This stands out and should be repeated over and over:
“...No matter what Cronkite said immediately after the Tet Offensive or days later in his New York broadcast, the history 50 years later is conclusive that the massive coordinated attacks by the Viet Cong guerrillas and the North Vietnamese army, though surprising in their magnitude, were not only soundly and convincingly repulsed by U.S. forces and the South Vietnamese army, but actually annihilated in one of the most spectacular military defeats in history. Nevertheless, in part because of Cronkite’s famous broadcast, according to historians and Vietnam veterans, the staggering military defeat proved to be a major propaganda victory for the Communist forces...”
Four years later the Easter Offensive showed that without massive US air support the ARVN couldn’t beat the NVA; I’ll cut the ARVN some slack for the collapse in 1975 because their supplies had been cut off and they were literally running our of ammunition, but 1972 was an eye-opener. Beating the VC soundly in 1968 wasn’t equivalent to beating the NVA; in the conventional war the South basically couldn’t defend itself against the North. The concessions the US granted in return for our withdrawal and release of prisoners doomed the South; we allowed the NVA to remain in the South as part of that agreement. What other outcome was possible?