Page 42 - The Viet-Cong Tet_Offensive_1968

initial letters of the Vietnarnese Tong Cong Kich, Tong Khoi Nghia
or rtGeneral attackg, General Uprisingsrt - said to have been dewised
by General Vo Nguyen Giap hirnself in the fall ol 1967, The Giap plan
represented a cornplete divorce frorn the traditional Cornrnunist three
phased blueprint for aggression and conquest.
In the first phase of the plan, which is also cal1ed one
of preparation' the rnost irnPortant tagk of V.C. cadres is to start
guerrilla warfare while trying to expand their political in-frastructure
in the countryside, In the second phase of the plan,cadres are ordered
to intensi{y guerrilla warfare and start a war of rnovernent while seek-
ing the expansion of base areas and popular organizations' The final
stage of a revolutionary war would be reached sornetirne s aJter the
launching of the phase of general counter offensive which would cul-
rninate in the rrtakeover of political powers by the rnassesrr.
In the thinking of theoreticians of revolutionary warfare,
a rebellion rnovernent can only pass frorn one phase to another in due
tirne and it would be dangerously unorthodox to skip one step' As
things were in L967 it was the view of rnost observers that the insur-
gent rnovement was still in the first stage. Against this context one
has to try to see why Vo Nguyen Giap called upon his trooPs to achieve
vi.ctory in the shortest possible tirne.
In October 1967' Giap, Le Duan,and Nguyen Duy Trinh
stopped over in Peking on their way to Mo sc ow to take part in the
various events rnarking the 5Oth Anniversary of the Bolshevik Revolu-
tion. It is now cornrnon knowledge that the North Vietnarnese general
sketched for his Chinese counterparts Hanoirs new strategy for a
speedy conquest of South Vietnarn. The Cl:inese at first balked at the
idea but later changed their rninds. They also prornised Giap 100,000
support troops and 200,000 personnel for the rnaintenance of railroads
and other c ornrnunic ati on s systerns so that rnore North Vietnarnese
troops rnight be freed for cornbat duties' Hanoi, however, only
accepted a token nurnber of these troops along with sorne 107rnrn and
Z4Ornrn rockets and their launchers.
Moscow, on its part, prornised help in the {orro of ar-
rnored cars and other equiprnent iterns unavailable in China.

As Christrnas 196? appr oached ,Li e ute nant General Van
Tien Dung, the Chief of StaJf of the North Vietnarnese Armed Forces,
dispatched what later was to prove his final instructions on the 1967-
1968 Winter-Spring Carnpaign. About one week later, however, Hanoi

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