Michael Griffith

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.

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.

Oh, I heard from several fellow DLI grads about DLI's development of immersion programs in the '90s. As mentioned, when I was there the second time, such programs were just getting started on an experimental, limited basis by one or two of the larger language departments. While the students were in the immersion building, they had to stay there the whole time and could only speak their target language.

This statement doesn't really make a whole lot of sense to me. Knox blamed Japanese-Americans living in Hawaii. https://wapo.st/3RNpajb I could easily answer these arguments, but Pearl Harbor is not the topic of this thread. If you want to start a separate thread on the evidence of advance knowledge, go ahead and I'll be glad to engage the issue and post more evidence.

More on the powerful impact of Operation Linebacker II, the warped liberal version of the operation, and Congress’s role in helping North Vietnam in the peace negotiations. Military historian Earl Tilford discusses the powerful impact of Operations Linebacker I and II in an article titled “Linebacker II: The Christmas Bombing” published in 2014 on the Vietnam Veterans of America website. Among other things, Tilford notes that after the devastating December 26 bombing raids, Hanoi cabled Washington and asked that peace talks resume on January 8. Nixon rejected Hanoi’s offer and insisted that peace talks begin on January 2. When Hanoi refused Nixon’s terms, Nixon continued the bombing. After two more days of ruinous bombing, Hanoi agreed to resume negotiations on Nixon’s terms. Tilford also discusses just some of the distorted news media coverage of the bombing and observes that Linebacker II did minimal damage to North Vietnam’s cities and caused fewer than 2,000 civilian deaths. Here’s an excerpt from Tilford’s article (note: ARVN refers to South Vietnam’s army): During the six months of Linebacker I (May 10-October 23) 155,548 tons of bombs fell on North Vietnam. The NVA’s Soviet-style blitzkrieg consumed 1,000 tons a day in fuel for tanks and trucks, as well as munitions for tank and artillery tubes, food for troops, and medicine for the considerable casualties inflicted by a stubborn ARVN defense. American air power, with more latitude in target selection than in the past, sharply reduced the supply flow, effectively blunting the offensive. By October, with North Vietnam’s ports mined and blockaded, the vital northeast and northwest rail and road lines leading to China cut, and its divisions in the South taking a hard pounding, Hanoi seemed ready to end the war on terms acceptable to Washington. That included a ceasefire, the withdrawal of U.S. forces from South Vietnam, continued U.S. military aid to Saigon, and the return of American POWs. . . . While the diplomatic jousting at the Paris Peace Talks continued into November, Nixon handily defeated Sen. George McGovern, the peace candidate, in the presidential election. Muddling Nixon’s political victory, however, the Democrats extended control over Congress and threatened to cut off funding for the war in January. . . . The bombing on the night of December 26 got the Politburo’s attention. Instead of sending in waves of bombers throughout the night, 120 B-52s hit ten targets within two 15-minute periods. Remaining SAMs claimed two more B-52s, but the 1.66 percent loss rate was acceptable given the results. Hanoi cabled Washington asking if talks might resume on January 8, 1973. Nixon demanded that talks start on January 2 and told Hanoi the bombing would continue until they agreed. Accordingly, the following night, sixty B-52s struck airfields and warehouses around Hanoi and Vinh, along with the Lang Dang Rail Yard near the Chinese border. While SAMs claimed two more B-52s, returning crews reported that the missile firings seemed less coordinated and more sporadic. Sixty more B-52 sorties struck over the next two nights with no losses and no reported SAM firings. On December 28 Hanoi agreed to reopen negotiations on Nixon’s terms. Linebacker II ended on December 29, after eleven days of bombing the enemy’s heartland, including roads and troop concentrations in North Vietnam’s southern panhandle. Aerial attacks on NVA units inside South Vietnam intensified to encourage serious negotiations on Hanoi’s part. . . . Critics of the war, and of the air war in particular, lambasted what became known as the Christmas Bombing. In Europe it was unfairly and erroneously compared to the firebombing raids on Dresden and Hamburg near the end of World War II. A December 28, 1972, Washington Post editorial asked if the Christmas Bombing was not the “most senseless and savage act of war…ever visited by one sovereign people on another?” The historical ignorance displayed by that question is astounding. Former Vietnam War correspondent Gloria Emerson’s lack of objectivity—not to mention disregard for documentation—was evident in her book, Winners and Losers: Battles, Retreats, Gains, Losses, and Ruins from the Vietnam War, in which she cited an unidentified source in Hanoi to support her claim that 100,000 tons of bombs fell on “Hanoi alone” during Linebacker II. This is a physical impossibility given the number of bombers involved, their carrying capacity, distances to the target, and recycling time for