The Tet Offensive was both a major escalation and one of the largest military campaigns of the Vietnam War. The North Vietnamese People's Army of Vietnam (PAVN) and the Viet Cong (VC) launched a surprise attack on 30 and 31 January 1968 against the forces of the South Vietnamese Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN), the United States Armed Forces and their allies, targeting military and civilian command and control centers throughout South Vietnam. The name is the truncated version of the Lunar New Year festival name in Vietnamese, Tết Nguyên Đán, a holiday period when most ARVN personnel were on leave. The North Vietnamese Politburo and leader Lê Duẩn intended to trigger political instability and hoped that mass armed assaults on urban centers would trigger defections and uprisings.
The offensive was launched prematurely in the early morning hours of 30 January in large parts of the I and II Corps Tactical Zones of South Vietnam. This allowed allied forces some time to prepare defensive measures. When the main operation began during the early morning of 31 January, the offensive was countrywide; 77,000 PAVN/VC troops struck more than 100 towns and cities, including 36 of 44 provincial capitals, 5 of 6 autonomous cities, 72 of 245 district towns, and the capital Saigon. It was the largest military operation conducted by either side to that point in the war.
Hanoi launched the offensive in the belief it would trigger a popular uprising leading to the collapse of the South Vietnamese government. Although the initial attacks stunned the allies and they lost control of several cities temporarily, they quickly regrouped, repelled the attacks, and inflicted heavy casualties on PAVN/VC forces. The popular uprising anticipated by Hanoi never materialized. During the Battle of Huế, intense fighting lasted for a month, resulting in the destruction of the city. During its occupation, PAVN/VC forces executed thousands of people in the Massacre at Huế. Around the American combat base at Khe Sanh, fighting continued for two more months.
The offensive was a military defeat for North Vietnam, and neither uprisings nor ARVN unit defections occurred in South Vietnam. However, it had far-reaching consequences on the views of the Vietnam War held by the American public and the international community. The offensive had a strong effect on the U.S. government and shocked the American public, which had been led to believe by its political and military leaders that the North Vietnamese were being defeated and incapable of launching such an ambitious military operation. American public support for the war declined as a result of the Tet casualties and the escalation of draft calls. Subsequently, the Johnson administration sought negotiations to end the war. Shortly before the 1968 United States presidential election, Republican candidate and former vice president Richard Nixon discouraged South Vietnamese president Nguyễn Văn Thiệu from cooperating in the negotiations, to cast doubt on Johnson's ability to bring peace.
The name "Tet Offensive" usually refers to the January–February 1968 offensive, but also can be extended to cover all of the 21 weeks of intense combat after the initial attacks in January (including the "Mini-Tet" offensive in May), or the Phase III offensive in August.
Background
South Vietnam political context
The years prior to the Tet Offensive were marked by political instability and a series of coups after the 1963 South Vietnamese coup. In 1966, the leadership in South Vietnam, represented by the Head of State Nguyễn Văn Thiệu and Prime Minister Nguyễn Cao Kỳ were persuaded to commit to democratic reforms in an effort to stabilize the political situation during a conference in Honolulu. Prior to 1967, the South Vietnamese constituent assembly was in the process of drafting a new constitution and setting eventual elections. After the 1967 South Vietnamese presidential election, the South Vietnamese political situation looked increasingly stable. Rivalries between the generals were becoming less chaotic, and Thiệu and Kỳ formed a joint ticket for the election. Despite efforts by North Vietnam to disrupt elections, higher than usual turnouts marked a shift towards a more democratic structure and ushered in a period of political stability after the instability that had characterized the preceding years.
Protests, campaigning, and the atmosphere of elections were interpreted by the Politburo of the Communist Party of Vietnam and Lê Duẩn as signs the population would embrace a 'general uprising' against the government of South Vietnam. The Politburo sought to exploit perceived instability and maintain political weakness in South Vietnam.
