Domestic Pressures
Lack of military success was not the only factor working towards an
end to United States involvement in Vietnam. President Johnson began to
be faced with serious pressure at home to end the war. From 1961 to 1968,
20,000 American troops had been killed in Vietnam and some 1,600 U.S. military
personnel were assumed missing or held prisoner in the North. The United
States had spent over 200 billion dollars on the war.
These figures, and the apparent futility of the war, aroused serious concerns among the American public. Leading politicians and historians questioned the justification for a war that was destroying Vietnam and supporting the South Vietnamese military regime. Student demonstrations against the war expanded. Further impetus was added to the nationwide disagreement by the disastrous effects of the sweeping Vietcong Tet (lunar New Year) offensive on Saigon and other cities in January through February of 1968.
