Tet!: The Turning Point in the Vietnam War

by Don Oberdorfer

Finalist for the 1971 National Book Award In early 1968, Communist forces in Vietnam launched a surprise offensive that targeted nearly every city, town, and major military base throughout South Vietnam. For several hours, the U.S. embassy in Saigon itself came under siege by Viet Cong soldiers. Militarily, the offensive was a failure, as the North Vietnamese Army and its guerrilla allies in the south suffered devastating losses. Politically, however, it proved to be a crucial turning point in America's involvement in Southeast Asia and public opinion of the war. In this classic work of military history and war reportage—long considered the definitive history of Tet and its aftermath—Don Oberdorfer moves back and forth between the war and the home front to document the lasting importance of this military action. Based on his own observations as a correspondent for the Washington Post and interviews with hundreds of people who were caught up in the struggle, Tet! remains an essential contribution to our understanding of the Vietnam War.

Genres: History, Military History, War, Military Fiction, Nonfiction, Asia, Journalism

440 pages, Paperback

First published September 1, 1971

Reviews

[Stefania Dzhanamova · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is an insightful and well-argumented take on the question of the independent American media's role in the portrayal of the Tet Offensive of 1968 as a disaster for the American war effort in Vietnam. 

As Don Oberdorfer argues, the media did not mean to undermine the American public's confidence in the government's ability to win the Vietnam conflict with its coverage of Tet. It was just that the American television turned to color precisely in 1968, which made the fighting in Vietnam look much more dramatic and impressive on the TV screen. 1968 was essentially the year when the Vietnam conflict was brought to every American's living room. The fact that the first event to be captured in color by all three major American television networks was the Tet Offensive that the American public did not expect made it the most shocking coverage of the Vietnam conflict. Although prior to this moment, the American home front saw and listened to its fair share of war footage, the technology was primitive back then and could not, for instance, cover the nightly violence or be near the military action to film guerrilla activities. This is why the American public's living room war before the Tet Offensive was not harrowing from a visual perspective. It was a series of random reports that accomplished little more than reminding Americans that there was a conflict going on. 

Then, suddenly, the Tet Offensive came and with it came the most dramatic footage of the Vietnam conflict – the execution by General Nguyen Ngoc Loan of a Viet Cong cadre on a busy street in downtown Saigon. Eddie Adams of the Associated Press won a Pulitzer Prize for his photograph of the execution, which quickly achieved iconic status. The photograph was shown on all three network evening news broadcasts and appeared on the front pages of newspapers all over the world. The American media had never before shown anything regarding Vietnam that looked so anti-American. The viewers' shock was widespread and understandable. Although it is difficult to say that Adams's photograph single-handedly turned the public opinion against the American involvement in the Vietnam conflict, its impact was enormous both among the ordinary people and among policy-makers.

As Oberdorfer points out, however, this was a classic case of photographs' taking things out of context. Cameras can capture events, but not the context in which those events happened. The picture projected on TV portrayed a Vietnamese man being brutally executed by General Loan. The scene was tragic, as the man looked small and pitiful and his executioner vicious. The reality was different, though. The executed Viet Cong cadre, whose name was Bay Lop, actually ran a death squad that had murdered more than twenty family members of Saigon police officers. Furthermore, he had taken hostage the South Vietnamese army's tank training school, and when the commander there refused to teach the Viet Cong how to start tanks, Bay Lop murdered him and his whole family. He was not the Vietnamese martyr sacrificing his life for the independence of his country that he looked on TV. 

Thus, as the author rightfully argues, media misrepresentation blew the effects of the Tet Offensive out of proportions. The contrast between the uneventful, colorless coverage of the conflict prior to the Tet Offensive and the colorful, accidentally anti-government footage that was broadcasted during Tet made the Communist surprise attacks and the revelation that Hanoi was strong enough to launch an all-out offensive look scarier than they actually were. Furthermore, the international community's outrage at Bay Lop's allegedly excessively cruel execution put additional pressure on the Johnson administration, making America look like a brutal aggressor abusing the population of a small, weak country. 

