The Strains of Commitment: American Periodical Press and South Vietnam 1955–1960

NOTES

• Bernard Fall, “Will South Vietnam Be Next?” The Nation 186 (31 May 1958): 491.
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• Richard Nixon, RN: The Memoirs of Richard Nixon (New York: Grosset & Dunlap, 1978), 350.
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• Michael Mandelbaum, “Vietnam: The Television War,” Daedalus 3 (Fall 1982): 157; William M. Hammond, “The Press in Vietnam As Agents of Defeat: A Critical Examination,” Reviews in American History 17 (June 1989): 312-323; Leonard Ziedenberg, “Vietnam and Electronic Journalism: Lessons of the Living Room War,” Broadcasting, 19 May 1975, 23–30; Ernest W. LeFever, “The Prestige Press and U.S. Survival,” ORBIS 20 (Spring 1976), 207–225; Robert Elegant, “How to Lose a War: Reflections of a Foreign Correspondent,” Encounter 57 (August 1981): 73–90.
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• Daniel C. Hallin, The Uncensored War: The Media and Vietnam (New York: Oxford University Press, 1986); William Hammond, The U.S. Army in Vietnam: The Military and the Military, 1962–1968 (Washington, D.C.: Center of Military History, U.S. Army, 1988).
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• Oscar Patterson, “Analysis of Television Coverage of the Vietnam War,” Journal of Broadcasting 28 (Fall 1984): 398–402.
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• Oscar Patterson, “Television's Living Room War in Print: Vietnam in the News Magazines,” Journalism Quarterly 61 (Spring 1984): 36–39.
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• James Boylan, “Delcaration of Independence,” Columbia Journalism Review vol. 24 (November/December 1986): 33.
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• Two articles deal with the press previous to 1961, but not on the period under examination here. See Susan Welch, “The American Press in Indochina, 1950–56,” in Communication in International Politics, ed. Richard L. Merritt (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1972), 207–231; and Carl Krog, “American Journals of Opinion and the Fall of Vietnam, 1954,” Asian Affairs 6 (1979): 324–332.
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• Periodical press listings found in Readers' Guide to Periodical Literature, 1955–1961. Readership for these popular magazines ranged from Readers' Digest's twelve million, to one to six million for Life, Time, Newsweek, and U.S. News and World Report, to twenty to fifty thousand for opinion weeklies such as The Commonweal, The New Republic, and The Nation. (N. W. Ayers & Sons Directory of Newspapers and Periodicals [Philadelphia, 1955–1961].)
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• “Civil War: Invitation to the Reds,” Newsweek, 9 May 1955, 36; “A Fateful Thumb,” Newsweek, 31 Jan. 1955, 34.
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• “American Dilemma in South Vietnam,” The Nation 183 (14 May 1955): 413-14; Sam A. Jaffe, “Dilemma in Saigon: Which Way Democracy,” The Nation 183 (25 June 1955): 581–582.
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• Darrel Berrigan, “Ordeal of South Vietnam,” The Reporter 15 (20 Sept. 1956): 29–33.
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• John Osborne, “Tough Miracle Man of Vietnam,” Life, 13 May 1957, 156.
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• “Firecrackers,” Time, 4 Nov. 1957, 28; “The Devil King,” Time, 2 Sept. 1957, 25.
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• Fall, “Will South Vietnam Be Next?” 90-91.
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• Stanley Karnow, “Diem Defeats His Own Best Troops,” The Reporter 24 (19 Jan. 1961): 29.
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• Ibid., 26.
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• Ibid.
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• “Decline and Fall,” Newsweek, 2 May 1955, 34.
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• “High Cost of Empire Salvage,” The Nation 184 (6 April 1957): 287.
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• “Vietnam Gains Spur Red Terror,” Business Week, 18 July 1959, 58.
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• “Piaster Diplomacy: Johnson Report,” The Nation 184 (4 May 1957): 382.
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• David Hotham, “South Vietnam-Shaky Bastion,” The New Republic 17 (25 Nov. 1957): 13-16; David Hotham, “U.S. Aid to Vietnam: A Balance Sheet,” The Reporter 17 (19 Sept. 1957): 30–33.
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• Fall, “Will South Vietnam Be Next?” 490.
