Viet from the Dai Do village complex about 1,000 meters north of Dong Ha. Colonel Hull sent BLT 2/4 to clear out the enemy. In fighting that would last nearly a month, the battle for Dong Ha with the NVA 320th Division was joined and the enemy had begun a new offensive on the eastern DMZ to counter the allied thrusts to the west.87*

From late February through the end of April, the allied forces in I Corps had regained the initiative. From Quang Ngai in the south to Quang Tri Province in the north, allied troops had taken a large toll of both enemy main force and guerrilla units. Still the cost had been high, and the enemy was far from defeated. Outside of the battlefront, events in Washington and Hanoi were also to influence the course of the war. On 31 March, in a televised speech to the nation, after a relatively poor showing earlier in the month in the New Hampshire primaries. President Johnson in a surprise statement announced his decision not to stand for reelection, to restrict the bomb

ing campaign over North Vietnam,** and to authorize only a limited reinforcement of American troops in Vietnam. On 5 April, unexpectedly, the North Vietnamese Foreign Minister Nguyen Duy Trinh declared that his government was willing to negotiate with the Americans. The following month a North Vietnamese and American delegation met in Paris. In the meantime, with the arrival of the two Army divisions, the 101st and the 1st Air Cavalry, III MAF and Provisional Corps had entered the foreboding A Shau for the first time since 1966 and most importantly earlier had broken the siege of Khe Sanh.88

*For the fighting at Dai Do and its aftermath see Chapter 15.

**U.S. Army Colonel Bruce B. G. Clarke wrote that according to Army sources, at the time of the President's speech the 1st Air Cavalry Division was preparing plans for its next mission, Operation Delaware, after Operation Pegasus. According to Clarke, the planners developed a concept "to press west into Laos and then turn south along the Ho Chi Minh Trail into Laos to enter the A Shau Valley from the northwest rather than the east." Apparently "General Tolson shut off this planning by noting that the planners obviously hadn't heard the President's speech and what they were proposing was politically impossible." Col Bruce B. G. Clarke, USA, Comments on draft, n.d. {Apr95] (Vietnam Comment File).