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A study of the journalism in the early part of the Vietnam War, 1962-63. The Saigon correspondents reported that the South Vietnamese and their American advisers were losing the war against the Viet Cong and their North Vietnamese allies. The reports the correspondents sent home were not very popular in the Pentagon and the Saigon establishment, but it was a job that had to be done to serve the truth. Includes notes and bibliography.
(In case you wonder why I have this page, I can tell you that it was my senior history project I did as a history major at Northwestern College, St. Paul, MN back in 1997. The paper received an A+, and I published it on the Internet. Since then, many Vietnam veterans and other people interested in the conflict visit my Vietnam page every week. I hope to make it to Vietnam at some point, but I haven't been there yet.)
By Kristian Kahrs May 1997
[ Plagiarizing ][ Additional
reading ][ Vietnam Veterans Webring ] After the United States and their allies
had won the World War II, Americans were confident of their own
superiority. For junior officers fighting WWII, defeat was not an
option, and they could not imagine that the United States of
America would ever lose a war. 1
A couple of decades
after the US Army had defeated Hitler, the dominant attitude in
the army leadership was "professional arrogance, lack of
imagination, and moral and intellectual insensitivity. Those
junior officers in WWII were now the generals in Vietnam."2 Being an aide for General Patton during
WWII, General Paul Harkins was the commander of Military Advisory
Command, Vietnam (MACV) in 1962 and 1963. Harkins was
characterized by an unrealistic optimism. The Army of the
Republic of Vietnam (ARVN) and their American advisers were
winning the war against Viet Cong (VC) and their allies in North
Vietnam. Halberstam writes that the high command of the MACV
became an unreal place, "isolated and eventually insulated
from reality."3 Harkins would not accept to have anyone
other than optimists on his staff, and his optimism was reflected
in "The Headway Reports" Harkins and his staff sent
back to Washington.4
A colonel talking pessimistically about the war effort could easily end his career.5
Therefore, many frustrated American officers turned
to anonymously to the press to give a more realistic picture
other than Harkins' naive optimism. The most famous of the advisers in South
Vietnam was Lieutenant Colonel John Paul Vann. He found a trusted
ally in David Halberstam, the 28-year old Saigon correspondent
for The New York Times. Vann was Halberstam's way to fame, and
Halberstam was Vann's way to get his views across in one of the
most influential newspapers in the world.6
During the early
phases of the Vietnam War, Vann would feed Halberstam with
abundant information for his stories that made the young
journalist famous. When Halberstam came from his assignment in
Congo to Vietnam in 1962, he noticed very quickly that he was not
a welcome guest with the Saigon establishment. This was
especially true with US ambassador to Vietnam, Frederick Nolting,
an aristocrat from Virginia.7
Not once in his 15-month
tour to Vietnam was Halberstam ever invited into the ambassador's
home.8
Nolting viewed the press with contempt, and he
expected them to be team players. However, in his attempts to strangle and
manipulate the press, Nolting often looked foolish. He argued for
instance that President Diem was a truly popular leader. His
reasoning was that Diem's picture was everywhere; Nolting had
obviously not understood the logic in a dictatorship. Another
time when he was supposed to have a television interview, he took
down a picture of Thomas Jefferson and replaced it with a picture
of George Washington; he thought Washington was "less
controversial."9 Halberstam was not the only journalist who
did not have many friends in the Saigon establishment. Among the
most famous and controversial journalists in Vietnam in the
opening years were Malcolm Browne and Peter Arnett of The
Associated Press and Neil Sheehan of the United Press
International.10
Henry G. Gole, a
colonel serving two tours in Vietnam, wrote that Halberstam,
Sheehan and Arnett offended an entire generation of American
soldiers. Gole accused the Saigon correspondents of bringing
"unambiguously bad news" to the American public.11 The correspondents were also attacked from
their own side. Marguerite Higgins and Joseph Alsop of The New
York Herold Tribune attacked the young Saigon correspondents and
accused them of falsely reporting that the war was being lost.