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• Ibid., 429.
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• Peter Schmid, “Free Indo-China Fights Against Time,” Commentary, January 1955, 18–29.
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• Joseph Alsop, “Reporter at Large,” New Yorker 31 (25 June 1955): 35–58.
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• Ibid., 55.
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• “Night of Lurid Drama in Saigon Palace,” Life, 16 May 1955, 48–55.
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• Robert Shaplen, “The Enigma of Ho Chi Minh,” The Reporter 15 (27 Jan. 1955): 11–19.
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• David Hotham, “Vietnam: Trouble in North, in South, and in Future,” The Reporter 16 (21 Feb. 1957): 36–58.
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• “Vietnam Gains Spur Red Terror,” 56-62.
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• Karnow, “Diem Defeats His Own Best Troops,” 25.
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• Hotham, “U.S. Aid to Vietnam,” 30-33.
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• Ibid., 33.
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• Ibid., 31.
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• Ibid., 33; emphasis added.
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• Ibid., 31.
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• “Biggest Little Man in Asia,” Readers' Digest 86 (February 1956): 144–48.
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• “Factional Struggle in Vietnam,” America 92 (26 March 1955): 663; “Violence in Vietnam,” America 93 (9 April 1955): 32; John Osborne, “Tough Miracle Man of Vietnam,” Life, 13 May 1957, 156; “Country at Peace,” Time, 11 Feb. 1957, 30.
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• “Another Place where the Reds are Losing,” U.S. News and World Report, 1 March 1957, 83–84; “One Dam Holds Against Red Tide,” U.S. News and World Report, 23 March 1956, 40–41.
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• Senator Mike Mansfield, “Reprieve for Vietnam,” Harper's Magazine 212 (January 1956): 46–58.
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• “The Beleaguered Man,” Time, 4 April 1955, 22–25.
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• “Law of the Land,” Time, 16 July 1956, 26; “All Quiet on the 17th Parallel,” Time, 30 July 1956, 24.
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• “Diem's Success Story,” The New Republic 136 (6 May 1957): 5.
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• The Sunset War,” Time, 2 May 1960, 20.
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• Shaplen, “The Engima of Ho Chi Minh,” 128–129; “Problems of One Man,” Time, 11 May 1960, 40.
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• Robert P. Martin, “Where Danger Threatens Another U.S.-Backed Country,” U.S. News and World Report, 16 May 1960, 120.
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• “Revolt at Dawn,” Time, 21 Nov. 1960, 27; United States Vietnam Relations, 19–20.
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• “Mr. Ngo of Vietnam,” Commonweal 73 (25 Nov. 1960), 220; “Crisis Points,” Newsweek, 28 Nov. 1960, 49; “A Costly Victory in Vietnam,” Life, 28 Nov. 1960, 30.
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• Benjamin L. Masse, “Revolt in Vietnam,” America 104 (26 Nov. 1960): 300–301.
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• “Billion for Vietnam; for U.S. Trouble,” U.S. News and World Report, 28 Nov. 1960, 84.
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• Karnow, “Diem Defeats His Own Best Troops,” 24.
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• For analyses of press coverage after 1961, see notes 4, 5, and 6.
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• For closer examination of anti-war activities during this period, see Charles DeBenedetti, An American Ordeal: the Antiwar Movement of the Vietnam Era (Syracuse, N. Y.: Syracuse University Press, 1990); Charles DeBenedetti, The Peace Reform in American History (Bloomington, Ind.: Indiana University Press, 1980); Lawrence S. Wittner, Rebels Against War: The American Peace Movement, 1941–1960 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1969); Charles DeBenedetti, “On the Significance of Citizen Peace Activism: America 1961–1975,” Peace and Change 9(1983): 6-20; Patricia F. McNeal, The American Catholic Peace Movement, 1928–1972 (New York: Arno Press, 1978).
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• The print media's conclusions were mirrored by those made in the Department of Defense during that time period and by other contemporary observers. See, for example, United States-Vietnam Relations; Robert Scigliano, South Vietnam: A Nation Under Stress (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1963); George C. Herring, America's Longest War: The United States and Vietnam, 1950–1975 (New York: Knopf, 1979); Anthony Short, The Origins of the Vietnam War (New York: Longman, 1989).
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