COL Robert M. Herrick, was of the opinion that we simply sold President Thieu down the river after Nixon resigned. That is a correct statement, IMO, but hardly the whole story. For all the incompetence and corruption of the GVN, life in RVN was one hell of a lot better than in the North. The indigenous South Vietnamese insurgency had been decimated and defeated during Tet 68 and the continuing war was against the NVA. One of the best analyses of the post Tet 68 period that I have read is COL Stuart Harrington's Stalking the Vietcong originally published as Silence Was a Weapon. In many ways, his account supports my view expressed here.

I recall in 1973 hearing (seeing or reading) that President Thieu had dismissed the local elected governments and replaced them with appointed district and province chiefs. The short lived experiment in local democracy, which could have been the focal point of a NSP?MEA type COIN/development program was over. I recall telling my classes that I thought by that single act Thieu had just lost the war.

So, was there no possibility of redemption/recovery? Not after that IMO. But before - when we still had some real leverage over both Thieu and the conduct of the war (eg the ability to resume bombing the North and to keep the RVN supplied) - I think the war was winable by a largely population centric strategy. Going after the enemy, the NVA, was still both necessary and desirable without any significant negative impacts on GVN legitimacy.

That's my view and I'm sticking with it (until somebody comes along with a more accurate one).

Cheers

JohnT