Word: dienbienphu
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...Dienbienphu. During the week the President spoke, in person or by phone, with at least 100 Senators and Representatives. There was a two-hour breakfast meeting at the White House for congressional leaders. In a concentrated effort to line up bipartisan support, Johnson summoned Republican Leaders Everett Dirksen and Gerald Ford to a lengthy White House briefing and dispatched an aide to former President Eisenhower's winter home in Indian Wells, Calif. Diplomatic and military experts such as General Matthew Ridgway, Henry Cabot Lodge and Maxwell Taylor were asked for advice...
...rainbow display of his kaleidoscopic personality, Johnson was by turns wryly humorous, cautious, defensive, patriotic and pugnacious. "I don't want any damned Dienbienphu," he warned the Joint Chiefs of Staff during a White House discussion of Khe Sanh, cross-examining them at great length about the wisdom of defending the isolated outpost. In an extraordinary gesture, apparently designed to alert everyone to the gravity of the situation, Johnson then made each Chief sign a paper stating that he believed Khe Sanh could be defended...
Teak & Mahogany. Those U.S. analysts who believe that Khe Sanh will be attacked are convinced that Giap envisages it as a second Dienbienphu. He is out after a victory that would completely smash the will of the U.S. to continue a hard and dirty war of rising casualties and fitful overall progress in bringing South Viet Nam to where it can defend itself. Around Khe Sanh he has ringed 40,000 troops. Northward is grouped his 325C Division, to the south lies the 304. To the east lies the 324B and another division, and to the southeast there are elements...
Westmoreland has a worthy antagonist. Defense Minister Vo Nguyen Giap, victor over the French at Dienbienphu, is reliably reported to be personally directing the campaign against Khe Sanh. The Communist planning so far has all the earmarks of Giap's generalship: a combination of caution, feinting, meticulous preparation, and enormous concentrations of firepower and manpower. Giap's precise strategic aim at Khe Sanh is less clear. A North Vietnamese lieutenant who defected reported that Hanoi's goal was to wipe out U.S. forces in Viet Nam's northern provinces in order to provide a bargaining advantage...
...Rockpile Replies. Khe Sanh bears some topographical resemblance to Dienbienphu, sitting at the bottom of its bowl of hills, vulnerable to artillery and machine-gun fire from the heights both at the camp and its 4,000-ft. airstrip. Some of the hills are controlled by Marines. But others, like Hill 881 North, which the Marines took with such blood last May, were abandoned during the quiet months since and have been repossessed by the North Vietnamese. One Communist-held hill, numbered 950 (all are named after their height in meters), runs parallel to Khe Sanh's runway only...