Tet Offensive

A large, coordinated campaign launched by North Vietnamese and Viet Cong forces across South Vietnam during the 1968 Lunar New Year. Its battlefield losses contrasted with its lasting effect on American public opinion and U.S. war policy.

Tet holiday: Vietnam’s Lunar New Year festival, traditionally observed with family gatherings and a pause in fighting. The holiday helped attackers exploit expectations of a temporary truce and reduced vigilance.
Credibility gap: The growing discrepancy between U.S. government statements about the Vietnam War and events reported from the battlefield. Tet widened doubts about official assurances that the war was nearing success.
Ho Chi Minh: A Vietnamese revolutionary leader who headed North Vietnam and helped lead the struggle for Vietnamese independence and reunification. He led the North Vietnamese state whose forces participated in the campaign.
Battle of Ia Drang: A 1965 battle in the Central Highlands that marked a major early clash between U.S. and North Vietnamese forces. Unlike the nationwide Tet campaign, Ia Drang was a concentrated battle between opposing field forces.
General Offensive and Uprising: North Vietnam’s 1968 strategy combining attacks by regular forces with calls for popular revolt in South Vietnam. This was the campaign’s strategic plan, intended to trigger a nationwide uprising.
Walter Cronkite: An American broadcast journalist and anchorman of the CBS Evening News from 1962 to 1981. His post-Tet broadcast questioning a military victory became a symbol of changing U.S. opinion.
Võ Nguyên Giáp: A Vietnamese general and political leader who commanded major forces of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam. Giáp was a senior North Vietnamese military leader during the war and the planning of major campaigns.
Easter Offensive: A large North Vietnamese conventional invasion of South Vietnam launched in 1972. It relied more openly on conventional forces and armor than Tet’s combined assaults and insurgent tactics.
Battle of Huế: A prolonged 1968 battle in which North Vietnamese and Viet Cong forces occupied much of Huế before U.S. and South Vietnamese forces retook it. The fighting in Huế became one of the offensive’s longest and most destructive battles.
Lyndon B. Johnson: The 36th president of the United States, who escalated U.S. military involvement in Vietnam. The offensive contributed to Johnson’s decision to limit bombing and withdraw from the 1968 presidential race.

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