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? Use the sources and knowledge from your studies to explain your a

“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 a 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? Use the sources and knowledge from your studies to explain your answer.

In the late 1960’s colour television became popular and part of most households and most American families had one. This coincided with the Vietnam war and as a result this war became famous for being the first televised war. As channels were very limited with there being only two or three channels, the Vietnam War was one of the only things available to watch on television. This made America more anti war than anything else as television being relatively new was uncensored so the Americans at home saw the Americans at war change tactics and start using more violent methods such as Napalm bombs- a type of flame thrower or fire bomb, and Agent Orange- a deadly chemical cocktail used as a defoliant to kill the rainforests and destroy the Vietcong’s hiding places.

Source D is a propaganda poster showing the Guerrilla warfare. It shows the Americans looking for the Vietnamese in the dense rainforest. The fighting conditions weren’t conditions the American soldiers were used to. The rainforests were hot and humid and the extreme climate difference compared to the USA was a huge struggle for soldiers to adjust to. Source D also shows the Vietcong hiding in the rainforest as the American soldiers try to search for them. The Vietcong were very skilled at hiding and blending into their surroundings. This was because they did not have a uniform so they could dress in civilian clothes and this would make the Americans confused to whether they were soldiers or civilians. They also had a main tactic: “the enemy attack, we retreat, the enemy camp we raid. The enemy tire, we attack, the enemy retreat we pursue.” This meant when the USA attacked the Vietcong would retreat and hide in the rainforest. Then at night the Vietcong would raid the American bases. Then the USA would spend days searching for them, and when they were exhausted the Vietcong would attack and pursue as the Americans retreated. This would not have led to viewings on television because the cameras would not have been able to get into the forests and watch the fighting. However it did lead to a change in tactics to the Americans using napalm and the defoliant, Agent Orange.

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Source E is a picture of two girls running away from a napalm attack. It shows the American soldiers running after them and filming them. The girls’ clothes and skin were horrendously burnt by the weapon. This picture was one of the most famous images to do with the Vietnam War. It is also one of the main reasons why the USA lost most of their support in the war. This is because originally the USA had been helping South Vietnam protect their half of the country from communism by making it difficult for the Vietcong to gain support from South Vietnamese peasants. They had helped the South Vietnamese fight against the North by adopting their guerrilla tactics. The USA changed tactics because the guerrilla tactics were failing as the Vietnamese were used to the lay of the land and the climate and they decided to use chemicals to defoliate the forests. This lost both American and Vietnamese support because napalm burnt thousands of innocent civilians including children and was also viewed on television by millions of Americans. Another tactic that was used was Agent Orange, a chemical defoliant. This was used to strip the forests, so the Vietcong would have no hiding places. However this backfired badly as the chemical destroyed the natural habitat of various animals and also got into the water supply. The napalm and the Agent Orange would have been seen on television and linked to the loss of the war as the defoliation and burns on people’s bodies would have been viewed by millions on the television.

Source F is an American view of the difficulties of fighting guerrillas. This source is a piece of writing by Richard Hamer, an American journalist, writing in 1970. This source is talking about the dilemma faced by the American soldiers. It describes what the soldiers witnessed as it describes walking down the road and there being dead men and people screaming with limbs blown off. At the beginning of the piece it is quite sympathetic as it describes the dilemma faced as the soldiers have to decide whether to kill one peasant or none as they will not be able to find out who threw the mortar. However it is anti war as it says; “one does not use napalm on villages and hamlets sheltering civilians...if one is attempting to persuade these people of the righteousness of one’s cause”; which shows that Hamer is against the American soldiers’ tactics. The tone he uses is quite patronising and mocking showing that he disagrees and thinks that their tactics are illogical, because they are trying to show that their cause is right by blowing up villages and injuring innocent civilians. I do not think that this would have linked to television helping America lose the Vietnam War as this is a piece of writing, and would have not been seen by millions of people on a screen.

Source G is the reactions in 1968 of an American soldier after having just been told about the massacre of 347 unarmed civilians at My Lai. It shows that even the soldiers were against the tactics used. This is because he says most of the soldiers had never been away from service before and went to Vietnam because they thought they were doing something courageous for their country, not slaughtering innocent people. They thought it was a Nazi thing slaughtering all those people who were innocent. This would have maybe contributed to television losing the war for America if it got shown as an interview on television. It may not have been shown on television so may not have helped contribute to television losing the war. But i think it would have contributed to Vietnam losing the war in general if news of this got out.

Source H is a cartoon published in the British magazine Punch in 1967. It shows the effects of President Johnson’s war policy on the “Great Society”-his vision to “feed and shelter the homeless...to provide more education and medical care. This cartoon shows a picture of some poor skinny men breaking the planks the train carriages as they have “great society” written on them and feeding them into the fire to feed the train. The train is called US economy. Coming out of the steam on the train is the word Vietnam. This shows that the US economy was feeding the money for the great society into Vietnam, to provide funds for the war. The money got fed into Vietnam because President Truman had promised to put funds into the war and promised America’s commitment, so they couldn’t back out. This would have contributed to America’s loss of the war, because plenty of people needed the money from the great society policy to improve their lives, but they had to go without because of the war. This would have made them resent the war and only see its negative and not its positives. This does not show television as being particularly useful in the loss of the war because this is a comic piece and has nothing to do with television.

Source J is a photograph from an American school book showing anti war demonstrations at Kent State University in 1970. This anti war demonstration was held on the 4th May 1970 against the Vietnam War and the National Guard. At noon that day there were 13 seconds of gunshots made by 28 Ohio National Guardsmen. It left four students dead, one permanently paralyzed, and eight others wounded. Although this is in a school textbook at the time this incident would have been shown on TV to millions of people, as would the after effects. It would have shown people what the war had reduced people to, therefore making them anti war. This shows that television had an impact on America’s loss in the war because millions of people could have been turned against the war by this being shown on television so therefore contributed to the loss of the war.

Source K is the results of public opinion polls asking if the Australian public wanted the wars to continue, or if the wanted their forces to be brought back home. This poll shows that in early 1969 almost half the population wanted the soldiers to carry on fighting. This number was reduced to 39 percent in October 1969, showing that the public were starting to disagree with the war and then in October 1970, 42 percent of Australians wanted the soldiers to carry on. This shows that although in April 1969 the majority of Australians wanted the troops to carry on fighting by October not a lot of people wanted the war to carry on and although a year later more people wanted the war to carry on half the population still wanted it to end. This shows that television had an impact on the public’s opinion because they wouldn’t have been able to form a decision, if they hadn’t of viewed the war on television.

In conclusion, although television wasn’t a huge issue in the sources, as the majority of them were for none televised Medias, it played an important part in helping America lose the Vietnam War. This is because millions of people saw the true horrors of the war, such as the napalm attacks. This would have lead to massive outrage about the Vietnam War in many countries. The fact television was widely uncensored, would not have helped as Americans would have seen more bloodshed, then in the modern current day. Therefore television was very important, but so were none televised Medias, as they helped weight America’s anti war attitude by being accessed by the few people who did not own a television.

Holly-Maria Crompton