Saigon.
Photo from The National Archivesand Records Administration
Saigon.
Photo from The National Archives
and Records Administration
The night of January 30, 1968, more than 70,000 Communist troops staged a coodinated attack to the main urban areas of South Vietnam, violating a truce agreed to allow for the celebration of Tet, the lunar New Year. The attacks took place all over South Vietnam, including major urban centers such as Danang, Hué, and Saigon itself. In the capital, a Vietcong commando raided the U.S. Embassy, at the time headed by Ambassador Bunker, who had to be rushed to safety.
Most of the Vietcong units were promptly repelled or crushed by the U.S. and South Vietnamese troops. In the former imperial capital of Hué, though, U.S. troops and Vietcong units fought for the control of the city for nearly a month. During the occupation of Hué, the Communist troops detained and executed three thousand people, in one of the darkest episodes of the war.
In military terms, the Tet offensive was a serious setback for the Vietcong, which counted its losses in the tens of thousands, for a total of two thousand U.S. and four thousand South Vietnamese casualties. The communist structure in South Vietnam suffered a severe blow, and replacements had to be sent from the North. For the U.S., though, the real damage was not on the battlefield, but in the home front.
Vietnam being the first televised war in history, scenes of the Tet offensive reached the American homes in a matter of hours. The U.S. military has long alleged that TV coverage of the offensive contributed to a public opinion backlash disproportioned to the real outcome of Tet. Indeed, the American public was shocked by scenes of the shooting inside the American Embassy compound; by the summary execution--shot to the head--of a bound Vietcong prisoner by South Vietnam's Chief of Police; by the sight of South Vietnamese soldiers looting Vietcong soldiers' bodies for valuables; and finally, by the mounting American casualty list. Many Americans started wondering whether the U.S. could really win the war, and whether the corrupt South Vietnamese government was worth the sacrifice.
Tet marked a turning point in public sentiment towards the war. It might have also helped Senator Robert Kennedy make the decision of running for president, and it had considerable influence in Johnson's war-weariness and his consequent resolution of withdrawing his presidential bid.
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