the 210 B-52s available. Given that it took six months to drop 155,000 tons of bombs during Linebacker I, that should have been self-evident. While Linebacker II severely damaged North Vietnamese military targets, the country’s cities were far from devastated. According to Hanoi’s own figures, 1,212 people perished in the capital, while 300 were killed in Haiphong. In reality, U.S. airpower could have obliterated North Vietnam far more quickly than the two-week period proposed by Gen. LeMay by bombing the dikes during the rainy season. . . . But those options never were considered given Washington’s limited strategic objectives. Linebacker II operated well within the law of proportionality prescribed by what was known as the Just War Doctrine. (https://vvaveteran.org/34-1/34-1_tilford.html) Military historian Phillip Michael agrees, noting that civilian losses were minimal and that Linebacker II left North Vietnam “virtually defenseless”: Major target complexes struck by B-52s and tactical aircraft included railroad yards, storage facilities, radio communications facilities, airfields, SAMs, and bridges. In total, LINEBACKER II bombed 59 targets. Railroad yards and complexes accounted for 36 percent of the total sortie effort; next were storage facilities such as warehouse complexes (25 percent). More than 20,000 tons of ordnance was dropped. Bomb damage included 1600 military structures damaged or destroyed; 500 rail interdictions; 372 pieces of rolling stock damaged or destroyed; one-fourth of petroleum reserves destroyed; and 80 percent of electrical power production destroyed. Based on the amount of ordnance dropped, civilian losses were minimal. Hanoi’s mayor claimed 1,318 civilians killed and 1,216 injured, while Haiphong reported 305 dead. The Air Force and the Navy went after airfields, SAM sites, and communication centers. Prior to each night’s B-52 raids, F-11s struck MIG fields. On the night of 26 December, 120 B-52s hit a variety of targets within a 15 minute span. Additionally, 100 aircraft, including F-111s, F-4s, and Navy A-6s struck SAM sites and radar sites before, during and after the B-52 raids. The last two aircraft losses of LINEBACKER II came on Day 8. LINEBACKER II ended on 29 December, leaving North Vietnam virtually defenseless, their SAM supply depleted. (The Strategic Significance of Linebacker II, U.S. Army War College, 2003, pp. 11-12, https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/pdfs/ADA414163.pdf) Tilford alludes a key point that is usually ignored in liberal sources: Liberals in Congress were loudly threatening to cut off funding for the war when Congress came back in session in January. This is why Nixon ordered Linebacker II and insisted that peace talks resume on January 2. Congress came back in session on January 3. Phillip Michael notes, President Nixon enjoyed a solid reelection victory in 1972. Even so, he faced an imminent cutoff of funds for the Vietnam War, so he needed a decision strategy to end the war in a short period of time. (The Strategic Significance of Linebacker II, U.S. Army War College, 2003, p. iii, https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/pdfs/ADA414163.pdf) Vietnam War scholars Dana Drenkowski and Lester Grau: North Vietnam’s negotiators had walked out of the Paris Peace talks and were refusing to return, figuring that U.S. politics would force Nixon to abandon South Vietnam and the POWs without any concessions on their part. Congress was recessed, but when they returned from the Christmas recess, they were expected to force Nixon into unilateral withdrawal by stopping all funds for the war. Nixon’s position looked untenable, but he decided to launch a massive bomber strike against Hanoi to force the North Vietnamese back to negotiations before Congress could reconvene. The bomber campaign was named Operation Linebacker II. (Patterns and Predictability: The Soviet Evaluation of Operation Linebacker II, p. 1, http://www.admiraltytrilogy.com/read/Soviet_view_of_Linebacker_II.pdf) Nixon feared that if peace talks had not resumed by the time Congress returned from the Christmas break, the liberal anti-war majority might well cut off all funds for South Vietnam. If Nixon had not had Congress ready and even anxious to betray South Vietnam if a peace deal were not quickly reached, he surely would have insisted on better terms in the Paris Peace Accords. However, Nixon and Kissinger did succeed in getting a crucial provision into the accords that would have enabled South Vietnam to survive IF Congress had not refused to honor it, i.e., the provision that the U.S. could resupply South Vietnam on a one-for-one basis and up to the level of their existing equipment and supplies, which level was substantial. But, tragically and treasonously, the liberal anti-war majority in Congress began slashing aid to South Vietnam soon after the accords were signed, sending the worst possible signal to North Vietnam. Even when it became undeniable that North Vietnam was attacking South Vietnam in brazen violation of the peace accords, Congress kept cutting aid to South Vietnam and refused to approve emergency funding requests from the White House. Even with the help of this Congressional treachery, and even with ample Soviet and Chinese supplies flowing to North Vietnam, it took the North Vietnamese two years and heavy combat losses to finally conquer South Vietnam.

