The Tet Offensive Analysis

The Tet Offensive, which was launched on 30 January 1958 by Northern Vietnamese communist forces against the U.S. supported South Vietnamese forces, had the tactical aim of spurring a communist revolt in South Vietnam. This would be achieved by a combination of capturing the city of Saigon and encouraging South Vietnamese citizens to revolt in support of communist forces.1 In addition, this effort had the long-term strategic aim of forcing American forces out of Vietnam by reversing the American public’s opinion against the war, thereby forcing the U.S. government to revise Vietnamese policy.2 The campaign, which ceased on 23 September 1968 after Hanoi forces withdrew from Saigon, was both a tactical failure and strategic victory, the latter

Indeed, the Tet

Offensive was not only a strategic victory for the Minh government, but also a turning point of the war.

The Tet Offensive marked a point at which public opinion swayed against the American government’s favour. To start, graphic images taken by media present at the battle of

Saigon (30 January – 7 March 1968, first phase of the conflict) contradicted Lyndon B.

Johnson’s administration’s reassurances to the public that North Vietnamese forces were an insignificant threat, and that the war was due to end shortly. Specifically, a raid by a 19- man-strong Vietcong battalion seized the courtyard of the American embassy at Saigon.

This small force managed to hold the embassy for six hours, finally succumbing to overwhelming U.S. firepower.3 While the embassy raid was not a tactical victory for the

Minh government, its media coverage demonstrated to the American people that the war was not a definite conclusion; indeed, trusted CBC anchorman Walter Cronkite even

This is significant because the suspension of Operation Rolling

Thunder is clearly due to the public backlash faced in the aftermath of the Tet Offensive.

Moreover, since the Tet Offensive forced the U.S. to change one of its primary objectives

(the possibility of communist influence in Vietnam) it gave the North Vietnamese a best worst-case-scenario – a negotiated peace rather than a total collapse of the Hanoi government. This is a significant tactical advantage for the North Vietnamese, thus proving that the Tet Offensive was a strategic victory for the Hanoi government.

Overall, the Tet Offensive cost the Viet Cong more than 110,000 casualties with

~45,000 killed, failed to capture and hold Saigon, and ultimately failed to unify the entirety of Vietnam under communist rule, making it on paper a complete loss and waste of