Practically the entire North Vietnamese army was now inside South Vietnam—to stay....Nixon and Kissinger had decided...they could have no choice but to accept...the fait accompli of a full Northern military presence....Their decision was of course induced by powerful factors. The American press was already screaming its rage about renewed bombing of the North. Nor was there anything subtle about the reaction in Congress, which...was well on its way toward legislating the United States out of the war.
At this point one sees, on the one hand, a major offensive by the NVA being crushed by the ARVN and by Allied air power; an American military shift from a strategic defensive to a semistrategic offensive posture, no significant political response by North Viet Nam’s major allies, and a cutbac