According to Oberdorfer, the media depiction of Tet also gave the American public the justification it needed to protest against the American involvement in the Vietnam conflict, which was costly, deadly, and unnecessary. In reality, America had lost the conflict well before Tet because the majority of its population did not consider winning it beneficial for America in any way. On the other hand, the North Vietnamese and the Viet Cong envisioned the independence and reunification of Vietnam when they fought against the Americans, who did not have a patriotic motivator in that faraway country.

TET! is a great study. Oberdorfer offers comprehensive, well-researched, and convincing answers to a question that has puzzled many contemporaries of the Tet Offensive. This book ranks among the most informative analyses of the causes of the Communists' political victory in the Tet Offensive that I have read so far. I highly recommend it. 

[Andrea Maisano · Rating 4 out of 5]

Written while the war was still going on, which is one of the reasons why I suggest to read it, the book is a wide-angled analysis of the Tet offensive. The author, journalist for the Washington Post, goes in great details about the planning, the events and especially the outcomes, both military and politically, of the battle that was the "turning point" of the Vietnam War.

[Long Nguyen · Rating 3 out of 5]

As a person who already knew and read about this event, the book is somewhat repetitive on just a few points: the confusion of US government and distrust of the ongoing war from the public. I wish the author put Tet in a wider context of the war (not just only around 1967-1968) and describe how Vietnamese soldiers failed to deliver a successful offensive.

[Đào Kiên · Rating 5 out of 5]

Bản dịch cuốn Tết ở VN chỉ là lược dịch nên chắc chắn sẽ phải tìm đọc bản gốc để biết nhiều thông tin hơn

[Sam · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is as good a book about the Tet Offensive as could be written from the limited sources available in 1971 and much more balanced than other wartime first drafts of history by Halberstam, Fitzgerald, etc. For me the highlight of the book was its detailed look at the American press. Oberdorfer provides details that don't often make it into accounts -- for example, how photos and film were actually transmitted from Vietnam to the States, and glimpses of the competitive newsroom culture that helped produce so much misinformation about the offensive. He also makes the sharp observation that the up-to-the-minute reporting on Tet foreshadowed later events which Americans (and the rest of the world) could follow obsessively as they unfolded, at the risk of lopsided media narratives influencing public opinion and political decisions. The standout chapter gives a side-by-side narrative of the LBJ administration trying to control the narrative of the offensive but being utterly foiled by the rapid transmission and dissemination of the (in)famous photo of Nguyen Ngoc Loan blowing out the brains of a NLF captive. Oberdorfer does an outstanding job of tracking the timing of administration statements and showing how they were outpaced at every turn by events and reporting.

I've read a fair number of books by US reporters about the war and found this better than most! It holds up far better than some other, better-known books in that category like Fire in the Lake. Well worth reading.

[John Burlew · Rating 5 out of 5]

Just finished this in January 2020. The author, a reporter I believe, writes very well. Clear, crisp, concise. Those little schmohawks from the North really did a number on the ARVN and American forces during the tet holiday of 1968. Also exposed Johnson’s lies and the jet-stream of bullshit coming out of his Administration. I, for one, am glad I wasn’t in Vietnam at that time... paid-for jungle-safari notwithstanding.

[Dang Hoan · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is the first time i read a vietnam war book written by an America,
very proud about the Vietnam army, i was surprised that The america call the Vietcong is terrorist in this period, but it's understandable,
This book help me understand well the war in the lunar new year 1968 that we studied not much in school

[Chris Schaffer · Rating 5 out of 5]

Outstanding look at the Tet Offensive from the pre-planning to the assault in motion as it took place. Also an excellent chronicle of the political events in the U.S. between 1966 and March 31 of 1968.

