After the border battles of October and November 1967, Giap returned his attention to the area along the DMZ, and the two northern provinces were placed under Giap’s command. Because it was the closest base to Laos and North Vietnam, Khe Sanh became the location of Giap’s final test. Giap launched an assault on January 21, 1968, just 10 days before Tet. When Westmoreland responded the same way he had during the past two years–with more firepower and the placement of more units inside I Corps–Giap knew the United States would not counterattack outside the South Vietnamese borders. The next day, the final order to begin Phase II was issued. The primary purpose for Khe Sanh had been fulfilled, in Giap’s opinion. The January 21 assault gave Giap the flexibility to use his forces for the most beneficial outcome. After the attack, Westmoreland still believed the primary target to be I Corps. In a cable to Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman General Earl Wheeler, dated January 22, Westmoreland said that the enemy might launch a multibattalion attack against Hue and Quang Tri, the capitals of the two northern provinces.

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Even though the first contact between the Marines and the NVA divisions occurred on December 21, 1967, on December 27 Westmoreland ordered the Marines at Khe Sanh to scout assault routes into Laos, and he cabled Washington with a detailed proposal for a strike across the border. As late as December Westmoreland had two objectives: enter Laos and defend I Corps. He did not seem to believe that the appearance of NVA forces around Khe Sanh was a diversion by Giap. In an article he wrote for the February 1993 issue of Vietnam, Westmoreland explained, ‘The most logical course for the enemy, it seemed to me, was to make a strong effort to overrun the two northern provinces while at the same time launching lesser attacks throughout the country.’ Intelligence information and MACV staff agreed with Westmoreland’s perception.

A captured document from the command authority of the enemy’s Military Region 4 indicated an objective to establish a front line that extended from Khe Sanh to Hai Van Pass with the potential to capture Quang Tri province. General Davidson briefed Westmoreland on November 29 and concluded after war games and analysis of available intelligence that Giap’s best chance of success was to pin allied forces in the Highlands and make his main effort in the two northern provinces with four or five divisions. By that time Westmoreland had begun to link Khe Sanh with an offensive to capture the two provinces. In 1969 Westmoreland reflected on how he thought Giap would have used Khe Sanh to capture part of South Vietnam: ‘In conjunction with the General Uprising, the enemy apparently expected to seize by military action large portions of the northern two provinces lying just south of the Demilitarized Zone and there set up a ‘liberated government.’ The virtually unpopulated Khe Sanh Plateau, which lay astride the enemy’s principal avenue of approach from his large base areas in Laos, was obviously an initial objective of the North Vietnamese Army. Its seizure would have created a serious threat to our forces defending the northern area and would have cleared the way for the enemy’s advance to Quang Tri City the heavily populated coastal region.’

By the beginning of January 1968, Westmoreland had completed a complex shift of American and South Korean units, code-named ‘Checkers,’ from around Saigon and out of the Highlands into I Corps. The day after the first assault on Khe Sanh, he moved the 1st Cavalry and 101st divisions into I Corps. The two divisions were placed 10 miles northwest of Hue–not near Khe Sanh. In his 1993 article, Westmoreland wrote that reconnaissance revealed the enemy was building a road in the A Shau Valley in the direction of Hue. The placement of the U.S. divisions provided Westmoreland with several options. He could move them to plug a breakthrough anywhere along the DMZ, counterattack any city captured by the VC, block a surprise flanking attack out of the A Shau Valley, relieve a surrounded base or lead the long-hoped-for assault into Laos. MACV viewed I Corps as the crucial zone in Vietnam that could determine the course of the war for the next several years. And Westmoreland thought Khe Sanh was the most crucial battlefield in the zone. But in January, Westmoreland received another rejection for the Laotian incursion. Then, on January 2, five high-ranking NVA officers were killed outside the Khe Sanh combat base. Westmoreland now anticipated an attack on Khe Sanh. He again changed the base’s purpose–this time it would be made into a killing zone.

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