Is it possible to win a battle and lose the war?
I’m Jim Lindsay, and this is Lessons Learned.
Our topic today is the Tet Offensive, which began in late January 1968, and changed the
direction of the Vietnam War.
U.S. and South Vietnamese troops were hoping for a break from the fighting during that
final week of January 1968.
It was Tet, the beginning of the lunar new year—a time of great celebrations in Vietnam.
In previous years, both sides had observed a cease-fire to allow the country to celebrate
its national holiday.
But unbeknownst to the Americans and the South Vietnamese, the Vietcong, the communist guerillas
operating in South Vietnam, had infiltrated towns and cities across the country.
As the festivities for Tet began, they struck with ferocity—hitting targets like the Saigon
international airport, the presidential palace, and even the U.S. embassy in Saigon.
After the initial surprise wore off, U.S. and South Vietnamese forces responded with
devastating effectiveness, repulsing the attackers and inflicting huge losses.
The Vietcong were broken as a military force for the remainder of the war.
But while the United States military scored a victory on the battlefield at Tet, the effect
at home was quite different.
The fighting at Tet helped turn American public opinion against the war, and persuaded Lyndon
Johnson not to run for reelection.
The discrepancy between what happened in Vietnam and what happened at home has generated a
slew of books and articles arguing that news media’s coverage of the Tet Offensive turned
the American public against the Vietnam War.
To be sure, journalists got a lot of the facts wrong early on in the Tet Offensive.
Most famously, journalists reported that the Vietcong had invaded the U.S. embassy when,
in fact, they’d only managed to get onto the embassy’s grounds.
Many Americans were horrified to see a photo of a South Vietnamese Army general summarily
executing a Vietcong prisoner on the streets of Saigon.
But the talk of how journalists covered the Tet Offensive misses the broader point: context
matters.
Even before Tet the American public had begun to sour on the Vietnam War.
Polls done in the middle of the summer of 1967 showed that a majority of Americans had
concluded that the decision to become involved in Vietnam had been a mistake.
The Johnson administration responded to these poll numbers by launching a public relations
campaign to build support for the war.
That included bringing home the commanding U.S. general from Vietnam who told the American
public that an important point had been reached, “where the end begins to come into view.”
>> General William C. Westmoreland: I am absolutely certain that, whereas in 1965, the enemy was
winning.
Today, he is certainly losing.
>> Jim Lindsay: Tet shattered the claim that the United States was making progress in South
Vietnam.
Americans begin talking about a “credibility gap” because the Johnson administration
had violated a cardinal rule of American politics: Never over-promise and under-deliver.
Preparing the public for setbacks and reversals is critical to succeeding with any foreign
policy that requires a sustained political commitment.
That lesson is worth keeping in mind as talk about a potential military strike against
Iran or intervening militarily in Syria.
The American public will bear great burdens, but it wants to know what the costs are before
the fighting begins.
I invite you to join me in continuing the conversation at my blog, The Water’s Edge.
You can find it at www.cfr.org.
Remember, historical events like the Tet Offensive provide powerful lessons and insights into
the challenges we face today; or as Nobel Prize-winning author William Faulkner wrote:
“The past isn’t dead; it isn’t even past.”