Why The North Vietnamese Launched A Major Military Offensive During Tet 1968 by Marilynn K. Lietz

Author:Marilynn K. Lietz [Lietz, Marilynn K.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Pickle Partners Publishing
Published: 2014-08-15T00:00:00+00:00

The Decision of the Thirteenth Plenum

After much debate, the long-standing Giap-Thanh argument culminated with the decision to launch a general offensive and general uprising at “thoi co” or opportune moment.{310} The Thirteenth Plenum directive (approved by Ho and the Politburo) stated that the North would launch a military operation designed to spark, “. . .a spontaneous uprising in order to win a decisive victory in the shortest possible time.” Ho tasked Senior General Giap to develop this directive into operational plans and orders for the offensive of Tong Cong Kich, Tong Khoi Nghia (TCK-TKN) (Vietnamese), or the Tet 1968 Offensive.{311}

Later that year, Giap described the “regular force strategy” that he would employ in the Tet offensive in his book Big Victory, Great Task. His thesis was that victory in Vietnam must come by way of the use of more or less regular military force. The only way to win, he repeated, is “militarily, on the ground, in South Vietnam.”{312}

Essentially, he laid out the operations plan for the offensive by encouraging,

. . .our southern people to attack comprehensively and continuously and to gain the initiative in attacking the enemy everywhere with all forces and weapons and with all appropriate methods. The comprehensive offensive is a coordinated military and political offensive and includes the attacks on U.S. troops and the puppet troops and administration in the mountains and jungle areas, the deltas, and the cities.{313}

According to Phillip Davidson, Chief for United States Army Intelligence for Military Assistance Command Vietnam during this time, Giap developed his plan for the offensive using three assumptions. First, he felt the South Vietnamese Army was military unmotivated and would probably defect or desert if hit hard enough during the Tet offensive. This feeling was probably based upon the fact that most of the planning and execution of combat operations within South Vietnam had been taken over by the U.S. Army and its leaders, and that Giap did not feel the ARVN had a firm ideological reason for battling their Northern “brothers.”{314} His second assumption was the Government of South Vietnam (GVN) would not be supported by the people of South Vietnam and the population would rise up during the TCK-TKN to further the communist cause. This assumption was probably due to the strong ideological beliefs that Giap and Ho held. Third, Giap believed the population and the armed forces of the GVN would turn on the Americans in the face of this offensive as they had against the Japanese and the French.{315}

During this time, in addition to worrying about the ground forces currently facing his soldiers, Giap seemed preoccupied about the possibility of a United States invasion into North Vietnam. He was concerned that the US would expand the war into Laos, Cambodia, and North Vietnam. He discussed the possibility of the US conducting a major landing of US forces on the shores of North Vietnam, and warned that China would intervene if such action took place.{316} This theme was one key to the U.S. inaction or lack of decisive action in South Vietnam.

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