Lyndon Johnson and the Tet offensive

The Vietnam War : Lyndon Johnson and the Tet Offensive

The Vietnam War is a complicated issue , difficult to understand and immensely tricky for a 21st century person to get a handle on . The be fully understood until one revisits the past and immerse oneself in the Cold War environment that was prevalent during that time . As one looks back and focuses on the Vietnam War there is one man that towers above all others , President Lyndon B . Johnson who orchestrated the movement of war pieces during that terrible conflict between democracy and

communism . But his leadership was tested not only by the war in general but in a defining moment of the Vietnam conflict - the Tet Offensive . This was the campaign that would forever alter U .S . society U .S . politics , U .S . policy , U .S . war doctrine and everything else related to the Vietnam debacle . The following pages will reveal the path that led to the Tet Offensive , the impact it had on the Vietnam War , to the United States of America and to the rest of the world

Background

It is understandable if one will retrace the steps leading to the Vietnam War back to Lyndon B . Johnson . After all he was the incumbent president at that time and the buck should stop at the oval office There are even those who are willing to be irreverent and say it was Lyndon Johnson 's war . But if the investigation is limited only on Johnson 's leadership and command-responsibility in the Vietnam War then that examination will not allow the for a complete grasp of the whole thing . If the focus is limited on Johnson then what one will get is the decisions made during and after the war . One will only learn of the diplomatic problems involved in invading Vietnam , the problems involving the draft of sending troops and the subsequent anti-war movement that followed after the body bags came home in great number . One will only learn of the political fiasco it has created but no one will know history , which encompasses everything from geography , foreign policy national leadership and ideology

Thus , it is impossible to get a handle on the war without going back a little further . It is imperative therefore to revisit the past , going back beyond the 1960s and going back as far as the presidency of Franklin Roosevelt and Harry Truman in to come to terms with the idea that Vietnam has been a part of U .S . foreign policy as early as the 1940s . A review of related literature will also enlightened the researcher that Vietnam is part of Indochina and since it is part of that region , its history and the outlook of its people were shaped by their interactions with neighboring nations , the most important is of course Cambodia their long-time enemy . Moreover , it must be pointed out that Vietnam used to be a colony of a European powerhouse - France

The French are allies of the Britain and America...