The Tet Offensive was unquestionably the biggest occurrence of the Vietnam War. While the military success of the Viet Cong in mounting a sustained revolt in cities across South Vietnam was virtually non-existent, the psychological impact it had on the American public was quite simply phenomenal. This effect was partially due to the reporting of the war by the media. To completely understand the impacts of Tet, we must first understand the goals of Tet. The execution of Tet was a failure on the battlefield; however, it proved to be an astounding success on college campuses across America.
The main objectives of the Tet Offensive of 1968 were to mount numerous uprisings in cities that were supposedly secure. The cities focused on in Tet were Saigon, Hue, and Danang. The idea originally came about around 1966. The reason being was that General Westmoreland’s continuous pressure constantly harried the North Vietnamese Army and the Viet Cong (Ford 33). The US armed forces were depriving their Vietnamese aggressors of what they needed most, time to plan. Around this time General Nguyen Chi Thanh was being reprimanded for his failures in using large-scale unit operations against the devastating firepower of US forces. Basically, if Thanh continued the war under these circumstances he would have no army to continue the revolution. The decision from Hanoi was that their only hope was to use a Protracted War Strategy and outlast the Americans (Ford 33). In 1967 Thanh died and was replaced by General Giap. This gave the decision makers in Hanoi a solution to their problem of adopting a sound strategy. It wasn’t hard to make a decision, they decided on fighting a long and drawn out guerilla war. Hanoi also expanded the debate to consider the views of others (Ford 34). Psychology was a factor in this war, the leaders in North Vietnam made sure of it. They realized that Vietnam was a political war for America. In fact, it was not uncommon for the North Vietnamese leaders to tune in to American broadcasts to see how the media handled the war.
On January 30th, 1968 the Tet Offensive came into being. Nineteen Vietnamese sappers blew a hole in the eight-foot wall surrounding the US embassy in Saigon. Initially the dozen military police and Marine Corps guards were taken by surprise, by dawn the wall was secure and ...
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...r the Viet Cong it was a great psychological victory over the American public. The decline of events in 1968 was enough to keep President Johnson from seeking re-election.
It isn’t difficult to understand why the Tet Offensive of 1968 changed many American’s opinion of the war. The offensive took the US by surprise. There were signs that it was coming but these signs were not given the proper attention that they required. The media in Vietnam was in disarray when the offensive first broke out and when they finally came back into their normal functions the damage had been done by misreporting and the chaos and confusion that swept the country.
List Of Works Cited
Braestrup, Peter. Big Story. New Haven: Westview Press, Inc., 1977.
Ford, Ronnie E. TET 1968: Understanding the Surprise. London: Frank Cass & Co. LTD, 1995
Gilbert, Marc Jason and William Head. The Tet Offensive. Westport: Praeger, 1996.
Omicinski, John. Tet Offensive – A Turning Point.
Vets With A Mission. 4 Feb. 2003
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Wirtz, James J. The Tet Offensive: Intelligence Failure In War. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1991.
The Vietnam War was the most publicized war during its era; moreover, this was the most unpopular war to hit the United States. All over the country riots began to rise, anti-war movement spread all over the states begging to stop the war and chaos overseas. This truly was a failure on the political side of things. For the public, all they saw was a failed attempt in a far away country. Events such as the Tet Offensive where the North Vietnamese Army and Viet Cong established an all out attack on key locations around Vietnam, and although the Viet Cong was virtually wiped out, this still had a large affect psychologically on the troops as well as the populist back in the United States.
In conclusion, I think that the United States became increasingly involved in the Vietnamese War because of the policies they had made as a promise to fight communism, and because they had sorely underestimated Vietcong’s ability to fight back using Guerrilla warfare. They refused to pull out of the war in fear of losing face before the world, but this pride factor scored them massive losses in the war. In the end, with both side sustaining heavy losses, the US were still seen as mutilators in the war, with advanced showing what their intervention had costed, and Vietnam was still fully taken over by Communism – they had achieved nothing and lost a lot.
Due to the volatile conditions of the Vietnam War, the protestors believed that they should not be involved in a war that they cared so little about. Public opinion heavily swayed during the war as only one senator dissented from the overwhelming opinion to fight the war (Amter 45). However, as President Johnson escalated the war and the Draft increased by 25% in 1968, those youths being conscripted were infuriated (Dougan 118). Not only this, the North Vietnamese began a ruthless offensive on American soldiers by merciless attacking our bases. This resulted in US victories, but also US casualties (Dougan 116). Also, the marines stationed at the bases began to use offensive attacks to deter Viet Cong assault against the wishes of General Taylor (Karnov 443). With these new less defensive strategy, Nixon announced plans to start operations in Cambodia, and to increase the bombings overall in Southeast Asia (Dougan 180). Some missions even began t...
Introduction The Battle of Hue is one of the longest battles within the realms of the Vietnam War. The United States sent two Army battalions and three under strength US Marine Corps battalions, which together with the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN) defeated ten North Vietnamese Army (NVA) and the Viet Cong (VC). The battle highlighted the challenges the U.S. Marines faced in an urban battlefield. The NVA and VC forces entered the city of Hue under the cover of darkness on January 30, 1968. Under a unified front, they seized most of the city except two strategic locations: ARVN 1st Division Headquarters and the U.S. Military Assistance Command Vietnam (MACV) compound.
Walton, Jennifer. "The Tet Offensive: The Turning Point of the Vietnam." Magazine of History: n. pag. eLibrary. Web. 5 Mar. 2014.