First off, I'll say one more thing about FDR's allowing Pearl Harbor to be attacked: FDR and his inner circle did not believe the Japanese would do much damage in their attack, and they were stunned when they learned the extent of the damage. Navy Secretary Frank Knox revealed this to close friends, and the great damage that was done was the reason he decided to start disclosing FDR's foreknowledge to selected friends. Beyond this, I'm not going to comment further on FDR's advance knowledge of Pearl Harbor. I lay out most of the evidence of advance knowledge in my previously mentioned book. I also present much of it on my Pearl Harbor website. Doug Horne presents a great deal of the evidence in his book on the subject, although Doug thinks FDR's duplicity was warranted and wise. I engage in no "screed" against Democrats. I'm an eclectic Independent. I agree with the Democrats on several issues, including universal healthcare, most aspects of the Affordable Care Act, infrastructure spending, tougher environmental laws on proven big polluters, granting legal status to illegal immigrants who've committed no serious crimes, granting full citizenship to "Dreamers," and raising the minimum age for buying rifles to 21. When it comes to the Vietnam War, yes, I absolutely believe that liberal Democrats in Congress and the anti-war movement behaved terribly and treasonously. But, that was a long time ago. I'm conservative on many issues, moderate on many issues, and liberal on some issues. So, with that out of the way, Lawrence, I'm glad to hear that as of three months ago when you communicated with Summers, he had not embraced the lone-gunman theory.

Years after the war, Bui Diem, the former South Vietnamese ambassador to the U.S., penned an eloquent essay that, among other things, addressed the wartime Communist propaganda line that the Vietnam War was a civil war, called out the gullibility and culpability of the American anti-war movement, and defended the morality of America’s effort to keep South Vietnam Free. Diem noted that Hanoi’s leaders themselves quickly dispelled the civil-war myth after Saigon fell. Diem rightly wondered if anyone in the anti-war movement felt any shame for their gullibility and actions. And, Diem cogently noted that only idealogues could still compare South Vietnam with “the chilling police state that destroyed it.” Here is an excerpt from Bui Diem’s essay: The more vocal critics of the war in the sixties and seventies characterized the intervention, not just as wrong, but also as immoral. Their charge was based primarily on the theory that the war in Vietnam was a civil war, and that consequently American intervention was an act of aggression against people who were fighting to free themselves from an oppressive regime and unify their country in accord with the aspirations of the great majority of decent-minded Vietnamese. It is my own belief that this theory held the field for so long primarily because it was a powerful attraction to the many Americans who were angry at their own government and society and were looking for issues to hang their anger on. Certainly, the facts that refuted it were readily available. From early on, both Saigon and Washington knew beyond a doubt that the National Liberation Front—the Vietcong—was a creation of the Communist Party, and that without North Vietnamese organization, leadership, supplies, and, starting in 1964, without the North Vietnamese regular army, there would have been no revolution to speak of and no war. It was one of my greatest frustrations that our firm knowledge of this—both from widespread and incontrovertible evidence and also from personal experience among many of us of communist “front” techniques—made no impact on popular understanding in the West. Regardless of what was there to be seen, people saw only what they wished. After the war, when propaganda no longer mattered, the party dropped its pretense. “Our Party,” said Le Duan in his 1975 victory speech, “is the unique and single leader that organized, controlled, and governed the entire struggle of the Vietnamese people from the first day of the revolution.” During the war, the North Vietnamese never openly admitted they had troops in South Vietnam. (Le Duc Tho even kept up this pretense with Henry Kissinger….). But afterward the party treated this subterfuge simply as an excellent piece of public relations and its own role as a matter of intense pride. As the North Vietnamese general Vo Ban told French television interviewers in 1983, “In May 1959 I had the privilege of being designated by the Vietnamese Communist Party to unleash a military attack on the South in order to liberate the South and reunify the fatherland.” During the heyday of the antiwar movement, I marveled at the innocence of its spokesmen in believing something different from this. I wonder even now if they ever feel shame for their gullibility and their contribution to the tragedy. But they are not heard from. The issue of morality, then, comes down to whether it was moral for the United States to have supported an admittedly flawed South Vietnamese regime in its attempt to survive against a totalitarian antagonist. Here, too, the answer seems to me self-evident. However unpalatable leaders like Nguyen Van Thieu might have been, South Vietnam was full of pluralistic ferment and possibilities for change and development. It was a place where good people could hope for something better to evolve, where they could even publicly advocate for it, as so many strong-minded opposition politicians, intellectuals, and writers did. None but idealogues can compare such a place with the chilling police state that destroyed it. And none, I think, can fairly question the morality of the effort to prevent its destruction. (Bui Diem, “A Viable State,” in Major Problems in the History of the Vietnam War, edited by Robert McMahon, Third Edition, Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2003, pp. 379-380)

