On January 31, 1968, Americans turned on their evening news to see an unimaginable image. The U.S. embassy in Saigon was under direct attack by the Vietcong. A truce was supposedly in effect for the Lunar New Year, Tet. Early in the morning, nineteen guerrillas attacked the heavily fortified compound, blowing a hole in the eight-foot high cement wall that surrounded the embassy. For six hours the press watched, cameras rolling, as marine reinforcements rushed the embassy attempting to dislodge the attackers. Dead bodies lay among the rubble as soldiers and American civilians traded shots with the attackers:

After the embassy had been secured, General Westmoreland appeared before the cameras and delivered a statement. The communists had "very deceitfully" taken advantage of the Tet truce to "create maximum consternation," but the general maintained that the Vietcong’s "well-laid plans went afoul." Westmoreland’s comments seemed in stark contrast to the carnage created by the embassy attack. As a Washington Post reporter commented: "The reporters could hardly believe their ears. Westmoreland was standing in the ruins and saying everything was great." All of the embassy attackers were killed, but for fifty million American television viewers who were getting their first view of unedited combat, the attack produced a troubling question. If the most heavily secured U.S. position in Vietnam could be penetrated, what area was secure and totally under U.S. control? As Time noted:

The attack on the embassy was only a small part of an overwhelming communist attack. Within hours of the attack on the embassy, more than 80,000 communist troops, most of them Vietcong, attacked major cities, U.S. and South Vietnamese bases, and twenty-five provincial capitals from the 17^th Parallel to the Mekong Delta. A headquarters map used lights to indicate the various cities and bases under attack, inspiring an officer to comment that the map resembled a lit up pinball machine. In the Central Highlands, at the city of Ban Me Thiuot, 3,500 communists assaulted the city. Fighting raged for over a week as over 3,000 homes were destroyed and almost 19,000 were rendered homeless before the ARVN and U.S. forces repelled the invaders.

Almost every major city was attacked in the Tet Offensive, but Saigon was hit the hardest. For months guerrillas had been secretly infiltrating the capital. Guns and other weapons were smuggled in, sometimes in coffins during fake funerals. On January 31, they struck. They captured the main radio station, holding it for several hours before blowing it, and themselves, up. Also attacked were the Presidential Palace, the main airport, the headquarters of the South Vietnamese military, and several Saigon suburbs. Half of the South Vietnamese Army had been on holiday, forcing the U.S. to shoulder almost all of the fighting. Firefights raged throughout the city. Most major installations were secured within hours and the attackers beaten back with heavy casualties; however, in some of the suburbs the guerrillas were so entrenched that American commanders were forced to call in air strikes to dislodge them. A New York Times correspondent described the suburb of Nhonxa as looking "like Stalingrad with palm trees." This type of damage was repeated in other cities as well. Fifty miles to the south of Saigon in Ben Tre, a provincial capital, Associated Press reporter Peter Arnett filed a story that contained perhaps the most famous quote of the war:

Like the unexpected attack on the embassy, the comment of an anonymous U.S. officer symbolized to many Americans the oxymoronic (self-contradictory) nature of America’s efforts in Vietnam. Equally disturbing was an image which appeared on the front page of the world’s major newspapers. In the midst of the fighting in Saigon, a television cameraman captured South Vietnam’s national police chief, General Nguyen Ngoc Loan, executing a Vietcong suspect with his pistol. The image of General Loan placing his pistol to the suspect’s head and then calmly squeezing the trigger entered American’s living-rooms as they watched the evening news and created an unforgettable image as the suspect’s legs crumpled and he collapsed to the ground, blood spurting from his head.

The most bitter fighting of Tet occurred in the northern part of South Vietnam in the ancient imperial capital of Hué. The communists were able to capture the lightly defended city and erect their flag over the Citadel, an ancient fortress of the Vietnamese

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

emperors, during the early morning of January 31. Important historically, the city also was a key supply line between the U.S. base at Da Nang and troops stationed near the DMZ. Only a rapid response by U.S. marines, based eight miles south of the city, denied the communists total control of the area. Two marine companies suffered heavy casualties but were able to maintain a foothold on the south bank of the Perfume River. The next day the marines began to fight their way into the city. The fighting in Hué was unlike any previously experienced in the war as the marines moved building by building through the city under heavy enemy fire. It took 25 days to reclaim the Citadel and almost another week to secure the city. The cost was high. More than 200 Americans died and over 1,200 were wounded. South Vietnamese casualties were even higher with almost 400 killed and over 1,800 wounded. Estimated communist losses exceeded 5,000. In addition the city, including the entire Citadel, was virtually destroyed. A marine commander described the fighting:

Again, television newscasts brought the fighting in Hué directly to the American people in all of its stark horror. CBS’s Robert Schakne described the fighting:

Scenes of brutal fighting, wounded Americans, civilian casualties, and soldiers expressing doubt about the war’s purpose dominated the news. Secretary of State Dean Rusk believed that the television coverage had a strong effect on the American people, turning them against the war:

After the fighting ended in Hué, an even greater horror was discovered. While in control of the city, the communists had executed approximately 3,000 people. Five months before the attack they had drawn up a list of government officials, policemen, and virtually anyone else who was openly supportive of the South Vietnamese regime. Armed with these lists, Vietcong teams conducted house-to-house searches making arrests. The victims, including the head of the U.S. Information Service, were either shot, clubbed to death, or buried alive. As a result of the fighting, 100,000 of the city’s 140,000 people were left homeless.

In all, two thousand Americans and twice as many South Vietnamese soldiers died in the fighting of the Tet Offensive which lasted from January 31 until early March. Communist losses were estimated at between 30,000 and 40,000.

At the same time as the Tet Offensive exploded across South Vietnam, American marines were engaged in a dramatic 77-day siege at Khe Sanh that evoked memories of Dien Bien Phu. Khe Sanh was a forward marine base located fourteen miles south of the DMZ and six miles from the Laotian border. It sat on a high plateau and stretched only half a mile long and a quarter of a mile wide. Surrounding the main base were five hilltop outposts. General Westmoreland had strengthened the base during the fall of 1967 in hopes that Washington would allow him to use it as a base to advance into Laos and interdict (prohibit) traffic down the Ho Chi Minh Trail. Although Johnson rejected this plan, when U.S. intelligence reports indicated that four North Vietnamese infantry divisions supported by artillery and tanks—a total of 40,000 men—were moving toward the base, Westmoreland became determined to hold it. In early January, Westmoreland sent 6,000 marines to the area. "I was influenced" he said, "by a desire to fight the enemy away from the populated areas." Communist shelling began on January 21, ten days before the Tet Offensive. In the first hour the base’s main ammunition dump was hit, detonating 1,500 tons of explosives. The marines responded to the attack with as many as twenty shells for each incoming one. Around the clock bombing cascaded down upon North Vietnamese positions in what was called "Operation Niagara." Inside Khe Sanh, the marines dug in. Base commander Colonel David Lownds commented, "We’d tell each other, dig another foot and we’re into China." The marines in the outlying positions were constantly exposed, not only to shelling, but also to a withering blanket of machine gun fire which made it impossible to leave them to leave their holes for hours on end. The shelling became so intense in February that supply planes simply glided across the airstrip and dumped their supplies without landing. On February 7, Lang Vei, a special forces camp manned by Green Berets and South Vietnamese forces, was overrun by a communist assault that included nine Soviet-made T-34 tanks. The North Vietnamese, digging zig-zag trenches, inched closer and closer to the outlying hilltop outposts. Comparisons with Dien Bien Phu were inevitable. On February 10, the Washington Post wrote:

