spartans_in_darkness

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Chapter 7 - (U) A Springtime ofTrumpets:
SIGINT and the Tet Offensive
CU) In the history of the Indochina War, the
communist Tet Offensive, which began on 31
January 1968 has dominated American popular
imagination as no other event of the war. And
rightly so. The fury and extent of the attacks were
unexpected. Nearly every very major city and military
base in South Vietnam was attacked by commando
teams and main force units of the
National Liberation Front and the People's Army
of Vietnam which, themselves, seemed to spring
from an earth sown with the mythic crop of dragon's
teeth. The Tet Offensive changed the course
and nature of the Indochina War in ways unimaginable
just a few days earlier. The unvarnished
images from this event - the execution of a Viet
Cong suspect by Vietnamese National Police
General Loan, the dead communist guerrillas
sprinkled about the grounds of the U.S. embassy,
and U.S. Marines fighting to recapture the rubble
of Hue - brought home to
Americans and their leaders in a
compelling fashion just how
much their conceptions and attitudes
about the war were mistaken.
Most of all, Tet would
force President Johnson finally
to make a strategic choice for the
course of the war; the option he
finally chose defined the
American effort thereafter. For
the communists, the bloodbath
they suffered grievously wounded
the indigenous National
Liberation Front's effectiveness;
from now on, North Vietnamese
forces would totally dominate
the fighting.
" !
·I III
r
CU) In the aftermath of Tet,
two central, and seemingly simple,
questions were asked of the
(V) Pictures from Tef top, Ceneral LOCln executing a Viet Cong suspect,
and bottom, V.S. militClry police fighting on
the g~ounqs ofthe V.S. embassy.
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