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derivative filename/jpeg
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363-01486 to 363-01498.pdf
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Digital Object Identifier
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363-01486 to 363-01498
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Title
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Article on expectations for the 1968 Peace Talks
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Description
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Original title: "LBJ Peace talks - strategy." Keever's title: "Communists to Parallel Peace Talks with Fighting." Original caption: "This is the second of a three-part series on the multi-faceted war in South Vietnam, as Washington-Hanoi peace talks begin" Article by Keever about expectations around the 1968 Peace Talks
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AI Usage Disclosure
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Draft transcripts were automatically generated via Google Document AI and are currently under review. Please report significant errors to Archives & Special Collections at archives@unl.edu.
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Transcript
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zczc sag
yy 1jp
strategy 1 (normass/deepe)
(This is the second of a three-part series on the multi-faceted
war in South Vietnam, as Washington-Hanoi peace talks begin).
SAIGON,
APRIL 11-Allied commanders here believe the Communists
will seek to parallel the approaching peace talks by moving towards
heavier, more bitter ground fighting in e South Vietnam.
Few informed sources s here foresee the possibility in the near
future of the Communists agreeing at the peace table to a truce or
ceasefire of hostilities in the jungles and rice paddies of the South.
b the short term, many American and Vietnamese informed sources
Viciously- fought BATES.
In
foresee the outcome of
influencing
g in the South
Discussions
the Hanoi-Washington peace talks before the peace talks
end the fighting here.
== MORE
Reuter.
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- Page 2
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zcze sag
ᎩᎩ ljp
strategy 2 (normass/deepe)
When asked what orders he would give his troops during a ceasefire,
one senior Allied commander was startled and answered: "What do you mean.
We've just been planning a big offensive."
Another explained the prevailing military viewpoint this way:
"I don't think a ceasefire would be a logical thing to occur. The Communists
will have to fight-talk-talk, fight and talk, like in the Korean
they'll
War negotiations. I do the same thing here--a long drawn-out period
of talking with very heavy fighting.
"Before President Johnson's speech (on April 1, Saigon time), we
thought the Communists would make another push by June-based on the time
it takes them to resupply, get their replacements in from North Vietnam and
They'LL
get ready. Now, we think I be tempted to go before that--in order to
seek the strongest possible bargaining position.
"But, if he does talk,
the war here is a new ballgame--with
new ground rules, I'm sure."
==more reuter
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- Page 3
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zozo sag
ᎩᎩ ljp
strategy 3 (normass/deepe)
Senior commanders here currently see the Allied side as
"militarily over the hump"--by regaining the tactical initiative on
the ground in all areas except the Mekong Delta where a CC-sw
see-saw situation prevails."
These sources are particularly pleased
with the offensive operation around Khe Sanh, which they view
as "switching the tide in the norther northern provinces," along
the demilitarized zone.
However, these sources believe the Communists have the
capability of sending material and men om into the south from
North Vietnam, or across the other land borders, at an accelerated
rate and believe they are currently doing so, although with the
HAVE
No
intelligence lag in documenting infiltration rates, they o repeat
no statistical measure of this yet been mee
==more reuter
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- Page 4
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zczc sag
ᎩᎩ ljp
strategy 4 (normass/deepe)
began in late January,
Informed sources here believe that since the Tet offensive
the Communists have shifted both their time
H MOR
frames and their strategy. The reason for this is still unclear and topics
of debate here--but these sources believe the time timing was once
calculated to mesh with the American political party conventions and the
HOWEVER,
Presidential election. They believe President Johnson's refusal to
accept a o renomination may have out-dated this theory.
These sources view that the Communist timing has shifted
from "a protracted war to a short-term effort," and the Communist
strategy has shifted from fighting in the jungles and their remote
base areas to fighting in intermediate belts around the urban centers.
As a result, "they have base areas everywhere-in the jungles, in the
middle areas and in the urban
source explained.
im areas," one reliable
"Despite the heavy losses they've taken, they
are keeping their mainforce units in intermediate belts around the cities
to maintain some kind of a toehold in the urban areas."
==more reuter
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- Page 5
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ZOZV
zczc sag
ᎩᎩ ljp
strategy 5 (normass/deepe)
Informed sources view this as a "very, very clever strategy-
This shift has unleashed many repercussions
a fiendish, cynical strategy."
--if not dilemnas-upon Allied commanders, the Vietnamese population
in the urban centers and for the Communists themselves.
