Outline

Chapter 12: Vietnam War. Bringing the battle field into the American living room.

This is the outline which highlights the beginning of the Vietnam War to the time when Television evolved as a powerful major news medium and how it exposed the brutal bloody immoral horrors of the war and how it was simply not possible for the United States to win the Vietnam war to the American public through their television sets in the comforts of the home. American Viewers went from supporting the war to being completely against it through the images they were showed from the television. In other words, television news helped end the war.

1. American's longest war: 

Early 1950s President Truman initiated the U.S. involvement with Vietnam and sends military troops.
1954 Vietnam was divided into two main territories. The North being controlled by the Communists and the South was pro democracy.
1964 Vietnam being a part of Americans lives.
Congress assured that all U.S. forces in Southeast Asia would be supported.
1965 Johnson sends massive troops to Vietnam.
1967 The number of U.S. troops exceeds 500,000 due to the U.S. being unfamiliar with the warfare practised by their enemy.

2. The most powerful medium in History. The Television.

Mid 1960s, most people started receiving their news from television instead of newspapers.
1972, 2/3s of Americans named the television as their source for major news.
Through 1967, television coverage of the war was favorable to the U.S. policy.

3. Exposing the horrors of the War.

1967 NBC Greg Harris reports from Vietnam in the presence of the troops about the reality of the horrors going on in Vietnam.

4. A Zippo lighter creates a storm.

In 1965, Safer films troops torching a Vietnamese village killing many innocent Vietnamese peasants.
Fred Friendly runs footage through CBS to the anger of President Johnson of many americans.

5. Tet stuns a Nation.

1968, North Vietnamese starts the Tet by sending the Viet Cong suicide squad to the U.S. Embassy in Saigon killing five American soldiers. This was a psychological win for the Viet Cong shocking the American public damaging the American's trust in the Johnson's administartion.

6.The Shot felt around the world: 
Howard Tucker captures film of prisoner being shot in cold blood by a Southern Vietnamese officer,someone who was on the side of the United States. This footage left Americans disillusioned and they realized the truth about the war. Americans attitudes towards the war were starting to change.

7.Exposing the war as unwinnable

Walter Cronkite sets on a mission to Vietnam to uncover the truth. He concludes through the screens of millions of Americans from Vietnam that they were not winning the war. His words had a huge impact. President Johnson announced that he would not be running for reelections a month later and that the United states participation in the war would be greatly decreased.

8. Antiwar Protesters.

By mid 1968, the tet offensive and Walter Cronkite statement made journalists suspicious of government policies and more forgiving towards dissidents.

1970, war protesters became much more aggressive to the point of people losing their lives when they found out that Nixon sent more troops to other parts of Southeast Asia.