Where the Domino Fell - America And Vietnam 1945-1995 (42 page)

North Vietnam’s Lo Duc Tho and U.S. negotiator Henry Kissinger meet in
secret at Saint-Nom-La-Broteche near Paris to seek agreement on a ceasefire in Vietnam. (
Courtesy, Library of Congress.
)

 

Le Duc Tho had a long memory. In 1954 the Vietminh had accepted a military settlement at Geneva and agreed to postpone the political issues—the nebulous promise of free elections two years down the road. The elections never took place. On his deathbed in 1969, Ho Chi Minh warned Pham Van Don and Le Duc Tho not to make the same mistake. It had cost them fifteen years and nearly two million deaths. None of the superpowers—the Soviet Union, France, the United States, and the People’s Republic of China—could be trusted. “Don’t sign the next agreement,” Ho Chi Minh insisted, “until we’re certain of the political outcome.”

The whole messy business of Vietnam was for Kissinger a distraction from his grand design for a new relationship among the superpowers. By 1971 the Chinese were more afraid of the Soviet Union than of the Americans, and Kissinger thought the time was right for the United States to seek a rapprochement. As an increasingly powerful Vietnamese military spread along China’s southern border in Indochina, and huge Soviet forces arrayed themselves at its northern frontier, Chinese leaders might be ready to talk. They were. Kissinger met secretly with Chinese representatives several times in 1971, and the talks were productive. Kissinger further realized that improving relations between Washington and Beijing would alarm the Soviet leaders, increasing their willingness to negotiate in good faith, particularly on such critical issues as the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks then going on at Geneva. A unique opportunity to play the USSR off against the Chinese and improve the American diplomatic position vis-à-vis both was at hand. Kissinger called the new diplomatic initiative “détente,” a mutual, morality-free process of cooperation and accommodation among the superpowers. Throughout 1971 and early 1972 Kissinger planned summit meetings in Moscow and Beijing so that Richard Nixon, the old militant anticommunist, could reshape modern international politics. Nixon began that process in February 1972 with a triumphant visit to Beijing. The summit with the Soviet Union was scheduled for May.

Between Kissinger and destiny stood Vietnam. If the United States lost the war, the political repercussions back home would be severe. The right wing might rise up in self-righteous indignation and set off another McCarthy era, wrecking any hopes Kissinger had of implementing a new relationship with the USSR and the Chinese. If the United States withdrew without achieving “peace with honor,” its reduced credibility would abort détente because neither the Soviet leaders nor the Chinese would take the United States seriously. Kissinger needed an acceptable settlement of the war in Vietnam.

Nixon worried constantly that the public would interpret endless negotiations as a sign of weakness. He was in his tough mood, as if George C. Scott’s version of George S. Patton had become his alter ego. He was up for reelection and needed to do something to prove himself, to show the public that his “secret plan” of 1968 to end the war was more than campaign rhetoric. But at the end of 1971, Vietnamization was playing into Le Duc Tho’s hands. In just a short while, there would be no American troops to cope with. As far as Nixon was concerned, Kissinger had a weak hand to play in Paris. The only military option left to the president was bombing, and he was ready to use it. “I’m going to show the bastards,” he told Kissinger in the spring. “Unless they deal with us I’m going to bomb the hell out of them.” Nixon was in an anxious mood; the madman device was turning from strategy to psychological condition.

In the spring of 1972 the North Vietnamese tested the madman. The huge reduction in American forces and the failure of ARVN during the Lam Son invasion made possible the thought of winning. Combined with the increasing confidence in success was a new urgency about seeking it. The improvement in relations between China and the United States threatened to pull Vietnam’s northern neighbor away from its commitment to Hanoi. That danger was confirmed in late 1971 when the Chinese intimated that Vietnamese reunification might be a matter of years, not months. A major figure behind the determination to act quickly was Vo Nguyen Giap, who guaranteed “a great victory over the Americans and their Saigon puppets.” The Politburo in 1971 decided on “a decisive victory” to force “the United States to end the war by negotiating from a position of defeat.”