Both journalists had solid reputations; Higgins had won a
Pulitzer Prize for her reporting in Korea, and Alsop was a
respected conservative columnist. Time magazine also joined in
critical editorials about the reports from the young aggressive
correspondents.12 Halberstam was not a man who was quiet when
he was attacked, especially not when the attacks came from his
own profession. "What's been exaggerated? The intrigues, The
hostility? It's all been proven. We've been accused of being a
bunch if liberals, but even that's not true," he replied.13 When Harkins and Nolting felt that the
correspondents were stabbing them in the back and not being
patriotic, they were wrong. Nolting ordered his press secretary
to write that the journalistic accounts halted operations and the
policies he tried to enforce in South Vietnam. The Policy "has
been badly hampered by irresponsible, astigmatic and
sensationalized reporting," press officer John Mecklin wrote
in his report to Washington.14 Most of the correspondents early in the
Vietnam War supported the war effort, and did not question the
right of the United States to be there. Not until long after the
war was over did Halberstam and the other Saigon correspondents
question whether the United States should be in Vietnam.15
Halberstam and the rest of the correspondents
criticized the "methods, foolishness, lying and self-delusion,
of a failure to set a policy that could win."16 Since Halberstam was a special
correspondent for a newspaper and not a wire man, he had the time
to travel around the country to be with the soldiers. On these
trips he learned more about what was going on than General
Harkins could from his head quarters in Saigon. In September 1962,
Halberstam spent 19 days in the field, and he bonded with the
soldiers.17
When he met the tough Green Beret, George (Speedy)
Gaspard, a man who was an expert in ambush commando raids,
Halberstam quickly made him a friend and a source.18 The soldiers accepted Halberstam and the
other correspondents who were willing to walk in the mud and
endure combat. When a reporter had proven that he could endure
discomfort and danger "marching through the paddies and
spending nights in the field -- taking this soldier's baptism --
he was accepted (....) and frank discussion followed."19 When Halberstam first came to Vietnam, he
had a different and more naive view of the war than he would
adopt later. In September 1962 this was reflected in his
headlines: "SOUTH
VIETNAMESE INFLICT A MAJOR DEFEAT ON REDS," "PEASANTS
WORK AS TROOPS TO HOLD OFF GUERRILLAS" and "VIETNAM
STRIKES AT REDS' BASTIONS."20 Meeting Vann for the first time, Halberstam
changed his perspective on the war dramatically. Vann taught
Halberstam lessons in the field he could never learn in Saigon.
One of Vann's famous phrases was that the war in Vietnam was
political, and therefore it called for the a very careful
discrimination in killing. "The best weapon for killing is a
knife, but I'm afraid we can't do it that way. The next best is a
rifle. The worst is an airplane, and after that the worst is
artillery," Vann explained to the young correspondent.21 Vann then argued that pilots and artillery
commanders needed easy targets, and small villages made excellent
targets. The possibility of hitting a VC stronghold was much less
than that of killing innocent peasants.22 Colonel Daniel Boone Porter was Vann's
immediate superior officer, and he had the same views about the
use of bombing and artillery as Vann. Repeatedly he argued with
the air force commander under Harkins' overall command, Rollen (Buch)
Anthis. "Your attacks are killing the people we are here to
help. They have no place in a war like this" he said. Anthis
argued that the attacks were made after they had been requested
from the South Vietnamese government. "War is hell," he
said.23 In October 1962, Halberstam's perspective
on the war had changed dramatically, and his headlines had a
different flavor: "VIETNAM
WAR A FRUSTRATING HUNT FOR AN ELUSIVE FOE" and "VIET
CONG MAINTAINING STRENGTH DESPITE SETBACKS."24
That was not exactly the kind of headlines super-optimists,
General Harkins and Ambassador Nolting wanted to hear, and
Halberstam's relationship to the Saigon establishment worsened. The attacks from Nolting and Harkins grew
stronger, and Nolting did not want to talk with the
representative for the most influential newspaper in the United
States. "I don't even talk to David Halberstam. He's
printing lies, so I won't talk to him," Nolting said.
