What effect did the Tet Offensive in Vietnam have on the war?

1 Answer
Mar 28, 2017

It was a crucial factor in turning American public opinion against the war.

Explanation:

The Tet offensive was launched on January 30th 1968 at the start of the Chinese new Year. Up until then most of the war had been fought in the countryside.

The North Vietnamese commander General Giap decided to switch the offensive into the cities during a holiday period when defences would be less guarded.

The Tet offensive was a spectacular psychological success but a military defeat for the communists. At the end of the fighting they had suffered huge losses. However it was the images created by Tet which had the most profound impact.

The American public were already having serious doubts about the war with no victory in sight. When images such as the Vietcong being inside the American embassy in Saigon, the brutal fighting in Hue and the summary execution of a youth by a South Vietnamese police chief were seen on millions of American TV's it added to the growing doubts and opposition.

When the Secretary of Defence Clark Clifford asked for answers about the planning of the war in the Pentagon, he could get no definitive answers. His advice to Johnson was to get out of Vietnam.