And yet, Giap was quite correct in his third assumptionabout the will of his enemy. With one hand, the United States gave Giap his greatest tactical defeat, and with the other hand gave him his greatest strategic victory, making the Tet Offensive one of the most paradoxical of the world’s decisive battles.

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The American military had been caught by surprise but still won. The generals instinctively knew the enemy was on the ropes, and now was the time to finish him off. Westmoreland and JCS Chairman Wheeler put together a plan requiring an additional 206,000 American troops to exploit the enemy’s debacle, but the Johnson White House leaked the plan to the press. The story broke on March 10, 1968. The American public concluded the extra troops were needed to recover from a massive defeat, with accusations that it had been lied to by the government. It was a psychological turning point. Less than three weeks later, President Johnson announced that he would not seek re-election. As the American military historian Brig. Gen. S.L.A. Marshall summed up later, the 1968 Tet Offensive was ‘a potential major victory turned into a disastrous retreat through mistaken estimates, loss of nerve, bad advice, failure in leadership, and a tidal wave of defeatism!’

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