What makes you think such a commitment would have been possible with Diem in power? I would rephrase that question to read, "Would such a commitment have been necessary with Diem in power?" There were reports Nhu was negotiating with the North. Regime change prevented the best chance for peace. And was thus more significant. Those reports were baseless and absurd on their face. Anyone who knew anything about Nhu should have known they were fiction. And that decision was entirely up to Americans? A rather moot point. I suspect Averell Harriman headed a cabal determined to take control of the world's heroin market. He negotiated the partition of Laos and the overthrow of Diem -- and the murder of JFK, I suspect. Averell Harriman??? I think that's bizarre. Even LBJ eventually realized that Harriman was an overly gullible, peace-at-any-price dove. Harriman was the last person who would have wanted JFK dead. I lost interest in the rest of your reply after reading the above comments.

Regime change is the far greater intervention, no? Compared to sending hundreds of thousands of American ground troops to South Vietnam for years? No, I would say that the regime change was not the greater intervention. In any case, the point is that Jim was talking about the issue of whether or not to send regular combat troops. Did MacArthur approve of what Kennedy green-lit in 'Nam? Admittedly, Kennedy showed poor judgment and weakness in this affair. His first serious mistake was appointing Henry Cabot Lodge as ambassador to South Vietnam, a truly baffling and disastrous choice. JFK's second serious mistake was listening to his ignorant and self-righteous liberal advisors who were determined to get rid of Diem. JFK began having serious second thoughts about removing Diem, but he failed to take decisive action to call off the coup. He was afraid to challenge Lodge. To be fair, JFK had no idea that Diem and his brother would be murdered. He assumed they would merely be exiled. Their murder should have alerted him to the fact that the generals whom Lodge and the CIA recruited to overthrow Diem were more repressive and undemocratic than Diem was (and not nearly as competent). This disaster never would have happened if JFK had appointed Edward Lansdale as our ambassador to South Vietnam, as JFK was initially considering doing.

FDR most certainly did have advance knowledge that Pearl Harbor would be attacked. His own Secretary of the Navy, Frank Knox, said he did. So did Secretary of State Cordell Hull. So did Congressman Martin Dies. So did the Red Cross's War Services director, whom FDR secretly ordered to send extra medical supplies to Pearl Harbor shortly before the attack. FDR knew from the intercepted bomb-plot messages alone that the Japanese were acquiring information about the position of ships in Pearl Harbor, information that they were not seeking about ships in any other port, which is why FDR fought tooth and nail to keep the bomb-plot messages sealed. I wrote a book on this subject last year titled The Real Infamy of Pearl Harbor: Separating Fact from Fiction about the "Unprovoked and Dastardly Attack." FDR had been trying to provoke Japan to attack for weeks because he wanted an excuse to get the U.S. into WW II.

Does anyone have any additional information about the rumor that Anthony Summers no longer posits a conspiracy in JFK's death and that he's writing a book that will support the lone-gunman theory? Given his 2016 book on Pearl Harbor, it would not totally shock me to learn that the rumor is true. HIs 2016 Pearl Harbor book, though excellent in nearly all key areas, presents downright pitiful, baffling rejections of the considerable evidence that FDR had advance knowledge that Pearl Harbor would be attacked, as I discuss in my Amazon review of the book: Great for the Most Part, But Disappointing in One Key Area (amazon.com)

I think Doug Horne has made a compelling case that JFK's body was switched from the ceremonial casket to a shipping casket on the plane trip from Dallas, that there was a secret pre-autopsy manipulation of the body, and that his body was then put back into the ceremonial casket.

I think Mark Shaw makes a strong case against suicide. Leaving aside the very strange circumstances surrounding her death, suicide makes no sense. Her career was on the upswing, and a number of other positive things were happening in her life. The last friend who saw her hours before she died said she gave no indication of being depressed, much less suicidal. I don't think we can wave aside the evidence that RFK was romantically involved with her. Well, now, why is it ridiculous to believe that either Kennedy may have arranged for her death, given the threat that she posed to their careers if she went public with her affairs with them? I'm agnostic on the subject, but I don't rule it out.

