because they had control over border supply base areas and free access to the port of Sihanoukville. (p. 33)

The NVA bases should have been hit years earlier, but politics prevented this from being done:

The destruction of enemy logistic installations in Cambodia had in fact been considered by U.S. and RVN military strategists for a long time. It was a military action that should have been carried out before 1970. Political dictates, however, had prevented such an action, as long as Sihanouk was still in power. (p. 35)

NVA POWs and ralliers (defectors) provided information on some of the positive results of the Cambodian incursion:

According to depositions made by enemy prisoners and ralliers and in particular, judging by the large quantities of enemy supplies and materials captured, the following conclusions were quickly apparent:

1. The operation had effectively upset the enemy's plans to overthrow the Lon Nol regime and, as soon as he succeeded in Phnom Penh, his plan to launch an offensive in RVN MR-3. This was first disclosed by enemy Lt. Colonel Nguyen Thanh, Deputy Commander of Sub Military Region 2, who rallied [defected] to the GVN.

2. The morale of enemy troops had been seriously affected by the operation, particularly among troops under Sub Military Region 2. In a few instances, cadres and troops had refused to go into combat. Many had deserted to avoid fighting.

3. The area of Ba Thu and Angel's Wing, considered invincible, had been heavily damaged. Up to 90% of enemy supplies in this area had been destroyed or seized by the RVNAF. Heavy casualties had effectively reduced enemy troop strength by 25%, especially among Sub MR-2 units and Tay Ninh local force units. As a result, the enemy met with serious difficulties in replacing human and material losses. (p. 69)

15 hours ago, Matthew Koch said:

I clicked on this video thinking it was going to be Ben Shapiro "debunking" the increasing in popularity assassination theory; that Israel was the sponsor for the JFK Assassination. But it's just a rehash of the same tired lone nut mantra in a short video.

Why do you think Ben Shapiro is joining debunkers in the JFK Assassination debate? 

Who in the world is claiming that Israel was behind the JFK assassination??? If that's the version that Shapiro heard, no wonder he has a dismissive attitude toward the case for conspiracy. Who is peddling the nutty idea that Israel was behind JFK's death? 

Anyway, yes, Shapiro's video is maddeningly bad. I have some friends who are big fans of Shapiro, and not one of them buys the lone-gunman theory. Heck, I'm a big fan of Shapiro on many issues, though I disagree him on a number of issues. It is so frustrating to see conservatives who are intelligent and eloquent on other issues peddle lone-gunman nonsense. 

18 hours ago, Denny Zartman said:

I'm trying to keep an open mind and absorb what others who know more about this are saying when they say the 2nd floor encounter didn't happen, but right now I still tend to agree with this assessment.

I think it's fairly clear from the record that the Baker-Oswald encounter occurred. As I've documented in two articles, the encounter is actually strong evidence that Oswald was not on the sixth floor during shooting.

The encounter created all sorts of problems for the Warren Commission. Baker had to retract his initial claim that Oswald was holding a Coke when he approached him in the lunchroom. And, the WC had to brazenly rig their reenactment of Oswald's alleged journey from the sniper's nest to the second-floor lunchroom. 

Also, Baker's insistence regarding the speed of his movement to the TSBD created an impossible time frame for the WC to get Oswald to the lunchroom soon enough to be seen by Baker from the second-floor landing, which is why they had to so markedly rig the sixth-floor-to-second-floor reenactment.

It would have been so much easier to have simply denied that the encounter occurred, but they couldn't do that.

Umm, I'm not so sure we can reject the Baker-Oswald encounter. The fact that Baker back-peddled on his earlier account that Oswald was holding a Coke when he saw him suggests to me that the encounter occurred. Everyone realized that if Oswald bought the Coke before Baker saw him, this would make it even harder to believe that Oswald had just come from the sixth floor.

Plus, 11/22/63 interrogation notes have Oswald saying that he encountered a police officer while he was getting a Coke in the second-floor lunchroom. 

Another fact that suggests to me that the lunchroom encounter happened is that the WC found it necessary to egregiously rig the reenactment of Oswald's alleged movement from the sixth floor to the second-floor lunchroom. 

I wish them all the luck in the world. There is no excuse for withholding those records.

Here is further proof that the available evidence does not support the irresponsible claim that JFK planned on totally disengaging from South Vietnam regardless of the situation on the ground.

Francis Bator, LBJ's Deputy National Security Adviser, pointed out in 2007 that JFK's withdrawal plan was clearly conditional and did not include any intention to totally disengage from South Vietnam no matter what:

        Professor Galbraith is correct that “there was a plan to withdraw US forces from Vietnam, beginning with the first thousand by December 1963, and almost all of the rest by the end of 1965…. President Kennedy had approved that plan. It was the actual policy of the United States on the day Kennedy died.”

