Tet Offensive: A Major Turning PointVillagers carried coffins filled with guns and ammunition through towns, accompanying them were the sounds of fireworks and flutes.
Those sounds soon turned to the sound of assault rifle fire and explosions. Flares and green tracers dart through the night sky like hundreds of fireflies; gun flashes replaced Tet fireworks, and could be seen as far as the eye could see. This major event in the Vietnam War is called the Tet Offensive. After a surprise attack in the beginning, the United States and South Vietnamese army came back to overpower the Vietcong and NVA (North Vietnamese Army) and decisively win all the battles.
Even though the United States and South Vietnamese won the Tet Offensive, it was a major turning point towards ending the Vietnam War. Escalation of the war would end and withdraw would begin. The Vietcong and NVA lost the battle on the battlefield but they had won a major political battle. The American public became disillusioned with what was called a military intervention. Intelligence failure, Johnson’s over confidence in the war, and its profound impact on American attitudes about involvement in Vietnam are three major reasons why the Tet Offensive was the turning point in ending the war.
Intelligence failure was one of the main reasons why the Tet offensive happened. The allies undergo a failure of intelligence before Tet, a failure that helped plan the stages for changes in the strategies of the US. The four parts of intelligence are crucial in determining the actions of the enemy. The four tasks consist of collection of information, the analysis of the information, the decision to respond to a warning issued in the analytical stage, dissemination of the order to respond to the field commanders. The first task in intelligence is the collection of accurate information about the opponent’s intentions and capabilities. There are many ways to obtain the accurate information needed, which include reading a foreign press release to advanced monitoring technology.
Though this may seem simple, the enemy government goes through great lengths to prevent accurate information from reaching their enemies. In the spring of 1967, General Giap, in charge of the NVA, began battles in the outlying country away from cities in an attempt to draw the US army and ARVN (Army Republic of Vietnam) away from the large cities and provincial capitals. This was so General Giap could sneak in large amount of supplies, weapons, and ammunition. A secondary plan was to have the stronger US troops deployed away from the areas he planned to attack.
The second stage of intelligence is the analysis of the information gathered. From April to December of 1967, the intelligence was unable to accurately predict the coming Tet Offensive on January 30th and 31st 1968. Why wasn’t the intelligence organization aware that no battles were being fought around major cities of Sigon, Hue, and Da Nang? Why didn’t they see the massive amount of troop build up from the North? They even missed all the supplies being brought down from the North to stage the attacks. Almost 3,000 vehicles a month are coming down the Ho Chi Minh trail near the end of 1967. In the many months before Tet, it is hard to believe that the civilian and government of South Vietnam did not see or hear about the pending offensive. The third stage is the decision to respond to the warning issued in the analytical stage.
The third stage of intelligence was not even responded to because of the failure of intelligence in the second stage. In fact, almost the opposite was true. President Lyndon Johnson and the American public were fed false information from General Westmoreland and the Joint Chiefs of Staff that we were winning the war. In fact, they were able to build the American troops strength to 500,000 troops and significantly increase military spending.
At the same time they were not aware of General Giap’s plan to attack the entire South Vietnam. The fourth stage of intelligence is dissemination of the order to respond to the field commanders. The realization of the pending attacks comes only days before the Tet offensive. The US military
