470 ChaPter^9
dust to settle in Vietnam for a thorough analysis of the situation. With a bar-
rage of candid and often pessimistic reports pelting Washington from Saigon,
policymakers could do little more than seek an effective way to cut their
losses in Vietnam.
And so they did. In early March, the president called for a full review of
the war, and his informal advisors, the so-called Wise Men, would finally urge
de-escalation; and U.S. military leaders would continue to provide candid
evaluations of the enemy’s capabilities and America’s problems. By the end of
March, the President would lament that “everybody is recommending surren-
der.” But it was Johnson himself who surrendered, withdrawing from the 1968
presidential campaign at the end of a March 31st national speech. Finally
forced to confront his failure to determine a consistent policy on Vietnam by
the shock of Tet, the president knew that time had run out on both his polit-
ical career and the U.S. experience in Vietnam.
Johnson’s decision came amid one of the more intense and tragic periods
in modern history. Besides Tet, Senators Eugene McCarthy and Robert F.
Kennedy had announced their candidacies for the White House, helpingFIGuRE 9-12 President Johnson, exhausted, listens to a tape sent by Captain
Charles Robb from Vietnam, 1968