On Diem: “A puppet who pulled his own strings” – American official in Saigon
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On Tet: “The watershed of Tet, however, was not in South Vietnam but in the United States, where the American people …had lost their stomach for an inconclusive bloodletting without any measure of success.” – Hannah, N.
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The peasants “sympathised with neither Diem nor the Vietcong, only leaning to the side that harassed them less.” – Karnow, S.
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According to Tuchman, the explosion of the Tet offensive caused American opinion against the war and against the President to “[gather] force swiftly”.
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Even the media opposed the Tet offensive. Upon Walter Cronkite’s return from the “burned, blasted and weary land” still smoking from Tet, he described the refugees, estimated at 470,000, living in “unbelievable squalor”.
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“Withdrawal of public support proved the undoing of an Executive that believed it could conduct limited war without engaging the national will of a democracy” – Tuchman, B.