As the United States coasted through the war and rode the tigers back, it never assumed

that the tiger would bite back. North Vietnam, being the tiger, planned out a strategic plan to
attack several urban parts of South Vietnam and shift the war. Doing so, great details were left
out to make it a coordinated attack like timing and effectiveness. That allowed for the U.S. to
quickly respond and win over this offensive and deter the general uprising it hoped to achieve
(Herring, 234). Although the numbers of casualties and reports of control were presented that
showed the U.S. underwent a mild attack and the enemy suffered more (Herring, 240), the Tet
Offensive took a greater tole on the U.S. in its Homefront. The home front found itself divided
and conflicted with its leadership. The Tet Offensive broke apart the United States forms of
leadership with division and war time weariness along with creating massive amounts of uprising
and discontentment among the U.S. people that led to the breaking of support for the war cause.
Party leaders that designed the Tet Offensive hoped that the attacks in Saigon would
spark urban insurrection to bring down the regime (Duiker, 213). Although they failed to so in
South Vietnam, they unintentionally accomplished the same goal in the U.S. After the attack,

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divisions in the U.S. dramatically increased as they were fueled by the media and critics which

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has a heavy influence on public opinion and politics. The media, like news channels and

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newspapers, publicly interpreted the attack of the war as something it was not. For example, the

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attack on the embassy was exaggerated to be a success, and journalists openly ridiculed claims of

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victory (Herring, 240-241). Tactics to send more troops to the cities attacked gave even more fuel
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for the media to report and criticize, challenging the notion that the U.S. truly was not in control
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and had victory over the weak Vietnamese as originally portrayed to the public. (Herring, 214).
Reporting the gruesomeness of the war with videos, pictures, and first-person accounts only
fueled an image of fear and complete discontent in the people of American. Ben Tre, who
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partook in the liberation of Mekong Delta village reported “we had to destroy the town to save
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it”, showing the purposeless destruction of the war (Herring, 241).

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With the reports and media, the war in Vietnam became a televised war. The public was
furious to what they were seeing as compared to the lies to which they were told. There was a
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sense of shock, anguish, and uncertainty felt by Americans because of the coverage of the war
(Herring, 251). It did not help that economic crisis in the U.S. as a result of a gold crisis was also
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used to criticize the length and resources used in the war (Herring, 253). Although the Tet was
won by the U.S., the media manipulated the public and outbursts occurred in forms of protests.
The home front no longer supported LBJ and his mission in the war as everyone felt betrayed.
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Losing the home front and losing many top officials who supported him, success was no longer
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achievable without support (Herring, 252).

Losing support, LBJ underwent division in his own government and administration.
Debates over further military support for the cities that were attacked, talks of peace and pulling
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out of the country completely or continuing the war, and talks about further commitment and
usage of the bombings all split his administration and the government. For example, Democrats
and Republicans, demanded explanations after the possibility for more troops came up and
insisted that any detail about the war must be shared (Herring, 249). Under so much pressure,
there was talk about LBJ joining the presidential race, but with all the tensions and overmounting

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 stress, LBJ publicly noted in his March 31st speech that he would no longer pursue a second
term. As shock to everyone, LBJ took the better approach because in all, he was exhausted
physically and emotionally from the strains of office (Herring, 258).
With such public outburst of discontent everywhere, it was clear that the entire war was
portrayed to the public in a way where the realities were never shown. Doing so, the Tet
offensive gave way for the true colors of the war to be shown and the public was not ready to
view such atrocities with the lies they were given before. The Tet Offensive created so much
division and strife in the United States that the true victor of the offensive was the enemy who
conducted it. The Tet Offensive broke apart the U.S. forms of leadership with division and war
time weariness along with creating massive amounts of uprising and discontentment among the
U.S. people that led to the breaking of support for the war and its mission. The Tet offensive was
a political loss for America. It divided the nation and broke LBJ’s administration and strained
him to the point of not running for office again. Tet strained U.S. politics so much that the Tet
Offensive became the turning point in the war impacting U.S. policy and overall handling of

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Vietnam (Duiker, 218). “After Tet, the U.S. no longer sought to win the war in South Vietnam

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and finally realized there are limits to the commitment they had made to it” (Duiker,

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paraphrased, 217). Commitment was now broken, and the U.S. found itself compromising in

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order to finally get off the tigers back.

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rs e Work Cited:
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Duiker, W. (1995). Sacred War: Nationalism and Revolution in a Divided Vietnam (1st ed., pp. 208-218).
Boston [etc]: McGraw Hill.
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Herring, G. (2014). America's Longest War: The United States and Vietnam, 1950-1975 (5th ed., pp.
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233-275). New York: McGraw-Hill.

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