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Operation Linebacker II
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===Casualties=== [[File:Khâm Thiên Memorial.jpg|thumb|Khâm Thiên Memorial]] According to official North Vietnamese sources the bombing campaign killed 1,624 civilians, including 306 in Haiphong and 1,328 in Hanoi.<ref name= "morocco" /> The book "Hanoi – The aerial Dien Bien Phu" from the "People's Army Publishing House" gives a death toll of 2,368 civilians killed and 1,355 others injured. The book states that many neighborhoods and villages were destroyed, 5,480 houses and nearly 100 other buildings including factories, schools, hospitals, and stations were destroyed.<ref name= "nmt">{{cite book |last=Nguyen |first=Minh Tam |year=2008 |title= Dien Bien covered the air |publisher=People's Army Publishing House | place = Hanoi |pages=156–57}}</ref> By 20 December 1972, there were 215 dead and 325 injured in Hanoi. In [[Haiphong|Hai Phong]] alone on 18 December, 45 people were killed, 131 people were injured. [[Đống Đa|Kham Thien Street]], Hanoi was attacked on the night of 26 December 1972, killing 278 people, including 91 women, 40 old people, and 55 children. 178 children were orphaned in Kham Thien Street and 290 people were injured, 2,000 houses, schools, temples, theaters, and clinics collapsed, of which 534 houses were completely destroyed.<ref name="nmt"/> House 51 on Kham Thien Street was completely blown into a crater and the seven people living there were killed. This area has been converted into a memorial with a stele bearing the words "Khâm Thiên deeply holds the hatred of the American enemy" and a bronze statue of a woman holding a child who died from an American bomb was based on the owner of the destroyed house. On the anniversary of the bombing each year, people living on the street and other places come to the memorial to burn incense sticks to commemorate those who died from American airstrikes. In the courtyard of Bạch Mai Hospital, there is a stele bearing the word "Hatred" to remember the bombing of the hospital on 22 December, which killed 1 patient and 30 nurses and doctors. At the time of the bombing, most doctors and patients had already been evacuated. Each department had only a few people on duty and approximately 300 patients had taken cover in the basement.<ref>{{cite web |url = http://laodong.com.vn/Xa-hoi/4-ngay-dao-boi-cuu-nguoi-o-Benh-vien-Bach-Mai/96056.bld |title = 4 days of digging for people at Bach Mai Hospital |work=Lao Dong |first = Nguyen| last = Thi Cuc |date = 19 December 2012}}</ref> ==== Diplomatic ==== The North Vietnamese government reported that the U.S. had "carpet-bombed hospitals, schools, and residential areas, committing barbarous crimes against our people", citing the bombing of Bach Mai Hospital on 22 December and Kham Thien street on 26 December which they claimed had killed 278, wounded 290 and destroyed more than 2,000 homes.<ref>{{cite web|url= http://chamsocsuckhoe.org/TuDien/ChiTietBenhVien/tabid/138/IDHospital/1277/ |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20120327165141/http://chamsocsuckhoe.org/TuDien/ChiTietBenhVien/tabid/138/IDHospital/1277/ |title=Bệnh viện Bạch Mai|work= Chi tiệnh viện |archive-date=27 March 2012}}</ref><ref>{{cite news |page= A1 |title=Newsmen in Hanoi Visit Street of Ruins |newspaper= [[The New York Times]] |publication-place= [[New York City]] |url= https://www.nytimes.com/1972/12/29/archives/newsmen-in-hanoi-visit-street-of-ruins-newsmen-shown-street-of.html |volume= CXXI |issue=261 |last= Leclerc du Sablon |first= Jean |agency= France-Presse |date=29 December 1972 |oclc= 1645522 |issn= 0362-4331 |access-date=6 June 2021 |department=Main section |editor1-first= Dean |editor1-last=Baquet |editor2-first=Meghan |editor2-last=Louttit |editor3-first=Philip |editor3-last=Corbett |editor4-first= Lian |editor4-last= Chang |editor5-first=Monica |editor5-last=Drake |editor6-first=Joseph |editor6-last=Kahn |editor7-first=Kathleen |editor7-last=Kingsbury |editor8-first=A.G. |editor8-last=Sulzberger |editor9-first=Meredith Kopit |editor9-last=Levien |editor10-first=Roland A. |editor10-last=Caputo |editor11-first=William |editor11-last=Bardeen |editor12-first=Stephen |editor12-last=Dunbar-Johnson |editor13-first=Diane |editor13-last=Brayton}}</ref> Both the Soviet Union and China denounced the bombing, while some Western countries also criticized the US operation. In a famous speech, [[Olof Palme]], the [[Prime Minister of Sweden]], compared the bombings to a number of historical crimes including the [[bombing of Guernica]], the massacres of [[Oradour-sur-Glane massacre|Oradour-sur-glane]], [[Babi Yar]], [[Katyn massacre|Katyn]], [[Lidice massacre|Lidice]] and [[Sharpeville massacre|Sharpeville]] and the extermination of Jews and other groups at [[Treblinka]]. He said that "now another name can be added to this list: Hanoi, Christmas 1972". In response to his protests, the U.S. withdrew their ambassador from Sweden and told Stockholm not to send a new ambassador to Washington.<ref>Alexander Stephan (ed), Dag Blanck, The Americanization of Europe, "[https://books.google.com/books?id=sgCqwXmGxNYC&pg=PA105 Cold War Alliances and the Emergence of Transatlantic Competition: An Introduction]", Berghan Books 2006.</ref><ref>Andersson, Stellan. "Olof Palme och Vietnamfrågan 1965–1983" (in Swedish). Olof Palme org. Retrieved 27 February 2008.</ref> The new [[Prime Minister of Australia]], [[Gough Whitlam]], whose country had pushed America to expand the war, angered the Nixon administration by criticizing the bombings in a letter to the U.S. President, chilling [[United States–Australia relations]] until Whitlam's [[1975 Australian constitutional crisis|dismissal in 1975]].<ref>{{cite news|last= Curran|first=James|date=1 August 2012|title=Whitlam v Nixon|url= http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/features/whitlam-v-nixon/story-e6frg6z6-1226439818865 |newspaper=The Australian|publisher= News Ltd|location= Canberra|issn=1038-8761}}</ref> In the U.S., Nixon was criticized as a "madman", and some of the people who supported [[Operation Linebacker I]],{{Who|date=July 2011}} questioned the necessity and unusual intensity of Operation Linebacker II.<ref>George Herring, pp. 248–49</ref> Newspaper headlines included: ''"Genocide"'', ''"Stone-Age Barbarism"'' and ''"Savage and Senseless"''.<ref name= "sparta">{{cite web|url= http://spartacus-educational.com/VNgiap.htm|title=Vo Nguyen Giap | first =John | last = Simkin|work= Spartacus Educational|access-date= 27 December 2015}}</ref> The USAF Strategic Air Command (SAC) made some serious mistakes, suffered serious losses and their campaign came close to failure, yet after the war they launched a massive media and public relations blitz (and internal witch hunt) to prove that Linebacker II was an unqualified success that unfolded as planned.{{Sfn|Drenkowski|Grau|2007|pp=1}} US officials claimed that the operation had succeeded in forcing North Vietnam's Politburo to return to negotiating, citing the Paris Peace Accords signed shortly after the operation. Much of the American public had the impression that North Vietnam had been "bombed into submission".<ref name= "sparta" /> In Paris, the North Vietnamese refused to change the terms they had agreed to in the October 1972 agreement. When South Vietnam's President Nguyen Van Thieu objected to the terms, Nixon threatened to depose him like [[Ngo Dinh Diem]].<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.bbc.co.uk/vietnamese/vietnam/2009/06/090624_nixon_tapes_vn.shtml |title= Việt Nam - Nixon ép Sài Gòn ký hòa đàm 1973| publisher = BBC |date=24 June 2009|access-date= 27 December 2015}}</ref> In January 1973, the U.S. signed the agreement as the Paris Peace Accords. The main effect of the accord was to usher the United States out of the war.