Despite this, Nolting knew that President Kennedy read
Halberstam's dispatches long before he could read the optimistic
briefings from Harkins or himself.25 When Halberstam had an interview with
Nolting after the conflict intensified early in 1963, the
relationship between the two did not improve. Halberstam asked
Nolting close questions about the progress of the war, but
Nolting was not interested in talking about the failures in the
war. Instead, Nolting wanted to talk about a VC defector, but
Halberstam was not interested in that story. Nolting raised his
voice and said, "Why don't you people do any of the regular
things?"26 The interview ended when Halberstam was thrown out
of the office physically. "Why are you here wasting my time?"
Nolting demanded as he threw out the representative for the most
powerful newspaper in the United States.27 To understand the incompetence of the South
Vietnamese Army, one must look into the battle of Ap Bac, a story
of how a guerrilla with light weapons defeated a superior force
in man and fire power. The Battle of Ap Bac was Neil Sheehan's
break-through as a correspondent in Vietnam. Sheehan had the odds
against him; he was the only man working for United Press
International in Vietnam, and therefore he had little recourses
compared to a giant like The Associated Press. Still, he got the
first tip of the attack, and Jan. 2, 1963 was Neil Sheehan's day. 28 Just after Christmas, 1962, the ARVN Joint
General Staff ordered the 7th Infantry Division to seize a VC
radio transmitter. The order originated at General Harkins' MACV
head quarters, and for once, Vann was excited about an order from
Harkins. The attack would be the first of the new year, and the
ARVN could show what they were good for.29 Instead of being a triumph for the ARVN and
their American advisers, the Battle of Ap Bac became the
beginning of the end for the Diem regime. This battle became a
symbol of catastrophe of the American enterprise in Vietnam and
for those Vietnamese who had put their trust in the Americans.30 Because the Americans had supplied the ARVN
abundant with weapons, it was easy for the VC to seize large
quantities of American weapons to fight American soldiers in the
end. The VC could easily capture weapons from the outposts of the
ARVN.31
Therefore, the average VC soldiers carried
semiautomatic M-1 rifles. In addition they had access to heavy
American .30 caliber machine guns. "The United States and
its surrogate regime in Saigon had brought about a qualitative
advance in the firepower of their enemy."32 American firepower did not help the ARVN
much against the VC. The guerrillas simply dug foxholes to hide
in during the artillery bombardment. Thus, they were fully
prepared for the ARVN attack. Because of the irrigation ditches,
the VC could be re-supplied with ammunition, and it made it easy
to retreat if necessary.33 On Jan. 3, 1963 the David Halberstam's
headline in the New York Times read, VIETCONG DOWNS FIVE U.S. COPTERS, HITS NINE OTHERS. In his account of the battle, Halberstam told the
story about three Americans being killed, and it was the worst
defeat since the buildup started in 1962.34 Halberstam told the story about the VC
opening murderous fire with .30 caliber and .50 caliber machine-guns
against the American helicopters.35
Usually, the VC
would not stand to fight the ARVN, but this time they decided to
hold ground to destroy the helicopters.36 Sgt. 1st Class Arnold Bowers, raised on a
Minnesota dairy farm and belonging to the 101st Airborne
Division, experienced his first war.37
Bowers quickly
realized that the ARVN soldiers were not interested in engaging
the enemy, and they laid down on the ground to avoid contact with
the VC. Since the ARVN did not advance, they would take heavier
losses than they would have taken had they advanced.38 Bowers quickly realized that the ARVN
soldiers were not interested in risking their lives in an assault
on the VC. The forward artillery observer assigned to the company
was too scared to see if the shells landed on the VC foxhole line.
Bowers asked to get the radio from the artillery observer to
adjust the fire, but the Vietnamese second lieutenant refused to
hand over the radio. Bowers soon understood that the company
commander and the artillery observer were afraid that if he got
the radio, "the end result might be that they received
orders to do something, which might mean getting up from the dike."39 If an American officer had acted as
cowardly as the ARVN officers, endangering the lives of the
soldiers, Bowers would have shot them and taken the radio.
