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From: Mac McIntosh <alohamac@xtra.co.nz> Subject: Khe Sanh was no Dien Bien Phu Date: March 5, 2010 8:50:23 PM EST To: H-NET Military History Discussion List <H-WAR@H-NET.MSU.EDU> To better understand Tet and Khe Sanh I believe that one has to study the 1963-1967 political purge in North Vietnam that was headed by Le Duc Tho and Nguyen Trung Thanh , the head of the Politburo's Internal Security Bureau. This purge has been misclassified by many as a struggle between those who were pro-Soviet or pro-Chinese . IMO the purge was solely about the conduct of the war in the South. Tho authorized Public Security Minister Tran Quoc Hoan and Maj Gen Song Hao , head of the Army's Political Affairs Dept to investigate "antiparty revisionists" or , in fact all who opposed resolution 9 which authorized the use of force in the South and the later resolution 13 which rejected protacted guerrilla warfare. Giap , BTW was in favour of protracted warfare. Giap was placed under protracted house arrest and several of his aides were arrested and purged. No one was safe from these purges. Even Prime Minister Pham Van Dong received a flat warning when his private secretary was accused in 1967 of being a pro-Soviet revisionist. This is IMO one of the reasons that Giap was so tentative and insisted in testing the waters with the attack on Khe Sanh because in his heart of hearts he was dead set against resolution 13. It was in the Politburo's Thirteenth Plenum in April 1967 where the advocates of protracted war led by Giap were defeatedby hardliners such as Le Duan , Nguyen Chi Thanh and Truong Chinh who all called for a " spontaneous uprising " and penned resolution 13. Walter James McIntosh Bluff, New Zealand ----- For subscription help, go to: http://www.h-net.org/lists/help/ To change your subscription settings, go to http://h-net.msu.edu/cgi-bin/wa?SUBED1=h-war -----
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