On December 22,1961 the first American serviceman was killed in Saigon and by April 1969 a staggering 543,000 US troops occupied South Vietnam with field commanders asking for even more men to help win the fight. By the time 1975 rolled around 58,000 American troops had been sent home in body bags, and television news correspondents had delivered the terrible reality of war to western living rooms with an authenticity never seen before or since. The aim of this paper will be to highlight the roll that mass media, and in particular television played during the Vietnam War.
What we know for certain is that television coverage of war after Vietnam has never be the same. This was the last war were correspondents and their crews were free to report on stories they felt needed to be covered and they were not limited to reporting from a hotel roof miles from the action like was the case during the Gulf War in the 90’s.
To gain accreditation with the US military all a reporter had to do was present a letter of introduction from any media out let such as a local TV station. This entitled crews to seats on any aircraft anywhere in the war zone. Greatly expanding the range of story possibilities for a news crew to report on. Soldiers of all ranks from privates to generals could be interviewed if they agreed, with out supervision and uncensored right in the middle of a battlefield. “Battlefield reverses, tactical blunders, casualties: all were screened on TV and burned into the American soul” (Tony Maniaty, pg 92) These were the images that Americans back home wanted to see “American boys in action”.
By 1965 the big three US news networks CBS, NBC, and ABC had established experienced well staffed TV correspondents and cameramen in Saigon. The news teams made their own decisions not only about what to film but also how to shape the story based on their own news judgments. The majority of reporters in Vietnam did their best to tell all sides of the story. Cameras had limited time-range to shoot a story, some times as short as three minutes for a hand held. Footage had to be fast and relevant to the story. One of the biggest advantages that news crews had while working in Vietnam was there were no processing facilities in Saigon. Footage had to be sent to Bangkok, Tokyo, or New York, usually arriving a day or two after it was filmed. Producers had no real idea what they were getting and they had no ability to re-direct crews to shoot the story again from different angles or locations. The footage was sometimes up to a week old, but it told a story that viewers could understand and empathize with. Because there was also no limitations on what was ok to show in a war segment correspondents often included close-ups of the dead.
In August 1965 CBS aired a report by Morley Safer, which showed Marines lighting the thatched roofs of the village of Cam Ne with Zippo lighters and included commentary on the treatment of the villagers. “This story could never have passed the censorship of World War II or Korea, and it generated an angry reaction from Lyndon Johnson.”(Daniel Hallin) Reporters did not consider their role in the war as that of government advocate. Before 1968 much of the coverage surrounding the war had been filmed from military bases or the occasional remote location, but much of the war being fought was hard to get to.
It wasn’t until in 1968 during the Tet offensive when the war moved in to the Vietnamese cities and camera crew access was easier that viewers of NBC watched a report featuring Col. Nguyen Ngoc Loan blow out the brains of his captive in a Saigon street. Before this point a bit less then a quarter of film reports from Vietnam showed images of the dead or wounded with most of the images not being very graphic. “Network concerns about audience sensibilities combined with the inaccessibility of much of the worst of the suffering to keep a good deal of the “horror of war” off the screen. The violence in news reports often involved little more than puffs of smoke in the distance, as aircrafts bombed the unseen enemy. Only during the 1968 Tet and 1972 spring offensives, when the war came into urban areas, did its suffering and destruction appear with any regularity on TV.
It was around this time that America began to say enough is enough, end this war! As the war continued groups of American men, and women mostly around college age but some even older protested in groups around the country. Sadly like water on a duck their voices went unheard, being dismissed and labeled as communist supporters. Peaceful protesting wasn’t working; it was time to amp it up. With the increasing air attacks on North Vietnam and the dispatching of additional troops to South Vietnam brought about small protests often on college campuses. “ One of the most popular antiwar activities on college campuses for instance was the teach-in, which began in March 1965 on the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor.” (Margaret Blanchard pg.370) While protests of this kind did gain small amounts of attention by the media demonstrators of the war fairly quickly decided that calm and peaceful was not gaining the attention necessary to bring about change. Picket lines holding signs no longer gained a spot on the evening news. It now took tear gas and bloodied heads to make the headlines in 1968. Young men publicly burned their draft cards, demonstrations carried Vietcong flags, and others desecrated US flags. These actions for a while brought the desired attention of the media.
Protests escalated in 1967, as did the news coverage. Historian Melvin Small explains, “The media concentrated on the violent and sensational, seeking out the most colorful sound bites or photographs, and virtually ignoring the peaceful aspects of the largest Washington antiwar protest to date” News Coverage of the Tet Offensive in 1968 brought problems for the media and the antiwar movement. When coverage of the battle showed that even the grounds of the US Embassy in Saigon were no longer safe reporters began to reevaluate their stances on the war. Polls taken back in America had begun to show that a large portion of citizens believed that even entering the war had been a mistake; information about Tet further convinced the nation. The most powerful statement made at the time came form CBS Evening News anchor Walter Cronkite who upon returning from South Vietnam used time on his news show to call for and end to the fighting.
