3
TRADING BLOOD FOR AMMUNITION
When his call to strike at the Communist strongholds was met with American dismay, Thieu realized he needed to mend fences with his benefactors. He moved swiftly to mollify them by taking steps that he felt would not only help his country but curry favor with the mercurial members of Congress. On 18 January 1974 he called a third time for the Communists to participate in national elections. A week later, the South Vietnamese foreign minister publicly declared a willingness to meet with the Communists to negotiate the normalization of relations between the two countries. As usual, both offers were rejected by Hanoi.
With the continuing poor performance of the economy, Thieu undertook another major shake-up of his Cabinet. In October 1973, Thieu had replaced his economic team, trying to find new formulas to improve the economy. On 16 February 1974, the Cabinet resigned, and Thieu asked Prime Minister Tran Thien Khiem to form a new government. The announced rationale for this second change was to improve government efficiency. Although some ministries were eliminated, however, most Cabinet ministers retained their original positions.
Khiem was Thieu’s right-hand man. As ARVN’s senior general (one of only two four-star generals in the South Vietnamese military), Khiem secured the Army’s support for Thieu. Khiem had also participated in the coup against President Diem in 1963, but a falling-out with his co-conspirators forced him abroad as an ambassador, first to the United States and then to Taiwan. Thieu had brought him back in May 1968, and promoted him to Prime Minister in August 1969. Many outsiders searched for signs of a rivalry between the two men, but they usually were on good terms.
In various speeches, Thieu continued his emphasis on the need for the country to move toward self-sufficiency. He once more implored his people to work hard to develop the nation’s resources, and to “tighten belts” (that lung buoc bung), a course of action he had called for since 1973. Thieu’s call to “tighten belts” was not just rhetoric; it was a demand that struck to the very core of daily existence. Despite his efforts, the South Vietnamese economy continued to contract. The ranks of the unemployed swelled dramatically, followed by the repeated devaluation of the piaster. The worst economic shock, however, was the Arab oil embargo, which caused a massive hike in gas prices. The resultant surge, 67 percent in 1973, devastated the already slim wages of the lower-ranking soldiers. A survey of soldiers in the ARVN 3rd Division conducted in 1973 revealed that 90 percent of the families of enlisted men had not eaten meat for over a month, and 50 percent had eaten fish or shrimp only a few times. That the average soldier continued to fight was truly amazing.
Despite the poor economic conditions and worsening security, in the first quarter of 1974 Thieu’s government completed the relocation of the final refugees from the 1972 offensive—one of its great but unheralded achievements. These citizens, some four hundred thousand people, were sent to areas recaptured from the Communists. The new villages drew immediate sniper fire, mortar barrages, and road mining. Worse were the terrorist threats: the people were told that they must either join the Communist side, or face poisoned wells and destruction of their livestock. To assist the refugees, on 26 March 1974, the fourth anniversary of the “Land to the Tiller” program, Thieu declared an accelerated plan of distributing land to farmers. The JGS also began reducing the size of the armed forces, hoping to shift the manpower into building the economy. In April, over four thousand officers and men who had reached service limits were discharged, with plans to release more. After Communist attacks increased in mid-1974, however, the idea was abandoned.
South Vietnam desperately needed aid, but its American benefactors had their own budgetary woes. The first rumblings of a possible cutback had come on 27 June 1973. Deputy Secretary of Defense Warren Clements testified during hearings for the 1974 budget that the new ceasefire agreement would permit a decrease of $500 million in military aid to South Vietnam and Laos, and that the aid ceiling could be shrunk from $2.1 billion to $1.2 billion. The Senate Armed Services Committee accepted Clements’s recommendations and voted to reduce military aid to South Vietnam and Laos. Shortly thereafter, both houses of Congress agreed to cut funding to the recommended $1.2 billion level. With the revised ceiling, the budget hammer fell on South Vietnam in mid-December 1973, when the U.S. Army unexpectedly cut off all operational and maintenance funding for the rest of Fiscal Year (FY) 1974, which ran from July 1973 to June 1974.
Major General John E. Murray, who headed the Defense Attaché Office in Saigon, was the American official responsible for managing military aid to war-torn South Vietnam. A slim Irishman with a quick wit and a slashing writing style, Murray began his Army career in World War II as a private. He later became a lawyer and joined the Judge Advocate General Corps. After the Korean conflict, he switched careers again and eventually became one of the Army’s top logisticians. He served tours in Vietnam as port commander at Cam Ranh Bay, and later as commander of the Saigon Support Command. He returned in mid-1972 as the last American chief logistics officer, and then was ordered in January 1973 to head the DAO. Limited by the Paris Accords to fifty military men, the DAO was augmented by over a thousand civilians working on various projects, from maintenance to logistics. Overall, Murray was tasked with managing a billion-dollar-plus business while, as he put it, being “fine-tuned by a 12,000-mile Washington screwdriver.”
