Impact of the Tet Offensive 

The fall of Siagon

During the Tet holiday, a day that traditionally was a truce, the NVA and NLF launched a joint strike against US forces known as the Tet Offensive. While US troops managed to overcome the initial shock of the attack, decimating the ranks of the NLF in the sustained fighting the political ramifications for the US were astounding.

Having pronounced the war as nearing conclusion in November, the Tet Offensive convinced the American people that it could not trust the Johnson administration or the military. Domestic support for US involvement in Vietnam began to rapidly erode. When Westmoreland’s request for 200,000 additional troops was leaked to the media his leadership abilities were called into question.

In May of 1968 the US began peace talks with North Vietnam, though those talks would not prove successful. One reason that these talks might not have achieved peace was Richard Nixon advising Saigon not to participate, offering them a better negotiating position should he win election the presidential election later that year.

Then President of South Vietnam Nguyen Van Thieu was willing to follow this advice, and even when the US halted its air strikes against North Vietnam no peace was achieved during negotiation. When Johnson refused to commit more troops to Vietnam, it was perceived as admission on his part that the war had in fact been lost.

The upside for the US in the Tet Offensive is that large communist losses made it possible to begin troop withdrawals. Nixon, having won the Presidency implemented a policy of Vietnamization which mirrored the original US position of aiding the South Vietnamese find victory themselves. The one major break from these previous administrations was Operation Menu; a secret bombing program Nixon authorized that saw US air strikes in Cambodia.

The revelation of the My Lai massacre in 1969 and the May 1970 Kent State protest against the invasion of Cambodia that ended with 4 students dead along with the 1971 publication of the Pentagon Papers would be the proverbial nails in the coffin for US support of a continued presence in Vietnam.

The ARVN would face dramatic defeat in an attempt to cut off the Ho Chi Minh trail in Laos in February of 1971. Half of the AVRN troops who entered Cambodia wound up either killed or taken prisoner. US forces were forced to destroy equipment such as tanks to prevent them falling into enemy hands and AVRN troops would cling desperately to the skids of overloaded helicopters in an attempt to retreat. The fiasco was considered a clear sign of the failure of Vietnamization.

In the Easter Offensive of 1973 the VPA* and NLF would quickly prove that Vietnamization was not working as they rapidly overran many of the northern provinces of South Vietnam. It was only due to the intervention of US air strikes that the offensive was stopped.

Nixon barely managed to win reelection in 1972, in a campaign that was dominated by the war in Vietnam. Caught between trying to get the south to come to the table and the north publicizing their secret meetings to bring about peace it was a difficult election cycle for Nixon.

On the 15^th of January, 1973, Nixon would officially announce an end to offensive action against North Vietnam. The Paris Peace Accords would be signed later that month officially ending US involvement in the Vietnam War. The Paris accords were similar to the Geneva Conference in 1954 in that they set up a frame work for elections to allow Vietnam to independently chart its own future. It also included a 60 day time table for complete US withdrawal from Vietnam, which was the only part of the Paris Agreement to be fully honored.

While the US had left the conflict, the war would continue to rage between the north and the south until 1975. With large portions of the south’s economy built around the presence of the US troops the sudden complete withdrawal of US forces left them in an economic slump. Combined with the 1973 oil price shock, South Vietnam was in no position to defend itself against the communist north.

Over the next two years the North would take advantage of the reconstructed Ho Chi Minh trail to supply their forces in the south and would score victory after victory as they pushed ever closer to Saigon. In fact, surprised by their success, the north would accelerate its timetable for reunification, bringing the fight to the south consistently again and again.

North Vietnam managed to rapidly gain ground between 1973 and 1975 despite the south having a significant advantage in the number of artillery, tanks, armored cars, aircraft, and even troops. The North Vietnamese forces were well organized and tactically superior to their southern counterparts. The south would call to the US for aid again, but the Americans having grown weary of the war did not answer those calls.

The Fall of Saigon

Late in April of 1975 the VPA would finally reach the city of Saigon. Chaos reigned through the capital city of South Vietnam as citizens and soldiers alike desperately sought a way out of the city. Power would be handed once again to Duong Van Minh as President Nguyen Van Thieu fled for Berlin on 25^th April

US Ambassador Graham Martin thought it might still be possible for the ARVN (Army of the Republic of Vietnam) to maintain control over Saigon until a political settlement could be achieved. He would appeal to then President Gerald Ford for $700 million in aid to help mobilize fresh military forces but the request would be denied. Ford declared in a televised address on April 23^rd that the war was over and there would be no further aid.

Operation Frequent Wind would be a massive helicopter evacuation that would run round the clock until the very end of the conflict. The operation is perhaps the largest helicopter evacuation of all time. Due to the number of Vietnamese desperate to try and flee a code phrase was issued to alert US forces and civilians when the operation was under way. The code phrase was then broadcast on Armed Forces Radio.

Due to the large number of Vietnamese civilians with security clearance the code phrase quickly became common knowledge. When Armed Forces Radio announced the temperature was rising and followed it with a section of the classic tune White Christmas there was a rush on the various evacuation points.

At approximately 8:00am on the 30^th April, 1975 the last US marines would be evacuated from the roof of the US embassy even as Vietnamese civilians clamored over its walls in a desperate attempt to escape the oncoming communist forces.

The Vietnam's People Army (VPA) finally managed to capture Saigon within hours of the end of Operation Frequent Wind. When President Duong Van Minh attempted to surrender he was told by VPA officers that he had nothing left to surrender. Minh’s last order was to have South Vietnamese forces lay down their arms.

After decades of struggle Vietnam was finally at peace. It would be the first time in over 116 years that the nation would be independent of foreign influence or occupation.  You can read more about the Vietnam War here

Post Vietnam War

Post war Vietnam's economy was in crises until in 1986 the Sixth Congress of the Communist Party of Vietnam, introduced Doi Moi, or Renovation. This reform saw the creation of many free markets and the transition to a socialist oriented market economy.

Modern day Vietnam has come a long way since the war, today it is the largest producer in the world of both cashew nuts and black pepper, accounting for nearly a third of both markets, as well as the second largest rice exporter. There are many thriving industries and the local population enjoy a low unemployment rate. 

A major contributing factor to the Viet Cong winning the war was the ingeniously engineered Cu Chi tunnels which acted as an underground fortress.....Read more

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