Effects of Media on Class Tensions During Vietnam War
Created | Updated Jan 30, 2005
July of 1663
President Kennedy told news conference reporters off the record: “We don’t have a prayer of staying in Vietnam… But I can’t give up a piece of territory like that to the Communists and get the American people to reelect me (Record, 8).”
War Propaganda
Upon entry to war, President Kennedy and Johnson depended on “Vietnam War was ultimately up to Asian – not American – boys to decide (Record, 71).” It was clear in the beginning, however, that the United States could not be seen as appeasing to the “national liberation” efforts.
The fact that the public believed Secretary of State Dean Rusk as he explained the Domino theory, if the communists were successful in subjugating South Vietnam then the rest of southeast Asia shall plummet, on CBS News in 1965 remained just as explicit (Record, 20).
The “abstract rationales for intervention” added enough importance to American interests for U.S. troops to “Americanize” the Vietnam War; even though South Vietnam already developed “let United States do it” attitude in 1965.
Absolute Coverage
Both the government and the public overestimated the lukewarm support of the South Vietnamese and underestimated the Vietcong’s tenacious willingness to resist. Vietnam was the constantly broadcasted “television war”, and it was on the TV screens that the atrocities were brought home to the unprepared public.
Daily, the news footage presented the glaring contrasts between the government’s growing obsessions with body bag counts and the actual longevity of clandestine foes killing American soldiers. Journalists such as Neil Sheehan (Hillstrom, 27) for the United Press International and New York Times correspondent David Halberstam were suspicious of the differences between their own field experiences and the government’s progress on the War.
“President Kennedy – who once complained that Halberstam’s NY Times reports provided more complete and timely coverage of events than did his own intelligence reports – even asked Arthur Sulzberger, the paper’s publisher, to reassign the young reporter” (Hillstrom 33).
The media was taken as the truth. Film director Roman Polanski pointed out in Dec. 1967 Time issue “TV has changed the world by changing people's attitudes. When they are born with a TV set in their room - well, you can't fool them any more” It was a terrifying gap between what the home front witnessed in retrospect to government reports (Harris, 83).
Fine Points of Reality
What was more frightening was the revelation that the youths of America were murdering innocents. Soldiers committing the brutalities created language barriers with detached connotations. Helpless villagers “infested the area”, which U.S. prepare for “destroying the social infrastructure” by demolishing the civilian villages. Ten thousand feet bombing of resident occupations translated into “an air interdiction of hostiles” (Harris 76).
The slaughter of unarmed became necessities of the war. Ironically, “In the battle for hearts and minds, the Americans disarmed themselves by the lavish use of firepower – especially air power in South Vietnam” (Record, 88). The broadcast of the desperate search and destroy method the U.S. government employed to uproot the Vietcong over pacification strategy took a devastating toll psychologically in the Vietnamese, U.S. soldiers, and most of all – the public view.
Stirring of Tensions
In addition to what the media reported on the battlefields, the stirring discontent of the young men forcibly enlisted in the selective services to fight for a wrong cause became apparent. Why should they die for a cause they do not believe in, bleed for a stranger’s freedom?
A cause of class tensions was the 1960’s American counterculture movement as the students, rebelled against the situation displayed by the media. As anti-war protests sprang up, media soon invented terminology such as draft dodgers, sympathizers, and peaceniks that rendered the peace movement radically unappealing (Harris, 83).
Michael Mandlebaum pointed out “The war became unpopular, the antiwar movement was always more unpopular” (Record, 6). This claim was probably true, as the majority were colored by convictions that the protestors were unpatriotic.
War Disillusionment
In the transition of Johnson’s Administration to Nixon’s, class tensions consisted of disillusioned people. The public passion, aroused by propaganda that South Vietnam must not fall, was doused after the Tet Offensive and revealing of the Pentagon papers. The public dismay rapidly led to loss of respect in government decision-making. Among the U.S. troops, there were general lack of motivation and the soldiers’ doubt of the competence of the government officials.
