Remembering Tet 40 years later

It does not seem that long ago. James Robbins gives the facts, many of which the media has gotten wrong through the years and most of which the liberals have gotten wrong. Here are a few:

...

Americans grew discouraged with Johnson because his administration was not trying to win. Defense Secretary McNamara was pursuing an esoteric limited-war strategy intended to bring about a negotiated settlement that enshrined the status quo. But Americans understand war as a “win or lose” proposition, preferably “win.” We had not sacrificed over 16,000 Americans by the beginning of 1968 to achieve a draw. And a hard-line Leninist like Ho Chi Minh viewed negotiations as simply a good time to reload.

But disapproval of Johnson’s handling of the war did not mean opposition to the war effort per se. At the low point of LBJ’s public support, only 32 percent of the American people wanted to withdraw from South Vietnam; 50 percent wanted to escalate, to seek not a tie but a win.

Most Americans wanted Johnson to be tougher. This was true even among the youth. According to Gallup, in May 1967 Hawks outnumbered Doves on college campuses 49 percent to 35 percent. But wait, wasn’t 1967 the Summer of Love, Flower Power, Abby Hoffman, and the Yippies trying to levitate the Pentagon? Yes, but that stuff played better in the media than the kinds of things the young Hawks were into. You don’t win any prizes for photos of kids studying and getting haircuts.

The immediate impact of Tet was to make America even more bellicose. Gallup data showed that the percentage of self-described Hawks in the general population rose from 52 percent in December 1967 to 60 percent in the immediate wake of the battle. The corresponding percentage of Doves dropped from 35 percent to 24 percent. A contemporaneous Harris survey also showed strong support for a vigorous response to the communist attack.

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This probably explains why many voters classified as "anti war" support John McCain's candidacy. They want to fight to win and they believe he does too.

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