Universal Dependencies - English - EWT

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What was the goal for North Vietnam in the Tet offensive?

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When Johnson deployed troops in 1964 he was advised by the military it would take a half-million troops about ten years to pacify South Vietnam.

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He refused to believe them and ordered the military to win the war within two to three years (before the next election in 1968).

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He did not give them the number of troops they requested.

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This left Westmoreland with few options, so he adapted a Search and Destroy strategy instead of a Clear and Defend strategy which is, in the long run, the preferred method of pacifying an insurgency.

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Thing is, it worked.

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The ARVN was not having a big problem with the Local VC (the guerilla movement), they were being challenged by the Main Force VC (which was light infantry) and the North Vietnamese Army (NVA).

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When the Americans swept in with their Search and Destroy operations the Communists quickly leaned they could not stand up to the US firepower, and these regular troops were forced to flee the country and take sanctuary across the borders in Laos and Cambodia.

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All those sunny reports about the progress in Vietnam were correct, the Communists WERE being defeated.

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However, Johnson would not let the military cross the borders and clean out the Communist bases.

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He was warned that they were building up a huge Army and would eventually launch an attack, but he ignored his military advisers.

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The Communists agreed.

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They could not defeat the Americans.

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However, what they hoped to do during the Tet Offensive was to sneak past the Americans and attack the ARVN in the urban areas where they were deployed doing successful Clear and Defend operations.

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The Communists thought they could defeat the ARVN, cause the fall of the South Vietnamese government, and the people would than rally to the Communist cause and leave the Americans stranded in a sea of angry peasants.

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THAT WAS THE PLAN.

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What happened?

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The Americans detected the attempt to infiltrate the urban areas and were already redeploying troops from the rural areas.

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The ARVN rushed back from holiday leave and counterattacked.

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Within 24 hours every Communist assault had been defeated except in the ancient capital of Hue.

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The government did NOT fall.

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And the South Vietnamese people?

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When give the ultimate choice, they rallied…

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TO THE SOUTH VIETNAMESE GOVERNMENT….

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Tet was a huge military and political disaster for the Communists.

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They were chased back into Laos and Cambodia with the ARVN in hot pursuit.

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The people rejected their attempt to topple the government, and for all intents and purposes the US military (and the ARVN) handed Johnson the victory he had ordered them to achieve within the time-frame he ordered it.

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All he had to do for a complete victory was allow the military to go into Laos and Cambodia and finish off the shattered Communist forces.

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But Johnson was so obtuse he didn’t understand he had a victory when it was handed to him on a silver platter.

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Instead he pulled the military off, stopped the bombing of North Vietnam, withdrew from the presidential race, and spent the rest of his term in office trying to surrender to North Vietnam.

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They screwed up by not accepting his surrender when he offered it.

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The American people were NOT having any of it, and elected Richard Nixon to fix the mess LBJ had made (not to surrender like the antiwar movement was demanding).

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In the end Nixon kept his promise for “…peace with honor….”

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But that’s another question.

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To emancipate the south, but it was a serious failure.

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To make the war unpalatable to the American public.

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In that, they pretty much succeeded.

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Before Tet, the war was unpopular but tolerable to the majority of Americans in that the loss of American lives was seen as the cost of subduing the VC and NVA.

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Tet made it clear that the war was a long way from being over if the Americans thought they could preserve the South and that the North was perfectly willing to suffer great losses to continue their fight.

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There is a very good book on the subject that was written by General Vo Nguyen Giap.

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Try google to find the title if you would like to read it.