the battle of khe sanh, or the siege of khe sanh, ground on over three months. so finally then on april 1st, what was known as operate pegasus, the overland relief from the coast, so army/air cav and marine units started pushing up from the coast. the siege was declared officially lifted around april 7th and april 8th. that is somewhat misleading, and the casualties -- and it's a difficult number to pin down, so i should start by saying the official number is just shockingly low. i believe it's something like 265 killed and several hundred wounded. there were -- on the american side, i'm speaking now. so there were at least a thousand americans killed. and if you factor in air accidents, transport, helicopters, those sorts of things, then i think the number of k.i.a. were clearly to over a thousand. and the number of wounded were in the range of 3,000 to possibly 4 or 5,000 on the american side of the equation. the north vietnamese, the communist losses were significant, but it's very difficult to put a number on those. i would easily believe that 10,000 men wer

that battle of khe sanh, or the seizure of khe sanh, ground on over three months.nd find that on april 1 in what was done as operation pegasus, the overland relief from the coast, so army eric have and marine units started pushing up from the coast. the siege was declared officially lifted around april 7 and april 8. that is somewhat misleading, and the casualties, and it's a difficult number to pin down, so i should start by saying the official number is just shockingly low. i believe it's something like 265 killed and several hundred wounded. is on the american side, i'm speaking. there were at least a thousand americans killed. and if you factor in air accidents, transport, helicopters, those sorts of things, then i think that the number of kia were clearly over 1000, at the number of wounded were in the range of 3000 for possibly four or 5000 on the american side of the equation. the north vietnamese, timing is law system were significant, but it's very difficult to put a number on those. i would easily believe that 10,000 men were killed on the north vietnames

khe sanh was in such grave danger in 1968 with divisions of north vietnamese troops assembled in the area. they developed a contingency plan for the tactical use of nuclear weapons. >> my understanding from some of the interviews, governor connally among them, suggested you win the war by winning it. if that required nuclear weapons then so be it. so there was a wide range of advice. >> i assure you from being in the room that president johnson never would have used nuclear weapons. he demanded a written letter from all members of the joint chiefs of staff, a formal written document which is here in this library from the joint chiefs of staff assuring him in writing that khe sanh would not be overrun. we had adequate forces to defend it. we had a new fragmentation weapon that was used to have much like the top -- type of weapon, the so-called barrel bomb. that was placed into the troops around caisson. >> when lyndon johnson took off the table the possibility of invading north vietnam he basically insured that united states could never definitively when the war. it had to keep fighti