Why viet cong won

In the theater of public opinion in the United States, however, the attacks were a great success for the North Vietnamese. Brought into the living rooms of Americans by new communications satellites over the Pacific, scenes of the carnage, particularly at the embassy, severely damaged national confidence in the war policies of President Lyndon Johnson, who was already under fire from a frustrated citizenry in a presidential election year.

The dramatic developments set in train during Tet led eventually to the withdrawal of American forces and the collapse of South Vietnam. Tet was a historical anomaly: a battlefield defeat that ultimately yielded victory. This remarkable result accounts for Tet's resonance whenever U. In the 12 months after Baghdad fell in April , for example, more than stories in major English-language newspapers referred to the Tet Offensive.

And faced with a flare-up of attacks in Iraq this past June, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld told a radio interviewer that he had no doubt the insurgents had "read about Tet and the fact that if they make a big enough splash, even though they get a lot of people killed and we pound them, they end up winning psychologically.

Nearly four decades after the battle, Tet still provokes sharp debate. Why did the attack come as such a surprise? Did the American press misreport a U. Such questions drew more than three dozen historians, some unborn when the battle took place, to reassess the Tet Offensive at this year's meeting of the Society for Military History in Bethesda, Maryland. As a correspondent for the Knight newspapers during Tet and author of a book on the subject, I was invited to participate.

After arriving in Saigon on January 1, , for my third extended visit to the war zone, I made plans to go at the end of the month to neighboring Laos in order to escape the journalistic void that would likely envelop Vietnam during Tet, the Lunar New Year and by far the most important national and family holiday for Vietnamese. Embassy in Saigon" news that was a gross exaggeration.

Guerrilla warfare Guerrilla warfare is the art of using knowledge of the landscape to avoid open battle with the enemy and to launch raids and surprise attacks, before disappearing back into the undergrowth. Tunnel systems and traps The Vietcong had a hidden system of tunnels stretching over miles.

The Tet Offensive On January 31 , the Vietcong changed tactics from their usual guerilla warfare strategy. It had two important effects: The loss of life of American soldiers, the determination and ferocity of the Vietcong assault, and coverage of the brutal response including the capture on camera of a suspected Vietcong officer being executed in a Saigong street led many Americans to conclude that they could not win a war against such a dedicated and widespread enemy.

It would take more damage to civilians and American forces than the USA was prepared to withstand. President Johnson stopped bombing North Vietnam in return for peace talks in Paris. Hiding the base areas had always been a high priority for the Vietcong. Now, with American spotter planes everywhere, it was more vital than ever to protect them. In remote swamps or forests, there were few problems, but nearer the capital, it was much more difficult.

The answer was to build enormous systems of underground tunnels. The orders coming from NLF headquarters were absolutely clear. Tunnels were not to be treated as mere shelters. They were fighting bases capable of providing continuous support for troops. Even if a village was in enemy hands, the NLF beneath were still able to conduct offensive operations.

There were complexes big and small scattered across the country. Each villager in a NLF area had to dig three feet of tunnel a day. There was even a standard handbook specifying how tunnels were to be built. An American soldier carefully examines a Vietcong tunnel--they were often boobytrapped if abandoned. Any facility used by the guerillas -- a conference room or training area -- had almost immediate underground access.

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Being able to analyze content to determine its angle is key to staying informed. Some material is designed to inform and will try to represent all sides of an issue accurately and fairly, but other types, like propaganda, are deliberately biased or misleading and created to promote a particular point of view.

Both examples use symbols to represent strength and a sense of urgency as they encourage United States citizens to join the war effort. Use these resource to teach your students about bias, symbolism, and propaganda. Defending the country if and when needed is an important citizenship responsibility. The military is the organization that fulfills this responsibility.