Abrams was expecting an attack. Since 1968 the North Vietnamese had used the Tet holidays for offensives, and as early as October 1971 MACV was warning ARVN to get ready. February 1, 1972, came and went, with no attack. ARVN maintained an alert status throughout most of February, but the American warnings grew stale. ARVN commanders relaxed, and Giap traded the Vietnamese New Year holiday for the American Easter celebrations.

The North Vietnamese offensive began on Good Friday, March 30. By that time there were 95,000 American troops still in South Vietnam, only 6,000 of them combat forces. Under a heavy, advanced artillery barrage, more than 30,000 North Vietnamese, accompanied by 200 Soviet tanks, crossed the Demilitarized Zone and attacked Quang Tri Province in I Corps. Giap had moved long-range 130-mm artillery just north of the Hieu Giang River, bringing under bombardment Quang Tri City and an area five miles south. Heavy cloud cover limited the effectiveness of American tactical air strikes. The NVA troops kept up the artillery assault on ARVN posts, and on April 27 they attacked Quang Tri City. Thousands of South Vietnamese refugees fled the city for the protection of Hue, but the North Vietnamese targeted the 130-mm artillery on Highway 1, exacting a heavy toll on the refugees. The ARVN 3rd Division was caught off guard and began falling back along Highway 1. On May 1, the 304th North Vietnamese Division took control of Quang Tri City.

Giap hoped to inspire a deployment of American and ARVN troops north into I Corps while he prepared for three other attacks. Another 35,000-man contingent of North Vietnamese troops, the now-reinforced remnants of the units attacked in Cambodia in 1970 and Laos in 1971, assembled in Cambodia for an assault on Saigon, while 35,000 more soldiers prepared for a campaign against Dak To in the Central Highlands. Giap hoped the battle in the north would distract ARVN forces, increasing the possibility of success in the scheduled attacks in the Central Highlands and on Saigon. On April 2 North Vietnamese troops moved out of Cambodia¸ employing tanks and armored personnel carriers. They moved down Highway 13, seized Loc Ninh, surrounded An Loc, and severed the route to Saigon. One week later North Vietnam attacked Dak To with the objective of taking Kontum. As the commanders planned it, if Kontum fell they would drive toward the South China Sea and cut South Vietnam in half. To prepare for that possibility, two North Vietnamese divisions invaded Binh Dinh Province and took control of several districts along the South China Sea, cutting Highway 1 and the link between Hue and Saigon. The combined total of Vietcong and North Vietnamese troops committed to the offensive was 200,000.

The Eastertide offensive could not have come at a worse time for the Nixon administration. On April 2, Ambassador Ellsworth Bunker cabled Kissinger and Nixon that “ARVN forces are on the verge of collapse in I Corps.” Back in his more naive days of 1969, Kissinger had told several of his aides, “I can’t believe that a fourth-rate power like North Vietnam doesn’t have a breaking point.” Now a military offensive led by North Vietnam threatened to derail everything. If the Eastertide offensive succeeded, even partially, Kissinger would lose bargaining power with Le Duc Tho. Massive bombings, which Nixon had already indicated his willingness to pursue, now looked to be the only way out of disaster.

Kissinger had scheduled a summit meeting for May between the president and the Soviet leadership. If the United States launched a full-scale bombing campaign over North Vietnam, the Soviet Union might cancel the summit and destroy Kissinger’s hopes for détente and the signing of a treaty limiting nuclear arms. Yet in the absence of American bombs, the Eastertide offensive would overrun South Vietnam, inflict a military defeat on ARVN, and compromise the strategic position of the United States throughout the world. Kissinger was walking a very narrow path.

Nixon and Kissinger decided to unleash the B-52s. On April 6, 1972, they met in the White House with General John W. Vogt, new commander of the Seventh Air Force. Nixon told Vogt “to get down there and use whatever air you need to turn this thing around. . . . Stop this offensive.” Code-named Operation Linebacker, the bombing began later that day, the first sustained raids over North Vietnam since 1969. The president confined the attacks to targets within sixty miles of the Demilitarized Zone, but on April 10 he extended the radius and by midmonth B-52s were attacking targets within a few miles of Hanoi and Haiphong. The raids elated the joint chiefs. Admiral Thomas Moorer, who had replaced Earle Wheeler as chairman of the joint chiefs in 1970, remarked, “Finally we will be able to win the war.”

