Commentary on Triumph Forsaken

36 Historically Speaking November/December 2007 statements by Mao to support his claim that Mao wanted the Vietnamese to wage war alone against the U.S. and was hesitant to give support. Mao told the North Vietnamese in early October 1964 that if the Americans invade, "you must not engage in a head to head confrontation and must well maintain your main force." InJanuary 1965 Mao said to Edgar Snow that "only if the United States attacked China would the Chinese fight . . . the Vietnamese can cope with their own situation." According to Moyar, these comments show that China not have intervened outside its borders, even if the U.S. had invaded the DRV But later events provoked an altogether different response from China. Indeed, Mao's comments were made before the beginning of the U.S. bombing campaign and the landing of U.S. ground troops in February-March 1965. At the time Mao made these remarks, the Chinese were urging the DRV to wage a more intensified ground war in order to finish off the South Vietnamese before further reinforcements arrived from the U.S. Moyar plays down the possibility of Chinese ground intervention and maintains mat a Sino-Vietnamese conventional offensive of twenty divisions could have been rebuffed by five to eighteen U.S. divisions . All this presumes a U.S. will to mobilize and fight a major war of this magnitude with China in Southeast Asia. But this was precisely what President Johnson was seeking to avoid. Furthermore, Moyar does not address the practicalities of mobilizing and logistically supporting a force of this size in Southeast Asia. The temptation to use tactical nuclear weapons would have been difficult to restrain and could easily, dangerously, have spilled into a general war with China. When the U.S. began bombing North Vietnam and sent ground troops in March 1965, China responded in kind. On April 12, 1965 the country issued a general order to mobilize for war, and China gave immediate support to North Vietnam. Zhou Enlai made it clear that a U.S ground assault on the North would be met with an overwhelming Chinese response. China immediately sent three reinforced divisions, designated the "Corps of Chinese Rear Services," to build up die Vietnamese defense and transportation networks. In addition, two Chinese antiaircraft divisions were sent to North Vietnam by the summer of 1965. Between 1965 and 1969 the Chinese sent 320,000 troops to North Vietnam, of which 150,000 were in antiaircraft units. It is hard to come to definite conclusions about die Vietnam War. There are gaps in our knowledge of the decision making on both sides. Moyar does not accept these crucial ambiguities. Moreover, the United States and its allies were defeated, and this had serious and far-reaching implications for historiography . We did not capture the archives of our foes or employ their senior officers in writing accounts of their activities as we did, so extensively, after World War II. The German Military History Program produced accounts of all the war theaters where the Wehrmacht had fought. These narratives, famously known as the Green Book Series, were used to prepare the official histories of the U.S. Army. Nothing like diis exists for the Vietnam War. Until scholars have unfettered access to the archives of China, the USSR, Vietnam, and the U.S., controversies will continue to be fought over limited evidence , overladen with interpretative schema. Jim Dingeman is ajournalist and independent scholar, andserves on the board of the New York Military Affairs Symposium. His interviews andfeatures appear on the IndependentNews Network. Commentary on Triumph Forsaken Robert F. Turner Anyone who cares seriously about the realities of the Vietnam War or wishes to learn its key lessons owes a great debt of gratitude to Mark Moyar, whose new volume is a landmark contribution to the subject. Indeed, it should be mandator}' reading for any serious scholar seeking to understand that conflict, as well as any politician or senior aide who seeks lessons for the current conflict in Iraq. These are not new issues to me. I wrote my undergraduate honors thesis on the war before volunteering for the army and for duty in...