General Vo Nguyen Giap

[snopes]

Comment: Giap's memoirs... (Gen. Giap was a very famous and knowledgeable
General in the North Vietnamese Army.)

General Giap has published his memoirs and confirmed what most Americans
knew. The Vietnam war was not lost in Vietnam -- it was lost at home. The
exact same slippery slope, sponsored by the Dems and the US media, is
currently well underway. It exposes the enormous power of a biased media
(the Dems could never do it alone) to cut out the heart and will of the
American public.

General Giap was a brilliant, highly respected leader of the North Vietnam
military. The following quote is from his memoirs currently found in the
Vietnam war memorial in Hanoi:

"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! It was the same
at the battles of TET. You defeated us! We knew it, and we thought you
knew it. But we were elated to notice your media was definitely helping
us. They were causing more disruption in America than we could in the
battlefields. We were ready to surrender. You had won!"

A truism worthy of note: Do not fear the enemy, for they can take only
your life. Fear the media far more, for they will destroy your honour.

[Il-Mari]

Yeah, this is a pro-war 'fact' that gets trotted out every couple of years (most recently, it was Oliver North saying that Giap had said pretty much the same thing, and credited the anti-war movement lead by Kerry with losing the war).

It's totally false though, Giap never said it:

http://hnn.us/roundup/entries/8232.html

Really, would a communist general who's been fighting various nations (to get the colonial powers out of his country) for years really be ready to surrender, but then just put those plans to surrender on hold when they heard about an anti-war movement?

Sure, growing discontent in America likely made them more condifent of victory, but for them it was largely a war of independence from colonial powers, and public opinion played part in getting the French to leave too.

- Il-Mari

ETA: More here about the 2004 version of the story: http://www.vvaw.org/faq/#1

[Troberg]

Though a different person, it still does not fit well with this quote:

"Mr. McNamara, You must never have read a history book. If you'd had, you'd know we weren't pawns of the Chinese or the Russians. McNamara, didn't you know that? Don't you understand that we have been fighting the Chinese for 1000 years? We were fighting for our independence. And we would fight to the last man. And we were determined to do so. And no amount of bombing, no amount of U.S. pressure would ever have stopped us." - Thach, former Foreign Minister of Vietnam, 1995, as recalled by McNamara.

[Ali Infree]

A number of Americans and others commented near the end of the Vietnam war that the Vietnamese were willing to sustain high losses in their fight, but not anywhere near as high as in other wars historically.

That is, the losses of military forces, civilians, and material did not cause them to cease making war on the American-led ARVN forces or to even consider it.

One commentator, writing as Cincinnatus: [Self-Destruction: The Disintegration and Decay of the United States Army during the Vietnam War ], blamed General Westmoreland for not understanding the nature of the war, not directing US forces in a clear strategy, and publicly leading his civilian leaders, ie LBJ, POTUS of the day, down the primerose path with his positive, yet misleading pronouncements.

Of course, Westmoreland spent the rest of his life blaming the media, the antiwar movement, and civilian leaders for his failings.

Ali "from memory, not the history books" Infree