The war could not be spread for political reasons to Cambodia and Laos, where the Vietcong supply centers were. Bad decision makers in Washington checked a definite victory, which was how the troops thought of Cronkite’s “War unwinnable”(Harris, 89). The media showed men unwilling to sacrifice for a futile attempt.
As the support of the people wavered with the media coverage, the full impact of American intervention on the sinking morale of frustrated soldiers was realized. Nixon tried to rectify the error by expanding the War to invade Cambodia. The military had a chance to shorten the war, yet antiwar protesters and Congress resented Nixon’s decision.
May 4th 1970
National Guard was on riot duty in Ohio, sleepy, fearful, armed with guns, tear gas canisters, gas masks and “an amazing lack of military judgment”. The demonstrators were protesting the Cambodia bombings on Kent State University campus, packed full of onlookers and students. None were armed, though some in the crowd threw rocks. Seconds away from the corner of a building, the alarmed Guardsmen wheeled and fired into the mass of college students, hit thirteen and killed four. After the deaths, President Nixon called the parents of the student who was a bystander and ROTC member to express his sympathies. Nixon did not call the parents of the shot demonstrators.
There was a stall in the government investigation. Many of the guards either removed or covered their nametags “classic ploy of law enforcement officer about to commit brutality in the ‘60’s and ‘70’s”, so it was difficult to find the guardsmen responsible. The guardsmen suffered no punishment, except for some minor bruises from the flying rocks. Nixon’s “public atmosphere” deliberately led people to believe that the demonstrators deserved to be fired upon. Tapes show Nixon regarded “demonstrators were bums” and had no regrets. The media had a field day. There was the possible involvement of a FBI informant, Terry Norman, undercover with a gun. Hearsay also concerned the Secret Service. Nixon’s attitude fueled speculation about what “non-intervention” could mean in future demonstrations and whether the police would truly enforce peaceful order if a war supporter beats on a demonstrator opposing war (Kent).
Taking Stands
People display their stands defiantly, spurred by Kent State demonstration, there was the inevitable clash of opinion on the war. The antiwar protest was countered by patriot demonstration in the working class whose sons were serving in the War (Troubled). The media “demoralized military troops” influenced class tensions.
Desperate to save the falling morale level in the Army, the public was split between supporting and withdrawing the American word of commitment. Because the government’s lack of accurate information, and the media’s changed attitude of the war, Americans confronted on the younger generations with “love it or leave it”(After).
The Vietnam War became the bone of contention in the pitched and heated fight of the draft dodgers against the hard hats. The working class waved American flags while the protestors bore peace signs. On May 8th, the standoff turned catastrophic.
HardHat Riots
It was the third day that the anti-war demonstrators gathered at corner of Wall and Broad Street. The demonstrators had expected a mob, since the day before a group of hardhats retrieved the flag from the protestors. Anticipating police protection, the demonstrators set up a rally as before to protest Kent State and the War. Fed up with the “peace now” chants of college students, with little punishing enforcement, Nixon’s ‘silent majority’ no longer held their peace or tempers (Troubled).
Joined by office workers from four directions, the laborers mobilized before noon. The working class at Wall Street cheered and threw ticker tape, as three hundred construction workmen in helmets with lead pipes, crowbars, and flagpoles stormed the barricaded patrolmen lines and fiercely raised American flags on the George Washington statue. One bystander said it was “like watching John Wayne take Iwo Jima”. While the police were busy rushing the workers off the Subtreasury Building steps, the hard hats pursued an alleged protestor who spat on the flag. The construction workers began beating the running demonstrators and helpers for three hours. Workers marched to City Hall and full-staffed the American flag at 12:45, chanting “U.S.A. All the Way.” Around 1:15, the workers descended on Pace College threw rocks and attacked students because of the hanging antiwar flag. Some shop stewards and contractors might have organized the mob.
