TET declassified

Gunz

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The CIA last year released a collection of declassified memorandum, cables, briefings related to the 1968 Tet Offensive. This is just one, but any student of the Vietnam War might find these interesting.

This paper was written about two weeks before the Tet Mau Than Offensive commenced on January 30th.

https://www.cia.gov/library/readingroom/docs/ALTERNATIVE INTERPRETATIO[15478280].pdf

As this paper shows, the US couldn't figure out why Hanoi seem so confident during these first few weeks of 1968.

(The nerd in me spends a great deal of time sifting through declassified documents. I invested many hours--too many--going through bin Laden's computer files. But it's like gold mining. All that debris sometimes turns up an unexpected nugget.)
 
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I have a question Did The North Vietnamese want to join the Soviet bloc of commie states? Or did they want to be their own independent communist country?
 
I have a question Did The North Vietnamese want to join the Soviet bloc of commie states? Or did they want to be their own independent communist country?

The Vietnamese people, as a whole, have been fiercely independent for many centuries, particularly with regard to China. Ho Chi Minh was more than willing to take all the Soviet aid he could get during the US war but he never would've considered becoming a Soviet or PRC satellite state.
 
Even with military aid, a lot of the North Vietnamese leadership hated the Chinese. There had been, before the war with us and after, skirmishes with the Chinese military. They wanted to be communist, but they wanted to be independent. After what the French did to them can you blame them?

Very true. And many of the SVN I knew wanted an independent and democratic South Vietnam. Even with all the corruption and intrigue within the Army and the government, they did not want to live under communism. I can't blame them either.
 
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