Tet Offensive
| Tet Offensive | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Part of the Vietnam War | |||||||
| File:Captain Franklin P. Eller during TET NAM.jpg USMC Captain Franklin P. Eller during the Tet Offensive | |||||||
| |||||||
| Belligerents | |||||||
|
South Vietnam, United States, New Zealand, Australia |
North Vietnam, National Liberation Front | ||||||
| Commanders and leaders | |||||||
| William Westmoreland | Võ Nguyên Giáp | ||||||
| Strength | |||||||
| 50,000+ (estimate) | 85,000+ (estimate) | ||||||
| Casualties and losses | |||||||
|
USA/AUS/SKOR: 1,536 dead, 7,764 wounded, 11 missing, ARVN: 2,788 dead, 8,299 wounded, 587 missing, Total: 4,324 dead, 16,063 wounded, 598 missing, Total casualties: 20985 |
25,000-45,000 dead, 30,000-50,000 wounded, 6,000 captured, Total casualties: ~60,000-100,000 | ||||||
The Tết Offensive (January 30, 1968 - June 8, 1969) was a series of operational offensives during the Vietnam War, coordinated between battalion strength elements of the National Liberation Front's People's Liberation Armed Forces (PLAF or Viet Cong) and divisional strength elements of the North Vietnam's People's Army of Vietnam (PAVN), against South Vietnam's Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN), and United States military and other ARVN-allied forces. The operations are called the Tết Offensive as they were timed to begin on the night of January 30–31, 1968, Tết Nguyên Đán (the lunar new year day). The offensive began spectacularly during celebrations of the Lunar New Year, and sporadic operations associated with the offensive continued into 1969.
The Tết Offensive can be considered a crushing military defeat for the Communist forces, as neither the Viet Cong nor the North Vietnamese army achieved any of their tactical goals. Furthermore, the operational cost of the offensive was dangerously high, with the Viet Cong essentially crippled by the huge losses inflicted by American and South Vietnamese forces. Nevertheless, the Offensive is widely considered a turning point of the war in Vietnam, with the NLF and PAVN winning an enormous psychological and propaganda victory. Although US public opinion polls continued to show a majority supporting involvement in the war, this support continued to deteriorate and the nation became increasingly polarized over the war.[1] President Lyndon Johnson saw his popularity fall sharply after the Offensive, and he withdrew as a candidate for re-election in March of 1968. The Tết Offensive is frequently seen as an example of the value of propaganda, media influence and popular opinion in the pursuit of military objectives.
Strategic context
Until 1969 the strategy of North Vietnam and the Viet Cong in South Vietnam had been predicated on developing a social revolution which would begin in the countryside and end in a nationalist urban uprising. This strategy had informed an operational doctrine of gradual intensification of ground warfare, and the development of the Viet Cong's capacity for operational warfare. With the local RVN-aligned village elite as their primary enemy in a fundamentally social war, early efforts in the south were aimed at villages and large farms. The intent of this strategy was to swing the rural population to supporting the National Front for Liberation, thereby socially isolating the urban elite, and winning the allegiance of urban leftists and discontents. This form of war produced what amounted to a bloody stalemate where neither side was able to gain any real advantage over the other. The reaction of the rural population was often to flee the countryside for the cities as refugees.
The involvement of U.S. ground forces greatly changed the strategy of North Vietnam. Rather than any kind of revolutionary conflict or irregular war, the conflict turned into small-unit battles between regular army units on both sides. Starting in the 1950s, North Vietnam began sending units of its army south. On March 8, 1965, 3,500 United States Marines became the first American combat troops to land in South Vietnam, adding to the 25,000 U.S. military advisers already in place, and four days later President Johnson announced the number of U.S. troops in Vietnam would be increased from 75,000 to 125,000. The combined forces of U.S. infantry, artillery and air-power inflicted steady losses on the Viet Cong, but as these losses were consistently made up with replacements from North Vietnam, nothing really changed.