When the Army cut off funds in mid-December, Murray immediately sought permission from Ambassador Graham Martin to inform the JGS. Martin denied his request, hoping the Nixon administration could restore the funding level. Murray then sought clarification from the Pentagon on precisely how much money remained for South Vietnam, particularly since the vast majority of FY74 cash had already been either spent or allocated. He was stunned when the Army was unable to provide an accurate audit of monies spent or remaining. Worse, the dramatic increase in worldwide inflation caused by the oil embargo, plus the inexplicable shifting by the Army of some FY73 costs onto the 1974 budget, further sapped the limited resources. As Murray later wrote: “December ’73—that’s the fatal date that the GVN started precipitously down the slippery slope . . . the Army in its . . . inept handling of Vietnam money suddenly and without warning cut off [all funds], and the terrible following troubles were accentuated by the Ambassador’s unmoving insistence that the South Vietnamese not be informed. I pleaded with him . . . in vain. The RVNAF in their ignorance kept requisitioning and using up supplies at their usual rates. They were bleeding to death and I wanted to apply the tourniquet.”1
Murray tried to impress upon Martin that it took 120 days for parts ordered from the United States to be packed and shipped to Vietnam. Hence, if ARVN did not quickly institute conservation measures, shortages would appear in six months. Martin remained unmoved. For Murray, “ARVN was euchred out of its right to fight by DOD [Department of Defense] fiscal witlessness, [and] mystifying Ambassadorial edicts.”2 While the majority of the blame for the aid debacle has been laid on Congress’s doorstep, it was compounded by both the Pentagon’s “fiscal witlessness” and the fact that its supply depots and funds had been sucked dry by the massive resupply effort to Israel during the October 1973 “Yom Kippur War.” Martin certainly had been warned that the odds of gaining new monies for South Vietnam were long. National Security Advisor Brent Scowcroft summed up the situation to Martin at the end of December: “The hard facts are that our options are very limited—commitments to Israel have. . . drawn down active force stocks and reserve inventories, and there is no money or legislative authority to procure a major package for Vietnam. There are terribly hard decisions to be made on the allocations of severely constrained fiscal and material resources between many competing requirements.”3
In early January 1974 Murray met with General Cao Van Vien, head of the South Vietnamese military, to impress upon him the need to conserve ammunition. Vien was born to Vietnamese parents in Vientiane, Laos, in December 1921. He joined the Army in 1949, and he and President Thieu and Prime Minister Khiem served together in North Vietnam during the French war, which created a long-standing bond among the three. Vien was a very loyal supporter of President Diem, and after the failed 1960 coup by the Airborne Brigade, he was given command of that elite unit. When General Duong Van Minh launched the November 1963 coup against Diem, Vien was brought before Minh and ordered to assist in the coup. At the time, there was a carbine pressed into his back. Vien refused. He was not executed, but was instead tossed into jail. However, the coup and the carbine incident fostered in Vien a nasty grudge against Minh, and the events of November 1963 would later rebound in April 1975.
Despite Vien’s refusal to take part in the coup, he was released and was reinstated as commander of the Airborne Brigade. In 1964 he was badly wounded in the shoulder while commanding his troops in an operation in the upper Delta. He was hit, he later told the author, because as an Airborne officer he was expected to display his courage by walking upright around the battlefield. In October 1965 Vien became head of the military. Eventually he became the second-highest-ranking officer in the Army, and the only other four-star general besides Prime Minister Khiem. A quiet, introspective man, he was not an overtly political officer, as were many of his counterparts. This was a key reason Thieu did not replace him, although rumors that he was considering doing so had floated since 1971. The problem, as was so often the case in Vietnamese society, was finding someone not only more talented, but also from an earlier military-academy class than the other senior generals. Lieutenant General Ngo Quang Truong was the obvious choice, but Truong was junior to many other generals, who would have balked at his elevation.
After meeting with Murray, Vien and his chief logistician, Lieutenant General Dong Van Khuyen, immediately cut the ammunition supply for each unit. Fuel was also restricted, resulting in the immediate curtailment of flying hours and vehicle movement. A military that depended heavily on firepower and mobility to offset the Communist propensity to mass forces suddenly had its two most important advantages sharply curtailed.
The Senate Armed Services Committee began hearings for FY75 on 12 March 1974. The Nixon administration pressed for restoration of its original $1.6 billion military-aid request. Pro-Hanoi groups like the Indochina Resource Center expended great efforts fighting the request, claiming that Saigon was the main culprit in violating the ceasefire. They insisted that cutting aid was the best method to force Thieu to form a coalition government. Many current and former government officials also subscribed to that theory. Clark Clifford, former advisor to President Lyndon Johnson and a powerful figure in the Democratic Party, spoke for most anti-war officials when he stated that Thieu was the main obstacle to peace. Cutting off aid, Clifford felt, would force Thieu to step down. Then, “a truly neutral and representative government would be formed in Saigon which would negotiate in good faith with the other side.”4
On 3 April 1974, the House and the Senate separately voted down the $1.6 billion funding request for South Vietnam and Laos. The next day, a supplemental-aid request was also voted down. On 22 May, a joint House-Senate committee agreed to slash the Nixon administration’s FY74 request for aid to Vietnam to a ceiling of $1.126 billion. A new low mark had been set, and with the final 1975 budget votes looming, it was an ill omen.
