‘Like walking on missiles’: US airman recalls the horror of the Vietnam ‘Christmas bombings’ 50 years on

Brad Lendon

Published 7:09 PM EST, Sat December 17, 2022

cnn.com

CNN —

It was one of the heaviest bombardments in history. A shock-and-awe campaign of overwhelming air power aimed at bombing into submission a determined opponent that, despite being vastly outgunned, had withstood everything the world’s most formidable war machine could throw at it.

Operation Linebacker II saw more than 200 American B-52 bombers fly 730 sorties and drop over 20,000 tons of bombs on North Vietnam over a period of 12 days in December 1972, in a brutal assault aimed at shaking the Vietnamese “to their core,” in the words of then US national security adviser Henry Kissinger.

“They’re going to be so god damned surprised,” US President Richard Nixon replied to Kissinger on December 17, the eve of the mission.

In what would become known as “the Christmas bombings” in America and “the 11 days and nights” in Vietnam (no bombing took place on Christmas day), swathes of Hanoi were obliterated.

An estimated 1,600 Vietnamese were killed amid some of the most harrowing scenes of the conflict, in an operation likened by some to the Hamburg raids of World War II for the sheer scale of the destruction and civilian death toll.

The devastating losses were not all one way. At the same time, the United States Air Force sustained losses that today would seem unfathomable. Fifteen B-52s – the pride of America’s fleet – were shot down, six in one day alone, and 33 airmen lost.

Tragically, some believe all these deaths were largely in vain, with historians to this day debating the extent of the operation’s influence on the wider conflict.

In the aftermath of the operation, both sides claimed to have come out on top – Washington claiming it brought the Vietnamese back to the table for peace talks and Hanoi painting it as a heroic act of resistance in which it took everything its foe had and still remained standing.

But if the fog of war made it hard to judge those claims, half a century on it has done little to dim the memories of the the US airmen who can still recall flying through the North Vietnamese air defenses.

“It almost felt like you could walk across the tips of those missiles in the sky there were so many fired at you,” recalled one retired US airman.

The flak was so bright, he said, you could “read a newspaper in the cockpit.”

The airman, interviewed by CNN to mark the 50th anniversary of the “Christmas bombings,” recalled a mood at his base that was anything but festive.

To give the the best cover possible, the bombing missions were conducted at night, with the B-52s flying out of U Tapao, Thailand, and Andersen Air Force Base, Guam. Because those that made it back to base would land in darkness, the crews would not realize until breakfast the next day who among their colleagues had failed to return.

“You’d see the trailer next to yours with doors open on both ends and airmen loading (the occupant’s) personal belongings into a trunk to be shipped back to their families, so you knew that crew didn’t make it,” said Wayne Wallingford, an electronic warfare officer based in U Tapao who flew on seven of the 11 raids B-52s undertook over Hanoi.

“It was pretty sobering to see that.”

Over the 12-day period that grim ritual was performed 33 times.

But while the US Air Force’s losses were unprecedented, so too was the carnage caused by the B-52s.

“The resulting physical destruction was staggering: 1,600 military installations, miles of railway lines, hundreds of trucks and railway cars, eighty percent of electrical power plants, and countless factories and other structures were taken out of commission,” wrote Vietnam War historian Pierre Asselin in his 2018 book, “Vietnam’s American War: A History.”

“The Linebacker bombings crippled the North’s vital organs, obliterating the results of its communist transformation, and its ability to sustain the war in the South by extension,” Asselin wrote.

Such was the devastation that one Soviet diplomat warned that North Vietnam faced becoming “a wasteland.”

The human cost on the ground was almost indescribable.

Duong Van Mai Elliott, a Pulitzer Prize finalist for her novel recounting her family’s experience, “Sacred Willow: Four Generations in the Life of a Vietnamese Family,” said the Christmas bombings were her relatives’ most frightening experience of the whole war.

“The buildings shook,” Elliott said. “They thought they were going to die.”

“Those who survived told me when they went out to look, they found dead bodies lying around,” she said. “To this day, they can still smell the rotting bodies.”

In one area of Hanoi, Kham Thien, 287 people were killed in one night alone – mostly women, children and elderly – and 2,000 buildings destroyed by US bombs, according to the Vietnamese newspaper, VN Express International.

An Agence France Presse journalist, who visited Kham Thien shortly after the US bombing, described a scene of “mass ruins … desolation and mourning.”

“On Kham Thien some houses still stand, but many of these are without roofs or windows. Dozens of craters, some 12 yards in diameter and three yards deep, pockmark the area,” Jean Leclerc du Sablon wrote in a dispatch that appeared in The New York Times on December 29, 1972.

One survivor in particular caught his eye.

“On a pile of ruins, an old woman held her hands to her face and chanted hauntingly, in near religious tone: ‘Oh, my son, where are you now? May I find you to bury you. Americans, how savage you are.’”

The driving force behind the Christmas bombings was a recently reelected President Richard Nixon, who was keen to wrap up America’s involvement in an unpopular war before the beginning of his second term in January.

Nixon had been reelected just over a month earlier on a promise to attain “peace with honor” in Vietnam – where the US had been fighting since 1965 – and was stung when talks with North Vietnam suddenly fell through.

He warned Hanoi it would face consequences if it did not return to the negotiating table in good faith and ordered Linebacker II even as a new set of demands were being sent to the North Vietnamese.

The Air Force’s reaction was swift; on December 18, 129 B-52s took off from Guam and Thailand, destination North Vietnam.

What was that awaiting the world’s most formidable bombers were the world’s most formidable air defenses.

At the time, the B-52 bomber was the gold standard of aerial firepower.

The eight-engine Stratofortress, some of which could carry more than 80,000 pounds of ordnance, first flew in 1954 and was designed to be an intercontinental bomber that could deliver nuclear payloads anywhere in the world.

Alongside intercontinental ballistic missiles and ballistic missile submarines, it formed one prong of the nuclear triad America hoped would deter any possible atomic war with the Soviet Union.

But in the 1960s it began to take on more conventional bombing missions as the US enlisted its help in its struggle against Soviet-supported communist expansion in Indochina.