These comparisons and their implications were not lost on President Johnson. He told his generals, "I don’t want any damn Dien Bien Phu!" A sand-table model of the Khe Sanh plateau was constructed for the basement situation room of the White House, and the president would wander the room late at night and in the early morning hours in his bathrobe, waiting for the latest situation reports. General Westmoreland briefly considered the use of small, tactical nuclear weapons but was ordered not to discuss the possibility by the White House out of fear that his consideration of the possibility of the use of nuclear weapons would leak to the press. In an interview with ABC Television on February 5, General Wheeler, head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, pointed out the importance of Khe Sanh and pledged that it would not fall:

Military officials insisted that the comparisons to Dien Bien Phu were not valid. At Khe Sanh the Americans held the high ground, were able to send out patrols to attack communist positions, and never lost the ability to resupply their troops by air or launch bombing strikes on enemy positions. This last difference proved decisive as B-52s regularly pounded communist installations. On March 1, the communists made what proved to be their last assault on the base and were beaten back by U.S. artillery and airstrikes. Two weeks later the communists began a slow withdrawal as the fighting began to taper off. On April 1, the marines began "Operation Pegasus" to open a corridor to Khe Sanh ending the siege. When the fighting finally concluded, communist casualties were estimated at between 10,000 and 15,000 dead. Some North Vietnamese units suffered as much as 90% losses, mostly from relentless American air attacks. During the siege, American planes dropped an average of 5,000 bombs daily with the total explosive power of five Hiroshima-sized atomic bombs. 205 American Marines lost their lives in the fighting.

The 77-day siege was the most covered news event of the war. Even during the early days of the Tet Offensive and the bitter street fighting for Hué, Khe Sanh remained a major story. As opposed to one-day firefights, it provided a sustained story for the media to follow. Newsweek ran a lengthy cover story in mid-March entitled "The Agony of Khe Sanh" and CBS’s Walter Cronkite described it as "a microcosm" (a small part indicative of the whole) of the entire war.

On February 27, two days after the recapture of Hué and while the siege of Khe Sanh continued, CBS News broadcast a half hour report on Vietnam anchored by Walter Cronkite. CBS was the nation’s most watched news source, and its anchor, Cronkite, had been described as "the most trusted man in America." The report featured numerous scenes of destruction in the wake of Tet and interviews with top military and civilian sources. At the conclusion of the program, Cronkite shared his personal observations of his visit to Vietnam:

Upon hearing Cronkite’s comments, President Johnson was reported to exclaim, "If I’ve lost Walter, I’ve lost Mr. Average Citizen." Both supporters and opponents of the U.S.’s efforts in Vietnam believed, in retrospect, that Tet (and the almost simultaneous siege of Khe Sanh) proved to be the turning point of the war. That the fighting ended in a military victory for the U.S. and its South Vietnamese allies is without question. Khe Sanh did not fall at the cost of incredible communist casualties. Most of the areas captured by the guerrillas in the Tet Offensive were recaptured within days. Moving out of their rural sanctuaries, hundreds of Vietcong units had been smashed. As a senior communist general, Tran Van Tra, later admitted, "we suffered large losses in material and manpower, especially cadres at various echelons (ranks), which clearly weakened us." A Vietcong operative in Saigon was even more critical, calling the offensive a "grievous miscalculation" by the North Vietnamese leadership that wantonly squandered the southern guerrilla movement. General Westmoreland agreed and believed that there was an opportunity to smash the communist forces in light of their Tet losses. On the prompting of General Wheeler, he asked for 206,000 additional troops, commenting that the war had become "a whole new ball game." He believed that the communists had changed their strategy in order to achieve a quick victory and had suffered a devastating loss. Only with additional manpower could he "capitalize" on this opportunity and "materially shorten the war."

Westmoreland became a victim of the overly optimistic statements issued both by the military and the Johnson administration prior to Tet. To Americans at home, Tet did not look like a victory. Having been told that there was "light at the end of the tunnel" in late 1967 and that the communist forces were in decline, Americans were shocked to see the strength of the communist offensive of Tet. As Cronkite exclaimed in the wake of the first day’s attack, "What the hell is going on? I thought we were winning the war!" The visual images of the early days of Tet produced a huge credibility gap between the optimistic statements of the military and members of the Johnson administration and what Americans saw on their televisions at home. It was the decisive event in convincing many Americans that the war could not be won. Doubt crept in where there had previously been a presumption of eventual American success, even among the White House staff. Presidential advisor Harry McPherson recalled:

McPherson’s observations were shared by many throughout the country. Even Secretary of State Rusk, a strong believer in the righteousness of American policy in Vietnam, noticed the change among his kinfolk in rural Georgia. "Dean," they had pleaded at the time, "if you can’t tell us when this war is going to end, well then maybe we just ought to chuck it." The editor of the Wall Street Journal wrote that Americans needed to get ready to accept that "the whole Vietnam effort may be doomed."

Support for the war and President Johnson’s leadership had been slipping for two years. More and more "doves" urged a negotiated settlement with the Vietcong and an American withdrawal. Support for the "hawk" view, a vigorous prosecution of the war had also eroded somewhat. Tet, however, put the decline in public support for Johnson and the war into a free fall. In the six weeks encompassing the major fighting, the number of Americans who believed that it had been a mistake to sent troops to fight in Vietnam rose from 45% to 51% and those who believed we were making progress dropped from 50% to 33%. Johnson’s overall personal approval rating plunged from 48% to 36%, and the approval of his handling of the war dropped from 39% to 26%. Suddenly military and White House claims that Tet had been a military failure for the communists were greeted with devastating derision (ridicule) in light of the apparent lack of credibility of previous statements. Senator George Aiken of Vermont said, "If this is a failure, I hope the Viet Cong never have a major success." Columnist Art Buchwald’s February 6 political satire column presented General Custer proclaiming that the "battle of Little Big Horn had just turned the corner" and that the Indians "were on the run." Buchwald mimicked Westmoreland’s words, quoting Custer referring to the impending Indian attack as "a desperation move on the part of Sitting Bull and his last death rattle." A March 25 Harris poll indicated that 60% of the American people viewed Tet as a military defeat for the United States. Gallup reported in late April that the number of Americans who favored a withdrawal from Vietnam had, for the first time, drawn even with those who favored a continuing commitment.

