Television's Vietnam and historical revisionism in the United States

NOTES

• The best one-volume history of the war is Herring George C. America's Longest War: the United States and Vietnam, 1950–1975 , 2nd edn New York 1986 with a fine chapter on the legacy of the war, 257–82; for the appropriate citations to the changing historiography of the subject see Gary R. Hess, The military perspective on strategy in Vietnam: Harry G. Summers's On Strategy and Bruce Palmer's The 25-Year War, Diplomatic History, X (Winter, 1986), 91–106. A recent volume with a different perspective, ‘loaded,’ in the words of David Oshinsky, “with eye-glazing rhetoric about imperialism, class protest and revolutionary values,” is Gabriel Kolko, Anatomy of a War: Vietnam, the United States, and the modern historican experience (New York, 1985).
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• Criticism of these tendencies is found in Taylor Sandra C. Reporting history: journalists and the Vietnam war Reviews in American History September 1985 XIII 451 461 and George Herring, “Vietnam Remembered,” Journal of American History, 73 (June, 1986), 152–64. For the problem of primary sources, particularly for the North Vietnamese side, see the remarks of Ronald Spector in George Herring, (Ed.) Sources for Understanding the Vietnam Conflict, Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations Newsletter, 16 (March, 1985), 16–17.
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• Advertisement in the National Review 1987 April 41 41 10 editorial by Victor Navasky, The Nation, 13 September 1986, 195; almost the entire issue is devoted to the dangers of Accuracy in Media. One of the most outspoken critiques of media coverage in Vietnam is Robert Elegant, How to lose a war, Encounter, 57 (August, 1981), 73–91. Accuracy in Media's attacks appear in its bi-monthly AIM Report.
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• A fine contemporary account of the Tet Offensive is Don Oberdorfer Tet! Garden City, NY 1971 the most comprehensive analysis of media coverage is Peter Braestrup: Big Story: how the American press and television reported and interpreted the crisis of Tet 1968 in Vietnam and Washington (2 vols., Boulder, CO, 1977). See also Herbert Y. Schandler, The Unmaking of a President: Lyndon and Vietnam (Princeton, NJ, 1977). For Johnson's problems with the media see my Johnson and the media, in Robert A. Divine (Ed.) The Johnson Years, Volume One: foreign policy, the Great society, and the White House (Lawrence, KS, 1987), 214–48. For the problems of poll data during Tet, see Burns W. Roper, What public opinion polls said, in Braestrup, Big Story, I, 674–704.
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• Knightly , Phillip . 1975 . The First Casualty: from the Crimea to the Vietnam war: the war correspondent as hero, propagandist, and myth maker 374 – 425 . New York photograph facing 277.
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• See Bailey George A. Lichty Lawrence W. Rough justice on a Saigon street: a gatekeeper study of NBC's Tet execution film, Big Story 2 266 281 reprinted in Braestrup For an analysis of the visual content of the Adams photograph see my Historians and the visual analysis of television news, in William Adams & Fay Schreibman, (Eds). Television Network News: issues in content research (Washington, DC, 1978), 139–54; see also corrections and an updating of their article in Bailey & Lichty, Rough justice in Saigon, in Vietnam: a guide to Vietnam: a television history, a newspaper-format supplement to accompany the WGBM series (Boston, 1983), n. p.
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• Bailey and Lichty . Rough justice on a Saigon street 267 – 268 .
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• et al. American History: a survey: Volume II: since 1865 , 7th edn New York 1987 880 880 another recent overview, William H. Chafe: The Unfinished Journey: America since World War II (New York, 1986), 346–7, makes the same point: “The Media—especially TV—proved decisive in shaping the American reaction to Tet… What were Americans to say about the democracy of their ally when they saw, in glaring color, the chief of South Vietnam's national police execute a Vietcong suspect in the middle of a Saigon street?”
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• Loan, interview with author, Burke, V.A., 25 July 1979; filmed interviews with Braestrup, Northshield, McPherson and Southard appear in Culbert David Rollins Peter Television's Vietnam: the impact of visual images 1982
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• The Lange poem is in Pratt John Clark Vietnam Voices: perspectives on the war years 1941–1982 Baltimore 1984 353 354 (compiler) the Adams statement is in his The pictures that burn in my memory, cover story, Parade Magazine, 15 May 1983, 6. I showed my filmed interview with Eddie Adams to Loan in 1979, but at the time Loan was afraid to appear in a filmed interview since Congresswoman Elizabeth Holtzman of New York was seeking to have him deported as an undesirable citizen.
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• Hallin , Daniel C. 1986 . The ‘Uncensored War’: the media and Vietnam 106 – 106 . New York 110, 163. Hallin's analysis of network television coverage is based on the Department of Defense kinescopes, 1965–1968, now at National Archives, Washington, D.C., which Peter Rollins and I studied as part of our research for our film.
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• Herring . America's Longest War 203 – 203 . Herring, Vietnam Remembered, 163, 154. Full-page advertisement, Discover (March, 1987), 19.
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• Remarks by Jowett Garth Conference on War and Peace on the World Screen After 1945 All-Union Film Art Institute Moscow 1987 20 Jowett and I discussed this matter at length during the conference. Michael Schudson, Advertising, The Uneasy Persuasion: its dubious impact on American society (New York, 1986), xiii.
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• Hallin . Uncensored War 172 – 172 .
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• See my Tet 15 years later: how America really saw the war Chicago Tribune January 1968 2 2 30 4
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• Oberdorfer . Tet! 170 – 171 .
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• The propaganda value of the Lusitania depended on its being viewed as an unarmed passenger vessel; the ship in fact carried war material, technically justifying a submarine attack by an enemy who had issued a Declaration of Unrestricted Submarine Warfare. The falsified ship's manifest is discussed in Bailey Thomas A. Ryan Paul B. The Lusitania Disaster: an episode in modern warfare and diplomacy New York 1975
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• Hallin . Uncensored War 208 – 215 .
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• The Steyn Report is quoted in Perry Deane Young, Revisionism reconsidered: from Saigon to Salvador The Quill 1983 May 12 12 71 see also Robert Harris, GOTCHA! the media, the government, and the Falklands crisis (London, 1983); Twentieth Century Fund, Battle Lines (New York, 1985); Alan Hooper, The Military and the Media (Aldershot, UK, 1982), 109–22, 155–66.
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• Transcript . 1985 . The military and the news media, Media and Society Seminars 9 – 9 . New York The transcript is published by the Graduate School of Journalism, Columbia University, NY.
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• Braestrup Peter Battle Lines Nieman Reports 1985 56 56 excerpts reprinted in 39 Autumn “In protecting vital military information, the censors actually applied only two basic measurements: (1) Would the release of a report offer aid and comfort to the enemy; and (2) would its release adversely affect the morale of UN troops fighting in Korea.”
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