Saturday, May 27, 1972
Stilwell Predicts Hue, An Loc Will Not Fall
AUGUSTA, Ga. (AP) --Hue will not fall, nor will An Loc, Lt. Gen. Richard G. Stilwell, deputy chief of staff for military operations, said Thursday.Stilwell, addressing a civic club luncheon during Armed Forces Day, said he doubted "if even Kontum will ever be taken.""There will be battles won and lost during the long hot summer ahead, but we have already witnessed, in my estimate, the high tide of Communist advance in South Vietnam," said Stilwell.Stilwell, the senior Army member of the military staff committee of the United Nations, pointed to the "staggering battle losses of the North Vietnamese army, the destruction of his war-fighting infrastructure, his isolation from external supplies and the uncertainties in Hanoi..."He said this led him to the conclusion that the offensive, once its course has been run, "will not reoccur and that Vietnamization will have passed its final test."Stilwell was chief of staff in Vietnam in 1964 under Gen. William C. Westmoreland, chief of staff of the U.S. Army, and was in Vietnam in 1968 as deputy commanding general of the 12th Marine amphibious force."Stilwell Predicts Hue, An Loc Will Not Fall," by (AP), published in the Pacific Stars and Stripes Saturday, May 27, 1972 and reprinted from European and Pacific Stars and Stripes, a Department of Defense publication copyright, 2002 European and Pacific Stars and Stripes.