Yes, in my view, Oswald's language test scores in Russian were far too good for someone who was merely self-taught in the space of a year or so. I mean, it's always possible that he could have gotten lucky and guessed that many correct answers, but it's extremely unlikely. I took the Arabic and Hebrew versions of the language test many times, and I would bet a huge chunk of money that nobody could guess that many correct answers.

Jim is talking about JFK's view on sending regular combat troops to Vietnam, and I think the evidence clearly supports Jim's argument that JFK strongly opposed doing this. Now, this is not the same thing as saying that JFK categorically ruled out deploying regular ground troops (he did not), but the evidence seems very clear that he intensely desired to avoid this option. One of the reasons JFK ardently disliked the idea of sending regular ground troops to Vietnam was that General MacArthur had passionately advised him against doing so. I might add that Eisenhower was also adamantly opposed to doing this. However, we get into trouble and open ourselves to valid pushback when we go beyond the evidence and claim that JFK was absolutely, positively going to totally disengage from South Vietnam by late 1965 regardless of the situation on the ground. RFK flatly rejected such a notion in his April 1964 oral interview, as did Dean Rusk. Arthur Schlesinger and Ted Sorenson said nothing about any such intention in their 1965 memoirs. And, every single statement we have from JFK himself in the months before his death contradicts the claim.

This is untenable denial by overzealous JFK devotees. While there is no smoking gun that absolutely proves JFK was involved with Marilyn, there's too much anecdotal evidence to brush aside, unless one wants to believe they were all lying. I've never said a word about JFK's sexual life in my writings because I think it's irrelevant to the assassination. But, I think the evidence is overwhelming that he had multiple affairs.

The Russian oligarchs will eventually force Putin to withdraw from Ukraine, but only if we continue to make the price of Russian occupation severe. Ukraine did nothing to deserve Putin's invasion. It's none of Putin's business if an eastern democratic nation wants to join the EU and/or the defensive alliance of NATO. Putin misjudged Biden and thought that Biden would impose a few modest sanctions and leave it at that, as Obama did when Putin took Crimea. But, to his great credit, Biden continues to make Russia pay a stiff price for Putin's aggression. As happened with Russia's invasion of Afghanistan, even many Kremlin hardliners will support withdrawal when they become convinced that the price is going to be too severe if they remain in Ukraine. As for the Pope's advice, the Pope should stick to dealing with his many pedophile priests.

