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After Tet: The Bloodiest Year in Vietnam
The Tet Offensive of early 1968 was supposed to mark a turning point in the Vietnam War. But in spite of a halt to the bombing of the North and the onset of the Paris peace talks, the year that followed Tet saw the war's fiercest fighting, as a large and awesomely equipped American fighting force found itself bloodied by an enemy that seemed to evaporate before its firepower only to reappear once the smoke cleared.
In this sweeping and at times harrowing chronicle, the author of the best-selling Eagle Against the Sun draws on a wealth of oral histories and newly classified documents to show us the war that television missed. Here are the race riots and drug use that swept the American army; the rampant corruption of the ARVN; the potent mix of myth and ideology that made the North Vietnamese such formidable foes. Panoramic in its scope, riveting in its detail, After Tet is a triumph of military and political history.
In this sweeping and at times harrowing chronicle, the author of the best-selling Eagle Against the Sun draws on a wealth of oral histories and newly classified documents to show us the war that television missed. Here are the race riots and drug use that swept the American army; the rampant corruption of the ARVN; the potent mix of myth and ideology that made the North Vietnamese such formidable foes. Panoramic in its scope, riveting in its detail, After Tet is a triumph of military and political history.
432 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1992
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About the author
Ronald H. Spector
36 books24 followersProfessor Spector received his B.A. from Johns Hopkins and his MA and Ph.D. from Yale.
He has served in various government positions and on active duty in the Marine Corps from 1967-1969 and 1983-1984, and was the first civilian to become Director of Naval History and the head of the Naval Historical Center. He has served on the faculties of LSU, Alabama and Princeton and has been a senior Fulbright lecturer in India and Israel. In 1995-1996 he was Distinguished Visiting Professor of Strategy at the National War College and was the Distinguished Guest Professor at Keio University, Tokyo in 2000.
He has served in various government positions and on active duty in the Marine Corps from 1967-1969 and 1983-1984, and was the first civilian to become Director of Naval History and the head of the Naval Historical Center. He has served on the faculties of LSU, Alabama and Princeton and has been a senior Fulbright lecturer in India and Israel. In 1995-1996 he was Distinguished Visiting Professor of Strategy at the National War College and was the Distinguished Guest Professor at Keio University, Tokyo in 2000.
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Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews
April 21, 2022
Many books about the Vietnam War fall into two extremes. One sees our involvement as a fool's errand and portrayed as a form of "imperialism." This is epitomized by Marylin B. Young's work, who comes across as a publicist for Hanoi. The other view sees the war as a victory we wasted due to a lack of faith back home. It is a variation on the "stabbed in the back" myth that plagued Germany after 1918. Both views serve overtly political ends. Today, Young's take is common enough in elite colleges and among the Left, while the conservative interpretation still has traction in the red states and is passed along as a kind of oral tradition.
Spector does not tread into political minefields and takes a middle course. He argues both sides fought poorly in 1968, but the Americans had an edge in tactics and managed to force Hanoi to negotiate by defeating three communist offensives in 1968 and improving control of the countryside. Yet, the results were incomplete because South Vietnam was on shaky ground while the American forces declined in morale due mostly to the rotation system, which failed to create veteran cadres. The politics of 1968 precluded sending more men but there was a clear mandate for Vietnamzation, which was broadly popular in America. The result was a war defined by stalemate and exhaustion, which favored North Vietnam although it came at an appalling cost in lives and treasure.
Overall, this is a well written and argued book. I particularly liked the chapter on race relations. My uncle, Mark Acker, once told me the movies overplayed integration in Vietnam. Spector points out that in the rear areas, segregation was de facto and racial tensions were common over subjects that seem drearily familiar: disproportionate incarceration of black soldiers, the Confederate battle flag, mistrust of "whitey" (also known as Chuck), gang culture, and police brutality. The collapse came particularly with the death of Martin Luther King Jr., an event that crushed hopes for racial reconciliation. Spector mentions that these tensions were far more common in the rear (as was drug abuse) but not in the field, where it was a matter of survival. That said, it should be noted that a common foe has the effect of lessening divisions of all kinds. Studies show that racial bias is less strong if a person from another race wears your team's hat. It is depressing to think that mutual hatred for another is the surest way to mitigate hatred for other people.