        But as the “Record of Action No. 2472 Taken” at the October 2 NSC meeting and the October 11 National Security Action Memorandum 263 make clear, that plan was explicitly conditioned on Secretary McNamara’s and General Taylor’s “judgment that the major part of the US military task can be completed by the end of 1965…,” that “the long term program to replace US personnel with trained Vietnamese [could go forward] without impairment of the war effort.”

        The point: the 1963 policy says nothing about what the US would do if the McNamara-Taylor judgment about progress by 1965 turned out to be wrong, if the choice in 1965 turned out to be between turning the war into an American war or letting Hanoi and the NLF win in South Vietnam. (Vietnam Withdrawal? | Francis M. Bator | The New York Review of Books (nybooks.com)

EXACTLY. EXACTLY. EXACTLY. No relevant document--not NSAM 263 nor any of it supporting documents--supports the reckless claim that JFK was prepared to cut off all aid and withdraw all U.S. personnel from South Vietnam after he was reelected. 

Even James K. Galbraith, of all people, admits that even under the withdrawal plan we were going to leave 1,500 troops for supply purposes and would continue to aid South Vietnam:

        Training would end. Support for South Vietnam would continue. They had an army of over 200,000. The end of the war was not in sight. After the end of 1965, even under the withdrawal plan, 1,500 US troops were slated to remain, for supply purposes. But the war would then be Vietnamese only, with no possibility of it becoming an American war on Kennedy's watch. (JFK’s Vietnam Withdrawal Plan Is a Fact, Not Speculation (thenation.com)

I think the end of training was conditional as well, but I agree that "support for South Vietnam would continue" and that we would leave a residual force in country for supply purposes. That is a galaxy away from the baseless, irresponsible claim that JFK intended to abandon South Vietnam no matter what. 

This is why the segment on Vietnam in JFK Revisited is wrong. This is why the segment on Vietnam in the movie JFK is wrong. This is why JFK conspiracy theorists need to stop claiming that JFK was prepared to let South Vietnam fall to the Communists after he was reelected. Those who claim this are misrepresenting his position and tarnishing his legacy.

Okay, let’s get some facts straight about the long-overdue, badly needed, and completely justified 1970 operation to strike at North Vietnamese army (NVA/PAVN) bases in eastern Cambodia.

-- The NVA had 14 bases in eastern Cambodia. These bases not only served as huge storage depots but as safe rallying points for NVA soldiers retreating or returning from South Vietnam. Some of those bases were less than 50 miles from Saigon. The entire military chain of command of the Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marine Corps, along with the Joint Chiefs of Staff and senior CIA analysts, urged the Johnson administration to allow them to shut down those bases, but Johnson and McNamara refused. It is no exaggeration to say that thousands of American and South Vietnamese soldiers needlessly died because of this shameful, inexcusable refusal.

-- The NVA forces in the northern half of South Vietnam (Military Regions I and II) got their supplies from the Ho Chi Minh Trail, but the NVA forces in the southern half of South Vietnam (Military Regions III and IV) got their supplies from eight of the 14 NVA bases in eastern Cambodia, and the supplies at those bases came from the port of Sihanoukville. Thus, those bases were the conduit for at least half of the weapons, ammo, and other supplies entering South Vietnam, where they would be used to kill American, South Vietnamese, South Korean, Australian, and New Zealand troops.

-- Cambodia’s leader, Sihanouk, was not thrilled about the NVA’s occupation of a 10-mile-wide and 450-mile-long strip of the eastern end of his country, but he had little choice, and he also agreed to allow North Vietnam to ship gigantic amounts of military supplies to the port of Sihanoukville, from which they were then sent to the NVA bases in eastern Cambodia. To make the pill easier to swallow, the Hanoi regime paid handsome bribes to Sihanouk, his wife, and other relatives (Nghia M. Vo, The ARVN and the Fight for South Vietnam, McFarland Publishing, 2021, pp. 208-209).

Next, I’ll quote from Boston University historian Dr. Michael G. Kort’s book The Vietnam War Reexamined (Cambridge University Press, 2017).

On Cambodia’s ”neutrality” and on the justification for the invasion:

The time and place where Abrams’s efforts to cut the North Vietnamese ”logistics nose” melded neatly with Nixon’s willingness to exceed the limits established by President Johnson was the 1970 offensive into Cambodia. The target area was Cambodian territory just across the South Vietnamese border. . . . Kissinger notes that Cambodia’s official ”neutral” status was a sham. In fact, the offensive’s target territory” was no longer Cambodian in any practical sense ... Cambodian officials had been excluded from the soil of their own country; most, if not all, of the population had been expelled.” These were ”illegally occupied territories” under control of the North Vietnamese.

