Tet and the Unmaking of a President

This week marks the 40th anniversary of the North Vietnamese Tet Offensive, which proved to be the turning point in the Vietnam War

by Samuel B. Hoff

The presidency of Lyndon Baines Johnson began in November 1963 following the tragic assassination of John F. Kennedy. It ended in January 1969 after LBJ’s announcement 10 months earlier that he would not seek a second term.

Upon his sudden succession to the presidency, LBJ promised no major changes in United States policy toward Vietnam. American policy since 1954 had been to protect South Vietnam from invasion or instability fostered by communist North Vietnam and its supporters.

At first, this was accomplished through foreign aid averaging $1 billion per year. Later, it involved stationing military personnel in South Vietnam, ostensibly in an advisory capacity. By the end of 1963, 16,300 American troops were on the ground there…

In 1964, LBJ campaigned for president in his own right. The Johnson White House proposed the Great Society initiatives on the domestic side and pledged to continue the policy of containment of communism abroad. 

In August of that year, allegations of two separate attacks by the North Vietnamese on U.S. destroyers in the Southeast Asia region led the Johnson administration to request that Congress approve the Gulf of Tonkin resolution. The resolution, which permitted the United States to suppress communist attacks by any means necessary, was approved overwhelmingly in both chambers of Congress. By the end of 1964, 23,300 American soldiers were in South Vietnam.

Over the next three years, American policy in Vietnam changed significantly. There are several reasons for the revision of policy.

First, the North Vietnamese and their Viet Cong supporters in South Vietnam began large-scale attacks on U.S. military installations. Second, the Johnson administration decided to take the war to the North itself by way extensive bombing. Third, as seen through the Cold War prism of the period, LBJ believed a defeat of South Vietnam would lead to a spread of communism throughout the entire Southeast Asia region and eventually elsewhere.

The increase in America military troop strength was stark, going from 184,300 in 1965 to 385,300 in 1966 to 485,600 at the end of 1967. Unfortunately, the number of U.S. casualties also accelerated, from 636 by the end of 1965 to 16,021 at the end of 1967.

During this span, the Johnson White House steadfastly defended the U.S. presence in South Vietnam and assured the American public that the communists were on the run and would soon be defeated there. Then came 1968.

Using the Vietnamese new year as cover, North Vietnam and Viet Cong forces simultaneously attacked military, diplomatic, and communications sites throughout South Vietnam. Known as the Tet offensive, the coordinated attacks in late January 1968 proved a military disaster for the communists but a severe psychological blow to the allies.

Instead of the imminent victory they were guaranteed, Americans were shocked to see widespread infiltration of communist troops into assumed safe areas such as the American embassy in Saigon.

The disconnect between promise and performance produced a credibility gap between the Johnson administration and the public. Combined with the costly battles in Khe Sanh and Hue, yet another replacement of the head of U.S. military forces in South Vietnam, humongous daily domestic protests against the war, and the commentary by CBS TV anchor Walter Cronkite that the war had become a stalemate, President Johnson decided to bow out of the 1968 presidential race and strive for a negotiated settlement to the war.

LBJ announced his withdrawal from the race unexpectedly at the end of a televised speech on Vietnam policy that March. In November 1968, Richard Nixon won the presidential election narrowly over Vice President Hubert Humphrey, in part by alluding to a secret plan for peace in Vietnam.

Clearly, the turnaround of American fortunes in the Vietnam war was the major cause for Johnson’s decision to leave the political arena. The war drained popular support for the president. The war led to a substantial increase in taxes in order to prevent deficit financing. And the war eventually slowed and shelved some of LBJ’s cherished Great Society programs. In short, the "guns and butter" strategy of the Johnson presidency could not be sustained.

It would take another four years, hundreds of billions of dollars, and 28,000 more American lives to end U.S. participation in the Vietnam conflict. The peace agreement was signed in Paris on Jan. 27, 1973 — five days after Lyndon Baines Johnson suffered a fatal heart attack.

Two years later, communist forces won the war between north and south, unified Vietnam and ended a millennium of foreign military interference.

The passage of time has been kind to Johnson’s legacy. He is consistently ranked in the top fourth in polls choosing great American presidents.

Not so for the United States’ participation in the Vietnam war, which continues to sear the nation’s conscience.

Dr. Samuel B. Hoff is George Washington Distinguished Professor of History and Political Science and Law Studies Director at Delaware State University. This article is largely based on Hoff’s entry on the Vietnam conflict, which appears in Magill’s Guide to Military History (Salem Press, 2001).