Activity 6, The Press and the Military
Background
The French colonized Indo-China in the mid-nineteenth century. When France was defeated by Germany in 1940, the Japanese moved in to take control. Facing defeat, Japan granted independence to Vietnam under the leadership of the French-educated Bao Dai, who had been crowned emperor in 1925 by the French. Before French troops arrived to accept the surrender of the Japanese army, Ho Chi-Minh, a Marxist, quickly captured Bao Dai and most population centers in Vietnam. He promptly proclaimed the creation of the Independent Democratic Republic of Vietnam. By agreement, the British occupied southern Vietnam and Chinese occupied the northern half. French forces arrived a few months later. Full scale war between the French and the forces loyal to Ho Chi-Minh broke out the following year. The victory of the Chinese Communists in the summer of 1949 greatly increased Ho Chi-Minh's prospects. The Vietnamese Communists eventually won control over the Northern half of Vietnam in 1954. The United States created the Southeast Asia Treaty Organization (SEATO) which was expected to perform the same role as NATO did in Europe. It included Vietnam as an area to be defended in case of attack by a foreign power. Elections were scheduled for 1956 to unify the country, but the new American-backed leaders in South Vietnam refuse to hold them for fear that the communists would win.
As a communist insurgency emerged in the South, President Eisenhower committed technical, financial and military aid to support the South Vietnamese. President John F. Kennedy increased American involvement during the early 1960's by sending 16,000 advisors. After President Kennedy's assassination, President Lyndon Johnson continued to offer support to South Vietnam. In August 1964, in a controversial incident North Vietnamese torpedo boats attacked an American destroyer in the Gulf of Tonkin. Congress passed the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution granting Johnson wide discretion to repel armed attack on U.S. forces. Johnson used this resolution as his rationale for greatly increasing American involvement by sending ground troops and a vast air armada which bombed communist-controlled areas in South Vietnam, as well as selective areas of North Vietnam and Laos. These forces rapidly escalated to 525,000 combat troops in Southeast Asia by 1967. The North Vietnamese and their South Vietnamese allies, the Vietcong, kept pace with the American escalation, and victory over the communists appeared to be elusive. The military conflict occurred in small units engaged in a seemingly endless war of attrition.
In 1967, General Westmoreland, commander of the U.S. forces in South Vietnam, called for further reinforcements. Throughout the year intelligence services reported that American and South Vietnamese forces were grinding down the Vietcong and the North Vietnamese. However, in January 1968, the Vietcong mounted a huge offensive during the Tet holidays. Every major city in South Vietnam was attacked simultaneously and several towns were held for weeks. The communists were finally repulsed, but the scenes of bloody street fighting shown on television convinced many Americans that the war could not be won.
President Johnson announced that he would not seek re-election and began to disengage American forces from the war. His successor, President Richard Nixon turned the responsibility for the war over to the South Vietnamese army and continued withdrawing American forces. By 1973, all American ground forces had been withdrawn. The South Vietnamese held on for two years before the Vietcong and the North Vietnamese army overran the South and unified the country. More than 56,000 American military died in the conflict. Estimates vary for total Vietnamese casualties, but roughly one million Vietnamese died and many more were wounded.
The Press and the Military during the Vietnam Conflict
The Vietnam conflict has been called the "uncensored war." When President Lyndon Johnson decided to escalate American involvement in Vietnam, military planners decided against imposing a compulsory censorship plan. At first military officials encouraged the press to pay attention to the conflict and to buttress public support for American intervention. In the second half of the 1960's correspondents had wide access to military units in the field. A voluntary censorship scheme offered guidelines similar to those implemented during World War II. The majority of journalists reporting on the Vietnam conflict complied with the government's censorship policy, but usually shipped their reports out without prior military screening.
At the beginning of the Vietnam conflict, U.S. forces were few in number and journalists knew little of the local political or military situation. As it was a guerilla war, the battlefield was everywhere, and reporters were permitted to roam freely. The largest number of reporters accredited to the Vietnam War was 637 at the height of the Tet offensive in 1968.
At first most reporting was supportive of the war. As the war progressed, many reporters became effective chroniclers of the incredible horror of the conflict. They developed their own sources, and provided a wide set of perspectives. As the war dragged on, and as it became increasing unpopular in the U.S., reporters began to criticize the war effort. Their major criticism was that the military strategies and tactics followed by the American and Vietnamese governments were failing to defeat the Vietcong and North Vietnamese forces. These reports left their American audience with few illusions about the high costs and muddled objectives of the war.
