Communist gunners continued to fire on the Marine positions as the trench lines were filled in and sandbags were emptied.

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On July 5, the base was officially closed. Five Marines were killed in fighting near Khe Sanh that day. The final Marine withdrawal was conducted at night and was interrupted for several hours when Communist artillerymen scored a direct hit on a bridge on Route 9. The bridge was finally repaired, allowing the Marines to move down Route 9 to the east.

Fighting continued in the Khe Sanh area even after the base closing was complete. On July 9, Marines on Hill 689 near Khe Sanh vowed to hold the peak until the last attacking North Vietnamese had been killed. The Americans claimed 350 North Vietnamese died in this round of fighting. Echoing the rationale that brought the Marines to Khe Sanh in the first place, and seemingly unaware of the change in policy, the 3rd Marine Division commander, Maj. Gen. Raymond Davis, said, We are going to move off this hill, but not until we have defeated the North Vietnamese. That same day a Marine spokesman denied a Hanoi radio report claiming that a Viet Cong flag had been raised on the recently abandoned Khe Sanh combat base.

As predicted, North Vietnam was quick to exploit the propaganda benefits of Khe Sanh’s abandonment. In the five-day period beginning on July 7, 1968, Hanoi radio devoted 70 percent of its broadcast time in all Asian languages to discussions of the American defeat and the Communist victory at Khe Sanh. Hanoi specifically mentioned previous American explanations regarding the vital contribution of Khe Sanh to its strategy in the Vietnam war. In a report from Hong Kong, the New York Times noted that Asians believed the North Vietnamese explanation for the base closing and mostly rejected the American version that it was due to a changed military situation.

A clear distinction can be made regarding the merits of closing Khe Sanh between American military and political leaders on the one hand, and Marines who participated in the defense of Khe Sanh on the other. Like no other Vietnam battle, Khe Sanh captured the attention of the media and the American public. Roughly 25 percent of all Vietnam film reports shown on evening television newscasts during February and March 1968 were devoted to the situation at Khe Sanh. In the case of CBS, the figure was 50 percent. By March, supporters of the war among the American public were outnumbered by those who opposed the war. Gallup polls indicate nearly one person in five switched from the hawk position to the dove position between early February and mid-March. The best way to keep Khe Sanh from causing a negative influence on support for the war in Vietnam was to close it.

Official explanations for the closing are inadequate. As has been shown, the situation around Khe Sanh remained much the same before the siege as after. In May 1968, four North Vietnamese regiments supported by artillery were reported to be in the immediate vicinity of the base. According to the commanding general of the 3rd Marine Division, the situation at Khe Sanh at that time was the same as in late 1967, when Westmoreland had ordered Khe Sanh reinforced. As early as February 1968, the New York Times reported that civilian officials who studied Vietnamese history were unwilling to share the level of confidence of military men that Khe Sanh would prove to be an American victory. These civilians noted the North Vietnamese willingness to suffer overwhelming casualties for the sake of victories with political impact.

General Westmoreland, always the driving force behind the continued American presence at Khe Sanh, was unable to grasp this willingness. In his biography, Westmoreland says of North Vietnamese Army commander General Vo Nguyen Giap, A Western commander absorbing losses on the scale of Giap’s would hardly have lasted in command more than a few weeks. Still espousing the value of a positive kill ratio, Westmoreland claimed Giap’s casualties at Khe Sanh were far in excess of those incurred by the French at Dien Bien Phu. The Vietnamese Communists, who also compare the two battles, claim that Khe Sanh was America’s Dien Bien Phu.

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