“It seems now more certain than ever that the bloody experience of Vietnam is to end in a stalemate. 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”. (Walter Cronkite)
To Cronkite the answer was clean “the only rational way out then will be to negotiate, not as victors but as honorable people who lived up to their pledge to defend democracy, and did the best they could”. After president Johnson heard Cronkite’s statement, he knew that support for the war among the people was lost. President Johnson when on record less then a month later to announce his decision not to run for reelection, and to spend the remaining time in office seeking peace in Vietnam. Radical activists still gained the most attention by the news media but more and more mainstream white caller Americans were joining the protest movement. “Protest became an increasingly legitimate story to cover. And the governments pronouncements no longer were accepted uncritically” (Blanchard pg.371)
One other major event happened before the war finally came to an end in 1975 that I feel helped shape news reporting. On Wednesday August 28, 1968 in downtown Chicago, during the Democratic National Convention (DNC), around 10,000 protesters and observers began what started out as a peaceful protest outside the DNC. According to some estimates, police outnumbered the demonstrators by as least three to one. As tensions raised encounters between demonstrators and police occurred, becoming more and more brutal with police using clubs and tear gas to subdue the crowds. Demonstrators started out unarmed but as the police increased their force protesters equipped themselves with bricks and stones. Before long news crews covering the DNC moved outside and began filming the events taking place between Chicago police and the public. Police began targeting every one in the crowd rather then just troublemakers. Hippies, and clean-cut demonstrators, young and old, black and white male or female were all targets of police action.
Journalists also were the targets of police brutality. Reporters that identified themselves as such were beaten just a freely. Police would take away the cameras and smash them, taking out there frustrations on the journalists who they assumed were spurring the protesters to greater feats of violence and would later report on the events giving Chicago a bad name. Correspondents on location said, “Police had removed their badges, name tags, and other identifying information before jumping in to the fights”. The media was shocked at the events that took place in Chicago and of course reported to their audience of their concerns. “Perhaps even more than the Tet offensive, the confrontation in Chicago radicalized the US news media and pushed them into the arms of the antiestablishment demonstrators”. (Blanchard pg.372) The obvious purpose was to discourage or prevent reporting of an important confrontation between police and demonstrators that America as a whole has a right to know about.
In time America opened their eyes and realized that the war was no longer worth it, and when the last American troops boarded planes back to the states the government also realized something. They realized the role that media coverage had played in this war and they realized that once the media no longer mimics the views and opinions of the leaders the public would loose support for the cause and no war could be won like that. So the government got together and came up with a list of rules that would be implemented during the next war America engaged in. These rules were as follows
“The following information should not be reported because its publication or broadcast could jeopardize operations and endanger lives. RULE 1. For U.S. or coalition units, specific numerical information on troop strength, aircraft, weapons systems, on-hand equipment, or supplies (e.g., artillery, tanks, radars, missiles, trucks, water), including amounts of ammunition or fuel moved by or on hand in support of combat units. Unit size may be described in general terms such as ‘company size, ‘ ‘multi battalion,’ ‘multi division,’ ‘naval task force,’ and ‘carrier battle group.’ Number or amount of equipment and supplies may be described in general terms such as ‘large,’ ‘small,’ ‘many.’ RULE 2: Any information that reveals details of future plans, operations, or strikes, including postponed or cancelled operations. RULE 3. Information, photography, and imagery that would reveal the specific location of military forces or show the level of security at military installations or encampments. Locations may be described as follows: all Navy embark stories can identify the ship upon which embarked as a dateline and will state that the report is coming from the ‘Persian Gulf,’ ‘Red Sea,’ or ‘North Arabian Sea.’ Stories written in Saudi Arabia may be datelined ‘Eastern Saudi Arabia,’ ‘Near the Kuwaiti border,’ etc. For specific countries outside Saudi Arabia, stories will state that the report is coming from the Persian Gulf region unless that country has acknowledged its participation. Rule 4. Rules of engagement details. Rules of engagement in Vietnam were ill defined. Anyone on the ground who ran was a Viet Cong. Anyone in what was identified as enemy controlled territory was the enemy. Free-fire zones permitted unrestricted artillery and mortar fire as well as strafing runs by helicopter machine gunners RULE 5. Information on intelligence collection activities, including targets, methods, and results. RULE 6. During an operation, specific information on friendly troop movements, tactical deployments, and depositions that would jeopardize operational security or lives. This would include unit designations, names of operations, and size of friendly forces involved, until released by CENTCOM. The war in Vietnam was not as technically advanced as the Gulf War. Military communication was by wire and radio. Pictures from the battlefield often took 48 hours to reach the American public. And the enemy’s communication equipment was unsophisticated. Instantaneous communications of the sort available during the Gulf War, media or military, were not available during the Vietnam era. RULE 7. Identification of mission aircraft points of origin, other than as land- or carrier-based. RULE 8. Information on the effectiveness or ineffectiveness of enemy camouflage, cover, deception, targeting, direct and indirect fire, intelligence collection, or security measures. RULE 9. Specific identifying information on missing or downed aircraft or ships while search and rescue operations are planned or underway. RULE 10. Special operations forces’ methods, unique equipment, or tactics. RULE 11. Specific operating methods and tactics, (e.g., air angles or attack or speed, or naval tactics and evasive maneuvers). General terms such as ‘low’ or ‘fast’ may be used. RULE 12. Information on operational or support vulnerabilities that could be used against U.S. forces, such as details of major battle damage or major personnel losses of specific U.S. or coalition units, until such information no longer provides tactical advantage to the enemy or is released by CENTCOM. Damages and casualties may be described as “light,” “moderate,” or “heavy.”
One of the most disturbing aspects of media coverage of the Vietnam war was the weekly body count Network anchors reported that week’s score of killed, wounded, and missing. The “missing” figure was for allied troops only.”
Oddly the list implemented after the Vietnam War does not describe those things that should be reported and anti-war activities are not mentioned. The rules serve to prohibit that which was considered so damaging in Vietnam coverage, summarized as “television . . . pictures of dead Americans in that strange place”
Had this list of war corresponding rules been presented to the 400 plus accredited journalists in Vietnam and had those journalists followed the instructions, television coverage of that war would have been very different. In my opinion it was the freedom of the media that shaped the war and the events laid in history.