Page:A Concise History of the U.S. Air Force.djvu/71

 The Tet offensive proved a military defeat for the Communists, who lost between 50,000 and 80,000 soldiers, but it represented a political victory that galvanized the antiwar movement in the United States. It led many other Americans to question the war's objectives, especially in the face of General Westmoreland's announcement just before its launching that he could see "the light at the end of the tunnel." The Tet offensive (and a poor showing in the New Hampshire primary) convinced President Johnson not to run for reelection. It also brought to the Oval Office a new president, Richard Nixon, committed to ending American involvement in the war and turning it over to the South Vietnamese. F-5 Freedom Fighters strengthened the South Vietnamese Air Force while Nixon withdrew American ground units. On March 30, 1972, the North Vietnamese Army invaded South Vietnam with 12 divisions from the north and west. Although South Vietnamese forces were no match for the invaders, the Spring offensive was a major miscalculation. American ground forces were gone, but U.S. Air Force and U.S. Navy aviation remained. For the first time in the war, the Air Force was up against the kind of conventional war it could win. Eighteen thousand fighter-bomber and 1,800 B-52 sorties stiffened South Vietnamese resolve. In the desperation of the moment, fighter pilots found themselves aiming 2,000-pound laser-guided bombs at Communist tanks―not cost effective, but effective nevertheless. The massive employment of air power bought more time for South Vietnam.

Although American air power had repelled the invasion, implications for Nixon's Vietnamization strategy were clear. American hopes for ending the war revolved around the Air Force's applying greater pressure on North Vietnam to influence its negotiators to return to the Paris peace talks. The LINEBACKER I bombing campaign from May to October 1972 was a major escalation of the war and included the mining of Hai Phong and other ports. Bridges that had resisted bombing now fell before precision laser-guided and electro-optically-guided bombs. Before LINEBACKER, peer pressure and pride drove American aircrews, even as they asked: "What the hell is this all about?" During LINEBACKER they had a clear and limited objective―forcing the regime in Hanoi back to Paris.

In Paris some progress was made, but in December 1972 Communist negotiators became recalcitrant. Their delaying tactics prompted President Nixon to order the most concentrated bombing campaign of the war―LINEBACKER II. For 11 days beginning on December 18, with a Christmas break, SAC B-52s struck at rail yards and other targets in the outskirts of Hanoi and Haiphong. On the first mission, 129 B-52s pene- -