Walter Cronkite's Ridiculous Spin on the 1968 Tet Offensive in South Vietnam

[frigidweirdo]

Imagine if shortly after the start of the Battle of the Bulge in 1944, an American newsman had announced on TV that perhaps we needed to seek a negotiated end to WWII because the Germans had launched a massive attack that no one thought possible?

This is not too drastically different from what Walter Cronkite did on February 27, 1968, less than four weeks after the North Vietnamese and their Viet Cong subordinates launched their disastrous Tet Offensive on January 30. Here are the two most often-quoted statements from Cronkite's commentary:

To say that we are mired in stalemate seems the only realistic, yet unsatisfactory, conclusion.

But it is increasingly clear to this reporter that the only rational way out then will be to negotiate, not as victors, but as an honorable people who lived up to their pledge to defend democracy and did the best they could.

You would never guess from Cronkite's spin that the Communists had suffered a horrendous military defeat, suffering staggering losses while failing to seize nearly all of the towns and cities they had targeted (and the few places they did manage to seize were retaken in a matter of weeks).

We now know from North Vietnamese sources that the Tet Offensive was a desperate gamble that Hanoi's leaders took because they realized they were losing the war. Also, the North Vietnamese had assumed that once the offensive began, the majority of South Vietnamese would rise up and help them overthrow the Saigon government, but the vast majority of South Vietnamese remained loyal to their government.

Walter Cronkite and most of the rest of the news media turned the Communists' crushing military defeat into a key propaganda victory for the Communist war effort.

The Tet Offensive Revisited: Media's Big Lie

The Battle of the Bulge the US and allies still looked like they would win. In Vietnam did the US ever look like winning?

 

[Soupnazi630]

Sure Diem could not stop elections in the North, and in the North, Ho Chi Minh won.

We had no "treaty" or any authority to do anything in Vietnam.
The Geneva Peace accord was the only legal document, and it was the US that violated it by preventing fair elections in the South.
The truth is Diem could not even legally have beaten Bau Dai in an election, much less Ho Chi Minh.
The proof Diem was unpopular was the fact he was deposed and assassinated in 1963.
But Thieu and Ky were no more popular or successful, even with the billions the US was pouring in.

Minh won NO election in the north. he held no election he simply siezed power.

Yes we did have a treaty with South Vietnam.

The US did not violate the geneva accord as the only relevant part was the 1954 accord which we did not sign.

Popularity is irrelevant.

 

[Soupnazi630]

The Tet Offensive was south Vietnamese rising up against the US backed dictators.
It was not by the communist north.

WRONG

It was okannned and orchestrated by the communist north. The Viet Cong were nothing more than north Vietnamese troops acting on orders.

 

[Soupnazi630]

President Eisenhower disagreed with you.

He was wrong

 

[Soupnazi630]

Wrong.
We had no treaty with Vietnam and the only international treaty was for there to be elections in 1955 between Bau Dai and Ho Chi Minh.
By supporting the coup by Diem, we prevented the national election of 1955.

WRONG

Diem had NOTHING to do with elections in thr north it was Minh who willfilly and deliberately refused to hold elections

Yes we absolutely did have a treaty with them IDIOT

 

[John Edgar Slow Horses]

Tet was a NVA directed offensive using the VC units, which were destroyed almost to the last combatant.

 

[Hector12]

He was wrong

President Eisenhower knew far more about the situation in Vietnam than you do.

 

[Hector12]

The treaty was SEATO. It was the Asian version of NATO.

SEATO was never much of a treaty. Most of the members had the sense to avoid becoming involved in Vietnam.

 

[Hector12]

Tet was a NVA directed offensive using the VC units, which were destroyed almost to the last combatant.

If American soldiers and Marines had not been in Vietnam the Tet Offensive would have won the War for the Communists.

 

[Deadstick]

Chickenhawks Are America's Last Supper

Same in South Vietnam, not so much that they were on the enemy's side but that they were useless and corrupt cowards, including the general population, who wouldn't help us block Communist expansion. What if we had wasted all our energy after D-Day trying to get the snail-eating French to help us destroy the Nazis?

Many French did help get rid of the Nazis, some free french landed with British forces on Sword beach, there were thousands of French resistance fighters, after D-Day they came out into the open to fight the Germans, the FFI French forces of the interior, in June i will make my final visit to Normandy for the 80th commemoration, i will stay near Ranville in the cemetery there are some of these French soldiers who were killed.

 

[mikegriffith1]

Rigby5 said:
The Tet Offensive was south Vietnamese rising up against the US backed dictators. It was not by the communist north.

Holy cow. How could anyone make such an utterly bogus statement in 2024? Even ultra-liberal historians acknowledge that the Tet Offensive was ordered and led by the North Vietnamese.

And, FYI, the overwhelming majority of the South Vietnamese people remained loyal to their government after the offensive began, much to the shock and dismay of the Communists.

Are any of you North Vietnamese-Viet Cong apologists ever going to watch any of the documentaries that I've linked in this thread? Are you ever going to read any of the scholarly sources I've cited and/or linked in this thread?

It appears that none of you knows anything about the historic disclosures about the war that have come from North Vietnamese and other Communist sources over the last 25 years (a few began to trickle out in the 1980s, but most began to surface in the 1990s and early 2000s).

You could start to educate yourselves by reading the book A Vietcong Memoir: An Inside Account of the Vietnam War and Its Aftermath (1985), written by a former Viet Cong official named Truong Nhu Tang. It's available on Amazon, including as an audio book. Among many other things, Tang discusses the "reign of terror" (his words) that North Vietnam imposed on the South Vietnamese after the war. He also talks about what a disaster the Tet Offensive was for the Viet Cong.

 

[John Edgar Slow Horses]

mikegriffith1 has a hole one here.

 

[Soupnazi630]

President Eisenhower knew far more about the situation in Vietnam than you do.

No he did not

he did not have the benefit of hindsight

 

[Hector12]

No he did not

he did not have the benefit of hindsight

If the vast majority of the South Vietnamese opposed Ho Chi Minh American troops would not have been necessary. They would have fought the Communists themselves.

President Johnson began sending Marines into South Vietnam in 1965 because the South was about to fall to the Communists. It was about to fall because few South Vietnamese supported the government of South Vietnam.

American troops in Vietnam often encountered enemy villages. In World War II there were no enemy villages in France. Even in Italy Americans were greeted as liberators, even though Italy had recently been an ally of Germany.

 

[Soupnazi630]

If the vast majority of the South Vietnamese opposed Ho Chi Minh American troops would not have been necessary. They would have fought the Communists themselves.

President Johnson began sending Marines into South Vietnam in 1965 because the South was about to fall to the Communists. It was about to fall because few South Vietnamese supported the government of South Vietnam.

American troops in Vietnam often encountered enemy villages. In World War II there were no enemy villages in France. Even in Italy Americans were greeted as liberators, even though Italy had recently been an ally of Germany.

The vast majority were indifferent.

They were forced to become enemy villages which is the sort of thing we were fighting against

 

[Hector12]

The vast majority were indifferent.

They were forced to become enemy villages which is the sort of thing we were fighting against

If they did not care we should not have cared either. Who gave us the right to tell people in other countries how they should be governed?

They were enemy villages because they supported the Communists.

 

[Soupnazi630]

If they did not care we should not have cared either. Who gave us the right to tell people in other countries how they should be governed?

They were enemy villages because they supported the Communists.

They were enemy villages because they were FORCED to support the communists.

Who gave minh the right to enforce it on them?

 

[Hector12]

They were enemy villages because they were FORCED to support the communists.

Who gave minh the right to enforce it on them?

If they were forced to support the Communists they would have welcomed the American troops as liberators.

 

[mikegriffith1]

What is "your version"?
The South had as many people as the North, and had better US weapons, but could not even hold any territory at all.
The Tet Offensive showed that huge portions of the population in the South supported Ho Chi Mihn with their life.

Where are you getting this fiction? I'd really like to know.

North Vietnam's population was always about 2 million more than South Vietnam's population. In 1968, about 18.7 million people lived in North Vietnam, while about 16.2 million people lived in South Vietnam.

South Vietnam most certainly held plenty of territory, especially from mid-1962 until late 1963 and then from late 1968 until mid-1972. Even after the 1972 Easter Offensive, South Vietnam controlled most of its territory. North Vietnamese sources confirm this.

On what planet did the Tet Offensive show that "huge portions" of South Vietnam's population supported Ho Chi Minh?! Not here on Earth. Here on Earth, the vast majority of South Vietnamese stood by their government during the Tet Offensive, much to the shock and dismay of the Communists. No reputable historian denies this well-documented fact.

I'm guessing you haven't bothered to watch any of the documentaries that I've linked in replies in this thread. You can also find them on my Vietnam War website:

The Truth About the Vietnam War

 

[Soupnazi630]

If they were forced to support the Communists they would have welcomed the American troops as liberators.

They often did