Vietnam re-viewed
Purvis, Hoyt
War & remembrance VIETNAM RE-VIEWED THE MEDIA & SELECTIVE HISTORY JUST AS THE media played an important role informing and influencing the American public during the Vietnam war, they have now...
...HOYT PURVIS (Hoyt Purvis is director of the Fulbright Institute of International Relations at the University of Arkansas, former Senate staff member, and co-author of Legislating Foreign Policy, Westview Press, 1984...
...But it was not until early 1968 that the opponents of U.S...
...They have, quite property, finally been receiving some tributes for their efforts and sacrifices...
...With the passing of time we have gained some perspective on the Vietnam experience...
...The picture of this group that emerges, if carefully studied, is probably not terribly inaccurate...
...policy began to enjoy significant public support...
...Certainly the demonstrations were not unimportant...
...Those who dared to dissent, or even to doubt, had their patriotism questioned publicly by some of the nation's leading columnists and commentators...
...The first group is comprised of those who served in Vietnam...
...But dramatic and visually interesting as some of the demonstrations were — and they do provide good pictures for television — they should not be used solely to represent the diversified groups that eventually coalesced against the war...
...It would be a distortion of history, however, if the media version stood unchallenged, leaving the demonstrators to be remembered as the only opposition to the war...
...In the media portrayals, particularly those on television, the opposition came from "demonstrators in the streets...
...There were many among the demonstrators who were sincere and dedicated, and who were willing to stand up against Vietnam policy when that was not an easy position to take...
...But as the war expanded, the dissenters gradually increased — Senators Gaylord Nelson, Bill Fulbright, Frank Church, George McGovern, Mike Mansfield, John Sherman Cooper, Eugene McCarthy were among the first...
...Yet it is difficult to capsulize all those shifting rationales, all those hopeful statements that eventually created a credibility gap...
...What is overlooked in such a simplistic view of the Vietnam era is that there were many acts of courage in questioning and opposing the Vietnam policy — not in the streets, but in Congress, in churches and synagogues, in communities around the country...
...Commonweal: 326...
...But there were also those who were more interested in protesting as a form of rebellion, and whose subsequent actions called their motivation and/or maturity into question...
...They were called "fainthearted' ' and subjected to intense political pressures including the wrath of the White House...
...Video from those hearings is apparently deemed too dull for current-day coverage...
...Nixon's Vietnam policies...
...Those in Congress and around the country who worked against the war, with little support at first but ultimately with great effect, should not be overlooked...
...They were summarily dismissed as mavericks and habitual naysayers...
...had undertaken an extremely costly and futile adventure in human, material, and policy terms...
...War & remembrance VIETNAM RE-VIEWED THE MEDIA & SELECTIVE HISTORY JUST AS THE media played an important role informing and influencing the American public during the Vietnam war, they have now provided a retrospective view of the war ich ended ten years ago — a view that will greatly influence the way the Vietnam era is remembered...
...Television can at least provide a smattering of presidential speeches from that time, but it is probably impossible to capture the mix of good intentions, incrementalism, stubbornness, and self-deception which 31 May 1985: 325 characterized the policies and attitudes of America's leaders...
...Some of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearings were televised which helped to increase public awareness of the growing conviction among certain senators that the U.S...
...The second group is made up of government leaders of the period — Johnson, Rusk, Nixon, Kissinger, et al...
...They received vast quantities of hate mail...
...Nervous nellies" and later "nattering nabobs" were some of the nicer names they were called...
...More important and less noticed was the oversimplified treatment of what occurred during the war years...
...Television often focused — as it did again in the recent coverage — on those few who burned American flags or carried Viet Cong flags...
...After the invasion of Cambodia in 1970, many Americans felt that they had to march in order to show their concern or outrage...
...The senators questioned Vietnam's real significance to American national interests and the shifting rationale for American policy, which in the beginning was supposed to be aimed largely at stopping China...
...Remarkable and worthwhile as much of the retrospective coverage was, it had some serious shortcomings...
...whether the networks gave too much attention to Vietnam's victory celebrations, for example, has been pointed out...
...In Congress, initially, only Senators Gruening and Morse opposed the Tonkin Gulf Resolution...
...They were attacked for not standing behind the president, and were accused, ironically, of not caring about those fighting in Vietnam...
...In this made-for-television approach, attention is focused on three groups apparently intended to be representative...
...The media's shortcut approach to recounting the Vietnam experience is most evident, or at least it should be, in the case of the third group — the opponents of American policy...
...American participation and attitudes are presented in a dramatized, polarized fashion...
...Even as President Nixon's second term began, dissenters were still being called unpatriotic and criticized harshly for opposing Mr...
...As the number of dissenters grew, so did their influence...
Vol. 112 • May 1985 • No. 11
