S' ok Rude.. I don't mind; how else the young'ns gonna know what we did? And why.. hell; despite the fact none of us will evere REALLY know why, they still need to know what the real questions are.
Hangtime, outta genuine interest, don't you think that the White House worries about total war meaning a repeat of Korea? i.e the US goes at it at full force, Chinese 'volunteers' show up. Russian 'advisors' killed, Soviet pissed off?
Santa, China wasn't much of a factor.. between the falling out they had with the soviets and trade needs with the west (i think Nixon got a Nobel prize for that) China was not considered to be a threat.. in fact they wern't all that damn happy with the vietnamese anyway. China figured more as a railhead for transhipped war materials. Was really kinda funny.. at one poink the chinks were stripping the trains of 'new' stuff and replacing it with their own (also soviet) older material.
The risk was Russia.. and thats supposedly why the White House obstensibly kept the military at close heel. Apparently it was ok for soviet 'advisors' to man SAM batterys slapping Buffs and Thuds with American pilots outta the sky, but not ok for us to go after the SAM staging areas, sites, delivery ships and rail lines. What a bunch of toejam THAT was.. at the time, no matter what escalation the russkies cared to consider, short of a nuke there was no way they'd fare any better than the North Vietnamese. And to think that the Russkies would go to 'open' support with uniformed troops on the ground in North Vietnam facing American Uniformed troops conducting an invasion was ludicrious...
Scenario.. US closes Haiphong, bombs out rail lines, goes downtown on all valid targets in the north. Full tilt boogie.. nothin in; nothin out; nothin flies, nothin moves on wheels. No safe havens, no access to any war material more civilized than a bicycle and a bayonet. Rooskie techical help is useless with no sams to shoot, no launchers left to shoot from, no new stuff in the pipeline... the pipelines are sunk, bombed out, burned out and freakin closed.
What CAN the rooskies do.. they can't go though China with anything.. it crosses the border and turns into flaming wreckage, their Navy can't enter the Tonkin Gulf. Nukes?? Breshnev is not stupid. Leonid's plug is pulled.
The US was not in Vietnam for oil.. for rice, for bamboo or for rubber.. our stated aim was to stop the advance of communisim and preserve the democratic government in the south that the north has invaded.
Yes; Invaded. Aside from a POW rescue mission, no South Vietnamese or US ground forces ever crossed into North Vietnam. We were fighting NVA regulars EVERYWHERE in the south.
So, whats Russias intrest? They ain't after Vietnams great supply of natural resources (bugs and blisters).. they're prime intent is to embarrass the United States, destabilise our influence in the region and topple pro-western east asian governments to increase THEIR sphere of influence.. but of all these, discrediting the US and destabilising our government via internal strife over the war was the big cigar. And Johnson, ill advised and wringing his hands, just could not find the testicles to face the rooskies and say "diddly YOU; LEONID!.. GET YER toejam OUTTA THERE BEFORE WE GO IN AND TAKE IT!"
A key point of intrest... the North Vietnamese, all through Kissingers Peace Farce in Paris (several years worth of this) remain intractable... Nixon, finally pissed and facing another election.. and with an electorate that WILL toss him if he doesn't end it, cuts loose with a major all out round of bombing raids. The gloves came off. Instead of truck parks and dirt road junctions the Navy got bridges, damns and the Haiphong marshalling yards for targets and the Air Force got to unleash the B-52's and carpet bomb something besides uninhabited jungle. 2 weeks later a peace deal got signed.
Henh. Shoulda done THAT non stop for 6 months EIGHT FREAKIN YEARS previously.
Anyway, you asked, and that, as far as my scotch sodden mind in in a dozen paragraphs can recall; is how Johnson lost us Vietnam and Nixon sold us out.