Westmoreland blamed the press coverage of the fighting for the shift in public opinion. "It was the turning point of the war," he later said. "It could have been the turning point for success, but it was the turning point of failure. We had as fine a military force as America ever assembled—a force that could have brought the war to an end if it hadn’t been for political decisions that prohibited that." These political decisions, Westmoreland believed, resulted from the media coverage of the war which was all "gloom and doom" and "gave the American people the impression that the Americans were being defeated on the battlefield, swayed public opinion to the point that political authority made the decision to take all the pressure off the enemy at a time when he was virtually on the ropes." Westmoreland believed that this had been the communist objective. "They were smart enough to realize that they couldn’t defeat us on the battlefield. But they realized that we were vulnerable to political defeat because they had defeated the French that way…" Writer Don Oberdorfer, who was in Vietnam at the time, agreed with Westmoreland that Tet was a massive military defeat for the communists:

Not all analysts, however, viewed Tet as an American military victory. A West Point textbook on the war later attributed the "complete surprise" achieved by the communists to a U.S. "intelligence failure ranking with Pearl Harbor." A intelligence study conducted in March 1968 concluded that illusory reports on North Vietnamese and Vietcong casualties, infiltration, recruitment, and morale had dangerously "downgraded our image of the enemy." Westmoreland had been warned in December 1967 to expect a "maximum effort" by the enemy and communist forces had staged major conventional (as opposed to guerrilla) attacks against American bases in the central highlands and along the Laotian and Cambodian borders in September of 1967. But Westmoreland failed to see the communist strategy. He originally dismissed the Tet Offensive as a "ruse" designed to draw attention away from Khe Sanh. After the war, North Vietnamese officers unanimously believed the opposite to be true, that Khe Sanh was a diversion to draw U.S. forces away from the cities, making them vulnerable to attack. The North Vietnamese had erred in believing that their attacks would stimulate a revolution in the South against the Americans and the South Vietnamese government, but history ultimately proved that they had been successful in their overall goal, which was to bleed the Americans until they agreed to a peace settlement that satisfied Hanoi.

Regardless of the military result, Tet proved devastating to the Johnson administration and its four-year strategy in Vietnam. Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara had announced his resignation late in 1967 to take effect in February. Johnson chose Clark Clifford to replace him. Clifford was a distinguished Washington attorney who had served as an advisor to presidents Truman and Kennedy. He had strongly supported Johnson’s Vietnam policies: "At that time I supported President Johnson fully. I supported the war. I thought it the right course of action." Clifford’s appointment was seen as an effort by Johnson to strengthen the hard-liners in the administration. Taking office on February 30, Clifford was immediately asked to make a recommendation on Westmoreland’s request for additional troops. He convened a study group composed of the administration’s top foreign policy experts and immediately saw how divided they had become. Clifford came to believe that a recommendation on the troop request could not be made without a reappraisal of the administration’s entire Vietnam policy. He quizzed the Joint Chiefs of Staff on every aspect of America’s involvement in Vietnam:

Clifford entered the discussion a "hawk" and emerged a week later a "dove." His recommendation to Johnson was to grant only 20,000 additional troops, indicating, "there is no reason to believe" that victory could be achieved by "an additional two hundred thousand American troops, or double, or triple that quantity." The report suggested that Westmoreland be directed not to try "either to destroy the enemy forces or to rout them completely" and to give notice to the government of South Vietnam that continued U.S. assistance would be dependent on a marked improvement in their military and political performance. Aside from the written recommendations, Clifford reported his personal view to Johnson: "It was very clear to me that the one course of action that the United States should take was to get out of Vietnam. It was a real loser." At the same time, Rusk suggested that Johnson unilaterally halt the bombing of North Vietnam and challenge the communists to follow through on their pledge to open negotiations in the wake of a bombing halt. Johnson was still unsure. He convened a meeting of fourteen current and former foreign policy advisors that included Truman’s Secretary of State Dean Atcheson, Henry Cabot Lodge, and Generals Omar Bradley of World War II fame and Matthew Ridgway who had commanded U.S. forces in Korea. Although the "wise men" could not reach total agreement, they also recommended against further troop increases and advocated making overtures to Hanoi that would result in negotiations. On March 22, it was announced that Westmoreland was coming home to be promoted to Army Chief of Staff and would be replaced as U.S. commander in Vietnam by General Creighton Abrams. Eventually, Johnson sent only 13,500 additional troops to Vietnam.

In 1964, Lyndon Johnson had won the largest political landslide in history, carrying over 61% of the popular vote, exceeding even the large margins of his idol, Franklin D. Roosevelt. In addition, the Democratic Party dominated the Senate (68-32) and the House of Representatives (295-140). Within two years, due to domestic disorder and Vietnam, Johnson’s mandate had virtually evaporated. Republicans gained 47 seats in the House and three in the Senate in 1966. As the presidential election of 1968 neared, Johnson’s political fortunes were clearly in decline; however, few could imagine that the Democratic presidential nomination was not Johnson’s for the taking.

In September 1967, political activist Allard Lowenstein had attempted to convince Robert Kennedy to challenge Johnson in the Democratic primaries. Kennedy had increasingly spoken out against the war in 1967 and was sympathetic to Lowenstein’s goal but turned him down. Kennedy told him: "People would say that I was splitting the party out of ambition and greed. No one would believe that I was doing it because of how I felt about Vietnam…" Lowenstein then approached Senator George McGovern of South Dakota, but he too turned him down, citing a tough re-election battle for his Senate seat. Finally he approached Senator Eugene McCarthy of Minnesota. McCarthy was a quiet intellectual who had opposed the war since 1966. The author of four books, McCarthy was sometimes referred to as "the most intelligent man in Congress," although he was not viewed as a major leader in the Senate and often appeared to be cold and aloof (remote and indifferent). After much pleading from Lowenstein, and the assurance that Kennedy would not run, McCarthy announced his candidacy on November 30.

