Presidential Advisor Walt Rostow Describes Reactions to the Tet Offensive (1981)

Interviewer: Did you still, uh, feel optimistic or confident after the Tet Offensive began? Rostow: Even more so, because it’s one thing to be a, it, uh, yes, uh, yes I was op...optimistic after the Tet Offensive, even more optimistic, uh, in a sense, than before, because it’s one thing to have confidence that you’re going to cope with this maximum effort; it’s another thing to, to see that it, everyone was coping; and, uh, you’ll see that, uh, the cables from Saigon, from Ambassador Bunker, uh, told us that the, uh, the enemy was defeated, uh, on the ground, very early; it would take time to mop up. And, uh, moreover, the reaction, the political reaction and the energy of the government in coping was most heartening. Rostow: Uh, one could feel that, uh, the government that had been elected in the elections of ’67 really became a government by coping with Tet. So that there was no doubt in anyone’s mind, watching the reaction after Tet, military and political in Vietnam that we had achieved a great victory. The great question was, what would be the reaction of the United States? Rostow: And if you go back to President Johnson’s press conference shortly after Tet, that’s exactly what he said. He didn’t,...overdraw, he underplayed the, the degree of success he knew we had, uh, militarily; he underplayed the degree of success he knew we had in the sense of the South Vietnamese have reacted positively.

Rostow: But he, he, uh, the question in his mind was the US political and, uh, psychological reaction. And, in retrospect, uh, this was, uh, a, a, uh, the negative reaction was the result of two things: I think historians will share the blame with the US media and the Johnson Administration. Interviewer: Stop...our battery ran out. Can you just pick that up and... Rostow: The public was surprised and shocked, uh, for two reasons, basically: One, uh, Tet was grossly misinterpreted by the media; they either didn’t understand it, and, and as Peter Braestrup’s two volumes shows, they depicted it to the American people in, um, uh, terms that just don’t hold up with the facts, or, at the time, or in retrospect. Rostow: But I think equally the Johnson Administration and the President, as he acknowledges in his book, “The Vantage Point,” bear responsibility, and when I say the Administration, I include myself. We did know what was coming, we did warn, uh, the Australians, uh...I was, I briefed the press in my office about the coming offensive. There were briefings in Saigon, and, uh, uh, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, Buzz Wheeler, went out and gave a first class speech in, uh, the Detroit Economic Club, saying we’re going to face Ardennes type of battle, kind of a...last gasp, maximum effort.

Rostow: And, uh, but the only way that could have gotten through to the American people and prepared them for the shock, prepared them as well as the President was prepared, or his staff, would have been if the President had said this openly, just the way he’d said it to the Australian Cabinet before Christmas ’67. Rostow: And, in retrospect, he, he, he says in his book that he should have done it in the context of the State of the Union Message. The reason is interesting; it’s it’s a...for these, for this it’s a very inadequate reason. The reason is the convention is that you don’t let the enemy know how much you know, and, uh, so it would have been regarded as rather bad form for the President to do this. But, any case, uh, that is where I would put the blame; there’s no doubt that the...that there was a gross misinterpretation by the American people.