Vietnam War: The Tet Offensive (Part 9)

Lying and naive hope were elevated to a high art during the American war effort in Vietnam. Company commanders inflated "body count" numbers to give the appearance of success, generals gave report after report of "progress" even when their situation was a stalemate at best, civilian officials reported growth in the strength of the South Vietnamese government, even when it was obvious to everyone on the ground that it was a hopelessly corrupt mess. President Johnson and his top officials repeated these lies and false hopes to the American public, even when they knew better. The house of cards was about to come tumbling down, however, during the infamous Tet Offensive of 1968. Despite the Offensive being by far the biggest and most costly disaster for the Communists of the entire war, its very size and ferocity laid bare just how far from defeat Communism was at the start of 1968, and therefore how untrue the impression the American public had been given for three years. American public opinion began to turn decisively against the war even at the moment of the greatest victory of the United States in the conflict.