No More Vietnams (25 page)

It was imperative for us to conclude the Agreement on Ending the War and Restoring Peace in Vietnam. It was not perfect. It had some major weaknesses. I wished we could have negotiated a better one. But it was impossible for us to hold out for more favorable terms with Congress poised to legislate an end to our involvement on Hanoi's terms.

It was not our finest hour—but it was the
final
hour.

• • •

In early 1973, when we left South Vietnam, we left it in a strong position militarily. A stalemate existed on the battlefield: South Vietnam's army had an advantage in military strength; North Vietnam's forces countered this edge through an improvement in their overall strategic position. Our bombing of North Vietnam had ended with the cease-fire, and Communist troops continued to hold certain territories captured in 1972 that greatly complicated the defense of the rest of South Vietnam. But because it was militarily weak, Hanoi could not exploit its opportunities.

In January 1973, the military balance of power was decisively in South Vietnam's favor. Its army fielded over 450,000 troops, split about half and half between combat and support units. Its air force enlisted 54,000, and its navy 42,000. In addition, there were 325,000 troops in its Regional Forces and another 200,000 in its Popular Forces. North Vietnam's strength stood between 500,000 and 600,000 troops. About 290,000 were in North Vietnam, 70,000 in Laos, and 25,000
in Cambodia. Only about 148,000 combat troops were in South Vietnam—which gave our ally at least a four-to-one advantage on the battlefield.

We had tried to tip the balance of power toward the South Vietnamese by launching a massive resupply effort in late 1972. We undertook two operations—code-named Enhance and Enhance Plus—to replace equipment and supplies lost or expended during the 1972 offensive and to improve South Vietnam's combat capability before the cease-fire agreement limited our aid to one-for-one replacements. Our deliveries included 175mm guns for three artillery battalions; M-48 tanks for two armored battalions; 286 UH-1 helicopters; 23 CH-47 airlift helicopters; 22 AC-119K gunships; 28 A-1 fighter aircraft; 32 C-130A cargo airplanes; 90 A-37 light bombers; 118 F-5A fighters; and 23 EC47 electronic reconnaissance airplanes. North Vietnam was also sending net equipment and supplies to its forces in South Vietnam as fast as it could, but our efforts outdistanced Hanoi's by a wide margin.

South Vietnam's military advantage extended to all fronts. North Vietnam's forces had suffered catastrophic losses during their 1972 offensive. Along the northern front, although the battle lines were several miles below the demilitarized zone, Hanoi's army was pinned down trying to hold on to its gains. Some divisions were below 50 percent of their authorized strength. In the central highlands—where South Vietnam's army was weakest—Communist forces could not advance beyond their limited territorial enclaves and held no significant towns. In the area around Saigon, North Vietnamese units were in total disarray. With many units below 30 percent of their normal strength, they posed no serious threat to South Vietnamese troops or civilians. In the Mekong delta—where 50 percent of South Vietnam's people lived—North Vietnam's forces were in dire straits. Some regular units had dwindled to 15 percent of their full strength.

Hanoi faced a grim outlook. It had lost over 190,000 troops in 1972, yet had won very little territory. Saigon controlled all significant commerce, all important lines of communication,
and all population centers. Communist sources admitted that South Vietnam ruled over 80 percent of its territory and 87 percent of its population. Hanoi told its forces in the South not to expect a large-scale offensive for at least three to five years. “Our troops were exhausted and their units in disarray,” a North Vietnamese general later wrote. “We had not been able to make up our losses. We were short of manpower as well as food and ammunition, and coping with the enemy was very difficult.” Communist morale and combat effectiveness were hitting an all-time low.

• • •

But that still did not mean that the North Vietnamese would abide by the peace agreement. Hanoi's definition of a ceasefire was that we cease and they fire.

We expected the North Vietnamese to make a last-minute military push to seize control of as much territory and population as possible before the cease-fire took effect. This had happened when an agreement seemed imminent in October. It had failed then because their attack came two full weeks before the prospective cease-fire and their forces were too weak to hold on to their gains. In January both sides tried to seize a few strategic points as the cease-fire approached. But as the agreement was being initialed in Paris, North Vietnamese forces launched a series of raids throughout South Vietnam and continued it
after
the cease-fire was to have gone into effect.

