Lyndon Johnson and the Tet Offensive

Media Coverage of Vietnam Fuelled Anti-War Protests in US

Jul 5, 2008

Lyndon Johnson increased American involvement in Vietnam to prevent North Vietnam defeating the south. The Tet Offensive defeated the Viet Cong yet the South was defeated

Lyndon Johnson escalated involvement in the conflict between North Vietnam and South Vietnam. President Kennedy had started to increase the United States involvement in supporting the South Vietnamese government. South Vietnam was regarded as an important barrier to the expansion of Communism in South East, yet could not survive North Vietnamese / Viet Cong attacks without American assistance.

Under his successor Lyndon Baines Johnson the conflict turned in to a full-scale war which main turning point would prove to be the Tet offensive. The United States aimed to ensure the survival of the South Vietnamese regime and to some extent anticipated that their superior firepower would allow them to achieve victory over North Vietnam and the Viet Cong.

Escalation of US Forces in Vietnam

From just a few hundred marines in March 1965, President Johnson had agreed to send 100,000 troops to South Vietnam plus naval and air force units to support them in order to stop the North Vietnamese and the Viet Cong from taking over South Vietnam. President Johnson had persuaded Congress to back the United States intervention to the sum of $400 million. The way in which the Tet offensive supposedly showed how ineffective the use of such resources was could partly explain why that military victory was arguably being turned into a political defeat by media coverage.

In terms of fighting the Vietnam War from the onset the biggest blunder by the United States government and military was domestic rather than military. It was a blunder that definitely contributed to the military victory over the Tet offensive being turned into a grave political defeat. Although President Johnson may have lacked the charisma of President Kennedy he was normally a gifted communicator.

President Johnson also had a strong record as an able administrator in government. Johnson could have increased the United States involvement in Vietnam earlier than he did yet made sure of presidential election victory in 1964. The Johnson administration was incapable of convincing enough people in general and the media in particular that United States involvement in the Vietnam War was justified morally.

The way in which the defeat of the North Vietnamese and Viet Cong in the Tet offensive was portrayed by the American media was perhaps the greatest missed opportunity for the United States to win the propaganda turning point of the Vietnam War. That failure undoubtedly contributed to growing domestic unrest in 1968 which was reflected in declining public support for the war. The nature of the United States media itself had changed, it was less prepared to accept the official version of events than it had been during the Second World War and the Korean War.

Dallek R (1998) Flawed Giant – Lyndon Johnson and his times 1961-1973, Oxford University Press, New York and Oxford

Lukacs J (2004) A New Republic – A History of the United States in the Twentieth Century, Yale University Press, New Haven and London

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