Nevertheless, he was in Vietnam as an adviser, and he did not
have any authority in "their war." Besides, Bowers was
a non-commissioned officer, and he was used to following orders
from the officers.40 Lieutenant Colonel Vann, being trapped in
the back seat of his spotter plane, had observed that he had an
adviser and three helicopter crews on the ground. Still, there
was nothing he could do at the time, and the ARVN unit was in
danger of being run over by the VC.41 Trying to rescue the trapped rifle company,
Vann wanted to send M-113 Armored Personnel Carriers (APC), but
Vann was in for a big surprise. He realized that the commander of
the M-113 company, Capt. Ly Tong Ba, was not interested in
risking his APCs in a rescue attempt.42
Later, Vann
realized the reason for Ba's reluctance to use the M-113s in a
rescue attempt. President Diem viewed his APCs as useful as an
"anti-coup insurance." If the unit were to take losses,
this could mean the end of the career for the Buddhist captain.
Diem, as a catholic, was not very fond of Buddhists.43 Nevertheless, at 11.10 a.m., 45 minutes
after Vann had radioed for the M-113s for the first time, Ba
finally started to move his APCs to make a rescue attempt for the
trapped infantry soldiers.44
Still, even with
the superior firepower of the .50 caliber guns on the M-113s, the
ARVN was not able to effectively attack the guerrilla stronghold
of 350 soldiers. The gunner on a M-113 was not protected against
enemy fire, and when Ba tried to attack, the gunners became an
easy target for the VC.45 Squad Leader Dung of the VC managed to stop
armored attack from the APCs. Without any anti-tank weapons, such
as the M-72, Dung ran against the tanks and attacked them with
hand grenades. Inspired by his courage, the rest of the VC
stronghold forgot their fears and followed Dung's example. The
crews of the M-113s were demoralized by the machine-gun fire
directed at their gunners, and the grenade attack from the VC was
what was needed for the APC company to finally give up the attack.46 Even if the APC company had broken off the
attack, Vann still hoped for revenge on the VC for downing five
American helicopters. Vann wanted to use paratroopers to land
behind the VC lines and capture them. The ARVN, however, wanted
to land the paratroopers within their own lines; they wanted to
reinforce. Vann later remarked that they "chose to reinforce
defeat."47 The ARVN was not interested in engaging the
VC and risk losing men or material. ARVN commander Cao arranged
for the paratroopers to be dropped at 6 p.m., an hour and a half
before darkness. This was convenient for both the ARVN and the VC.
For the ARVN, this meant that they would not have time to attack
the VC before darkness, and the VC was given an excellent chance
to retreat under the cover of darkness.48 Thus, the 350 guerrillas had not been
defeated by a four times larger force "with armor and
artillery and supported by helicopters and fighter-bombers."49
Without any heavy weapons, the VC was able to kill
four ARVN soldiers for every soldier they lost, and the VC only
lost 18 killed and 39 wounded. The ARVN fired 600 artillery
shells and 8400 rounds of machine-gun fire in addition to 100
rockets from the Huey helicopters.50
"They were brave men, [and] they gave a good account of themselves today," Vann said of his enemies.51 On Jan. 3, the day after the Battle of Ap
Bac, the correspondents tried to get a sensible explanation of
the battle from General Harkins. Of course, defeat was not an
option for Harkins, and when Halberstam asked him how the battle
was going, the general replied that the enemy was now
surrendered, and the ARVN was ready to capture the VC in a trap
in half an hour. Needless to say, the VC was long gone, and the
ARVN had had "their tails whipped the day before."52 The day after the battle, Sheehan and
Nicholas Turner, a New Zealander working for Reuters, went back
to Ap Bac to find out more about what had happened the night
before. The two journalists found 20 dead ARVN soldiers and two
American advisers piled up. At the same time they saw ARVN
soldiers lying on their backs doing nothing in bloody fatigues.53 The ARVN troops were so demoralized that
they did not show any initiative to remove the bodies of the
their fallen comrades and the two American advisers. Turner and
Sheehan helped lifting the bodies into a helicopter, but Capt.