[Scottnshana · Rating 4 out of 5]

I think there's a good argument for reading this book (though it was written almost 3 decades earlier) soon after H.R. McMaster's "Dereliction of Duty" in order to get a good chronological flow of the LBJ White House's wrestling match with Viet Nam (If you want to make it a trilogy, Rick Perlstein's "Nixonland" describes what fine shape the country was in on the eve of the 1968 Presidential Election). Here's the rub on "Tet," though. Bureaucracy--and I don't think LBJ's is the exception to the rule--isn't an ideal way to deal with a rapidly-evolving crisis. To take it further, North Viet Nam's intelligence and sleeper cells were arguably better organized than their US/SVN counterparts--the insurgent units certainly trusted and communicated with each other--and still lost this fight at the tactical and operational levels. At the strategic level, however, the Johnson Administration had by 1968 consistently sexed up the ugly truths from the war by repeatedly telling the US electorate about the "light at the end of the tunnel" and backing it up with inflated statistics from the Office of the Secretary of Defense. The Tet Offensive, the book implies, was simply the Tipping Point (that Malcolm Gladwell describes in his book) for an electorate that was tired of war. When Walter Cronkite took off his glasses and expressed his loss of faith in victory in front of millions of Americans eating dinner in front of the TV and the Wall Street Journal piled on alongside newspapers in places like Salina, Kansas, Tet had pretty well convinced Americans that LBJ's promises of Guns AND Butter in exchange for their households' contributions of Blood AND Treasure were not feasible. In short, Tet convinced America that you can either have war or a Great Society, but even a seasoned politician like LBJ couldn't deliver both. Even 40 years later, Oberdorfer's perspective on the respective roles of political leadership, military advisors, the press, and the citizenry is profound and useful.

[George · Rating 5 out of 5]

SIGINT warning of 1968 Tet Offensive: "Presently the sensitive ear of communications intercept began picking up transmissions from more stations than before, some of them closer to Siagon than the weight of U.S. forces. ... Westmoreland ... gave the order to redeploy U.S. troops. Westmoreland has since called this decision one of the most critical of the Vietnam War." (from the book Tet! by Don Oberdorfer, copyright 1971, page 137)

[Renee · Rating 5 out of 5]

One thing that is very interesting about this book is it is written before the Vietnam War has ended...yet his insights into how such a military failure on the part of North Vietnam could be turned into such a political victory because of the war-politics in Washington is very telling. It is something that should be kept very much in mind today as we watch the two hot-spots down range.

[Sơn Lương · Rating 4 out of 5]

50 năm Mậu Thân nên đọc quyển này, câu chuyện Tet offensive từ góc nhìn của một nhà báo Mỹ. Xen lẫn với những gì diễn ra ở VN là nội tình Nhà Trắng và Lầu năm góc sau khi cuộc tiến công nổi dậy diễn ra.

Trước đây mình mù tịt về Mậu Thân, nhờ đọc quyển này mới biết thêm về sự kiện này. Lời kể của nhà báo Mỹ trong quyển sách xuất bản năm 1971, khi cuộc chiến tranh VN còn chưa kết thúc, có thể xem là khách quan.

Tác giả Don Oberdorfer lý giải vì sao Tet offensive là bước ngoặc - the turning point - của Vietnam War vì nó là thất bại về mặt quân sự đối với VC nhưng là thành công về chiến lược khi nó khiến dư luận Mỹ thay đổi quan điểm về sự tham gia của Mỹ ở VN.

Như phần Vĩ thanh đã viết: “"Những người cộng sản đã chịu tổn thất trên chiến trường, nhưng Chính phủ Mỹ bên cạnh đó phải gánh chịu một tổn thất còn quan trọng hơn: mất lòng tin của dân chúng Mỹ".

Do Tết di chuyển nhiều nên mình chọn mang theo Kindle. Phiên bản mình đọc là bản dịch tiếng Việt xuất bản năm 1988, có cắt bớt. Điều chán nhất là bản này phiên âm tên riêng đọc loạn cả lên và ebook thì gõ sai rất nhiều. Thấy có bản tái bản với tên riêng để nguyên, mình sẽ mua để sưu tầm.