The B-52s were able to fly higher than the naked eye could see, making its attacks both physically and psychologically devastating as its massive payloads would arrive seemingly from nowhere.

“(Nixon) wanted maximum psychological impact on the North Vietnamese, and the B-52 was airpower’s best tool for the job,” historian T.W. Beagle wrote in a 2001 report for the US Air Force’s Air University Press.

Still, as formidable as the B-52s were, the tactics they employed hadn’t changed much since World War II.

And for some of their crews, that would prove fatal.

North Vietnam’s air defenses were backed by Soviet-made SA-2 antiaircraft missiles, capable of shooting a 288-pound warhead to altitudes of 60,000 feet at more than three times the speed of sound.

US aircrew said they looked like telephone poles with lights and would illuminate the entire night sky.

On the first night of Linebacker II, North Vietnam fired 200 of them at the attacking US bombers and at least five of those missiles found their targets.

Three B-52 were brought down, and two others were damaged.

As if that were not daunting enough, the crews back at U Tapao were left in no doubt that more casualties were expected.

Etched into Wallingford’s memory are the words of a general that day.

“He said, ‘Well, we thought we were going to lose a lot more of you than we did,’” Wallingford said. “That wasn’t a very motivational speech.”

The disastrous first day of the B-52s might have hit morale in U Tapao and Guam, but it had the opposite effect in Hanoi.

“We all feared the B-52 at first because the US said it was invincible,” Nguyen Van Phiet, a North Vietnamese missile gunner credited with downing four B-52s during Linebacker, told Smithsonian magazine in 2014. “But after the first night, we knew the B-52 could be destroyed just like any other aircraft.”

On the second night, the B-52s fared better with only two damaged out of 93 flying and none lost.

But by night three, the North Vietnamese gunners had seen the US playbook and knew it as well as their US opponents.

The bombers would fly in long columns over predetermined tracks and after releasing their payloads would make banked turns to head home – at which point their electronic jamming equipment (meant to thwart antiaircraft batteries) would be facing skyward, leaving them vulnerable.

“We were told for the last two minutes of the bomb run to stay straight and level which means you are a sitting target,” Wallingford said.

Opening the doors to the bomber’s cavernous bomb bay increased its radar signature even further, he said. “It’s kind of a losing proposition.”

Taken together, this meant the raids were “so predictable that any enemy would be able to knock you down kind of like the arcade at the carnival,” Ron Bartlett, another B-52 electronic warfare officer, told a Distinguished Flying Cross Society podcast.

On night three, six B-52s crashed to the ground.

Those losses did not go down well with the American public or Nixon, who “raised holy hell” about the bombers taking the same routes every night and who feared the heavy loss of America’s mightiest warplanes would “create the antithesis of the psychological impact (he) desired,” according to Beagle.

From the following night, the bombers were told to approach their targets from varied altitudes and directions; and not to fly single file or over targets they’d just hit.

Over the final seven days of bombing, only six more B-52s were shot down.

At some point after day eight of the bombings, North Vietnam informed the US it was ready to resume peace talks in Paris.

This justified the operation, Nixon claimed. But many experts have since suggested this would have happened anyway and that a more patient Nixon could have avoided the horror and bloodshed on both sides.

They say that by late 1972 Hanoi’s war effort was already on shaky ground. Resources were low, and it would not have been able to sustain its war effort much longer.

“By the time of Linebacker II, the North Vietnamese were prepared to meet the demands outlined in Paris to get the United States out of the war,” wrote Brian Laslie, command historian at the US Air Force Academy, in his 2021 book “Air Power’s Lost Cause.”

Asselin, meanwhile, believes the North Vietnamese Politburo agreed on December 18, just hours before the bombing began, to let Washington know they would return to the peace talks.

“Unfortunately, before it could relay its decision to the White House, it was already too late; Nixon had reached the end of his tether. At 8 p.m., Hanoi time, that same day, the United States commenced its most savage bombing of the North to date,” Asselin wrote.

What is not in dispute is that the Paris Peace Talks resumed on January 8, 1973, and an accord was signed on January 27 that ushered in the beginning of the end to US involvement in the war.

It was signed not only by the US and North Vietnam, but also by the South Vietnamese who had been convinced by Linebacker that, “if North Vietnam attacked again the US would return to bombing Hanoi,” said Peter Layton, a fellow at the Griffith Asia Institute in Australia and a former Royal Australian Air Force officer.

With the accord behind them, both Washington and Hanoi then claimed themselves the victors of Operation Linebacker II.

Airman Wallingford and others are emphatic about a US victory.

“It was the operation that ended the Vietnam conflict and that freed our 591 POWs,” he said. (Those American prisoners of war were released in February and March after the accords were signed.)

But even in America, some had their doubts.

Robert Hopkins, a former US Air Force pilot, cautioned against falling into the “Linebacker II was a success trap,” saying that for the B-52 pilots it “deeply hurt morale for years to come.”

There was a more immediate problem, too.

Three years on, with the Communist forces largely replenished and US forces largely out of Vietnam, Hanoi launched the large scale invasion of the South that led to the fall of Saigon on April 30, 1975.

“Linebacker II ended the American phase of the war, but its impact only lasted three years. Linebacker II did not bring lasting peace,” Layton said.

In Hanoi, “the story of the events of late December 1972 was a tale, not of massive loss and destruction, but of heroic resistance by Northerners,” wrote the historian Asselin.

“In fact, the toll on the US forces had been such that it had forced Nixon to beg Hanoi to resume the peace talks, and to unilaterally and unconditionally end the bombing,” he wrote.

Or as Kissinger, the US national security adviser of the time, was reported to have said:

“We bombed the North Vietnamese into accepting our concessions.”

From: Dan Tsang <dtsang@uci.edu>

Sent: Saturday, December 17, 2022 9:09 PM

To: vsg (vsg@u.washington.edu) <vsg@u.washington.edu>

Subject: [Vsg] CNN remembers horrors of Christmas bombing 1972

With VSG members quoted, despite headline focus on US airmen.

https://www.cnn.com/2022/12/17/asia/operation-linebacker-ii-50th-anniversary-intl-hnk-ml-dst/index.html

‘Like walking on missiles’: US airman recalls the horror of the Vietnam ‘Christmas bombings’ 50 years on

Daniel C. Tsang

Distinguished Librarian Emeritus, University of

California, Irvine, 2016-

Visiting Scholar, Chinese University of Hong

Kong, 2019-20

Honorary Research Fellow 2017-19, Social

Sciences, University of Hong Kong

Fulbright Research Scholar 2017-18, Chinese

University of Hong Kong

Fulbright Research Scholar 2003-04, Institute of

Sociology, Hanoi, Vietnam

Twitter: @DanSubv

Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/kuci-subversity/id307838691

From: Shawn McHale <mchale@gwu.edu>

Sent: Sunday, December 18, 2022 8:53 AM

To: Dan Tsang <dtsang@uci.edu>

Cc: vsg (vsg@u.washington.edu) <vsg@u.washington.edu>

Subject: Re: [Vsg] CNN remembers horrors of Christmas bombing 1972

Dear list:

What's sad is that so many years after this event, journalists in the United States still focus on those who flew in the bombers, and not those who lost their lives, or suffered, or endured, in Hanoi. Some of you may have known Professor Trần Quốc Vượng, a leading historian. His home was destroyed in the 1972 bombing. There were many stories like this. And of course the Bạch Mai Hospital was bombed, killing 28 doctors, nurses, and patients. There's no shortage of articles from Vietnam capturing the Vietnamese side of the story.

Here are two. This one shows the resilience of many of those left behind:

http://baodongnai.com.vn/phongsukysu/201212/ky-niem-40-nam-chien-thang-ha-noi-dien-bien-phu-tren-khong-12-1972-12-2012-thu-do-cua-pham-gia-con-nguoi-2209070/

Here's another reportage, with a bunch of what happened at the Bạch Mai hospital:

http://baodongnai.com.vn/phongsukysu/201212/ky-niem-40-nam-chien-thang-ha-noi-dien-bien-phu-tren-khong-12-1972-12-2012-thu-do-cua-pham-gia-con-nguoi-2209070/

Shawn McHale

George Washington University

From: billhayton <bill@billhayton.com>

Sent: Sunday, December 18, 2022 9:20 AM

To: Shawn McHale <mchale@gwu.edu>

Cc: VSG <vsg@u.washington.edu>

Subject: Re: [Vsg] CNN remembers horrors of Christmas bombing 1972

Dear Shawn,

You’re right, of course. But that’s in considerable part because there are so few foreign journalists based in Vietnam. The author of the CNN story, Brad Lendon, is described as "the Senior Global Military Affairs Writer for CNN Digital Worldwide, based in Seoul, South Korea."

There are barely any foreign journalists based in Hanoi - particularly compared to the numbers in Seoul, Bangkok, Singapore, or most Asian capitals. And that’s because the CPV is so controlling. Vietnamese laws have no space for freelance journalists - everyone has to be registered to a news organisation (at least in theory) and foreign news organisations have to go through cumbersome registration processes and comply with rules that are applied arbitrarily. As a result they don’t bother. Instead we get stories about Vietnam written by journalists who aren’t based in Vietnam.

But I think that the CPV actually prefers it that way.

Bill Hayton

occasional-journalist

From: greg nagle <gnagle2000@yahoo.com>

Sent: Sunday, December 18, 2022 10:07 AM

To: Shawn McHale <mchale@gwu.edu>; billhayton <bill@billhayton.com>

Cc: VSG <vsg@u.washington.edu>

Subject: Re: [Vsg] CNN remembers horrors of Christmas bombing 1972

Despite the title the article does talk a lot about the Vietnamese.

But as most often the case, I see no clear answer to my questions about the impact of the bombing on the negotiatians.

Different views on that.

Greg Nagle

PhD Forest and watershed science

Cornell University

Hanoi, Vietnam

From: billhayton <bill@billhayton.com>

Sent: Sunday, December 18, 2022 10:25 AM

To: greg nagle <gnagle2000@yahoo.com>

Cc: VSG <vsg@u.washington.edu>

Subject: Re: [Vsg] CNN remembers horrors of Christmas bombing 1972

On that point, Skip Isaacs (journalist in Vietnam from 1972 to 1975) has recently written this:

https://www.salon.com/2022/12/11/the-christmas-bombing-of-1972--and-why-that-misremembered-vietnam-moment-matters/

On another listserv he said "This piece seeks to counter a very widespread false representation of that event, claiming that US air power was decisive in reaching the Paris peace agreement and ending (sort of) the U.S. war. As the piece points out, that provably untrue but pervasive mythical history has been consistently used to reinforce a dangerous faith in air power that still influences U.S. strategic policy today,”

Bill

From: greg nagle <gnagle2000@yahoo.com>

Sent: Sunday, December 18, 2022 10:37 AM

To: billhayton <bill@billhayton.com>

Cc: VSG <vsg@u.washington.edu>

Subject: Re: [Vsg] CNN remembers horrors of Christmas bombing 1972

Here is what the article says about the damage. I do not know if this is overstated,

Also important to note that after the US changed its tactics for the final leg of the bombing runs, B 52 losses dropped sharply.

But while the US Air Force’s losses were unprecedented, so too was the carnage caused by the B-52s.

“The resulting physical destruction was staggering: 1,600 military installations, miles of railway lines, hundreds of trucks and railway cars, eighty percent of electrical power plants, and countless factories and other structures were taken out of commission,” wrote Vietnam War historian Pierre Asselin in his 2018 book, “Vietnam’s American War: A History.”

“The Linebacker bombings crippled the North’s vital organs, obliterating the results of its communist transformation, and its ability to sustain the war in the South by extension,” Asselin wrote.

Such was the devastation that one Soviet diplomat warned that North Vietnam faced becoming “a wasteland.”

