ABSTRACT
Tet marked ‘The Turning Point’ of US involvement in Vietnam. Before Tet, the American public was behind the war; after Tet, it was not. On March 31, two months after Tet, the American president, Lyndon Baines Johnson, announced to the nation he would not seek re-election. He would instead seek peace in Vietnam; peace he would not find. On February 29, less than a month after Tet, the president’s Secretary of Defense, Robert Strange McNamara, stepped down from his position, a position he had held since 1961 (McNamara had announced in November 1967 that he would be leaving at an unspecified date). Secretary McNamara had been the longest serving Secretary of Defense; his conviction that the war could not be won would not allow him to serve any longer, even in the hour of President Johnson’s greatest need. On March 22, less than two months after Tet, President Johnson announced that the American commander in Vietnam, General William Childs Westmoreland, was coming back to the United States to become the Army’s Chief of Staff. General Westmoreland had been promoted out of command; he would command no more soldiers in battle. Johnson, McNamara, Westmoreland-all affected by Tet.