Now let’s get some facts straight about the Tet Offensive. Tet provides us with perhaps the best example of (1) the news media’s misleading and distorted reporting on the war, and (2) the equally misleading and distorted version of the war given by liberal scholars. Imagine how ludicrous it would have been if, four days after the desperate German gamble of the Battle of the Bulge ended, Walter Cronkite and other liberals had declared that the war in Europe was a stalemate and was unwinnable. Imagine if they had lamented, “What’s going on? We thought we were winning the war. How could the Germans have mounted such a powerful offensive if we are winning the war? Surely our government has been lying to us about the war.” The Tet Offensive was a desperate gamble that was done because Hanoi realized they had to abandon their prolonged-war strategy and go for a decisive victory to end the war. Why? Because the NVA and VC were suffering increasing casualties and because LBJ had finally lifted enough of the air-power restrictions that, by the spring of 1967, our bombing was destroying more war material than Hanoi could replace (Leonard Scruggs, Lessons from the Vietnam War, pp. 85-90). Vietnam War scholar Leonard Scruggs: By mid-1967 the NVA’s escalating casualties and tightening logistical circumstances convinced the leaders of North Vietnam that they could not sustain a protracted war against the U.S. Time, they thought, was no longer on their side. They decided to abandon their protracted-war strategy and go for a swift and decisive victory that would quickly collapse the government in Saigon and result in a humiliating U.S. withdrawal. (Lessons from the Vietnam War, p. 90) Historian Arthur Hermann: By the end of 1967, the Communist cause in the Vietnam War was in deep trouble. The build-up of American forces — nearly half a million men were deployed in Vietnam by December — had put the Vietcong on the defensive and led to bloody repulses of the North Vietnamese army (NVA), which had started intervening on the battlefield to ease the pressure on its Vietcong allies. Hanoi’s decision to launch the Tet offensive was born of desperation. It was an effort to seize the northern provinces of South Vietnam with conventional troops while triggering an urban uprising by the Vietcong that would distract the Americans — and, some still hoped, revive the fading hopes of the Communists. The offensive itself began on January 30, with attacks on American targets in Saigon and other Vietnamese cities, and ended a little more than a month later when Marines crushed the last pockets of resistance in the northern city of Hue. It not only destroyed the Vietcong as an effective political and military force, it also, together with the siege of Khe Sanh, crippled the NVA, which lost 20 percent of its forces in the South and suffered 33,000 men killed in action, all for no gain. (“The Tet Offensive Revisited: Media’s Big Lie,” Hudson Institute, January 30, 2018, https://www.hudson.org/research/14134-the-tet-offensive-revisited-media-s-big-lie) The after-action report of the U.S. Army II Field Force gives us a good idea of some of the developments that led Hanoi to conclude that they had to gamble on a major offensive to win the war quickly: By November 1967 the operations of II FFORCEV and III Corps within III CTZ had succeeded in driving the bulk of the VC/NVA main forces away from the more heavily populated areas into the sparsely settled border regions. A captured document showed that the VC in MRIV - the region around Saigon - had suffered three times the losses in 1967 as in 1966. The threat in Gia Dinh Province surrounding Saigon was reduced to the point that the 199th Lt Inf Bde was able to phase out Op FAIRFAX, and to move into War Zone D, leaving to the 5th ARVN Ranger Group primary tactical responsibility for the security of the Capital Military District. The VC were in serious straits in Phouc Tuy and Long Khanh Province where allied pressure had broken down their supply system. The VC in western Hau Nghia Province had been reduced to the point that the 25th US Div was able to shift its brigade forces to operations northwest of Cu Chi; while the 25th ARVN Div continued pacifying Hau Nghia. The 1st Inf Div had been successful in opening and holding open Highway 13 to Quan Loi, splitting War Zone C from D, as well as facilitating civil and military movement north of Saigon. v/ The 9th Inf Div had commenced clearing Highway 1 from Saigon to the II-III Corps boundary turning it over progressively to the 18th ARVN Div. The 9th Div was also able to draw down on forces in the northeastern portion of its TAOI while concentrating on expanding Mobile Riverine Force operations in IV CTZ in the Delta. The Revolutionary Development program was accelerating. Public administration training was underway in all Provinces. Economic activity was improving, partly as a result of the opening of many road LOCs particularly in Hau Nghia and Binh Duong Province. There was ample evidence that . . . the VC political infrastructure was losing its influence over key sectors of the population. (TET Offensive II Field Force Vietnam After Action Report, Defense Technical Information Center, 1 March 1968, pp. 1-2, https://archive.org/details/DTIC_ADA534568/mode/1up) The Tet Offensive gamble ended up being a botched operation that incurred staggering losses. Several North Vietnamese sources describe those enormous losses. The offensive started badly when, due to confusion in the chains of command, some NVA and VC units attacked prematurely, squandering the element of surprise against most targets. The NVA/VC failed to take most of their objectives, and in a matter of hours or days they lost most of the objectives that they did take. Only in Hue and in a sector of Saigon did they manage to hold on for about four weeks, before being mauled by ARVN and American forces. Much to the Communists’ surprise, many ARVN units fought well, and very few South Vietnamese welcomed the NVA as liberators. And, NVA and VC atrocities during the offensive caused most South Vietnamese to more strongly support the Saigon government. However, this is not the story that the American people were told by the news media. In his massive study Big Story: How the American Press and Television Reported and Interpreted the Crisis of Tet 1968 in Vietnam and Washington (Yale University Press, 1978, abridged edition), Vietnam War correspondent Peter Braestrup documents the countless erroneous, misleading reports that journalists and major news outlets gave about Tet. For example, Braestrup notes that the news media reported that VC fighters had occupied the first few floors of the American Embassy in Saigon, when in fact they never got inside the building and were killed in the embassy compound within six hours. Some reporters in Vietnam did file accurate reports on Tet, but the major news outlets in the U.S. ignored them. Uwe Simeon-Netto, who witnessed Tet as the Far East correspondent for the German newspaper group Axel Springer, sheds light on the subject: Forty years ago today, I witnessed the start of the most perplexing development in the 20th century – America's self-betrayal during the Tet Offensive in Vietnam. The reason why I have never ceased wrestling with this event is this: On