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derivative filename/jpeg
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363-04080 to 363-04092.pdf
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Digital Object Identifier
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363-04080 to 363-04092
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Title
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Second part of an article about the war in South Vietnam
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Description
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Original title: "strategy", Keever's title: "Communists to Parallel Peace Talks with Fighting." Article about the North Vietnamese/Communist plan to continue gurellla warfare in South Vietnam as peace talks with the west unfold, since Allied (American) commanders reject the idea of a ceasefire. Communist/Việt Cộng tactics seem to have changed from Protracted People's War to short term offensives, likely due to the successes of the Tet Offensive earlier that year. The bulk of the article goes over elaborating on this strategic change. For the Christian Science Monitor
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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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zcze sag
Jy 1jp
strategy 1 (normass/doope)
(This is the second of a three-part series on the multi-faceted
war in South Vietnam, as Washington-Hanci peace talks bogin).
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 fe South Vietnam.
Fow informed sources 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.
the short term, many American and Vietnamese informed sources
Viciously- touGHT BANGS
olour-fighting in the South
D. Sessions.
In
foresee the outcome of before router
the Hanoi-Washington peace talks before the ponce talks
ond the fighting here.
MORE
Reuter.
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2020 sag
yy 1jp
strategy 2 (normass/deepe)
When asked what orders he would give his troops during a ceasefire,
ono senior Allied commander was startled and answered: "What do you mean.
We've just been planning a big offensive."
Another oxplained the prevailing military viewpoint this ways
"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
War negotiations. He'll 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 takos them to resupply, got their replacements in from North Vietnam and
get roady. Now, we think he'll be tempted to go before that--in order to
seok thr the strongest possible bargaining position.
"But, if he does talk, the war here is a new ballgame--with a
new ground rules, I'm sure."'
"
semore reuter
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2020 006
Jy 1jp
strategy 3 (normass/deope)
Senior Commanders hore currently see the Allied side as
"nilitarily over the hump"--by regaining the tactical initiative on
the ground in all areas except the Mekong Delta where a
**
see-saw situation prevails,"
86
SCO-3W
These sources are particularly pleased
which they view
with the offensivo oporation around Khe Sanh,
"switching the tide in the norther pr northern provinces," along
the demilitarized zone."
However,
these sources believe the Communists have the
capability of sending material and men Profi into the south from
North Vietnam, or soross the other land borders, at an accelerated
rate-and believe they are currently doing so,
although with the
intelligence lag in documenting infiltration rates,
no statistical measure of this yet be
they a no repeat
more router
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2020 sag
Jy ljp
strategy 4 (normass/decpe)
Informed sources here believe that since the Tet offensive
bogan in late January,
the Communists have shifted both their time
frames and their strategy. The reason for this is still unclear and topics
of debate horo-but these sources believe the time timing was once
calculated to mosh with
th
the American political party conventions and the
Presidential olootion. They believe President Johnson's refusal to
accopt a roo renomination may have outdated this theory.
Those 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 aroas to fighting in intermediate belts around the urban centers.
As a result, "they have base areas everywhere-in the jungles, in the
middle aroas and in the urban
m areas," one reliable
source explained,
"Despite the heavy losses they've taken, they
are kooping 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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202V
2020 886
yy 1jp
strategy 5 (normass/doope)
Informed sources view this as a "very, very clever stratocy
a fiendish, cynical strategy."
This shift has unleashed many repercussions
if not dilonnag-upon Allied commanders,
the Vietnamese population
in the urban centers
and for the Communists themselves.
The inn
Em degree of the Communist shift, and
seems to vary with different regions of the
the subsequent rope roussions
country,
but is most clear-out in the Third Corps Areas Area surrounding
Saigon.
==more reuter
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8020 808
ᎩᎩ 3.jp
strategy 6 (normass/deope)
DAK TO
"Last fall with the battles of Loo Ninh and Song Be,
the
Communists used their main force units--both Vict, Cong and North Vlotnamese
one reliable source expinou
mixed in in the fringe areas along the borders.
This cost him dearly
them doarly they were using their elite regiments against an objective
This strategy has
suited the Allies fine-because we also wanted to fight him out of the
which did not hurt severely the populated areas.
populated arcas where we could bring our firepower to bear on him,
"Then that changed,"
the source continued.
"With Tot the
Communiste brought their regiments to the populated areas and fragmented
then, making them local units of them. Since Tet,
the Communist high
commend has given orders for these units to hold in an intermediate
ring around Saigon and the other cities--and we have hurt alot of f these
units badly. But, this shift was the one thing the Communists could
have done which really hurt the Allies.
revolutionary development program, operating around the cities.
This does impinge on the
Everything in
and on the security of the population in the cities too.
this war stoms from or centers around the security of the poople."
more reuter
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2020 986
Vy 1jp
strategy 7 (normass/deepe)
Some sources believe this course was chosen because the Vietnamese
installations,
armed fe forces, plus large American installions, began to smother
the Viet Cong local guerrillas and political organizations operating
in noor the urban centers--and these needed to be reinforced by
the
atomizing their North Vietnamese and Viet Cong main force units. Othors
MANFOR
believe American air and artillery was hurting them too badly in their
remote jungled areas and they had to seek shelter around the cities.
"Everyono is always using Mac-think to say the Viot Cong are using tho
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 strongthoning thoir
local guerrilla and regular military structure to mosh with political
activitios designed to weaken oven more seriously the prestige and
Effectiveness
oempotency of the Vietnamese government in at the provincial, regional and
contes central levels.