McCarthy’s attempt to unseat Johnson by contesting the primaries appeared to be a hopeless task. In 1968 there were only fifteen Democratic presidential primaries. The rest of the states selected their delegates through the party leadership, most of whom were loyal to President Johnson. In three states one man alone could appoint all or most of the delegates to the national convention. Of the 2,622 delegates to the national convention in Chicago, only 966 would be selected by primary vote. The first primary was to be held in New Hampshire on March 12. Few gave McCarthy any chance against Johnson. In January, the Gallup poll predicted that he would win only 12% of the vote. Then came Tet. Several thousand student activists from a variety of college campuses descended on New Hampshire to work for McCarthy. Beards and long hair were cut and jeans and sweatshirts were prohibited. Workers were to be "Clean for Gene" in the conservative state. Suddenly the McCarthy campaign caught fire. Johnson’s aides warned him that McCarthy could poll as much as 20% of the vote. Then, two days before the voting, the New York Times broke the story of Westmoreland’s request for 206,000 additional troops. For the president, the results were far worse than expected. McCarthy won 42% of the vote to Johnson’s 50%, losing by less than 4,000 votes. Suddenly it appeared that anti-war sentiment could be harnessed to deny Johnson renomination. Unknown at the time was the fact that many New Hampshire voters had simply voted against Johnson’s handling of the war and not for McCarthy or the negotiated withdrawal that he advocated. Later voter analysis indicated that many McCarthy voters actually favored a more aggressive prosecution of the war. At the time, however, the New Hampshire results were seen as an unqualified victory for the doves and a personal repudiation of Lyndon Johnson.

McCarthy’s vote total in New Hampshire was stunning, yet it was still unlikely that he could capture the Democratic presidential nomination. He was not well-known and had no national campaign organization. He had achieved little of note as a senator and was not strongly respected by his Senate colleagues or by other Democratic political leaders. McCarthy’s showing in New Hampshire had, however, another stunning effect. Robert Kennedy had agonized over his decision not to challenge Johnson and was being urged by his advisors to reconsider. Kennedy congratulated McCarthy on his New Hampshire effort but also began to reassess his position. On Saturday March 16, Kennedy, standing in the same room in which his brother had announced his own presidential candidacy nine years before, announced that he was entering the primaries:

Kennedy’s announcement was a thunderbolt. Rather than just the lightly regarded McCarthy, Johnson was now opposed by the one political enemy he feared the most. Unlike McCarthy, Kennedy had supporters throughout the country and the money to wage a national campaign. His strategy was simple, yet daunting—to enter the remaining primaries and demonstrate that he was the overwhelming choice of the Democratic voters. Although most of the party leaders remained committed to Johnson, if Kennedy could show that the renomination of the president would be a disaster to the party in November, they could be persuaded to repudiate the president. Not since 1912, when Theodore Roosevelt challenged William Howard Taft, had a sitting president faced such a strong challenge in his own party. Because of his late announcement, the first primary Kennedy was eligible to enter was in Indiana on May 7. In the meantime he traveled the country speaking to huge crowds. Kennedy’s candidacy was not warmly received in all Democratic quarters. To McCarthy’s young supporters, Kennedy was an opportunist, unwilling to challenge the president until McCarthy had proven that he could be beaten. Columnist Murray Kempton wrote that only McCarthy had been willing to fight the battle against the war and that, after the battle, Kennedy was now willing to come "down from the hills to shoot the wounded." Former President Truman announced that he was behind Johnson 100% and that his challengers were "a damned bunch of smart alecks." A New York Times survey showed that Johnson still could count on 65% of the votes at the upcoming Democratic convention. Still, a March 23 Gallup poll showed that Democratic voters preferred Kennedy to Johnson 44%-41% (and Johnson to McCarthy 59%-29%).

Johnson had discussed the possibility of not seeking re-election during the fall of 1967. He was convinced that the cumulative effect of the war and the struggles with Congress to pass the major legislation of the Great Society had made it virtually impossible for another term to be successful. Johnson began to have nightmares about being paralyzed in office during a second term, and he later told a biographer that he felt like he was being chased by a giant stampede. As the debate raged in the White House over Westmoreland’s request for additional combat troops, the president faced the prospect of a humiliating defeat at the polls in the upcoming Wisconsin primary. Unlike conservative New Hampshire, Wisconsin was one of the most anti-war states in the country. Aides told Johnson that McCarthy could beat him two to one in the April 2 primary (Kennedy had entered the race too late to be on the ballot). On March 31, Johnson went on national television to address the country on the war. Throughout the previous weeks his administration had been torn apart by conflicting feelings about the war. Westmoreland’s unpopular request for additional troops was now being hotly debated throughout the country. Political humiliation awaited Johnson, first in Wisconsin and then, in all probability, later to his hated rival Kennedy. A solemn president faced the cameras:

1968 had already been a year of surprises—Tet, New Hampshire, the Kennedy candidacy—but this was the greatest yet. Lyndon Johnson, winner of the greatest electoral victory in the country’s history just four years before, had withdrawn as a presidential candidate! Two days later, McCarthy won 56% of the vote in Wisconsin. Despite a series of McCarthy primary victories in April, Kennedy continued to travel the country, gaining support. Party regulars, fearful of the two reform candidates and unhappy with the growing possibility that the party would nominate a candidate that repudiated Johnson’s Vietnam policy, lined up behind the candidacy of Vice President Hubert Humphrey who became a candidate shortly after the president’s withdrawal. Humphrey’s late entrance into the race meant that he would not be able to run in the primaries. Humphrey had publicly supported Johnson’s revised Vietnam policy and focused his attention on winning the support of the party officials in the non-primary states and supporting "favorite son candidates" (state political leaders who ran in the primaries to control their state’s delegates at the convention) in the remaining primaries.

As the Democratic Party seemed to be tearing itself apart, former Vice President Richard Nixon was cruising to the Republican nomination. Nixon, who had lost the closest election in history to John F. Kennedy 1960, had been consigned to the political graveyard after being defeated in a race for the governorship of California in 1962. After that defeat, Nixon had announced his retirement from politics, telling reporters: "You won’t have Nixon to kick around anymore." The Republican disaster of 1964 changed Nixon’s plans. He tirelessly crisscrossed the country, speaking for Republican candidates in the 1966 congressional elections, and received a great deal of credit for the Republican gains that year. In 1968, he faced a weak cast of Republican candidates and virtually coasted to the nomination. Throughout his primary campaign, Nixon was forced to say little in regard to Vietnam. He criticized the Johnson administration for incompetence, but also maintained he would not "abandon South Vietnam" by withdrawing as Kennedy and McCarthy advocated. Nixon declined to state a detailed policy on Vietnam, maintaining that to do so would only limit his options upon becoming president: "I’m not going to take any positions that I would be bound by at a later point."

For the Democrats, the first open contest between McCarthy and Kennedy occurred in Indiana. Both candidates called for a total halt in the bombing, a reconstituted "coalition" government in Saigon that would include the Vietcong, and a negotiated American withdrawal. Kennedy believed that he had to sweep the remaining primaries to convince the party leadership to support him over Humphrey. Although there were a few minor differences between Kennedy and McCarthy, Kennedy tried to ignore McCarthy’s presence and campaign against Humphrey and the Johnson administration. Rural, conservative Indiana appeared to be one of the least likely states for Kennedy to base his hopes. Popular Democratic Governor Roger Branigan appeared on the ballot as a stand-in for Humphrey. Nevertheless, Kennedy campaigned in the state for a month, drawing huge crowds. Enormously popular in the black community, Kennedy attracted support from working-class whites as well. On April 4, Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated in Memphis, Tennessee. Kennedy was due to speak in a black neighborhood in Indianapolis. All over the country that night inner cities were exploding in violent rage. Kennedy was advised to cancel his speaking engagement but refused. He spoke to the crowd in the rain:

As violence raged in 76 other cities, requiring 70,000 troops and national guardsmen to contain the rioting, Indianapolis remained calm that night.