One must grant that most members of Congress felt antipathy to providing aid to a regime many believed restricted press freedoms, locked up political prisoners, and had grossly violated the ceasefire. Congress had also grown weary of the U.S. military’s fiscal legerdemain in supporting Vietnam. For years, aid was supplied to Saigon by each military service, meaning that money for Vietnam programs was intermingled with the funding for that service. However, the Pentagon’s byzantine bookkeeping prevented it from determining exactly what the South Vietnamese had received. Now, a hostile Congress viewed the confusion as an effort to sidestep the funding limitations. The specter of vast corruption involving U.S. aid also weighed heavily on congressional minds.
Moreover, while the congressional votes were partly a response to a worsening U.S. economy, they were also pursued with a view to restoring Congress’s prerogatives over foreign aid. Cutbacks were not directed solely at the South Vietnamese; in December 1974, military aid to South Korea was cut by $20 million until the president could certify that the Koreans were loosening their own authoritarian grip. Turkey, after its military invasion of Cyprus, also felt the congressional wrath. But the overarching reality was that the anti-war lobby was determined to eliminate U.S. support for Thieu and force a political coalition with the Communists.
After Congress finalized the 1974 budget, on 1 June Murray sent a lengthy cable to the Pentagon outlining the harsh realities on the ground created by the cuts. Detailing the likely effects of the congressional action, Murray laid out four scenarios. In particular, he made an analogy that, while unforeseen then, would have far-reaching consequences. “In the final analysis,” he wrote, “you can roughly equate cuts in support to loss of real estate.”5 Murray created briefing charts displaying that as aid dropped, Thieu would be forced to retreat to a truncated version of South Vietnam centered on Saigon and the Delta. While an aid level of $1.126 billion would enable the South to hang on, vehicles, ships, and aircraft lost in battle could not be replaced (the one-for-one replacement allowed by the accords), and without new equipment, the South Vietnamese military would slowly degrade. At $900 million, mobility and defensive capabilities in the third and fourth quarters of FY75 would be greatly reduced. At $750 million, ARVN would be hard pressed to stop a full-scale attack. At $600 million, Murray stated, the U.S. should “write off [South Vietnam] as a bad investment and a broken promise.”
Murray briefed Thieu on these scenarios, but this was not the first time the president had been told that a reduction in territory might be necessary. When the JGS was finally informed in April that military aid was being cut, Vien sent Lieutenant General Khuyen to inform Thieu. Vien ordered Khuyen to use this opportunity to broach the concept of reducing South Vietnam’s military forces and, consequently, the amount of territory to defend. Vien, however, instructed Khuyen to present the idea only orally. If nothing was in writing, Vien could not be accused of “defeatism.”6 When Thieu did not react to Khuyen’s suggestion, the idea was shelved.
Murray designed his charts to convey a simple truth: that cutting aid was tantamount to destroying South Vietnam’s territorial integrity because the military could not defend the entire country against the enemy’s growing aggression. Unfortunately, the equation of loss of aid with loss of real estate would eventually become a fixation for Thieu, one that played into his fateful decisions in 1975.
Why did Murray not offer the South Vietnamese an alternative plan, something that they could do with the money they were receiving? For one simple reason: the Paris Accords prevented Murray from offering any military advice. Why did the U.S. Embassy not step in to provide options? Why did Thieu and his senior generals shrink from the tough decisions? Because Ambassador Martin, and the Nixon and Ford administrations, repeatedly told Thieu they would press Congress to restore the previous funding levels, and Thieu took the White House and Martin at their word.
Still, even if Thieu had heeded Vien’s advice and sought to pull back to more defensible positions, logistically and politically it would have been an extraordinarily difficult proposition. After the many hoary orations by Thieu and others urging their people to defend every inch of the country, giving up land to the Communists would have been seen as a sign of great weakness. Hue, Danang, and other major cities would have had to be ceded to the Communists. A retreat to a Saigon-Delta redoubt would also have meant moving and resettling millions of people. Such a massive population relocation, even in peacetime, would have overwhelmed Saigon’s resources. Imagine the situation if the North Vietnamese had attacked during the course of this effort.
