HERE WITH A DISCUSSION OF AN EVENT FROM THE SECOND INDO-CHINA WAR AT LEAST MY FROM PERSPECTIVE UNDER-APPRECIATED OR EVEN CONSIDERED BY THE VARIOUS HISTORIANS.
The attack on Camp Holloway!
"Camp Holloway was established in 1962. It was located along Route 19 approximately 3km east of Pleiku in the Central Highlands of Vietnam."
"A Viet Cong attack in the early morning hours of February 7, 1965 killed eight, wounded 108 friendly, and destroyed 18 aircraft. This prompted U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson to begin actually a resumption] bombing North Vietnam."
"The Soviet Union, on the other hand, were experiencing political changes of their own as Nikita Khrushchev was removed from power. As leader of the Soviet Union, Khrushchev had begun the process of disengagement from Vietnam by reducing economic and military aid to North Vietnam. However, in the aftermath of Khrushchev's downfall, the Soviet government had to redefine their role in Southeast Asia, particularly in Vietnam, to compete with the growing influence of the People's Republic of China."
"In February 1965 Soviet Premier Alexei Kosygin traveled to Hanoi to rebuild Soviet ties with North Vietnam, and the formation of a military alliance was on the agenda . . . In the shadow of those events, the Viet Cong 409th Battalion staged an attack on Camp Holloway on 7 February 1965. This time, with his victory in the 1964 presidential election secured, Johnson decided to launch Operation Flaming Dart [in response to the Camp Holloway attack] which entailed strikes on North Vietnamese military targets. However, with Kosygin still in Hanoi during the U.S bombing, the Soviet government decided to step up their military aid to North Vietnam, thereby signalling a major reversal of Khrushchev's policy in Vietnam."
The Soviets perceived this bombing of North Vietnam while Kosygin making a visit to Hanoi as within the realm of point-of-honor? An insult personally directed at the utmost hierarchy of the Soviet government, an affront for which a response was mandated?? Even if unintentional!
Soviet military hardware as supplied to the North Vietnamese in the aftermath of events as associated with the Camp Holloway massive and prodigious!!
And what would the Soviet/Russian archives have to say about this?
coolbert.