Tet Offensive Failure

The goal was to achieve a popular uprising against the GVN and to show the American public that the very notion of security was null and void. While the attack itself did not surprise the principals, its timing during the Tet holiday truce phasedown did. According to Robert J. McMahon, the weeks preceding and the months following the initial Tet fighting constituted the pivotal period when the escalation of the American ground war ended and the active search for an American exit from the war began. In terms of both conventional and revolutionary warfare, the Tet Offensive was a tactical failure. In an intelligence memorandum circulated on January 31, the CIA soberly described the Tet Offensive as designed to demonstrate North Vietnamese and Vietcong strength and resiliency and at the same time deal a psychological
The year 1968 certainly deserves the distinction typically accorded it by Vietnam War historians as the conflict’s pivotal year. It was the year in which U.S. decision makers reluctantly accepted the fact that the war simply could not be won-at least not at an acceptable cost. The Tet Offensive thus exposed the fundamental contradictions of the Johnson-Westmoreland military strategy. The Tet Offensive opened a new revolutionary phase, but it also brought northern and southern Communists back together after years of estrangement. American forces, with their overwhelming firepower, inflicted enormous casualties on the enemy as they beat back the attacks and proved that they could frustrate the enemy militarily, deny it control of the cities, and continue to prop up the Saigon regime. The interplay of the military battles and the growing political debate in the United States made Tet the pivotal moment of the war. An effect of the Tet Offensive was reflected in public’s change in preference from “hawk” to “dove” between the January and March 1968; one observer called this “the largest and most important change in public