I don't think it is really accurate to say the home front collapsed after Tet. It may have among media elitists, but it didn't among what Nixon called the silent majority. A couple of facts bear this out. First, after Tet, we continued to fight in Vietnam for another 5 years. And second, when an election was held on McGovern's 'Peace at Any Price Policy' towards Vietnam, McGovern suffered one of the worst presidential electoral defeats in American history. That is hardly the stuff of a home front collapse.
What actually led to the collapse in support for the South Vietnamese was Watergate. But for Watergate, there probably would still be a South Vietnam
Good point.
It explains why the MSM keeps trying to manufacture scandals to hang around Dubya's neck.
Nah. Granted all the stuff about the press and the left's efforts to impede the war are true. But, realistically, the war was a doomed effort from the beginning for a number of reasons.I will not get into a long treatise on it. But I lived through that period & narrowly avoided the service and being there.
Let me just say this. My father (USMC) commanded a company in Korea and in 1963 was in Nam as an advisor, when our presence was basically just the Marines. He came home and said to me that we were getting into a war that we could not win and would become a huge mess (he said this for a variety of reasons). He knew what he was talking about. He was a true patriot and staunch conservative.