Tet Offensive (1968).The attacks by Communist forces inside South Vietnam's major cities and towns that began around the Vietnamese New Year (“Tet”) of 1 February 1968 were the peak of an offensive that took place over a period of several months during the Vietnam War. Gen. William C. Westmoreland, the American commander in Vietnam, believed the attacks to be a last “throw of the dice” by the losing side. The attacks that Americans dubbed the “Tet Offensive” were just part of what the Communists called a “General Offensive and Uprising,” designed to jolt the war into a new phase. The offensive ultimately achieved the Communists' aim, but at a price many of them thought excessive.

The offensive had long‐term conceptual origins in Vietnam's August Revolution of 1945, in which the Communist‐led Viet Minh had instigated popular uprisings in the cities to seize power from a puppet government Japan had installed before its defeat. Two decades later, as American commitment to the anti‐Communist government in Saigon deepened in the early 1960s, the Communists looked to that earlier event for inspiration. Lacking the military power to inflict outright defeat on the American military, the Communists had somehow to destroy American confidence that “limited war” could eventually bring victory for the United States. By sending armed forces directly into the South's cities and fomenting rebellion there, the Communists hoped to pull down the Saigon government or facilitate the rise to power of neutralists who would demand the withdrawal of U.S. forces. Even if the offensive did not bring immediate victory, the Communists calculated it would allow rural forces to disrupt the pacification program, destroy the American illusion of success, and induce the United States to enter negotiations in which Hanoi could bargain from a position of strength.

The plan formally approved by the Communist Party political bureau in Hanoi in July 1967 recognized that American, allied, and Saigon forces constituted a much more formidable foe than the shaky regime the August Revolution had toppled in 1945. The offensive therefore actually began in September 1967, with artillery‐supported assaults by the People's Army of Vietnam (PAVN), supported from the North, on the U.S. combat bases located along route 9 just south of the demilitarized zone, and then with operations in the central highlands, to test American reactions. The tests revealed that the Americans would remain in defensive positions; and although PAVN troops would face devastating firepower, massing for attack on these positions in remote areas could lure significant forces away from population centers.

The American response encouraged the Communists to position up to 40,000 regulars of Divisions 304, 320, 325, and 324B in December 1967 around Khe Sanh, a U.S. Marine outpost near the western end of route 9. The outpost was an attractive target because it lay only fourteen kilometers beyond the terminus of an improved road over which the PAVN could move heavy equipment. Upon detecting the Communist buildup, the American command increased forces defending the base to 6,000 troops, including a battalion of Saigon's Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN). After the PAVN opened the attack with a massive artillery barrage on 21 January, the United States shifted 15,000 more troops from the South's 5 northern provinces to route 9. Fifty thousand U.S. troops eventually fought at or supported the base.

Despite superficial similarities between the situation at Khe Sanh and Dien Bien Phu, where the PAVN had overrun a French force in 1954, PAVN commanders knew they could not duplicate that feat in the face of massive American air and ground firepower. The battle was worth the effort to them because of the attention and resources it drew from the lowlands. Still, their orders were to destroy if possible one or more of the route 9 bases to facilitate the movement of PAVN regulars into the South. Although unable to create a major breach, a PAVN regiment overran the Special Forces/Civil Indigenous Defense Group camp at Lang Vei, eight kilometers west of Khe Sanh, on 7 February. Soviet‐supplied PT‐76 light amphibious tanks of the People's Army made their first appearance of the war at Lang Vei.

Meanwhile, U.S. intelligence had detected preparations for attacks on urban centers, and in a few localities commanders had taken precautionary measures. But analysts did not believe the Communists were capable of achieving, or bold enough to attempt, what the evidence indicated they were planning. With General Westmoreland and Saigon's President Nguyen Van Thieu convinced that Khe Sanh was the Communists' primary target, Communist forces had begun attacking outposts around cities and towns. A mixed force of maneuver and guerrilla troops estimated at around 60,000 and composed largely of troops recruited and trained in the South, had then slipped past these outposts to enter 5 municipalities, 36 province capitals, and 64 district capitals.

