The Tet Offensive

A Concise History

James Willbanks

• Publisher: Columbia University Press
• Year: 2008
• ISBN:
  9780231502351
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Vietnam War
• Index: History

In the Tet Offensive of 1968, Viet Cong and North Vietnamese forces launched a massive countrywide attack on South Vietnam. Though the Communists failed to achieve their tactical and operational objectives, James Willbanks claims Hanoi won a strategic victory. The offensive proved that America's progress was grossly overstated and caused many Americans and key presidential advisors to question the wisdom of prolonging combat.

Willbanks also maintains that the Communists laid siege to a Marine combat base two weeks prior to the Tet Offensive-known as the Battle of Khe Sanh—to distract the United States. It is his belief that these two events are intimately linked, and in his concise and compelling history, he presents an engaging portrait of the conflicts and singles out key problems of interpretation.

Willbanks divides his study into six sections, beginning with a historical overview of the events leading up to the offensive, the attack itself, and the consequent battles of Saigon, Hue, and Khe Sahn. He continues with a critical assessment of the main themes and issues surrounding the offensive, and concludes with excerpts from American and Vietnamese documents, maps and chronologies, an annotated list of resources, and a short encyclopedia of key people, places, and events.

An experienced military historian and scholar of the Vietnam War, Willbanks has written a unique critical reference and guide that enlarges the debate surrounding this important turning point in America's longest war.

PART I

Historical Overview

Chapter 1

PRELUDE

On March 8, 1965, elements of the U.S. 9th Marine Expeditionary Force came ashore in Vietnam at Da Nang, initially to provide security for the U.S. air base there. A month later, President Lyndon Johnson authorized the use of U.S. ground troops for offensive combat operations in Vietnam. These events marked a significant change in U.S. involvement in the ongoing war between the South Vietnamese government in Saigon and the Viet Cong (VC).¹ The American goal in Southeast Asia was to insure a free, independent, and prosperous South Vietnam. However, the Saigon government was losing the battle to the Viet Cong, and things worsened when Hanoi began to send North Vietnamese soldiers down the Ho Chi Minh Trail into South Vietnam. Heretofore, U.S. forces had been supporting the Saigon government with advisers and air support, but that approach had proved inadequate in attempting to halt the Communists. With the arrival of the Marines, a massive U.S. buildup ensued; by the end of the year, 184,300 American troops were in Vietnam. This number would rapidly increase until there were more than 485,000 in country by the end of 1967.

The difficulty in achieving U.S. goals in Vietnam was that it was a political problem as well as a military one. The key to making sure that South Vietnam won the war against the Communist insurgents was to win the hearts and minds of the South Vietnamese people. To do this, the people had to believe that the government in Saigon was responsive to their needs. This proved difficult owing to the instability of that government. With the arrival of large number of American combat troops in South Vietnam, the U.S. effort shifted in focus from insuring a viable government in Saigon to conducting military operations to destroy the Communists on the battlefield, essentially a military answer to a political problem.

Eventually, U.S. ground troops were deployed in all four corps tactical zones (see Map 1) and actively conducted combat operations against the Viet Cong and their North Vietnamese counterparts, the People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN).² One of the first major battles between U.S. forces and PAVN troops occurred in November 1965 in the Battle of the Ia Drang Valley in the Central Highlands. Over the next two years, U.S. forces under General William C. Westmoreland, commander of U.S. Military Assistance Command, Vietnam (MACV), conducted many large-scale operations designed to find and destroy VC and PAVN forces in a war of attrition meant to wear down the enemy by killing or disabling so many of its soldiers that its will to resist would be broken.

As Westmoreland prosecuted the war of attrition, Hanoi ordered more PAVN soldiers down the Ho Chi Minh Trail to join the forces of the National Liberation Front (NLF) in their fight against the South Vietnamese troops and their American allies. The United States hoped that the continued bombing of North Vietnam and the trail might eventually persuade the Communists to call off the war. However, by late 1967, the bombing seemed to be having little effect, and heavy fighting continued to rage in the south.

The Communists adopted a strategy of protracted war designed to exhaust America’s determination to continue its commitment to South Vietnam. General Vo Nguyen Giap, the North Vietnamese defense minister, was confident that Communist persistence would eventually outlast American patience and willingness to sacrifice, much as the Viet Minh had done against the French in the First Indochina War.

In South Vietnam, American troops worked with the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN) to secure the countryside and drive out the Viet Cong and PAVN. In January 1967, American and ARVN forces attacked into an area known as the Iron Triangle north of Saigon, a region that had long been considered a key Communist sanctuary. Initially, this operation, called Cedar Falls, was successful, and the Viet Cong withdrew from previously safe base areas close to Saigon. From February to May 1967, the allies conducted Operation Junction City, the largest combat operation to that point in the war. During the course of this operation, which was conducted in War Zone C northwest of Saigon, U.S. forces shattered the better part of three VC regiments, but the rest of the VC and PAVN forces in the area withdrew to the sanctuary of their bases in Cambodia.

