Tet Offensive & Protests.
The American public was told over and over again that the US was winning the war and that soon the Viet Cong would surrender. By 1965 there was 125,000 soldiers in Vietnam. LBJ would use carefully gathered statistics to show that their efforts were wearing down the Viet Cong and thus the end of the war was coming soon. LBJ argued that the efforts would quickly draw Hanoi and the VC to their knees. Yet the VC would soon perform a massive counteroffensive gaining a large number of cities.
The offensive began on Tet or the Buddhist new year and would result in the Viet Cong taking many cities in South Vietnam. However they would quickly be driven out of these cities with even more losses. This major offensive showed that Hanoi and the VC were still capable and no where near ready to surrendering. This offensive also changed how the American public viewed the war as a whole and many began to turn to being antiwar. Students at Columbia University would protest against the colleges connections to the war’s think tanks and the racist actions of the college in destroying a park in Harlem to build a new building. The student’s protests led to the taking over of 5 University buildings.
Anti-war protesters where beaten by police outside the Chicago democratic convention in 1968. And on May 17, 1968 nine men and women entered the selective services offices in Catonsville, Maryland. Removed several hundred draft records and burned them with homemade napalm in protest against the war in Vietnam. The nine were arrested and in a highly publicized trial sentenced to jail time. The most trusted news anchor in the country travels to Vietnam and returns with opinion that we cannot win this war. On Sunday evening, March 31, 1968, Johnson announced on national television that he was stopping the bombing in North Vietnam. To everyone’s astonishment, he then withdrew from the presidential race.