On January 31st 1968, during the Tet Offensive in Saigon, the capital of Vietnam, a Vietcong soldier was killed on the grounds of the American Embassy. Surrounded by American military police, reporters and embassy staff, the American ambassador stared at the dead body of the Vietcong. In the six hours before he was killed in a counterattack by the American military, 19 Vietcong guerrillas occupied the American Embassy in Saigon.
In the early morning of January 31st 1968, while the Vietnamese people were celebrating Tet, the communist Viet Cong forces launched a series of coordinated surprise attacks across South Vietnam. The American Embassy in Saigon was targeted on that day. The Viet Cong took control of part of the embassy and occupied it for around six hours before being killed or captured. The attack on the embassy shocked the American public, who believed that the US would win the war. The graphic images of the American casualties suffered during the Tet Offensive fanned the anti-war sentiment of the American public, who were tired of the long war. President Johnson, unable to find a solution in Vietnam, announced on March 31, 1968 that he would not seek re-election and would not accept the party's nomination. Until the fall of Saigon to North Vietnam on April 30, 1975, and the departure of the last American from Vietnam, the civil war continued between the north and south.
At 2:47 a.m. on January 31, the Viet Cong opened a small hole in the boundary wall and infiltrated the embassy grounds, firing on the embassy building. A 20-man Viet Cong unit blasted a hole in the wall surrounding the embassy grounds and poured into the courtyard. By 9:00 a.m., the U.S. military declared the embassy secure. The Viet Cong had failed to enter the building. Of the 20 Vietcong who entered the compound, 18 were killed by the fire of military police, marine guards and civilian guards, and the compound was strewn with bodies, with two taken prisoner. One US marine and four US army military police were killed while defending the embassy.