Although large-scale allied search and destroy operations conducted throughout the 1966–67 dry season such as Cedar Falls and Junction City did not result in the total destruction of PAVN and VC units, they severely disrupted the Communist logistics system and forced the enemy to move its installations and supplies west into sanctuaries in Cambodia. The combination of disrupted logistics and increasing casualties caused many VC and PAVN soldiers to feel that the end of the war was not yet in sight, and this resulted in a decline in the morale and combat capability of some Communist units.³ Nevertheless, Communist forces continued to conduct effective combat operations from their Cambodian sanctuaries and eventually reoccupied the areas that they had fled in the face of the earlier allied sweeps.

Although some headway was being made militarily, the problem was not purely military in nature. Concurrent with the fighting, there was a significant allied effort to pacify the countryside and spread the control and influence of the Saigon government. By the end of 1967, official U.S. estimates indicated that 67 percent of the South Vietnamese population was living under government control.⁴ However, this number was subject to serious question; a 1967 Hamlet Evaluation System (HES) report found in the Pentagon Papers admitted “that to a large extent, the VC now control the countryside.”⁵

By the middle of 1967, the war in Vietnam had degenerated into a bloody stalemate. U.S. and South Vietnamese operations had inflicted heavy casualties and disrupted Communist operations, but Hanoi continued to infiltrate troops into South Vietnam, and the Viet Cong still controlled the countryside in many areas in the south. Both the Americans and the North Vietnamese had vastly increased their commitment to the battlefield, but neither side could defeat the other. As the United States poured more troops and firepower into the struggle, the Communist leadership in Hanoi began to debate how to regain the initiative in South Vietnam. According to historian William J. Duiker, the party leaders acknowledged that total military victory over the combined U.S. and ARVN forces was improbable, but they were convinced that if severe reverses could be inflicted on the enemy’s military forces, the United States would be compelled to withdraw from South Vietnam.⁶

AMERICAN PUBLIC OPINION

In the United States, the slow progress in the war and numerous revelations about the government’s lack of candor about the conflict combined to erode public support for the Johnson administration’s handling of the war and to bolster a growing antiwar movement. Newspapers, magazines, and the nightly television news brought the war home to America. The toll of the fighting in Vietnam was mounting; the total casualties—dead, wounded, and missing in action—had grown from 2,500 in 1965 and would top 80,000 by the end of 1967. Scenes of the bloodshed and devastation resulting from the bitter fighting convinced increasing numbers of Americans that the price of U.S. commitment in Vietnam was too high. The war was also aggravating social discontent at home. One leading critic, Martin Luther King Jr., criticized the Johnson administration for the cost of the war and the effect it was having on the ability and willingness of the government to redress social ills such as inequality and poverty at home in the United States.

The American people began to mistrust the White House, which, many believed, was not telling them the truth about the real situation in Vietnam. While the reporters covering the war were writing that it had reached a stalemate, President Johnson and his advisers were still publicly saying that the war could be won.

Polls were showing that Americans, who at first had supported the president, were now beginning to turn against him. By June 1967, fully two-thirds of Americans said they had lost faith in President Johnson’s ability to lead the country. A public opinion poll in September 1967 showed for the first time that more Americans opposed the war than supported it.⁷ At the same time, Johnson’s popularity had dropped to below 40 percent, a new low for his term in office.

Antiwar protests had grown in size and violence and garnered considerable media coverage. In October 1967, an estimated 100,000 demonstrators marched on the Pentagon. The American public was becoming increasingly polarized over the war. Even those who supported the war effort were becoming dissatisfied with Johnson’s handling of the war and his inability to craft a winning strategy. The president, sensing that his public support had been shaken by the clamor of the antiwar faction and facing reelection in 1968, could ill ignore the growing restlessness of the electorate.

PUBLIC RELATIONS AND WESTMORELAND’S OPTIMISM

Concerned about public opinion and wanting to show that progress was being made in the war, Johnson ordered a media blitz to reassure the American people and bolster support for his war policies. In what became known as the “Success Campaign,” administration officials took every opportunity to try to repudiate the perception that there was a stalemate on the battlefield in Vietnam and repeatedly stressed that progress was being made.

