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Thirty years ago, on 29 December, 1972, the last Linebacker II mission
was flown in NVN. After only 11 days of continuos firepower, with no off
limits targets except our POW locations, the NVN agreed to what is now
known as the "Paris Accords" on 23 January, 1973. Lyndon Johnson died
the day before on the 22nd

I had a good view of the action on the 29th, leading the last fighter
flight (9 Sandy A-7Ds, one Jolly Green HH-53, and one HC-130) out of
Route Pack VI. The other Jolly was shot down 14 miles from the SW edge
of "The City". We were able to get the damaged Jolly across the Black
River where it made an emergency landing an transferred all crew members
to the remaining Jolly.

A year later the Watergate affair castrated the executive branch of our
government; Nixon left, and the "V" violated the "Paris Accords" by
entering Saigon in April of '75 thereby demonstrating once again that
totalitarian regimes live by the sword, not the pen.

The piece next under picks up the story, and reflections, of NVN Colonel
Bui Tin who was in Saigon on the 30th of April, '75 to accept the
Unconditional Surrender of the SVN Government. I think it is important to
note that the "V" demanded the Unconditional Surrender of their foe,
while not being held to such a strict standard in Paris.

Since then, I have visited Hanoi and Saigon, as well as Korat -
Interesting stories, but for another day.

Now the "Vs" perception of the war:

In a recent interview published in The Wall Street Journal, former
Colonel
Bui Tin who served on the general staff of the North Vietnamese Amy and
received the unconditional surrender of South Vietnam on April 30,1975,
confirmed the American Tet 1968 military victory: "Our loses were
staggering
and a complete surprise. Giap later told me that Tet had been a military
defeat, though we had gained the planned political advantages when
Johnson
agreed to negotiate and did not run for reelection.

The second and third waves in May and September were, in retrospect,
mistakes. Our forces in the South were nearly wiped out by all the
fighting in 1968. It took us until 1971 to reestablish our presence, but
we had to use North Vietnamese troops as local guerrillas. If the
American forces had not
begun to withdraw under Nixon in 1969, they could have punished us
severely. We suffered badly in 969 and 1970 as it was."

On strategy: "If Johnson had granted Westmoreland's requests to enter
Laos
and block the Ho Chi Minh trail, Hanoi could not have won the war. It
was
the only way we could bring sufficient military power to bear on the
fighting in the South. Building and maintaining the trail was a huge
effort involving tens of thousands of soldiers, drivers, repair teams,
medical stations, communication units, etc. Our operations were never
compromised by attacks on the trail.
At times, accurate B-52 strikes would cause real damage, but we put so
much in at the top of the trail that enough men and weapons to prolong
the war always came out the bottom. If all the bombing had been
concentrated at
one time, it would have hurt our efforts. But the bombing was expanded in
slow stages under Johnson and it didn't worry us. We had plenty of time
to prepare alternative routes and facilities. We always had stockpiles of
rice
ready to feed the people for months if a harvest was damaged. The Soviets
bought rice from Thailand for us.

And the left: "Support for the war from our rear was completely secure
while the American rear was vulnerable. Every day our leadership would
listen to
world news over the radio at 9AM to follow the growth of the antiwar
movement. Visits to Hanoi by Jane Fonda and former Attorney General
Ramsey Clark and ministers gave us confidence that we should hold on in
the
face of battlefield reverses. We were elated when Jane Fonda, wearing a
red
Vietnamese dress, said at a press conference that she was ashamed of
American actions in the war and would struggle along with us ... those
people
represented the conscience of America ....part of it's war-making
capability, and we were turning that power in our favor."

Bui Tin went on to serve as the editor of the People's Daily, the
Official
newspaper of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam. Disillusioned with the
reality of Vietnamese communism Bui Tin now lives in Paris.