While Hanoi's regular units pinned down Saigon's in fixed positions, Communist guerrillas took over hundreds of hamlets, raising their flag in the hope of asserting a claim on them when the cease-fire lines were drawn. But their successes were shortlived. South Vietnamese territorial forces struck back quickly and effectively. Two weeks later the Communists had suffered over 5,000 killed in action; and out of the 400 hamlets they had attacked, only twenty-three were still reported as contested. Saigon even expanded its control in some areas.

Antiwar critics charged that both Saigon and Hanoi were violating the cease-fire because both were fighting. But they
overlooked the fact that one side was on the offensive and the other on the defensive. In their eagerness to absolve Hanoi by finding equal fault with Saigon, they failed to note that there was a difference between shooting first and shooting back.

Once its land-grabbing raids were repulsed, Hanoi began blatantly violating the prohibition on sending additional troops and supplies into South Vietnam. Both sides in South Vietnam were allowed to replace equipment destroyed or worn out after the cease-fire on a piece-for-piece basis. Arms transfers were to take place at designated entry points under the scrutiny of the International Commission on Control and Supervision. Hanoi disregarded these rules from the start. Checkpoints were never set up, because the North Vietnamese refused to establish them. In early February our reconnaissance aircraft sighted a convoy of 175 military trucks moving across the demilitarized zone and a column of 223 tanks driving down the Ho Chi Minh Trail toward South Vietnam.

Soon, North Vietnamese reinforcements and supplies were coming into South Vietnam at unprecedented rates, exceeding even those just before the 1972 invasion. By May 1973, Hanoi had shipped in over 35,000 troops and more than 30,000 tons of matériel.

Nor did Hanoi comply with other key provisions of the Paris peace agreement. It did not withdraw its troops from Cambodia and Laos or stop using their territories as a logistic base. It refused to free several hundred South Vietnamese prisoners of war. It obstructed the negotiations on creating the National Council of National Reconciliation and Concord, and thereby thwarted the plan for new national elections. It observed only those clauses in the agreement from which it benefited.

Despite the dedicated efforts of its Indonesian and Canadian members, the International Commission on Control and Supervision did nothing to prevent North Vietnamese cease-fire violations. Hanoi quickly demonstrated that it had no intention of cooperating with the commission in any way. Hungarian and Polish representatives acted as loyal proxies of the North Vietnamese. Since the commission required unanimous
consent for all actions, the Communist-bloc members were able to veto all motions contrary to the interests of the North Vietnamese. Hanoi's delegates similarly stalemated the Joint Military Commission.

North Vietnam, not content with having paralyzed the machinery for international supervision, now sought to destroy it. On April 7, while flying over Quang Tri Province along Route 9 toward the Laos border, two commission helicopters were shot down by North Vietnamese forces. One crashed after being hit with a heat-seeking surface-to-air antiaircraft missile, killing all nine passengers and crew; the other was forced to make an emergency landing after being damaged by small-arms and machine-gun fire. It was a brutal warning from Hanoi: Anyone who sought to monitor North Vietnamese compliance with the cease-fire would be making a fatal mistake. No one missed the point. Canada soon announced its withdrawal from the commission on the grounds that its delegates were observing a war instead of supervising a peace.

While Hanoi brazenly broke key provisions of the peace agreement, a shocking double standard operated in news-media reports about cease-fire compliance. South Vietnam—which permitted international scrutiny of its actions—received devastating criticism whenever it undertook any military actions, even if they were taken in retaliation or reprisal. Hanoi—which shot down those seeking to monitor its behavior—received hardly even a slap on the wrist.

Among objective observers there was no doubt that it was Hanoi which was undermining the cease-fire. With direct reference to North Vietnam, Michel Gauvin, the departing head of Canada's delegation to the international supervisory commission, explained that they were leaving because of the failure of “some parties to cease-fire agreement to live up to their commitment.”

