Walter Cronkite's We Are Mired In Stalemate

This essay will discuss to what degree the media can be blamed for the United States’ loss in the Vietnam conflict ending 1975. It will be based predominantly on key written resources on the subject, but it will also contain - by means of an interview - certain first-hand observations from a Vietnam War veteran.

"Battleground America," written by Jill Lepore, provides a strong history of guns and the way they have changed in the eyes of the American through the years. She proves her point with strong evidence throughout her article, sprinkling it with opinion and argument that is strongly supported. She presents her argument to convince her audience that the open availability of guns allows citizens to undeservingly purchase them by displaying the credibility in her sources, using negative connotations in her speech, and the strength and objectivity only a strong logos appeal can provide.

During the Vietnam War, Americans were greatly influenced by the extensive media coverage of the war. Before the 1960’s and the intensification of the war, public news coverage of military action was constrained heavily by the government and was directed by Government policy. The Vietnam War uniquely altered the perception of war in the eyes of American citizens by bringing the war into their homes. The Vietnam War was the first U.S uncensored war resulting in the release of graphic images and unaltered accounts of horrific events that helped to change public opinion of the war like nothing it had ever been. This depiction by the media led to a separation between the United States government and the press; much of what was reported flouted

The Vietnam War lasted longer, bloodier, and more hostile than any U.S. President or American citizen imagined. Lyndon Johnson faced many other enemies during the war such as the duration, the immense number of deaths, and for the first time in most American’s history, failure. Through deep evaluation of Lyndon B. Johnson’s foreign policies as President during the Vietnam war, failure was a recurring outcome, as he faced military and political difficulties over having complete authority over political decisions made leading to the misuse of his respective power, receiving split support through torn Americans at home, and his accord to deport so many troops into combat in Vietnam.

Throughout America’s history, few things have left the nation in such controversial turmoil as the Vietnam War. With an American death toll of almost 60,000 troops, the Vietnam War has gone down in infamy as one of the most tremendous struggles Americans have faced both overseas and on the home front. Because of the tumultuous controversies caused by the war, Americans split into two social factions – those against the war and those who supported it. During the years of 1961-1975 - the era in which the war had its greatest effect on Americans - the population of citizens from 18-35 years old and the Presidency were both affected irreversibly.

35. Who said the following: “For it seems now more certain than ever that the bloody experience of Vietnam is to end in a stalemate”? Walter Kronkite

Vietnam was an entirely new type of war for the United States. It still remains morally and historically problematic in today’s society. The Vietnam War had a tremendous impact on American society and culture, primarily because it was the first war to be televised. The American press played a significant

The people also put their trust in people that have power. In his article, “Channels of Power: The Impact of Television on American Politics,” Source E states, “Johnson was a great believer in public opinion polls, and he knew that a recent poll had shown that the American people trusted Walter Cronkite more than any other American to “tell it the way it is.” (Ranney) Because of this, the American people placed their trust in the hands on Cronkite. They trusted him more than they did their president, and because of that President Johnson made the decision to get out of Vietnam and not run for another term as President. President Johnson knew that the American people would listen to Cronkite more than they would him. This made television positive because they could see for a fact what Cronkite had to say.

In 1967 the anti-war movement caused Lyndon Johnson to start a major propaganda campaign with the aim of convincing the American people that the war in Vietnam was being won. Johnson never managed to gain public opinion, but neither did the movement. According to Johnson’s white house aide and confidant Doris Kearns the anti-war movement had a “deep personal effect on him” and “drained his self-esteem and energy.” He went on to limit the bombing and not seek re-election with the hope that he would salvage his place in history by making progress in negotiating an end to the war and restoring unity at home. This hope was not fulfilled and Richard Nixon went on to be elected as president.

By 1968, more than half of the American people relied on television as their principal source of news. What they saw informed, engrossed, and unsettled them. CBS Evening News anchor Harry Reasoner referred to it as “horrors and failures.” The Vietnam War dominated the network newscast as it never had before. Suddenly the war was everywhere. The impact on the American public would indeed be great. It set off a critical reaction to the war within the American media and gave greater credence to arguments against the war that a vocal protest movement had been voicing for some time. The media coverage of the Tet Offensive had a great influence on the eventual outcome of the fighting and its aftermath. Clarence Wyatt, author of Paper

Deploying a propaganda technique that would be honed to perfection during the Gulf War thirty years later, Nixon began to redefine the war. From the spring of 1969 on, the war was going to be first and foremost about the men who were being sent to fight it (and not, mind you, about the people who sent them there). In the first instance, this meant prisoners of war. The administration’s clever campaign to muster public opinion around the POW issue was launched on May 19 at a press conference held by Defense Secretary Melvin Laird. Enthusiastically promoted by the media, the POW issue soon dominate war news to such an extent that the writer Jonathan Schell observed that many people were persuaded that the United States was fighting in Vietnam in order to get its prisoners back.

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.

Before the invention of Television, most people could not possibly be completely cognizant of events going on overseas or even on the other side of the country and therefore had to rely on the Presidents’ word. In 1968, the Vietnam War was at its peak. President Johnson held fast to his belief that we would be able to win so the American people continued to support him. However CBS’s Walter Cronkite decided to make a trip to the war-torn country of Vietnam to see the current situation with his own eyes. When he returned he announced to the American public that the war was hopeless and there was no way that military victory was possible. Johnson knew that the American people greatly respected Cronkite and that they would all believe the war was hopeless. So the only thing for him to do was to pull troops out of Vietnam and call the war “an honorable attempt to defend democracy.” I believe that Cronkite’s coverage of the war was a good thing because it allowed the American public to see exactly what was going on and make their own decisions about the situation. People no longer had to rely only on the President. Cronkite’s documentary was also an important deciding

The coincidence of the growth of television with the first military defeat for America was used by the government to explain why the war was lost: it wasn’t because of government policy or by underestimating the enemy but because television journalism and lack of censorship that undermined the whole operation “by ‘graphic and unremitting distortion’ of the facts, pessimism, and unvarnished depiction of both Americas youthful casualties and American ‘atrocities’ inflicted on the Vietnamese.” The amount of televisions in America was on the increase; ‘In 1950, only 9 percent of homes owned a television. By 1966, this figure rose to 93 percent.’ This alone shows the sheer coverage that the news had and the potential influence that it could impose upon the minds of the people. Not only did more people have television sets in their homes but more and more people were relying on television over any other medium to obtain their news. The survey conducted by the Roper organisation for the Television Information Office in 1972 shows us that 64% of people got most of their news from television, an 8% increase from the survey conducted in 1964. Another factor in the power of television was not just the fact that it reached a wide audience, it was also the fact that people were more likely to believe what the television news said over reports in the newspaper or radio, especially if the reports were conflicting in nature. This was due to two factors; the personality who

At the beginning of television news an arrangement existed between television journalists and the public. It was look at as that in modern times promotion journalism was normal. The United States was the modern, broadminded leader of the free world. When Walter Cronkite reported on the daily count of deaths of American soldiers in Vietnam, in lead to the antiwar disapprovals of the 1960s. One man changed how the United States look at the war with his power and influence to change people opinions. (Mann)