The day passed with no notice of the cancellation, and according to Westmoreland, “I telephoned the American Embassy to find that the South Vietnamese government had provided its press officer with a release but that the press office was shut tight, closed for Tet. To make things worse, most of our army’s combat forces were not deployed in or near big cities.” General Westmoreland was particularly unhappy about President Thieu, who had been informed of security concerns in the northern region and had agreed to cancel the Tet cease-fire there a day earlier. In expectation of the usual Tet truce, half of our armed forces had gone on leave. Vice President Nguyen Cao Ky complained later, “Catastrophe loomed.

A month earlier, the American military command had handed over the security of the nation’s capital entirely to the Vietnamese paramilitary police forces, and Thieu’s authority was necessary to facilitate supporting troop movements from outside. President Nguyen Van Thieu, who was also the commander of Vietnam’s armed forces, was on a Tet holiday with his family and could not be immediately located. Many of the military police primarily responsible for city protection were at home celebrating with their families. Bunker had been in South Vietnam less than a year, and in that time, he had worked closely with Westmoreland and endorsed his views.Īs the 3 million people of Saigon became abruptly aware of the brutal enemy intrusion in their Tet holiday celebrations, there was confusion within the South Vietnamese security ranks. Wearing his bathrobe, he was soon loaded into an armored car and driven to a safe house. He was asleep in his villa four blocks away when his security team rushed into his bedroom and ushered him down to the basement in his pajamas. By telephone, he learned of the spiraling crisis, particularly a fierce attack on the six-story American Embassy at Thong Nhut street several blocks away.Īmbassador Ellsworth Bunker was similarly blindsided by the ferocity of the enemy attacks, particularly the assault on his embassy.

In an address at the National Press Club, he asserted that the Vietcong were “unable to mount a major offensive” and that the point was reached “when the end begins to come into view.” But on this early morning, Westmoreland was stuck, unable to reach his Saigon headquarters as gunfire roared in the street outside. Just nine weeks earlier, the general visited the United States on the orders of President Lyndon Johnson to participate in a “success offensive,” a concerted effort to bolster public support for the war. William Westmoreland, the increasingly confident commander of all American combat forces fighting in Vietnam, was asleep in his comfortable villa at Tran Quy Cap street when attacks began all around his neighborhood. By quietly moving combat troops through the supposedly secure countryside into the heart of Saigon, they were able to strike without warning. Only those in the know - the attacking Vietcong guerrillas and North Vietnamese military forces and their allied clandestine networks in the city - had any idea of what was happening. I wasn’t the only one so rudely awakened in total surprise at around 2:30 that morning. I phoned The Associated Press office, and bureau chief Robert Tuckman answered, his voice high-pitched and excited: “They’re shelling the city, for God’s sake.” I told him I was on my way. As the sounds of exploding grenades and rockets vibrated through the darkness, I bundled my wife Nina and my young children, Elsa and Andrew, and our maid into the bathroom, which I hoped was safer than the rest of our small apartment, and I covered them with mattresses from the beds. Red tracer bullets zipped through the sky and firefights were erupting near the centers of power in South Vietnam’s capital, the presidential palace and the American Embassy. I opened my bedroom window and watched as war came to Saigon from the jungles and paddy fields and peasant villages where it had lingered for years.

31, 1968, near the South Vietnamese presidential palace. service member, upper left, climbs from balcony to balcony while another, helmeted in center foreground, fires into a room during an effort to flush out Viet Cong fighters in a still-under construction hotel in Saigon, Vietnam, Jan.

Vietnam photo police chief