ABSTRACT
The stalemate in the South meanwhile was paralleled by a stalemate over the North in the form of the air war conducted by the US Air Force and Navy. US bombings outside the South began on December 14, 1964, with eight sorties a week against the Ho Chi Minh Trail in Laos. Communist attacks on US installations at Pleiku and Qui Nhon in February provided a pretext to strike the North directly. From "reprisal airstrikes," it was a short step to sustained bombing. The society against which the United States threw its latest technology of war was one of the world's poorest. In December 1964, People's Army propaganda teams began fanning out across the Northern countryside to organize "civilian-military unity days" in every hamlet and village. With skits and storytelling, the teams evoked the powerful imagery of national resistance, then organized the people to repair roads, ferry troops across rivers, and assist the army in every way.