From the American perspective, the first several years of the war involved an ever greater commitment of forces in the name of stabilizing the situation in Vietnam. The US Military and Defense Department told the public that the war was a matter of destroying the insurgency in the countryside. The military focused on "body counts" as a metric for progress in the destruction of the insurgency. US strategy for dealing with North Vietnam was to use bombing to pressure the country out of the conflict and to draw the North Vietnamese into unequal conventional battles such as the Battle of Khe Sanh.
The high level commanders were convinced of their success, and were all too happy to share the opinion with reporters. Throughout 1967 the attitude was one of "containment"; the war would never be ended due to direct military action, but it would be reduced to such a low level that the ARVN could deal with any remaining problems.
By late 1967 the momentum seemed to be with the U.S. Unbeknownst to the leaders in the south, there was a growing body of politicians in the north that shared these views and called for dialog to end the war. This resulted in a massive purge, leading to the arrest and imprisonment of over 200 North Vietnamese officials. The US bombing campaign over North Vietnam had allowed the more extreme elements of the government to both whip up patriotic feeling and to crush any dissent within the ruling party.
The plan
The plan for the Tết Offensive originated in 1967, following the death of North Vietnamese General Nguyen Chi Thanh. The primary strategist was Thanh's successor, General Võ Nguyên Giáp, although Giáp claimed afterward to have been against the idea, planning it "reluctantly under duress from the Le Duan dominated Politburo."[2] Giáp had long advocated primarily using guerrilla tactics against the U.S. and South Vietnam, whereas Thanh had supported general main force action. Overriding Giáp, the North Vietnamese leadership decided that the time was ripe for a major conventional offensive. They believed that the South Vietnamese government and the U.S. presence were so unpopular in the South that a broad-based attack would spark a spontaneous uprising of the South Vietnamese population, which would enable the North to sweep to a quick, decisive victory.
To this end, a multiphase plan was developed: in the first phase, the PAVN would launch attacks on the border regions of South Vietnam to close those regions to American observation. Following this, a second phase of widely dispersed attacks by the Viet Cong directly into the major centers of the country would cause the collapse of the government and would prod the civilians into full-fledged revolt, and with the government overthrown, the Americans and other allied forces would have no choice but to evacuate, leading to phase three attacks by the Viet Cong and PAVN against elements of the isolated foreign forces.
The offensive involved simultaneous military action in most of the larger cities in South Vietnam and attacks on major U.S. bases, with particular efforts focused on the cities of Saigon and Huế. Concurrently, a substantial assault was launched against the U.S. firebase at Khe Sanh. The Khe Sanh assault drew North Vietnamese forces away from the offensive into the cities, but North Vietnam considered the attack necessary to protect their supply lines to the south.
ARVN and U.S. readiness
Both the ARVN and U.S. military posture immediately preceding the offensive were relaxed.
North Vietnam had announced in October that it would observe a seven-day truce from January 27 to February 3, 1968, in honor of the Tết holiday, and the South Vietnamese army made plans to allow recreational leave for a large part of its force.
U.S. and ARVN military intelligence observed signs of a major military buildup in the months before the Offensive. In addition to captured intelligence, observations of logistics operations were also quite clear: In October the number of trucks observed heading south on the Hồ Chí Minh Trail jumped from the previous monthly average of 480 to 1,116. In November this number was 3,823 and in December, 6,315.[3]
U.S. attention was firmly focused on the ongoing battle at Khe Sanh, and concluded it was to be the target. U.S. intelligence identified at least 15,000 PAVN troops in the vicinity, and Military Assistance Command Vietnam (MACV) staff was certain that a decisive clash was imminent, but thought it would be directed solely against Khe Sanh.
General Westmoreland warned President Johnson of the possibility of a major offensive, probably against Khe Sanh, and considered analogous to the famed Vietnamese attacks at Điện Biên Phủ in the 1950s, which had preceded scheduled negotiations as a means of improving the Communist bargaining position. While military intelligence saw that offensive operations were being planned, it did not detect that the offensive would be national in scale and aimed at cities.
