ABSTRACT
Hanoi paid a very high price for its successful defiance of the world's greatest military and economic power, the United States, so as to make its victory dreadful in consequences, dubious in validity, and thus meaningless in significance. Despite the carefully cultivated impression of national unity during the war, there frequently were dissension over policy within the ruling Communist regime in Hanoi. The Vietnam War was marked by great brutality, and the Vietnamese Communists paid heavy costs for their cause. Hanoi's entrapment in the endless 40-year war of its own making, pious propaganda notwithstanding, clearly indicates that Vietnam is the principal victim of the war. The total amount of bombs the United States dropped on Indochina, at a cost of $6 billion, was 7,975,000 tons, about four times the tonnage used in all theaters during the World War II. All told, 924,048 Communist soldiers and 185,528 South Vietnamese soldiers were reportedly killed.