In the night of 29 January, assault forces attacked government offices in Qui Nhon, Kontum, Pleiku, Darlac, and Nha Trang. Attacks in other cities began over the next two days. In Saigon, the sapper team that blasted into the U.S. Embassy compound captured the headlines, but attacks on Tan Son Nhut airfield, the ARVN general staff compound, government ministries, and the presidential palace involved larger forces and took greater effort to beat back. Tanks and helicopter gunships striking a battalion‐sized unit in Cholon leveled several city blocks. The attacks sputtered out in days, except in Hué, where a force of 7,500 Communist troops held out behind the walls of the old city until 24 February.

Only in scattered places did people join the Communists in demanding the establishment of “revolutionary administrations.” Despite initial disarray, the ARVN and Saigon government rallied rather than disintegrated. Perhaps half of the assault forces died in the attacks or retreat. Although the Communists increased control in rural areas when U.S. and Saigon forces redeployed to route 9 and the cities, they were unable to defend these gains when U.S. and ARVN units returned to the countryside.

The Communists launched follow‐up attacks against the cities in May and August, but the PAVN had taken such heavy casualties along route 9 that it could not move forward to support them, and forces attacking the lowlands suffered further grave depletion. The reasons for these disappointing results remained for years a source of controversy among the Communists themselves, who blamed inadequate PAVN involvement, too little time to organize popular participation, and decisions that left lowland forces too long in exposed positions. PAVN Gen. Tran Van Tra admitted in his memoir, Concluding the Thirty Years War (1982), that the offensive caused a decline in strength from which Communist forces did not recover for two years. With better planning, the Communists believed, the offensive could have brought the war to an end more quickly.

In the aftermath, General Westmoreland saw an opportunity to seize the initiative and requested 206,000 more troops, but for many Americans both the offensive and the request discredited claims that the war could be won soon or at an acceptable cost. Westmoreland's defenders blamed media coverage for turning public opinion against the war, but in fact the press generally accepted the official interpretation of Tet as a major military defeat for the Communists. It was evident nonetheless that the United States could not control the war's scope and duration. President Lyndon B. Johnson sought the advice of dovish civilians, announced he would not seek nomination for another term, declared a bombing halt over most of North Vietnam, and called for peace talks, which opened in May 1968. The offensive thus titled the United States away from expanding involvement and toward eventual withdrawal.
[See also News Media, War, and the Military; Vietnam War: Military and Diplomatic Course; Vietnam War: Changing Interpretations.]

Bibliography

Peter Braestrup , Big Story, 1977.
David Hunt , Remembering the Tet Offensive, Radical America (November 1977–February 1978), pp. 79–96.
Don Oberdorfer , Tet! The Turning Point in the Vietnam War, 1984.
Gabriel Kolko , Anatomy of a War, 1985.
Daniel Hallin , The Uncensored War, 1986.
William S. Turley , The Second Indochina War, 1986.
Philip B. Davidson , Vietnam at War, 1988.
Larry Berman , Lyndon Johnson's War, 1989.
James Wirtz , The Tet Offensive: Intelligence Failure in War, 1991.
Ngo Vinh Long , The Tet Offensive and Its Aftermath, in Jayne Werner and David Hunt, eds., The American War in Vietnam, 1993.
Ronnie E. Ford , Tet 1968: Understanding the Surprise, 1995.

William S. Turley

Tet Offensive (1968), a major turning point in the Vietnam War.In the summer of 1967, North Vietnam and the National Liberation Front of South Vietnam (NLF) devised a major offensive to break an increasingly costly military stalemate. In late 1967, the North Vietnamese attacked remote outposts in South Vietnam, luring U.S. forces from the cities. During the Tet (lunar new year) holiday of early 1968, the NLF then attacked thirty‐six of forty‐four provincial capitals, five of South Vietnam's major cities, sixty‐four district capitals, and fifty hamlets. In Saigon, they briefly penetrated the U.S. Embassy compound and assaulted the presidential palace. In Hue, they seized the ancient Citadel, the seat of the emperors of Vietnam.

