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During the Tet offensive the North Vietnamese and the Viet Cong had lost some of their finest and most capable fighters. However Ho Chi Mingh and the North Vietnamese leadership gambled upon the true dividend of the offensive would be that the US would start to pull out of the Vietnam War. Thus allowing North Vietnam to win. President Johnson tried to prevent North Vietnam from gaining any advantages from the Tet offensive. In the event Johnson's countermeasures failed, more members of the American public stopped supporting the Vietnam War and more wanted the troops home. To some extent President Johnson, the Defense Secretary Robert McNamara and General Westmoreland were responsible for the United States failure to win the Vietnam War by not taking advantage of defeating the Tet offensive. That though is ignoring the sheer determination of the North Vietnamese and Viet Cong to succeed in expelling the American forces whilst reuniting Vietnam under a communist regime. The Soviet Union and China kept them supplied in the hope of inflicting humiliating defeat on the United States, and were not put off from doing so by the failure of the Tet offensive. The Tet offensive was a political defeat grabbed from the jaws of military victory as it seemed to break the Americans will to fight and the succeeding Nixon administration was merely waiting to end the United States involvement with as much pride as possible.
For President Johnson the Tet offensive got 1968 off to a terrible start in political terms even if in military terms events were seemingly more successful. Robert McNamara would resign, as Defense Secretary just after the offensive had been defeated in May 1968. McNamara resigned as he had lost faith in the United States ability to win the Vietnam War. The Tet offensive was metaphorically the last straw that broke McNamara's back, losing him from the government was a public sign that all was not well within the Johnson administration where conducting the Vietnam War was concerned.Although alongside Johnson he had been the man most responsible for building up America's involvement in the Vietnam War in the first place.
McNamara's replacement as Defense Secretary, Clark Clifford was as convinced that the United States should eventually withdraw from Vietnam. Clifford had been advising Johnson upon the conduct of the Vietnam War prior to the Tet offensive and his views about scaling down American involvement in Vietnam were widely known within the Johnson administration. The President therefore chose a more dove like Defense Secretary to replace the previously hard-line McNamara. Surely if Johnson had been convinced that the Americans could win in Vietnam following the successful defeat of the Tet offensive he would have chosen a more war like Defense Secretary.The Vietnam War had shown that there were deep divisions within American society that led to much unrest and massive anti-war demonstrations plus student and racial unrest.