Of all observers, Murray was the chief witness to the slow strangulation of South Vietnam. While ARVN expenditures on artillery ammunition had often been excessive, actions were instituted soon after the ceasefire to reduce the firing rate. Yet despite these measures, no one in the U.S. Army could provide the DAO a definitive accounting of how much ARVN had spent on ammunition. The variances between the different U.S. logistics centers were in the millions of dollars. Now, Congress was shrinking the aid program precisely at the moment the Communist threat was growing.
While Murray was watching the DAO’s money like the proverbial green-eyeshaded accountant, he was not naïve about the South Vietnamese. He had railed loudly and often to ARVN logistics officers about local contractors’ delivering poor-quality lumber or leaving expensive cement out in the open to harden. When he saw commercial vehicles in Saigon driving with military tires, and soldiers selling gas and batteries on the black market to make money, he pestered Lieutenant General Khuyen and his staff to develop better controls. Although they did, it was not enough. The ARVN supply system had simply never received the priority and training that other aspects of Vietnamization had.
After Murray’s briefing, Thieu publicly protested the aid cuts and raised the specter of American abandonment of his country. In a speech on 6 June 1974, he again attempted to placate the U.S. by blasting corruption and exhorting his people and the military to economize. He also reiterated his main point: a strong military would make Hanoi realize it could not win. Only then, Thieu proclaimed, would the Communists seriously negotiate. Moreover, this time he directly attacked the United States. He contrasted the present treatment of his country to America’s generosity toward Europe after World War II and South Korea after the Korean conflict. Although he blamed most of the problem on American domestic turmoil, he accused the U.S. of evading its responsibilities. When the Paris Accords were signed, Thieu said, he was promised that if the Communists continued to infiltrate men into the South, the U.S. would “react vigorously,” and that North Vietnam’s allies would restrain their “small brother.” However, all those promises “have been forgotten.” Thieu again stated he would not accept a coalition government, as that was a “sure path to death.”7
Reminding America of its commitments was useless, since Congress was unaware of what Nixon had secretly promised. In late July, the joint House-Senate conference again voted to reduce the amount of aid to Vietnam, this time from $1.126 billion to just $1 billion. More important, the legislation concerning the new aid ceiling had other damaging provisions. To solve the perennial accounting confusion regarding Vietnam, Senator John Stennis (D., Miss.), the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, decided to consolidate all money for Vietnam into one fund, called the Defense Assistance Vietnam (DAV) program. The legislation was quite specific as to what the military could and could not do with Vietnam aid money. Everything was to be allocated to the DAV. All costs, including many not previously charged for, such as the packing and crating of ammunition and the DAO’s operating costs, would henceforth be expensed to the DAV. A rider also was attached stipulating a 10 percent cut in civilian contractors in South Vietnam. Another one limited food money.
The grim aid situation grew progressively worse. In early August, the House voted to appropriate only $700 million of the $1 billion authorized. And since all costs were to be charged to the DAV, including the cost of the DAO, the $700 million was in practical effect lowered to only $500 million. This was below Murray’s cut-off level at which the South Vietnamese could sustain an adequate defense. With $500 million, Saigon could barely afford ammunition and fuel, let alone other critical supplies. Worse, three price increases for ammunition totaling 72 percent further reduced the number of shells the South Vietnamese could purchase. The DAO predicted that by the end of FY75 (30 June 1975), ARVN would be almost out of fuel and down to a thirty-day supply of ammunition.
Pentagon bookkeeping errors continued to make the situation even more untenable. Immediately after the start of the new fiscal year on 1 July 1974, Murray started receiving messages that large chunks of FY75 monies were being siphoned off. The main culprit was a $77 million charge for new F-5E aircraft, a luxury the VNAF could not afford. A line item had specifically been put into the budget at the request of Senator James B. Pearson (R., Kan.) to have the VNAF buy the new aircraft from their builder, Northrop. What was even more disheartening was that Murray had been told that the F-5Es were already paid for. Now the U.S. Air Force was reneging, and the South Vietnamese were paying the price.
Murray was outraged. He wrote a stinging cable to the Pacific Command outlining the impact of these decisions on the VNAF: “Since late June we have received directives for un-programmed expenditure of approx. $54.3m [the first payment of the F-5E cost plus others] in VNAF FY75 program. . . . If we are forced to pay these bills . . . the VNAF will be virtually finished. At this time of intensifying enemy action and dire need for sustained high aircraft sortie rates, we should be pumping the pipeline full to overcome months of suppressed supply requisitioning caused by the sudden curtailment of FY74 funds. [Instead] we are receiving widespread cancellations . . . even if these requisitions are reinstated, we have created another bubble in the pipeline while in the trough of previous cuts. Numbers of operational aircraft are declining as critical spares are consumed with scant replenishment and daily demand for sorties is up and up. Situation leaves VNAF with little recourse but cannibalization, which only digs the hole deeper. . . . Instead of getting a new start with the new DAV funding. . . we’re getting retroactively sandbagged.”8
The U.S. Air Force was not the only service giving Murray fits. The Army’s inability to track the amount of ammunition ordered continued to bedevil him. On 9 August, he received a message that $22 million worth of ammunition that had been paid for in 1974 had not been delivered, and now could not be sent because South Vietnam had exceeded the 1974 budget limitation.