You get it all in After Tet. You get social history, a study of doctrine, and a gripping battle and operational history that is tied to strategy and how politics affected the war. The thesis of the book still stands well today, namely that the men in the field were not stabbed in the back so much as hobbled by a limited war being fought on behalf of a government that never commanded enough loyalty to stand on its own against an enemy willing to go to the knife. Most chilling of all is Spector's closing paragraph, which declares that Vietnam's shadow is still with us and that wars of its type will be more common than the Gulf War.
Spector does not tread into political minefields and takes a middle course. He argues both sides fought poorly in 1968, but the Americans had an edge in tactics and managed to force Hanoi to negotiate by defeating three communist offensives in 1968 and improving control of the countryside. Yet, the results were incomplete because South Vietnam was on shaky ground while the American forces declined in morale due mostly to the rotation system, which failed to create veteran cadres. The politics of 1968 precluded sending more men but there was a clear mandate for Vietnamzation, which was broadly popular in America. The result was a war defined by stalemate and exhaustion, which favored North Vietnam although it came at an appalling cost in lives and treasure.
Overall, this is a well written and argued book. I particularly liked the chapter on race relations. My uncle, Mark Acker, once told me the movies overplayed integration in Vietnam. Spector points out that in the rear areas, segregation was de facto and racial tensions were common over subjects that seem drearily familiar: disproportionate incarceration of black soldiers, the Confederate battle flag, mistrust of "whitey" (also known as Chuck), gang culture, and police brutality. The collapse came particularly with the death of Martin Luther King Jr., an event that crushed hopes for racial reconciliation. Spector mentions that these tensions were far more common in the rear (as was drug abuse) but not in the field, where it was a matter of survival. That said, it should be noted that a common foe has the effect of lessening divisions of all kinds. Studies show that racial bias is less strong if a person from another race wears your team's hat. It is depressing to think that mutual hatred for another is the surest way to mitigate hatred for other people.
You get it all in After Tet. You get social history, a study of doctrine, and a gripping battle and operational history that is tied to strategy and how politics affected the war. The thesis of the book still stands well today, namely that the men in the field were not stabbed in the back so much as hobbled by a limited war being fought on behalf of a government that never commanded enough loyalty to stand on its own against an enemy willing to go to the knife. Most chilling of all is Spector's closing paragraph, which declares that Vietnam's shadow is still with us and that wars of its type will be more common than the Gulf War.
March 26, 2016
Another fascinating book on Vietnam down. After Tet focuses on the large NVA/VC offensives after the Tet attacks. Even though the Communist forces had lost many during Tet, there were three large follow-on offensives. Costly battles surged from the highlands to the Mekong Delta. The author correctly states that the battles were indecisive or a stalemate. The communist forces lost significantly yet melted away to Laos or Cambodia to lick their wounds. American/ARVN forces drove the Communists out, and withdrew as quickly as they came, allowing VC forces to filter back in. The significant decisive defeat was Johnson's presidency. Democrats lost the White House. Nixon's campaign party was contacted by the South Vietnamese government to discuss the South's participation in the Paris Peace talks. Nixon told the South to stall...prolonging the war. Nixon did not want successful negotiations to cost him the White House. Could this be called treasonous? Pacification efforts were haphazard and uncoordinated. Some like the Popular Forces of the Marines drove the VC out. Others subjected villagers to the loss of their homes. As the war was prolonged, a new enemy showed its face...drugs. Heroin and marijuana use spiked in the late 60's. Some commanders claimed drugs were more formidable than any NVA regiment. Racial tensions were also explored. Vietnam was a different war with African Americans fielded in large numbers compared to WWII and Korea. Dr. King's death led to increased racial divides amongst a war weary Army. To add to all this, the Army was always a novice Army. Year long tours and short officer rotations ensured that US forces were constantly being replenished by inexperienced soldiers and officers. A troop rotation plan ensured our forces were no where near the experience level of our Communist adversaries. Being Americans, we tried to make it up in two areas we love...technology and fire power. Another good book on a bad war.
March 29, 2025
A perceptive, coherent, and comprehensive work.
The coverage of the battles is clear and vivid, and Spector ably describes the year’s series of communist offensives, each less successful and more costly than the last. “By not deciding anything, the battles of 1968 decided much.” Spector ably covers the challenges posed by South Vietnamese corruption, drug use among American troops, race relations, the pilfering of American aid through South Vietnamese smuggling networks (which often ended up in communist hands) He also notes that the communists often benefited from better weaponry and technology than the Americans at times. He also notes that both the Americans and the communists believed themselves to be on the offensive against a dramatically weakened enemy. In the meantime, in the US, most people were preoccupied with election-year politics and the peace talks in Paris.
