A Sense of the Enemy

by Shore, Zachary

  In December of 1963, for example, subsequent to the Diem assassination, Le Duan pressed the Politburo to increase infiltration of the South and attempt to overthrow the southern regime, against the wishes of both Khrushchev and others within the DRV. Some of those opposed to his plans were arrested and removed from positions of influence.26 In 1964, he moved to exert greater control over the southern communist forces by placing his own man, General Nguyen Chi Thanh, as head of the Central Office of the South Vietnamese Communist Party. By elevating General Thanh, Le Duan hoped to undercut the influence of the revered General Võ Nguyên Giáp, hero of the war against the French. Nguyen Chi Thanh was himself a Politburo member and seemed poised to rise even higher, but he died in 1967 under mysterious circumstances.27 Some believe he was murdered by those loyal to General Giáp. Others claim he had a heart attack after a night of heavy drinking.28 Whatever the case, Le Duan’s appointment of Nguyen Chi Thanh to oversee COSVN reflects the First Secretary’s intention to control the southern revolution. As for Le Duan’s more heavy-handed efforts to influence events, Sophie Quinn-Judge has argued that during a Party purge in 1967 (the so-called anti-Party affair), Le Duan was again responsible for having opponents arrested and removed from power.29

  Judging Le Duan’s character is not as simple as it may seem. The evidence suggests a man driven to achieve his ends regardless of the costs to others. On the other hand, as a revolutionary leader, he clearly inspired many, whether as a teacher of Marxism-Leninism to other prison inmates or through his speeches and letters to the Party faithful.30 Yet many of his contemporaries viewed him as deceptive and manipulative. According to Pierre Asselin, the General Secretary “found enemies almost everywhere.” His paranoia and deceitfulness, Asselin observed, alienated many supporters of the revolution. More recently some of Le Duan’s colleagues have sought to defend his reputation through their reminiscences, though this has not shifted opinion in Western historiography.31 His complex character aside, there is no doubt that as First Secretary of the VWP, Le Duan wielded enormous power over all organs of the state, including the military.32 From such a formidable position, he was able to influence Hanoi’s wartime strategy against America.

  Le Duan and the Protracted War Strategy

  Le Duan steadily advocated a dual approach: large conventional warfare when possible and protracted guerilla war when necessary. By bogging the Americans down in a war involving high numbers of casualties, Le Duan believed that domestic opposition within the United States would force Washington to withdraw from Vietnam if face-saving measures could be provided. Naturally, he would have been eager to achieve a quick victory if it had been possible, but even the general offensives of 1968 and 1972 did not produce a rapid triumph. Both methods—large-scale military offensives and long-term guerilla warfare—were employed to sap the Americans’ will. While some scholars have highlighted Le Duan’s interest in a rapid victory, this is only half of the story.33 Le Duan frequently spoke and wrote, both in public pronouncements and private correspondence, of the need to wear the enemy down over a prolonged period. From his writings, we can see that he did not simply apply the same strategy against America that had been successful against the French. Instead, we find careful reasoning about the range of American strengths and weaknesses, from its nuclear capacity to its costly global commitments, particularly in Europe and the Middle East. In short, Le Duan thought in geostrategic terms, fully aware of the underdog’s necessities and the overdog’s constraints.

  The First Secretary articulated the policy of protracted war to the southern communists in numerous letters. In April 1961, for example, he outlined Hanoi’s guidance on southern strategy and tactics, along with a spirited urging to steep all Party members and the masses in the notion of a protracted war. Only by stressing the need for a long, arduous fight, he insisted, could they be certain of victory. President Kennedy, he claimed, had said that the United States would need ten years to snuff out the revolution in Vietnam. If the enemy was planning on a long war, then how could they fail to meet the challenge by doing the same, Le Duan asked rhetorically.34

