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derivative filename/jpeg
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363-06783 to 363-06793.pdf
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Digital Object Identifier
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363-06783 to 363-06793
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Title
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Fourth article about Khe Sanh
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Description
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Original title: "strategy", Keever's title: "Communist Tanks and Trucks Detour Khe Sanh", part four of a five part series about the mood, preparedness, strategy and significance of Khe Sahn, 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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- Page 1
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zczc sag
yy 1jp
strategy 1 (normass/deepe)
(This is the fourth of a series on the mood, preparedness,
g strategy and significance of Khe Sanh, often termed an American
Dien Bien Phu, reminescent of the pivotal French defeat which began
fourteen years ago last week on March 13).
KHE SAN SANH, VIETNAM, March 20-The war in South Vietnam,
MotionsSS
like a giant yo-yo, is momentarily dangling between two strategic
military-political poles.
one
- polar capsule is Khe Sanh.
The second is Saigon.
==more reuter
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- Page 2
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2020 sag
yy ljp
strategy 2 (normass/deepe)
It is an
Khe Sanh is the north pole of the war.
all-foreign pole, Americans versus North Vietnamese, with their
Southern allies playing imminxxxnnnn secondary,
respective
if not insignificant roles. It is the all-military pole of the war,
a clean-out black-and-white war, with a mini-maginot line of barbed wire
along the Marine perimeter etching out the demarcation line between the
two hues. It is the People's war without the people; the local
population, always scant in numbers, have having since voyaged
to their graves or to refugee camps.
==more reuter
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- Page 3
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zozo sag
yy 1.jp
strate
(normass/deepe)
Saigon leik the south pole of the war.
It is an
all-Vietnamese pole, predominantly Southern in character, with the
american and North Vietnamese allies of the respective sides
m playing secondary, though supporting roles. It is the
grey war, with the full coloration of political, economic, social
and cultural factors mixing with a battlefield blood.
AN
VIETNAMESE
in which no one is spared
All-People's War, a total war,
some measure of the wee fury.
It is
more reuter
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- Page 4
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zcze sag
Jy 1jp
strategy 4 (normass/deepe)
Which way will the yo-yo swing? Clearly, the Communists
hold the strategic initiation determining the yo-yo's direction. When
will it be set in motion? The strategic timetable of the war lies in
Communist hands, a fact sensed in the slang of lol lowly Marine privates
here when they say, "We've got to stop Charlie's clock."
This present moment, with time and motion temporarily frozen,
appears to be simply a critical interlude before the yo-yo swings and
an historic flood assails this tiny country.
more reuter
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- Page 5
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zcze sag
LJP
Patrategy 5
strategy 5 (normass/deepe)
For the Communists,
Khe Sanh is primarily, if not singularly
significant in political terms-American political terms.
It is important
to him the Communists only as a means to influence to their advantage
American public opinion--soon to be expressed at theb bat ballot box--
to mold manipulate in some manner a more soft-line stance by the two
American political parties in their platforms or selection of candidates.
The whole political significance of Khe Sanh for the Communists is
somehow to attempt to weaken, if not to shatter, the American will
to continue prosecuting the war against them.
Communist timetable, if their yo-yo swings north,
Hence, the time
could not have been
in January, which General William Westmoreland predicted, f
for the critical political ferment had not begun in the United States.
Nat is the battle of Khe Sanh likely to be imminent,
subsequently predicted.
hx as has been
The most opportune time for the Communist
to attempt an American defeat at Khe Sanh, with its resounding political
backlash, would be sometime between the summer confe party nominating
conventions and then election in November. If he wa the Communists wait
to swing their yo-yo at that time, they, monsoon rains will be swinging
also be swinging in their v favor over Khe Sany Sanh, bringing them
rain clouds and more military advantages.
= more reuter
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- Page 6
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zozc & sag
yy 1jp
strategy 6 (normass/deepe)
But,
Khe Sanh would have little political value for the
Communists in the all-Vietnamese war in Saigon; it will would at best
Certainly,
have only a fractional impact of their Tet offensive into the city itself.
thaxmathmin zammenkoxnxhanshaniniufmanxhammam if Khe Sanh
fell to the Communists, the Vietnamese goternment in Saigon would
The direct explosive
not fall, and would be barely be rocked by it.
repercussions of an American defeat would almost sixxx certalinl certainly
be cushioned in the all-Vietnamese political arena by censorshp
censorship of newspapers and
of television newsreels. The coverage
of the news coverage of the battle of Khe Sanh will have far greater
distributiony vividness and impact in America than in South Vietnam itself.
Khe Sanh is a military irrelevancy to the Communists.
