Opublikowane: 2023-12-111

Was America close to victory in Vietnam? The 1969 crisis of the Communist Insurgents from the perspective of the Military Attaché’s Office at the Embassy of the Polish People’s Republic in Hanoi

Przemysław Benken
Echa Przeszłości
Dział: ARTYKUŁY I ROZPRAWY
https://doi.org/10.31648/ep.9674

Abstrakt

This article discusses the difficulties that were encountered by the National Liberation Front (NLF) of Southern Vietnam in 1969 after the fiasco of the communist Tet Offensive of 1968. These problems were analyzed based on an analysis of the reports forwarded by the Military Attaché’s Office at the Embassy of the Polish People’s Republic (PPR) in Hanoi to the Second Department of the General Staff of the Polish Army. These issues have not been extensively examined in the literature, and the cited reports, despite their considerable value, were not accessible to English-speaking historians. The debate on whether the military failure and the propaganda success of the Tet Offensive presented Saigon and Washington with an opportunity to win the war, an opportunity that was wasted for political reasons, still continues in the historiography of the Second Indochina War. The analyzed source materials indicate that by 1969, the situation in the Republic of Vietnam (RV) had improved to an extent which enabled the US to cede responsibility for the war to the Army of the RV and to gradually remove its troops from South Vietnam. Nonetheless, the social and political situation in the RV and the US prevented Saigon from stabilizing the situation in South Vietnam, and it forced the US to rapidly retreat from Indochina. As a result, South Vietnam’s military advantage over communist insurgents proved to be a fleeting success, and it did not change the final outcome of the conflict.

Słowa kluczowe:

Second Indochina War, Tet Offensive, Vietnamization, military intelligence

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Zasady cytowania

Benken, P. (2023). Was America close to victory in Vietnam? The 1969 crisis of the Communist Insurgents from the perspective of the Military Attaché’s Office at the Embassy of the Polish People’s Republic in Hanoi. Echa Przeszłości, (XXIV/2), 169–185. https://doi.org/10.31648/ep.9674

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