United States war strategy
During late 1967, the question of whether the U.S. strategy of attrition was working in South Vietnam weighed heavily on the minds of the American public and the administration of President Lyndon B. Johnson. General William C. Westmoreland, the commander of the Military Assistance Command, Vietnam (MACV), believed that if a "crossover point" could be reached, meaning the number of communist troops killed or captured during military operations exceeded those recruited or replaced, the Americans would win the war. There was a discrepancy, however, between the order of battle estimates of the MACV and the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) concerning the strength of VC guerrilla forces within South Vietnam. In September, members of the MACV intelligence services and the CIA met to prepare a Special National Intelligence Estimate that would be used by the administration to gauge U.S. success in the conflict.
Provided with an enemy intelligence windfall collected during Operations Cedar Falls and Junction City, the CIA members of the group believed the number of VC guerrillas, irregulars, and cadre within the South could be as high as 430,000. The MACV Combined Intelligence Center, on the other hand, maintained the number could be no more than 300,000. Westmoreland was deeply concerned about the possible perceptions of the American public to such an increased estimate since communist troop strength was routinely provided to reporters during press briefings. According to MACV's chief of intelligence, General Joseph A. McChristian, the new figures "would create a political bombshell", since they demonstrated the North Vietnamese "had the capability and the will to continue a protracted war of attrition".
In May, MACV attempted to reach a compromise with the CIA by maintaining VC militias did not constitute a fighting force but were essentially low-level fifth columnists used for information collection. With the groups deadlocked, George Carver, CIA Special Assistant for Vietnam Affairs, represented the CIA in the last stage of the negotiations. In September, Carver devised a compromise: The CIA would drop its insistence on including the irregulars in the final tally of forces and add a prose addendum to the estimate explaining the agency's position. George Allen, Carver's deputy, placed responsibility for the agency's capitulation with Richard Helms, the director of the CIA. He believed that "it was a political problem ... [Helms] didn't want the agency ... contravening the policy interest of the administration."
During the second half of 1967, the administration had become alarmed by criticism, both inside and outside the government, and by reports of declining public support for its Vietnam policies. According to public opinion polls, the percentage of Americans who believed the U.S. had made a mistake by sending troops to Vietnam had risen from 25 percent in 1965 to 45 percent by December 1967. This trend was fueled not by a belief that the struggle was not worthwhile, but by mounting casualty figures, rising taxes, and the feeling there was no end to the war in sight. A poll taken in November indicated that 55 percent wanted a tougher war policy, exemplified by the public belief that "it was an error for us to have gotten involved in Vietnam in the first place. But now that we're there, let's win—or get out." This prompted the administration to launch a so-called "success offensive", a concerted effort to alter the widespread public perception that the war had reached a stalemate and to convince the American people that the administration's policies were succeeding. Under the leadership of National Security Advisor Walt W. Rostow, the news media then was inundated by a wave of effusive optimism.
Every statistical indicator of progress, from "kill ratios" and "body counts" to village pacification, was fed to the press and to the Congress. "We are beginning to win this struggle", asserted Vice President Hubert H. Humphrey on NBC's Today show in mid-November. "We are on the offensive. The territory is being gained. We are making steady progress." At the end of November, the campaign reached its climax when Johnson summoned Westmoreland and the new U.S. Ambassador, Ellsworth Bunker, to Washington, D.C., for what was billed as a "high-level policy review". Upon their arrival, the two men bolstered the administration's claims of success. From Saigon, pacification chief Robert Komer stated the Civil Operations and Rural Development Support (CORDS) pacification program in the countryside was succeeding, and that sixty-eight percent of the South Vietnamese population was under the control of Saigon while only seventeen percent was under the control of the VC. General Bruce Palmer Jr., one of Westmoreland's three Field Force commanders, claimed that "the Viet Cong has been defeated" and that "He can't get food and he can't recruit. He has been forced to change his strategy from trying to control the people on the coast to try to survive in the mountains."
