Page 48 - The Viet-Cong Tet_Offensive_1968

devised to a possible negotiated eettlernent of the war'

This rurnor, it goes without saying, was groundless. The
U. S. High C ornrnand was genuinely taken aback by the scale of the Tet
attacks which were directed against 28 cities and towns. No such deve-
loprnents had been foreseen in any of Washingtonrs rnany contingency
plans. More often than not U'S. trooPs, even without being directly
challenged, joined in the battles on the side of their South Vietnarnese
cornrades. Only in sorne instances did the lack of cornmunications and
the confusing situation prevent U.S. troops frorn corning to the assie-
tance of their South Yietnarnese allies in the first days of the V. C.
offensive.

Apparently, all these rnove s - offer of peace talks and
secret contacts - were rnerely intended to give the Arnericans the
irnpression that all was not well in the Hanoi-Viet Cong association'
While proclairning Hanoirs intention to seek a negotiated settlernent
of the war, Nguyen Duy Trinh possibly only sought to rnisLead U'S.
public opinion and Washington officials on what the North Vietnarnese
leader really had in rnind. They sought to establish prelirninary con-
tacts with Arnerica so that it would speedily lead to a fu1l fledged
parley in the event of a successful general offensive'

The Cornrnunistst failure to bring pressure on U'S' in-
stallations throughout the land rnight sirnply hawe been the result of a
shortage of combat trooPE but it rnight also have been a prerneditated
rnove to sow dissension between the Arnericans and the South Vietna-
rnese,a rnove to create a feeling of insecurity'arnong GVN troops and
convince the cornrnon people in the cities that they had nothing to fear
in joining the ranks of the revolution, especially at a rnornent when
the war was raging in downtown sectlons of all population centers'

lmplernentation
Now let us have a look at how the TCK-TKN Plan was
irnplernented.
For rnany weeke piior to the Tet holiday the enerny had
inJiltrated a considerable arnount of arrns and arnrnunition into the
cities and townships of South Vietnarn. This was done in a rnillion
ways but one of the rnost successful rnethods was to fill the lower
part of trucks with deadly weapons and explosive and put atop of these
all such Tet supplies as water rnelons. Invariably such sirnple tricks
turned out to be so effective that not a single case of arrns srnuggling'

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