Research Paper on:
Tet Offensive: Never Underestimate the Enemy

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a long, inconclusive war. Thus we are sure to win in the end."1 This will prove to be a prophetic observation in light of what was to come  nearly six years later, beginning on January 30, 1968. The Tet Offensive became for the U.S. military, the administration of President Lyndon B. Johnson, and for the American people,  a crucial turning point in the Vietnam War. It was the height of the Cold War, and the United States believed it was a matter of vital national security  to keep South Vietnam from falling under the control of Ho Chi Minh, whose Viet Cong forces transformed North Vietnam into a Communist stronghold known as the Democratic Republic of  Vietnam. The U.S. had emerged from World War II as the strongest and most powerful nation in the world, and with its nuclear technology, was supremely confident in its  military capabilities. Ho Chi Minhs band of guerrilla savages would be no match for the all-mighty Uncle Sam. At least that is what the Pentagon strategists kept saying.  The U.S. entry into South Vietnam was supposed to be a brief show of force to keep the balance of power from shifting in the direction of the Communists.  However, the brutal reality revealed during the intense fighting of the Tet Offensive was that not only was the American military grossly unprepared to fight a conventional ground war,  it seriously miscalculated the North Vietnamese resolve to emerge victorious. To conceal its lack of military preparedness, the White House then attempted to sell the American public on the  notion that it was winning the war and that troop withdrawal was only a matter of time. After Tet, nobody was buying the propagandist spin, and the Vietnam War