The inher
degree of the Communist shift, and
the subsequent repe roussions seems to vary with different regions of the
country, but is most clear-cut in the Third Corps Areas Area surrounding
Saigon.
==more reuter
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zozo sag
ᎩᎩ ljp
strategy 6 (normass/deepe)
DAKTO
"Last fall with the battles of Loc Ninh and Song Be, the
Communists used their main force units both Viet Cong and North Vietnamese
ene reliable source explained.
mixed in in the fringe areas along the borders.) This cost him dearly
them dearly-they were using their elite regiments against an objective
which did not hurt severely the populated areas. This strategy has
suited the Allies fine--because we also wanted to fight him out of the
populated areas where we could bring our firepower to bear on him.
"Then that changed," the source continued.
Communists brought their regiments to the populated areas and fragmented
them, making them local units of them. Since Tet,
"With Tet the
the Communist high
command has given orders for these units to hold in an intermediate
ring around Saigon and the other cities--and we have hurt alot of these
units badly. But, this shift was the one thing the Communists could
have done which really hurt the Allies. This does impinge on the
revolutionary development program, operating around the cities.)
and on the security of the population in the cities too. Everything in
this war stems from or centers around the security of the people."
==more reuter
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zczo sag
yy 1jp
strategy 7 (normass/deepe)
Some sources believe this course.
inst
chosations
because the Vietnamese
armed f forces, plus large American installions, began to smother
the Viet Cong local guerrillas and political organizations operating
in near the urban centers--and these needed to be reinforced by
atomizing their North Vietnamese and Viet Cong main force units. Others
The main force
believe American air and artillery was hurting them too badly in their
remote jungled areas and they had to seek shelter around the cities.
"Everyone is always using Mao-think to say the Viet Cong are using the
countryside to encircle the cities," one American air officer explained.
"In fact, they are using Giap-think-they are moving from the into the
cities to escape our firepower." Others, primarily Vietnamese sources,
believe the Communists are consolidating and strengthening their
local guerrilla and regular military structure to mesh with political
activities designed to weaken even more seriously the prestige and
Effectiveness
ecmpotency of the Vietnamese government in at the provincial, regional and
cented central levels.
==more reuter
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zcze sag
ᎩᎩ ljp
strategy 8 (normass/deepe)
In the Third Corps area,
the 11 provinces surrounding Saigon,
the Allied have adjusted to the Communist shift by de-aven conventionalizing
American and Vietnamese maneuver battalions and meshing them with Popular
and Regional Forces for a grand-scale, massive sweep of more than 100,000
men.
The Communist pattern holds in the other corps-areas three other
corps areas--but in more muted form. Inmimmxpxgxmthem.£xexa
In the top two northern provinces of Quang Tri and Thua Thion,
one source explained,' there's such a narrow belt between the remote
that everything up
mountainous regions and the populated centers,
there is Indian country, "-a popular way military way of saying the
Communists are just about everywhere.
seems
The remainder of the country, down to the imi Saigon area,
vertical,
to be broken into two tactical areas for the Communists--the mountains and
the relatively unpopulated and the highly populated coastal region.
more reuter
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zcze sag
ᎩᎩ ljp
strategy 9 (normass/deepe)
"In Two Corps and Upper Three corps, you have two separate areas,"
the Communists have also
one source explained. "But within each area,
shifted their tactics to follow the pattern around Saigon. In the highlands,
the Communists are closing inth on the cities of Kontum, Ban Me Thuot and
Pleiku, rather than pulling back to their base areas or their sanctuaries+
Palomon
in Laos and Cambodia.
Along the coast,
HAUE
they
they
where he used to be in the foothills,
they're
has now come down to the coastal plain.
He's not succeeding, but he's
still trying to do it. In fact, this whole move to the urban areas
started in the ROK (Republic of Korea)
to CORPS.
coastal provinces of Binh Dinh
a tip, but it didn't.
