WALTER CRONKITE'S
"WE ARE MIRED IN STALEMATE" BROADCAST,
FEBRUARY 27, 1968
Tonight, back in more familiar surroundings in New York, we'd like to sum up our findings in Vietnam, an analysis that must be
speculative, personal, subjective. Who won and who lost in the great Tet offensive against the cities? I'm not sure. The
Vietcong did not win by a knockout, but neither did we. The referees of history may make it a draw. Another standoff may be
coming in the big battles expected south of the Demilitarized Zone. Khesanh could well fall, with a terrible loss in American
lives, prestige and morale, and this is a tragedy of our stubbornness there; but the bastion no longer is a key to the rest of the
northern regions, and it is doubtful that the American forces can be defeated across the breadth of the DMZ with any
substantial loss of ground. Another standoff.
On the political front, past performance gives no confidence that the Vietnamese
government can cope with its problems, now compounded by the attack on the cities. It may not fall, it may hold on, but it
probably won't show the dynamic qualities demanded of this young nation. Another standoff.
We have been too often disappointed by the optimism of the American leaders, both in Vietnam and Washington, to have faith
any longer in the silver linings they find in the darkest clouds. They may be right, that Hanoi's
winter-spring offensive has been forced by the Communist realization that they could not win the longer war of attrition, and that the Communists hope that any
success in the offensive will improve their position for eventual negotiations. It would improve their position, and it would also
require our realization, that we should have had all along, that any negotiations must be that -- negotiations, not the dictation of
peace terms. For it seems now more certain than ever that the bloody experience of Vietnam is to end in a stalemate.
This
summer's almost certain standoff will either end in real give-and-take negotiations or terrible escalation; and for every means we
have to escalate, the enemy can match us, and that applies to invasion of the North, the use of nuclear weapons, or the mere
commitment of one hundred, or two hundred, or three hundred thousand more American troops to the battle. And with each
escalation, the world comes closer to the brink of cosmic disaster.
To say that we are closer to victory today is to believe, in the face of the evidence, the optimists who have been wrong in the
past. To suggest we are on the edge of defeat is to yield to unreasonable pessimism. To say that we are mired in stalemate
seems the only realistic, yet unsatisfactory, conclusion. On the off chance that military and political analysts are right, in the next
few months we must test the enemy's intentions, in case this is indeed his last big gasp before negotiations. But it is increasingly
clear to this reporter that the only rational way out then will be to negotiate, not as victors, but as an honorable people who
lived up to their pledge to defend democracy, and did the best they could.
This is Walter Cronkite. Good night.