Although caught by surprise, the United States and South Vietnam responded quickly. Within several days, they cleared Saigon. The result was the same elsewhere, except in Hue where it took nearly a month of massive firepower and savage fighting to secure the city.

The impact of Tet remains difficult to assess. The North Vietnamese and NLF did not force the collapse of South Vietnam, as they had hoped. Their battle deaths have been estimated as high as forty thousand. The NLF bore the brunt of the fighting. Its main force units were decimated and would never recover.

But if Tet was a victory for the United States and South Vietnam, it was a very costly and at best a hollow one. South Vietnamese forces had to be withdrawn from the countryside, weakening the government presence there. The massive destruction in the cities brought enormous new problems for an already embattled government. American and South Vietnamese losses were also high. In the first two weeks of the fighting, 1,100 Americans and 2,300 South Vietnamese were killed. There were an estimated 12,500 civilian deaths, and as many as 1 million new refugees. In Hue, 2,800 civilians were massacred and buried in mass graves by NLF “liberators.” As with so much of the war, enormous destruction produced no clear winner or loser.

Perhaps the major impact was in the United States. The military insisted that it had the upper hand, but President Lyndon B. Johnson and his advisers were shocked by the suddenness and magnitude of the offensive. Among the public, Tet brought a mood of gloom, making clear that at best the United States faced a long and costly war. Popular approval of Johnson's handling of the war plummeted, and the Democratic senators Eugene McCarthy and Robert Kennedy challenged his reelection.

Tet forced major changes in U.S. policy. Rejecting military appeals for thousands of additional troops, and thus ending the process of piecemeal escalation, Johnson initiated a limited cutback of the bombing of North Vietnam, agreed to negotiations, and withdrew from the presidential race.

Tet probably ensured an eventual U.S. withdrawal, but it did not end the war. Negotiations began in Paris in May 1968, but neither side would make the concessions necessary for a settlement, and each sought to apply maximum military pressure. Tet merely hardened the deadlock, and it would take four more years of fighting while negotiating before it would be broken.
See also Antiwar Movements; Military, The; Nixon, Richard M.; Sixties, The.

Bibliography

Don Oberdorfer , Tet, 1971.
Ronald H. Spector , After Tet: The Bloodiest Year in Vietnam, 1993.

George C. Herring

TET OFFENSIVE

TET OFFENSIVE. In the spring of 1967, the communist Vietcong leadership began planning a nationwide offensive aimed at destroying the South Vietnamese government and forcing the Americans out of the Vietnam War. The communists were concerned about the growing U.S. military presence in Vietnam and their own mounting losses. The Vietcong believed that South Vietnam was ripe for revolution and saw the Saigon government as the weak link in the Allied war effort. The Politburo in Hanoi, in conjunction with leaders of the Vietcong, developed a plan for an all-out attack to take place during the Tet holiday at the end of January 1968. The communists expected that a general offensive, aimed primarily at South Vietnamese military and government installations, would encourage a majority of the citizens to turn against the Saigon government. The combination of military action and popular revolution would sweep away the Saigon regime, put in its place a procommunist slate of leaders, and thus force the United States to withdraw from the war. The communists christened their attack the Tong Cong Kich–Tong Khia Nghia, or TCK–TKN (General Offensive–General Uprising) plan.

The first phase of TCK–TKN began in the fall of 1967 with a series of attacks in western Vietnam near the

borders with Laos and Cambodia. These attacks were designed to draw allied forces away from urban centers in the eastern part of the country, and gave the communists more opportunity to infiltrate troops and stockpile supplies near dozens of key cities and towns. The allied leaders detected signs of an imminent enemy offensive that would likely take place around the Tet holiday but concluded that the thrust would be limited to the three northern provinces of South Vietnam.

