Title: The Viet Cong massacre at Hue
Description: Written by Bernie Weisz Vietnam Historian Feb. 4, 2009 Pembroke Pines, Florida e mail: BernWei1@aol.com Title of Review:"Another Obscure Holocaust!" 

After a ridiculously laborous and long search for this grim but revealing book about the worst atrocity the Vietnam War had to offer (along with the "My Lai Incident") this book, "The Viet Cong Massacre at Hue" by Alje Vennema was quite a shocker! I can't figure out why it seems that some of the most revealing books that really give you the "true pulse" of the foulness of the Vietnam debacle are the hardest to get. However, this is very much the case, especially with this book! Vennema starts this book by pointing out that when it was released (1976), he mentioned that the failed American war effort in Vietnam has become a moot point and nobody wants to talk about it anymore. Vennema felt that the U.S. war effort had so much coverage that has been written, filmed or photographed except for one important aspect: the horrific massacre of the citizens of Hue, a city in the northern part of South Vietnam during the 1968 Tet Offensive, and the true nature of the people that actually did the killing, the Communist Viet Cong. Vennema points out in the preface that the Vietnam War was: "a war fought by foreigners on foreign soil against the wishes of the people of Vietnam who longed for independence, and against a foe who claimed to be carrying out a social revolution with armed force". The main opposition the U.S. faced in the South was not the North Vietnamese , but the Viet Cong, or more popularly called the "National Liberation Front" (NLF) which of course was supported by the North Vietnamese Government headquartered in Hanoi. While Vennema sets the stage for this book by asserting that the NLF "slowly acquired the respect of the world and was likely acknowledged to be the underdog"' Vennema quickly criticizes the U.S. role in Vietnam by writing: "America was fighting Communism and keeping a corrupt government in power whereas the NLF only wanted to help the oppressed people to rid themselves of a ruthless government and the ruling class." Vennema claims in this book that never in history has there been such a mismatch. The whole reason for the executions at Hue was the issue of the peasants. They were caught between two sides. The two belligerent parties were the U.S. supported, and supposedly democratic Government of South Viet Nam verses the National Liberation Front a/k/a Viet Cong with it's Hanoi, North Vietnamese pro Communist mentors. Neither side would make concessions and both were more than willing to go to the bitter end which would be final victory and it's resulting dominance over the peasantry. So which side should the ignorant, nonpolitical peasantry choose? As Vennema stated: "Of course, there was no way out for him (the peasant), he had to choose. The South's recruitment methods included imprisonment for noncompliance, deceit, corruption, forced removal from the land (U.S. sponsored "Strategic Hamlet Programs") and usury (lending money to peasants at excessive interest rates). The Communist's methods were more barbaric. They included terrorism, deceit, forced recruitment, assassinations, kidnapping, burning of hamlets, schools, abductions, VC demand for rice, food and shelter, and forced labor. Alje Vennema's role was as a director of Canadian Medical Assistance to Vietnam. Canadian Involvement in the Vietnam War As the last shot of the Tet Offensive ended on February 26, 1968, Vennema stated: "By 1967 after spending 5 years in South Viet Nam as a medical volunteer running a provincial hospital, I had become so appalled by the war and the American involvement that I longed for it's end with ever increasing speed. To this end I became involved in the war's controversies. At the time I felt that the NLF offered the only solution to the corruption and incessant warfare. Above all I felt that no matter what happened, America should pull out, for the continuation of the war, in addition to destroying Viet Nam, was undermining all the good values that America stood for". However, all of Vennema's sympathies for the NLF would vanish when the tragic facts of the NLF massacre at Hue came to light. So what was the Tet Offensive? When remembered, the average American citizen watching T.V. saw life going on as usual in downtown Saigon during "Tet", despite VC corpses lying in the street. One also remembers Ambassador Ellsworth Bunker trying to get back to the damaged U.S. Embassy in Saigon. However, the strongest memory was when the influential reporter Walter Cronkite, who when the story broke that the NLF were "storming the Embassy" quipped on national T.V. exclaiming: "What the hell is going on? I thought we were winning the war"? Simply put, the "Tet Offensive" was a military campaign commencing January 30th and concluding at the end of February, 1968. It was conducted by the Communist North Vietnamese Army and the NLF Army. Their goal was to strike military and civilian command and control centers throughout South Viet Nam and create a general uprising among the population that would then topple the U.S. supported Saigon Government, thus ending the war in a single blow. "Tet" is the