240 e lusive v ictories
his spokesmen often attacked the critics who urged an early withdrawal
from South Vietnam as agents, perhaps unwitting, perhaps not, of
Hanoi. Although this aggressive response scored well with a signifi cant
segment of the public, antiwar activists enjoyed too much support from
major Democratic leaders to be neutralized. Unlike Lincoln, who used
his public rejoinders to his critics so eff ectively to explain his actions,
Johnson never made a persuasive public argument for his limited war
approach.
Tet: Th e Mutual Disaster
A war of attrition between two adversaries who are relatively evenly
matched threatens to become a drawn-out slogging match. Consider
the bloodletting that continued for years on the Western Front in the
First World War, ending only when the infusion of American man-
power in 1918 gave the Entente a decisive advantage. Vietnam by 1967
appeared to be heading down a similar path. Understandably, the
course of the war yielded frustration on both sides, and provoked the
adversaries to desperate measures, though of a very diff erent sort.
For the Johnson administration and its military commander in the
fi eld, there arose a strong desire to interpret any fragment of good
news as a marker of real progress. Th e administration touted these
gains to the American public, creating a fragile illusion that the end lay
in sight. On the other side, Hanoi decided to gamble on a new strategy
involving a general off ensive and popular uprising to topple the Saigon
regime and force an American withdrawal. Th e Tet Off ensive in early
1968 shattered the hopes on both sides of bringing the war to a quick
conclusion.
From the beginning of American ground intervention in 1965, the
president and other American leaders searched for some indication that
NVA and VC troops were being put out of action more quickly than
they could be replaced. Westmoreland and his MACV subordinates,
under heavy pressure from both the White House and military higher-ups,
tried their best to demonstrate that attrition was showing results. A s
they compiled fi gures on enemy losses, the U.S. military command
looked for the magic “crossover point,” the moment when enemy losses
eclipsed reinforcements and initiated a downward spiral that would