In November 1967, the president called Westmoreland home from Vietnam to make the administration’s case to the American public. Stepping off the plane in Washington, an optimistic Westmoreland told reporters, “I have never been more encouraged in the four years that I have been in Vietnam. We are making real progress.”⁸ The next day he told reporters that the South Vietnamese Army would be able to assume increasing responsibility for the fighting, and that the “phaseout” of U.S. involvement in Vietnam could begin within two years. On November 21, in a speech before the National Press Club, Westmoreland asserted, “We have reached an important point when the end becomes to come into view. I am absolutely certain that, whereas in 1965 the enemy was winning, today he is certainly losing. The enemy’s hopes are bankrupt.” He assured the reporters and the American public that victory “lies within our grasp.”⁹ For the time being, Westmoreland’s comments helped calm a restive American public. His optimistic predictions would soon come back to haunt him.

TROOP DISPOSITION

By the end of 1967, the Republic of Vietnam Armed Forces (RVNAF) numbered about 350,000 regulars in the Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marine Corps. The South Vietnamese ground forces included eleven army divisions and three marine brigades. About 12,000 American advisers who served as liaison, operations, and logistics specialists accompanied these forces. The 151,000-man Regional Forces and the 149,000-man Popular Forces, which were the equivalent of provincial and local militia, augmented the regular ground forces.

The allied forces also included about 42,000 men who formed the Civilian Irregular Defense Groups (CIDG). These troops, mostly Montagnard tribesmen, were trained and led by American and Vietnamese Special Forces. They normally manned the outposts along the borders with Laos and Cambodia. This put them squarely in the way of Communist troops infiltrating across the border from sanctuaries and base camps in those countries.

There was also a 70,000-man national police force that would be forced to play a combat role once the battle for the cities started in 1968. This was not a role for which the policemen had been trained, and they were ill prepared for the situation that would confront them when the Tet Offensive began.

U.S. forces at the beginning of 1968 included nine divisions, one armored cavalry regiment, and two independent light infantry brigades. This force had one hundred infantry and mechanized battalions numbering 331,000 Army soldiers and 78,000 Marines. The total American military strength reached 486,000 by the end of 1967.

Taken together, the U.S. and South Vietnamese forces included 278 maneuver battalions, 28 tactical fighter squadrons, and 3,000 helicopters.¹⁰ In addition, the allied forces were supported by 1,200 monthly B-52 sorties and a vast array of artillery and logistical support units.

Joining the U.S. and South Vietnamese forces were also troops from several other countries, who were providing military support to Saigon. These were collectively known as the Free World Military Forces and included troops from Australia, New Zealand, South Korea, Thailand, and the Philippines, who fought alongside U.S. and South Vietnamese soldiers.

Facing the Americans, South Vietnamese, and their allies was a formidable combination of PAVN and Viet Cong troops. There were two types of forces within the Viet Cong: main force units that by early 1968 numbered about sixty thousand soldiers organized into regular combat units, and the paramilitary or guerrilla forces. Main force units engaged in full-scale combat and were usually made up of highly motivated, skilled fighters who were adept at ambushes, the use of mortars and rockets, and coordinated attacks on allied defensive positions.

The paramilitary forces of the Viet Cong included regional, or territorial, guerrillas and local guerrillas. They provided logistical support, scouts, and guides and engaged in local hit-and-run tactics such as staging ambushes and laying mines. MACV estimated in October 1967 that there were nearly 250,000 Viet Cong main force and paramilitary forces operating in South Vietnam.¹¹

When the war began, the Viet Cong guerrillas did most of the fighting and received only limited support from the North Vietnamese regulars. However, as the war intensified, increasing numbers of PAVN troops traveled down the Ho Chi Minh Trail to join the fighting in the south, serving as fillers in VC units. The first PAVN units had come down the trail in 1964. By early 1968, American intelligence analysts had identified seven North Vietnamese divisions, totaling about fifty-five thousand soldiers, in the south. American intelligence estimated that at the time of the offensive, about half of the 197 main-force enemy battalions in the south were PAVN regulars.¹²

The PAVN was a formidable force organized into divisions, regiments, battalions, and companies. These were armed with modern Soviet and Chinese weapons. They were supported by mortars, artillery, rocket launchers, and, by 1968, tanks. The PAVN soldiers, many of whom sported tattoos that proclaimed, “Born in the North, to die in the South,” were well trained and highly motivated.

THE COMMUNIST DECISION TO CONDUCT THE OFFENSIVE

As President Johnson and his advisers wrestled with how to proceed with the war, the Communists were having discussions of their own. According to William J. Duiker, the Communists had earlier decided on a “decisive victory in a relatively short period of time,” which was confirmed by the Thirteenth Plenum in late 1966.¹³ This led to an aggressive battlefield strategy that achieved only limited results. By mid-1967, the party leaders in Hanoi decided that something had to be done to break the bloody stalemate in the south...

Table of contents

• Cover 
• Half title
• Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents 
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• Maps
• Abbreviations
• Part I. Historical Overview
• Part II. Issues and Interpretations
• Notes
• Part III. Chronology, 1967–68
• Part IV. The Tet Offensive A to Z
• Part V. Documents
• Part VI. Resources
• Index