Dave Richard Palmer calls the situation as of 1968 a North Vietnamese ”military occupation on parts of Cambodia.” There were fourteen North Vietnamese military bases inside Cambodia, some no more than thirty-five miles from Saigon. About two-thirds of South Vietnam’s population was exposed to attack from these bases. . . . Andrade points out that Cambodian bases, immune from attack along with those in Laos and North Vietnam, were part of the ”unbeatable advantage” the United States had long given North Vietnam. This situation gave Nixon his first, and primary, reason to move against Hanoi’s forces in Cambodia. (pp. 168-169)

Kort explains the events that led to the invasion:

The sequence of events that led to the Cambodian invasion dates from 1965 . That was when Norodom Sihanouk, Cambodia’s longtime ruler, first allowed the North Vietnamese the use of his country’s port of Sihanoukville as an entry point for shipments destined for Communist forces in the southern part of South Vietnam. . . .

In 1970 Sihanouk was overthrown in a [bloodless] coup led by his country’s prime minister, Lon Nol. The main reason for the coup was widespread resentment of the North Vietnamese occupation of Cambodian territory, which Sihanouk was blamed for tolerating and abetting. Lon Nol immediately closed the port of Sihanoukville to the North Vietnamese, a serious blow to their efforts to supply their troops in the southern part of South Vietnam. When the North Vietnamese responded to the coup by seizing more territory and threatening the existence of Lon Nol’s pro-Western government, Nixon had a second reason to attack their forces in Cambodia. (p. 169)

Kort observes that the incursion achieved significant results, both tactically and strategically:

Allied forces . . . killed or captured thousands of enemy troops, seized huge quantities of weapons and ammunition of all sorts, and confiscated fourteen million pounds of rice. The amount of small arms ammunition alone was equal to what Communist forces used in an entire year. Davidson cites estimates that North Vietnamese offensive plans were set back at least a year, possibly two. The operation thus was ”quite successful militarily.” It ”struck the Communists a stunning blow by destroying their stores and bases in Cambodia” and bought time both for Vietnamization and the US withdrawal from South Vietnam.

Army veteran and military historian John M. Shaw, author of a comprehensive and well-received volume on the subject, offers a similar assessment. Shaw considers the campaign ”fully justified and reasonably well executed.” While hardly perfect, it seriously weakened the North Vietnamese, bolstered South Vietnamese morale, strengthened Vietnamization, and bought the United States time to complete an orderly military withdrawal. (p. 170)

Here are the stats on the results of the operation in terms of enemy losses:

1. Casualties

Killed   11,369

Prisoners and Ralliers (defectors)   2,328

2. Material and Supplies

Individual Weapons 22,892

Crew-Served Weapons   2,509

Installation, shelters destroyed   11,688

Small-arms ammunition, mortar   16,762,167 rounds

Hand grenades   62,022

Explosives   83,000 lbs

Antiaircraft ammunition   199,552 rounds

Mortar ammunition   68,593 rounds

Rockets, 107- and 122-mm   2,123

Rockets, B-40 and B-41   43,160

Recoilless rifle ammunition   29,185

Vehicles, all types   435

Pharmaceutical products  110,800 lbs

Rice   14,046,000 lbs (Brig. Gen. Tran Dinh Tho, The Cambodian Incursion, U.S. Army Center of Military History, 1979, p. 193, /tardir/mig/a324718.tiff (dtic.mil))

Those mindless, brainwashed anti-war students who screamed against the Cambodian operation had no objection when the NVA occupied eastern Cambodia in the first place, no objection when the NVA tried to overthrow the Cambodian government when that government demanded that the NVA leave the country, and no objection to all the thousands of American and Allied soldiers who needlessly died because of the weapons and supplies that came from the NVA bases in Cambodia. But, when we finally moved against those bases to save our lives and defend South Vietnam, they became outraged.

Of course, those same brainwashed dupes had little or nothing to say when the North Vietnamese Communists imposed a reign of terror on the South Vietnamese after Saigon fell and when Communist Vietnam was consistently ranked, year after year, as one of the most brutal and repressive regimes on the planet after the war.

On 10/13/2022 at 2:27 PM, James DiEugenio said:

Every once in while, Kennedys and King gets something really remarkable from our readers.  This one is a video representation by Rich Negrete. 

To my knowledge, its his first film--and I hope its not his last.  Its a kind of visual adaptation of The GIrl on the Stairs, but it actually goes beyond that book.

Considering its his first film, its moderately skillful for an amateur production. Plus its  clear, simple and straightforward in its presentation. As anyone can see, it took a lot of work to do something like this, in both collection and assembly.

Rich Negrete deserves a round of applause. 

https://www.kennedysandking.com/john-f-kennedy-articles/the-killing-floor

This is an excellent visual summary of the evidence that Oswald was not on the sixth floor during the shooting. I've added a link to it on my JFK site. The video also gives us more reasons to suspect that Detective Leavelle was guilty of foul play, which in turn raises the possibility that he played a deliberate role in Oswald's death.

On 10/14/2022 at 2:52 PM, James DiEugenio said:

 

I am about now to give you up as a lost cause.

You keep saying this and getting my hopes up, but then you keep responding!😀

The last bastion of the right wingers, like George Will, on Vietnam, was that  Cambodia and Laos were lost and that somehow proves the Domino Theory.

