American Valor Quarterly Issue 1 - Winter 2007 | Page 25

story, Braestrup blames the media of presenting a “portrait
of defeat for the allies” and does not see how this could be
“counted as a triumph” for the media when historians have
concluded that Tet was indeed a “severe military-political
setback for Hanoi in the South.” He also continues to blame
the press for never clarifying the confusion that was
presented during February and early March, instead the
“hasty assumptions and judgments…where simply alllowed
to stand.”
Around this time the talk of sending more troops became
an issue. In early March 1968 the Washington Post ran an
article explaining the strategy of General Westmoreland and
the counterstrategy of General Giap. The headline of the
article read: “IS THERE CHOICE ON MORE TROOPS?”
The same day the New York Times ran an article emphasizing
the idea that “THE MAN
POWER CUPBOARD IS
NEARLY
BARE.”
Reports of a major defeat
during the Tet Offensive
paired with a possible
demand for more troops
was a juxtaposition of
news that a public did not
want to hear.

in Vietnam’ was largely unreported…[and] unnoticed in the
anguish of war.” The president also addressed that “progress
is going to be harder to see and harder to measure. But the
victories you win are the ones on which peace will be built
in Vietnam.” The president’s words affirm the difficulty
and confusion that was attached to the war. The American
people were weary of war and were looking for a way to
end this conflict that had been slowly swelling for over a
decade. Johnson reminded the public that “[t]he will of the
Vietnamese people did not ‘br