The Tet offensive marked a unique stage in the evolution of North Vietnam's People's War. U.S. patrol near Cholon during the Tet Offensive. Hanoi's solution to the stalemate in the South was the product of several factors. North Vietnam's large unit war was unequal to the task of defeating American combat units. South Vietnam was becoming politically and militarily stronger, while the Viet Cong's grip over the rural population eroded. Hanoi's leaders suspected that the United States, frustrated by the slow pace of progress, might intensify its military operations against the North. (Indeed, Westmoreland had broached plans for an invasion of the North when he appealed for additional forces in 1967.) The Tet offensive was a brilliant stroke of strategy by Hanoi, designed to change the arena of war from the battlefield to the negotiating table, and from a strategy of military confrontation to one of talking and fighting. Communist plans called for violent, widespread, simultaneous military actions in rural and urban areas throughout the South--a general offensive. But as always, military action was subordinate to a larger political goal. By focusing attacks on South Vietnamese units and facilities, Hanoi sought to undermine the morale and will of Saigon's forces. Through a collapse of military resistance, the North Vietnamese hoped to subvert public confidence in the government's ability to provide security, triggering a crescendo of popular protest to halt.the fighting and force a political accommodation. In short, they aimed at a general uprising. Hanoi's generals, however, were not completely confident that the general offensive would succeed. Viet Cong forces, hastily reinforced with new recruits and part-time guerrillas, bore the brunt. Except in the northern provinces, the North Vietnamese Army stayed on the sidelines, poised to exploit success. While hoping to spur negotiations, Communist leaders probably had the more modest goals of reasserting Viet Cong influence and undermining Saigon's authority so as to cast doubt on its credibility as the United States' ally. In this respect, the offensive was directed toward the United States and sought to weaken American confidence in the Saigon government, discredit Westmoreland's claims of progress, and strengthen American antiwar sentiment. Here again, the larger purpose was to bring the United States to the negotiating table and hasten American disengagement from Vietnam. Beginning The Tet offensive began quietly in mid-January 1968 in the remote northwest corner of South Vietnam. Elements of three NVA divisions began to mass near the Marine base at Khe Sanh. At first the ominous proportions of the build-up led the Military Assistance Command to expect a major offensive in the northern provinces. To some observers the situation at Khe Sanh resembled Dien Bien Phu, the isolated garrison where the Viet Minh had defeated French forces in 1954. Khe Sanh, however, was a diversion, an attempt to entice Westmoreland to defend yet another border post by withdrawing forces from the populated areas of the South. While pressure around Khe Sanh increased, 85,000 Communist troops prepared for the Tet offensive. Since the fall of 1967, the enemy had been infiltrating arms, ammunition, and men, including entire units, into Saigon and other cities and towns. Most of these meticulous preparations went undetected, although MACV received warnings of a major enemy action to take place in early 1968. The command did pull some Army units closer to Saigon just before the attack. However, concern over the critical situation at Khe Sanh and preparations for the Tet holiday festivities preoccupied most Americans and South Vietnamese. Even when Communist forces prematurely attacked Kontum, Qui Nhon, Da Nang, and other towns in the northern and central provinces on 29 January, Americans were unprepared for what followed. On 31 January combat erupted throughout the entire country. Thirty-six Of 44 provincial capitals and 64 Of 242 district towns were attacked, as well as 5 of South Vietnam's 6 autonomous cities, among them Hue and Saigon. Once the shock and confusion wore off, most attacks were crushed in a few days. During those few days, however, the fighting was some of the most violent ever seen in the South or experienced by many ARVN units. Though the South Vietnamese were the main target, American units were swept into the turmoil. All Army units in the vicinity of Saigon helped to repel Viet Cong attacks there and at the nearby logistical base of Long Binh. In some American compounds, cooks, radiomen, and clerks took up arms in their own defense. Military police units helped root the Viet Cong out of Saigon, and Army helicopter gunships were in the air almost continuously, assisting the allied forces. Battle for Hue The most tenacious combat occurred in Hue, the ancient capital of Vietnam, where the 1st Cavalry and 101st Airborne Divisions, together with marines and South Vietnamese forces, participated in the only extended urban combat of the war. Hue had a tradition of Buddhist activism, with overtones of neutralism, separatism, and anti-Americanism, and Hanoi's strategists thought that here if anywhere the general offensive-general uprising might gain a political foothold. Hence they threw North Vietnamese regulars into the battle, indicating that the stakes at Hue were higher than elsewhere in the South. House-to-house and street-to-street fighting caused enormous destruction, necessitating massive reconstruction and community assistance programs after the battle. The allies took three weeks to recapture the city. The slow, hard-won gains of 1967 vanished overnight as South Vietnamese and Marine forces were pulled out of the countryside to reinforce the city. Yet throughout the country the South Vietnamese forces acquitted themselves well, despite high