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The problem with Kronkite is that he did not have the military background to interpret what he saw. What I tell younger people about this is that, unlike Korea and earlier campaigns, this war was suddenly brought home to everyone by TV by the way events in Tet were reported. Before Tet, there was footage of war, but nothing particlularly gory , maybe explosions and smoke in the distance. Even Cronkite was more or less pro-American up that point, as I remember. But suddenly during the Tet era we saw up-close street fighting, the famous Loan street execution (which is militarily legal, by the way), the Kim Phuc photo of her running from (alleged) American napalm, another distortion in the myriad distortions that would follow. The social pressure of campus liberals and Alinsky-style campus faculty, who were in the minority but just louder and more obnoxious than other voices, provided a back-drop for the discouragement in what I call Cronkite's famous "quagmire" broadcast in 1968. It also, of course, influenced Johnson's spineless desertion of South Vietnam. Nowdays (e.g. Desert Storm), during military engagements, we have talking heads, retired generals etc., to give us their opinions. Their may differ, but at least they have had a military background. We did not have such commentary in 1968; and Cronkite certainly had none. He allowed what was (as he himself admitted in his infamous February 1968 broadcast) an emotional response to the carnage of Tet to color his opinion. As someone else has accurately implied, this was like someone returning from the Battle for the Bulge in WWII and saying, "On, no, the terrible carnage, the tragic loss of life... we are never going to win this thing, so let's sue for peace" (as if war were some sort of tea party) The fatality ratio for the entire Tet campaign was 45:1 for North:South combatants (some estimates are even higher). Yes, we were suprised by the attack, but the outcome so weakened the North (according to the diaries we can now read of Giap and some of the other generals) that the North was ready to sue for peace, and probably would have if events in this country, especially on the campuses, had transpired differently. Old war dogs and patriots who have followed this issue for 40 years know all this already, of course, but now there is some good literature on it to give your grandchildren, sources not everyone knows about. (Indeed, give it to anyone too old to remember what really happened!) This literature is especially good for those who work with or around young people. For a good, short monograph on misconceptions about how the Vietnam "war" has been remembered, I heartily recommend the (paperback) booklet "White/Blackwash: Myths of the Vietnam War," by Bill Laurie and R. J. del Vecchio. This is the best reference I have seen to give to people who won't likely read a longer book. The extensive list of references (including websites) at the end is itself worth the modest price ($5), and proceeds go to disabled South Vietnam vets whose descendants still suffer in Vietnam from gross heartless discrimination. This is something to put in the hands of your children and grandchildren. For a more scholarly reference I recommend Mark Moyar's Triumph Forsaken. Moyar was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize by Cambridge University. Check him out at . Mark, despite being a cum laude Cambridge graduate, and a Harvard Ph. D. who published his graduate thesis as a book, (and now has another on on the way) has had a hard time finding a teaching position. I wonder why? Finally, an excellent DVD that shows how Tet was misrepresented to the public is Television's Vietnam. It is narrated by Charlton Heston, who is much more than just an NRA spokesman.

But suddenly during the Tet era we saw up-close street fighting, the famous Loan street execution (which is militarily legal, by the way)....

Absolutely correct. Police Gen. Loan dispensed summary justice to that VC captain who'd been running around two hours before with his company, no uniforms, sniping the families of Gen. Loan's men in the neighborhood where most of them lived.

The little VC rat-bastard had it coming, and Gen. Loan, in the full discharge of his loyalty to his men whose families had just been terrorized, gave it to him with a hammerless Smith.

Thank you-good post!