ABSTRACT
The Tet Offensive of 1968, the pivotal event of the long Vietnam War, undermined the Johnson administration's Vietnam policy and increased disenchantment in the United States with the war. The importance of pacification to the war effort was reconfirmed even as Washington entertained serious doubts about the program's health. The big-unit war, with which William C. Westmoreland was identified, had become a political liability. Clark Clifford envisioned American troops merely as a shield behind which the South Vietnamese military and government could grow stronger and assume a larger role in the war. Westmoreland's request caused the administration to begin a reappraisal of its strategy in Vietnam. In March, when the president had to respond to Westmoreland's request, he confronted not only growing administration dissent against current strategy but also increasing public, media, and congressional clamor against the war.