Murray was now beyond anger; he was reduced to begging: “This is a super shock. In my twenty months here, I have been bewildered, baffled and dismayed by changing statistics. . . . I cannot imagine . . . that anyone would let $22m worth of ammo be taken away from them. . . . You may not know that the $700m is really about $500m. . . . This does not leave enough even for ARVN ammo or fuel. And I can tell you plainly that the ARVN is compelled to trade off blood for ammo. That the casualties are going up as the ammo allocations go down. . . . So I plead with you—for them—not to let anyone cut the ARVN out of that $22m that is their due.”9
The Pentagon denied his request. After his herculean efforts to keep the South Vietnamese afloat, Murray had seen enough. Given his long military career and his blistering arguments with DOD over funding, he asked to retire. He spent his last days in Saigon frantically helping the South Vietnamese program their limited funds. In late August, it was time to leave. After saying goodbye to the senior South Vietnamese officers that he had come to know so well, Murray paid his last respects to General Vien. Vien drove him to the airport. As they stood at the plane, Vien, as if desperately seeking some last messenger, told Murray of his growing fears about the course of the war. For the first time in years, Vien said, ARVN soldiers were losing more weapons to the enemy than they were capturing, a telling statistic on how the war was progressing. Cao Van Vien gripped Murray’s hand tightly as he attempted to board the plane, and Vien’s final statement rang in Murray’s ears: “I am worried about the morale of the troops.”
“Considering the tragic events we later lived through,” Murray subsequently wrote about Vien’s last words, “they are enough to make the angels weep.”10
THE DIPLOMATIC FRONT
Given the growing debacle involving American aid, President Thieu was now belatedly looking for new sources of assistance and for diplomatic recognition from other countries. Starting in the winter of 1973–74, the GVN began an all-out effort to establish diplomatic relations with non-aligned countries, particularly those in the Arab world, Africa, and Latin America. Former Ambassador to the United States Bui Diem was sent to Japan, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, and other countries seeking aid and attempting to establish relations. The effort—designed to promote goodwill for South Vietnam while diversifying GVN relations so that the South Vietnamese were not seen as American stooges—was moderately successful. Saigon soon had improved contacts with Japan and Saudi Arabia, two significant potential donors.
The Communists also engaged in diplomatic maneuvers. In December 1973, Le Duc Tho and Henry Kissinger, newly promoted to the post of secretary of state, had met again in Paris to discuss the failing ceasefire. Tho seemed eager for a ceasefire and delineation of borders, but offered nothing concrete. On 20 December, after several hours of fruitless discussions, the meeting broke up with no result.
To break the impasse, the Politburo decided to launch a worldwide diplomatic and propaganda offensive. The “diplomatic struggle” consisted of four interlocking areas: the U.S., South Vietnam, the socialist bloc, and the remainder of the world. By exploiting the anti-war mood in the U.S., Hanoi hoped to convince Congress to vote against further aid. Analysis of a captured high-level document determined that the “Communist negotiating strategy is now designed simply to destroy public confidence in the GVN—particularly inside the U.S.—and thus to ward off the foreign trade and aid needed [by] South Vietnam.”11 Meanwhile, the Politburo would attempt to stir up resentment within South Vietnam against corruption in the government and the deteriorating economy, while continuing to appeal to its Communist brethren, especially the Soviets and Chinese, to provide badly needed support. Concurrently, North Vietnam sought to buttress its standing among the nations of the world as the aggrieved party. Behind the scenes, however, the Communists were secretly organizing to resume the war while publicly proclaiming that their main interest lay in rebuilding the Northern economy.
The opening salvo of Hanoi’s diplomatic strategy came when it responded to Thieu’s claim at Can Tho in January 1974 that the Communists were preparing another attack. In an interview in Paris to discuss the ceasefire anniversary, Foreign Minister and Politburo member Nguyen Duy Trinh strongly denied Thieu’s accusation. According to Trinh, the priorities of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV) were to preserve the ceasefire, build socialism in the North, and move toward a peaceful reunification. He insisted that it was the Saigon regime and the Americans who were preparing new attacks.
