782 Chapter 29 From Camelot to Watergate: 1961–1975
American soldiers—lots of them—would have to do
much of the fighting themselves.
In July 1965 Johnson ordered the first of several
huge increases in American ground forces. By the end
of 1965, 184,000 Americans were in the field; a year
later, 385,000; and after another year, 485,000. By
the middle of 1968 the number exceeded 538,000.
Each increase was met by corresponding increases
from the other side. The Soviet Union and China
sent no combat troops, but stepped up their aid, and
thousands of North Vietnamese regulars filtered
across the seventeenth parallel to fight with the
Vietcong guerrillas.
The new American strategy was not to seize any
particular battlefield or terrain as in all previous wars,
but to kill as many of the enemy as possible through
bloody “search and destroy” operations. As the scope
of the action broadened, the number of American
casualties rose. The United States was engaged in a
full-scale war, one that Congress had never declared.
The Gulf of Tonkin Resolution Messageat
http://www.myhistorylab.com
The Election of
Gradually the opponents of the war gained numbers
and strength. They began to include some of the
president’s advisers. By late 1967 Secretary of
Defense McNamara, who had methodically tracked
kill ratios, troop replacement rates, and nearly every
other conceivable statistic, concluded that “the fig-
ures didn’t add up” and the war could not be won.
Deeply despondent, he resigned, but did not publicly
admit his doubts.
Opposition to the war was especially vehement
on college campuses, some students objecting
because they thought the United States had no busi-
ness intervening in the Vietnam conflict, others
because they feared being drafted, still others because
so many students obtained educational deferments,
while young men who were unable to attend college
were conscripted.
Then, in November 1967, Eugene McCarthy, a
low-keyed, introspective senator from Minnesota,
announced his candidacy for the 1968 Democratic
presidential nomination. Opposition to the war was
his issue.
Preventing Johnson from being renominated
seemed impossible. Aside from the difficulty of
defeating a “reigning” president, there were the
domestic achievements of Johnson’s Great Society
program: the health insurance program for retired
people, greatly expanded federal funding of educa-
tion and public housing, and the Civil Rights Act.
ReadtheDocumentEven Senator McCarthy took his chances of being
nominated so lightly that he did not trouble to set up
a real organization. He entered the campaign only to
“alleviate... this sense of political helplessness.”
Someone, he decided, must step forward to put the
Vietnam question before the voters.
Stung by the critics, Johnson ordered General
William C. Westmoreland, commander of American
forces in Vietnam, to reassure the American people
on the course of the war. The general obligingly
returned to the United States in late 1967 and told
the press that he could see “some light at the end of
the tunnel.”
Suddenly, early in 1968, on the heels of this
announcement, North Vietnamese and Vietcong
forces launched a general offensive to correspond with
their Lunar New Year (called Tet). Striking thirty-nine
of the forty-four provincial capitals, many other towns
and cities, and every American base, they caused chaos
throughout South Vietnam. They held Hué, the old
capital of the country, for weeks. To root insurgents
out of Saigon the Americans had to level large sections
of the city. Elsewhere the destruction was total, an
irony highlighted by the remark of an American offi-
cer after the recapture of the village of Ben Tre: “It
became necessary to destroy the town to save it.”
TheTet offensivewas essentially a series of raids;
the communists did not expect to hold the cities indef-
initely, and they did not. Their losses were enormous.
Nevertheless the psychological impact in South
Vietnam and in the United States made Tet a clear vic-
tory for the communists. American pollsters reported
an enormous shift of public opinion against further
escalation of the fighting. When Westmoreland
described Tet as a communist defeat and yet requested
an additional 206,000 troops, McCarthy, who was
campaigning in the New Hampshire primary, suddenly
became a formidable figure. Thousands of students
and other volunteers flocked to the state to ring door-
bells on his behalf. On primary election day he polled
42 percent of the Democratic vote. This promptedTable 29.2Major Events in the Vietnam War,
1961–1968
1961 JFK dispatches thousands of U.S. military “advisers”
to South Vietnam
1963 Vietnamese Buddhists rebel; United States sup-
ports overthrow of Diem
1964 LBJ obtains Gulf of Tonkin Resolution to expand war
1965 LBJ greatly increases U.S. troop levels
1968 Tet Offensive throughout South Vietnam; LBJ
decides not to seek reelection; My Lai Massacre