A CONTROVERSIAL QUESTION

Since the early 2000s quotes attributed to Gen. Vo Nguyen Giap, North Vietnam’s top commander for most of the war, have been circulating online as evidence that North Vietnam would have surrendered if the United States had applied just a bit more military pressure.

In one version, that the United States had been on the verge of defeating North Vietnam after the 1968 Tet Offensive. In the second version, the quote relates to the intense U.S. B-52 bombing campaign in December 1972 during Operation Linebacker II, which struck Hanoi and Haiphong. The alleged quote is something along these lines: “What we still don’t understand is why you Americans stopped the bombing of Hanoi. You had us on the ropes. If you had pressed us a little harder, just for another day or two, we were ready to surrender.”