It "somehow" proves the Domino Theory because two more countries were taken over by Communists after we withdrew. 

Speaking of the Domino Theory Mike, when China went communist, what other countries went with it? (Sounds of crickets in the night.)

You can't be serious. As soon as China became Communist, Red China began actively seeking to spread communism in Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Thailand, and Indonesia. Northern Vietnam went Communist thanks to enormous Chinese aid and intervention in 1954, and we know what happened after North Vietnam launched its final invasion of South Vietnam in late 1974.

How can anyone talk about what happened in Cambodia and Laos without mentioning what Nixon did in both countries?  I mean Mike, you do understand the cause and effect pattern of history, do you not?  

I am thoroughly familiar with what happened in Cambodia and Laos, but I suspect your only knowledge on the subject comes from wingnuts like Chomsky and Prouty, or at least so it seems.

Kennedy had very strict limits on any commando raids into those two countries.  These were widened under LBJ, but then it was bombs away under Nixon and Kissinger.  It was that day by day pounding, week after week, month after month, that caused Sihanouk to be forced from office by Lon Nol.  And then Lon Nol to be overthrown by the Khymer Rouge. 

This is a delusional version of events in Cambodia. Under Sihanouk, the North Vietnamese army (NVA) took over eastern Cambodia and operated with impunity. Many thousands of American and South Vietnamese soldiers were killed because Sihanouk could not prevent the NVA occupation and because Johnson-McNamara refused to allow our forces to destroy this key NVA safe haven. And Lon Nol fell because liberals in Congress betrayed the anti-communist cause in Cambodia and South Vietnam, forcing us to withdraw our forces and then slashing aid.

You have read SIdeshow have you not?  And this bombing campaign was all kept secret.  Nixon should have been impeached over this.

Impeached??? WHY? Nixon should have been awarded a medal for this. His attack on the Cambodian sanctuaries saved tens of thousands of American and South Vietnamese lives and shut down the NVA's main supply port in Cambodia. It almost sounds like you wish the Communists had ravaged South Vietnam a year or two earlier than 1975.

There is also a debate over whether or not Pol Pot was a communist, many think he really was not.  He was more like an anarcho/syndicalist. 

What???!!! Only among looney-tune Chomsky-Hayden wingnuts is there any doubt that Pol Pot was a Communist. Good grief, Jim, it's sad to see you repeating these sorts of nutty claims on a public board. It might make some people unfairly question your mostly solid and insightful JFK research. 

Now, FYI, Pol Pot was the General Secretary of the Communist Party of Cambodia (Kampuchea) from the early '60s until 1981. As General Secretary, he banned all parties except the Cambodian Communist Party and carried out a massive genocide to consolidate his rule after Lon Nol was deposed. Even as a young man in his teens in France, Pol Pot joined the French Communist Party. At the age of 28, he joined the Khmer Vietminh and took part in their insurrection against Sihanouk's government.

Saying there's "debate" about whether or not Pol Pot was a Communist is just about as bad as Chomsky's obscene claim that South Vietnam's government was more violent and oppressive than North Vietnam's government. (Yes, he actually said that.)

In other words, no American intervention by Nixon, and Sihanouk would have likely stayed in power. Thus saving about 2 million lives.

This is just crazy talk. The Khmer Communists were trying to overthrow Sihanouk and take over Cambodia long before Nixon was elected. And, again, the NVA occupied eastern Cambodia years before Nixon was elected.

The NVA used eastern Cambodia to set up sanctuaries for troops retreating from South Vietnam and built large military bases and supply depots in those sanctuary areas, in clear violation of Cambodia's professed neutral status. By the long-accepted laws of war, if a country cannot enforce its own neutrality and is occupied by a hostile force that is attacking your forces, you have every right to attack that hostile force. Nixon had every legal and moral right to finally attack the NVA's bases and depots in Cambodia, and shame on LBJ and McNamara for not having done it years earlier.

In 1996, LCDR Nancy V. Kneipp wrote a superb project paper titled The Tet Offensive and the Principles of War for the Naval War College. Making good use of the North Vietnamese sources available at the time, Kneipp provided important insights about the events leading up to the Tet Offensive and the offensive itself. Let us consider some of those insights.

Kneipp noted that Hanoi’s leaders decided to launch the Tet Offensive because they perceived that the tide of the war was turning against them, that time was no longer on their side, and that their protracted guerilla-war strategy had to be abandoned because it had proved to be “unsuccessful”:

Until 1967, the North Vietnamese believed that victory in the South could be won using military dau tranh. The main debate was the type of armed struggle to be used. Most early activities used classic Maoist-style guerrilla warfare, concentrating on rural areas.

Things changed in 1967 for several reasons. Hanoi was surprised by the scope and pace of the U.S. buildup between 1965 and 1967. Allied search-and-destroy missions were disrupting logistics support to the People's Army of North Vietnam (PAVN) and National Liberation Front (NLF) forces, causing a significant decline in combat capability. Further, U.S. pacification efforts and South Vietnamese popular acceptance of the Americans contributed to a decline in NLF morale. By mid-1967, North Vietnamese leaders formally acknowledged that time was no longer on their side. The only hope for liberating the South was the withdrawal of U.S. forces, which, they agreed, would occur only when the cost of the war exceeded its benefits. Since the previous way of war had been unsuccessful, it was time for a change.

General Vo Nguyen Giap proposed a new direction, Tong Cong Kick, Tong Khoi Ngia (TCK-TKN)--General Offensive, General Uprising. (pp. 3-4)

Kneipp observed that the Hanoi regime launched the Tet Offensive based their belief that most South Vietnamese would rise up and aid Communist forces and that South Vietnam’s army (ARVN) would collapse when attacked, and based on their acceptance of erroneous status reports coming from the National Liberation Front (NLF) in South Vietnam:

It was widely believed in Hanoi that the South Vietnamese masses were ready to support the communists-they were so unhappy and disliked the Americans so much that they would overthrow the Thieu regime if given a little encouragement. They also believed that the GVN was on the verge of collapse; the ARVN was so inefficient it would disintegrate as a coherent military organization rather than fight; and attacks on Allied C3 systems would halt the American partnership in the war.

Additionally, the NLF claimed to have secret underground organizations in all communities in South Vietnam as well as control of four-fifths of the area; guerrilla units consistently submitted reports of the "vigorous movement in the South”; and urban cadres, wishing to keep their soft jobs and avoid the harsh guerrilla jungle life, consistently submitted enthusiastic progress reports-all were false. In other words, force planning for the Offensive was based on faulty assumptions and misinformation. Further, when Southern commanders, to their horror, were directed to prepare for TCK-TKN, they could not "lose face" by protesting or admitting the truth-they had to support the decision as best they could.

Similarly, for the plan to work, it was necessary for regular forces and local forces to coordinate closely. When effective coordination did not occur and local forces faced situations they could not handle alone, they were hesitant to report it to higher headquarters. As a result, the plan could not be effectively supported with available forces and readiness levels. From an economy of force perspective, the Offensive had little chance of success. (pp. 11-12)

Kneipp explained that Hanoi’s leaders made false assumptions about what Westmoreland would do as the date for the offensive neared. North Vietnamese army (NVA/PAVN) officers failed to communicate key information to some subordinate units, resulting in debacles such as the abortive attack on the U.S. Embassy in Saigon:

Even though intelligence collection and peripheral attacks provided insight into enemy intentions and although they were master manipulators and deceivers, the Communists fell into a "mirror imaging" trap. Although they accurately predicted the U.S. government and GVN [South Vietnam’s government] response to their extended truce proposal, they did not correctly assess the U.S. Army response. They expected that General Westmoreland and the U.S. Army to be controlled from Washington, to follow orders with virtually no deviation or independent thought. This was not the case; General Westmoreland was against the extended truce. In fact, he suggested the cease-fire be canceled altogether. Although the South Vietnamese refused to cancel it entirely, they did agree to shorten the period and to maintain ARVN units at half strength. As discussed above, this forced the Communists to change their plan, significantly reducing the effectiveness of their attacks. . . .

Although general operational objectives were stated, breakdowns often occurred at lower levels where troops were not privy to the "big picture." A typical example was the attack on the U.S. embassy. A small sapper unit penetrated the compound exterior wall and entered the compound, killing the duty MPs. Once inside, they stopped. Although there are no indications that this was to be a suicide raid, nothing had been said to them about replacements or an escape route. They carried enough explosives to blast their way into the Chancery building, but had no order to do so. Without specific orders or a clear mission, the sappers took up defensive positions and returned fire. Eventually all were killed or captured. (pp. 13-14)

Kneipp pointed out that many NVA soldiers were mere boys (some were as young as 14) and were less committed to Hanoi’s cause than other soldiers:

As in other wars of attrition, high Communist casualties had resulted in a force of young, inexperienced boys, many of whom were conscripted from rural areas. This created significant problems for the Communists. In addition to reduced readiness, these young soldiers were sometimes as fearful of the urban environment as they were of death. They were also much less committed to the Communist cause. The following account from a Saigon merchant is typical:

"I saw them right in my area.... About 10 to 15 of them ... were sitting together and eating and smoking. I saw they were very calm, and didn't show any signs of fear or fright at all, although ... there were some MPs and policemen surrounding the area.... They said that they had obeyed their superior's orders to come and take over Saigon and that they were not attacking anyone or doing any fighting at all. But if GVN [South Vietnamese government] forces hit them, they would fight back." (p. 15)

Kneipp noted that Hanoi severely underestimated how fiercely South Vietnamese soldiers would fight:

Hanoi seriously underestimated the resolve of the South to resist. Rather than the predicted passive response and quick surrender, South Vietnamese soldiers fought fiercely and effectively, beyond even the expectations of the U.S., eventually repelling the Communist advance. This situation was compounded by the last-minute change in execution date, making it difficult for NLF regulars and reserve forces to effectively respond to Allied counter-attacks. (p. 17)

Kneipp discussed the fact that Hanoi’s military leaders made a major blunder in their orders regarding when to begin the offensive, resulting in the loss of the element of surprise in many areas:

Although much effort had gone into detailed planning, there was a major execution problem in addition to those discussed above. In their haste to disseminate the new execution order, Communist leaders told their commands to attack on the first day of the Lunar New Year. However, Communist planners forgot that North and South Vietnam were using different calendars-this meant there were two execution dates. As a result, attacks did not begin simultaneously as planned. Those who started a day late faced troops who were already alerted. This significantly degraded the operation's overall effectiveness. (p. 18)

If you read liberal books on the Vietnam War, you will find they say little or nothing about this information. Liberal scholars are loathe to admit that the Tet Offensive was not only a military disaster but that it was an act of desperation because Hanoi realized time was no longer on their side. Liberal scholars also still insist on portraying South Vietnamese soldiers as being unwilling to fight and ineffective. And liberal scholars rarely admit that most South Vietnamese supported the Saigon regime, in spite of its many faults, because they knew that the Hanoi regime was much worse.

During the Vietnam War, liberal members of Congress and the anti-war movement, often repeating Communist propaganda, portrayed American and South Vietnamese military actions as negatively as possible, regardless of the facts on the ground. One sad example of this is the battle for “Hamburger Hill.” To this day, liberal scholars repeat most of the wartime North Vietnamese and Soviet myths and distortions about this battle.

“Hamburger Hill” was assaulted and taken during Operation Apache Snow in May 1969 under the command of General Melvin Zais. “Hamburger Hill” was actually Ap Bia Mountain (Dong Ap Bia) in the vital A Shau Valley, and was designated Hill 937 during the operation. The following is typical of the inexcusable falsehood and distortion that one finds in liberal sources on the subject:

Though the heavily-fortified Hill 937, a ridge of the mountain Dong Ap Bia in central Vietnam near its western border with Laos, had little strategic value, US command ordered its capture by a frontal assault, only to abandon it soon thereafter.

First of all, Hill 937 had significant strategic value, which is why the North Vietnamese army (NVA/PAVN) occupied it and fought so hard to try to keep it. The NVA occupied it to try to prevent us from taking the crucial A Shau Valley.

Hill 937 provided a commanding position in the A Shau Valley. The A Shau Valley branched off the Ho Chi Minh Trail and was therefore a critical part of the NVA’s logistical network. The valley also provided a major avenue of approach for the NVA to assault Hue and other populated areas in the coastal lowlands. During the Tet Offensive, the NVA launched their attack on the city of Hue from the A Shau Valley. Another reason the valley was vital was that it was barely 3 miles from the border with Laos, where the NVA had sanctuaries with large bases.

Yes, we “abandoned” Hill 937 after we took it because we took the A Shau Valley and remained in the valley for nearly three years.

Our losses in Operation Apache Snow, which included the taking of Hill 937, were mild by any rational measurement, whereas the NVA regiment in the valley was destroyed as a fighting force and was compelled to flee. Out of the entire 1,800-man 3rd Brigade of the 101st Airborne Division, 78 soldiers were killed in the operation, 47 to 56 of whom died in the taking of Hill 937, while the NVA had at least 600 soldiers killed. The NVA were usually fanatical about not leaving behind corpses, weapons, and supplies, but they were forced to flee with such haste that they left behind over 600 corpses and large amounts weapons and supplies.

Military historian Kelly Boian explains the importance of the A Shau Valley and the losses suffered in the operation to secure the valley, in his monograph “Major General Melvin Zais and Hamburger Hill,” published by the U.S. Army Command and General Staff College:

Gen. William C. Westmoreland . . . was determined to deny the ability of the Viet Cong and North Vietnamese Army from resupplying itself via the Ho Chi Minh Trail that ran from North Vietnam through Laos and Cambodia into South Vietnam. Key to removing this logistical superhighway was controlling the A Shau Valley, where the Viet Cong and North Vietnamese Army had developed logistical bases. . . .

Gen. General Creighton Abrams . . . approved the 1969 XXIV Corps mission APACHE SNOW to prevent a potential North Vietnamese Army offensive as the enemy built up stockpiles of supplies in the A Shau Valley. . . .

