Why was the tet offensive a turning point for the Vietnam War?

Question

Why was the tet offensive a turning point for the Vietnam War?

Answer 1

Because it was the last gasp of the Viet Cong. The resulting counter-offensive wound up eliminating the Viet Cong as an effective fighting force. From that point on until April of 1975 all engagements were against North Vietnamese regular forces.

Answer 2

The Tet Offensive was a turning point because it turned the American media and public against the war and made the military and Johnson seem like a liars after telling everyone we were winning, and the NVA and VC were unable to perform a major assault. Other than that it was a horrible loss for North Vietnam because they lost some of their best troops and they weren't capable of launching a significant attack after that.

Answer 3

Because it got alot of good press of North Vietnam and the Viet Cong. I'm not kidding either.

Answer 4

It is the point at which liberals in this country set about to destroy the United States acting as an ally to The NVA and it's forces. It is the point at which I personally made a commitment to conservatives ideas. The actions by those in this country, the Fondas, the Ayers, the Hoffmans, yielded deadly results for those in the field in Viet Nam especially POW's. It is the point at which liberals in this country hung a never removable weight around their necks. For what liberals did to those kids in the field so far from home whos only support and hope was the idea of coming home is unexcusable and unforgivable forever. Liberals are no better than the Khmer Rouge.

Answer 5

It was twisted into a great propaganda victory by the pacifist movement within the US.  The Tet Offensive was a last-ditched attempt by the viet cong (insurgents fighting the Vietnamese government within southern Vietnam).  They used everything they had throughout the whole south half of Vietnam surprising many Americans in the home front who thought the war was winding down.  Unfortunately for the Vietnamese and US peoples, what was a great military victory that all but annihilated the viet cong was turned by propaganda into a defeat that caused many non-committed Americans to oppose the war.  From that point on, American opinion became increasingly anti-war and resulting in the fall of the Democratic Party and the election of a criminal President (Nixon for the unread) who promised change and an end to the war.

Why does that sound so familiar to current times?

Answer 6

We thought we were winning in walk away style. Tet offensive proved not only did the Viet Cong have the desire to fight back, but also the ability. It killed many US soldiers and set the war strategies back on its heels. This added deeper fear and dread to American fighters and American civilians.

Answer 7

Caninele... has the correct answer above.

The Tet Offensive was a military failure by the North Vietnamese because the people did not rise up and support the effort.  The Viet Cong were destroyed and this has caused turmoil right up until today in Vietnam's southern section.

But the Tet Offensive also underscored how U.S. leadership did not understand the war -- just like today in Iraq -- and popular American support for the war was eroded.

The many lessons of the Tet Offensive should be taught in every American high school.

Answer 8

There have been several reasonably accurate answers given, although I object to the inaccurate terminology used.

The people back in the US and Australia were told by their governments that the war was being won by the US and its allies, but when the TET offensive occurred, it proved that the American and Australian government had been lying to their populations.

The TET offensive was a military loss for the National Liberation Front of Southern Vietnam (NLF) and the People Liberation Army of Vienam (PLAV) with the NLF suffering a major loss of personnel, and it took another two years for them to recover.

BUT, the TET offensive became a political winning point for the NLF amd PLAV.

The newsmen who were based in Vietnam had already altered their attitudes towards the US involvement in Vietnam, but it was the media back in the US and Australia that started to change their attitudes from the time of TET. A prime example is Walter Cronkite, the CBS anchorman at the time. Cronkite was staunchly Pro-US involvement, but following TET and his quick visit in March 1968 changed his attitude. President Nixon is quoted as saying, "If we have lost Cronkite, we have lost Middle America".

** Please note -- it is inaccurate to call the NLF people Viet Cong. The term Viet Cong is an abbreviation of a longer term that means Vietnamese Communist, and the majority of the NLF were not communist, just people against the right-wing dictatorship that the US had installed illegally. Only 3% of the NLF were communist party members and less than 20% of those knew anything about the theories of Karl Marx, Engles or Lenin.

It is also incorrect to call the PLAV the NVA.  Legally the government in Hanoi was the legitimate government whilst the  US supported governments in the south were illegal (under international law, the UN Charter and the 1954 Geneva Agreements on Indochina).  The PLAV is the correct term for soldiers of the Hanoi government (not North Vietnamese Army) as technically the whole of Vietnam was one country.