There was also the view of Noam Chomsky who was a modern languages professor. He spoke during an interview in 1982. He believed that the U.S didn’t just invade Vietnam to protect the South Vietnamese, but that they were trying to stop S. Vietnam from becoming independent. If it developed a plan to improve itself and have a reasonable economy, then it would completely “under mind American influence in the area”. The U.S.A didn’t want to let go of South Vietnam because it didn’t want a country that was once so dependant on it, not needing the world’s biggest superpower.
Source C is credible because Chomsky was well renowned for his political views in the 60’s and 70’s. He was however an opponent of the war and the interview took place about 18 years later.
There was a lot of opposition to the war in the 60’s and 70’s. The Woodstock festival took place, which was a music festival about peace. A lot of teenagers and college students were in this movement because the wanted to ‘show’ the older generations and disregard authority etc. Nobody had ever acted like this before so it was extremely shocking for the parents etc.
American also invaded Vietnam because of the ‘Domino Theory’. This was Eisenhower’s foreign policy; it was an idea involving the countries of South East Asia. It was thought that of one country fell to Communism then soon, they would all fall. In 1949 China became communist and then so did North Korea and North Vietnam. America was afraid because they didn’t know who would fall next. At the time a man named Diem was ‘in charge’ of South Vietnam. He led a corrupt parliament, taxed the peasants and favoured the Catholics over the Buddhists.
In conclusion, sources A-C are quite limited in the information that they give us. Source B shows LBJ’s worries and doubts, which doesn’t help us to understand why, a part from the indication that there was no turning back, he’d gone this far. Was he simply trying to prove to America that he wasn’t soft on Communism? Source A is him justifying his actions, he’s also giving reasons and an objective unlike source B when he’s being honest and ‘betraying’ the senate. Source C is useful for showing another angle as to why the U.S invaded Vietnam and is from a reliable source but cannot be proved. Sources A and B re more credible because they are both said by the president at the time.
I believe America got involved in the war because they were the backbone of the west. They thought that they could succeed where the French failed.
- Is there sufficient evidence in sources D-M to support the statement that television was an important factor in why the U.S.A lost the War?
Source D shows a N. Vietnam poster pointing out the problems that the Americans faced when fighting a Guerrilla war. It outlines the problem well and highlights how clueless the young American soldiers really were.
The actual effect of the bombing is shown in source E, where there is a little girl covered in napalm. Napalm was a thick jelly like substance that stuck to the skin and for as long as it was in contact with the air, it would burn, all the way down to the bone. This picture was one of the most horrific in the war. It became a poster for anti-war demonstrations, showing that the Americans were indiscriminate.
There was much deliberation over the Vietnam War because it was so publicised and open with the media. The amount of media attention towards the war was remarkable.
Source F also shows the difficulty of fighting a guerrilla war. It points out the simple problem of basic knowledge of the jungle and that the Americans didn’t have any! Also how they weren’t winning any respect by burning down the villages that were suspected to be harbouring Vietcong. The Americans were murdering civilians, dropping hundreds of thousands tonnes of napalm and drowning the jungle in ‘Agent Orange’, a weed killer which destroyed the coarse, thick trees.
American soldiers re-told their tales to newspapers or in television studios. In source G, a solider gave his reactions to the ‘My Lai’ massacre, shooting of innocent South Vietnamese civilians. He believed that because of the gross and persuasive propaganda government had invented, soldiers honestly thought, “they were going to do something courageous on behalf of their country. Soldiers soon made the connection between what they were doing and what German soldiers did in the concentration camps in 1939.
Source H is a cartoon published in 1967 in a magazine called Punch. It shows LBJ destroying a train carriage with an axe. The carriages all say ‘US SOCIETY’. The smoke coming out of the flume says ‘Vietnam’. This shows the brilliant U.S economy pulling behind it, it’s great society. LBJ is sacrificing, all this because he needs pump billions of dollars into the war. This is very important because it shows how LBJ valued the war over the health and education services. This was very well documented in newspapers and through the television.
It could perhaps be argued that because of the media hype and availability of war pictures etc was the cause of the huge movement amongst the younger generation against the war. There were many anti-war demonstrations including one at Kent State University where the police shot 2 students. This was all highly publicised.
Australia was very interested in the war because of the domino theory. In April 1969, 48% of the population troops to continue what they were doing in Vietnam. 6 months later in October, 51% wanted them out. This shows how confused the Australian people were. The press were filming everything and not censoring anything, they didn’t know what to believe. They were being told that they were winning the war but they were seeing things on the television, which contradicted officials.
This also took place in the United States. In August 1967 46% believed that the war was a ‘mistake’. This was the first time in American history that the people didn’t want to continue fighting.
The media also enjoyed pointing out that LBJ had raised taxes to make it possible for the war to carry on. It was costing $20 billion a year. Maybe it’s worth pointing out though, that the opinion poll was taken after the increase.
In the most dramatic incident of the war, the chief of the Saigon police walked up to a suspected VC and shot him. Close range. In the head. This would have been shown around he world, live. This appalling behaviour made the country confused as to why they were defending such a brutal heartless country. It made the civilians back home wonder what was happening on Capital Hill to allow this to happen.
Part one of source L states that ‘The Vietnam War was a media war’. The thousands of journalists prove this. Cameramen and photographers were capturing scenes and the world had never seen anything like it before, there had never been a war that was so publicly dominant. The source is reliable because it was written by a neutral source, as Britain didn’t get involved in the war.
A British historian again wrote the second part of source L, so again it is not biased. Accusations were made toward the press saying that they were ‘sabotaging war efforts’, because the Tet Offensive and Operation Rolling Thunder were horrific and reported over the television.
The third source L is agreeing with part one and two. An American historian who doesn’t seem to be biased wrote it. He concurs that television played a vital and important role but also how it helped the opposition. He also mentions how the government was telling the American people that the war was ‘winding down’. The media proved them wrong night, after night, after night.
The video that we saw made it easier to understand what the television would have seemed to the Americans. Although we saw it 20 years later, it was still very dramatic.
Source D has nothing to do with television whatsoever. It is a poster and doesn’t show any effects that the media had in the Vietnam War, it isn’t relevant to the question, but it does show the problems of Guerrilla war.
Source E, on the other hand, is very relevant. The picture shows ‘the effect of U.S bombing’. There are also cameramen behind her filming. This picture was used in nearly all anti war campaigns.
Sources F and G aren’t really relevant to the question either. They do explicitly re tell what happened in the war but neither mention television.
Source H, is a very good picture for minimal information about LBJ and how he valued the war over his country but, again, not television influenced.
Source J is very beneficial when answering the question. Nobody protested against WW2 because all the massacre and truth was kept hidden away, but because of all the easily accessible pictures etc, it was extremely easy for protesters to find something. All anti war demonstrations were all keep on television as well.
Source K is also to do with television because in history, the country always wanted their men still fighting but because all the Australian’s could see what was happening to their men and to the American soldiers, they were against the war.
Source L is incredibly helpful because all the views are to do with the fact that television had something to do with losing the war. They all agree that it did.
In conclusion, I believe that television did play a role in America losing the war but because of the problems that they faced with Guerrilla warfare anyway, it wasn’t that important. No one in the media wanted to draw attention to them so the kept blaming the fact that it was a Guerrilla war and the Government didn’t want to admit that they had lot a war for the first time so they blamed it on the press. It’s too difficult to say really, but both are just reasons.
