Pierre Asselin
speaker
562 appearances
2 recordings
1 series
first heard Apr 2025
last heard 4d ago
Pierre Asselin’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
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Appearances
Eventually, Hanoi will start. So what you have in 54 also is that you have a movement the other way, right? People from the south moving to the north in 54, 55. And then as the situation escalates in the south, starting in 59, 60 or so, the southerners who had regrouped to the north then are redeployed to the south.
And at first, yeah, those are the guys kind of, you know, fighting South Vietnam and eventually the American advisors supporting the armed forces of South Vietnam. And when that's not sufficient, that's when leaders in Hanoi make the decision to start deploying North Vietnamese combat units into the South.
And what's interesting, Don, and I think we forget, is that we start witnessing the appearance of Northern Vietnamese combat units in late 64, early 65, before the Americans commit their own combat troops to South Vietnam.
And you know, Don, that's why I appreciate what you're doing here, because I think we've simplified the story of the war, right? The more I study the conflict, the more I realize whatever I learned from my mentors and my professors and from books, most of it is actually wrong or distorts these really, really complex realities. Thank you.
In terms of what the Americans really want, There's the credibility and honor aspect that we addressed earlier. Right. But in terms of like tangibles. Right. It's absolutely imperative for Nixon to get the prisoners of war back. I mean, that's and Hanoi understands that Hanoi understands that this is this is Washington's kryptonite. Right. And I really want to underscore that.
All this talk about, oh, Hanoi torturing Americans and this and that. It's true, right? I mean, of course, Hanoi was not always very nice in the way it dealt with American POWs. But at the same time, it always made sure that those guys were kept alive because every single American represented leverage in the peace talks.
And so Hamlet was always, I mean, there were all these policies in place across the North telling peasants that, you know, if an American ejects and lands on your backyard, you better not touch that person because tempted as you might be to kill them because they bombed your village and maybe they killed your wife or your husband.
I mean, the punishment for hurting an American was very, very harsh because, again, communists understood that from the previous war against France, right? The leverage you have in a negotiation with the larger number of POWs that you have. And so Nixon's priority... to bring those men home safely. The second priority for Nixon is to give South Vietnam a fighting chance.
And I think Nixon, despite what some of my colleagues have argued, I think Nixon is genuinely committed to do whatever he can to give South Vietnam a chance at survival. But again, you can't win at the bargaining table what you fail to achieve on the battlefield.
And that's the thing, Don, right? I mean, the mere fact that the secret talks are between the Americans and the North Vietnamese give you an idea that, OK, this is this is really not about ending the war. This is about ending American participation in the Vietnamese civil war. And that's exactly what the agreement will do. Right.
The so-called Paris Agreement of 73 provides for the end of American involvement in Vietnamese affairs. But the core issues responsible for conflict in Vietnam, those are all left to be negotiated among the Vietnamese later on.
No, whereas Pyongyang and Seoul eventually accepted the status quo, Hanoi was never going to accept a Korea-style two-state solution. That was never going to happen. And again, I want to emphasize this, Don, because a lot of people misunderstand that. When people look at Geneva in 1954, they'll often tell you, oh, it created two countries, North and South Vietnam. Absolutely not.
The Geneva Accords partitioned Vietnam temporarily into two regroupment zones. In Hanoi, the communists were emphatic. This is not a political marker. This is a military demarcation zone. So neither side ever, ever agreed. to creating in Vietnam a situation, a two-state solution, as we ended up having in Korea.
And I think our inability to understand that accounts for a lot of the misconceptions we have about Vietnam.
Yes. I really think that the Americans understand that getting involved in Vietnam, it's not in their best interest, right? Because, you know, after World War II, there's recognition that the age of imperialism is over. And now all these new countries are emerging in the so-called third world. And the U.S. really needs to find ways of becoming friends with these new third world countries, right?
And then you get the French becoming who want to reclaim jurisdiction over Vietnam, which they lost in World War II. And the Americans have no interest in getting involved in a war that's essentially colonial in nature and that could tarnish America's image in the third world at a time when they understand that they'll be competing against the Soviets.
for the affection of those same third world leaders. But then the French, they really do a number on the Americans, right? And it's really the French who pressure the Americans into getting involved in Vietnam. I would argue they dupe the Americans into getting involved in Vietnam. just to get someone to pay for their war, which they themselves can't afford. And they succeed.
In public, what they're saying is that they just want peace. They just want to be left alone. They want independence and freedom, right? But then privately, what they really want is to not commit to any sort of an agreement that could eventually create challenges for their goal, which will always remain the reunification of Vietnam under communist authority.
I mean, that's why they don't want a negotiated solution. And then when they decide that, you know, we're likely to have to sign something, then the goal becomes to not sign anything or not agree to anything that could derail That fundamental objective, which is, again, not the independence of Vietnam, but its reunification, its independence under communist rule.
Yeah. I mean, 72 is a really, really hard year for both sides. I mean, for all parties, right? You have this, you know, we always make a big deal of the Tet Offensive, right? But arguably, the 72 Offensive is even bigger than the Tet Offensive. On the communist side, it produces even more casualties. And it's a dismal military failure for the communists.
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