On May 2 Kissinger met once again at the house on the Rue Darthe in Paris with Le Duc Tho. Kissinger tried to achieve some movement in the negotiations. But Le Duc Tho would not budge. Quang Tri City had fallen to NVA troops, Hue was threatened, Loc Ninh was taken, An Loc was under siege, and Saigon was bracing for an attack; and in the Central Highlands the NVA troops were preparing for a breakthrough that would carry them to the South China Sea. Le Duc Tho had one message for Kissinger on May 2, 1970: “What difference is all this talk going to make? The end is in sight.” Kissinger was upset, his anger no doubt deepened by what seemed Le Duc Tho’s arrogance. That night, when he got back to Washington, he met with Nixon. His restraint was gone. “It’s time,” he told Nixon, “to send them an undeniable message, to deliver a shock, to let them know that things might get out of hand if the offensive doesn’t stop.” Nixon was ready, too. “The bastards have never been bombed like they’re going to be bombed this time.” Two days later, on May 4, Nixon suspended the Paris peace talks after their 149th session.

On May 8 Nixon announced that Operation Linebacker would continue indefinitely and the navy would mine the North Vietnamese ports of Haiphong, Cam Pha, Hon Gai, and Thanh Hoa and impose a naval blockade of the entire coast—all to cut the flow of supplies to North Vietnamese troops fighting in the South and to protect the lives of American forces still in Vietnam. Nixon hoped the raids would pressure North Vietnam into taking the Paris negotiations seriously. Privately, he wanted the B-52s to do what ARVN could not: stop the Eastertide offensive. Kissinger’s concern was that the raids not disrupt the upcoming Moscow summit.

Both Nixon and Kissinger got their wishes. Nixon shifted more than 100 B-52s from the Strategic Air Command and assigned them to tactical strikes over South Vietnam and strategic air raids over North Vietnam. The size of the Seventh Fleet nearly doubled, including the addition of four aircraft carriers and hundreds of fighter-bombers. By the end of May the United States was flying more than 2,200 sorties a month, up from only 700 in March, and most of the raids were concentrated on Quang Tri, Kontum, Dak To, An Loc, and Loc Ninh, and over selected strategic targets in North Vietnam. At An Loc and Quang Tri the B-52s struck every forty-five minutes, twenty-four hours a day, for weeks on end, pounding the North Vietnamese. They took a fearsome toll. On June 18 the NVA troops began pulling out of An Loc; the fighting petered out near Kontum, which ended North Vietnam’s hopes of driving to the South China Sea; and up north, the ARVN Airborne Division, 1st Division, and marines began a counterattack that lasted throughout the summer and eventually recaptured Quang Tri City. Eastertide was over. And to Kissinger’s pleasure, the Soviet leaders acted with restraint. They offered only the most tepid protest against the bombing and mining campaigns, decided not to challenge the naval blockade, and did not withdraw their invitation for Nixon to come to Moscow. The Chinese were equally circumspect, issuing a mild protest but also calling for a negotiated settlement. Pham Van Dong felt betrayed: He condemned both Moscow and the Chinese for abandoning the “world revolutionary movement and acquiescing in the brutal violence of the American imperialists.” Later in the month Nixon went to Moscow, drank champagne with a smiling Leonid Brezhnev, and signed the coveted Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty.

In Hanoi the Eastertide fiasco was a humiliating defeat for Vo Nguyen Giap. He had also fallen victim to Hodgkin’s disease, a cancer of the lymphatic system, which prevented him from taking an active role in the government. Pham Van Dong began looking to General Van Tien Dung as his military chief. Dung, born in Tonkin in 1917 to a peasant family, had joined the revolutionary movement in 1936 and fought against the French and then the Japanese. Shrewd and fearless, he exuded confidence, but his perpetually smiling countenance hid an allconsuming passion for Vietnamese independence. In the early 1950s Dung performed brilliantly as a Vietminh battalion commander, and Giap trained him in logistics and maneuvers. In 1953 Giap named him chief of staff, gave him command of the 320th Division, and charged him with logistical planning at Dienbienphu. For the next eighteen years Dung was Giap’s closest associate.