The war from the other side
The Vietnam War of 1967 is usually described from the American side: the build-up, the bombing and the protests. Hanoi’s view was different. North Vietnam’s leaders saw a long contest in which American power was great but American patience was limited, and in 1967 they were debating how to change the course of the war. The decisions taken that year led to the attacks of the Tet Offensive in early 1968, which were planned in secret.
Evidence about Hanoi’s internal discussions is thinner than for Washington, and much of what historians know comes from later publications, memoirs and a limited release of documents. Some details are therefore uncertain, and the account below sticks to the broad outline.
The bombing, the stalemate and the debate
By the start of 1967 the war had reached what many in Hanoi saw as a stalemate. American forces were growing in number and mounting large sweeps in the south, and the bombing under Rolling Thunder was damaging transport and industry in the north. At the same time, the American strategy of attrition was not forcing a surrender. North Vietnamese and Viet Cong forces could usually choose when to fight, and they could withdraw to sanctuaries across the border in Laos and Cambodia to recover.
Within the leadership there was, according to most accounts, a debate about what to do next. One view favoured a continued, patient guerrilla war and a gradual approach, relying on the United States tiring of the cost. Another favoured a bolder move to break the stalemate before American strength grew further, hoping that a large attack on the southern cities would trigger popular unrest and expose the weakness of the Saigon government. Le Duan, the Communist Party first secretary, is generally associated with the more aggressive line. Ho Chi Minh, the figurehead of the movement, was elderly and in poor health, and his day-to-day influence is hard to measure.
Alongside the military argument there was a diplomatic one. In January 1967 the foreign minister, Nguyen Duy Trinh, reportedly signalled that talks could begin if the bombing stopped unconditionally, a more explicit statement than before. The leadership’s policy of combining fighting with negotiating was meant to keep options open, but it also gave rise to disagreement about how much to offer. When Johnson later set out the San Antonio formula in September, Hanoi rejected the conditions attached to it.
Giap and the Tet plan
General Vo Nguyen Giap, famous for the victory over the French at Dien Bien Phu in 1954, was North Vietnam’s defence minister and its best-known soldier. His exact part in the planning of the 1968 offensive is disputed. Some accounts treat him as the architect, but others suggest that he was sceptical of an all-out attack on the cities, preferring a more cautious approach, and that the strategy was driven more by Le Duan and others in the party. The truth appears to be somewhere in between, and historians continue to argue the point.
What is clear is that during 1967 the leadership moved toward a plan for a “General Offensive and General Uprising”. The idea was to attack across South Vietnam at the same time, including the cities, to shake the Saigon government and to turn American opinion against the war. A key assumption, which proved wrong, was that the urban population would rise in support. Parts of the plan involved drawing American forces away from the cities toward the frontier so that the cities would be more lightly defended.
The decision-making also had a harsher side at home. In the second half of 1967 a number of officials and officers who had criticised the leadership’s course, sometimes described as supporters of a more Soviet-style or cautious line, were reportedly arrested. The details are murky, but they suggest that the debate was not a purely open one.
The border battles
The battles in the border regions in 1967 are often seen as partly serving this plan. Large engagements took place near the frontier, including Con Thien near the demilitarised zone in the autumn, Loc Ninh near the Cambodian border in late October and early November, and the fighting at Dak To in the Central Highlands in November. The battles at the hills near Khe Sanh in spring prefigured the larger events there in 1968, and many historians see the siege of Khe Sanh as having had a role in drawing American attention from the cities.
Whether the border battles were deliberate diversions or simply part of the normal fighting is debated. American commanders at the time tended to read them as attempts by the enemy to win a decisive victory in remote areas, and they were pleased to meet the enemy in the open where firepower could be used. In hindsight some of them appear to have been, at least in part, preparation for the offensive.
The Ho Chi Minh Trail
None of this was possible without supplies and people moving south, and that was the purpose of the Ho Chi Minh Trail. The network of roads, tracks and paths ran through the mountains of eastern Laos and parts of Cambodia, and it was supported by depots, repair units, anti-aircraft guns and thousands of labourers. The North Vietnamese called it the Truong Son route, after the mountain range.
During 1967 the flow of troops and equipment is generally thought to have increased, and American estimates of the number of North Vietnamese soldiers entering the south rose through the year. Supplies from the Soviet Union and China, including weapons, trucks and fuel, reached the north by sea and rail. Allied attempts to interdict the trail with air attacks, sensors and other methods slowed and disrupted traffic, but did not stop it. Exact tonnages and troop numbers are estimates and should be treated with caution.
Reading the year
Hanoi followed the American debate closely, and North Vietnamese leaders reportedly took encouragement from the antiwar protests in the United States and elsewhere, which fed the belief that American political will could be broken. For Hanoi, the year of American escalation was also a year of preparation. The strategy had real costs: the offensive of early 1968 caused heavy losses among the Viet Cong and North Vietnamese forces, and the expected uprising did not happen. Yet it achieved a political effect that the planners may not have fully expected. The surprise helped turn American opinion and led to Johnson’s decision to limit the bombing and to seek talks in March 1968. In that sense the plan hatched in 1967 can be said to have worked politically even though it failed militarily.