Another Politburo member, Economic Minister Le Thanh Nghi, soon supplied more dramatic testimony regarding Hanoi’s priorities. The “great victory” that was the signing of the Paris Accords had not brought a better life for the people of the North, and the Politburo intended to remedy that state of affairs—or so it claimed. If Hanoi’s military might was growing, it was doing so upon a floundering economy. The DRV’s economy was in even worse shape than South Vietnam’s, and only Chinese and Russian aid was keeping it afloat. Production facilities were either closed, destroyed, or operating at a fraction of capacity. Transportation lines were in disrepair, and black marketeering was widespread. As in South Vietnam, agriculture was the economic foundation, but with too many unqualified cadres running the system, the Politburo was forced to employ military units to repair long-neglected dikes and irrigation systems. North Vietnam had never been self-sufficient in food, and the 1973 winter rice crop had been especially scanty, hampered by bad weather and poor management. Although North Vietnam had imported a record amount of food in 1973, by April 1974 rice shortages had appeared in certain areas. To improve production, the Politburo reorganized the governmental sections dealing with the economy, especially after a state inventory uncovered large-scale corruption and pilfering.
To address these problems, on 4 February 1974, Nghi gave the keynote speech to the National Assembly, the DRV’s Congress. His report was a comprehensive discussion of new plans to improve North Vietnam’s wallowing economy. He announced a large-scale two-year (1974–75) reconstruction program to rebuild the infrastructure destroyed by the U.S. bombing, plus an ambitious five-year plan (1976–80) for developing the economy. As Nghi stated, “Now that peace has been restored the need to improve the people’s living conditions is a large and urgent one.” He then listed the North’s seven economic priorities. The first was to “heal the wounds of war.” Notably, the last was to “fulfill the duty to the heroic South.” In an interview in mid-March he amplified his comments: “We should not be too bent on maintaining vigilance and making preparations for war and thus become unsteady in . . . mobilizing all forces and latent capabilities to intensively perform the task of economic restoration and development.”12
Nghi’s comments caught the attention of many, who took his statement as a signal that North Vietnam was not preparing another massive offensive. To be successful, the economic plan would require a sustained commitment of cadre and materials that for years had been diverted to the war effort. The reality, however, was that the Central Committee had secretly held another plenum, this time to address the dismal economy. The 22nd Plenum, convened from late December to early January, produced Resolution 22. Entitled “Missions and Directions for the Resurrection and Development of North Vietnam’s Economy during the Two-Year Period 1974–1975,” it was approved and disseminated on 22 January 1974. Nghi’s speech was merely a report to the National Assembly on the directives of the 22nd Plenum.
It is unknown whether Nghi’s comments were a deliberate smokescreen to the world, or instead reflected the views of the Politburo faction that wanted to improve the economy before conquering the South. Whatever his intent, the effect was immediate. Most commentators, discussing the one-year anniversary of the ceasefire, juxtaposed Nghi’s declarations against Thieu’s proclamation that the South Vietnamese would take aggressive action. Many accepted the drumbeat of statements from the DRV professing its deep commitment to peace and building the Northern economy, while concurrently condemning Thieu for his “warlike” stance. Coming just before another round of congressional scrutiny of the South Vietnamese aid programs, the contrasting announcements provided plenty of fodder for those who believed cutting aid was the surest method to force Saigon into reaching a political settlement to end the war.
The Politburo’s diplomatic efforts to place Saigon on the defensive soon resumed. On 18 March Hanoi sent a letter to various Western and Eastern Bloc countries. The note vehemently protested U.S. arms and ammunitions shipments to South Vietnam, particularly the impending sale of the F-5E fighter jets to replace older-model F-5As. Le Duc Tho immediately followed up with a letter to Kissinger on 20 March complaining about the F-5Es, and claiming that the U.S. had military advisors disguised as civilians in South Vietnam. Both actions, according to Tho, flagrantly violated the accords.
It was political theater. With Kissinger consumed by the Middle East, the Soviet Union, and other diplomatic issues, Le Duc Tho publicly began reinterpreting provisions in the accords to Hanoi’s advantage. He also pushed the boundaries on issues that had been deliberately left vague, attempting to paint Saigon and Washington as the culprits for the ceasefire’s failure. North Vietnam’s violations, such as continuing infiltration, rebuffing U.S. requests to account for MIAs, and refusal to remove its troops from Laos and Cambodia, were blamed on the American failure to supply economic aid.
Hanoi immediately followed its 18 March letter with a major new diplomatic proposal. On 22 March the Communist delegation in Paris offered a six-point plan that included provisions for a ceasefire and the holding of general elections in South Vietnam. It was the most concrete response by the Communists to the various offers put forth by Saigon after the accords were signed. The plan called for an immediate ceasefire, release of all captured personnel, formation of the National Council of National Reconciliation and Concord, the holding of elections, reduction of the two armies in South Vietnam, and a guarantee of “democratic liberties,” such as freedom of the press and freedom of assembly. The last provision was a deliberate shot at one of Thieu’s perceived weak points, his restrictions on the press. Believing the Communists were not serious, Thieu rejected the offer.
