The Tet Offensive In Vietnam

Such coverage, along with the vivid images that emerge on T.V. led to a serious rise in anti-war protest that was merely strengthened by the events of 1968. The Tet Offensive of 1968 marked the greatest conflict in beliefs of the United Stated government and the media. In January, North Vietnamese troops attacked the North cities of South Vietnam and the U.S. embassy in Saigon. The media and the television, however, portrayed the attack as a brutal defeat for the U.S, totally altering the outcome of the war at the very moment when government officials were publicly stating that victory in Vietnam was "just around the corner" (Wyatt 167)[8]. The media covered all the events that immediately followed the Tet Offensive and the American public began wondering whether this war could be won. Don Oberdorfer a Washington reporter said that “there’s no doubt Tet was one of the biggest events in contemporary American history, within two months the, American body politically turned around on the war. And they were significantly

The increasing number of troops and military efforts involved with Vietnam and the seemingly optimistic reports reported by the government were the primary factors that caused the Tet Offensive and Counteroffensive. The American government had become increasingly involved with the Vietnam war. From 1965 to 1967, over 400,000 soldiers were sent to help the South Vietnamese forces. This massive increase in the amount of soldiers was frustrating to the American people. Johnson’s approval rating fell to a mere 40%, half of what it had been in 1965.  (“Vietnam War (1959-1975)” ; Axelrod 1). When the American soldiers returned home from Vietnam, it was often heard that they were spit on, and

The Tet offensive was when the Viet Kong decided to attack on the week of Tet. Tet was similar to our new years and in the previous years neither side of the war had ever fought on that day. Suddenly Tet came and we (the United States) was being attacked. This played a huge role in society. Eventually this lead to Cronkite announcing that this war was not winnable, it also lead to LBJ announcing that he would not run again for president. Both of these were a wake up call to the United States basically letting them know that we are way further in on the war then we had expected. This also stated that we could not win the war, making more and more riots happen at home. No one wanted the United States at war anymore for they thought that they were there for no reason and we weren't going to win so why not come home? Tet Offensive also impacts the following topics.

How significant was the Tet Offensive in achieving a communist victory in Vietnam by 1975?

Considered one of the worst wars fought in American history, the Vietnam War created many controversies and casualties: a total of 58,000 American soldiers were killed and 304,000 wounded; almost 1,400,000 North and South Vietnamese were killed in action (Woods 9). Generally, people believed that the South Vietnamese would win with U.S. help. The turning point of the war, the Tet Offensive, was a campaign created by North Vietnam to regain initiative in the war by attacking South Vietnamese government and military sites on the Tet holiday (lunar new year). The

January 30, 1968, 70,000 North Vietnamese and Viet Cong forces had launched the Tet Offensive, which were fierce surprise attacks to Central South Vietnam. These attacks established many of the first views that Americans had seen first hand that were put out for them to see. General Vo Nguyen Giap, “leader of the Communist People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN), planned the offensive in an attempt both to foment rebellion among the South Vietnamese population and encourage the United States to scale back its support of the

The Vietnam War had been going on for nine years up to this point, and the events that would occur during 1968 would help solidify anti-war sentiments. One of these events is the Tet Offensive, which occurred on January 30th, a campaign that targeted strategically important cites, all major US bases, and the Saigon embassy. While the losses were much heavier on the enemy side, the effects on the ARVN and the US army were more severe, with the realities of the war being exposed (Roark et al p. 841). Following this, President Johnson sharply cut back on bombing efforts, and added that he was not going to run for a second term. Another event was the My Lai Massacre, where over 300 unarmed civilians were slaughtered. The members of Charlie Company, 11th brigade entered the village of My Lai, with the objectives that they were given by their superiors being to ‘search and destroy’;

attack on South Vietnam by the North Vietnamese on the first day of Tet-Vietnam's Lunar New

The Tet Offensive was one of the biggest military battles of the Vietnam War, propelled on January 30, 1968, by powers of the Viet Cong and North Vietnamese People's Army of Vietnam against the powers

In an act to help the South 's government, the United States of America deployed two thousand military advisors, which later increased to sixteen thousand three hundred advisors in 1963. Due to the run down military conditions, South Vietnam forfeited the high-yielding Mekong delta to the Viet Cong. Lyndon Johnson, the thirty sixth U.S. President, intensified the war by calling air strikes on North Vietnam in 1965 and sent ground forces in 1968. The Tet Offensive of 1968 by the Northern Vietnamese turned several Americans against the conflict of war.

Preceding Robert F. Kennedy’s assassination was North Vietnam’s Tet Offensive against the United States which “signified the beginning of the end of U.S involvement in the Vietnam War” (CNN). Tet, the Vietnamese Lunar New Year, “was a holiday during which the North and South had previously observed an informal truce” (CNN). However, on January 31st, 1968, a “coordinated attack by Viet Cong and the North Vietnamese targeted 36 major cities and towns in South Vietnam” (CNN). Despite the heavy casualties, “North Vietnam achieved a strategic victory with the Tet Offensive, as the attacks marked a turning point in the Vietnam War and the beginning of the slow, painful American withdrawal from the region” (“Tet Offensive”). This attack was a crucial turning point in the war because the ambush resulted in Americans withdrawing their support of the war. Before the offensive, the U.S.

The TET offensive was the retaliation of the North. The north surprised attacked many of the cities and therefore making it so that we had to activate our reserves. It was a political and psychological victory for them (Karnow), because it dramatically contradicted claims by the United States government that the war was all but over. This offensive may have been insignificant because it was a failure but it did send an intense message. Due to the ongoing offensives, controversy over the war raged on.

There are two, interrelated myths surrounding the Tet Offensive that supporters of the war use in defense of the U.S. intervention in Vietnam. The first is that a resounding American military victory in Vietnam was turned into defeat due to the political and psychological impact of the attacks in the United States. The second myth was that the media and the television in particular, presented such a distorted picture of the attacks on the cities that it appeared that the war was being lost. This in turn led to a panic by the American public, and in parts of the Johnson administration, that led American officials to misunderstand the meaning of the attack and overreact to it. The result was the unnecessary beginning process of American withdrawal.

As the festival of the lunar new year, Tet was the most imperative occasion on the Vietnamese timetable. In earlier years, the occasion had been the event for a casual détente in South Vietnam's long-running clash with North Vietnam and their Communist southern partners, disparagingly known as Viet Cong. In mid 1968, be that as it may, the North Vietnamese military officer General Vo Nguyen Giap picked January 31 as the event for a planned hostile of shock assaults went for softening the stalemate up Vietnam. Giap trusted that the assaults would bring about Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN) strengths to fall and incite discontent and disobedience among the South Vietnamese populace, driving them to ascend against the administration in

Early in 1968, the North Vietnamese concocted and pursued an attack on an American base near the town of Khe Sanh. The base, originally built in