The narrative is readable and clear, and moves smoothly between questions of policy and strategy to the experience of soldiers on the ground. Spector does briefly compare the war to World War One, but not every reader will find this analogy convincing. There’s also a few typos.
A rich, well-written, and well-researched work.
The coverage of the battles is clear and vivid, and Spector ably describes the year’s series of communist offensives, each less successful and more costly than the last. “By not deciding anything, the battles of 1968 decided much.” Spector ably covers the challenges posed by South Vietnamese corruption, drug use among American troops, race relations, the pilfering of American aid through South Vietnamese smuggling networks (which often ended up in communist hands) He also notes that the communists often benefited from better weaponry and technology than the Americans at times. He also notes that both the Americans and the communists believed themselves to be on the offensive against a dramatically weakened enemy. In the meantime, in the US, most people were preoccupied with election-year politics and the peace talks in Paris.
The narrative is readable and clear, and moves smoothly between questions of policy and strategy to the experience of soldiers on the ground. Spector does briefly compare the war to World War One, but not every reader will find this analogy convincing. There’s also a few typos.
A rich, well-written, and well-researched work.
January 12, 2018
A very entertaining book. Spector gives us the pivotal year of the Vietnam War, 1968. It was the year that gave the US a sort of Victorious year on the ground- but at the very same time showed how unsustainable the war was. And Spector does a great job of showing all the internal inconsistencies in the combat, management and logistical elements of the war. But at the same time, we get a vision of a US army muddling through with great personnel.
Spector is great at weaving the homefront, the WhiteHouse, the Army, the North Vietnamese side of things(the weakest area of the book- but still better than most), and the byzantine South Vietnamese stories. We see the massive effort- and all the myriad of things that made it almost futile. One can only appreciate how massive that effort was. He shows that by defeating the Tet Offensive, and the two other offensives of the war, the US HAD achieved something. But he is also great at pointing out what new elements (drugs- the arrival of strong Heroin- and racial tensions) had made extricating the US from southeast Asia such a difficult accomplishment.
Younger reader will find the topics very adult but the explanation strong enough to cover them. The Gamer/Modeller/Military Enthusiast will find a treasure trove of Maps/Descriptions/Anecdotes/Battle Reps to help with Scenarios/Dioramas, as well a great background material.
Spector is great at weaving the homefront, the WhiteHouse, the Army, the North Vietnamese side of things(the weakest area of the book- but still better than most), and the byzantine South Vietnamese stories. We see the massive effort- and all the myriad of things that made it almost futile. One can only appreciate how massive that effort was. He shows that by defeating the Tet Offensive, and the two other offensives of the war, the US HAD achieved something. But he is also great at pointing out what new elements (drugs- the arrival of strong Heroin- and racial tensions) had made extricating the US from southeast Asia such a difficult accomplishment.
Younger reader will find the topics very adult but the explanation strong enough to cover them. The Gamer/Modeller/Military Enthusiast will find a treasure trove of Maps/Descriptions/Anecdotes/Battle Reps to help with Scenarios/Dioramas, as well a great background material.
August 6, 2018
Really great overview of the last few years in Vietnam. Not a lot of human drama, however.
November 15, 2023
This is the second of Spector's works that I've read this year, and once again I am really impressed with the lucidity and clarity of his prose. The history is excellent, and he does a great job focusing on a period that is usually a paragraph in high school history books that moves from the Tet Offensive to Johnson's March 31 speech to the total bombing halt on October 31st. Spector goes into great detail about how battlefield events interacted with military strategy and political decisions, while also providing worthwhile background on the American Army in Vietnam, the South Vietnamese, the North Vietnamese, the increase of racial tensions, and the spread of drugs and alcoholism behind the lines.
Throughout, he makes one argument very plainly: the fighting in 1968 was the hinge of the war, not because it produced decisive results on the battlefield, but exactly because it did not. By the end of the year, despite the losses suffered by the North Vietnamese, they were still in a position to reconstitute themselves and prepare for new operations. Likewise, the American military, while nowhere near collapse, had suffered casualty rates during the year that exceeded the overall casualty rates of both the Second World War and Korea, and the American people's confidence that the war could be successfully prosecuted at acceptable cost was fatally undermined. The analogy Spector makes in his conclusion is not to compare Vietnam to Korea or World War II, but rather to the First World War, and he equates the sequence of Communist offensives throughout 1968, and the number of American clearing operations throughout the same year, to be similar in their overall futility to Haig's or Nivelle's offensives on the Western Front. 1968 proved that to both sides that the war was at a stalemate; only additional infusions of force could hope to break the deadlock, and that was a decision the United States simply was unable to make.
