the South Vietnamese Armed
             Forces were well aware of the reason why the Communist forces
             launched their attacks at two different dates. Information from
             sources among NVA prisoners of war and ralliers about the new
             calendar of North Vietnam should have been neglected by the
             American side. The information was also available in broadcast
             In military operations, nothing is more important than surprise.
             So the Communist forces lost their advantage of surprise on more
             than half of the objectives. Had the Vietnamese Communists
             conducted their coordinated attacks at the same H-hour, South
             Vietnam would have been in much more troubles.
             The large scale offensive resulted in drastic human and morale
             losses of the Communist forces. However, the offensive caused an
             extreme negative effect in the American public opinion and
             ...