Investigation - 1341 words
The Vietnam War (1955 - 1975) was nicknamed the "living-room war" due to its televised nature, which allowed the American public to form opinions on American involvement in the Vietnam War. The official reason for the US’s withdrawal from the Vietnam War, according to the Paris Peace Accords, was to “reunify” the country “peacefully” - or as then-president Richard Nixon stated - to achieve “Peace with Honor.” However, it is widely agreed among historians that the US’s withdrawal from Vietnam was one of the largest failures of the American Government, though there is debate on the real reason for this withdrawal. Revisionist historians argue that it was the flawed policymaking of containing communist expansionism …show more content…
From another perspective, some historians have argued that it was not the US foreign policy, but rather their “tactical defeat” against the Guerilla Tactics of the Viet Cong that incurred heavy losses for the US, causing their withdrawal from the Vietnam War. However, the most common consensus is that the root factor that pressured the US to withdraw from the Vietnam War was the US media as it exposed the public to the horrors of the war, gave a platform to dissenting opinions against the Government, and “heavily exaggerated” the US’s defeats against the Vietnam War. This investigation aims to assess the extent to which the US Media Coverage in the 1960s and 70s pressured the US Government to withdraw from the Vietnam War, as compared to the Government’s “flawed policymaking” and their “inability” to adapt to …show more content…
Historian Steve Michael Barkin emphasizes that “the Vietnam War and Television were inseparable.Exposing the US’s brutality in Vietnam.” One such example is in NYTimes journalist Jack Langguth’s report on the bombing of Quang Ngai in 1966, which revealed that “3 out of 4” people seeking treatment from Napalm Burns were “Village Women”, not Vietcong soldiers as the government had claimed. This exposure to the brutality of the US’s campaign in Vietnam caused mass moral indignation against the war. Subsequently, this led to protests such as the Sequoia High Schools campaign (With 1200 boycotters) against manufacturers of napalm such as Dow Chemical. Consequently, the Government was pressured to limit its use of Napalm in Vietnam, with strikes decreasing by 455% between 1969 and 1973. An alternate perspective, offered by historians like John Lewis Gaddis, is that there was a pre-existing opposition to the US’s involvement in Vietnam before its extensive media coverage began in 1965. On the contrary, he argues that the main cause of public opposition to the war was the rise of the Hippie Movement in the early 1960s. However, even if there was a pre-existing public opposition before the media coverage, the decrease in the war’s approval rating from 71% to 35% between 1967 and 1971 evidences how the US media, at the very least, exacerbated this
The Vietnam War (1955 - 1975) was nicknamed the "living-room war" due to its televised nature, which allowed the American public to form opinions on American involvement in the Vietnam War. The official reason for the US’s withdrawal from the Vietnam War, according to the Paris Peace Accords, was to “reunify” the country “peacefully” - or as then-president Richard Nixon stated - to achieve “Peace with Honor.” However, it is widely agreed among historians that the US’s withdrawal from Vietnam was one of the largest failures of the American Government, though there is debate on the real reason for this withdrawal. Revisionist historians argue that it was the flawed policymaking of containing communist expansionism …show more content…
From another perspective, some historians have argued that it was not the US foreign policy, but rather their “tactical defeat” against the Guerilla Tactics of the Viet Cong that incurred heavy losses for the US, causing their withdrawal from the Vietnam War. However, the most common consensus is that the root factor that pressured the US to withdraw from the Vietnam War was the US media as it exposed the public to the horrors of the war, gave a platform to dissenting opinions against the Government, and “heavily exaggerated” the US’s defeats against the Vietnam War. This investigation aims to assess the extent to which the US Media Coverage in the 1960s and 70s pressured the US Government to withdraw from the Vietnam War, as compared to the Government’s “flawed policymaking” and their “inability” to adapt to …show more content…
Historian Steve Michael Barkin emphasizes that “the Vietnam War and Television were inseparable.Exposing the US’s brutality in Vietnam.” One such example is in NYTimes journalist Jack Langguth’s report on the bombing of Quang Ngai in 1966, which revealed that “3 out of 4” people seeking treatment from Napalm Burns were “Village Women”, not Vietcong soldiers as the government had claimed. This exposure to the brutality of the US’s campaign in Vietnam caused mass moral indignation against the war. Subsequently, this led to protests such as the Sequoia High Schools campaign (With 1200 boycotters) against manufacturers of napalm such as Dow Chemical. Consequently, the Government was pressured to limit its use of Napalm in Vietnam, with strikes decreasing by 455% between 1969 and 1973. An alternate perspective, offered by historians like John Lewis Gaddis, is that there was a pre-existing opposition to the US’s involvement in Vietnam before its extensive media coverage began in 1965. On the contrary, he argues that the main cause of public opposition to the war was the rise of the Hippie Movement in the early 1960s. However, even if there was a pre-existing public opposition before the media coverage, the decrease in the war’s approval rating from 71% to 35% between 1967 and 1971 evidences how the US media, at the very least, exacerbated this