ABSTRACT
Tet affected the public at large and made the nation here at home much more receptive, much more willing to accept the doubt and the pessimism which had been in the stories for five or six years. Earlier on, there was a constant undertow from the journalists there, for which we were systematically criticized, and that undertow said in effect it doesn't work, it does not work. Television covered what the Western force did well, with all its technological power, and it failed to cover what the other side did well, which was to keep recruiting and coming. That equation made it an unwinnable war. Everybody talks these day about good communicators. To be a good communicator one have to have someone who is a pretty good reporter, and have to have people who are willing to read and comprehend and accept what they are reporting, and that is particularly true about the early days of Vietnam.