Greg Nagle

PhD Forest and watershed science

Cornell University

Hanoi, Vietnam

From: Tan Pham <nxb315kio@gmail.com>

Sent: Sunday, December 18, 2022 7:48 PM

To: greg nagle <gnagle2000@yahoo.com>

Cc: VSG <vsg@u.washington.edu>

Subject: Re: [Vsg] CNN remembers horrors of Christmas bombing 1972

Hi Greg,

It'd be interesting to find the original texts of two documents that ARNOLD R. ISAACS referred to in his article where he wrote :

Comparing the two documents shows in plain black and white that the December bombing did not change Hanoi's position. The North Vietnamese conceded nothing in the final agreement that they had not already conceded in the earlier round, before the bombing. Aside from a few minor procedural changes and a handful of cosmetic revisions in wording, the October and January texts are for practical purposes identical, making it obvious that the bombing did not change Hanoi's decisions in any meaningful way.

However, agreeing to the October article did not necessarily mean being ready to sign it in October.

Kind regards,

Tan Pham

Author of a book series on Vietnamese history: A Traveller’s Story of Vietnam’s Past.

Volume One: The Bronze Drums and The Earrings.

Volume Two: One Thousand Years - The Stories of Giao Châu, the Kingdoms of Linyi, Funan and Zhenla.

From: billhayton <bill@billhayton.com>

Sent: Monday, December 19, 2022 1:13 AM

To: Tan Pham <nxb315kio@gmail.com>

Cc: VSG <vsg@u.washington.edu>

Subject: Re: [Vsg] CNN remembers horrors of Christmas bombing 1972

Pierre Asselin’s book argues that the fact that the document did not change shows that the bombing had an effect.

On p200 he writes that the DRV leadership objected to US wording of the peace agreement that “could be interpreted to mean the partition line between the two Vietnams was a political boundary, not a provisional demarcation”. The DRV refused to agree. Then came the bombing - after which the DRV agreed to sign.

https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=IJNADwAAQBAJ&newbks=1&newbks_redir=0&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false

Bill

From: Pierre Asselin <passelin@sdsu.edu>

Sent: Monday, December 19, 2022 7:14 AM

To: billhayton <bill@billhayton.com>

Cc: VSG <vsg@u.washington.edu>

Subject: Re: [Vsg] CNN remembers horrors of Christmas bombing 1972

Dear Bill/All:

The October and December versions of the Paris Agreement are substantively but not substantially different. Most "experts" focus on the latter instead of the former, and thus repeat the standard, ludicrous claim that the events of December 1972 changed nothing. They changed a lot, for both sides, as recent scholarship based on evidence from the United States, including FRUS volumes, and both Vietnams shows. But this is the Vietnam War. People aren't interested in learning anything new about it, especially if it challenges their perspectives and ideological proclivities; they're just constantly looking for information that validates their own, intractable points of view. Tragically, the established authorities in Hanoi are not the only ones to obstinately cling to self-serving, archaic interpretations of the history of the war.

As I tell my students, be open to questioning everything you believe and hold dearly -- except for the fact that Santa is real, of course.

All my best,

Pierre

Pierre Asselin

Professor of History - Dwight E. Stanford Chair in US Foreign Relations

San Diego State University

History Department

5500 Campanile Dr.

San Diego, CA 92182-6050

From: greg nagle <gnagle2000@yahoo.com>

Sent: Monday, December 19, 2022 8:02 AM

To: billhayton <bill@billhayton.com>; Pierre Asselin <passelin@sdsu.edu>

Cc: VSG <vsg@u.washington.edu>

Subject: Re: [Vsg] CNN remembers horrors of Christmas bombing 1972

Pierre,

Can you be more specific please.

What changed in the North Vietnamese and US negotiating position after the Christmas bombing?

Not having your books on hand at the moment, I cannot look this up,

Much to the irritation of some long term friends, I am usually much interested in examining new perspectives.

Thanks

Greg

Greg Nagle

PhD Forest and watershed science

Cornell University

Hanoi, Vietnam

From: Tom Wilber <tom.wilber@me.com>

Sent: Monday, December 19, 2022 9:43 AM

To: Pierre Asselin <passelin@sdsu.edu>

Cc: VSG <vsg@u.washington.edu>

Subject: Re: [Vsg] CNN remembers horrors of Christmas bombing 1972

Pierre and All,

Quoting Pierre with respect to the Vietnam war: "People aren't interested in learning anything new about it, especially if it challenges their perspectives and ideological proclivities; they're just constantly looking for information that validates their own, intractable points of view.”

Last week in Hanoi I attended the opening ceremony of a special exhibition at Hanoi’s Hoa Lo prison museum for the 50th anniversary of Dien Bien Phu in the Air - as I did for the 45th in 2017. The article at the beginning of this thread tells the narrative from the perspective of a US airman ("bomb-ers" point of view) who recalls the horror of the Vietnam ‘Christmas bombings’ 50 years on. The exhibit in Hoa Lo (and several other venues in Hanoi right now) convey the stories of the “bomb-ees”. Interesting to note that some of the POWs on the ground in Hanoi at the time worried that they too would be victims of the onslaught.

I think a day to celebrate is next week, the 50th anniversary of the cessation — for whatever reason — of Linebacker II. I’ll celebrate it in Hanoi, and enjoy the silence.

Tom

Tom Wilber

co-author with Jerry Lembcke, Dissenting POWs: From Vietnam’s Hoa Lo Prison to America Today

From: Michael Dedrick <mikededrick@comcast.net>

Sent: Monday, December 19, 2022 4:09 PM

To: vsg@u.washington.edu; vsg-request@mailman11.u.washington.edu

Subject: [Vsg] Re Christmas bombing

> On 12/19/2022 3:40 PM Michael Dedrick <mikededrick@comcast.net> wrote:

>

>

> RE Christmas bombing chatter

>

> As a soldier vin the American army in 1968 I saw up close the destructive damage caused by US bombing, with the resulting huge civilian casualty toll. But as an Order of Battle interrogator I was reminded daily of the tenacity, determination and competence of the mostly NLF POWs I encountered. I traveled back to Vietnam several times in the last few years and in a remarkable confluence of luck and opportunity was able to meet and interview eight former Biet Dong/NLF soldiers which were eventually published in "Southern Voices Biet Dong and the National Liberation Front, University Kentucky Press 2022" a book published in Vietnamese and English.

> Those interviews reinforced the impressions I had from a year's worth of interrogating POWs in 1968: namely these soldiers, despite high casualty rates and hardships were not going to give up their revolutionary struggles.

> As far as ultimately winning the war Thomas Ahern, a former CIA

> operations officer, writes in his in his book Vietnam Declassified The Cia and Counterinsurgency 2010 UK Press:

> "It is clear now although obscured by American ideological perceptions, transitory GVN successes, and the communists own weaknesses, that the Viet Cong succeeded by exploiting the social and legacy of the colonial period. Only a collapse of communist will would have altered the outcome and that never faltered. The North Vietnamese tanks rolling into Saigon on 30 April 1975 sealed a victory that the Southern Insurgents had won more than a decade before."

> The history of the American and Vietnamese war is contained in the time capsule of the narratives in Southern Voices, stories that are not well known in the west and even not that well known in Vietnam itself. It is historically remiss that these stories are not more widely available.

> The idea that the Vietnamese would be forced to give up their long struggle against colonialism by yet more bombing is unsubstantiated by the historical record, and the academic debate about the XMass bombings is largely moot.

> Best

> Michael Dedrick

>

> For links to the book see:

>

> https://www.kentuckypress.com/9780813155951/southern-voices

> https://mekongreview.com/heroes-of-tet/

> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aSQyTS8Jk68

From: Cau Thai <cvthai75@gmail.com>

Sent: Tuesday, December 20, 2022 11:17 AM

To: Pierre Asselin <passelin@sdsu.edu>

Cc: VSG <vsg@u.washington.edu>

Subject: Re: [Vsg] CNN remembers horrors of Christmas bombing 1972

Dear Pierre and All,

On the Santa topic, I was a skeptic until I heard this song:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O89sPooBhyE

On the 1972 Christmas bombing and 1973 Paris Agreement, the following is my $0.02:

In his address on 4/21/69, Secretary of State William Rogers brought up the US proposals to end the Vietnam War, starting with "a withdrawal of the North Vietnamese and American armed forces simultaneously". (See "Viet-Nam in Perspective; An Address by William P. Rogers", 1969, pp. 7-8)

Le Duan sent Le Duc Tho to Paris for talks with the Americans with an instruction: "stand firm on two non-negotiable items: the staying of the North Vietnamese armed forces in South Vietnam, and the withdrawal of American armed forces." (See the 2016 interview of Le Duan's son, General Le Kien Trung)

While Washington and Hanoi agreed on the October version of the Paris Agreement, it was not acceptable by Saigon. Nguyen Van Thieu's continuing objection to the staying of the North Vietnamese armed forces in the South was reflected in at least three letters, from Nixon to Thieu, dated 11/08/72, 11/15/72, and 01/05/73 respectively. In his letters, Nixon made clear of two points: 1. An assurance of the US continued assistance and a response "with full force should the settlement be violated by North Vietnam", after pledging that the US would bring up the withdrawal of the North Vietnamese armed forces in future talks, 2. Thieu's refusal to join the US in signing the Agreement would lead to disaster, "to the loss of all that we together have fought for over the past decade". (See Nguyen Tien Hung's "Khi đồng minh tháo chạy" (When the ally runs away), 2005, pp. 529-548. Hung was Thieu's Special Assistant).

The fact that DRV did not back down on the troop withdrawal demand shows how limited the effectiveness of the 1972 Christmas bombing was on Hanoi.

Best,

Calvin Thai

Independent

From: Diane Fox <dnfox70@gmail.com>

Sent: Tuesday, December 20, 2022 3:51 PM

To: Tom Wilber <tom.wilber@me.com>

Cc: VSG <vsg@u.washington.edu>

Subject: Re: [Vsg] CNN remembers horrors of Christmas bombing 1972

Quick reply to the thought of people learning new things--I have found our students tremendously interested in different perspectives....and very engaged with what they were learning about the chemicals the US used during the war.

fwiw

Diane

(Diane Fox, anthro PhD, retired--writing

"The Aftermath of Agent Orange--Conversations in Post-War Viet Nam"

California)

From: Chau NGUYEN NGOC <yakiribocou@gmail.com>

Sent: Tuesday, December 20, 2022 4:28 PM

To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>

Subject: Re: [Vsg] CNN remembers horrors of Christmas bombing 1972 (Tam Phan)

The US had to convince both the South and the North to accept the treaty :

Kissinger had agreed with Lê Đức Thọ, who had given him, in early October 1972, a draft in Vietnamese « immediately translated into American by David Engel, who speaks Vietnamese as father and mother in all three tones, north, centre and south » 319. On 8th October, he proposed 31st October for the signing of the agreements.

The categorical refusal of President Nguyễn Văn Thiệu - who, with his team, raised 64 points of disagreement with Doctor Kissinger - was badly taken by the latter. He was particularly hostile to what was said which allowed the North Vietnamese forces to remain in the South after the cease-fire. To persuade him, Kissinger went so far as to use the most peculiar methods of persuasion.

Thus, Frank Snepp recounted, on page 41 323: « He [Kissinger] had learned that Hoàng Đức Nhã - Thiệu's cousin and the most uncompromising on the South Vietnamese side - was a ladies’ man, and he decided to adapt his game to the circumstances. Taking Nhã aside, he pulled a black notebook from his pocket, opened it to a page covered with names and addresses of American movie starlets, and offered to Nhã to make him meet the most interesting. On the condition that they become « friends ». Nhã answered by taking out an even larger address book. And he offered Kissinger the same service ». « To friends present on the plane bringing Kissinger back to Washington to see Nixon, the Dr told that he had been publicly humiliated and that the « gang of Sài Gòn » could « go to hell ». He admitted that he could not persuade Thiệu and his team in time for a signature on the date proposed by Lê Đức Thọ. The latter had been able to obtain by their undercover agents who had infiltrated the communists what had been negotiated secretly between Kissinger and Lê Đức Thọ and thus could stand up to him. Finally, Kissinger and Nixon organized a « huge supply airlift » to re-equip the ARVN. Nixon sent General Haig to Sài Gòn to put pressure on Thiệu, and at the same time to hand him a long personal letter, in which he said: « You have my absolute assurance that if Hà Nội does not respect the conditions of the agreement, I intend to retaliate immediately... ». At the same time as he put pressure on Thiệu through General Haig (cutting off all aid to South Việt Nam and signing a separate agreement with North Việt Nam), Nixon also used the bombing as a means to persuade Hà Nội, who was not in a rush to resume negotiations.