James Scanlon, the adviser for Ba's unit, had to shout and "manhandle
Ba's troops to force them to lift the corpses into the aircraft."
At this time, Sheehan and Turner were also upset with the
behavior of the ARVN soldiers. Never before had they seen an ARVN
soldier or adviser behave in this manner.54 In January 1963, there were 12 American
generals in Vietnam, but only the visiting Brig. Gen. Robert York
bothered to visit Ap Bac to find out what was going on. Since
York came to Saigon, Vann had the opportunity to show York around
the countryside and show the general a different reality than
that of Harkins.55
Since York had had
experience in guerrilla warfare as an observer in British Malaya,
he knew that it was not going to be easy to defeat the VC.56 As Turner, Sheehan, York and his aide
walked to the former VC positions, they found only three bodies.57
Scanlon later remarked that it was the "Fort
Benning school solution of how an outnumbered infantry unit ought
to organize a defense."58 On the way back to Saigon the four were
attacked by "friendly" artillery fire. "Get down,"
York shouted as more artillery shells were landing around them.
All four threw themselves into the slimy mud to avoid being blown
to pieces by the artillery shells. Sheehan concluded that they
would have been killed if York had not shouted to get down. The
ARVN commander had decided to fake an attack at the VC, now that
he knew they were gone, "he wanted the palace to know he was
doing something to recoup."59 When the four dirty men came back to the
airfield close to Ap Bac, they met Harkins dressed in his nice,
pressed, spotless, white uniform. "Harkins was a world apart
from the four of us," Sheehan wrote.60 When the German AP
photographer Horst Faas asked if he could take pictures with
Harkins in the field with ARVN troops, Harkins said, "I'm
not that kind of general." Harkins liked to see the
Vietnamese countryside from the air, and "his mind never
touched down in Vietnam."61 A week after the battle, Harkins' superior
officer, Admiral Felt, flew in from Hawaii. At a press conference
Sheehan elbowed his way forward and asked for Felt's assessment
of the battle. He said that he did not believe what was written
about the battle in the newspapers. "As I understand it, it
was a Vietnamese victory -- not a defeat, as the papers say,"
he said.62
Harkins nodded in agreement saying, "Yes,
that's right. It was a Vietnamese victory. It certainly was."63 When it was time for Felt to leave, Harkins
told him who Sheehan was. By this time, Sheehan had become famous
for his article VIET TROOPS
FAIL BIG TEST.64
Felt turned to
Sheehan and said, "So you're Sheehan. You ought to talk to
some of the people who've got the facts." This remark
provoked Sheehan's Irish temper. "That's right Admiral.
That's why I went there every day," he shot back, also
suggesting that Harkins should send some of his own people to get
the facts.65 After Ap Bac, Vann decided that he was not
going to care about what happened to his career if he spoke
openly against the Saigon establishment and the ARVN. He decided
that he was not going to let Harkins stop his crusade for truth,
and Vann decided to use his friend Halberstam as an instrument.
