In late 1967, Giap concentrated some 40,000 soldiers in the hills of northwest South Vietnam and orchestrated a series of assaults on a string of American combat bases in the highlands, not far from a Marine base called Khe Sanh, which the North besieged in January 1968. Giap later called these attacks a “diversion” to …
Was America Duped at Khe Sanh? – The New York Times Read More »
The Tây Sơn Rebellion on Facebook Published by David Lindsay · 2 mins · My response to the NYT Comments. Merrill McPeak ends with, “But when Saigon fell, it was not a swarm of ragtag Vietcong guerrillas who overran the city, but columns of Russian-made T-54 tanks, leading a modern field army complete with artillery …
Merrill McPeak | Bombing the Ho Chi Minh Trail – NYT – & response Read More »
“. . . The 50th anniversary of the war’s escalation — and the premiere this week of Ken Burns and Lynn Novick’s 18-hour documentary on PBS — is an appropriate time to honor the suffering and the sacrifice of all those who served, including the 58,000 American service members, the estimated 1.3 million North and …
Vietnam on the Reel-to-Reel – The New York Timesby Jennifer Finney Boylan – NYT Read More »
“There is a broad consensus among professional historians that the Vietnam War was effectively unwinnable. Even the revisionists admit their minority status, though some claim that it’s because of a deep-seated liberal bias within the academic history profession. But doubts about the war’s winnability are hardly limited to the halls of academe. One can readily …
Why Vietnam Was Unwinnable – by Kevin Boylan – NYT Read More »
“As Menzies saw it, the risk in American policy was not strategic overreach but isolationism, and what an American withdrawal from Asia in the face of defeat would mean for Australia and its neighbors. As a young man of military age during World War I, and as a youthful prime minister at the outbreak of …
What Was Australia Doing in Vietnam? – The New York Times Read More »
“The rest of the squad returned fire as best they could, but they were trapped. And Don knew it. Maybe Jacque’s parting words rang in his ears; maybe it was sheer instinct. But Don acted to save his friends. Shouting, “You guys run like hell, and I’ll cover you,” Don waited an instant before springing …
Charlie Company and the Small-Unit War – The New York Times Read More »
“Richard M. Nixon told an aide that they should find a way to secretly “monkey wrench” peace talks in Vietnam in the waning days of the 1968 campaign for fear that progress toward ending the war would hurt his chances for the presidency, according to newly discovered notes. In a telephone conversation with H. R. …
“In the early spring of 1967, I was in the middle of a heated 2 a.m. hallway discussion with fellow students at Yale about the Vietnam War. I was from a small town in Oregon, and I had already joined the Marine Corps Reserve. My friends were mostly from East Coast prep schools. One said …
Vietnam: The War That Killed Trust – by Karl Malantes – NYT Read More »
“Five decades of reporting have taught me that whenever a president starts screeching about the media, it’s a sure sign he’s in hot water and fearing revelations about some policy disaster, damaging mendacity or political villainy. Even popular presidents with reputations for charming the press occasionally stoop to blaming the press for quagmires of their …
So, What Is Trump Hiding? – by Hedrick Smith – NYT Read More »
“I had come to Saigon thinking that we needed to make a stand against Russian and Chinese Communism as we had done in Korea. But in time I became less and less sure. I began to see that for the Vietnamese the long struggle against the French, and now the Americans, had blended into one, …