Specific operations
Fighting began to the south on January 29 as a number of Viet Cong units attacked prematurely in four provincial towns. The rest of the NLF/PAVN attacks began on the night of January 30–1. All but eight provincial capitals, five of the six autonomous cities, and 58 other major towns were attacked, with major attacks were aimed at Ban Me Thuot, Quảng Nam province, Đà Lạt, Mỹ Tho, Cần Thơ, Bến Tre province, Nha Trang, and Kontum. It was in Huế, the ancient capital, and Saigon that the Communist forces had significant success.
Saigon
Although Saigon was the focal point of the Tết Offensive[4], the Communists did not seek a total takeover of the city. Rather they had six primary targets within the city: the headquarters of the ARVN, President Thieu's office, the American Embassy, a Vietnamese Air Base and their navel headquarters, and the National Broadcasting Station. A total of 35 battalions attacked these targets, Many of the troops were undercover Viet Cong who lived and worked in the city.
The radio station was considered an important target by the Communists. They had brought a tape recording of Hồ Chí Minh announcing the liberation of Saigon and calling for a "General Uprising." The building was taken and held for six hours, but they were unable to broadcast as the power had been cut off as soon as the station was attacked.
By early February, the Communist high command realized that none of their military objectives were being met, and they halted any further attacks on fortified positions. Sporadic fighting continued in Saigon until March 7. Some sections of the city were left badly damaged by the combat and U.S. retaliatory air and artillery strikes in particular. The Chinese district of Cholon suffered especially, with perhaps hundreds of civilians killed in the American counter attacks.[5]
U.S. Embassy
The attack against the U.S. Embassy was especially significant in the public's perception of the U.S. military's control over the situation. At 2:45 AM on January 31, Nineteen Viet Cong commandos attacked the embassy. Although VC attacks had been taking place in Saigon for over an hour, the guards at the embassy had not been informed of this and had not been reinforced. The Viet Cong blew a hole in the embassy compound's wall, killed several MPs, and entered the grounds. The few remaining American guards withdrew into the embassy building and locked the doors. Although the Viet Cong had an ample supply of explosives, they did not press their attack. Both officers in charge of the Viet Cong squad had been killed in the initial assault and the remaining guerrillas milled aimlessly around the grounds. Eventually American reinforcements arrived, and in the morning, six hours after the attack began, MPs retook the embassy compound.
Given the symbolic importance of this attack into "the very heart of American power in South Vietnam"[6], reporters quickly converged on the scene. With the bodies of the dead Viet Cong still scattered about and amid rubble from the badly damaged embassy building, General Westmoreland gave a press conference inside the compound. He assured the skeptical press that the enemy had never entered "the embassy itself," and spoke of the allies returning to the offensive. A Washington Post reporter would later recall: "The reporters could hardly believe their ears. Westmoreland was standing in the ruins and saying that everything was great."[7]
Adams photograph
The fighting in Saigon also produced one of the Vietnam War's most famous images, photographer Eddie Adams' Pulitzer Prize-winning image of the summary execution of a Viet Cong prisoner on February 1.