The North Vietnamese diplomatic offensive—claiming that economic reconstruction was the DRV’s priority, and that it was Saigon that was breaking the ceasefire and was not sincere about finding a peaceful political solution—was timed to influence congressional votes on aid for 1974. Hanoi and its Western acolytes had cleverly laid the onus for the protracted warfare on Saigon’s doorstep at the same time Congress was debating Nixon’s aid request.
Yet behind the diplomatic disguise, the Politburo was preparing for renewed attacks. For the Politburo, 1974 brought a sense of growing military strength, but also the knowledge that Hanoi’s armed forces were not ready to strike the final blow. Its assessment of ARVN ranged from respectful (firepower, equipment), to contemptuous (morale, tactics). Hanoi also recognized that Saigon’s political control in the villages—the Communists it called repression—had increased.
At the end of January 1974, the Politburo held an expanded meeting to discuss escalating the North Vietnamese efforts in the South. Giap advocated a program of intense but limited combat until 1975, which the Politburo accepted. Pham Van Dong was now committed to the same course of action, recommending that Northern forces attack “critical points” to bring about a rapid collapse. At a Foreign Ministry conference in late December 1973, he commented to his audience on the similarities between the 1954 Geneva talks, in which he had led the Vietnamese Communists’ delegation, and the 1972–73 Paris negotiations: “To the U.S., the Geneva Conference was just [a delaying action]. If we had known, right from the start, that this was a delaying action, we could have trumped their game with one of our own, as we are doing now with the Paris Agreement, and the situation might have turned out differently. If we had viewed the Geneva Agreement as we now view the Paris Agreement, as preparation to enable us to secure more victories in the future . . . we would have grown strong sooner.”13 His remarks, of course, were kept secret at the time.
Shortly after the January Politburo meeting, Giap became quite ill and was flown to the Soviet Union for emergency gall-bladder surgery. If he had died, what would have been the impact on Hanoi’s war effort? His demise would have certainly removed one of the leading proponents of main-force warfare, but would it have enabled the “political struggle” faction to wrestle back control? Probably not. The Politburo had based its decision on a number of factors, including the survival of its forces in the South and the apparent short-term weakness of both the GVN and the U.S. Instead, the impact would have been felt in the conduct of the war, in the strategic military guidance emanating from Hanoi. Regardless, Giap’s absence from several important public functions was noticed, and over the next months it led to much speculation regarding his health and his position in the hierarchy. General Van Tien Dung, the deputy commander of PAVN, was also ill and was on extended leave. Fortunately for the People’s Army, Hoang Van Thai had returned from his own sick leave in East Germany and assumed command.
In March, the Central Military Affairs Committee held an important conference to draft policies to implement Resolution 21. The meeting would determine the military’s main priorities for 1974, and provide operational guidance to each regional command. During the gathering, the members concluded that PAVN had regained the initiative in the South for the first time since 1972. To continue that trend, they laid out four tasks for the Army. They were: defeat the South Vietnamese “land-grabbing” efforts, step up attacks to wear down ARVN, expand the base areas and transportation corridors in and to the South—called “simultaneously fighting and building”—and improve the local forces and the urban political movement, which were vastly under-strength. As Giap later wrote: “All of this was designed to modify the all-around balance of forces to our advantage. . . to bring about by surprise a sudden change in the balance of power, [so as] to win absolute victory.”14 To accomplish these tasks, Giap intended to build main-force divisions and corps capable of fighting as combined-arms units.15 All of this had one purpose: “when the comparison of forces between ourselves and the enemy underwent a fundamental change, when the U.S. was encountering many difficulties at home and abroad, when our preparations had been completed, we would . . . win victory.”16
The Politburo quickly approved the committee’s recommendations. The General Staff immediately held a second conference in April with many of the southern regional commanders. The purpose of the second conference was to ensure that the commanders in the South clearly understood the Politburo’s intentions. With Giap undergoing surgery in the Soviet Union, it fell upon Thai to oversee the progress toward Hanoi’s goals. His management was excellent, and by mid-summer 1974 Thai noted that “a new status and a new strength had clearly begun to take form” for the Army. The development of the “strategic transportation routes [the Ho Chi Minh Trail] . . . [was] pursued at an urgent pace . . . along the lines of preparing for large-scale combat.”17 With the Trail complex no longer subject to U.S. air attack, PAVN greatly expanded its logistics lifeline, erecting a series of supply depots and repair facilities. An oil pipeline was also extended deep into South Vietnam, the most important logistic improvement in the war for the Communist troops. In early July 1974, an ARVN reconnaissance team in II Corps found and examined a section of the oil pipeline. The team reported that it was eight inches in diameter and of Chinese manufacture, instead of four inches and of Soviet design as previously believed. Fuel shortages, Saigon now realized, would no longer constrain PAVN actions.