16,000 United States service mean were killed in 1968, some criticized the government handling of the warned said that they didn't do enough. The government had said that according to body counts the United States were winning the war, but that really wasn't the case. At the end of January was marked the Tet the Vietnamese new year, and on the night of January 30th 1968, the north Vietnamese army and VC launched a countrywide attack against the United States and South Vietnamese controlled posts, villages, and cites. The attack was known was the Tet Offensive. North Vietnam expected the Tet Offensive to bring down South Vietnam government by causing South Vietnamese to rally behind them as liberators. But it FAILS! Military Tet was a failure but politically it was a huge success.
Engaging in the war in Vietnam brought a whole different set of "American Views" to the topic of war. This time the country did not support the war like we've seen in the past. Mostly by young people, the war effort was criticized and Americans staged massive protests. The Vietnam War's controversy spurred a great many sources of protest, against our government's use of power, how far we could stretch the rights of free expression, and primarily against the violence of the war itself.
In conclusion, the Tet Offensive changed the US's attitude towards the Vietnam war by leading to further anti-war protests, a credibility gap in America, and for President Johnson to negotiate peace and not seek reelection.
In the year 1968, the Vietnam War had taken control of the minds and the hearts of millions of Americans and other individuals around the world. The Tet was initiated by Vietcong warriors in South Vietnam, where the warriors launched a full scale attack on every major city in the south of the country. This shattered the dreams of those who had hoped that the war would end quickly and that there would be peace and not Communism in the country of Vietnam. Nixon decided to spice things up a bit and invade nearby Cambodia in 1970 saying that he would not allow the biggest superpower in the world to appear “like a pitiful, helpless giant.” Meanwhile, in many different universities across the U.S, several students felt a spark in them evoked by the war in Vietnam and by the restrictive punishments of their respected colleges. To fight this, they organized gatherings and student strikes to promote their way of thinking to their parents and to anyone who would listen. These students were protesting against the Vietnam War, conformity, and the harsh rules of the elite colleges, to prove that their voices were worthy to be heard.
The reasons for the Vietnam War took place long before the war even began. For years, the Vietnamese had been under French colonial rule. But, when Communist revolutionary Ho Chi Minh came back to Vietnam, he established a group called the Viet Minh, the goal of which was to remove all French occupation from Vietnam. So, the fighting started, and Ho Chi Minh tried to get the US to support them. But, being true to their policies of containment, the US started supporting France. The United States' thoughts about Communism's potential growth can be summed up in one basic idea: the Domino Theory. This theory stated that if one country in a region fell to Communism, the surrounding countries would soon follow. Because of this, the US committed to keeping the North Vietnamese contained once the French withdrew from Vietnam. But, the thing that really pushed the US into sending troops into Vietnam was the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution. On August 2nd and 4th, 1964, the North Vietnamese fired upon two US ships in the Gulf of Tonkin. Following this, Congress approved the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution on August 7, 1964, which gave the president authority to send military troops into Vietnam without declaring war. So, President Johnson sent troops into Vietnam, which had already erupted into civil war, to aid the South Vietnamese.
The political and societal ramifications of Vietnam's Tet Offensive indubitably illustrate the historical oddity of 1968. 1967 had not been a bad year for most Americans. Four years after the profound panic evoked by the assassination of John Kennedy, the general public seemed to be gaining a restored optimism, and even the regularly protested Vietnam War still possessed the semblance of success (Farber and Bailey 34-54). However, three short weeks following the eve of 68, Americans abruptly obtained a radically different outlook. The Tet Offensive, beginning on January 30, 1968, consisted of a series of military incursions during the Vietnam War, coordinated between the National Liberation Front's People's Liberation Armed Forces (PLAF), or "Viet Cong," and the ...
For nine years, the United States were hell-bent in achieving their rightful victory in Vietnam, however, destiny had different plans for them. The Tet Offensive is considered the turning point of the Vietnam Conflict because of the fact that the Vietcong and North Vietnamese Army surprised the U.S and South Vietnam with several sporadic attacks. Consequently, many effects from these attacks were expected, not only for America, but for North and South Vietnam as well. With U.S citizens’ opinions quickly turning against U.S. involvement in Vietnam, South Vietnam faced much disaster. Its government was stricken with humility because of the increased abandonment of their army, leading to the inability to protect its citizens. On the other hand, North Vietnam began accepting great amounts of land along with the power to frighten the rural population.
Wirtz, James J. The Tet Offensive: Intelligence Failure in War. Ithaca: Cornell UP, 1991. Print.
The Vietnam War was well on its way by the time the Democratic Convention of 1968 rolled around, and so were the anti-war protests. After the Tet Offensive in the spring of 1968 and the famous Broadcast of Walter Cronkite the American public had begun to lose trust in the plans of Lyndon Johnson for Vietnam, and was protesting for peace. The Democratic Convention was an important time and place for protestors to display their displeasure with the Vietnam War, as many important decisions were to be made.
Kennedy and Diem were both killed in 1963 and 1964. Johnson took control of the situation by increasing the amount of money and manpower put into Vietnam. Congress passed the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, giving the president full military power. After Johnson dramatically escalated the amount of soldiers in Vietnam, The North Vietnamese mounted a surprise attack during the Vietnamese new year, and this strike was called the Tet Offensive. It made America more aware of what they were up against, that the communists were capable of fierce, guerrilla warfare, unlike anything Americans had ever fought before. Images of the terror and disarray reached back home, and the U.S. began to wonder how effective their involvement in Vietnam really was.