In Indiana’s primary, Kennedy won 42% followed by Branigin (31%) and McCarthy (27%). The next week Kennedy won in Nebraska and the District of Columbia. The campaign then moved to the west coast where McCarthy upset Kennedy in Oregon, dealing a severe blow to Kennedy’s chances. Kennedy had chosen to ignore McCarthy out of fear of alienating his young, anti-war supporters, but he was continually frustrated by the loyalty that these college students showed to McCarthy and McCarthy’s refusal to drop out of the race despite several primary defeats. The campaign climaxed in California, a winner-take-all primary that Kennedy had to win in order to have a chance to secure the party’s nomination at its convention in Chicago later in the summer. Oregon eliminated the possibility of a McCarthy withdrawal, but Kennedy continued to insist that Humphrey, who continued to line up delegate support without running in the primaries, was his real opponent: "Vice President Humphrey is the leading contender for the Democratic nomination even though he has been unwilling to present his views to the voters in a single state… If the Vice President is nominated to oppose Richard Nixon, there will be no candidate who has opposed the escalation of the war in Vietnam." After an exhausting campaign, Kennedy won in California. Shortly after midnight on June 4, he appeared before his cheering supporters at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles. After telling them, "So my thanks to all of you and it’s on to Chicago, and let’s win there," he left through the kitchen to attend a victory party. There a 24-year old Jordanian immigrant, Sirhan Sirhan, shot him twice with a pistol. Kennedy died the next day.

It is not certain that, had he not been assassinated, Kennedy would have been nominated by the Democratic Convention in Chicago. Humphrey had a strong delegate lead and feelings between McCarthy and Kennedy had grown so bitter that an eventual alliance of the two anti-war candidates was not inevitable. Despite these factors, Kennedy had generated a tremendous amount of enthusiasm in his brief campaign and demonstrated his ability to win primaries in such diverse locales as Indiana, Nebraska, the District of Columbia, South Dakota, and California. A victory in the New York primary, the week after California, might have been enough to convince Democratic leaders that he was the only candidate that could defeat Richard Nixon. Kennedy family friend, advisor, and historian Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. believes that, had he been elected, Kennedy "would have ended American participation in the war in 1969." Various anti-war groups were planning demonstrations against the war in Chicago. The tenor of those demonstrations, had Kennedy been nominated, may have been different than they proved to be during the convention that would nominate Hubert Humphrey.

Vietnam was not the first war that evoked public demonstrations of opposition in the United States. Approximately one-third of the American population had remained loyal to Great Britain during the Revolutionary War. During the War of 1812, the northeastern states strongly opposed the war. New England governors refused to mobilize their state militias to fight; and in 1814, at the Hartford Convention, several New England states threatened to secede. During the worst days of the Civil War, anti-draft riots erupted in northern states. Riots in New York City left almost a thousand dead and injured, necessitating that troops be pulled from the war to put down the violence. There was also strong opposition to America’s entrance into World War I in the heavily German areas of the Midwest, and several Socialist leaders were jailed for opposing the war.

Opposition to the war in Vietnam began in 1965 and emanated primarily from traditional pacifist organizations and college campuses. David Dellinger was the chairman of the National Mobilization Committee to End the War in Vietnam. Fifty-three years old in 1968, Dellinger had spent his entire life opposing war. He had served over three years in jail for refusing to serve in World War II. Dellinger was instrumental in organizing the first mass demonstration against the war in April 1965, a 25,000 person march in Washington, D.C.. In 1966 he accepted an invitation to visit Hanoi and inspect bomb damage:

As a result of Dellinger’s comments, the Department of Defense eventually acknowledged some civilian damage, but blamed the North Vietnamese: "It is impossible to avoid all damage to civilian areas especially when the North Vietnamese deliberately emplace their air defense sites … their radar and … military facilities in populated areas."

On college campuses the main anti-war force was the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) that had previously been actively involved in the civil rights movement. SDS leaders such as Carl Oglesby and Tom Hayden organized "teach-ins" against the war on college campuses. A teach-in at the University of California at Berkeley in 1965, organized by Jerry Rubin, attracted 12,000 students to hear anti-war speakers such as famed baby doctor Benjamin Spock and author Norman Mailer lecture against the war. Some popular entertainers began to question the war. Musician Country Joe McDonald wrote "I-Feel-Like-I’m-Fixin’-to-Die-Rag" in 1965 and it became one of the first popular anti-war songs:

Public opinion polls showed, however, that few Americans favored a withdrawal from Vietnam. Anti-war activists were often described as disloyal or communists.

Most of the anti-war activities in 1965-1967 took place on college campuses among those who felt pressure from the military draft. Students began to burn their draft cards as a form of protest against the war. Still, in 1965, polls showed that college campuses were as supportive of the war as the general public. Anti-war demonstrations on campus were often met by counter demonstrations in support of the administration’s policies. Although anti-war music, like the "I-Feel-Like-I’m-Fixin’-to-Die-Rag," became popular later in the sixties, one of the major hits of 1966 was the "Ballad of the Green Berets," by Sergeant Barry Sadler that spoke glowingly of the Special Forces. The anti-war movement was definitely growing, both in numbers and in media coverage, between 1965-1967 but remained a small minority of the population.

College students, in the early years of the war, were largely insulated from the military draft. The first waves of troops sent to Vietnam were primarily regular army. The calls for huge numbers of draftees did not begin until 1966. By the end of that year, draft calls had reached 40,000 per month. By 1970, almost 40% of the U.S. troops in Vietnam were draftees. Full-time college students were issued deferments and were not initially subject to the draft (draftees were between 18-26, with the vast majority being under 21). Some accused Johnson of trying to mitigate opposition to the war with the college deferments. Those who most likely had access to political power were middle and upper-class families who could afford to send their children to college. Studies showed that more than twice as many children from low-income families saw service in Vietnam than did men from high-income families. In addition, once in Vietnam, men from low-income families were twice as likely to be in combat.

