North Vietnam’s Master Plan

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The North Vietnamese supply and infiltration route to South Vietnam, commonly called the Ho Chi Minh Trail, was still a small and ill-defined network of jungle paths passing largely through South Vietnamese territory in early 1961. Supplies were carried almost entirely by human porters, with some use also being made of bicycles, elephants and pack horses. When PAVN Transportation Group 559 first worked on the trail during the summer of 1959, the Ho Chi Minh Trail passed south through the western portion of the Vinh Linh Special Zone, crossed the DMZ between North and South Vietnam at the Ben Hai River and continued through the rugged mountains of western Quang Tri and Thua Thien provinces in South Vietnam. There the trail connected with the clandestine supply and liaison routes of Communist Interzone 5 (later Military Region 5).

The supply trail to the southern half of South Vietnam was not completed until October 1960, when, according to the PAVN history, trail-building elements sent north by the Party Committee for South Vietnam (later designated as the Central Office for South Vietnam Headquarters) finally met trail-builders from Interzone 5. They were moving south in the area where the borders of South Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos meet. The entire route was suitable only for the clandestine infiltration of small numbers of troops and very small quantities of supplies. Since South Vietnam was long and narrow (less than 50 miles wide at its northern extremity), the trail was also extremely vulnerable to interdiction by opposing forces. The trail as it was in early 1961 simply could not support the passage of the large quantities of troops, supplies and heavy equipment that would be required by the 10 to 15 main-force regiments in South Vietnam called for in the PAVN’s five-year plan.

In the spring of 1961, the North Vietnamese leadership decided to take advantage of the PAVN’s semicovert involvement in Laos to resolve its supply problems. The massive PAVN intervention in Laos threw Laotian government troops back in confusion and precipitated a serious international crisis. For a time the U.S. government considered Laos a more serious problem than the conflict in South Vietnam. The new Kennedy administration, in its first attempt at what would later be called constructive engagement, now sought to persuade the Soviets to help in arranging for a cease-fire and an international conference in Geneva, which aimed at reaching a compromise settlement that would neutralize Laos and prevent a complete Communist takeover of the country.

Under increasing international pressure to agree to an immediate cease-fire, the North Vietnamese moved to exploit the American diplomatic attack to their own advantage. After obtaining specific approval from the North Vietnamese and the Laotian Communist parties, the North Vietnamese Central Military Party Committee swiftly approved a plan for a major offensive operation to be conducted under Pathet Lao cover in southern Laos. The principal objective of the plan, which was drafted by PAVN Transportation Group 559 and PAVN Military Region 4, was to seize control of a large area of the Laotian panhandle in order to transfer Group 559’s strategic transportation route [the Ho Chi Minh Trail] to the western side of the Annamite Mountain Range–i.e., to move the Ho Chi Minh Trail into Laos.

The plan stated explicitly that the upcoming cease-fire provided a favorable window of opportunity to carry out the operation. Although the PAVN history does not specifically admit to this, the operation was designed to conceal PAVN involvement in the military offensive through the use of Pathet Lao forces and to exploit the prospects for an international agreement about Laos. They then could eliminate the danger of the U.S. military disrupting the PAVN supply network. The PAVN attack in southern Laos was launched at the same time as a series of powerful Pathet Lao–North Vietnamese attacks in northern and central Laos. Those concurrent attacks were apparently intended to tie down Laotian forces throughout the country and to further divert U.S. attention away from the PAVN’s main strategic objective–acquiring secure new lines of communications in southern Laos to support the war in South Vietnam.

Tags: 20th - 21st Century, Foreign Affairs, Historical Conflicts, Politics, Vietnam War

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