• • •

Hanoi's blatant breach of the Paris agreement outraged me. I was determined to respond with force if its serious cease-fire violations continued. I was able to take several counteractions.
But two developments—the outcry over Watergate and the backlash against Vietnam in Congress—prevented me from doing more.

North Vietnam's cynical land grab in late January was disconcerting. But I still believed that the success of Vietnamization and the memory of the December bombing might lead the North Vietnamese to decide that peace, or at least a stable cease-fire, was in their interest. It was in our interest as well. Our POWs were still in North Vietnam. We needed to follow through on important issues in the peace agreement.

Kissinger met with North Vietnam's leaders in Hanoi in February 1973. All they wanted to talk about was when they would start receiving American economic aid. Kissinger pointed out that such aid depended on compliance with the peace agreement. He vigorously protested their failure to live up to their commitments. He also reopened critical unfinished business left over from the last negotiations: Both sides had pledged in the Paris agreement to work to bring about cease-fires in Laos and Cambodia. Little progress was made but Kissinger made it clear that our patience had its limits.

I knew that there could be no peace in South Vietnam unless Hanoi withdrew its forces from Laos and Cambodia. South Vietnam's survival ultimately depended not on whether it had a democratic government or a competent military but on simple facts of geography. Given that the fighting would take place in South Vietnam, control of Laos and Cambodia was crucial. Virtually every important military advantage—from holding the high ground to having internal lines of communication—would depend on who ruled these countries. If the North Vietnamese succeeded in turning either into a massive forward base for their army, the chances of South Vietnam surviving on its own would become slim.

In Cambodia, Hanoi was totally uncooperative with our efforts to work out a cease-fire between government forces and Communist Khmer Rouge guerrillas. After our bilateral diplomacy failed, Cambodian President Lon Nol made an appeal to the Khmer Rouge. He announced a unilateral halt to all offensive
military operations, and we suspended both our tactical and our strategic bombing of enemy positions. Khmer Rouge leaders responded not with reciprocal restraint but with shrill declarations of the start of a new military offensive.

Cambodia's Communists enjoyed unprecedented military strength. During 1971 and 1972, North Vietnam had built up the Khmer Rouge forces. Hanoi's hope was that its client could score a quick victory against Phnom Penh and thereby isolate South Vietnam. Lon Nol had expanded Cambodia's army from 30,000 to 200,000 troops. But its forces were spread thinly, and their leadership and training were poor. In January 1973, Communist forces surrounded Phnom Penh, cutting off vital roads and blockading the Mekong River.

We could not afford to see Lon Nol's government fall, for to lose Cambodia was to lose South Vietnam. But there were few actions we could take. Congress had legislated severe limitations on our options. Since the Cambodian incursions in 1970, Congress had prohibited us from undertaking military operations with ground troops on Cambodian territory, from assigning military training personnel to the Phnom Penh government, from sending amounts of aid above a restrictive ceiling, or even from stationing more than 200 civilian advisers in the country at one time. We therefore chose our only remaining option: We resumed bombing Khmer Rouge positions.

Our bombing relieved the pressure on Cambodia's capital and alleviated the danger of an imminent collapse. It also won a breathing space for Lon Nol's army, which used the time to regroup its forces and improve their combat effectiveness. In May, when the Khmer Rouge guerrillas launched another all-out offensive, Cambodia's army turned them back. Our critics accused us of engaging in indiscriminate terror bombing, which they claimed slaughtered hundreds of civilians. But the record shows that our air strikes were directed against enemy military targets and were highly accurate.

As we continued to search for a way to stabilize Cambodia, we enlisted China's help. Chinese Prime Minister Zhou Enlai also wanted to prevent a North Vietnamese victory in Indochina.
China wanted closer relations with the United States to counter increasing hostility from the Soviet Union. Therefore, it was directly contrary to Peking's interests for Moscow's clients in Hanoi either to achieve hegemony in Indochina or to humiliate the United States. As late as October 1973, Zhou reportedly told North Vietnamese leaders, “It would be best for Vietnam and the rest of Indochina to relax for, say, five or ten years.”