Vann recognized he had an obligation as a commissioned officer in
the U.S. Army, but he also recognized that he had a
responsibility for the American people.66 On March 1, 1963, the result in The New
York Times was, SAIGON
REPORTED AVOIDING CLASHES: U.S. ADVISERS FIND TENDENCY TO LET
REDS ESCAPE. As usual, Halberstam had
not identified Vann as his source, but this time Vann had given
so much detailed information that everyone would know he was the
source anyway.67 In his article, Halberstam wrote that the
situation was depressing for the Americans for two reasons. The
first point was that the VC was as aggressive as ever at the end
of a massive U.S. build-up. Secondly, he pointed out that even if
the ARVN had improved the last year, so had the VC. In addition,
Halberstam reported that the ARVN was attacking areas where there
were no enemies. Lastly, when differences in opinion forwarded,
the tendency among the senior leadership was to "get along"
with the Vietnamese.68 Nevertheless, Vann did not only go to the
press with his views. He also tried to convince his own fellow
officers in the army about the shortcomings in the American
policy. Being educated as a statistician, he was able to prove
that the ARVN was not willing to fight, contradictory to Harkins'
claims. Of the 1400 government deaths in his sector in one year,
only 50 were ARVN, and Vann was also able to prove that most of
the war effort from the government side was carried by "ill-equipped
local militia who more often than not were killed asleep in their
defensive positions."69 Later he traveled to the Pentagon to talk
to anyone who would like to listen to his arguments. He was about
to brief the Joint Staff, but Gen. Maxwell Taylor, at that time
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, prevented Vann from presenting his
briefing of the war in Vietnam. Because Taylor had appointed
Harkins personally, he would not let a negative report of Harkins
surface.70 Not only was the press thinking that
Nolting and Harkins were unrealistically optimistic. General
Westmoreland, Harkins successor, acknowledged that in "these
early days the newsmen were sometimes closer to the truth than
were American officials, for there can be no question that Paul
Harkins was overly optimistic."71 Other people also tried to warn Harkins
about the growing strength of the VC and the incompetence and
corruption in the ARVN. When a civilian intelligence officer
warned Harkins of the growing threat from the VC, Harkins
replied, "Nonsense, I am going to crush them in the rainy
season."72
What Harkins was ignorant about, however, was that
the VC benefited from the rainy season, and it was easier for the
guerrilla to hide and get fresh supplies through the canal system.73 Harkins also showed a naive belief in the
word of an ARVN officer, and it came to the point where he
trusted ARVN officers more than his own officers in the U.S. Army.
The ARVN often tried to exaggerate their achievements, and when
Lieutenant Colonel Fred Ladd made Harkins aware of the situation,
Harkins "upbraided him for challenging the word of a
Vietnamese officer." Ladd looked at Harkins and said, "I
thought we were talking to an American."74 In the end the American people saw the
lies, deceit and hypocrisy from the establishment in Saigon and
the MACV. Because of the endless effort from the correspondents
to communicate the truth, many civilians had begun to doubt the
accuracy in the dispatches from the MACV.75
Thus, the young and
idealistic correspondents in Saigon were able to make a
difference on American foreign policy. The world would never be
the same. 1 Neil Sheehan, A Bright Shining Lie:
John Paul Vann and America in Vietnam. Random House, New York.
1988, page 287. Domkiosky, Leo. "Ap Bac; Vietnam
Revisited" http://views.vcn.net/02/noframes/virtual/apbac2.html Gole, Colonel Henry G. Ret. "Don't
Kill the messanger: Vietnam War Reporting in Context." http://carlisle-www.army.mil/usawc/Parameters/96winter/win-essa.htm 1996. Halberstam, David. The Best and the
Brightest. Random House, New York. 1972. Hohenberg, John. Foreign Correspondence:
The Great Reporters and Their Times. Syracuse University
Press, Syracuse, N.Y. Second editon, 1995. Prochnau, William. Once Upon a Distant
War. Random House, New York. 1995. Record, Jeffery. "Vietnam in
Retrospect: Could We Have Won?" http://carlisle-www.army.mil/usawc/Parameters/96winter/record.htm Sheehan, Neil. A Bright Shining Lie:
John Paul Vann and America in Vietnam. Random House, New York.
1988. Additional reading: Plagiarizing: © May 1997 Kristian Kahrs Lies Deceit
and Hypocrisy is a member of the
Notes
2Ibid., 285
3 David Halberstam, The Best and the Brightest.
Random House, New York. 1972., page 186.
4 Ibid., 186
5 Ibid., 201
6 William Prochnau, Once Upon a Distant War.
Random House, New York. 1995, page 193
7 Ibid., 22
8 Ibid., 130
9 Ibid., 23
10 John Hohenberg, Foreign Correspondence: The
Great Reporters and Their Times. Syracuse University Press,
Syracuse, N.Y. Second editon, 1995, page 273.