  Despite his reputation for militancy and advocacy of armed resistance, the Party First Secretary remained sensitive to strategic necessities. In a letter to COSVN in July 1962, Le Duan cautioned his comrades not to attack the cities at that time. Even though there were vulnerable areas, an attack would not be advantageous because it could incite the Americans to increase their intervention and expand the war.35 Admonitions such as these demonstrated that Le Duan understood that provoking the Americans while COSVN forces were still weak was strategically unwise and potentially counterproductive. That recognition stemmed from an understanding of the balance of forces at the time. His critical assessment led to caution. This raises the question of why communist forces provoked America in 1964 at Tonkin and again in 1965 at Pleiku—a question to which we will soon return. Overall, the First Secretary observed that protracted wars must be fought in both the political and military arenas, and he pointed to the recent experiences of Laotians and Algerians in defeating their adversaries on the political front.

  In this same letter, Le Duan clearly enunciated how he viewed America’s greatest weakness and how Hanoi intended to exploit it. The movement, Le Duan explained, could not at that time destroy American forces. The enemy was too strong, both in military and financial resources. Instead, the aim was to attack portions of the Diem regime’s forces, the “puppet army,” and thereby cause the Americans to “sink deeper and deeper into the mire of a protracted war with no way out.” This in turn would cause the Americans to become increasingly isolated domestically and globally, which would impel them to negotiate with Hanoi.36 Hanoi would then call for the formation of a neutral South Vietnamese regime. Le Duan believed that the Americans would be willing to accept defeat provided that Hanoi advanced limited demands at a level that would not cause the enemy to lose too much face.37 The overall plan was to weaken the Americans in phases, gradually pushing back the perceived expansion of neo-imperialist aims.

  By 1963, the South Vietnamese regime was in deep turmoil. President Ngo Dinh Diem had pushed through turbulent land reform policies of his own, engendering resentment over forced resettlement programs. Diem’s repressive policies fomented conflicts with communist units as well as with Buddhist and other religious minorities. Dissatisfaction with Diem’s rule culminated in a coup on November 2, 1963, in which President Diem was assassinated.38 Resentment at Diem’s harsh rule had been brewing for several years, and although Hanoi recognized Saigon’s instability as an opportunity, it was unable to capitalize on the situation. Following the coup, the key question facing Party leaders was whether the United States would increase its counterrevolutionary efforts in Vietnam. Would it expand the war? The month following the Diem coup, Hanoi analyzed the situation in a lengthy document.

  In December of 1963, the VWP’s Central Committee issued its Resolution from the Ninth Plenum. One section of this resolution covered issues surrounding America’s intentions and capabilities. Hanoi’s strategy seemed contradictory. It called for both a quick victory over the South and a protracted war. We know that Hanoi’s leaders were flexible insofar as they were willing to adopt measures that worked. In this respect they were opportunistic, adapting their methods as circumstances dictated. But the apparent policy contradiction also likely reflected a compromise between competing factions within the Party. Internal Party disagreements were never aired openly, yet we know that various factions existed over time. One notable split existed between a more dovish branch favoring compromise and negotiation with the Americans and a more hawkish group, led by Le Duan, favoring all-out war.

  The Resolution of December 1963 articulated some key elements in Hanoi’s thinking about America. Given Le Duan’s position atop the Party, it is certain that he influenced the resolution’s final form and its treatment of the United States. The document was intended to spell out the likely prospects for the South Vietnamese revolutionary m
ovement as well as outlining guidelines and responsibilities for victory. It asserted the standard and consistent line that the world revolutionary movement was in the ascendance and the global situation was increasingly unfavorable for the imperialists. It declared that Marxism-Leninism afforded the Party “a scientific foundation for our policy guidelines, formulas, and procedures for fighting the Americans” and that this could give the Party members great confidence in the Party leadership.39

  Sandwiched between layers of Marxist historical analysis lay Hanoi’s assessment of several specific challenges facing America. The first of these, a recurrent subtheme throughout the Van Kien Dang, involved the dispersal of U.S. forces. The Resolution observed that America’s strength was spread around the world, making it difficult for the U.S. to concentrate sufficient force on any one region and allowing an opening for insurgencies to capitalize on this weakness. It argued that America had launched ten wars of aggression in the previous eighteen years but that it continued to be defeated, specifically in China, North Korea, Vietnam, Laos, and Cuba. Naturally, such comments might merely represent Hanoi’s wishful thinking—attempts to spin its situation in a positive light. But since at other times Party leaders pointed to America’s strengths and counseled caution, it is entirely possible that at least some Party leaders believed the above assessment of America. It suggests that they viewed the United States as weaker than its military and economic power would indicate.

