President Lyndon Johnson is briefed on the situation in Vietnam by Gen. William Westmoreland, Ambassador Ellsworth Bunker, and Robert W. Komer, the head of the Civil Operations and Revolutionary Development Support program. They painted an optimistic picture that led Johnson to state on television on November 17 that, while much remained to be done, “We are inflicting greater losses than we’re taking…We are making progress.” Such pronouncements haunted President Johnson and his advisers only two months later, when the communists launched a massive offensive during the Tet New Year holiday in January 1968.
This Day In History: November 13
