By early 1967 the U.S. war effort in South Vietnam was at full stride. The MACV command decided to conduct a massive dual-phase offensive north of Saigon called Operations Cedar Falls–Junction City aimed at entrenched Liberation Front forces. Here troops of Battery C, 2nd Battalion, 32nd Artillery in Tay Ninh province fire their 175mm guns in support of the attack forces on February 22, 1967 (U.S. Army).

On Air Force One, March 20, 1967, en route to the Guam summit LBJ confers with top officials. Richard Helms of the CIA is second from the left. General Maxwell D. Taylor, returned to the White House as a special military adviser, sits behind the president. Behind LBJ’s desk are Robert McNamara; South Vietnamese General Nguyen Duc Thang, chief of Saigon’s pacification program; Dean Rusk; and Walt Rostow (Johnson Library).

Operation Rolling Thunder, the bombing of North Vietnam, became the best-known component of the U.S. air war in Indochina, which actually encompassed huge efforts in many places. Its massive scale is suggested in this photograph, actually of a small strike over Laos—three A-7 Corsairs from the carrier America and an equal number of F-4 Phantoms from the Midway. [Both types carried bomb loads half again as large as those of a World War II B-17.] In Vietnam even a small air strike could be very destructive (U.S. Navy).

In one of the most striking pictures of the Vietnam air war, the destruction of a North Vietnamese MiG-17 interceptor is seen through the gun camera of “Hambone 2,” the F 105 Thunderchief flown by Major Ralph L. Kuster Jr. of the 388th Tactical Fighter Wing. Kuster downed this plane on June 2, 1967, during the period of the intense Rolling Thunder bombing aimed at Haiphong (U.S. Air Force).

Americans captured in North Vietnam or sent there up the Ho Chi Minh Trail were imprisoned at the notorious “Hanoi Hilton.” This photo shows part of what remained of the Hanoi Hilton in 1997, when it was being torn down to make way for the urban development of Hanoi, including an actual Hilton Hotel (author’s collection).

The UH-l helicopter, originally named the Iroquois, became the iconic chopper of Vietnam and the craft referred to by GIs using the colloquialism “slick” for their aerial trucks. UH-ls acquired many roles, including that of gunship, and pioneers in the creation of helicopter battle tactics were the soldiers of the 1st Cavalry Division (Airmobile). One of their most novel units was the 1st Squadron, 9th Cavalry, nicknamed the Headhunters, which combined gunships with scout infantry to find and fix the adversary until heavier units could catch and destroy them. Here a platoon of Headhunters participates in Operation Pershing in May 1967, skimming a plain in Binh Dinh province about thirty miles northeast of An Khe (U.S. Army).

Below the Demilitarized Zone, in 1967 the U.S. installed the defensive system that became known as the McNamara Line. Among its key installations was the strongpoint of Con Thien, 2 miles south of the DMZ, which in the fall became the focus of an extended battle launched by the Vietnam People’s Army. This banner, strung atop the command post at Con Thien by a follow-on unit, the 1st Battalion, 1st Marines, shows the high morale of the Americans. Marines suffered over 1,800 casualties, while North Vietnamese dead were estimated at more than 1,100 (U.S. Marines).

At the western end of the McNamara Line stood the U.S. combat base at Khe Sanh. From here reconnaissance patrols radiated into Indian Country, communications intercept units tracked North Vietnamese movements, and the Americans made a start at deploying the technology for the “electronic battlefield.” The most exposed position at Khe Sanh was the outpost atop Hill 950, a key observation post for surveillance of the entire sector. Supporting Hill 950 remained a difficult task throughout the occupation and the famous siege of Khe Sanh. Here a chaplain offers Mass using as his altar a blanket spread over boxes of C rations (U.S. Marines).

Antiwar demonstration at the Pentagon on October 22, 1967. President Johnson ordered strenuous security efforts to counter this protest. More than any other single event, the Pentagon action set Lyndon B. Johnson on the course that put the U.S. government squarely in confrontation with the American people, narrowing the envelope for presidential initiatives and moving the public toward rejection of the Vietnam war policy (U.S. Army).

The fiercest of the border battles preceding the Tet Offensive was that which erupted in the Central Highlands around Dak To while General Westmoreland was in the United States to play his part in President Johnson’s public relations offensive. Known to U.S. commanders as Operation MacArthur, Dak To featured a series of bloody fights for the surrounding hills. On November 23, 1967, these troopers of the 4th Battalion, 503rd Infantry, 173rd Airborne Brigade move up Hill 875 prior to the final assault. The brigade suffered massive losses in the battle, particularly in the 2/503 (U.S. Army).

In Saigon the Combined Documents Exploitation Center (CDEC) of the Combined Intelligence Center Vietnam provided much of the raw material Washington used for President Johnson’s public relations campaign. This view of CDEC’s office shows the table used to post the “best hits” among recently captured documents. At Dak To the United States recovered documents referring to Hanoi’s Tet offensive plans, yet the evidence was misinterpreted in the months before the attack, as Washington emphasized its claims to winning the war (U.S. Army).

The climax of President Johnson’s victory campaign came at Cam Ranh Bay on December 23, 1967. LBJ tacked a brief “photo op” appearance in South Vietnam onto the Australian trip where he had been so sorely tried by protesters. Here Johnson speaks to American soldiers. On the dais with him are (starting from behind LBJ, to his right) Lieutenant General Stanley R. Larson, William O. Porter, General William C. Westmoreland, Ambassador Ellsworth Bunker, and General Cao Van Vien (National Archives).

The Tet Offensive shattered all the carefully nursed claims to victory. Among its most dramatic events was an attack on the U.S. embassy in Saigon. The small commando unit assigned this mission got into the embassy compound and failed to penetrate the building itself, but the mere fact of the attack stunned both the public and the government. Here Americans of the 716th Military Police Battalion, the morning after the assault, patrol the embassy perimeter (U.S. Army).

South Vietnamese troops in Saigon advance cautiously behind an armored personnel carrier on January 31, 1968, near Bachelor Officers’ Quarters No. 3. Such American personnel billets, poorly defended at best, were not attacked at Tet. It was an important flaw in Hanoi’s planning for Tet that it failed to provide for the actions that would have done most to cripple the MACV and ARVN commands (U.S. Army).

American mechanized troops stand guard as Vietnamese civilians flee from My Tho in the wake of Tet. President Thieu had been at My Tho the night the offensive began. Far more than an event in Saigon, Hue, or at Khe Sanh, Tet proved an upheaval across all of South Vietnam (U.S. Army).

Renowned television reporter Walter Cronkite came to South Vietnam after Tet to see the situation for himself. Outside Hue during the final days of the battle for that city, Cronkite interviews the commander of the 1st Battalion, 1st Marines. Cronkite later broadcast his conclusion that America was not winning in Vietnam. Lyndon Johnson believed that when he lost Cronkite he lost the country (National Archives).