My Lai Massacre Research Paper

As the Vietnam War continued, the North Vietnamese reported on the public opinion in the United States. Specifically the American public’s reaction to any massacre of innocent civilians. After careful research they saw the Americans showing sympathy. Vietnamese then began to orchestrate a program to denigrate the U.S. military. They showed this by saying that the killing of the innocents was not accidental but a policy deliberately fostered by the U.S. High Command in Vietnam. General William Westmoreland was one such person singled out by the

The media’s portrayal of the war was genuinely positive during the beginning of the war. During the early years news coverage was mainly in 3 minute ‘newsbites’ (Shah, 2003) and focused on military operations and political policy (Hallin, 1986). These short segements would later increase in air time as the war gained more public attention. Journalists quickly flooded to Saigon to report on what would become the most heavily reported event of the time. Reporters had been granted full access to troops and fighting (Kenneth,

Consider the way that textbooks depict the My Lai Massacre, a standout amongst the most notorious occasions of the Vietnam War, amid which American soldiers killed unarmed Vietnamese ladies and kids. To the degree that textbooks say the slaughter, they regard it as a detached occurrence—notwithstanding the impressive confirmation that My Lai is demonstrative of "wrongdoings submitted on an everyday premise with the full attention to officers at all levels of command." Besides, course books never cite from the adversaries of Vietnamese mediation, including Martin Luther King, Jr.— without a doubt, the main individuals whom textbooks consistently cite on Vietnam are Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger, two of the draftsmen of the war.

The investigation assesses the media coverage of the Tet Offensive and its impact on American policy concerning the Vietnam War from 1968 until 1969. The investigation evaluates the contrast between media broadcasts and government reports of the war, the effect of the media on the American public, and the effect of American public opinion on President Lyndon B. Johnson’s course of action. Two of the sources, Vietnam and America: A Documented History by Marvin E. Gettleman, Jane Franklin, Marilyn Young, and H. Bruce Franklin, and The “Uncensored War”: The Media and Vietnam by Daniel C. Hallin are examined.

The article “Terror in Little Saigon” written by A.C. Thompson, who works with the media ProPublica and Frontline from PBS television system in two years to implement the report about the assassination of journalist of Vietnamese origin in the US. The article is very popular on ProPublica because many Vietnamese want to know the truth from “Terror in Little Saigon”, and they hope that they can get more information from ProPublica as well as comment their thought about “Terror in Little Saigon”. From 1981 to 1990, five journalists Vietnamese Americans in cities across the US have been assassinated, and many others in the community were threatened and terrorism. The journalists were assassinated because they work for the Vietnamese newspaper with circulation of small communities served Vietnam refugees in the United States after the fall of Saigon in late April, 1975. Frontline and ProPublica were investigating, exploring and finding the evidence to give a general point of the murderous event. Many Vietnamese newspapers that have criticized a famous anti-communist organization called the National United Front for the Liberation of Vietnam that wants to restart the war in Vietnam. As the article provides, “Those U.S. chapters, it seems, had already opened what amounted to a second front, this one in America: Front members used violence to silence Vietnamese Americans who dared question the group’s politics or aims. Calling for normalized relations with the Communist victors

When analyzing the Vietnam war it is clear that the press had a significant role in helping bring the conflict to an end. Largely, this was the result of the gruesome reports and images that the networks chose to air and the public’s corresponding opposition to the war. To understand this relationship, and hence helping to end the war, it is necessary to look at three distinct areas. These include the reason that the press chose to air gruesome reports, specific reports that outraged the public, and examples of the corresponding changes in public opinion.

In 1965, at the beginning of the US’s involvement in the Vietnam War no one paid it much mind, including the media. But as soon as reporters began to take interest restrictions came down, not unlike any other war the U.S has participated in. “Barry Zorthian, with his experience with the media, got thing done pretty well. In almost all the nightly news programs of major television networks, such as CBS and NBC, the war was labeled as a ‘good guys shooting Reds’ story.” () But, as soon as the media travelled overseas to report both U.S and Northern Vietnamese bombings in 1964,

The Vietnam War and its horrors came into the living rooms of people from news report through television. This war was the first war to issue full freedom to the press. There was a huge response to what people saw in a negative way. Many people though the war should not have been televised. It was until 1965 that the Vietnam War became a big story on television. Journalism coverage of this war using television had a huge effect on the people of the United States and how they view the Vietnam War. This is according `to “U.S. at War: A History of Shame.”

