Barack Obama: Afghanistan war is on track
Review of troop surge strategy concludes US has made progress, but is a long way from winning the conflict
Chris McGreal in Washington
guardian.co.uk, Thursday 16 December 2010 21.31 GMT
Chris McGreal in Washington
guardian.co.uk, Thursday 16 December 2010 21.31 GMT
Tet Offensive: Turning Point in Vietnam War
At 3 o'clock in the morning of Jan. 31, 1968, North Vietnamese and Vietcong forces launched a wave of simultaneous attacks on South Vietnamese and American forces in major cities, towns and military bases throughout South Vietnam. The fighting, the heaviest and most sustained of the Vietnam War, coincided with the Lunar New Year, or Tet, and it has been called the Tet offensive ever since. It was a military turning point in the war, but it was far more than that in its painful demonstration of the limits of American power in Asia and in the psychological impact it was to have on Americans at home.
The daring of the Tet attackers extended into the heart of Saigon and, most startling, into the very confines of the American Embassy. A handful of Vietcong, wearing South Vietnamese uniforms, held parts of the embassy for the first six hours of the offensive.
Copyright 2010 The New York Times Company
Of course, Ellsworth and Westmoreland saw it all coming, as shown in this transcript of a November, 1967 press conference - less than 3 months before the Tet Offensive began - obtained from Salon; original post September 13, 2007
[OK, I had all the other pages here, but they somehow disappeared. I don't think Google is censuring me. Salon has the whole thing.]
However, here's good reading from the Bulletin of the American State Department in December, 1967.
