Answer:
The correct answer is A, as the statement is true. In 1968 the American people were shocked that an enemy supposedly on the verge of defeat—the Vietcong and the North Vietnamese—could launch such a large-scale attack as the Tet Offensive.
Step-by-step explanation:
During the Tet Offensive, the North Vietnamese Army (NVA) and the Viet Cong (FNL) made a massive invasion of South Vietnam and initially fought back South Vietnamese and US forces. Bloody fighting between the parties raged across the country and cities like Hue, Da Nang, Quang Tri, Dac To, Nha Trang and Saigon were severely affected by the fighting. The fighting in the city of Hue became the bloodiest during the whole war, over 1,500 North Vietnamese soldiers, 500 South Vietnamese, 250 American troops and thousands of civilians were killed during the fighting in Hue. An FNL command even managed to storm the US Embassy's garden in Saigon. The Tet offensive was eventually fought back and the FNL was now for the first time, in a very long time, on the defensive due to the large losses it suffered, and it would take time before the NVA could renew its attack.
Although the US and South Vietnam had won major tactical victories that had crippled the FNL and damaged the NVA, the offensive was a major hardship for the United States. For three years, the US government had stated that North Vietnam and the FNL were weak and disorganized and that they were close to collapse. But the American people now got another picture conveyed via TV. North Vietnam had succeeded in conducting a massive and well-organized attack and inflicting heavy losses on the Americans. This led to a crisis of confidence between the people and the government. It showed that what the government and the military said was wrong. The American people began to lose faith that the war could be won, many began to doubt the moral of waging the war and had begun to tire of the ever-increasing number of dead American soldiers. Many in the military also began to doubt victory after reports of NVA's troop movement and reinforcements, which showed that North Vietnam had massive reserves at hand and could replace their dead troops much easier than the Americans could, after only a few months the NVA was up in that force they were in before the offensive.
Faced with the military's demands for increased troop efforts and ever-increasing political costs, however, President Lyndon B. Johnson stated that he was prepared to start peace talks and that he had no plans to stand for re-election. Johnson could no longer appear in public without being met by an anti-war demonstration. "LBJ, how many kids did you kill today" was heard in demonstrations across the United States. The American losses began to become noticeable, with over 40,000 people having fallen by 1968.
Lyndon B. Johnson was succeeded by Richard Nixon, Eisenhower's vice president, who during the election campaign claimed to have a secret plan to end the war.