Pivotal Vietnam Battle and Its Modern-Day Echoes

Guest: Mark Bowden, National Correspondent for The Atlantic, Senior Writer for Vanity Fair, Author of “Black Hawk Down” and “Hue 1968” It was a turning point in the Vietnam War. On January 30, 1968, the North Vietnamese launched a surprise attack on the city of Hue and a number of other sites. America and its South Vietnamese allies were caught flat-footed. It would take two weeks for them to regain control of Hue. Two weeks of intense combat, street by narrow street. The attack happened on Tet – the Vietnamese New Year – symbolic because the North Vietnamese envisioned that “with the new year would dawn a new, independent Vietnam.” So writes Mark Bowden in his new book, “Hue 1968.” It is an exhaustive and gripping account of a pivotal battle – the most wrenching of the war. After Tet, writes Bowden, “the debate was never again about how to win in Vietnam, but how to leave.” Similar themes echo through America’s ongoing fight in Iraq and Afghanistan.  Other echoes of Hue can be found in the way US media report on wars today; the antagonism between the press and the President; the public fatigue with losing American lives in a far-off conflict.