==mare reuter
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2020 986
Jy 1jp
strategy 8 (normass/deepe)
In the Third Corps area,
the 11 provinces surrounding Saigon,
the Allied have adjusted to the Communist shift by de-even-conventionalizing
American and Vietnamese maneuver battalions and meshing them with Popular
massive sweep of more than 100,000
and Regional Forces for a grand-scale,
men.
The Communist pattern holds in the other corps areas three other
corps areas-but in more muted form.
Innimaxx Fron
In the top two northern provinces of Quang Tri and Thua Thien,
one source explained,
there's such a narrow belt between the remote
mountainous regions and the populated centers,
that everything up
there is Indian country, "a popular military way of saying the
Communists are just about everywhere.
The remainder of the country,
vertical,
down to the Saigon area,
seems
to be broken into two tactical areas for the Communists--the mountains, an
the relatively unpopulated and the highly populated coastal region.
more router
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2030 sag
vy 1jp
strategy 9 (normass/deepe)
"In Two Corps and Upper Three corps,
one source explained. "But within each area,
you have two separate areas,"
the Communists have also
In the highlands,
the Communists are closing inath on the cities of Kontum, Ban Me Thuot and
to their base areas or their sanctuaries
shifted their tactics to follow the pattern around Saigon.
Pleiku,
they
rather than pulling back
in Laos and Cambodia. Along the coast, where he used to be in the foothills,
HAUG
They
theyr
has now come down to the coastal plain. He's not succeeding, but he's
still trying to do it. In foot, this whole move to the urban areas
started in the ROK (Republic of Korea)
Two CORPS.
area last sex fall in the
That should have given us
coastal provinces of Bra To my pham thanh ng
a tip, but it didn't. The ROK's have now licked the problem by organizing
the villagers. thoug
more router
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2020 sag
vy lip
strategy 10 (normass/deepe)
In Third Corps, the Communists, formerly wore holed up in
War Zone C and D and Phuoc Long province, along the Cambodian border-
now they hate cons have constructed built intermediate banana zones
around their heartland of Saigon. These intermediate base areas were identified
Bh southern Binh o Duong, Bien Hoa and
as portions of Long
Bà Gia Ding the latter being the donute donut-shaped province surrounding
the capital of Saigon.
In Four Corps, the Mekong Delta rice-producing, heavily populated
Melcong Delta south of Saigon, the Communists have been concentrating their
strength in the most populous and richest /provinces from Can Tho, Vinh Long,
coastards torrds Kiến Hoa, Đinh Trường trong end Vinh Binh and also
generally also along Highway 4the only paved road between Saigon and the
Delta. This has allowed the Communists to proceed with a policy-only
y partially successful thus far--to choke off commerce Saigon off
from the produce of the Delta and prevent transport flowing the other
direction.
more reuter
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8020 886
Jy 1jp
strategy 11 (normass/deepe)
Wo na
"The Allies are over the hump, except in Four Corps.
the source explained. "We have the initiatě except in the Delta whore
thoro's a stato of oquilibrium oquilb equilibrium.
"This is a very clever strategy (by the Communists). They
y
figure if they operate near the urban areas,
force our sido into the same areas'
this
would leave the countryside
bare, since the Vietnamese troops are committed to the provincial
capitals. And that's what has happened.
disrupted-
Because the Communists are
between the
in close, they have out 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
opon,
are out and the waterways blooked.
"Actually, there's a vacuum in the count in some cases there's
a vacuum in the countryside--ever units whoever moves into that
vacuum can have it. That's why General (William C.) Westmoreland
wants to got the Vietnamose army and revolutionary development andro
back into the countryside to fill that vacuum. But, that's easier said
than done."
more reuter
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3030
Jy 1jp
strategy 12 (normass/deepe)
The source said the change in Communist strategy also has forced
Allied commanders to bring "more destruction" on the people, "and this
is a very fiendish-cynical strategy. Heigs The Communists
21 move into a friendly village, occupy it, dig mortar pits --and that
gives the Allied commanders the rough choice of what to do about it."
Communist
However,
this strategy has also made their units more vulnerable,
Allied sources believe. and that he is now in to 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 hore that will allow us to push through,
The enemy is now
doing what he has never done b before-put his main force out for di
HE
destruction by us.
Satire has inflexible tactics and he's not going to
change them to save his h main force.
Now
w his main force--his backbone-
If this continues for four months, we can break
is being whittled away.
his backbone. At the moment, his main force is bleeding to death."
==more reuter
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2020 986
ᎩᎩ ljp
strategy 13 (normass/deepe)
units FRE
P
"All their main force now exposed, out of their base areas and
are bleeding beeg badly," the source explained. "In February we were
killing 300 mi main force a day,
still significant.
now we're deen down to 50, but it's
We are beginning to find thoy throw their rifles
in the river and are leaving their dead and their weapons on the battlefield..
the Vietnamose airborne
This has never happened before in this corps. Last week, we knocked
out a battalion of the North Vietnamese 101st Regiment-only 50 mon 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 decimo 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 concludod.
"But,
I don't think by next month
he'll be able to do anything significant at all."
11
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; Vietnam--Foreign relations--United States; Mặt trận dân tộc giải phóng miền nam Việt Nam; Vietnam (Democratic Republic); Strategy; Tactics; Tet Offensive, 1968
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Location
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Saigon, South Vietnam
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Coordinates
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10.8231; 106.6311
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Size
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20 x 26 cm
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Container
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B10, F8
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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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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, University of Nebraska-Lincoln Libraries
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Language
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English