Nguyen Van Lem was captured by South Vietnamese national police, who identified him as the captain of a Viet Cong assassination and revenge platoon, and accused him of murdering the families of police officers. Allegedly as many as thirty-four bound and murdered civilians were found in a nearby ditch. He was brought before Brigadier General Nguyen Ngoc Loan, the chief of the national police, who briefly questioned him. General Nguyen then drew his sidearm and shot the prisoner. Nguyen's motives may have been personal; He had been told by a subordinate that the suspect had killed a police major who was one of Nguyen's closest friends, and the major's family as well.[8]
Present at the shooting were Adams and an NBC television news crew. The photograph appeared on front pages around the world, and won eight other awards in addition to the Pulitzer. The NBC film was played on the Huntley-Brinkley Report and elsewhere, in some cases the silent film embellished with the sound effect of a gunshot. General Westmoreland would later write, "The photograph and film shocked the world, an isolated incident of cruelty in a broadly cruel war, but a psychological blow against the South Vietnamese nonetheless."[9]
Huế
The city of Huế was attacked by ten PAVN battalions and six Viet Cong battalions and almost completely overrun. Thousands of civilians believed to be potentially hostile to Communist control, including government officials, religious figures, and expatriate residents, were executed in what became known as the Massacre at Huế. The city was not recaptured by the U.S. and ARVN forces until the end of February. The historical and cultural value of the city meant that the U.S. did not apply air and artillery strikes as widely as in other cities, at least initially. Instead, U.S. Marines of the 1st Marine Division and several Army units had to clear the city street by street and house by house; a deadly form of combat the U.S. military had hardly seen since WW II, and for which the soldiers were not trained. Over most of February, they gradually fought their way towards the Citadel, a fortified 3-square-mile section of the city, which was recaptured from PAVN troops after four days of struggle. The U.S. lost 216 men and the ARVN 384. The allies estimated the PAVN lost 8,000 in the city and in fighting in the surrounding area.[10] Lasting 26 days, Huế was one of the longest and perhaps the bloodiest single battle of the Vietnam War. The extent of the massacre of civilians by the Communists was only realized over the following months and years, with the last mass graves being found in 1970. Approximately 2,800 bodies were found, and another 2,000 persons were missing.[11] Some thousands of additional lives were lost from civilians being caught in the crossfire of the battle.
Khe Sanh
- Main article: Battle of Khe Sanh
Khe Sanh was an airstrip and U.S. Marine base just south of the DMZ. According to North Vietnam leadership, the attack on Khe Sanh, which began on January 21, was intended to serve two purposes: As a diversionary tactic to draw American attention and forces away from the upcoming Tết attacks, and to prevent the forces at Khe Sanh from attacking supplies and troops moving south on the Hồ Chí Minh Trail. In turn, American military stated that the very purpose of the Khe Sanh base was to provoke the North Vietnamese into a focussed and prolonged battle, allowing American artillery and air strikes to inflict massive casualties.
Khe Sanh and its 6,000 men were surrounded by 3 PAVN divisions, totaling approximately 20,000 men. Throughout the battle, which lasted until April 8, the Marines were subjected to heavy artillery bombardment, combined with sporadic small-scale infantry attacks. There was never any major ground assault on the base, and the battle was largely a duel between American and PAVN gunners, combined with air strikes from the American side. American air support eventually included massive bombing by B-52s to destroy PAVN trenches and bunkers. Ground supply to the base was cut off, and airborne resupply became difficult due to enemy fire. Thanks to innovative high-speed "supply assaults" using fighter-bombers in combination with helicopters, air supply was never halted.
American media covered the battle extensively, and often made pessimistic comparisons to Điện Biên Phủ, where a French base had been besieged and ultimately defeated by the Vietnamese in the 1946-1954 Indochina War.
In the end, the PAVN broke off their assault, and both sides would claim that the battle had served its intended purpose. The United States claimed 8,000 PAVN dead and considerably more wounded, against 205 American lives lost. As with the Vietnam War in general, much of the American public was more impressed with the loss of American lives than with a military victory that could only be measured in terms of "kill ratio." The fact that the Khe Sanh base was abandoned on June 23 of 1968, having been deemed of no further military value, inevitably encouraged this sense of futility about the battle and the overall war.
Aftermath
In total, the United States estimated that 45,000 Viet Cong and PAVN soldiers were killed, though this figure may be significantly lower due to the nature of overclaims. About 6,000 were captured, with the number of wounded being unclear. The USA, ARVN, and allied Australian and South Korean forces suffered 4,324 killed, 16,063 wounded, and 598 missing.