The assault on Dong Ap Bia resulted in the death of approximately 600 North Vietnamese soldiers, and reports of another 1,100 enemy dead and wounded removed from the hill to Laos, or buried in collapsed tunnels and bunkers. For the Screaming Eagles [i.e., the 101st Airborne Division], 56 soldiers died, with another 367 soldiers wounded. General Zais had achieved his objective of wearing down the north’s 29th Regiment, having virtually wiped out the 7th and 8th battalions of the enemy. (pp. 24-25, 35, ADA569331.pdf (dtic.mil), emphasis added)

Yet, during this successful and important battle, Senator Ted Kennedy, displaying an inexcusable ignorance of the facts, called the battle “madness” and “senseless and irresponsible.” Similarly, most news outlets in the U.S. portrayed the battle as a costly, needless, and useless effort.

Boian discusses General Zais’s efforts to respond to the media’s warped coverage of the operation:

After operations at Dong Ap Bia, Zais interacted with the media to ensure the proper story of Dong Ap Bia was told. In his own words, General Zais stated, “I didn’t care about me, but I just thought that we had fought such a gallant and brilliant fight, and that Honeycutt had done well. For those men to think that it had all been a needless, suicidal attack just galled me, and that is why I was willing to talk to the television, radio, and newspaper people who obviously were aware of what Senator [Edward] Kennedy said and were clamoring to talk to me.”

General Zais learned that the media can be extremely critical, and later reflected in his retirement that the media could bolster the military, as occurred in World War II, or undermine it as Maj. Gen. Zais believed it did in Vietnam.

General Zais conducted his interaction with the media in a professional manner, even though he felt the media were ruining the war for the United States. General Zais commented later in his life that reporters covering the war in Vietnam were at a “D” grade level compared to the “A” grade level of reporters during World War II. Even when second-guessed about actions he directed, such as continuing the fight, or not pulling back and conducting strategic bombing on Hill 937, he swallowed his anger and calmly explained why certain actions had to be conducted. Zais emphasized the need to accomplish the mission accomplishment and to avoid losing contact with the enemy.

The media’s reporting on Hamburger Hill became one of the elements in increasing the unpopularity among Americans of the Vietnam War. Dong Ap Bia became another rallying point for anti-war protestors and political platforms for politicians to argue against continued U.S. involvement. Media on the battlefield continue to play a critical role in explaining military actions on the battlefield, and are another means of achieving strategic objectives as was evident when Presidential Press Secretary Ronald Ziegler reinforced Zais’ message to the White House press corps 23 May 1969. The media will always be in the field to gather information for stories that sell best to the public. It is the job of leaders to ensure honest, truthful, and full aspects of the situation are highlighted, and to be forthcoming with any perceived negative actions. (pp. 37-38, ADA569331.pdf (dtic.mil))

If you want more information on “Hamburger Hill,” I recommend the video The Media Myth of Hamburger Hill, available on YouTube. Dr. Lewis Sorley provides a good scholarly analysis on the issue in his book A Better War: The Unexamined Victories and Final Tragedy of America's Last Years in Vietnam (Mariner Books, 1999), pp. 138-141.

Oh my goodness, in reviewing my previous replies, I realized that I have not yet mentioned one of the most important books on North Vietnamese sources: Merle Pribbenow’s landmark, 520-page work Victory in Vietnam: The Official History of the People's Army of Vietnam, 1954-1975 (University Press of Kansas, 2002). Pribbenow, native fluent in Vietnamese, translated the North Vietnamese army’s history of the war, making this invaluable source available for the first time in English and greatly advancing our knowledge of the war.

The history was written in 1994 by a group of senior military officers under the direction of Vietnam’s Ministry of Defense. Although the book contains many exaggerations, distortions, and omissions, it also contains a wealth of surprising admissions and other key information.

To put it mildly, liberal scholars were not thrilled about the book, because it proved to be a stark refutation of virtually every key component of the liberal version of the war. Conservative scholars, on the other hand, gladly began making use of the numerous important revelations contained in the book.

As just one example, I quote from Dr. William Duiker’s foreword to the book wherein, among other things, he describes what the PAVN authors revealed about the Tet Offensive (note that PLAF refers to the People’s Liberation Armed Forces, i.e., the military arm of the National Liberation Front, and that PAVN refers to the People’s Army of Vietnam, i.e., North Vietnam’s army):

The authors concede that the DRV [Democratic Republic of Vietnam] war planners had underestimated the military capabilities of the enemy and overestimated the level of support for the insurgent forces in the urban areas. They thus tacitly confirm claims by the Pentagon that the attacking forces had suffered heavy casualties in the fighting, and would be unable to retain their gains in the countryside.

The price for Hanoi’s excessive optimism was paid in 1969. The insurgent forces in the south (PLAF units had been especially decimated) were unable to hold on to their territorial gains, and Saigon managed to regain control over many areas that it had lost during the offensive. In the meantime, U.S. troops managed to drive PAVN troops back to isolated areas of the country, such as the U Minh Forest in the Ca Mau Peninsula, the Plain of Reeds near the Cambodian border, and parts of the Central Highlands. Supplies and food and military equipment for the insurgents were severely affected, and pessimism about future prospects rose to dangerous levels within the ranks. (Kindle Edition, locs. 255-261, a “location” is about one fourth of regular page in Kindle)

But, of course, like most Communist histories, the PAVN history also contains some glaring omissions. Dr. Duiker:

How do the authors explain North Vietnam’s stunning victory in the Vietnam War? To the seasoned observer, their answers are hardly surprising: occupation of the moral high ground, a decade of experience in fighting the French, strong Party leadership, and the support of the Vietnamese people. What is most conspicuous by its absence is any reference to the assistance provided by Hanoi’s chief allies.