[319] Letters of 28th, 29th and 30th April 2013 by Nguyễn Xuân Phong, a former member of the delegation of the Republic of Vietnam, recounting the Paris Agreements and the fall of Sài Gỏn on 30th April 1975.

[323] Sauve qui peut (Indecent Interval), Frank Snepp, ed. Balland France Adel, 1979

Nguyễn Ngọc Châu (Author of two books on Viet Nam)

Visitez mon site https://sites.google.com/view/nguyenngocchau/accueil

From: Chau NGUYEN NGOC <yakiribocou@gmail.com>

Sent: Tuesday, December 20, 2022 5:31 PM

To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>

Subject: Re: [Vsg] CNN remembers horrors of Christmas bombing 1972 (Tam Phan)

Dear all,

I think that the December 1972 Ha Noi bombing was a message to both the South and the North.

To convince the South that the USA was a reliable ally in the event of a problem (which was

not true, see https://www.academia.edu/49095119/How_South_Vietnam_was_defeated) and to warn

the North of the seriousness of the Peace Treaty for the USA.

Nguyễn Ngọc Châu (author of two books on Viet Nam)

Visitez mon site https://sites.google.com/view/nguyenngocchau/accueil

From: greg nagle <gnagle2000@yahoo.com>

Sent: Wednesday, December 21, 2022 9:14 AM

To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>

Subject: Re: [Vsg] CNN remembers horrors of Christmas bombing 1972

Interesting exchange on an issue I have wondered about for years.

But once again, can anyone offer specific information on if and how the North Vietnamese negotiating position changed as a result of the bombing?.

The consensus from most here in VSG seems to be that they did not change.

Pierre mentioned that he addresses changes and the issue of the final treaty in detail in his book "Bitter Peace" .

I wish I had his book to read but not possible at the moment.

(But regardless of the specific treaty the North Vietnamese signed, they may have made other decisions on what to do next?. As mentioned in the first article posted, the B 52 losses dropped sharply to "just " one/day after a change in bombing tactics. Early in the campaign they lost 6 in one day.

I cannot find the title or an online link but Bao Ninh wrote a short story on that horror time during the Hanoi Xmas bombing , One of the best views I have seen,

Maybe we should move this over to a new discussion thread since the many responses may be hard for some to follow and navigate. Hence I used bold type here,

Bold type may be considered rude at times.

Greg

Greg Nagle

PhD Forest and watershed science

Cornell University

Hanoi, Vietnam

From: greg nagle <gnagle2000@yahoo.com>

Sent: Wednesday, December 21, 2022 3:17 PM

To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>

Subject: Re: [Vsg] CNN remembers horrors of Christmas bombing 1972

This reply is from Larry Berman.

Greg, I answer this in my book No Peace No Honor. The concession was on linking American POWs with civilian detainees. I’ve just reread the transcripts from January 9, all of which are in my book. It was Nixon’s birthday and Kissinger cabled him with the good news that he and LDT had finally ironed out the wording on political detainees in Vietnam. I can elaborate another time. For the North Vietnamese, Thieu remaining in power was now irrelevant. Best, Larry

https://larryberman.net/

From: Hiep Duc <Hiep.Duc@environment.nsw.gov.au>

Sent: Wednesday, December 21, 2022 3:45 PM

To: Chau NGUYEN NGOC <yakiribocou@gmail.com>; Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>

Subject: Re: [Vsg] CNN remembers horrors of Christmas bombing 1972

It is interesting to note that most foreign academics on Vietnam think of Vietnam during the war as North Vietnam. South Vietnam as a country and its people is completely ignored or non-existent.

This has consequences in understanding and perspectives of post-war Vietnam and its aftermaths. A balanced mindset will provide much more nuances in understanding Vietnam socio-economics condition before and after Doi Moi.

The book “Ben Thang Cuoc” by Huy Duc (Truong Huy San) is a step forward to correct this imbalance in understanding Vietnam.

Hiep

EPA, Sydney

From: Chau NGUYEN NGOC <yakiribocou@gmail.com>

Sent: Wednesday, December 21, 2022 5:29 PM

To: Hiep Duc <Hiep.Duc@environment.nsw.gov.au>; Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>

Subject: Re: [Vsg] CNN remembers horrors of Christmas bombing 1972

I agree with you Hiep. It is interesting to see how the foreign media, and specially the American, thought of South Viet Nam and its people during the war: I invite you to read my article which is an excerpt from my book (as well as what I wrote on this Hanoi bombing in december 1972) https://www.academia.edu/91222958/Viet_Nam_How_did_the_1968_T%E1%BA%BFt_Offensive_change_American_perceptions

Nguyễn Ngọc Châu

Visitez mon site https://sites.google.com/view/nguyenngocchau/accueil

From: Chau NGUYEN NGOC <yakiribocou@gmail.com>

Sent: Saturday, December 24, 2022 9:27 AM

To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>

Subject: [Vsg] the war for the foreign media and academics was between the USA and Norh VN, South VN was invisible,

I refer to the recent message of Hiep Duc (EPA Sydney):

« It is interesting to note that most foreign academics on Vietnam think of Vietnam during the war as North Vietnam. South Vietnam as a country and its people is completely ignored or non-existent … »

In the Preface of my book on the two wars (independence war (1858-1954) and ideological war (1945-1975), Pierre Brocheux wrote:

« L’apport nouveau de ce livre se trouve dans la seconde moitié de l’ouvrage : chapitre 11 à 18, p.261 à 428. Ces pages mettent fin à un non-dit de l’historiographie du Vietnam à savoir les tentatives d’édifier un État authentiquement vietnamien mais distinct, différent et opposé à celui qui fut proclamé le 2 septembre 1945 à Hanoi par les communistes vietnamiens sous le couvert de l’union nationale. Le déni des tentatives de fonder un autre Vietnam formulé dans le vocabulaire dominant des médias et de la propagande politique qui n’était pas limité au seul monde communiste a duré plusieurs années, au moins deux décennies.

