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How Did The Tet Offensive Influence American Politics

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The Tet Offensive was one of the largest military campaigns in the Vietnam War launched by the Viet Cong and North Vietnam People’s Army which killed over five thousand American soldiers. How did the Tet Offensive influence American politics, society, and the overall development of the war in Vietnam? This question plagues many historians, politicians, soldiers, and veterans. The Tet Offensive influenced American politics by forcing politicians to take a stand one way or another on the viewpoint of the war, influencing American society by causing people to see the reality of war itself, and influencing the overall development of the war by showing that the enemy was not, in fact, about to collapse in defeat as the government had told the public for years. Firstly, the Tet Offensive influenced America’s politics by forcing politicians to take a stand on their viewpoint of the …show more content…

There was a variety of ways that American society realized that war was not a fight that the soldiers should not have been there in the first place. Because of the new modern-age televisions, many people and families could see soldiers interviewed in the middle of battle and even killed. The Tet Offensive was one of the main turning points in the war because of the media coverage, because there were traumatic images being shown all across the country, which made the people realize that they should not have been part of this war by showing that more U.S. soldiers were being killed than we could replace. There were many news reporters that were in the jungles of enemy territory (“Media”). These men were not supposed to record the battles themselves, just the “body counts” of how many enemies the troops had killed that day. The media was never allowed in the battles so the government could assure that the American public did not know how badly the Tet Offensive had affected the

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Pearl Harbor and the attacks on the world trade centers on September 11, 2001 also known as 9/11 were both events where thousands of innocent lives were taken at the hands of foreign attackers that entered our country. In both of these events thousands of lives were ended by foreign terrorists. Pearl Harbor and the attacks on 9/11 are both very symbolic in our nation’s history. First, on December 7, 1941 one the of the nation’s largest naval bases stationed in Honolulu, Hawaii called Pearl Harbor was attacked by surprise by the Japanese in hope of eliminating a large amount of our fleets so Japan could expand. The Japanese destroyed almost 20 American naval vessels, including eight huge battleships, and more than 300 airplanes.

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A poll taken showed that less than twenty percent of American supported going into the war. Many people had opposed Roosevelt now for doing the acts to support the war and publicly stating that we need to help Britian.(Document H). The St. Louis Post-Dispatch compared him to a dictator and that he would cause the deaths of millions of Americans (Document F). Even as the public knew the Rape of Nanking, one of the most infamous war crimes committed by the Japanese, Americans were reluctant to intervene in foreign affairs (Document D). But one act of war would change thousands of Americans’ minds: the bombing of Pearl Harbor.

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That is how it was back then, when war was, when the Pearl Harbor happened. The reason why political is more important than economical, and cultural is because there is more evidence that the causal factor is Political. If not for political this probably would have not happened, like if the American did not stop giving the Japanese supplies. Well it can help us by checking if people are spying, before we put them in an internment

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In order for them to support the war, the government used propaganda to evoke feelings of nationalism. While the United States joined the war as an opportunity to get revenge on Japan, propaganda was often censored to guarantee that Americans only saw the damage Japanese soldiers had done to Americans. To insure that Americans would not be put off and maintain the desire for war, images of dead Americans were prevented from being published to the public. (“Supporting Evidence”). Government officials knew that citizens were unable to withstand the gruesome photos taken of the realities of the war.

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This was because everyone in America was caught by complete surprise. Doing things by surprise is a common thing, but brings out the worse in everyone. When this happened, there were over 3,000 U.S. Casualties, over 300 U.S. Aircraft damaged/destroyed, and over 20 U.S. Ships damaged/destroyed. This was also a big reason for the A-bomb because it was unnecessary for Japan to kill so many American lives and property, all because they were upset that former president Franklin D. Roosevelt interfered with Japan’s internal affairs. If that was their main reason, they could have figured some thing out through words, not actions like this one, It was necessary for the dropping of the Atomic bomb because the attack on Pearl Harbor needed to be payed back.

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The Vietnam war took a major death toll in Vietnam, United States, South Korea, Thailand, New Zealand, and Australia. Just in the U.S., “more than 58,000 American soldiers were killed while more than 150,000 others wounded”. On both sides, there were almost 2 million civilians dead and 1.1 simply on the Vietnamese side. The My Lai Massacre, where soldiers brutally killed Vietnamese children and mothers, presents an example where the war mentally changed the soldiers in the war in a very horrendous way. On the other hand, the United States took brutal losses in the Tet Offensive, where the Vietcong slaughtered over 100 towns and twelve United States air bases.

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This campaign and attacks would have the US citizens question President Johnson’s claims of victory against the communists. In 1968 the Vietminh started a military campaign which would later be called “The Tet Offensive”. During the Lunar New Year the campaign would launch a series of devastating attacks on major cities in French-Vietnamese territory. In an article published by National Geographic, it states “Although a military loss, the Tet Offensive was a stunning propaganda victory for the communists. In fact, it is often credited with turning the war in their favor.

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Section 1: Identification and Evaluation of Sources The purpose of this investigation is to explore the question: How did the Tet Offensive change American public opinion on the Vietnam War? The focus of the investigation will be on the years 1965-1970 in order to allow for analysis of American public opinion from the beginning of American involvement to the years following the Tet Offensive. Sources analyzing the Tet Offensive as a whole and American public opinion on the Vietnam War will be used to accurately determine the effects of the Tet Offensive on American public opinion. The first source that will be evaluated is the book “The Tet Offensive,” which was written by Marc Gilbert and William Head in 1996.

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