Thursday, April 27, 1972
The 'Whys' Of Red Viet Invasion
The North Vietnamese have been shedding a glimmer of light on a number of puzzling 'whys' about their current offensive.Why now? It is a bad time for it, with the rainy season about to settle in. Why not wait until fall when the weather would be better and perhaps most if not all U.S. ground troops would be gone?Why stage the offensive when it could embarrass the Russians in advance of their May summit with President Nixon? Why not choose to strike in February and embarrass the Red Chinese at the time of the Nixon visit to Peking? The allies in South Vietnam expected something then.Hanoi's strategist may have been uneasy about further delay. North Vietnam's propaganda to the troops suggests that the major Hanoi objective is to destroy the Vietnamization program. The army newspaper Quan Doi Nhan Dan has hailed the offensive as "the moment of truth for Vietnamization."If Vietnamization should in any significant measure succeed in transferring the major burden of self-protection to Saigon, the North's job after the departure of the Americans would be more difficult. It would seem logical to Hanoi to hit the Saigon military where it would hurt the most, in self-confidence, and keep Saigon off balance.From the tone of the army newspaper, Hanoi seems satisfied that surprise was achieved and was highly effective."He who gains the initiative can surprise the adversary even if the latter is prepared," the paper noted."Nixon thought the most critical time for the U.S. puppets would be over when the dry season ended," it went on. "Yet the puppet troops were again hit a hard blow as the first rains fell."Why should Hanoi want the Paris talks to resume at once?The current North Vietnamese stance on this differs much from the 1968 insistence that there could be no four-sided talks until the U.S. bombing was halted unconditionally. The shoe now is on the other foot. Hanoi wants the talks resumed but the Americans are suggesting it's no soap while the North Vietnamese offensive is in progress.North Vietnam's foreign minister, Nguyen Duy Trinh, in a recent report accused the United States of scheming to combine military, political and diplomatic maneuvers and then proceeded to say that North Vietnam had done precisely that."The necessary task of our party, army and people is, with the spirit of persevering in our resistance ... to exert all our efforts, to valiantly march forward, to powerfully push ahead military, political and diplomatic resistance," he told the National Assembly.This suggests that the Paris talks fit into Hanoi strategy. Possibly Hanoi regards the talks as useful politically in keeping attention focused on the North's nonnegotiable demands. Another aim could be to keep U.S. diplomacy on the defensive and help meanwhile to generate agitation around the world against American policy."The 'Whys' of Red Viet Invasion", by William L. Ryan, AP Special Correspondent, published in the Pacific Stars and Stripes on Thursday, April 27, 1972 and reprinted from European and Pacific Stars and Stripes, a Department of Defense publication copyright, 2002 European and Pacific Stars and Stripes.