In the early morning hours of 30 January 1968, the communists in the mid-northern section of South Vietnam began their offensive one day early, apparently the result of a miscommunication with Hanoi. They attacked nine cities, including Da Nang, Nha Trang, Pleiku, and Kontum, which gave allied forces partial warning before the main offensive began in the early morning hours of the thirty-first. The communists, however, still managed to achieve a large measure of tactical surprise. Approximately 84,000 communist soldiers attacked Saigon and five of the largest urban centers, thirty-six of forty-four

provincial capitals, and at least sixty-four of 242 district capitals. The communists wreaked havoc and caused confusion, but were soon overcome by the weight of American firepower and the surprisingly able resistance of the South Vietnamese army. With the exception of the city of Hué and the marine base at Khe Sanh, two battles that persisted until March, the offensive collapsed within the first week. As many as 45,000 Vietcong and North Vietnamese army soldiers perished in the offensive, and the popular uprising failed to materialize. However, the offensive caused significant political turmoil in the United States and strengthened the hand of those who wanted to limit or extinguish the American role in Vietnam.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Davidson, Phillip B. Vietnam at War: The History, 1946–1975. Novato, Calif.: Presidio Press, 1988.

Karnow, Stanley. Vietnam: A History. New York: Viking, 1983.

Oberdorfer, Don. Tet! The Turning Point in the Vietnam War. Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1971.

Erik B.Villard

See alsoVietnam War .

Tet offensive (29 Jan.–25 Feb. 1968). An assault launched in the Vietnam War by Vietcong guerrillas and North Vietnamese army units, timed to coincide with the first day of the Tet holiday (the lunar New Year). Under the command of Vo Nguyen Giap attacks were mounted against Saigon, Hue, as well as some ninety towns, and hundreds of villages. There were heavy casualties on both sides and the main attacks were successfully repulsed by US troops. Although technically a defeat for the North Vietnamese forces, the extent of the offensive, despite the might of over 500,000 US troops, shocked US public opinion and convinced the Johnson administration of the need to end US involvement. Talks were begun in Paris in 1968, which were only concluded five years later with the Paris Peace Accords of 1973.

Tet Offensive (29 January–25 February 1968) An offensive launched in the VIETNAM WAR by Vietcong and regular North Vietnamese army units against US and South Vietnamese forces. In a surprise attack timed to coincide with the first day of the Tet (Vietnamese Lunar New Year) holiday, North Vietnamese forces under General GIAP took the war from the countryside to the cities of South Vietnam. After initial successes, the attackers were repulsed with heavy losses on both sides, but the offensive seriously damaged South Vietnamese morale and shook US confidence in their ability to win the war and brought them to the conference table in Paris in 1969. This led to the Paris Peace Accords of 1973 and the withdrawal of US forces from Indochina.

Tet offensive 1968, a series of crucial battles in the Vietnam War . On Jan. 31, 1968, the first day of the celebration of the lunar new year, Vietnam's most important holiday, the Vietnamese Communists launched a major offensive throughout South Vietnam. It took weeks for U.S. and South Vietnamese troops to retake all of the captured cities, including the former imperial capital of Hue. Although the offensive was not militarily successful for the Vietnamese Communists, it was a political and psychological victory for them. It dramatically contradicted optimistic claims by the U.S. government that the war had already been won.

Bibliography: See J. J. Wirtz, Tet Offensive (1992).

Tet Offensive the aggressive campaign by the North Vietnamese, beginning in January, 1968, the time of the local New Year celebrations, to attempt to win the Vietnam War. Beginning on January 29th there were coordinated attacks in cities throughout South Vietnam. The fighting continued over most of the first half of the year and was an important factor in the escalation of the war: Gen. William C. Westmoreland requested more than 200,000 more troops. Public opinion against the war in the United States also escalated, and President Lyndon B. Johnson began to see that the scope and duration of the war were beyond the control of the U.S. government.

Tet Offensive (1968) Campaign in the Vietnam War. North Vietnamese and Viet Cong troops launched attacks on numerous towns and cities of South Vietnam. Although of little strategic effect, the offensive discredited US military reports that victory over North Vietnam was imminent.