Pour avoir été acteur et avoir participé au fonctionnement de l’état dit sudiste qui n’était ni fantôme ni fantoche ni valet, Nguyễn Ngọc Châu apporte une note personnelle. Cette histoire-témoignage étaye, sur plusieurs points, la vision d’un Sud Vietnam réel. Sachons gré à Châu de l’avoir fait.»

In English : « The new contribution of this book is in its second half: chapters 11 to 18, p.261 to 428. These pages put an end to an unspoken part of the historiography of Vietnam, namely the attempts to build an authentically Vietnamese state but distinct, different and opposed to that which was proclaimed on September 2, 1945, in Hanoi by the Vietnamese communists under the guise of national unity. The denial of attempts to found another Vietnam formulated in the dominant vocabulary of the media and political propaganda that was not limited to the communist world alone lasted for several years, at least two decades.

For having been an actor and having participated in the functioning of the so-called southern state which was neither ghost nor puppet nor valet, Nguyễn Ngọc Châu brings a personal note. This story-testimony supports, on several points, the vision of a real South Vietnam. We are grateful to Châu for having done so.»

For North Viet Nam, South Viet Nam was a ghost, a puppet, a valet of the USA. Most foreign media and academics shared this propaganda image. The US media in particular was not kind to South Viet Nam, a supposed ally of the Americans. I invite you to have a look at my article on this subject:

https://www.academia.edu/91222958/Viet_Nam_How_did_the_1968_T%E1%BA%BFt_Offensive_change_American_perceptions

Nguyễn Ngọc Châu

Visitez mon site https://sites.google.com/view/nguyenngocchau/accueil

From: Eric Henry <henryhme@bellsouth.net>

Sent: Saturday, December 24, 2022 12:30 PM

To: Chau NGUYEN NGOC <yakiribocou@gmail.com>

Cc: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>

Subject: Re: [Vsg] the war for the foreign media and academics was between the USA and Norh VN, South VN was invisible,

Mr. Nguyễn Ngọc Châu and others:

I find I agree totally with Mr. Hiệp Đức when he says that the Southern Republic in Vietnam (1954 – 1975) was “neither a ghost, nor a puppet, nor a valet.” The principal reason for this is that the rulers of the Southern Republic did not find it worth their while to interfere significantly with the work of novelists, essayists, and songwriters. Võ Phiến (1925 - 2015), cultural commentator, novelist, and literary historian, characterized the literature that arose under the southern Vietnamese republic as follows: “In the Vietnam of 1954 to 1975, a totally different type of literature arose. Gay and sharp laughter spread freely over books and journals, laughter that attacked mistaken deeds and perverse policies, and made fun of elements guilty of unworthy behavior. …The objects of attack were provincial or national leaders and power brokers. The sound of laughter ran freely and noisily across all books and journals. At the same time, every view of human life, every faith, both fine and deluded, both noble and crazed, existed as well; one could seek to understand, expound, and promulgate these beliefs, just as one pleased. At no time before or after 1954 – 1975 in the South can one find any literary tradition in our country that developed in such a free and open manner.” What Võ Phiến says of literature in this passage applies equally well to music. The musical culture of the South in this period was by a long shot more varied and more distinguished than that of the North. It would be polite of me to say, I suppose, that this view is merely my opinion, but it seems to me that this way of characterizing the culture of the South is supported by mountains of concrete fact.

Best wishes to all,

Eric Henry

Senior Lecturer (retired)

Univ. of North Carolina – Chapel Hill

Le sam. 24 déc. 2022 à 22:29, Hue-Tam Tai <huetamtai@gmail.com> a écrit :

Dear anh Chau et al,

I agree with much of Hiep Duc and Pierre Brocheux wrote. In much of American reporting and analysis, South Vietnam was either invisible or a corrupt puppet of the US. But for all the flaws of South Vietnamese politics, it was freer and had a more vibrant culture than the North. To be sure, there was censorship but, as far as I know, writers were not jailed. Indeed, some prominent writers belonged to NLF front organizations. While Nguyen Cao Ky criticized what he considered the maudlin character.of popular music, love songs rather than martial tunes continued to dominate the airwaves.

in Olga Dror comparison of northern and southern educational systems before 1975,

North Vietnam trained its youth for wartime mobilization ( which emphasized collective discipline) while the South trained young people for a peacetime market society where individual initiative was important.

I wrote elsewhere many years ago that the North won the war but the soouth won the peace. Alas, what Vietnam has now is a society that is reminiscent of pre-1975 South Vietnam but with the latter's flaws magnified by the authoritarian one party system.

Hue Tam Ho Tai

Harvard University emerita

From: Chau NGUYEN NGOC <yakiribocou@gmail.com>

Sent: Saturday, December 24, 2022 2:47 PM

To: Hue-Tam Tai <huetamtai@gmail.com>; Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>; henryhme@bellsouth.net

Subject: Re: [Vsg] the war for the foreign media and academics was between the USA and Norh VN, South VN was invisible,

Dear all,

I'm happy that you share my point of view, which is the same as Hiep Duc's (you know that I came back to South Viet Nam to work until the fall of Sai Gon. (30/04/1975) - https://www.academia.edu/49003692/A_war_that_could_not_be_won_militarily_the_Kh%E1%BB%91i_Kinh_T%E1%BA%BF_T%C3%A0i_Ch%C3%A1nh_Economy_and_Finance_Block_).

Historian Pierre Brocheux didn't say other things when he wrote my book's Preface. During this war, he was one of those who were convinced by communist propaganda.