Not just supplies poured down the Trail. Large numbers of soldiers also moved south, and for the most part, they rode instead of walking. Without having to walk hundreds of miles across treacherous terrain, they arrived in record time and in better health than in any previous year. Replacement soldiers and supplies could now quickly replenish weary units, thus allowing PAVN to maintain a higher combat tempo. According to Thai, one hundred thousand fresh troops advanced southward in 1973, and another eighty thousand were headed to the battlefields during the first half of 1974. Within North Vietnam, the strategic reserves were expanded, and the armor, artillery, and anti-aircraft units were trained to fight in Soviet-style combined-arms formations. Just as important, the staffs responsible for controlling these units, the biggest PAVN had ever developed, had also made “new advances.”18
Furthermore, in May the Central Cell completed the study it had begun in April 1973. Titled “Outline Study of a Plan to Win the War in the South,” it was forwarded to Giap for his review. Giap returned from Russia in the summer of 1974, and after carefully evaluating the outline, on 18 July he issued orders to prepare a full-fledged campaign plan aimed at securing total victory by 1976. The plan would be presented to the Politburo in October. The overall concept was for a two-stage offensive, with a main blow supported by secondary attacks in other sectors. Most American intelligence analysts assumed, based on history, geography, and PAVN’s overall combat strength, that the first area attacked would be I Corps. This was logical, but wrong. Giap told his staff to pick either the Central Highlands in II Corps, or the III Corps area. Giap had learned his lesson from 1972. Instead of attacking three areas concurrently with equal forces, he would mass and strike one very hard while the other regions “supported” the main assault by tying down ARVN forces. After a great deal of internal discussion, it was decided that Phase One would commence in the Central Highlands, followed by an attack against Saigon, which Giap considered the “decisive area.” Phase Two would be Communist doctrine’s much-vaunted “general offensive and general uprising,” leading to complete victory. In the meantime, PAVN units would fight on a moderate scale during 1974 while concurrently increasing their strength and building logistics bases.
Shortly after Giap issued this order, Le Duan, who was vacationing at the beach resort of Do Son outside of Haiphong, asked to see Thai and Giap’s other main deputy, Le Trong Tan. Le Duan wanted to discuss the new strategic plan. On 21 July 1974, Thai and Tan arrived at Do Son to brief Le Duan. The hour of decision was drawing near.
FIGURE 1. General CaoVan Vien at the funeral of Lieutenant General Do Cao Tri in late February 1971. Courtesy of Ly Thanh Tam
FIGURE 2. Brigadier General Le Minh Dao and Major General John Murray at Dao’s headquarters. Courtesy of Le Minh Dao
FIGURE 3. Brigadier General Tran Quang Khoi during the battle of Duc Hue in May 1974. Courtesy of Tran Quang Khoi
FIGURE 4. President Nguyen Van Thieu visits the 83rd Ranger Battalion at Duc Hue camp in May 1974. Courtesy of Tran Quang Khoi
FIGURE 5. Lieutenant General Lam Quang Thi (R) and Marine Division Commander Major General Bui The Lan (L) at My Thuy, just north of Hue, on 20 June 1974. LTG Thi is inspecting the Marine Division. Courtesy of Lam Quang Thi
FIGURE 6. Major General Homer D. Smith Jr., last U.S. Defense Attaché in Saigon. Courtesy of Karen Smith
FIGURE 7. Major General Pham Van Phu, commander of ARVN II Corps. Courtesy of Nguyen Quang Vinh
FIGURE 8. Lieutenant General Ngo Quang Truong, commander of ARVN I Corps
FIGURE 9. Refugees from Quang Tri province crossing the Hai Van Pass to reach Danang. Courtesy of Tran Khiem
FIGURE 10. South Vietnamese Marines on the south side of the Hai Van Pass on 23 March 1975, treating refugees wounded by Communist shelling. Courtesy of Tran Khiem
FIGURE 11. An elderly man flees a Communist rocket attack on his village near Danang on 26 March 1975. Courtesy of Tran Khiem
FIGURE 12. One of the first World Airways flights on 26 March 1975 to rescue civilians in Danang. Courtesy of Dr. Larry Engelmann
FIGURE 13. South Vietnamese Marines trying to board Vietnamese Navy ships at My Khe Beach (the famous China Beach) just south of Danang on the morning of 29 March 1975. Courtesy of Tran Khiem
FIGURE 14. The Vietnamese Navy frigate Tran Quang Khai (HQ-02) docks near My Khe Beach to rescue ARVN soldiers. Courtesy of Tran Khiem
FIGURE 15. Desperate soldiers trying to board the Tran Quang Khai on the morning of 29 March 1975. Courtesy of Tran Khiem
FIGURE 16. South Vietnamese C-119K gunship shot down over Tan Son Nhut airbase on the morning of 29 April 1975. Courtesy of William Le Gro
FIGURE 17. Major General Homer D. Smith Jr. awarding the Distinguished Service Medal to Colonel William Le Gro on 27 June 1975. Courtesy of William Le Gro