the one hand, Tet ended in a clear military victory for the United States and its South Vietnamese allies, who killed 45,000 communist soldiers and destroyed their infrastructure. On the other hand, the major U.S. media persuaded Americans that Tet was a huge setback for their country. . . . At 3 a.m. on Jan. 31, I stood opposite the U.S. Embassy in Saigon, watching a fierce firefight between Marines and Viet Cong attackers. . . . Some days later, I was in the company of Marines fighting their way into communist-occupied Hué, Vietnam's former imperial capital. We found its streets strewn with the corpses of hundreds of women, children and old men, all shot execution-style by North Vietnamese invaders. I made my way to Hué's university apartments to obtain news about friends of mine, German professors at the medical school. I learned that their names had been on lists containing some 1,800 Hué residents singled out for liquidation. . . . Then, enormous mass graves of women and children were found. Most had been clubbed to death, some buried alive; you could tell from the beautifully manicured hands of women who had tried to claw out of their burial place. As we stood at one such site, correspondent Peter Braestrup asked an American T.V. cameraman, "Why don't you film this?" He answered, "I am not here to spread anti-communist propaganda." Many reporters accompanying U.S. and South Vietnamese forces realized and reported that the fortunes of war and the public mood had changed in their favor, principally because of the war crimes committed by the communists, especially in Hue, where 6,000-10,000 residents were slaughtered. But the major media gave the Tet story an entirely different spin. (“The Tet Offensive and the Media,” Vietnamese and American Veterans of the Vietnam War, http://www.vietamericanvets.com/Page-Records-TetOffensive.htm). David Henard, a former Army chopper pilot who served in South Vietnam during Tet: Terrified reporters crouched behind the cover of the high wall that surrounded the embassy compound. . . . They nonetheless filed colorful, wildly inaccurate, and totally fabricated stories, claiming that the Vietcong had occupied the first five floors of the American Embassy. This claim was made despite the fact that the Vietcong failed to even enter the building. They reported too quickly before they had the facts and misled the American public. (Victory Stolen, LitFire Publishing, 2018 edition, pp. 110-111) We now know that General Giap strongly opposed launching the Tet Offensive, fearing that if the NVA and VC left their safe areas in large numbers, they would be decimated. But Giap was overruled by the fanatics in the Politburo who truly believed that ARVN would quickly crumble and that most South Vietnamese would embrace the invaders as liberators. When Tet ended up being a horrendous military disaster, Giap was so upset that he left North Vietnam for a while. Hanoi’s leaders were so shocked by the scale of the defeat that they considered halting the war effort for a few years (Scruggs, Lessons from the Vietnam War, p. 101; Dave Palmer, Summons of the Trumpet, Presidio Press, 1978, pp. 208-210)—and they may well have done so if they had not realized that the American news media was turning their severe defeat into a shocking political victory. Liberal scholars usually understate the degree of decimation that the NVA and the VC suffered in the Tet Offensive, and they describe Tet as a “monumental intelligence failure.” “Monumental intelligence failure”? Westmoreland, his staff, and senior field commanders concluded from U.S. intelligence and field reports that the Communists were going to carry out a major assault around the time of the Tet holiday. However, they believed the attack would come after the holiday, and they underestimated the scale of the assault because they did not believe the NVA and the VC would be foolish enough to come out in large numbers far from their sanctuaries. We had always wanted them to do this, but they had not obliged. Westmoreland and his staff believed the attack would come some time after the Tet holiday because Hanoi had announced weeks earlier that they would once again honor the usual Tet ceasefire. The Communists had made similar Tet ceasefire announcements in the past and had always refrained from any major military actions during Tet, so we assumed they would do the same thing this time. So, yes, Tet was an intelligence failure, but not in the usual sense of the term. In the weeks before Tet, Westmoreland informed numerous officials, and even some journalists, that he believed a major NVA/VC attack would soon occur. He was so convinced of this that, two weeks before Tet began, he wisely moved 15 battalions from outlying areas to positions near Saigon, a move that proved crucial during the offensive. If our news media had covered Tet with honesty, balance, and perspective, they would have reported that the offensive was an enormous blunder by North Vietnam and a resounding victory for America. The Tet Offensive was only a “political victory” for North Vietnam because our news media made it into one. The 11th Armored Cavalry Vietnam veterans’ website sums up the situation well: The 1968 Tet offensive was a total and complete military disaster for the North Vietnamese Communists no matter how you look at it. If you measure victory by territory gained or enemy killed, the North Vietnamese Army and the Viet Cong failed dismally in their attacks. The NVA and VC had counted on a "People's Uprising" to carry them to victory; however, there was no such uprising. The NVA and VC did exactly what the American military wanted them to do. They massed in large formations that were incredibly vulnerable to the awesome fire support the U.S. military was able to bring to bear on them in a coordinated and devastating manner. The NVA and VC attacked only ARVN installations with the exception of the U.S. Embassy in Saigon. Despite reports to the contrary by all major television news networks and the print media, the VC sapper team never entered the Embassy’s chancery building and all 15 VC were dead within 6 hours of the attack. In the first week of the attack, the NVA/VC lost 32,204 confirmed killed, and 5,803 captured. U.S. losses were 1,015 KHA, while ARVN losses were 2,819 killed. Casualties among the people whom the NVA/VC claimed to be "liberating" were in excess of 7,000, with an additional 5,000 tortured and murdered by the NVA/VC in Hue and elsewhere. In Hue alone, allied forces discovered over 2,800 burial sites containing the mutilated bodies of local Vietnamese teachers, doctors, and political leaders. Only the news media seemed to believe that in some way the Communists had achieved a "victory.” To put this in perspective, the news media would have reported the Battle of the Bulge, Hitler's last-ditch attempt to stop the Allied forces in Europe, as a "disaster" for the Allies. They would have said that "despite Allied efforts, the enemy still has the means to mount a major offensive, and therefore the war in Europe is unwinnable." Sound goofy? Well, that is exactly what Walter Cronkite said on national TV after the 1968 Tet Offensive. (“Myth: The Tet Offensive Was a Communist Victory,” https://11thcavnam.com/education/myth_the_tet_offensive_was_a_com.htm)