“The Vietnam War was one of the most publicized wars in all of American history” (ows.edb.utexas.edu). As a result the media played a very important role in the war. It had a very powerful effect on americans opinion on the subject, because this was the first time they got to see what was actually happening right on their living room tv’s.The media mostly covered the horrors of the war which made many americans turn against it and look down on the soldiers who fought in it.

It is valuable because Kissinger illustrates his views with intimate portraits of world leaders he encountered during his term. As Nixon’s foreign policy partner, he provides readers with first-hand observations on secret negotiations and great events. Its content reveals esoteric details about the implementation of Vietnamization and the negotiations of the Paris Peace Accords. This is shown as Kissinger recalls, “In a memorandum I sent to Nixon dated September 10, 1969...I addressed the risks of Vietnamization [...] Nixon...asked me to implement this assignment.” (Kissinger 682) However, the book is limited by Kissinger’s fascination with Nixon. In describing Nixon’s decision to undertake sole responsibility of the war as “an honorable-indeed, a highly moral and intellectually correct - decision,”(Kissinger 700) Kissinger venerates Nixon’s courage but deemphasizes the results of his decision. His opinions hinder his ability to objectively judge his efforts and produce a nonpartisan view on the effectiveness of America’s foreign policy during the Vietnam War era.

Perhaps no event in recent history has so profoundly affected the political, sociological, and philosophical outlook of the American people as the Vietnam War. George Bell, Undersecretary of State from 1961 through 1966, called Vietnam the “greatest single error that America has made in its national history” (Legacies). As the first war the United States had ever lost, Vietnam shattered American confidence in its military supremacy and engendered a new wave of isolationist sentiment in the country. Mistrusting their government and retreating into a state of general disillusionment, the public demanded to know what went wrong. The people needed a scapegoat. Some groups blamed the military commanders for

Starting on the 1968 lunar new year and lasting over the course of a month, over 80,000 Vietcong surprised ambushed over 100 towns in an attempt to weaken the US troops stationed there. Though we were originally caught off guard, we were able to come back and defeat the Vietcong losing around 10,000 soldiers overall vs. the 44,000 we killed. Though on paper it was clear we had won the battles, when the press caught hold of the 10,000 soldiers that died, they focused directly and only on that fact. With the devastating number of US and South Vietnamese soldiers who died, the pressure to end the war went up, and according to Alan Rohn, historian at thevietnamwar.org, “the percentage of victory stories reported by journalists decreased from 62 before to 44 after the Tet”. Even though we continued to win battles after the Tet Offensive, the press continued to focus on the loss of life and human aspect of the war rather than the progress we were making. Because the people wanted to hear of the losses we faced in this 3rd world country, the newspaper granted their desires and fed them what they pleased. As the negative press continued over the handling of Vietnam and the loss of life, former president LBJ refused to run for a 2nd term in fear of making the public opinion even worse. With the hatred of the

The objective of the investigation is to determine to what extent the American news media affected the support and result of the Vietnam War. The Vietnam Conflict was officially recognized as a war beginning in 1955, but it was not until the 1960s that U.S. news outlets began coverage on the conflict in Vietnam. Before this era, the news was mainly concerned with reporting issues that had to do with communism and the cold war with Russia. It wasn 't until the North Vietnamese 's communist efforts were more widely known that the U.S. media started covering the issue. Therefore, the investigation will begin around this time period. It will cover how the media affected the Kennedy, Johnson, and Nixon administration. As well as how the public attitudes towards the war shifted from supporting the effort to wanting the troops back home. This investigation is not meant to dispute the conflicting ideologies of communism and democracy but to highlight the conflict between the American media and the American government and how these counterintuitive ideas lead to the downfall of public opinion and eventually the loss of the war.

The literature that developed about the Vietnam War during 1970s and 1980s was minimal because it was written at a time when sources were unavailable. However, contemporary historians still rely and reflect on that literature. As documents became available historians have been able to analyze information not just from an American perspective, but from

When we as a nation look back at the Vietnam War, we tend to view the conflict as a loss but we don’t bother looking at the reason for why we lost. Compared to all of the other major conflicts that the US has been involved with in the past century, the Vietnam War is cinematically portrayed in a way of destruction and disorientation, leading to a public opinion of disinterest in the war. The depiction of the Vietnam War in films can be attributed to the transparency of the news media, but it also shows the themes that embody us as a nation. Without the aid of the media and positive propaganda, a war can be lost both on the battlefield and back at home.