The Tet offensive worked to show Americans that the real stage of Vietnam War contradicted upbeat claims by U.S. commanders and Lyndon B. Johnson that the war was going well. Dramatic images of the Viet Cong storming the grounds of the American Embassy in the heart of Saigon and of the North Vietnamese Army clinging tenaciously to Hue obscured Westmoreland’s assertion that the enemy had been defeated. Claims of progress in the war, already greeted with skepticism, lost more credibility in both public and official circles.