By 1968, post-graduate deferments had been discontinued, raising the specter of the draft for college men once they graduated. There were, however, other ways to legally avoid service in Vietnam in addition to college deferments. Certain jobs, like medicine, teaching, or the ministry were exempt from the draft. Economic hardship deferments were extended to men who were the sole means of support for their dependents; thus, for many, the draft could be avoided by marrying and/or having children. Of the 15.4 million men of draft age during the war, 57% received some form of deferment. If a man failed to obtain a deferment, he could attempt to be declared IV-F or "unfit for service" by failing an induction physical. Men dieted or gained weight to become too thin or too heavy to pass the physical. Some even mutilated themselves such as cutting off part of their thumbs. The draft, or Selective Service System, was locally controlled. Some draft boards were extremely generous in granting IV-F classifications. In Seattle, Washington, a center of anti-war activity, in the latter years of the war every potential inductee who had a letter from a physician claiming that they were unfit to serve was excused. Men could also be exempted if they wore braces or claimed to be a homosexual.

For those who could not be totally excused from service, there were ways to avoid being sent to Vietnam. Men could claim conscientious objector status; however, this was usually reserved for men who could prove a long-standing affiliation with a religious group that opposed all wars. Conscientious objector status was not a popular option because conscientious objectors were required to work two years in "alternative," usually a low-paying community service job. Of the 26.8 million men eligible for service during the era, only 172,000 were granted conscientious objector status. Men could also avoid combat by enlisting prior to being drafted. Enlisted men were able to pick their service and could choose relatively "safer" branches such as the Air Force, Navy, or Coast Guard rather than be drafted into the Army. An even more attractive option was to obtain a position in the Reserves or National Guard. Studies by the military indicated that between 70 and 90 percent of all enlistments in these areas were draft-motivated.

The entire Selective Service system worked to the benefit of those who had higher incomes, more education, or family political connections. Wealthier children were more likely to attend college and qualify for exempt occupations. Sympathetic doctors could be found for those who sought a physical exemption. A study of Harvard graduates found that only 56 of 1,200 (less than 5%) male graduates of the era had served in the military and that only two were sent to Vietnam. In contrast, in the general population, of those who had only a high school degree, 45% served in the military and 21% served in Vietnam. Because of income and educational opportunity, black men and other racial minorities were more likely to serve and die in Vietnam than white men. This was especially true in the early years of the war. In 1965, blacks accounted for 24% of the combat deaths, twice their percentage of the total population. Thirty-one percent of the combat troops in 1965 were either black or Hispanic. Concern about the racial implication of these figures (and an increased reliance on the draft) brought down the total percentage of blacks in Vietnam, but black soldiers continued to die in higher percentages because they were far more likely to serve in combat than in administrative positions. In 1966, blacks accounted for only 13% of the army, yet they accounted for 27% of the combat deaths. By 1967, powerful civil rights leaders such as Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. began to criticize the war, claiming that blacks were "paying the double price of smashed hopes at home and death and corruption in Vietnam." More radical black leaders, such as the Black Panthers, maintained that "black people should not be forced to fight in the military service to defend a racist government that does not protect us."

Some potential draftees took other options to avoid service in Vietnam: jail or exile. Approximately 100,000 left the country, mostly for Canada. Relatively few (5%) actually violated draft laws or refused to register. Of these violators, less than 1% were ever prosecuted, and of those prosecuted, less than 15% were jailed. One of those jailed was Stanford student leader David Harris who refused to accept his student deferment on the grounds that the system was unfair to the poor and racial minorities. The most famous draft violator was heavyweight boxing champion Muhammad Ali. Ali refused induction in 1967 on the grounds that, as a Black Muslim, his religion forbade him to fight against persons of color in Vietnam. Although it was highly unlikely that Ali would have done anything more than serve in a public relations capacity, he risked his career and freedom by refusing to serve. He was sentenced to five years in prison and while his case was on appeal to the Supreme Court, he was stripped of his title and refused permission to box. Ali later won his appeal and regained the heavyweight championship in 1974 by defeating George Foreman.

As draft calls increased and casualties mounted, anti-war activity increased. In the 1967-1968 school term, there were anti-war protests on 75% of the nation’s campuses. Eugene McCarthy later commented on the growing impact on the country of the ever-increasing number of U.S. combat deaths in 1966-1967:

McCarthy’s comments proved to prophetic. In December 1966, the SDS decided to openly organize resistance to the draft. In 1967, six veterans formed the Vietnam Veterans Against the War. In April, over 30,000 marched against the war in New York City. The largest demonstration prior to Tet occurred in service October 1967 at the Pentagon, the very symbol of the U.S. military. The anti-war movement had been divided between traditional pacifists and socialists, who preferred quiet, dignified marches, and younger radicals like Rubin who urged bold confrontations to grab the public imagination. Rubin and another radical organizer, Abbie Hoffman, planned a one day effort to every "shut down the Pentagon" and convinced older anti-war leaders to cooperate. On October 21, over 50,000 demonstrators ranging from Catholic Nuns to black separatists marched from the Lincoln Memorial to the Pentagon chanting "Hell No, We Won’t Go." The plan was to ring the Pentagon with a human chain, preventing anyone from entering or leaving. At the Pentagon, 10,000 army troops, national guardsmen, and federal marshals met the marchers. The soldiers carried rifles, but they were not loaded. For ninety minutes there was a standoff. Young students placed flowers in the muzzles of rifles held by soldiers. As time went on, it became hard to control the diverse group of demonstrators. An SDS group managed to get inside the building before being physically expelled after throwing blood in the hallways. Despite pleas to keep it peaceful, the main demonstration also became violent:

It was never firmly established how much of the violence started, but 683 protesters were arrested. The scope of the demonstration dominated the news. Members of the Johnson administration believed that the protests only made peace harder to obtain. Secretary of State Rusk later said:

A majority of the American people seemed to agree with Rusk. Johnson’s approval ratings temporarily increased after the violence at the Pentagon, but the president was ever fearful of triggering more demonstrations. As early as 1966 he had responded to a Defense Department computer analysis of the effects of bombing Hanoi by replying: "I have one more problem for your computer: How long will it take five hundred thousand angry young Americans to climb that White House wall out there and lynch their president if he does something like that?"

Anti-war protests actually declined during the first six months of 1968 as it appeared that the political system might provide an alternative to demonstrations through the anti-war candidacies of McCarthy and Kennedy. Anti-war activists were still determined, however, to mount a massive demonstration in Chicago at the Democratic National Convention. Plans for this demonstration had begun even prior to Johnson’s withdrawal as a candidate and the stunning primary successes of Kennedy and McCarthy. With the death of Kennedy and the realization that McCarthy would not be nominated, the optimism of the spring had dissolved into disillusionment once more. As Democratic delegates and protesters descended on Chicago in August, the scene was set for the greatest civil disorder seen in America since the Civil War.

During the last week in August over 2,500 delegates descended upon Chicago for the Democratic National Convention. There was little drama left in the presidential nominating process. After Robert Kennedy’s death, Vice President Humphrey had built a huge delegate lead, and the forces of Eugene McCarthy and George McGovern (who had entered the race after Kennedy’s death) had little chance to prevent Humphrey’s nomination. For this reason, anti-war activist Tom Hayden referred to the convention as "totally rigged" and "a rubber stamp" for the Johnson administration that had been repudiated by the voters in the primaries.

