The Myths of Tet - 9780700625024

The Myths of TetThe Most Misunderstood Event of the Vietnam War\nAuthor(s): Edwin Moise\nFormat: Hardback\nPublisher: University Press of Kansas, United States\nImprint: University Press of Kansas\nISBN-13: 9780700625024, 978-0700625024\nSynopsis\nLate in 1967, American officials and military officers pushed an optimistic view of the Vietnam War. Military Assistance Command, Vietnam (MACV) said that the war was being won, and that Communist strength in South Vietnam was declining. Then came the Tet Offensive of 1968. In its broadest and simplest outline, the conventional wisdom about the offensivethat it was a military defeat for the Communists but a political victory for them, because it undermined support for the war in the United Statesis correct. But much that has been written about the Tet Offensive has been misleading. Edwin Mose shows that the Communist campaign shocked the American public not because the American media exaggerated its success, but because it was a bigger camp.