Lansdale noted that the enemy “has been crushed militarily,”13 but, unlike more conventional military men, he warned Bunker that the offensive had the potential to achieve Hanoi’s objectives: it could strike “fear into the hearts of the urban population by demonstrating the inability of the government to provide adequate security,” and it could increase “pressure on the U.S. at home and abroad to withdraw, by seeking to demonstrate the hopelessness of victory and the immorality of our cause (for example, the image of U.S. firepower destroying friendly Vietnamese cities).”14 “The emotional
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