The second significant factor that influenced the development of the Vietnam War was the Tet Offensive, which Gilbert and Head describe as “defining the moment when the United States seized defeat out of the jaws of victory, or as the wake-up call that finally alerted America to the unwinnable nature of the Vietnam conflict” (1). The Tet Offensive was conceived of by the North Vietnamese as the means of negotiating a coalition government, thereby paving the way for the extrication of the U.S. from Vietnam (Gilbert & Head 17). The plan was not, however, anticipated by the U.S. The North Vietnamese forces had begun quietly building up troops around strategic Marine bases, with the objective of provoking a U.S. response (Gilbert & Head 17).
The plan, initiated in early 1967 and carried out at the beginning of Tet, the Vietnamese New Year in January, 1968, was intended to result in the collapse of South Vietnam, and its long-term strategy was to continue “fighting while negotiating” (Gilbert & Head 68). Key aspects of the strategy were staging massive attacks in multiple locations that were understaffed by U.S. troops, causing as many U.S. casualties during the Vietnam War as possible by the sheer power of numbers. In Khesahn alone, for example, the U.S. had a representation of 5000 troops, compared to an enemy force that was 40,000 men strong (Gilbert & Head 20), and on a single day, 80,000 troops invaded 100 different South Vietnamese cities considered population centers (Gilbert & Head 21). The Tet Offensive was the turning point of the Vietnam War because it marked the point at which the United States definitively instituted a withdrawal strategy. Although the enemy forces were not victorious in the strictest sense of the word, they had dealt a major psychological blow to U.S. forces, which were already undermined by growing opposition to the war at home (Gilbert & Head 22).
The third factor that influenced the Vietnam war was the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Vietnam, causing the fall of Saigon. After the Tet Offensive, the U.S. changed its primary objective “from securing an independent, non-Communist South Vietnam to seeking an honorable withdrawal,” if, in fact, one was available (Record & Terrill 33). While it took five years to withdraw troops completely and to terminate involvement in the Vietnam War, the U.S. embarked on a withdrawal strategy immediately. In addition to the severe demoralization of troops and the American public in general, the United States was confronting a number of other domestic problems that cried out for attention. Congressional support for the war was wearing thin and tempers were flaring on both sides of the political aisle.
President Ford requested several million more dollars of economic aid to fund the war, a request that was rejected (Mann 721). As Ford’s administration ended and Nixon’s began, inflation rates were increasing, as was unemployment, and political and economic corruption were becoming serious national concerns, especially as President Nixon became implicated in his own scandal, Watergate (Mann 715). As the U.S. became increasingly ambivalent about its Vietnamization project and more preoccupied with its domestic troubles, Saigon fell at the end of April, 1975. The implications were serious, more so for the Vietnamese than for the Americans. South and North Korea were unified politically by the Communist regime, causing a massive exodus of South Vietnamese refugees, and other serious political and social consequences.
