Article about Communist strategy

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363-04642 to 363-04648.pdf
Digital Object Identifier
363-04642 to 363-04648
Title
Article about Communist strategy
Description
Original title: "strategy", Keever's title: "Captured Viet Cong Document calls for Political Explosions, Economic Chaos, Assassinations and Urgent Military Attacks." Article draft about the goal of Communist Victory by 1969. Written for the Christian Science Monitor
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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.
Transcript
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strategy 1 (normass/deepe)
(This is the first of a three-part series on Communist strategy for
the remainder of 1968).
SAIGON, JULY 8-The Communist aim for the last half of 1968 is to
end the Vietnam war-on their terms of victory.
For the North Vietnamese-Viet Cong, the eight-year-old Vietnam
war has entered its most decisive phase, as they continue pressing for its
ultimate pinnacling in military savagery and bloodshed, as well as
internally expanding its scope to involve high-on octane political
and economic explosions.
Again, as during Tet, the Communists appear to be attempting to
amalgamate their general (country-wide) military offensive with fresh
moves at spa sparking a general political uprising.
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strategy 2 (normass/deepe)
The final phase of their 1968 short-range plan calls for the "liberation"
of Saigon the military occupation of the capital city and the political
seisure of poor from the constitutional government of Prosident Nguyen Van
Thieu, Allied intelligonce sources report a mij minimum of three and a
maximum of five Communist offensives into Saigon onn be expected by the end
of the your in 1960 through the remainder of 1960p with perhaps the final
wave expected to coincide with the American Presidential elections in
November.
The short-range Communist objectives victory, although not one of
Unless the Anoxic American
the classical, cont conventional-ar mold.
di delegation in Paris ooods to Communist their demands, the Communist
plan for victory is to be secured on the many-faceted battlefield of South
The
Vietnam, and then formally ratified at the conference table.
Communist plan call does not call for "total victory", which would mean
PLUS
militarily defeating the one-million-plus Allied troop one-million-
Allied troop foroc. It speaks of "decisive victory," involving enter
inter-meshing political, economic and military actions during critical
time-phases.
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strategy (normass/deope)
Informed sources have reached these conclusions after tyd studying
secret Comunist documents from the Viet Cong High Command to its subordinate
units and interrogation of high-ranking Communist prisoners of war and defectors
to the Vietnamese government.
One captured document issued to the "command committees of all
u subordinate units," and recently released to the Western press here by
the American Mission, urged:
"Particularly emphasize the fact that whether the war ends or not
depends on the military might of lur our armed forces and not on discussions
at the conference abl table. This (conference) is but a minor part
of our diplomatic activity, which itself is but one aspect of our
political struggle. Therefore we do not view this conference as being of
basic or principal importance (according to the contents
complementary political voorintation in 1967)."
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strategy 4 (normass/deepe)
The two pivotal questions on which the Vietnam war here'i hinges
through the remainder of 1968 aros will the Communists actually be
in a military position or politically choose to implement their ambitious
plan, and second, if so, will they succod succeed or fail either on the
military battlefield or in the psychological-political arona? If they
succed succeed, the Vietnam war will end in sonothing of close to a
COMMUNISTS
defeat for the Alliess If they fails
In their victory" plan, they
are maintaining the option of remaining flexible enough to carry on
artd "expanded and prolonged war", timowise, beginning in 1969, and
geography-wise, into Cambodia, Laos and possibly Thailand.
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strategy 5 (normass/deepe)
In one captured co document, the Viet Cong High Command
hasof ordered its troop commanders to "consolidate and develop
armed and political forces in the rear to gain more continuous and solid
victories...with a spirit of urgency, whilo, at the some time, being
prepared flexibly to face the expanded and prolonged war...."
With some urgency, the document calls for political upheavals,
assassinations of loading anti-Communist government loaders, economic
FIND REVOLTS BL
chaos, desertions of Vietnamese gover government soldiers and cadre,
Grumbling of the Vietnamese government administration,
as well as
sustained military attacks.
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strategy 6 (nosmass/deepe)
The captured document relatona
They
"According to the instructions of the military and political headquarters
of COSVN (the Viet Cong high command), we must mobilize the whole & (Comun
(Communist) Party and the wyo whole people so that the whole country will be
determined to consolidate what has been won and to develop it and to
urgently repair shortcomings in order to continuously attack the oneny
and to motivate the people to uprise to take over the government.
have to put all their efforts to wear out and destroy as much as possible
the American and puppet (South Vietnamese) living forces as well as
their equipment, if to maintain and develop the activity within Saigon
and other onvironing cities, to control all the strategic traffic roads
and waterways leading into the city and to build up the big rear in all
facets...."
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strategy 7 (normass/deepe)
Clearly, the captured document unveils Saigon as the eye of the
turbulent atory storm.
"We must b should be determined to hang on and fight vory violently
and continuously in all directions of the compass around Saigon," the
document continues, "inside as well as outside the city and while being
closely a knitted with the people's uprising to create the revolt among the
-Doo puppet troops, to carry the economic struggle in order to first woar
out and then exterminate or disintegrate one part after another of the
puppet troops and the puppet government infrastructure, their defense
system, and to annhiliate the biggest enemy leaders and central nerve
headquarters, in order to make the enemy more paralysed every day.
The plan outlined in the captured document et states, "These above-
mentioned actions will create the opportune timo for us to move forward
and to ond the war. If we have on an one man left, we have to
continue the fighting..l
...(The soldiers) should fight against the
ideologicall attitude of peace, of waiting for negotiations....The more
we have the diplomatic struggle, the stronger we must fight...."
The plan in the captured document clearly maintains that the
"diet dian"--the final period of the Vietnam story--is to be written in
Saigon.
Tomorrows The Battle for Saigon.
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Date
1968, Jul. 8
Subject
Mặt trận dân tộc giải phóng miền nam Việt Nam; Strategy; Tactics; Vietnam War, 1961-1975
Location
Saigon, South Vietnam
Coordinates
10.8231; 106.6311
Size
20 x 26 cm
Container
B10, F38
Format
dispatches
Collection Number
MS 363
Collection Title
Beverly Deepe Keever, Journalism Papers
Creator
Keever, Beverly Deepe
Copyright Information
These images are for educational use only. To inquire about usage or publication, please contact Archives & Special Collections.
Publisher
Archives & Special Collections, University of Nebraska-Lincoln Libraries
Language
English