Also coming to Chicago were between 10,000 and 15,000 anti-war demonstrators determined to vent their fury against the party that occupied the White House. Just as in the Pentagon demonstration a year earlier, the demonstrators were a diverse group. Dellinger’s National Mobilization Committee to End the War in Vietnam had called for 100,000 demonstrators to meet in Chicago and worked with Tom Hayden and Rennie Davis of the SDS to plan non-violent demonstrations. At the same time, the Youth International Party, or "Yippies," led by Abbie Hoffman and Jerry Rubin planned a Festival of Life to present a counterculture alternative during the convention. The Yippies talked about putting LSD into the city’s water supply, holding "nude-ins," and nominating their own presidential candidate, a 125 pound hog named Pigasus. To their delight, the Yippies were taken seriously by the Chicago authorities. An aid to the mayor called their leaders "hard core communists." The mayor of Chicago, Richard Daley, prepared his city for a confrontation. In the demonstrations that followed Martin Luther King’s assassination, Daley had ordered his police to shoot rioters. He now ordered special riot gear for the police and manhole covers surrounding the convention site sealed to foil a gas attack. Daley was the last of the big city political bosses, and he was determined that demonstrators would not besmirch the image of "his city." 12,000 police, 6,000 Illinois national guardsmen, and 7,500 regular army troops with riot training were on hand to deal with any protest. The city refused to allow the demonstrators to sleep in the city’s public parks or march near the Amphitheater where the convention was to be held.

Conflict between demonstrators and the police began Sunday night as on the eve of the convention the police drove several thousand protesters out of Lincoln Park. Skirmishes lasted for three hours, and about two dozen demonstrators, including Hayden, were arrested. The police not only attacked the demonstrators but also newsmen who were attempting to cover the confrontation. On Monday, a mass demonstration was held at the city jail to demand the release of Hayden (who was released later in the day). As night fell, the police again ran the demonstrators out of Lincoln Park, chasing them through the streets and clubbing and tear gassing resisters. Also on Monday night, some of the protesters had moved further downtown to Grant Park. In the shadow of the Conrad Hilton Hotel, where the Democratic Party, Humphrey, and McCarthy had all established their headquarters, they chanted anti-war slogans until they were driven out by police swinging nightsticks and chanting "Kill, Kill, Kill." On Tuesday night, tear gas was used again in Lincoln Park, and demonstrators stoned police cars.

On Wednesday the violence got even worse:

That evening, as the Democrats argued bitterly inside the convention hall over the party’s platform plank on Vietnam, the streets erupted once again:

Despite the efforts of the police to quell media coverage, television cameras captured most of the violence. The image of the blue-helmeted police relentlessly beating unresisting demonstrators and throwing them into a police truck replaced coverage of the convention. The demonstrators chanted, "The Whole World is Watching, the Whole World is Watching." Inside the convention hall anti-war delegates railed against Daley. In nominating McGovern for the presidency, Senator Abraham Ribicoff said "…and with George McGovern as President of the United States, we wouldn’t have these Gestapo police tactics on the streets of Chicago." His words stunned the convention into silence. Television cameras zoomed in on Daley, sitting only ten yards away from Ribicoff, as he shouted an obscenity and religious slur against the Senator. Ribicoff calmly replied, "How hard it is to accept the truth." Humphrey was finally nominated near midnight. The following day the police, insisting that they were being pelted objects by from the McCarthy headquarters on the fifteenth floor of the Hilton, charged into the hotel beating and arresting his supporters. That night, anti-war delegates and demonstrators combined to hold candlelight march that gave every appearance of being a funeral for the Democratic Party. As Allard Lowenstein, who had begun the "Dump Johnson Movement" a year before, told a reporter on the floor of the convention, "They elected Richard Nixon tonight." In December, a bipartisan commission concluded that the violence in Chicago had been "overwhelmingly" the responsibility of the police. Demonstrators had provoked the police in both word and action, but the events of Chicago could be described as a "police riot." Jerry Rubin believed that the demonstrators had made their point: "By forcing the government to over-react at home we were spotlighting the over-reaction of America in Vietnam." Others in the anti-war movement were not so sure. Sam Brown, a student coordinator in the McCarthy campaign, believed the violence in Chicago had hurt the movement: "Instead of nice young people ringing doorbells, the public saw the image of mobs shouting obscenities and disrupting the city." Even more militant anti-war activists began to realize that the union of many elements of the anti-war movement with the counterculture had been a disaster. SDS’s Todd Gitlin commented in the wake of Chicago: "As unpopular as the war had become, the anti-war movement was detested still more—the most hated political group in America, disliked even by most of the people who supported immediate withdrawal from the war." A week after the convention, Nixon spoke to a cheering crowd of over a half a million people in Chicago, promising to restore "law and order in America."

As predicted by many, the events in Chicago deeply hurt the Democrats in their bid to retain the presidency. Nixon felt no need to comment on the events of the Democratic Convention, telling an aide, "Never murder a man who is committing suicide." Polls following the convention showed Humphrey running as much as 18% behind Nixon. Anti-war hecklers followed him to every public appearance chanting "Dump the Hump" and "Sell-Out, Sell-Out." McCarthy refused to endorse him. A third candidate, Governor George Wallace of Alabama, had also entered the race. Famous for his opposition to racial integration, Wallace took a harder line on Vietnam than either Humphrey or Nixon. His vice presidential running mate, retired General Curtis LeMay, had earlier advocated the use of nuclear weapons in Vietnam. Polls showed Wallace with as much as 20% of the vote, and he threatened to eclipse Humphrey’s level of support.

In late September, Humphrey broke with the president on Vietnam by advocating a total bombing halt and a "de-Americanization" of the war as "an acceptable risk for peace." His standing in the polls instantly improved as Nixon’s 15% lead in late September shrunk to 8% by late October. Anti-war voters began to view Humphrey as the lesser evil among the candidates. McCarthy finally endorsed him. Then, on October 31, Johnson announced a total halt in bombing North Vietnam "in the belief that this action can lead to progress towards a peaceful settlement of the Vietnamese war." Two days after the announcement, both the Gallup and Harris polls showed Nixon ahead by only 42% to 40%.

Three days later, America voted. Nixon, who had lost the closest election in American history in 1960, won the second closest. The final popular vote totals gave Nixon 43.4% to Humphrey’s 42.7% (Wallace, whose support slipped late in the campaign, won 13% and the electoral votes of five southern states). Lyndon Johnson’s presidency had been destroyed by Vietnam. Now Richard Nixon would have the responsibility of extricating America from the war and delivering on his pledge of "Peace With Honor."