This war was broadcast into almost every American home via television. While television had crudely covered the Korean Conflict, Vietnam was America's first television war. It was in color, blood and all. It enjoyed enormous media coverage. The turn around time for viewing events was shortened to 24 to 48 hours.
Some American government officials and many military leaders believed that press reports about Vietnam undermined public support for the policies of President Johnson and later those of President Nixon. Specifically, many people believed that television reporting from the battlefield had a negative impact upon home-front morale. Scenes of carnage brought home the brutal reality of war. Subsequent studies have documented that television coverage of Vietnam reflected a critical view of the war only after public opinion had begun to oppose it. News coverage of antiwar demonstrations did not appear to arouse sympathies of the television audience. Regardless of the reality, many military leaders and their civilian supporters became convinced that they could have won the war if home-front opposition had not restricted military action. They blamed unrestricted reporting for turning the public against the war, denying the military the support and tools it needed to win. Although they blame the press for the failure of the U.S. to win the Vietnam War, none of the critics accused it of any serious security breaches. Instead, the press was charged with giving the American people information that enabled them to challenge military and civilian leaders and their policies in Vietnam.
Other observers believed that the "credibility gap" caused by the government's failure to be candid with the public about its policy contributed to the opposition to the war. President Lyndon Johnson for a time tried to hide the extent of the American military buildup and repeatedly cast an optimistic gloss on the military effort and on the ability of the South Vietnamese to govern in the face of on-the-scene reporting showing the opposite. At press conferences, reporters were regularly given inflated estimates of enemy casualties, and inaccurate estimates of South Vietnamese control over particular regions. Many journalists believed that the U.S. political and military leaders often provided information that had been misleading, if not totally false. These statements contradicted their own experiences in the field. In addition, because the Vietnam conflict continued for over a decade, the press established a stronger independent presence with many Vietnamese sources. Later, in an official review, the Army said the press had been more accurate than the government.
After the fall of Saigon in 1975, film-makers began to develop a new genre of films highly critical of the war: patriotic motivation ended, the military hierarchy was no longer portrayed in a positive light, and soldier loyalty disintegrated. These films contributed to the counter-myth that media coverage undermined America's ability to fight a war. These movies undermined the romance of war and replaced it with the image of senseless carnage and random death.
The Lessons of Vietnam
Many lessons were learned from the Vietnam War. In 1975, Congress, believing that its Constitutionally-granted war powers had been circumvented, passed the War Powers Act. This required the President to obtain permission from Congress before committing American forces to another war. Most subsequent presidents resented the War Powers Act, which they believed interfered with their Constitutional right as the Commander-in-Chief of the armed forces.
The American military also learned from the Vietnam experience. The first lesson concerned the composition of the military. The majority of those who served and died during conflict were draftees who had little training or experience in combat. The draft was ended and an all-volunteer military was formed. To attract volunteers, more money was pumped into the military and the armed forces became an appealing career option. The second lesson concerned the tactics used in Vietnam. The military developed a new strategy which stressed initiative, depth of operation, and synchronization of all military forces. New tactics emphasized avoiding battles of attrition and accepting risk, using night and poor-weather operations, attacking the enemy's specific vulnerabilities and keeping a battlefield "fluid" through continuous operations. The enemy was to be kept off balance and forced to move in the desired direction. The new military doctrine opposed gradual military escalation and political bargaining if this limited momentum.
The third lesson learned by the military concerned their relations with the press and media. The nation's war colleges have trained officers to become more media-savvy. Many military leaders concluded that in the future there were two wars that the military needed to win: one against the enemy and one against the press. As one military officer said, "Some people say the media is the enemy but in fact the media is really a battlefield and you have to win on it."
Student Questions
What was the relationship between the press and the military during the Vietnam War?
What role did television play during the war?
Why did some members of the press and media oppose American involvement in the Vietnam conflict?
What were the results of the press and media's opposition to the Vietnam War?
Why were many governmental and military leaders upset with the press and media during the war?
Return to Activity 6.
Go to the Contents page for International Conflict and the Media.
Go to the Bibliography.