Central Office for South Vietnam
Central Office for South Vietnam (abbreviated COSVN
According to PAVN Major General and later dissident Trần Độ, COSVN did, in fact exist and was responsible for organising and directing the Viet Cong and served as overall command. It was however hierarchically directed by the Central Office (Trung ương Cục) which directed overall strategy, and was directly controlled by Hanoi. COSVN existed to operate the Viet Cong military and political effort.[3]
MACV had imagined COSVN as a physically large, permanent structure due to their ability to carefully coordinate and direct Viet Cong activity entirely.[4] It had become a near obsessive fixture for US and South Vietnamese leadership, given that it coordinated the complete activities of the Viet Cong.[5] In fact these two organizations were composed of individuals living in thatched huts in the jungle just like all the guerrillas, and so there was no physical structure of any kind and existed as a highly-mobile headquarter to direct the Viet Cong war effort.[3] The apparatus of the CO and COSVN had to move around all the time in order to avoid bombing and search and destroy operations conducted by the Americans, and was both physically capable of defending itself and highly mobile to continue to the nature of the war. Therefore, it can be stated that the CO and COSVN never had any kind of physical form.[3]
US and South Vietnamese intelligence services had continually targeted COSVN for nearly a decade, given their near total importance in controlling the war effort.[6] It had become an obsession of Richard Nixon in his view to win the war.[7]
The Joint Chiefs of Staff claimed to have located the enemy's headquarters inside Cambodia — what the United States called the Central Office for South Vietnam, or COSVN. The chiefs envisioned it as a "Bamboo Pentagon," concealed beneath the jungle's canopy. They thought that if you could blow up this central headquarters, you could cripple the enemy's capacity to command and control attacks on US forces in South Vietnam. McCain said the United States should destroy it and win the damn war.
In 1965, nearly 400 US warplanes attempted to wipe out COSVN in an aerial attack, but had no effect on the elusive shadow command.
History
The headquarters was reportedly created in 1961 when the southern and central branches of the
In October 1963, COSVN organized the Military Affairs Party Committee (MAPC) and the Regional Military Headquarters. COSVN's first secretary, Nguyễn Văn Linh, served concurrently as the secretary of the MAPC, while General Trần Văn Trà became commander of the Regional Military Headquarters. Senior General Nguyễn Chí Thanh, a member of the northern politburo, arrived at COSVN in late 1963 or early 1964 to serve as southern regional political officer and became the dominant figure at the headquarters until his death during a visit to Hanoi in July 1967. This regional command structure reported through Thanh to the PAVN general staff in Hanoi. When Phạm Hùng replaced Thanh as the politburo's representative, he also became the first secretary of both COSVN and the MAPC.[citation needed]
Reputed locations
During the early 1960s, COSVN was located in South Vietnam's
This was confirmed by first-person testimony provided to staff from the Cambodia-based media production group
A Time magazine article in 1970 reported that rather than being a jungle Pentagon as often conceived, "COSVN is actually a staff of some 2,400 people who are widely dispersed and highly mobile", traveling between various bunkers and meeting places by bicycle and motorbike.[12]
Subdivisions
It was believed by US intelligence that COSVN had several subdivisions, each of which dealt with the political, logistical, and military aspects of the struggle in South Vietnam. For tactical reasons US Radio Research units were primarily concerned with the military divisions, which were known as "MAS-COSVN" (Military Affairs Section) and "MIS-COSVN" (Military Intelligence Section). The political and logistical sub-divisions were left to the 175th Radio Research Field Station at Bien Hoa. These two sub-divisions usually occupied a location removed from, but generally near, the headquarters itself, as determined by ARDF or airborne
Operations to destroy COSVN
One of the central frustrations of the US military during the conflict was the
Hampering bombing runs against rebel bases like COSVN was the assistance provided by
On January 4, 1968, some of COSVN officials from Tây Ninh province encountered American soldiers when they were attempting to transfer food in the jungle, Huỳnh Tấn Phát's daughter Huỳnh Lan Khanh was captured and started to be escorted to Saigon. During the conflict several American military aircraft were shot down. Later Khanh's body was found by Viet Cong soldiers. She was buried with two other Viet Cong soldiers who died in this conflict.
Later, President
On March 18, the Cambodian National Assembly
As the PRG and NLF headquarters prepared to follow the COSVN into Cambodia on March 30, they were surrounded in their bunkers by South Vietnamese forces flown in by helicopter.
A month later, at the end of April, the US and
The military benefits and tragic repercussions of the bombing and invasion have been contentious subjects. Westmoreland thought that it was "unfortunate" that Nixon had announced the capture of COSVN as one of the primary objectives of the Cambodian operations.[19] This left Nixon open to critics, who were already scornful of Nixon, to mock the notion of the president obsessing over COSVN as if it were a "holy grail". US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger was quoted as saying that the Cambodian invasion to destroy COSVN and other headquarters complexes bought the Americans and South Vietnamese a year.[20] Members of the COSVN generally agree, but view the long-term political advantage gained as being worth the cost of the evacuation.[20]
"Bamboo Pentagon"
The "Bamboo Pentagon" was a mythical military headquarters of the
Bibliography
- Notes
- ^ a b Tảng, Chanoff & Doan 1985, p. 169
- ^ Westmoreland 1976, pp. 55, 56, 206, & 389
- ^ a b c d "Vietnam: A Television History; Tet, 1968; Interview with Tran Do, 1981". openvault.wgbh.org. Retrieved June 17, 2018.
- ISBN 9780802196811.
- ^ "The Myth of the Bamboo Pentagon: The Vietnam War's Phantom Enemy Headquarters". Atlas Obscura. June 22, 2015. Retrieved June 17, 2018.
- ^ ISBN 9780802196811.
- ISBN 9781627790840.
- ISBN 9780802196811.
- ^ "NSA Cryptologic History Series, Focus on Cambodia" (PDF). National Security Agency. January 1974. pp. 13–16.
- ^ Westmoreland 1976, p. 55
- ^ Freedom Deal: a social issue drama by Camerado SE Asia Archived August 13, 2011, at the Wayback Machine
- ^ Time 1970
- ^ Tảng, Chanoff & Doan 1985, p. 168
- ^ Gilster 2002, p. 20
- ^ Tảng, Chanoff & Doan 1985, p. 177
- ^ a b Tảng, Chanoff & Doan 1985, p. 178
- ^ a b Tảng, Chanoff & Doan 1985, p. 180
- ^ Tảng, Chanoff & Doan 1985, p. 181
- ^ a b Westmoreland 1976, p. 389
- ^ a b Tảng, Chanoff & Doan 1985, p. 183
- ^ Weiner, Tim (June 15, 2015). "An American pattern: Seeking elusive enemies with unreliable allies". Reuters. Archived from the original on June 16, 2015.
- ^ Grundhauser, Eric (June 22, 2015). "The Myth of the Bamboo Pentagon: The Vietnam War's Phantom Enemy Headquarters". Atlas Obscura.
- ^ "An Interview with Richard Helms". Central Intelligence Agency. Archived from the original on April 27, 2010.
- References
- Gilster, Herman L. (2002). The Air War in Southeast Asia: Case Studies of Selected Campaigns (2002 ed.). University Press of the Pacific. ISBN 978-0-89875-966-2. - Total pages: 156
- ISBN 978-0-15-193636-6.- Total pages: 350
- "World: Just How Important Are Those Caches?". Time. June 1, 1970. Archived from the original on November 6, 2012. Retrieved September 8, 2010.
- ISBN 978-0-385-00434-3.- Total pages: 446