"The Myth of the Bamboo Pentagon: The Vietnam War's..." Topic

… Phantom Enemy Headquarters.

"The Vietnam War had any number of controversial battles, but the invasion of Cambodia stands out—an unnecessary, bloody move that cost the lives of hundreds of U.S. soldiers on the ground and led to widespread rioting at home, including the Kent State tragedy.
Remarkably, a new book based on information from recently released documents confirms that one of the key rationales for this act was a mirage, a conspiracy theory. President Nixon had embarked on a mad hunt for the "Bamboo Pentagon," a shadowy headquarters and command center from which the Communist forces were directing their side of the fighting. This is how Tim Weiner described it in his new book, One Man Against the World: The Tragedy of Richard Nixon:…"
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Amicalement
Armand

I remember that time well.

Sounds like a crap revisionist book that focuses on one aspect of the 1970 invasion.

It was not an "unnecessary move", but one of the better operations of the war. The main goal of the operation was the destruction of communist base camps that were located in Cambodia. Those base camps were being allowed to operate by the leaders of Cambodia at the time, while they denied to the world that there were any communist troops in thier country.

The May, 1970 invasion of Cambodia was very successful in destroying the base camps and supplies that the communist had stock piled for thier next invasion of the south. By destroying the logistics that were stockpiled, Free World forces (US and ARVN) were able to knock the communist off their timetable by two years. The communist were unable to launch an attack until April, 1972.

That two year breathing space was a great help in building up ARVN forces to stand against that 1972 invasion.

The idea that the search for the a "bamboo pentagon" is new information is funny, as I remember reading about the search for a mythical communist HQ over 25 years ago.

Just reading that small bit makes me think the author just has an axe to grind against Nixon and really not much to add to history.

A much better read I believe would Kieth Nolan's book "Cambodia".

Second on anything by Kieth Nolan.

You can't have all that logistics stacked up without some kind of HQ. That said, the real "bamboo pentagon" was in North Vietnam.

COSVN was a very real thing (once located in the Iron Triangle before moving across the border), but it wasn't a single place. COSVN was spread across most of the III Corps border, and as Oddball noted, the main reasons for the invasion wasn't to destroy the HQ. SOG's CCS attempted to raid the supposed HQ site, and unfortunately got seriously chewed up (including losing the legendary Jerry "Mad Dog" Shriver as MIA).

Next I'm sure we'll be hearing about how some document reveals that the Cambodian gov "actually didn't know" about NVA troops being there…

What a rubbish article ! did you even read it before posting it ?

"COSVN" is well (first-person) described in the book "A VC Memoir" by Truong Nu Tang, and corroborated in the book "Republic of Vietnam Commandos" by Hieu D. Vu , and from interviews from prisoners in "Inside the VC and NVA" by Lanning and Cragg.

…I think I remember the VC codeword for COSVN was "R" .

No secret "evil lair" really, just lots (acres) of rear area depots/supplies/workshops/hospitals/training areas/ meeting rooms/ vegetable plots etc etc …. that you'd find in the "rear areas" of any army in the field.

IMHO the Cambodian incursions where much too little much too late.
….BS "political correctness" doesn't win wars.

didn't then . doesn't now.