Haiphong

They had no industry, no industry in the north.

They were getting all their supplies from the Soviet Union and China through one port, Haiphong.

Johnson wouldn't close the port because he was afraid of insulting the Chinese and the Soviets.

So if he had fought a war, he- we could have won that and saved a lot of American lives.

I knew several of the other presidents.

I didn't know Johnson, but I knew all the people who were advising him.

And I knew the general who went in to, to brief him on the strategy at the beginning of the war where we were gonna go by amphibious landings, cut the North Vietnamese off at the top and, and close Haiphong.

And President Johnson looked at the Joint Chiefs of Staff and said, "You sons of bitches, get out of my office.

Uh, my target w- I, I was, uh...

Uh, uh, my-- our target was, uh, uh, a, a naval base at Haiphong, which is north of Hai Phong, close to the China border.

And, uh, so by the time we got out there, they-- up there, they, uh, were waiting for us 'cause they had all, uh, notices and, and other strikes to the south.

And so we, uh, we found, uh, uh, much more AAA, anti-aircraft artillery, than we had, uh, any knowledge of around the base.

The trucks that carried these weapons down to the Ho Chi Minh Trail were manufactured in American-built plants.

The ships that carried the ship supplies into the Sihanoukville and Haiphong.

I have no idea.

Sihanoukville, I guess.

Sihanoukville?

Yeah, I have no idea.

and the Haiphong, and later to Angola and Nicaragua, came from NATO allies and used propulsion systems that our State Department could have kept out of Soviet hands.

Sutton concludes, quote, the technical capability to wage the Korean and Vietnamese wars originated on both sides in Western, mainly American, technology, and the political illusion of, quote, unquote, peaceful trade promoted by the deaf, mute, blind men was the carrier for this war-making technology.

So they would kind of pervert us in Vietnam.

We'd go flying up to Hai Phong, Hainan, back and forth there and monitor all the MiGs and surface-to-air missiles and boat traffic and you name it.

That was one of our big responsibilities.

I'd go there at least once.

Yep.

And that forwarder has to negotiate local trucking, physically dispatch a vehicle to this rural village, load the cartons, navigate all the local infrastructure to get to the port of Haiphong, handle the Vietnamese export customs paperwork, and book the ocean space.

And importantly, the risk transfer is immediate.

So if the local workers accidentally drop a pallet of those baskets while loading them onto your hired truck in that courtyard-

"I've had the pleasure of being in Mr. Benwell's company once before.

It was in Hai Phong." And then with peculiar emphasis, "I don't know what he thinks of the place, of course, but somehow I have an idea your friend will not willingly go near Hai Phong again." After he had said this, he remained silent for a little while.

Then he took a letter from his pocket, read it carefully, examined the envelope, and having made up his mind on a certain point, turned to me again.

"I want to ask you a question," he said, putting the cue he had been using back into the rack.

It had been preparing for strikes since late November.

The Army Party Committee had predicted that the United States may well move to rashly use B-52s to strike at targets in Hanoi and Haiphong.

Since 4 December, defense units had been on continuous alert.

When the bombers appeared, air defense units fired more than 200 missiles at them, shooting down three of the B-52s.

Here is how Professor Aslan writes about it.

He writes, By its political and military failure, he's quoting another writer.

He says the bombing of Hanoi and Haiphong made the Paris Agreement possible.

It forced Nixon and Kissinger to accept the very terms they had rejected in October, November, and December.

before I even talk about the results of the study, which is a woman named Mrs. Tsui, who I got to meet.

She was in a shoe factory in Haiphong.

She was 45.

She had raised her kids up in the mountainous areas outside of the industrial zone, had decided to help with their education.