The Tet Offensive
The American government had been telling their people that the communists were weakening and that they were now largely in control. What they saw through their television sets of the Tet Offensive contradicted this propaganda.
Fifty million watched as the ARVN killed prisoners, innocent civilians, and South Vietnam was bombed. The US government was now unable to portray the war as clean, simple, and easily won as the media in South Vietnam had unlimited access and graphic coverage.
"Dead bodies lay amid the rubble and rattle of automatic gunfire as dazed American soldiers and civilians run back and forth, trying to flush out the assailants. Americans at home saw the carnage wrought by the offensive." - Stanley Karnow.
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