Effect on the Viet Cong and North Vietnam
The Viet Cong's operational forces were effectively crippled by the Offensive. Many Viet Cong who had been operating under cover in the cities of South Vietnam revealed themselves during the Offensive and were killed or captured. The organization was preserved for propaganda purposes, but in practical terms the Viet Cong were finished. Formations that were referred to as Viet cong were in fact largely filled with North Vietnamese replacements. In reality, this change had little effect on the war, since North Vietnam had no difficulty making up the casualties inflicted by the war.[12] The National Liberation Front (the political arm of the Viet Cong) reformed itself as the Provisional Revolutionary Government of South Vietnam, and took part in future peace negotiations under this name.
The Communist high command did not anticipate the psychological effect the Tết Offensive would have on America. For example, the attack on the U.S. Embassy was allocated only 19 Viet Cong soldiers, and even the expenditure of this force was considered by some VC officers to be misguided. Only after they saw how the U.S. was reacting to this attack did the Communists begin to propagandize it. The timing of the Offensive was determined by the hope that American and South Vietnamese forces would be less vigilant during the Tết holiday. It was purely coincidence that it occurred at a time when it would have maximum effect on a U.S. presidential Election.
Effect on America
That the Communists were able to mount a major, country-wide assault at all was a blow to U.S. hopes of winning the war rapidly, and starkly called into question General Westmoreland's now-infamous public reports of the previous progress in the War. Likewise, the optimistic assessments of the Johnson administration and The Pentagon came under heavy criticism and ridicule.
Seeing the complete collapse of the PAVN/Viet Cong offensive, the lopsided casualty ratio, the lack of a popular uprising in support of the attacks, and the failure of the attacking forces to gain and hold significant territorial assets, Westmoreland considered it an appropriate opportunity for a counteroffensive action. He put together a request for 206,000 additional troops to prosecute the war in the wake of the Offensive, a move that would have required mobilization of the U.S. Reserves.
While this was being deliberated, the request was leaked to the press and published across three columns of the Sunday edition of The New York Times on March 10, 1968. Then-Lieutenant Colonel Dave Palmer later wrote in Summons of the Trumpet: "Looked upon erroneously but understandably by readers as a desperate move to avert defeat, news of the request for 206,000 men confirmed the suspicions of many that the result of the Tết Offensive had not been depicted accurately by the President or his spokesmen. If the Communists had suffered such a grievous setback, why would we need to increase our forces by 40 percent?"[13]
Media impact
U.S. media reports of the battles shocked both the American public and its politicians.
Many people, both at the time and in retrospect, have criticized the U.S. media for the negative light in which it portrayed both the war in general and the Tết Offensive in particular. Earle Wheeler, then Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, complained of "all the doom and gloom we see in the U.S. press" after Tết.
The most famous example of an anti-war attitude on the part of an influential press figure was Walter Cronkite's special report on the war of February 27, 1968. Showing film of the ruins of buildings destroyed during the Tết Offensive and interviewing discouraged soldiers and officers in the field, he concluded "To say that we are mired in a stalemate seems the only realistic, yet unsatisfactory conclusion..." and called for a negotiated end to the conflict.[14]
Impact on domestic politics in the United States
Days after the publication of the New York Times story concerning Westmoreland's request for additional troops, President Johnson suffered a staggering setback in the United States Democratic Party New Hampshire Primary, finishing barely ahead of United States Senator Eugene McCarthy. Soon after, Senator Robert F. Kennedy announced he would join the contest for the Democratic nomination, further emphasizing the plummeting support for Johnson's Administration in the wake of Tết. Although some have asserted Johnson's lack of support implied the public sought disengagement from Vietnam, others have suggested it was Johnson's failure to prosecute the war effectively that caused his decline at the polls. On March 31, Johnson announced he would not seek reelection, and announced a halt to the bombing of North Vietnam.
Also in March of 1968, Johnson announced that General Westmoreland would be replacing General Harold K. Johnson as Army Chief of Staff. Although technically a promotion, few doubted that Westmoreland was being "kicked upstairs" in response to Tết.[15]
Notes
- ^
Caine, Philip D., Major (2005). "The United States in Korea and Vietnam: A Study in Public Opinion". Retrieved 2006-06-12.
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Gilbert, Marc (1995). "Hau Nghia Part 3: "Out of Blind Xenophobia"". Retrieved 2006-06-12.
{{cite web}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter:|month=(help); Unknown parameter|coauthors=ignored (|author=suggested) (help) - ^
Hayward, Steven (2004). "The Tet Offensive: Dialogues". Retrieved 2006-06-12.
{{cite web}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter:|coauthors=(help); Unknown parameter|month=ignored (help) - ^
Andrew Wiest (2002). The Vietnam War 1956-1975. Osprey Publishing. pp. pg. 41. ISBN 1841764191.
{{cite book}}:|pages=has extra text (help) - ^
Gilbert N Dorland (2001). Legacy of Discord: Voices of the Vietnam Era. Potomac Books. pp. pg. 8. ISBN 1574882155.
{{cite book}}:|pages=has extra text (help) - ^
Andrew Wiest (2002). The Vietnam War 1956-1975. Osprey Publishing. pp. pg. 41. ISBN 1841764191.
{{cite book}}:|pages=has extra text (help) - ^
James R. Arnold (2004). The Tet Offensive 1968. Praeger Publishers. pp. pg. 57. ISBN 0275984524.
{{cite book}}:|pages=has extra text (help) - ^
Charles Kaiser (1997). 1968 In America: Music, Politics, Chaos, Counterculture, and the shaping of a Generation. Grove Press. pp. pg. 69. ISBN 0802135307.
{{cite book}}:|pages=has extra text (help) - ^ Quoted in
Philip Seib (1997). Headline Diplomacy: How News Coverage Affects Foreign Policy. Praeger Paperback. pp. pg. 18. ISBN 0275953750.
{{cite book}}:|pages=has extra text (help) - ^
Willbanks, James H., PhD (April). "The Battle for Hue, 1968". Retrieved 2006-06-12.
{{cite web}}: Check date values in:|date=and|year=/|date=mismatch (help); Cite has empty unknown parameters:|coauthors=and|month=(help)CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) - ^
James R. Arnold (2004). The Tet Offensive 1968. Praeger Publishers. pp. pg. 82. ISBN 0275984524.
{{cite book}}:|pages=has extra text (help) - ^
James R. Arnold (2004). The Tet Offensive 1968. Praeger Publishers. pp. pp. 87-88. ISBN 0275984524.
{{cite book}}:|pages=has extra text (help) - ^ Dave R. Palmer (1995). Summons of Trumpet : U.S.-Vietnam in Perspective. Presidio Press. ISBN 0891415505.
- ^
Charles Kaiser (1997). 1968 In America: Music, Politics, Chaos, Counterculture, and the shaping of a Generation. Grove Press. pp. pg. 77. ISBN 0802135307.
{{cite book}}:|pages=has extra text (help) - ^
Larry Berma (1989). Lyndon Johnson's War: The Road to Stalemate in Vietnam. W. W. Norton & Company. pp. pg. 191. ISBN 0393307786.
{{cite book}}:|pages=has extra text (help)
References
- Adams, Samuel A. (1994). The War of Numbers: An Intelligence Memoir. Steerforth Publishing. ISBN 1883642469.
{{cite book}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter:|coauthors=(help) - Palmer, Dave (1978). Summons of the Trumpet: US-Vietnam in Perspective. Presidio Press. ISBN 0891415505.
{{cite book}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter:|coauthors=(help) - Boorman, Scott A. (1971). The Protracted Game: A Wei-Ch'i Interpretation of Maoist Revolutionary Strategy. Oxford University Press. ISBN 0195014936.
{{cite book}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter:|coauthors=(help) - James R. Arnold (1990). The Tet Offensive 1968. Praeger Publishers. ISBN 0275984524.
- Braestrup, Peter (1977). Big Story: How the American Press and Television Reported and Interpreted the Crisis of Tet 1968 in Vietnam and Washington. Westview Press. ISBN 0891580123.
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