On January 30, 1968, Vietnamese Communists launched major offensives against cities and U.S. strongholds throughout the South. The Tet Offensive, as it was called, dealt a major blow to public support for the Vietnam War and Johnson’s administration. A week after Tet, Senator Robert Kennedy delivered an impassioned antiwar speech in Chicago. Already a vocal critic of Johnson’s handling of the war, Kennedy would announce his presidential candidacy a month later, a direct challenge to the sitting president.

There is an American interest in South Vietnam. We have an interest in maintaining the strength of our commitments—and surely we have demonstrated that. With all the lives and resources we have poured into Vietnam, is there anyone to argue that a government with any support from its people, with any competence to rule, with any determination to defend itself, would not long ago have been victorious over any insurgent movement, however assisted from outside its borders?

And we have another, more immediate interest: to protect the lives of our gallant young men and to conserve American resources. But we do not have an interest in the survival of a privileged class, growing ever more wealthy from the corruption of war, which after all our sacrifices on their behalf can ask why Vietnamese boys have to fight for Americans.

The fifth illusion is that this war can be settled in our own way and in our own time on our own terms. Such a settlement is the privilege of the triumphant, of those who crush their enemies in battle or wear away their will to fight. We simply have not done this, nor is there any prospect we will achieve such a victory.

For twenty years, first the French and then the United States have been predicting victory in Vietnam. In 1961 and in 1962, as well as 1966 and 1967, we have been told that “the tide is turning”; “there is ‘light at the end of the tunnel’”; “we can soon bring home the troops—victory is near—the enemy is tiring.” Once, in 1962, I participated in such predictions myself. But for twenty years we have been wrong.

The history of conflict among nations does not record another such lengthy and consistent chronicle of error as we have shown in Vietnam. It is time to discard so proven a fallacy and face the reality that a military victory is not in sight and that it probably will never come.

Unable to defeat our enemy or break his will—at least without a huge, long, and ever more costly effort—we must actively seek a peaceful settlement. We can no longer harden our terms every time Hanoi indicates it may be prepared to negotiate; and we must be willing to foresee a settlement which will give the Viet Cong and the National Liberation Front a chance to participate in the political life of the country. Not because we want them to but because that is the only way in which this struggle can be settled.

No one knows if negotiations will bring a peaceful settlement, but we do know there will be no peaceful settlement without negotiations. Nor can we have these negotiations just on our own terms. Again, we might like that. We may have to make concessions and take risks, and surely we will have to negotiate directly with the NLF as well as Hanoi. Surely it is only another illusion that still denies this basic necessity. What we must not do is confuse the prestige staked on a particular policy with the interest of the United States; nor should we be unwilling to take risks for peace when we are willing to risk so many lives in war.

Source: Chicago Sun-Times, February 11, 1968.