casualties and many desertions. Stunned by the attacks, civilian support for the Thieu government coalesced instead of weakening. Many Vietnamese for whom the war had been an unpleasant abstraction were outraged. Capitalizing on the new feeling, South Vietnam's leaders for the first time dared to enact general mobilization. The change from grudging toleration of the Viet Cong to active resistance provided an opportunity to create new local defense organizations and to attack the Communist infrastructure. Spurred by American advisers, the Vietnamese began to revitalize pacification. Most important, the Viet Cong suffered a major military defeat, losing thousands of experienced combatants and seasoned political cadres, seriously weakening the insurgent base in the South. Americans at home saw a different picture. Dramatic images of the Viet Cong storming the American Embassy in the heart of Saigon and the North Vietnamese Army clinging tenaciously to Hue obscured Westmoreland's assertion that the enemy had been defeated. Claims of progress in the war, already greeted with skepticism, lost more credibility in both public and official circles. The psychological jolt to President Johnson's Vietnam policy was redoubled when the military requested an additional 206,000 troops. Most were intended to reconstitute the strategic reserve in the United States, exhausted by Westmoreland's appeals for combat units between 1965 and 1967. But the magnitude of the new request, at a time when almost a halfmillion U.S. troops were already in Vietnam, cast doubts on the conduct of the war and prompted a reassessment of American policy and strategy. US Reserves Without mobilization, the United States was overcommitted. The Army could send few additional combat units to Vietnam without making deep inroads on forces destined for NATO or South Korea. The dwindling strategic reserve left Johnson with fewer options in the spring of 1968 than in the summer of 1965. His problems were underscored by heightened international tensions when North Korea captured an American naval vessel, the USS Pueblo, a week before the Tet offensive; by Soviet armed intervention in Czechoslovakia in the summer of 1968; and by chronic crises in the Mideast. In addition, Army units in the United States were needed often between 1965 and 1968 to enforce federal civil rights legislation and to restore public order in the wake of civil disturbances. Again, as in 1967, Johnson refused to sanction a major troop levy, but he did give Westmoreland some modest reinforcements to bolster the northern provinces. Again tapping the strategic reserve, the Army sent him the 3d Brigade, 82nd Airborne Division, and the 1st Brigade, 5th Infantry Division (Mechanized) -- the last Army combat units to deploy to South Vietnam. In addition, the President called to active duty a small number of Reserve units, totaling some 40,000 men, for duty in Southeast Asia and South Korea, the only use of Reserves during the Vietnam War. For Westmoreland, Johnson's decision meant that future operations would have to make the best possible use of American forces, and that the South Vietnamese Army would have to shoulder a larger share of the war effort. The President also curtailed air strikes against North Vietnam to spur negotiations. Finally, on 31 March Johnson announced his decision not to seek re-election in order to give his full attention to the goal of resolving the conflict. Hanoi had suffered a military defeat, but had won a political and diplomatic victory by shifting American policy toward disengagement. For the Army the new policy meant a difficult time. In South Vietnam, as in the United States, its forces were stretched thin. The Tet offensive had concentrated a large portion of the combat forces in I Corps, once a Marine preserve. XXIV Corps A new command, the XXIV Corps, had to be activated at Da Nang, and Army logistical support, previously confined to the three southern corps zones, extended to the five northern provinces as well. While Army units reinforced Hue and the demilitarized zone, the marines at Khe Sanh held fast. Enemy pressure on the besieged base increased daily, but the North Vietnamese refrained from an all-out attack, still hoping to divert American forces from Hue. Recognizing that he could ill afford Khe Sanh's defense, Westmoreland decided to subject the enemy to the heaviest air and artillery bombardment of the war. His tactical gamble succeeded; the enemy withdrew, and the Communist offensive slackened. The enemy nevertheless persisted in his effort to weaken the Saigon government, launching nationwide "mini-Tet" offensives in May and August. Pockets of heavy fighting occurred throughout the south, and Viet Cong forces again tried to infiltrate into Saigon-the last gasps of the general offensive-general uprising. Thereafter enemy forces generally dispersed and avoided contact with Americans. In turn, the allies withdrew from Khe Sanh itself in the summer of 1968. Its abandonment signaled the demise of the McNamara Line and further postponement of MACV's hopes for large-scale American cross-border operations. For the remainder of 1968, Army units in I Corps were content to help restore security around Hue and other coastal areas, working closely with the marines and the South Vietnamese in support of pacification. North Vietnamese and Viet Cong forces generally avoided offensive operations. As armistice negotiations began in Paris, both sides prepared to enter a new phase of the war. Back to Table of Contents -- US Army in Vietnam Back to Vietnam Military History List of Issues Back to MagWeb Magazine List © Copyright 2004 by Coalition Web, Inc. This article appears in MagWeb.com (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web. Other articles from military history and related magazines are available at http://www.magweb.com