MINH'S GREETINGS TO ANTIWAR MOVEMENT IN THE U.S.
(On December 30, the United Press International carried on its wires the following New Year's greetings from Ho Chi Minh of North Vietnam to Americans opposed to U.S. involvement in the civil war in Vietnam. While many papers in the United States may have referred to the message, few provided the text.]
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I send you, friends, my best wishes for the new year 1968.
As you all know, no Vietnamese has ever come to make trouble in the United States. Yet half a million United States troops have been sent to South Vietnam who, together with over 700,000 puppet and satellite troops, are daily massacring Vietnamese people and burning down Vietnamese towns and villages.
In North Vietnam, thousands of United States planes have dropped over 800,000 tons of bombs, destroying schools, churches, hospitals, dikes and densely populated areas.
The United States Government has caused hundreds of thousands of United States youths to die or to be wounded in vain on Vietnam battlefields.
Each year, the United States Government spends tens of billions of dollars, the fruits of the American people's sweat and toil, to wage war in Vietnam.
In a word, the United States aggressors have not only committed crimes against Vietnam, they have also wasted United States lives and riches and stained the honor of the United States.
Friends, in struggling hard to make the United States Government stop its aggression in Vietnam you are defending justice and, at the same time, you are giving us support.
To insure our fatherland's independence, freedom and unity, with the desire to live in peace and friendship with all peoples the world over, including the American people, the entire Vietnamese people, united and of one mind, are determined to fight against the United States imperialist aggressors. We enjoy the support of brothers and friends on the five continents. We shall win, and so will you.
DR.