  Immediately thereafter, the Resolution broached the question of nuclear weapons. We do not have sufficient records to explain why Hanoi felt confident (if indeed it did) that America would not use its nuclear weapons against the North. We can surmise that Hanoi believed it fell under the Soviet Union’s nuclear umbrella and that the United States would not want to risk widening the Vietnam War into a world war, its rhetoric to the contrary notwithstanding.

  The Resolution’s authors claimed that the United States had previously relied on its monopoly and superiority in nuclear weapons to influence world affairs. The Resolution called the Eisenhower administration’s nuclear policy of “massive retaliation” one of brinksmanship. But the policy had failed, according to the authors, because of the Soviet Union’s development of nuclear weapons as well as the rising strength of the socialist camp. As a result, the Americans were forced to adopt a new nuclear policy of “flexible response,” in which they would launch special and limited wars while simultaneously preparing for a world war. The authors declared that although the imperialists, led by the United States, were still making feverish preparations for a world war, the odds of it occurring were diminishing. “If the imperialists are insane enough to start a new world war, the people of the world will bury them.”40

  Surprisingly, there is no mention in the Resolution of the Cuban Missile Crisis or other flashpoints such as Taiwan in 1958 or the Korean War, when the danger of an American nuclear strike was highest. Le Duan did, however, reference these episodes in May 1965, in a letter to COSVN. There he argued that the United States had shown it would not dare to use nuclear weapons, even when that meant defeat. Le Duan cited America’s failure to stop China’s revolution, despite being allied with Chiang Kai-shek’s 5 million troops. Le Duan interpreted this reluctance to use nuclear weapons as a sign of weakness. The same was true, he argued, in the Korean War as well as in the First Indochina War, when the United States backed the French. During the Cuban Missile Crisis, America showed some strength but failed “to intimidate a heroic nation with seven million inhabitants.” America’s willingness to accept a coalition government in Laos in 1962 only further demonstrated its impotence, he asserted.41 Presumably, Le Duan, and probably all other Politburo members, had concluded that the United States would not introduce nuclear weapons into the Vietnam conflict based on its past unwillingness to deploy them.42 In short, Hanoi was hoping that America’s future behavior would resemble its past actions. Fortunately for Hanoi, its assumption turned out to be correct, though there were no guarantees that America would resist employing its nuclear option if conditions changed. VWP leaders did not know that President Nixon and Henry Kissinger would later consider using tactical nuclear strikes against them.

  Turning to America’s formation of the Southeast Asian Treaty Organization (SEATO), which Hanoi dubbed the Southeast Asian Aggression Bloc, the Resolution explained that the treaty was necessary because South Vietnam was the place of greatest revolutionary activity. Thus, U.S. military forces needed to be concentrated there in order to preserve American interests while propping up the supposedly crumbling capitalist system. The Resolution summarized America’s three primary objectives as follows. First, it aimed to suppress the national revolutionary movement while implementing neocolonialism; second, it intended to construct military bases from which it would attack the socialist camp; and third, and most crucially, it sought to halt the spread of socialism throughout Southeast Asia. All of these points about SEATO suggest that VWP leaders accepted standard Marxist-Leninist dogma in this regard.

  Trained to seek out internal contradictions within capitalist behavior, the authors observed that America was facing growing internal disagreements about its strong anticommunist policies in Vietnam, namely from the intellectual class. Hanoi followed the American media closely and frequently noted growing domestic opposition to the war.43 Party leaders cited everything from public pronouncements against the war by U.S. Senator Wayne Morse,44 to the 1960s’ civil rights protests across the American South, to global opposition to American foreign policies. The Van Kien Dang reveal clearly that Hanoi fully intended to exploit those differences to its advantage. Ideological convictions may have led Party leaders to exaggerate the degree of internal dissention within America. Nonetheless, the Party’s attention to those growing notes of discord would later, after 1968, prove useful.

  The political scientist Carlyle Thayer has argued that Hanoi’s decision-making must be understood as a complex interplay of individual leaders’ aims, Party rivalries, and domestic constraints, along with the changing role of foreign powers, particularly China and the Soviet Union.45 This is, however, precisely how VWP leaders tried to read Washington’s decision-making. They considered the individual inclinations of Johnson and Nixon (as well as the plans advanced by figures such as General Maxwell Taylor and Defense Secretary Robert McNamara). They followed America’s antiwar protests and other domestic issues to see how those movements might constrain Washington’s actions. They examined the effects of the war on America’s freedom of action globally. From this analysis, they sought to foresee how events would unfold.

  The Van Kien Dang and other records demonstrate that Hanoi actively strove to understand its American adversary, partly by monitoring American news media and partly through espionage. Though more than thirty-five years have passed since the war’s end, we still know remarkably little about the DRV’s intelligence services. We know that Party leaders read summaries of foreign news and developments prepared by the Foreign Ministry. The military’s intelligence branch also prepared reports on espionage activities and the interrogation of prisoners. It monitored foreign broadcasts and intercepted enemy communications.46 The Ministry of Public Security also played a role, one similar to that of the Soviet KGB. In addition, the Party itself naturally operated its own External Affairs Department, which handled contact with other nations’ communist and socialist parties. Hanoi’s intelligence services cooperated with both their Soviet and Chinese counterparts, but the full extent of this collaboration is unknown.47 Regardless of their sources, Party leaders arrived in 1963 at seemingly incompatible conclusions about America’s intentions.

  Escalation Double-Speak

  Did Hanoi believe that America would escalate the war, or did it instead think that the United States could be deterred? In order to predict the war’s course, the Central Committee’s December 1963 resolution differentiated between three types of wars that America could wage in Vietnam. Hanoi called the first type “special war,” which Americans might
have called a counterinsurgency war. In special war, which Hanoi considered to be the current type in 1963, the United States supplied puppet forces within Vietnam, providing them with military advisors and equipment. A transformation to the second type, or “limited war,” would occur when U.S. forces became the primary combat forces within Vietnam. A “general war” would be one expanded to the North.48 Hanoi anticipated that the current special war could transform into a limited war if the Americans held any of three beliefs:

  1. American victory could only be guaranteed if it intervened in a massive way.

  2. North Vietnam would not react strongly to greater U.S. intervention in South Vietnam.

  3. Greater U.S. intervention would not spark strong opposition within the United States or around the world.

  The resolution concluded that it was unlikely that America would expand to a limited war because of the risks: “They clearly realize that if they become bogged down in a protracted large-scale war, they will fall into an extremely defensive and reactive posture around the world.”49 Demonstrating that at least some in the Politburo feared a wider war despite these pronouncements, the authors quickly added that they should be prepared for the possibility of American escalation nonetheless. By bolstering the strength of southern units, Hanoi hoped it could cripple the southern regime and thereby dissuade America from expanding its commitment.

  For several years Le Duan had been gradually increasing the flow of soldiers south to join the fighting. Throughout 1964, preparations intensified as nearly 9,000 soldiers and cadres, including two full-strength battalions, were sent south. Additionally, the DRV’s Navy enhanced the frequency and tonnage of weapons shipments south via sea routes, employing steel-hulled vessels, which also served to transport mid- and high-level military as well as Party officials. During the 1963–1964 dry season, engineering units modernized the roads south, enabling the transportation of supplies to the battlefields to quadruple that of the previous year.50 According to the official DRV history of the People’s Navy, by late June the Navy had placed all of its forces on a war footing.51 In the wake of these ongoing military preparations, Ho Chi Minh declared in a speech on March 27, 1964, that the DRV’s aim was to see the Americans withdraw their forces as well as their weapons and support from South Vietnam.52