Beginning in 1965, the Soviet Union provided significant amounts of advanced military weaponry to help the DRV defend its skies from U.S. bombing raids. Over a period of two decades, China not only sent billions of dollars in military and economic aid, but also dispatched half a million technicians, advisers, and combat troops to assist the DRV in its struggle. (Locs. 282-289)

Another liberal myth debunked by the PAVN history is that the South Vietnamese army usually fought poorly and ran away when strongly attacked. The authors’ account of the final battles in March and April 1975 alone refutes this false claim. For example:

After some initial moments of terror and disorder, the enemy regrouped and fought to block our attack in this important sector. Vicious fighting swirled around the six-way intersection, the province administration area, the armored area, and especially at the Darlac Province Military Headquarters. Regiment 95B had to commit its reserve force to the battle and launch three separate assaults before it was finally able to capture the Darlac Province Military Headquarters. (Locs. 8600-8607)

Because our artillery was not able to completely suppress the enemy’s artillery firebases and because the enemy air force conducted a ferocious bombing campaign, none of the division’s assaults against the puppet 18th Division Headquarters and the 52nd Regiment Headquarters were successful. (Loc. 9418)

A good book on North Vietnamese sources is Lien-Hang T. Nguyen’s 2012 book Hanoi’s War. Using previously unseen archival materials from Vietnam’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and from other archives around the world, Nguyen provides a look at the Vietnam War from the North Vietnamese perspective and also from the Soviet and Chinese perspective. As I’ve mentioned several times, liberal historians have found these sources to be highly embarrassing because they destroy the liberal version of the war.

One of the significant bits of information revealed in Hanoi’s War is that “Mao signaled to Washington that Beijing would only enter the war if Chinese territory were attacked.” Yet, McNamara repeatedly cited fears of Chinese intervention as his excuse for opposing the full use of American air power against North Vietnam’s infrastructure and main supply points, even though they were miles away from any Chinese territory.

Three other books that make extensive use of previously neglected North Vietnamese sources are Mark Moyar’s book Triumph Forsaken, Lewis Sorley’s book A Better War, and Nghia M. Vo’s book The ARVN and the Fight for South Vietnam. Vo, a Vietnamese-American scholar who's written several books about the Vietnam War and its aftermath, takes special aim at the American news media's warped reporting on the war.

I have to shake my head in disbelief when I see liberal historians matter-of-factly declare that the Domino Theory was proved false. Do these people not know that Cambodia fell to communism in April 1975 at the same time that the North Vietnamese army surrounded Saigon, that Laos fell to communism later that same year, and that Thailand felt compelled to abandon its staunch anti-communist stance and cozy up to Communist China after South Vietnam fell?

Dick Russell documents a potential back-up patsy. He discusses him in his book On the Trail of the JFK Assassins. If it wasn't that guy, I'm sure the plotters had a Plan B if Oswald bugged out. 

On 10/12/2022 at 2:42 AM, Bob Ness said:

More bad news.

You were the person who brought it up and also posted a link to it.

You derailed your own thread this time at least. I do appreciate the research you and others put into various topics. Don't get me wrong. But following the topic presented is also a polite thing to do so people don't have to wade through unrelated chatter (I'm sure we're all guilty to some extent) in order to get to the subject and knowledgeable posters who may have valuable insights and expertise. Flaming a book author with political jibber-jabber which causes them to disappear cheats everyone else out of that valuable perspective. They often don't reappear.

I brought up Pearl Harbor only to highlight a case where Summers has stared right at clear evidence of conspiracy--in this instance, advance knowledge--and has offered lame explanations for that evidence. I was not trying to start a discussion about Pearl Harbor itself. The link I posted was a link to my review of Summers' Pearl Habor book in which I respond to his rejection of evidence of advance knowledge. 

I'm rather surprised there there's pushback on this issue here of all places. Have any of you read Doug Horne's excellent book on the subject? Horne presents a great deal of evidence that FDR knew Pearl Harbor would be attacked and welcomed the attack in order to get America into the war. (Horne, however, thinks FDR's duplicity was a necessary evil that ended up doing much more good than evil, a view that I strongly reject.)

Anyway, I'm glad to hear that Summers has not switched sides on the JFK case. His witness interviews have been some of the most important ever done on the case. His 2014 book Not in Your Lifetime is superb. His chapter therein on Oswald's whereabouts during the shooting presents a strong case that Oswald was not on the sixth floor during the assassination.