This is one of the inexcusable myths that some liberals continue to repeat, even though it has been thoroughly debunked--so much so that even some liberals have abandoned it. Yes, we supported Ho during WW II, because we were willing to support just about anyone who was anti-German and anti-Japanese (which is why we also supported Stalin and Mao during WW II); and, yes, Ho initially tried to appear pro-American after WW II. However, a veritable mountain of evidence, some of it from North Vietnamese and Soviet sources, has long since proved that Ho was anti-American/anti-Western and that he was a devout, fanatical Communist who was trained and supported by the Soviet Union and Red China, not to mention that he was a ruthless killer and dictator (although Le Duan and Truong Chinh were even worse). When McNamara began privately telling LBJ and others the lie that the war was unwinnable, he was like a basketball coach who had refused to play his best players for 45 minutes of every game and then privately complained to the ownership that his team could not win. It is a basic, long-recognized principle of war that you must hit the enemy's supply chain at its collection point and not wait until the supplies have been dispersed to forces in the field, because, obviously, it's much harder to hit dozens of supply convoys than it is to hit the central collection point from which the supplies are dispersed. Even the most civilized rules of war recognize a combatant's right to do this, partly because it is an essential element of the natural right of a nation to protect its troops. The Joint Chiefs and other senior officers repeatedly explained this to McNamara and his ignorant "whiz kids," but they would not listen. Thus, McNamara refused to recommend that Haiphong Harbor be mined and that key overland supply routes from China be shut down. The Hanoi regime simply would have been unable to sustain their war effort if we had taken this crucial, essential step of warfare. When Nixon mined Haiphong Harbor and hit some key overland supply routes above the 20th and 22nd parallels in Operations Linebacker I and II, from 9 May to 23 October and from 18 to 29 December 1973, North Vietnam's incoming supplies were cut by over 80%. During the last four days of Linebacker II, Hanoi's air defenses were forced to fight with only a fraction of their usual supply of SAMs (some air-defense units had none, while other units had far fewer than normal). This is not to mention all the damage that was done to North Vietnam's POL, energy, and transportation infrastructure, another action entirely authorized by the long-recognized rules of war. Our air losses in Linebacker I and II were relatively light, contrary to North Vietnamese propaganda, but if we had done a similar operation for six months in 1965, before the Soviets helped North Vietnam build a formidable air-defense system, our losses would have been microscopic and North Vietnam would have been rendered impotent to wage war and most likely would have sued for a genuine peace rather than risk implosion and collapse.

Dr. Wecht has done a great deal of fine work on the JFK case. I wish he had not commented on the alleged alien autopsy, but that does not change the fact that he has been right about the forensic evidence far more often than he has been wrong. Technically speaking, Dr. Finck was qualified to help perform JFK's autopsy, since he was board certified in forensic pathology in 1961, but he had not done an autopsy in over two years (his WC testimony suggests he had not performed an autopsy since 1958). Ferrie may have killed himself because he feared he was about to be violently silenced, although I find the circumstances of his death to be suspicious. I'm open to both possibilities. The website On the Trail of Delusion is the latest manifestation of denying, distorting, and ignoring evidence and of seeing the emperor's new clothes.