and news stories about the fighting. I remember how the Tet Offensive in January 1968 was portrayed as a huge American loss when in fact it practically destroyed the Viet Cong's ability to fight in the South.

Transcript from a PBS program on the Tet Offensive.

NARRATOR

As a military operation, the offensive had failed. The southern Vietcong guerrilla forces had surfaced, to be killed or captured in large numbers. After 1968, the war was increasingly fought by North Vietnamese as a conven-tional conflict. The political goal of forcing President Thieu to accept a coalition government also failed.

NGUYEN VAN THIEU (President, South Vietnam), February 1968

What they have realized in the city that the people was against them. So I believe that the general uprising that they had hoped have not happened. They have met with the anti-Communist sentiment from the people in the city, so they failed in both countryside and city.

DEAN RUSK

But even though it was a considerable military set-back for the North Vietnam-ese and Vietcong out there on the ground, it was, in effect, a brilliant political victory for them here in the United States. I'm not sure I fully understand the reasons why that should have occurred, but it became very clear after the Tet offensive that many people at the grass roots, such as my cousins in Cherokee County, finally came to the conclusion that if we could not tell them when this war was going to end, and we couldn't in any good faith, that we might as well chuck it.