Westmoreland was even more emphatic in his assertions. At an address at the National Press Club on 21 November, he reported that, as of the end of 1967, the communists were "unable to mount a major offensive ... I am absolutely certain that whereas in 1965 the enemy was winning, today he is certainly losing...We have reached an important point when the end begins to come into view." By the end of the year the administration's approval rating had crept up by eight percent, but an early January Gallup poll indicated that forty-seven percent of the American public still disapproved of the President's handling of the war. The American public, "more confused than convinced, more doubtful than despairing ... adopted a 'wait and see' attitude." During a discussion with an interviewer from Time magazine, Westmoreland dared the communists to launch an attack: "I hope they try something because we are looking for a fight."
North Vietnam
Party politics
Planning in Hanoi for a winter-spring offensive during 1968 had begun in early 1967 and continued until early the following year. According to American sources, there has been an extreme reluctance among Vietnamese historians to discuss the decision-making process that led to the general offensive and uprising, even decades after the event. In official Vietnamese literature, the decision to launch the Tet offensive is usually presented as the result of a perceived U.S. failure to win the war quickly, the failure of the American bombing campaign against North Vietnam, and the anti-war sentiment that pervaded the population of the U.S. The decision to launch the general offensive, however, was much more complicated.
The decision signaled the end of a bitter, decade-long debate within the North Vietnamese Government between two, and later three, factions. The moderates believed that the economic viability of North Vietnam should come before support of a massive, conventional southern war and they generally followed the Soviet line of peaceful coexistence by reunifying Vietnam through political means. Heading this faction were party theorist Trường Chinh and Minister of Defense Võ Nguyên Giáp. The militant faction, on the other hand, tended to follow the foreign policy line of the People's Republic of China and called for the reunification of the nation by military means and that no negotiations should be undertaken with the Americans. This group was led by Communist Party First Secretary Lê Duẩn and Lê Đức Thọ (no relation). From the early to mid-1960s, the militants had dictated the direction of the war in South Vietnam. General Nguyễn Chí Thanh, the head of Central Office for South Vietnam (COSVN), headquarters for the South, was another prominent militant. The followers of the Chinese line centered their strategy against the U.S. and its allies on large-scale, main force actions rather than the protracted guerrilla war espoused by Mao Zedong.
By 1966–1967, however, after suffering massive casualties, stalemate on the battlefield, and destruction of the northern economy by U.S. aerial bombing, there was a dawning realization that if current trends continued, Hanoi would eventually lack the resources necessary to affect the military situation in the South. As a result, there were more strident calls by the moderates for negotiations and a revision of strategy. They felt a return to guerrilla tactics was more appropriate since the U.S. could not be defeated conventionally. They also complained that the policy of rejecting negotiations was in error. The Americans could only be worn down in a war of wills during a period of "fighting while talking". During 1967 things had become so bad on the battlefield that Lê Duẩn ordered Thanh to incorporate aspects of protracted guerrilla warfare into his strategy.
During the same period, a counter-attack was launched by a new, third faction (the centrists) led by President Ho Chi Minh, Lê Đức Thọ, and Foreign Minister Nguyễn Duy Trinh, who called for negotiations. From October 1966 through April 1967, a very public debate over military strategy took place in print and via radio between Thanh and his rival for military power, Giáp. Giáp had advocated a defensive, primarily guerrilla strategy against the U.S. and South Vietnam. Thanh's position was that Giáp and his adherents were centered on their experiences during the First Indochina War and that they were too "conservative and captive to old methods and past experience... mechanically repeating the past."
The arguments over domestic and military strategy also had a foreign policy element, as North Vietnam, like South Vietnam, was largely dependent on outside military and economic aid. The vast majority of North Vietnam's military equipment was provided by either the Soviet Union or China. Beijing advocated that North Vietnam conduct a protracted war on the Maoist model, fearing that a conventional conflict might draw China in, as had happened in the Korean War. They also resisted the idea of negotiating with the allies. Moscow, on the other hand, advocated negotiations, but simultaneously armed Hanoi's forces to conduct a conventional war on the Soviet model. North Vietnamese foreign policy therefore consisted of maintaining a critical balance between war policy, internal and external policies, domestic adversaries, and foreign allies with "self-serving agendas."