This chapter unlike many other previous chapters in Mightier than the sword focuses on how the television news played a main task in changing the public opinions about the Vietnam war and turned the public against the war. Despite the differing opinions of politicians and the media about ending the war, no one could deny that television showed images that were so raw, disturbing and tragic that it cut right into the souls of countless Americans. Something that could not be achieved by print images by any means. The violent brutal massacre were portrayed in such vividness that everything else including politics and strategy was sidelined and ignored by the public. Americans only had one thing on their minds, the Vietnam war was wrong. The Vietnam war was also America's longest war. In an attempt to prevent Vietnam into following the footsteps of communist China, President and the others who came after him in the white house began the war. In 1954, Vietnam was divided into two territories. The North was ruled by Ho Chi Minh's communist government and the South was revolved around Saigon, which was pro democracy. In 1965, President Johnson sent the first GIs into Vietnam which rapidly increased 175,000 by the end of the year. Despite having superior military equipment, the Americans soldiers were clueless about the different technique of warfare used by rebel Viet Cong also known as the guerrilla fighters. Familiar with their own territories, the guerrilla fighters were able to disappear into jungles and managed to avoid their enemy, the Americans. Johnson was not giving up anytime soon and by 1967, the U.S. troops increased to a startling number of 500,000. Eventually the United States paid a severely high price with the deaths of more than 58,000 American soldiers killed in the war.
As the Vietnam war continued over time, more Americans used the television as their news source. Even President Johnson developed an obsession with the television news during that time. Through 1967, television coverage of the Vietnam War was in favor to the U.S. policy. With NBC Greg Harris reporting the war in the favor of America and narrating the weakness of the Viet Cong. However after the Tet Offensive in 1968, all that would change and television took on a critical role of portraying the war.
Things took a rapid turn of change when American viewers were disturbed and disgusted at the inhuman and heartless behavior of American soldiers when they torched an entire Vietnamese village simply by pulling out a Zippo cigarette lighter. The Tet incident shocked the nation when a Viet Cong suicide squad attacked the U.S. Embassy in Saigon murdering five American GIs. It was a psychological win for the Viet Cong. This destroyed the trust people had in the Johnson's administration in the past. The television news such as CBS and NBC aggressively aired programs on the tet showing graphic and brutal bloodbath of GIs . This only confirmed that the United States was being defeated in the war despite what people in the office were saying.
Not long after, the American people watched in horror how one of the their "people",someone who was supposed to be fighting on their side, a Southern Vietnamese officer, point a gun at an untried prisoner and murdered him in cold blood. All through their television screens. One of the people who witnessed this horrific image through his television screen was CBS news anchor Walter Cronkite. A man of great influence and reputation. Cronkite was outraged and determined to uncover the truth about what was really going on in Vietnam. Were they winning the war or no? The entire country was confused and needed an answer. By the third week of the Tet offensive, Cronkite was in Southeast Asia.Eventually Cronkite declared through television screens that neither the Americans nor the Vietnamese were winning the war. He ended his statement with the conclusion that America was losing a war for the first time in 20 years and that continuing it was pointless and that they should negotiate peace with Vietnam and exit the country.
His words carried a huge amount of weight and eventually Johnson declared that he would not run for reelection and that the U.S. involvement with the war would be greatly reduced. What was clear in these events was that after that coverage changed greatly and comments about the war ran greatly against the U.S. policy compared to the time when it ran for the policy before January 1968.
In November 1969, Seymour Hash revealed the Mai Lai massacre with American soldiers destroying a Vietnamese village murdering countless innocent people with Lieutenant William Calley being persecuted of murder,which was a grave blow to the U.S. military. And what followed after was the revelation of the Pengaton Papers by the Washington Post and The New York Times. It revealed to the public how the American military action was fueled mainly by political gain and nothing else.
These events left Americans disillusioned and demonstrations against the U.S. involvement in Vietnam increased rapidly. Taking advantage of television as an effective medium, the protesters played to their advantage with the cameras. The antiwar movement were translated into vivid images on television screens and CBS was even referred to as the Communist Broadcasting system. In the beginning, anti war protesters were treated with contempt and seen as traitors but by the mid 1968, Robert F. Kennedy and Eugene McCarthy intertwined the protests with their political stage. Images of protesters being beaten by police made journalists less harsh on these dissidents. By the fall of 1968, the Anti War Moratorium proposed their hope for peace which appealed to many American people especially conscience wise. The mindset and hearts of Americans had changed and the public was finally willing to voice their opposing thoughts regarding the war and unwillingness to continue it despite supporting it for way too long. The television coverage in Vietnam had played a crucial role in bringing the war to and end.
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