Page 44 - The Viet-Cong Tet_Offensive_1968

event, the rrgeneral offensive,general uprisingrr would rnerely be ano-
ther annual rnilitary carnpaign sirnj.lar to those of prevlous years.

Bad failure

Militarily the TCK- TKN Plan turned out to be a very
bad failure for the Cornrnunists.

In launching their Winter-Spring Carnpaign o{ 1967 the
Cornrnunists wanted to forcefully turn world public opinion to their
favour. They desired to create a psychology of fear arnong the South
Vietnarnese lnasses, At the sarne tirne they hoped to irnpose upon the
Saigon adrninistration the unbearable burden of sponsoring a refugee
asaistance prograrn throughout the country.
The real purposes which prornpted Hanoi to ernbark on
the TCK-TKN carnpaign were not those outlined aboved. According to
a hi.gh-ranking Viet Cong cadre, who wag arrested while on his way
to attend a session of the Central Office of South Vietnarn (COSVN),
the reasons were of a rnilitary nature, Narn Dong, alias Can, told his
interrogators that the TCK-TKN rrwas neither an ordinary carnpaign
nor one staged with the intention of scoring a propaganda victory. It
was a carnpaign designed to bring about a decisive victory and end the
warll.
According to Narn Dong, the strategy adopted was total-
ly dif{erent frorn the classical Cornrnunist plan during the war against
the French due to the following four considerations :
(1) Francer s rnilitary rnight was relatively weak while
Arnericars present strength is incornparable ; (2) In the War against
the French, the victory of Dien Bien Phu was directly instrurnental
in bringing about the Geneva agreernents. No such wictories could be
expected against the Arnericans; (3) With the classical three-phased
strategy based on the principle of encirclernent of the townships by
the countryside, the Cornrnunists were steadily expanding their control
over the countryside in the course of the first Indochina War, Against
the U.S.-Vietnarn alliance the traditional C ornrnunist strategy rn the
sixties failed to give Hanoi any decisive victories,thus keeping the
war in pretty rnuch the first phase of Mao Tse Tungrs blueprint for
revolutionary wars; (4) The Hanoi leadership also understoodby 1967
that should the conflict go on for sornetirne it would attrite North Viet-
narn and bring about the collapse of the Cornrnunist regirne.

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