1968: We won the Tet offensive but lost it on the front pages

46 years ago, US soldiers dealt a huge defeat to Viet Cong and North Vietnamese troops in the Viet Nam War.  

It came to be known as The Tet Offensive:

“Militarily, Tet was decidedly an Allied victory, but psychologically and politically, it was a disaster. The offensive was a crushing military defeat for the Viet Cong and the North Vietnamese, but the size and scope of the communist attacks had caught the American and South Vietnamese allies completely by surprise. The early reporting of a smashing communist victory went largely uncorrected in the media and led to a psychological victory for the communists. ”

Shame on the news media.   Indeed, we were caught by surprise but US troops fought back and stopped the offensive.  Unfortunately, President Johnson was so weak that he could not go over the news media.    He allowed the news media to tell us that Tet was a defeat when it really wasn’t.

Click here for my discussion with Bill Katz of Urgent Agenda: