TABLE OF CONTENTS
Primary Sources
“South Vietnamese Officer Executes a Viet Cong Prisoner” Photograph (1968)
Combat Area Casualties (1998)
Memorandum for the President from Henry Kissinger: “Possible Responses to Enemy Activity in South Vietnam” (1969)
Agenda and Testimony of William Colby (1970)
Quang Nam Province: Phoenix/Phung Hoang Briefing (1970)
About the Author
Fritz Fischer is a Professor of History and Director of History Education at the University of Northern Colorado. He is the 1998 recipient of the College of Arts and Sciences award for outstanding teaching and the recipient of the Mortar Board Outstanding Teacher Award in 2003 and 2006.
The Tet Offensive
Secondary Sources
Ahern, Thomas, Jr., Vietnam Declassified: The CIA and Counterinsurgency. Lexington, KY: University Press of Kentucky, 2010. A history of counterinsurgency in Vietnam from a CIA “insider.”
Allison, William Thomas. The Tet Offensive: A Brief History with Documents. New York: Routledge, 2008. A general overview of Tet with important primary source documents.
Gilbert, Mark Jason and William Head, eds., The Tet Offensive. Westport, CT: Praeger, 1996. An edited collection that examines Tet from a number of different perspectives.
Oberdorfer, Don. Tet! The Turning Point in the Vietnam War. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins UP, 2001. This book presents the strongest argument for Tet as the turning point in the war.
Sheehan, Neil. A Bright Shining Lie: John Paul Vann and Vietnam. New York: Random House, 1988. The now-classic examination of the confusion and frustration facing American counterinsurgency efforts in Vietnam.
Sorely, Lewis. A Better War: The Unexamined Victories and Final Tragedy of America's Last Years in Vietnam New York: Harcourt, 2007. Sorely offers a sympathetic treatment of U.S. policy after Tet, presenting a controversial argument that not only were the years after Tet important, they also provided a model that should have won the war.
Spector, Ronald H. After Tet: The Bloodiest Year in Vietnam. New York: Vintage, 1994. One of the earliest works to examine U.S. policy after the Tet Offensive in any detail.
Willbanks, James. The Tet Offensive: A Concise History. New York: Columbia UP, 2007. A short yet complete and authoritative history of Tet.