Why did America lose the Vietnam War?

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The war on colour television screens in American living rooms has made Americans far more anti-war than anything else. The full brutality of the combat will be there in close up and in colour, and blood looks very red on the colour television screen”.

(A statement made by a BBC commentator in 1970 to members of the British armed forces)

This statement suggests that television was an important reason why the United States lost the war in Vietnam. Is there sufficient evidence in sources D to L to support this interpretation?

In April 1975 Saigon, the capital of South Vietnam, fell to the Communists, ending 30 years of conflict. The statement made by the BBC commentator suggests that television was a significant reason why America lost the war. Certainly, by 1963 Americans were receiving most of their news from television and during the 1960’s there was a steady increase in the number, size and quality of colour television sets. I will study eight sources and analyse whether they support these claims that television was a significant reason why America lost the war.

Source D is a North Vietnamese poster depicting American soldiers surrounded by unseen guerrillas, tactics regularly used by the North Vietnamese and the Viet Cong against the enemy. I know from my background knowledge that such tactics posed serious problems for the Americans. The aim of guerrilla tactics was to wear down the enemy and destroy their morale. The guerrillas worked in very small groups and with very few weapons. However, they were hard to tell apart from the peasants in the fields because they did not wear uniform. The US soldiers lived in constant fear of ambushes and booby traps. This was a poster produced by the North Vietnamese; and was aimed at persuading the South Vietnamese that guerrilla tactics were effective. It is unlikely that the American public would have seen this poster on the television or in the media elsewhere. This poster therefore indicates that it was the tactics used by the Communists and their refusal to give in to a greater military force, rather than the power of television that lost the war. For these reasons this source does not support the statement above.

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Source E is a photograph published during the Vietnam War and shows children suffering from a Napalm attack. I know that Napalm was a widely used chemical weapon, and used to flush out guerrillas hiding in the jungles. As well as destroying forests, it also burnt through the skin to the bone, and killed many civilians. This photograph in particular became one of the most enduring images of the war. Similar disturbing images would have been beamed back to America, where they would have been seen on television. Such scenes were likely to cause more anti-war feeling in America. This ...

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