most important Vietnamese holiday, which celebrates the first day of the Chinese New Year. Both South and North Vietnam announced on national radio that there would be a three day cease fire in honor of "Tet". Similarly to the Japanese "sneak attack" on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii on December 7th 1941, a wave of attacks started on January 30th, 1968 in I and II Corps "tactical zones" (to the immediate south of the "DMZ") in the first half of South Vietnam_. The main offensive came the next day, where a countrywide and well coordinated attack of more than 80,000 Communist soldiers caught the Allies (U.S., South Vietnamese, Australian, and South Vietnamese) asleep. Over 100 towns and cities, including 36 of 44 provincial capitals, including Hue, Danang, Saigon, Pleiku and Nha Trang were attacked. In retrospect, it was clearly an American military victory, with total Allied losses at approximately 6,328 and Communist casualties exceeding 100,000 combatants. Unfairly portrayed as a U.S. military catastrophie and loss, (particularly because of the press's negative portrayal and Cronkite's remark) public opinion permanently swayed against the Vietnam War and the President, Lyndon B. Johnson refused reeelection. However, Vennema's book centers on when the NVA was pushed out of Hue, the enemy deliberately and systematically murdered not only responsible officials, but religious figures, the educated elite and ordinary people. Burial sites later found yielded some 3,000 bodies, the largest portion of the total of more than 4,700 victims of Communist execution. Vennema goes to these burial sites and describes graphically the horrible carnage he discovers, painting a barbaric picture of the NLF. Despite Vennema's book, there is recent evidence to suggest that Vennema's evidence of Communist atrocities which the NLF called their "blood debt" is spurious. There is mounting evidence that the overwhelming majority of the bodies discovered post-Tet were in fact the victims of American air power and of the ground fighting that raged in the hamlets, rather than NLF executions. Supporting this was the often heard comment from U.S. Air Force bombing pilots which was: "In order to save Hue we had to destroy it". Certainly, there were Communist mass executions upon their temporary capture and occupation of Hue. But in terms of culpability-and who killed whom and what the official numbers were, no one will ever know. Vennema does ennumerate undeniable facts in his book. The summary mass killings and executions conducted by the Communist captors and occupiers (and their later withdrawal) was considered one of the longest and bloodiest battles of the war, rating along with "Lam Son 719", Dong Ap Bia" (Hamburger Hill), "Ripcord", and both "Ia Drang" and "A Shau Valley" battles. During the months and years that followed the "Battle of Hue", mass graves WERE discovered containing between 2000 to 6,000 civilians and prisoners of war. Some were tortured, some buried alive. These findings were taken as proof by Vennema that a large scale atrocity had been carried out in and around Hue during it's 4 week occupation. Within days of it's Communist capture, ARVN and the U.S. military in masse were dispatched to counterattack and recapture the city after fierce fighting. While this occurred, the city of Hue and it's outlying areas were exposed to repeated shelling from U.S. Navy ships off the coast and countless B-52 "carpet-bombing" airstrikes. Whether the mass graves were caused by torture and execution by the Communists or by the airstrikes and to what proportion is anyone's guess. Irrefutably, there were NLF executions, as Vennema points out. The author sadly points out the cowardness of the South Vietnamese doctors who were so afraid of the Communists that instead of treating the countless wounded civilians, they were busy plotting their escape from the city. Even more disturbing is Vennema's description of how the South Vietnamese Army (ARVN) conducted themselves when they finally liberated the city. Supporting the fact that the U.S. was supporting a "very shaky regime" Vennema describes how the ARVN soldiers, instead of restoring order, scoured the streets of Hue, stealing and looting anything and everything of value. This was beyond a doubt, a very sad chapter in the Vietnam War, and the "Massacre at Hue" ranks right there with the "Armenian Massacre", "The Holocaust", "Stalin's Purges", and to a lesser degree, what happened at "My Lai" and it's implications for how our ground forces conducted themselves. This book would be best obtained through your local library, as it is out of print and expensive if you could find it privately. Be forewarned, there are some very graphic pictures of atrocities Vennema strategically placed in his book to emphasize his point. However, it is a very important historicallly and must be read by anyone who studies American involvement in the Vietnam War
Subjects: Atrocities, Horrible Vietnam War Atrocity, Hue, Battle of, Hué̂, Vietnam, 1968, Tet Offensive, 1968, The World's Most Unknown Massacre, Vietnamese Conflict, 1961-1975, Vietnam War, 1961-1975
Places: in South Vietnam, the city of Hue
People: Alje Vennema, North Vietnamese Army, viet cong
Time periods: 1968