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Tet Offensive Research Paper

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Section 1: Identification and Evaluation of Sources
The purpose of this investigation is to explore the question: How did the Tet Offensive change American public opinion on the Vietnam War? The focus of the investigation will be on the years 1965-1970 in order to allow for analysis of American public opinion from the beginning of American involvement to the years following the Tet Offensive. Sources analyzing the Tet Offensive as a whole and American public opinion on the Vietnam War will be used to accurately determine the effects of the Tet Offensive on American public opinion. The first source that will be evaluated is the book “The Tet Offensive,” which was written by Marc Gilbert and William Head in 1996. This source offers a complete …show more content…

This event would cause a direct impact on public opinion due to the contradictory views presented. President Johnson was aware of this rising support for the antiwar movement and in an attempt to prevent his supporters from joining the bandwagon, he launched this campaign which assured that U.S. victory was in arm’s reach. Johnson’s desperate attempts to keep supporters on the bandwagon prove that he knew that support for the war was coming close to an end. The campaign did, however, successfully increase the morale of American people, consequently causing increased support for the …show more content…

and the offensive provided no communist gain in any military way. These false depictions of the events in a negative way caused the public to believe that they were losing the war and caused them to stop supporting the war. Also, after the offensive, many more news-gathering institutions adopted antiwar editorial positions, which in turn would cause an accelerated decline in support as the negative views would be distributed and spread more quickly. A poll conducted in the months following the Tet Offensive showed that more than half of Americans believed that getting involved in the war was a mistake. Even though the offensive was a success, due to public relying solely on the media for evidence of how the war was progressing, public support declined as media coverage was often incorrect. The months following the Tet Offensive were full of negative views towards the Vietnam War. In March of 1968, only 2 months after the beginning of the attack, 56% of the public approved of a ‘government-led withdrawal.” The popularity continued to decline and all polls after 1968 showed that more than 50% of people disliked American involvement in the war. The amount of people who were against the war in the months following the Tet Offensive prove that the events caused more people to want America to opt out of being involved in the

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