Westmoreland—and the American media, which covered the action extensively—often made inevitable comparisons between the actions at Khe Sanh and the Battle of Điện Biên Phủ, where a French base had been besieged and ultimately overrun by Viet Minh forces under the command of General Giáp during the First Indochina War. Westmoreland, who knew of Nguyen Chi Thanh's penchant for large-scale operations—but not of his death—believed that this was going to be an attempt to replicate that victory. He intended to stage his own "Dien Bien Phu in reverse."