"
the villagers though
area last sr fall in the
Hi Thanir 16. That should have given us
The ROK's have now licked the problem by organizing
more reuter
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zczc sag
ᎩᎩ ljp
strategy 10 (normass/deepe)
In Third Corps, the Communists, formerly were holed up in
War Zone C and D and Phuoc Long province, along the Cambodian border-
now they hate-eons have constructed built intermediate banamamamam zones
around their heartland of Saigon. These intermediate base areas were identified
as portions of Long An, Banh southern Binh Cho Duong, Bien Hoa and
a Gia Dinh, the latter being the date donut-shaped province surrounding
the capital of Saigon.
heavily populated
In Four Corps, the Mekong porta rice-producing,
Mekong Delta south of Saigon, the Communists have been concentrating their
strength in the most populous and richest/provinces from Can Tho, Vinh Long,
coast verde towards Kien Hoa, Dinh Trong Trong and Vinh Binh and also
generally also along Highway 4-the only paved road between Saigon and the
Delta. This has allowed the Communists to proceed with a policy--only
nartillay partially successful thus far-to choke or commerce Saigon off
from the produce of the Delta and prevent transport flowing the other
direction.
==more reuter
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zcze sag
ᎩᎩ ljp
strategy 11 (normass/deepe)
"The Allies are over the hump, except in Four Corps. Wo na
"We have the initiate except in the Delta where
the source explained.
there's a state of equi
qb equilibrium.
"This is a very clever strategy (by the Communists). They
they
figure if they operate near the urban areas,
force our side into the same areas, and this would leave the countryside
bare,
since the Vietnamese troops are committed to the provincial
capitals.
And that's what has happened. Because the Communists are
disrupted
between the
in close, they have at our lines of communication
outer areas and the inner areas. Now, we are moving to get these
and we're succeeding except in Four Corps, where the roads
open,
are cut and the waterways blocked.
"Actually,
there's a vacuum if the court in some cases there's
a vacuum in the countryside--whatever units whoever moves into that
vacuum can have it. That's why General (William C.) Westmoreland
wants to get the Vietnamese army and revolutionary development cadre
back into the countryside to fill that vacuum. But, that's easier said
than done."
==more reuter
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ZCZC sag
yy 1jp
strategy 12 (normass/deepe)
The source said the change in Communist strategy also has forced
Allied commanders to bring "more destruction"
is a very fiendish--cynical strategy.
Wi
on the people, "and this
He digs The Communists d
move into a friendly village,
gives the Allied commanders the rough choice of what to do about it."
occupy it, dig mortar pits --and that
Communis
However, this strategy has also made their units more yulnerable,
The CommUINISTS Fre
Allied sources believe, and that he is now in tac an understrength
military stance.
"You know I'm not an official optimist,"
one American source explained.
"But more and more since Tet, I have seen all of a suc sudden a cracking
of the wall here that will allow us to push through.
doing what he has never done
HE
The enemy is now
before-put his main force out for di
destruction by us. But he has inflexible tactics and he's not going to
change them to save his man main force. Now his main force--his backbone-
is being whittled away. If this continues for four months, we can break
his backbone.
At the moment, his main force is bleeding to death."
==more reuter
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zczc sag
ᎩᎩ ljp
strategy 13 (normass/deepe)
units HRE
Pulled
"All their main force now exposed, out of their base areas and
are bleeding bak badly," the source explained. "In February we were
killing 300 m main force a day, now we're dead down to 50, but it's
still significant. We are beginning to find they throw their rifles
in the river and are leaving their dead and their weapons on the battlefield.
the Vietnamese difterners
This has never happened before in this corps.. Last week, knocked
out a battalion of the North Vietnamese 101st Regiment-only 50 men were
left and the four prisoners said they were ordered to stay there til the
last man. It wasthe first time in the history of the war we've decime decimated
an enemy unit. But, the American dead in this corps has doubled too."
the reason they're ordered to stay is for a big push
"Of course,
next month," the source concluded. "But, I don't think by next month
he'll be able to do anything significant at all."
== END REUTER.
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Date
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1968, Apr. 11
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Subject
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Vietnam War, 1961-1975; Vietnam War, 1961-1975--Peace; War--Public opinion; Diplomatic negotiations in international disputes
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Location
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Saigon, South Vietnam
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Coordinates
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10.8231; 106.6297
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Size
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21 x 26 cm
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Container
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B11, F7
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Format
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dispatches
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Collection Number
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MS 363
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Collection Title
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Beverly Deepe Keever, Journalism Papers
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Creator
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Keever, Beverly Deepe
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Collector
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Keever, Beverly Deepe
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Copyright Information
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These images are for educational use only. To inquire about usage or publication, please contact Archives & Special Collections.
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Publisher
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Archives & Special Collections
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Language
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English