<ref name= "vw-pbs">{{Cite episode|title= 9: A Disrespectful Loyalty (May 1970 – March 1973)|url= http://www.pbs.org/video/a-disrespectful-loyalty-may-1970-march-1973-l5oqkl/ |access-date= 26 October 2017|series=The Vietnam War|network= PBS|date= September 2017|time= 1:40:00}}</ref> Journalist Bob Woodward later wrote that Richard Nixon thought, prior to Operation Linebacker II, that previous bombing campaigns against North Vietnam had achieved "zilch". Woodward wrote that in early 1972 Nixon wrote a note to National Security Adviser Henry Kissinger, which said there was "something wrong" with the way the strategy was being carried out. Other notes, written at the same time, show that Nixon was frustrated with the resistance of the North Vietnamese and wanted to punish them, in an effort to "go for broke".<ref>{{cite news |date=11 October 2015 |title=Secret archive offers fresh insight into Nixon presidency |first=David E. |last=Hoffman |newspaper=[[The Washington Post]] |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20210202050226/https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2015/10/11/secret-archive-offers-fresh-insight-into-nixon-presidency |archive-date=2 February 2021 |publisher= WP Co. (Nash Holdings) |issn=0190-8286 |oclc= 2269358 |publication-place=Washington, DC |editor1-first=Sally |editor1-last= Buzbee |editor2-first=Cameron |editor2-last= Carr |editor3-first= Kat Downs |editor3-last=Mulder |editor4-first=Scott |editor4-last= Vance |editor5-first= Barb |editor5-last= Vobejda |editor6-first=Steve |editor6-last= Ginsberg |editor7-first= Lori |editor7-last= Montgomery |editor8-first= Douglas |editor8-last=Jehl |editor9-first= Eva |editor9-last= Rodriguez |editor10-first=Greg |editor10-last=Manifold |editor11-first=Brian |editor11-last=Gross |editor12-first=Kenisha |editor12-last=Malcolm |editor13-first=Emily |editor13-last=Tsao |editor14-first= Mike |editor14-last=Semel |editor15-first=Monica |editor15-last=Norton |editor16-first=Jesse |editor16-last=Lewis |editor17-first=Courtney |editor17-last=Rukan |editor18-first=Greg |editor18-last=Barber |editor19-first=Charity |editor19-last=Brown |editor20-first=Jillian |editor20-last=Jarrett |editor21-first=Fred |editor21-last=Ryan |editor22-first=Elite |editor22-last=Truong |access-date= 6 June 2021 |url= https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2015/10/11/secret-archive-offers-fresh-insight-into-nixon-presidency}}</ref> Some historians believed that Hanoi was not in need of any settlement, and only agreed to do so to get the United States out of Vietnam. The historian [[Gareth Porter]] wrote that Hanoi's objective was an agreement on the October terms, and that "the bombing of Hanoi and Haiphong forced Nixon and Kissinger to accept the terms they had earlier rejected." However, according to Pierre Asselin, had the bombing been a failure, as Hanoi said it was, the North Vietnamese leadership would never have agreed to Nixon's request to talk. Hanoi agreed to resume talks only because the bombing had crippled their country. Additionally, the bombing paved the way for the finalization of an agreement, thus ending American intervention on terms acceptable to the Nixon administration.{{sfn|Asselin|2002|pp=164–166}}<ref>{{Cite book |last=Karl J. Eschmann |url= |title=Linebacker |date=1989 |publisher=Ivy Books |others=Internet Archive |isbn=978-0-8041-0374-9 |pages=213–214}}</ref> Nevertheless, the terms were also favorable to North Vietnam.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Smith |first=John T. |url= |title=The Linebacker raids : the bombing of North Vietnam, 1972 |date=2000 |publisher=London : Cassell |others=Internet Archive |isbn=978-0-304-35295-1 |pages=173–174}}</ref> American historian A.J. Langguth wrote the Christmas bombings were "pointless" as the final peace agreement of 23 January 1973 was essentially the same as that of 8 October 1972 as Thọ refused to make any substantial concessions.<ref>Langguth, A.J. ''Our Vietnam: The War 1954–1975'', New York: Simon and Schuster 2000 p. 626</ref> John Negroponte, in the 2017 documentary ''[[The Vietnam War (TV series)|The Vietnam War]]'', was disdainful of the attack's value, stating "[w]e bombed them into accepting our concessions."<ref name= "vw-pbs" />
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