As Americans at home became more divided in their view of the war, the fighting continued in Vietnam. North Vietnam responded to President Johnson’s partial bombing halt, which had been announced during the March 31 speech in which he withdrew as a presidential candidate, by agreeing to preliminary peace talks three days later. Peace talks began in Paris on May 10, 1969. Within weeks they were deadlocked. The U.S. insisted that all North Vietnamese troops be withdrawn from the South, while North Vietnam demanded that a coalition government, with representatives of the Vietcong included, be formed in the South. Negotiations remained stalled until the late fall when the Vietcong and the South Vietnamese government were invited to join.

In May, the communists mounted another offensive with the simultaneous shelling of 119 towns and military bases. Like Tet, the attack was beaten back, but in one week 562 Americans died. Additional attacks took place in late May and early June. On June 27, the military command in Saigon announced that the base of Khe Sahn, site of the 77-day siege earlier in the year, was being abandoned because the military now believed that defense of the northern provinces could best be conducted through mobile forces rather than fixed installations. Khe Sanh, which the military had insisted was crucial to the defense of South Vietnam just months earlier, was no longer worth occupying. In July, the U.S. resumed the bombing of the North that had been halted with Johnson’s March 31 speech. The North Vietnamese then launched their third major offensive of the war in August and the next month the U.S. and South Vietnamese Army answered with an offensive designed to destroy communist forces in the DMZ.

Later in the year, the U.S. again attempted to focus its attention on regaining control of the villages in what was called pacification. "Winning hearts and minds" was often the catch phrase, but there was a constant struggle between the advocates of military solutions ("Get them by the balls and their minds will follow") and those who favored more creative solutions to winning the allegiance of the South Vietnamese people. A new agency, Civil Operations and Rural Development (CORDS), was created under the leadership of Robert Komer. Komer first attempted to provide security to loyal village chiefs who were often targets of the Vietcong. This proved virtually impossible as attempts to recruit at the village level were usually frustrated by the Vietcong, and outside police were afraid to patrol the villages at night. Komer had 1.7 billion dollars of economic aid which could not be distributed due to a lack of security: "How can you have a schools program when the VC come in and blow down your schools as soon as you build them and assassinate your teachers? How can you provide miracle rice when the VC come and steal the crop?" Disillusioned, Komer left Vietnam after Tet, but a program he conceived, Operation Phoenix, played a major role in pacification during late 1968-1969. Phoenix started with identity cards issued to the South Vietnamese people. Identity cards could then be checked in a central computer file in Saigon. Komer’s successor, William Colby, the former CIA station chief in Saigon, convinced the South Vietnamese government to arm the villages and permit village elections. South Vietnamese Provincial Reconnaissance Units (PRU) worked to destroy the Vietcong leadership in the villages. Part of this program was geared to encouraging defections through amnesty programs. This was eventually a relative success as Colby estimated that there were 17,000 defections from 1969-1970. The other part of the program was to arrest Vietcong operatives. Because of the enormous Vietcong presence in the South, this was an enormous task, lending itself to numerous abuses. Many arrests were done simply to settle personal or family quarrels. The huge number of arrests made effective interrogation or judicial proceedings impossible. As a CIA agent Frank Snepp commented: "The hit teams were going out arresting and pulling back to our interrogation centers a great many people. And the prisons came to overflowing. Well the hit teams became impatient, and they decided to take the law as such into their own hands. And instead of bringing the sources in they began killing them." Colby claimed that the program was effective, eliminating 60,000 Vietcong agents. Snepp believed that many non-Vietcong were also killed as PRU units were "going into a village to hit a particular cadre (Vietcong leader), to get that cadre you killed several others." In postwar interviews with North Vietnamese leaders, writer Stanley Karnow confirmed Colby’s assessment of the program as communist leaders admitted that the program had "wiped out many of our bases" and "created tremendous difficulties for us." Assassinations on one side were mirrored by the other. During the decade, the Vietcong executed an estimated 40,000 for cooperation with the South Vietnamese government or opposing the guerrillas. The losers were the people of the South. By late 1971, 1.5 million villagers had been killed or wounded and another million were left homeless. In the words of Edward Lansdale, who had over a decade of service in South Vietnam with the CIA, "99% of the people hoped that the war would just go away and leave them alone. That was their deepest sentiment."

Johnson’s second bombing halt, announced on October 31, re-stimulated the stalled peace talks, and South Vietnam and the Vietcong were invited to participate in the negotiations. For three weeks, President Thieu refused to participate because of the presence of Vietcong representatives. The South Vietnamese refused to recognize the Vietcong and insisted that they would only negotiate with what they viewed as the source of the aggression, North Vietnam. After the U.S. threatened to proceed without them, the South Vietnamese agreed to join the talks, but they once again became deadlocked over seating arrangements and the shape of the conference table. The source of the dispute was the communist insistence that the Vietcong be given equal status with the South Vietnamese government and the South’s refusal to grant even symbolic recognition. The U.S. proposed a rectangular table that placed the U.S. and South Vietnamese on one side with the North Vietnamese and the NLF on the other. The North Vietnamese, on the other hand, insisted on a square table that would give all four parties equal status. This argument delayed meaningful discussions for seven months.

Historian William Manchester called 1968 "The Year Everything Went Wrong." In addition to the events in Vietnam, Martin Luther King and Robert F. Kennedy were assassinated. The riots that erupted in the wake of Dr. King’s assassination resulted in 2,600 urban fires and required 55,000 troops to restore order (ten times the troops that were engaged in the siege of Khe Sanh). In January, North Korea seized a U.S. intelligence ship, the USS Pueblo that was clearly in international waters, the first U.S. ship to be seized on the open seas since 1807. The crewmen were tortured and forced to make confessions of spying before being released eleven months later. Hopes generated in the spring for a Czechoslovakia free of Soviet domination were dashed in August as Soviet tanks invaded the country and restored a pro-Soviet regime. At home, a wave of strikes crippled the country. For eight days a postal strike stopped the mail, and in the fall, New York City students could not return to school as the majority of the city’s teachers went on strike. Argentinean golfer Roberto deVicenzo capped his career by tying for the Masters Championship and then discovered that he had signed an incorrect scorecard, denying himself a chance at a playoff victory. The winner of the Kentucky Derby, Dancer’s Image, was disqualified for receiving illegal drugs. The final indignities involved Jacqueline Kennedy, the wife of the slain president. Mrs. Kennedy had tried to lead a private life following her husband’s death, but polls showed that she remained the overwhelming choice as America’s most admired woman. In the fall of 1968, it was announced that she had agreed to marry Greek shipping tycoon Aristotle Onassis. Onassis was reported to be worth $500 million and had had numerous public affairs with famous women. He was 29 years older than his bride. If the marriage was not shocking enough, late in the year an Italian tabloid newspapers ran nude photos of the former first lady sunbathing that had been taken surreptitiously (secretly) with a telephoto lens. From the significant to the trivial, 1968 provided an almost endless stream of disappointments and aggravations.