11 Colonel Henry G. Gole, Ret. "Don't Kill the
messanger:Vietnam War Reporting in Context." http://carlisle-www.army.mil/usawc/Parameters/96winter/win-essa.htm 1996.
12 Hohenberg, 273
13 Ibid., 273
14 Halberstam, 205
15 Prochnau, 141
16 Ibid., 141
17 Ibid., 202
18 Ibid., 203
19 Sheehan, 270
20 Prochnau, 158
21 Ibid., 162
22 Ibid., 163
23 Ibid., 190
24 Ibid., 164
25 Ibid., 170
26 Ibid., 171
27 Ibid., 172
28 Ibid., 228
29 Sheehan, 203
30 Ibid., 269
31 Ibid., 207
32 Ibid., 208
33 Ibid., 210
34 David Halberstam, "Vietcong downs five U.S.
copters, hits nine others." The New York Times. Jan.
3, 1963. 1:4
35 Ibid., 1:4
36 Ibid., 2:3
37 Sheehan, 216
38 Ibid., 224
39 Ibid., 225
40 Ibid., 226
41 Ibid., 227
42 Ibid., 227
43 Ibid., 233
44 Ibid., 235
45 Ibid., 247-52
46 Ibid., 257
47 Ibid., 258
48 Ibid., 261
49 Ibid., 262
50 Ibid., 262-63
51 Ibid., 265
52 Prochnau, 236
53 Sheehan, 271
54 Ibid., 272
55 Ibid., 272
56 Ibid., 273
57 In 1996, the American Leo Dymkioski traveled back
to Ap Bac, and he found the grave stones of the three VC soldiers.
The inscription told of "three brave soldiers; steel iron
man. One of the men was Squad Leader Dung, the brave soldier who
attacked the APCs with hand grendes. Dong was killed in an
artillery or air strike as the VC were retreating. "Ap Bac;
Vietnam Revisited" http://views.vcn.net/02/noframes/virtual/apbac2.html
58 Sheehan, 273-74
59 Ibid., 275
60 Ibid., 276
61 Ibid., 285
62 Prochnau., 239
63 Ibid., 240
64 I was not able to get hold of Sheehan's article
about the Battle of Ap Bac; I only got Halberstam's account.
65 Prochnau, 240
66 Sheehan, 328
67 David Halberstam, "Saigon reported avoiding
clashes." The New York Times. March 1, 1963. 1:1
68 Ibid., 3:5
69 Halberstam, The Best and the Brightest. Page 204
70 Ibid., 204
71 William C. Westmoreland. A Soldier Reports.
Doubleday and Company, Garden City, N.Y. p. 80 qtd. in Jeffery
Record, "Vietnam in Retrospect: Could We Have Won?" http://carlisle-www.army.mil/usawc/Parameters/96winter/record.htm
72 Halberstam, 186
73 Ibid., 187
74 Ibid., 188
75 Ibid., 250
Bibliography
---. "Saigon reported avoiding clashes." The New
York Times. Jan. 3, 1963. 1:4
---. "Vietcong downs five U.S. copters, hits nine others."
The New York Times. Jan. 3, 1963. 1:4.
For an in depth analysis about the optimistic reports from the
Pentagon and the Saigon establishment, please read the award
winning study CIA and the Vietnam Policymakers:
Three Episodes 1962-63 by Harold P.
Ford. The author is a former CIA analyst, and the report was
recently declassified.
In a desperate attempt to improve his grades, former Student Body
President of University of North Carolina at Charlotte, Nick
Mirisis, copied this essay and presented it as his own term paper
in a an English honors class spring 1999. Unfortunately for
Mirisis, a journalist in the student newspaper started
investigating. North Carolina newspaper The News Observer picked up the story on July 28, 1999. The
Associated Press picked up the story the same day, and a day
later it appeared in the Minneapolis Star Tribune. Let this be a
warning to anyone attempting to plagiarize this essay.
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