The Communist Russians and Chinese were much more subtle in helping North Viet Nam. They kept a low profile and never spoke loudly on behalf of their North Viet Nam protégé. The latter spoke for itself and appeared as an independent state.

Nguyen Ngoc Chau ( author of two books on Viet Nam)

Visitez mon site https://sites.google.com/view/nguyenngocchau/accueil

From: Hiep Duc <Hiep.Duc@environment.nsw.gov.au>

Sent: Sunday, December 25, 2022 12:27 AM

To: Eric Henry <henryhme@bellsouth.net>

Cc: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>

Subject: Re: [Vsg] the war for the foreign media and academics was between the USA and Norh VN, South VN was invisible,

Dear Eric and all,

The title of your message is what I mentioned in the previous post based on my observation on academics (mainly from Europe and US) working on Vietnamese studies. And I agree with what you write on the invisibility of South Vietnam.

But the issue is broader than that. It is also about the “community” of researchers seeking truth or understanding of nature as described in the classic “The structure of scientific revolutions” by Thomas Kuhn. They follow a paradigm or a set of accepted theory and idea. This community perpetuates itself in this paradigm by accepting researchers with same idea, employing those who follow the same method of research and rejecting those not in the same mould. Until a new idea or better method of research suddenly emerges and the whole paradigm is shifted and a new community is again formed with different ‘culture’ and etc… That is the philosophical framework or structure of science progress as described by Kuhn. For an outside observer, attending a conference organised by that community, would see the same method, behaviour or even similar humour esconded within that cultural paradigm. Kuhn theoretical framework of progress was followed by Karl Popper falsification approach and verisimilitude idea of progress gradually toward the ‘truth’ to guide the researchers. “Against method” by Paul Feyerabend even rejects using method to find the truth until post-modernism radically rejected the notion of truth itself. “Truth” is relative. All narratives are correct.

This gives the background of what I observed by

referring back to the narratives taken up by researchers on Vietnam regarding the war. These narratives are often but not restricted to the following

- imperialism (chủ nghĩa đế quốc thực dân) - national struggle and liberation ( tranh đấu giải phóng dân tộc)

- Democracy (dân chủ) - communism and authoritarianism (cộng sản và toàn trị)

- capitalism (tư bản) - socialism (chủ nghĩa xã hội)

- western - eastern (phương Tây- Đông)

- civil war north - south ( nội chiến Bắc Nam)

- patriotism (yêu nước) - reactionary (phản động)

- freedom (tự do) - dictatorship (độc tài)

- militarism (quân phiệt) - civility (dân sự)

- Humanism - war crime

….

The judgment is that one is bad and the other good.

Each of these narratives can explain the nature of the war or events in Vietnam and is ‘correct’ for some circumstances but may not be right when projected to different circumstances. People can have a particular narrative based on their own experiences or beliefs. A strong conviction on a particular narrative or related narratives is usually the case. The ‘truth’ is more complex and multi-dimensional and nature is not simple to model.

For a person with a strong conviction, a new event would be fitted into the narrative that one holds. For an inquisitive mind with no conviction, the event would be evaluated with different narratives until one is most suitable or even created a new narrative for it. Even with this most probable narrative, one should always be guarded or in doubt less we can be fallible as Cromwell rule which is based on Oliver Cromwell (Lord Protector of England) letter to the general assembly of the Church of Scotland (3 August 1650)

“Is it therefore infallibly agreeable to the Word of God, all that you say? I beseech you, in the bowels of Christ, think it possible you may be mistaken.”

Always question and open as you may be fallible!

This principle is called Cromwell conjecture or Cromwell rule in science

“Nothing is certain”

(For me, it is similar to buddhist tenet: nothing is permanent)

In statistical science, such as Bayesian statistics, Cromwell conjecture is gaining tractor and is rephrased as “ There is no such thing as probability of absolute 0 or 1”.

It is ironic that Cromwell who had a strong conviction on Protestant faith but his namesake conjecture is bearing his name proposing that you should have no conviction in order to best deal with new event or situation.

In summary, personally when I was young I had a conviction on one way or another but when I get older and find that human progress to grasp nature is less tenable as uncertainty is still omnipresent and in even the most remarkable scientific achievement in my field. This is mirrored in theoretical study of structure of research and scientific community behaviour. And in some branches of science, at least the Cromwell conjecture is acknowledged. Human evolution probably dictated that human should stick to determinism in the face of nature randomness for the species to survive. To behave otherwise, nature will thwart it to keep its secret, it seems.

Hiep Duc Nguyen , PhD

Principal scientist

Department of Planning and Environment, NSW

Australia

From: Tan Pham <nxb315kio@gmail.com>

Sent: Monday, December 26, 2022 6:06 PM

To: Chau NGUYEN NGOC <yakiribocou@gmail.com>

Cc: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>

Subject: Re: [Vsg] CNN remembers horrors of Christmas bombing 1972

Hello List

This is how the Vietnamese newspaper reported the event.

https://vnexpress.net/interactive/2022/cuoc-doi-dau-khong-can-suc-tren-bau-troi-ha-noi-nam-1972-4551099

Kind regards,

Tan Pham

Author of a book series on Vietnamese history: A Traveller’s Story of Vietnam’s Past.

Volume One: The Bronze Drums and The Earrings.

From: Chau NGUYEN NGOC <yakiribocou@gmail.com>

Sent: Saturday, January 14, 2023 5:26 AM

To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>

Subject: Re: [Vsg] CNN remembers horrors of Christmas bombing 1972

Dear all, I invite you to have a look at this article from Frank Snepp which comforts my opinion on the subject expressed to you on Décember 22, 2022

https://franksneppexclusives.com/?p=548&fbclid=IwAR1scJtfrIvDRMAdUmWQdE1XNQN7VOGSk1RaGvEqJGxbm3oZwI-eUSLDTtI.

Nguyễn Ngọc Châu

Visitez mon site https://sites.google.com/view/nguyenngocchau/accueil

Accédez à mes articles sur le site academia.edu en allant à ce lien https://independent.academia.edu/ChauNGUYENNGOC2