Tet and Iraq, Politicians and the Media

March 5, 2008 by John H. Taylor | Filed Under American Politics, News media, Vietnam 

A distinguished military historian draws on the lessons of the Tet Offensive in 1968 to explain why Gen. Petraeus is careful not to raise expectations too high in Iraq. James H. Willbanks says that Gen. William Westmoreland’s optimistic assessment of the situation in Vietnam stood in such sharp contrast to “the sheer scope and ferocity of the offensive and the vivid images of the fighting on the nightly news” that many Americans decided that Westmoreland and the Johnson Administration had been lying to them. The political consequences, Williams argues, were fateful:

On March 31, 1968, Johnson went on national television to announce a partial suspension of the bombing campaign against North Vietnam and call for negotiations. He then stunned the audience by announcing that he would not run for re-election. The following year, President Richard Nixon began the long American withdrawal from Vietnam, paving the way for the triumph of the Communist forces in 1975.

But since Willbanks makes abundantly clear that U.S. and South Vietnamese forces demolished the Viet Cong during Tet, it’s hard to understand his theory that the politicians had erred by raising expectations too high. Allied military forces met and exceeded expectations, but the media made it look as though they’d lost. It might have been too rude for the New York Times op-ed page, but Willbanks’ meta-argument (I’ve been dying to use that expression! Hope I got it right) is that the military had better keep expectations low because the media won’t report it accurately when we win.

Also neglected in Willbanks’s account is that Westmoreland’s successor, Creighton Abrams (pictured here), working under political cover provided at considerable cost by President Nixon, by January 1973 had prepared South Vietnam to win the war against North Vietnam only to have Congress slash non-personnel aid during 1973-75 as the result of Watergate and its aftermath. Yet again, military personnel and our allies had met expections, only to have their gains squandered by politicians (and overlooked by reporters and even historians). See Lewis Sorley’s A Better War for more on this neglected but vital chapter in Vietnam story. Here’s hoping that as the result of the Presidential election, there isn’t a comparable chapter in the Iraq story.

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