A Vietnamese insider discusses the origins of the 1968 Tet Offensive – what is he trying to tell us?

The book ‘The winning side’, by Huy Duc, is revealing in two ways. First, it presents an account of how the historically crucial episode of the 1968 Tet offensive was, as an event seen as caused by decisions in Hanoi (clearly, these are proximate causes, as the historical context is far greater in scope), ‘decided upon’. Second, in that Huy Duc’s account tells us much about his views of how these decisions were taken, and their political milieu, it tells us how he presents his own views and thinking about that milieu.

REFERENCES:

• Elliott M., RAND in Southeast Asia. A History of the Vietnam War Era, Santa Monica 2010.
• Fforde A., The VCP Internal Policy and possible legacies of the VCP-CPSU relationship: some hypotheses, “Russian Journal of Vietnamese Studies” 2020.
• Huy Duc, Ben thang cuoc (The winners), vol. 1–2, New York 2012.
• Quinn-Judge S., Ho Chi Minh: The Missing Years, 1919–194, Berkeley 2002.
• UNHCR/refworld, 2017, Social media praised for role in ‘humane’ end to Vietnam farmer standoff , https://www.refworld.org/docid/5971a77910.html.
• Vu Anh Dao, Tien le tien la phat: Investigating the Persistence of Corruption in Vietnam, PhD Thesis, Victoria University of Wellington 2017.