If I had any issue with it, I wish the book had a clearer organizational structure. Spector moves back and forth between background chapters and chapters moving chronologically through 1968, and this was a bit tiresome sometimes, especially when I was left especially curious about the events to be described after a chapter. I think I would have preferred all of the background up front, and then the narrative afterwards, but I can see how breaking it up makes it easier to read. Overall, it's an impressive work of history, it is fascinating and riveting in its granularity, and I finished it up in only a few weeks. Well worth the time and effort!
Throughout, he makes one argument very plainly: the fighting in 1968 was the hinge of the war, not because it produced decisive results on the battlefield, but exactly because it did not. By the end of the year, despite the losses suffered by the North Vietnamese, they were still in a position to reconstitute themselves and prepare for new operations. Likewise, the American military, while nowhere near collapse, had suffered casualty rates during the year that exceeded the overall casualty rates of both the Second World War and Korea, and the American people's confidence that the war could be successfully prosecuted at acceptable cost was fatally undermined. The analogy Spector makes in his conclusion is not to compare Vietnam to Korea or World War II, but rather to the First World War, and he equates the sequence of Communist offensives throughout 1968, and the number of American clearing operations throughout the same year, to be similar in their overall futility to Haig's or Nivelle's offensives on the Western Front. 1968 proved that to both sides that the war was at a stalemate; only additional infusions of force could hope to break the deadlock, and that was a decision the United States simply was unable to make.
If I had any issue with it, I wish the book had a clearer organizational structure. Spector moves back and forth between background chapters and chapters moving chronologically through 1968, and this was a bit tiresome sometimes, especially when I was left especially curious about the events to be described after a chapter. I think I would have preferred all of the background up front, and then the narrative afterwards, but I can see how breaking it up makes it easier to read. Overall, it's an impressive work of history, it is fascinating and riveting in its granularity, and I finished it up in only a few weeks. Well worth the time and effort!
March 23, 2025
Might be the best book I've read on the nearly incomprehensible quagmire of that war by focusing on just one year. Political histories, esp. higher-level, presidential-military policy tomes, don't do the job. Military histories only capture a fraction of the war. This book doesn't dwell overly on the higher-level, LBJ-Joint Chiefs policies, delves into the real issues, the struggle for the villages, the unrelenting North Viet and Viet Cong and equally unrelenting corruption and Mandarin, haughty aristocratic nature of the S Vietnamese gov't, the inability of both sides to adapt, AND goes into blow-by-blow detail of several battles. Outstanding. If a wee bit tedious every now and then.
America knows how to win wars. We just can't do it against anyone who doesn't fight like us and surrender a la Japan or Germany 1945, as we've just seen, again. Do we ever learn from history? Maybe some do. America never does.
America knows how to win wars. We just can't do it against anyone who doesn't fight like us and surrender a la Japan or Germany 1945, as we've just seen, again. Do we ever learn from history? Maybe some do. America never does.
May 9, 2018
Not the best book for introducing the Vietnam War. It was difficult keeping all the names and places straight, but that might be more of a Me thing than an Author problem. The author does, however, make it abundantly clear why America's involvement in the war ended the way it did. In short, the US had committed itself to keeping an obstinant government alive via life support. Eventually the plug had to be pulled, and the "free" South Vietnamese government fell apart shortly after US involvement stopped.
January 31, 2022
This book gives a lot of the history of Vietnam leadership of their country, how corrupt the regimes were before the US was involved. Then our involvement in trying to help them keep their independence. As a combat veteran of the Vietnam War is was discouraging to read how some of their Army wasn’t ‘in to win it’ so to speak. Some of their generals would go a different way if the had intelligence of where the enemy was to avoid the fight. We went to the enemy to fight for their freedom, in the end they didn’t have enough fight in them to withstand the communist invasion.
October 4, 2019
Well written and extensively researched, Spector sheds light on the bloodiest year in the Vietnam war. This book also relates the ultimate tragedy of the war.
Read
September 2, 2016This was a good synopsis of the Tet debacle. Again, my heart was rent by the pain of the young men struggling to overcome the viciousness that was Tet.
Read
November 7, 2019Powerful read that left me wondering how this happens. How does it happen politically, yes, but how humans can inflict such horror and violence on others is the more deeply disturbing part.
May 26, 2015
this book mostly explains and focus's on how everything was after the war.
Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews