Ed Moise has already tackled this one [in a review of] Vo Nguyen Giap and Van Tien Dung, How We Won the War. Philadelphia: Recon Publications, 1976. 63 pp.
This book has been the subject of several unfounded rumors on the Internet. The first one began in the late 1990s. Supposedly, General Giap had written in How We Won the War that in the aftermath of the Tet Offensive of 1968, the Communist leaders in Vietnam had been ready to abandon the war, but that a broadcast by Walter Cronkite, declaring the Tet Offensive a Communist victory, persuaded them to change their minds and fight on. This rumor was entirely false. Giap had not mentioned Cronkite, and had not said the Communists had ever considered giving up on the war.
Several variants of this rumor appeared in 2004. In these, Giap is supposed to have credited either the American anti-war movement in general, or John Kerry's organization (Vietnam Veterans Against the War) in particular, for persuading the Communist leaders to change their minds and not give up on the war. Giap is sometimes said to have made this statement in How We Won the War, sometimes in an unnamed 1985 memoir. All versions of the rumor are false. Neither in How We Won the War, nor in any other book (the 1985 memoir is entirely imaginary), has Giap mentioned Kerry or Vietnam Veterans Against the War, or said that the Communist leaders had ever considered giving up on the war."
http://hnn.us/roundup/archives/16/2004/10/#8232
Of course, even if the Giap quotes are bogus it takes nothing away from the main point: the media helped pull defeat from the jaws of victory.
Anybody got the Thursday August 3, 1995 edition of the Wall Street Journal laying around? An interview with Col. Bui Tin who served on Gen. Giap's general staff was published. Here's a part of the interview (I have not found the entire article).
"Q: Was the American antiwar movement important to Hanoi's victory?
"A: It was essential to our strategy. Support of the war from our rear was completely secure while the American rear was vulnerable. Every day our leadership would listen to world news over the radio at 9 a.m. to follow the growth of the American antiwar movement. Visits to Hanoi by people like Jane Fonda, and former Attorney General Ramsey Clark and ministers gave us confidence that we should hold on in the face of battlefield reverses. We were elated when Jane Fonda, wearing a red Vietnamese dress, said at a press conference that she was ashamed of American actions in the war and that she would struggle along with us."
One site provided this link to other parts of the interview.
Here's one of Col. Bui Tin other comments: "Our forces in the South were nearly wiped out by all the fighting in 1968. It took us until 1971 to re-establish our presence, but we had to use North Vietnamese troops as local guerrillas. If the American forces had not begun to withdraw under Nixon in 1969, they could have punished us severely. We suffered badly in 1969 and 1970 as it was."
Of course this site is not a Eugene McCarthy Democratic Party or John Kerry Rat Party approved source like the esteemed Ed Moise.
This link above was provided by http://newsbusters.org/node/10406.
"What the hell is going on? I thought we were winning this war'
Then, three weeks later, Uncle Walter delivered Giap an unexpected victory when he spoke these words during his 2/27/1968 CBS News broadcast:
"We have been too often disappointed by the optimism of the American leaders, both in Vietnam and in Washington, to have faith any longer in the silver linings they find in the darkest clouds.... To say that we are mired in a stalemate seems the only realistic, yet unsatisfactory, conclusion.... It seems increasingly clear to this reporter that the only rational way out will be to negotiate.'
http://www.americanthinker.com/2006/07/the_ho_chi_minh_trail_to_beiru.html
I have not read the book. I don't know if Gaip or Minh mentioned Kronkite and/or our media. But let's look at the words of Cronkite and the words of our media and Demoratic leaders today.
Also, and I don't know, but it says Jonathan Winkler wrote Did General Giap Say the Vietnam War Was Won on the Streets of America?
So, far, this is all I have found on Jonathan Winkler:
I don't know if it is the same Jonathan Winkler from the University of Maryland who wrote about Gaip. IF it is, he is the one in the middle.
http://www.enme.umd.edu/ceee/personnel/vikrant.html
And: With the Vietcong wiped out in the Tet offensive, North Vietnamese regulars moved south down the Ho Chi Minh trails through Laos and Cambodia to continue the war. Even Giap admitted in his memoirs that news media reporting of the war and the anti-war demonstrations that ensued in America surprised him. Instead of negotiating what he called a conditional surrender, Giap said they would now go the limit because America's resolve was weakening and the possibility of complete victory was within Hanoi's grasp.
http://www.upi.com/inc/view.php?StoryID=20040406-032203-3282r
This is a good one for snopes.