*Includes pictures
*Includes a bibliography for further reading
By the end of 1967, with nearly half a million troops deployed, more than 19,000 deaths, and a war that cost $2 billion a month and seemed to grow bloodier by the day, President Lyndon Johnson's administration faced an increasingly impatient and skeptical nation regarding the Vietnam War. Regardless, by then, both sides were preparing to take the war into a new phase. U.S. General William "Westy" Westmoreland, commander of American forces in the theater, planned an aggressive strategy to send forces into Laos and Cambodia to sever the "Ho Chi Minh Trail" and other lines of supply. Without the steady flow of materiel, the efforts of both the Viet Cong and the NVA units beginning to move into action would wither on the vine, laying the groundwork for an American and South Vietnamese triumph.
However, unbeknownst to the Americans, the North Vietnamese were planning their own major, hopefully decisive campaign for early 1968. This would come in the form of the Tet Offensive, a coordinated surprise assault on many key locations throughout the conflict zone. Van Tien Dung and Le Duan devised this scheme over the objections of the famous general Vo Nguyen Giap, who left in disgust on medical leave to communist Hungary.
Key to both sets of plans was an American base in the extreme northwest of South Vietnam, close to Laos and part of a chain of US and ARVN (South Vietnamese military) bases designed to screen the South from direct invasion by the North. This base bore the name of a town at its location, Khe Sanh. Whether as a jumping off point for potential American operations in Laos, or a relatively isolated target for a sudden offensive, Khe Sanh entered the thoughts of planners on both sides as 1967 drew to a close. As a result, a long siege, punctuated by shorter, more bloody encounters, developed in the early days of 1968.
Shortly after the battle, a massive coordinated Viet Cong operation - the Tet Offensive - briefly paralyzed American and South Vietnamese forces across the country, threatening even the American embassy compound in Saigon. With this, the smiling mask slipped even further, inflaming the burgeoning antiwar movement. Although American soldiers didn't lose a battle strategically during the campaign, the Tet Offensive made President Johnson non-credible and historically unpopular, to the extent that he did not run for reelection in 1968. By then, Vietnam had already fueled the hippie counterculture, and anti-war protests spread across the country. On campuses and in the streets, some protesters spread peace and love, but others rioted. In August 1968, riots broke out in the streets of Chicago, as the National Guard and police took on 10,000 anti-war rioters during the Democratic National Convention. By the end of the decade, Vietnam had left tens of thousands of Americans dead, spawned a counterculture with millions of protesters, and destroyed a presidency, and more was still yet to come.
Nearly 50 years after the fighting, the Battle of Khe Sanh and the Tet Offensive continue to inspire impassioned and occasionally bitter debates among historians, military officers, government officials, veterans, journalists, and the public at large. Perhaps the only proposition to win universal agreement is that the fighting at the start of 1968 represented a significant turning point. The conflict in Vietnam would continue for years, but it would never be the same.
The Battle of Khe Sanh: The History and Legacy of the Major Battle that Preceded the Tet Offensive during the Vietnam War chronicles one of the most controversial battles of the war, and the effects it had on both sides. Along with pictures of important people, places, and events, you will learn about the Battle of Khe Sanh like never before.