Vietnam in fact,
In
The
little Marine base has not impeded the Communist invasion into South
Communist tanks and trucks are seen streaming into
the outer Khe Sanh perimeter-with their lights on at night-
strictly military terms, for the Communinists to infliot
defeat on the 6,000 Marines of Khe Sanh,
thes themselves, would be largely meaningless--as long as the American
a total
even at very low cost to thomself
government and public continued to support the war
6,000 replacements.
and would send in
To win a tactical battle in Khe Sanh does not mean
the Communists will have won the warr
but it may mean for them they
could significantly erode the American America's anti-Communismy
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- Page 7
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SC2C sag
yy 1jp
strategy 7 7 (normass/deepe)
In short, the poliio political purpose of Khe Sanh rests
on the assumption the Communist war aim is to negotiate withkmkimmiaxm
basically, but not entirely, on their terms, that they would prefer
future
to negotiate with the most dovish American President who would
yield to the maximum of their demands.
different.
But, xhimhammmm at the south pole, things are
their war aim
#
If the Communists w spring the direction of the war
into the urban centers, of which saigon is decisive,
but not a total one. It would b
is victory--a decisive victory,
mean they would inkoxmeizen make their military thrust at
all-Vietnamese targets, designed to procure military victories which
would create a political tornado among the Vietnamese population,
the Vietnamese government and army. to Rather inconspicuously,
the Communists have one a chip-by-chip basis been overruning Vietnamese
government outposts, seeking accommodation of neutralization of
creating divisions among the members of the Vietnamese
isolated units,
government and army.
area
The most sensitive military targets in this
are the heavily populated Vie provinces in the Mekong Delta
south of Saigon, in which transport, communication,
trade in foodstuffs
won and eventually even provincial capitals would be controle controlled
by them. Theq objective is to would be to suffocate Saigon,
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- Page 8
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zozo sag
yy 1jp
strategy 8 (normass/deepe)
As an attempt to counter this moment Communist option,
the Allied have launched the biggest tactical offensive of the war-
totalling 52 battalions-in the saigon
viewpoint
HA
area.
From the Allied
already producing
thus Tar
this military show of strength would
, a inconclusive minimal damage to the Communists--and it has failed to
galvanize the anti-Communist spirit of the Sag Saigonese.
==more reuter
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- Page 9
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2020 sag
yy 1jp
strategy 9 (normass/deepe)
Before the pivotal battle of Khe Sanh,
or of Saio
Saigon-whichever they choose the Communists choose there may be miniatures
There may be miniature Khe Sanh-type
of these contests in other places.
confrontations between North Vietnamese and American units in the
jungled hills around Dak To
or D-Zone;
there maybe Communist-battles
offensives into other urban centers, such as Hue, Quang Tri, Kontum
But, these would singifica significant only in the
On Ban Me Thuot
At this time, the
as a part of the process of political attrition.
ultimate decisive battlegrounds now appear to be Khe Sanh, because
the American command has propagandized its significance, and Saigon
the capital of Saigon.
==more reuter
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- Page 10
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5030 seg
Jy lip
strategy 10 (normass/deepe)
Ageinst this setting,
General Westmoreland's strategio
that
miscalculation xxxx acquires an added meaning. In January, his
prediction and conviction that the Communists would attack Khe Sanh
only served as a diversion for the Communists to move into the cities.
At that time, the strategic importance of Khe Sanh rested on two
arguments that have since lost their significance and substance:
Khe Sanh, sitting astride five invasion routes from North Vietname and Laos,
could somehow our tail Communist infiltration; but currently the
Communists appear to invading faster with more supplies around Khe Sanh
than ever before. The second argument was that Khe Sanh the end
of th mountainous end of the American line of defense running along the
demilitarized zone. "If we don't fight them in Khe Sah Sanh, we'll
be fighting the Communists in Hue and Quant-T Quang, Tr," American officials
argued. But the Communists have already fought in Hue and Quang Tri once-
and are in a position to do so again. In short, the American DNZ
line is suspect suspended in a vacuum-with an open end on the Laotian
flank.
more router
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- Page 11
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2020 sag
vy 1jp
strategy 11 (normass/deepe)
Now, in a second strategio gamble,
General Westmoreland
has already rushed two more infm U. S. Army divisions twoards
offensives around the north pole.
to prepare for predicted Communist
Clearly, General
Westmoreland wants at a minimum, to prevent an
disasterous American defeat in the north,
which could propel adverse
at best,
political rec repercussions into the American political arean;
he'd like to prev acquire an American victory which would reinforce the
election scene. But, the result of this gamble has been to siphon off
America t American troops strength from the provinces further south.
But, what if, in this tropical country, the Communists
swing their yo-yo towards the south pole.
-end reuter
xmumtamamamam
(Hank: have jst just received your cable on preparedness.
I'm really sorry I over-wrote it so much and I'11 dominamy promise
to out dom words in the future.
Regards Bev).
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Date
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1968, Mar. 20
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Subject
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Vietnam War, 1961-1975; Khe Sanh, 2nd Battle of, Vietnam, 1968; Siege warfare; United States. Marine Corps; Mặt trận dân tộc giải phóng miền nam Việt Nam; Vietnam (Democratic Republic). Quân đội
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Location
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Khe Sanh, South Vietnam
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Coordinates
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16.6193; 106.7323
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Size
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20 x 26 cm
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Container
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B9, F31
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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, University of Nebraska-Lincoln Libraries
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Language
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English
