Tet Offensive
1968
During the first couple years of the war, there was an agreed upon temporary ceasefire for the Vietnamese New Year. However, in 1968, the Viet Cong unexpectedly attacked the South Vietnamese, with attacks on almost every major city in South Vietnam. The North Vietnamese seemingly hoped to win the war with this single blow, thinking that the civilians would join with them in a mass uprising against the government. In attempting this, they lost a large part of their forces. Nevertheless, even though the Tet Offensive was a military defeat for the Viet Cong, it was actually a public relations success for the Communists. It made the brutality of the war very visible to Americans. The US had been bombing South Vietnamese villages for years. During Tet the US bombed South Vietnamese cities. During Tet the American television viewing public saw a prisoner, with his hands bound behind his back, being shot through the head by a South Vietnamese General. The Viet Cong also killed several thousand civilians but that did not happen on American television. Although the offensive was a military victory for the Americans, there were 14,000 US solders killed in 1968 alone, the highest number for any year in the war. A significant outcome of the Tet offensive was that it made the US public less enthusiastic about the war. The unpopular war forced the US government to keep pulling out troops. President Lyndon Johnson decided to end the escalation of U.S. involvement in Vietnam.