The Mayor’s office, which had half-staffed the flag for the Kent State victims, prepared for another showdown when the hardhat riots illustrated “a breakdown of the police as a barrier between [the people of New York] and wanton violence”. New York Civil Liberties Union accused “police in some instances joined in the assaults”.
While this riot wasn’t the only hardhat/protestor clash, it was the bloodiest one by far. On the following Monday, the Wall Street Journal called this blue collared mob a “melee”, reported about 60 victims treated at nearby Trinity Church. The workers ripped down a Red Cross banner when Reverend Woodward locked the gate. “Nice quiet guys” transformed into “storm troopers”. When asked about the “hippies” beaten, George Tangel said “I think this will help out boys over there by pulling this country together” (After).
Rationale
People were compelled to show their allegiances, to vent aggravations beyond the happenings at Kent. There was no single cause that sparked the rioting, rather the convergence of several incidents. As the War progressed, media coverage helped turn a supported war into the wrong war.
The government reports and what the people saw on network TV conflicted. The absence of information caused lack of confidence and trust. When government lost credibility, the people resorted to their versions of America’s next step for Vietnam. Class tensions swept the 1970’s, riots became contagious, and the country was sickened. The troops were working class draftees and volunteers so the hardhat parents, the blue collared society, banded together to support the Nixon and the soldiers (Troubled).
In Conclusion
The troops blamed the administration for the lack of dispatches, wrong strategies, and getting into the situation to begin with. Nixon scorned Congress for not having the commitment to continue (Record, 56). Congressional opinion faulted the lack of public support. Public’s unwillingness could be credited to the media’s harsh delineation of the War, taken as reality in lieu of inaccurate government assessments (Harris, 107). What if the U.S. had full support?
The misunderstanding remained that the war was ours to assign blame in the first place: the North Vietnamese might have beaten us fair and square on their own grounds (Hillstrom, 102). Before the “what if” culpability chain spreads to fester, it would be fair to keep in mind that the class tensions were the ultimate effect of many causal relations.
For it was as Indian leader Mahatma Gandhi wrote in Non-Violence in Peace and War: the “truth never damages a cause that is just.”
President Kennedy told news conference reporters off the record: “We don’t have a prayer of staying in Vietnam… But I can’t give up a piece of territory like that to the Communists and get the American people to reelect me (Record, 8).”
War Propaganda
Upon entry to war, President Kennedy and Johnson depended on “Vietnam War was ultimately up to Asian – not American – boys to decide (Record, 71).” It was clear in the beginning, however, that the United States could not be seen as appeasing to the “national liberation” efforts.
The fact that the public believed Secretary of State Dean Rusk as he explained the Domino theory, if the communists were successful in subjugating South Vietnam then the rest of southeast Asia shall plummet, on CBS News in 1965 remained just as explicit (Record, 20).
The “abstract rationales for intervention” added enough importance to American interests for U.S. troops to “Americanize” the Vietnam War; even though South Vietnam already developed “let United States do it” attitude in 1965.
Absolute Coverage
Both the government and the public overestimated the lukewarm support of the South Vietnamese and underestimated the Vietcong’s tenacious willingness to resist. Vietnam was the constantly broadcasted “television war”, and it was on the TV screens that the atrocities were brought home to the unprepared public.
Daily, the news footage presented the glaring contrasts between the government’s growing obsessions with body bag counts and the actual longevity of clandestine foes killing American soldiers. Journalists such as Neil Sheehan (Hillstrom, 27) for the United Press International and New York Times correspondent David Halberstam were suspicious of the differences between their own field experiences and the government’s progress on the War.
“President Kennedy – who once complained that Halberstam’s NY Times reports provided more complete and timely coverage of events than did his own intelligence reports – even asked Arthur Sulzberger, the paper’s publisher, to reassign the young reporter” (Hillstrom 33).
The media was taken as the truth. Film director Roman Polanski pointed out in Dec. 1967 Time issue “TV has changed the world by changing people's attitudes. When they are born with a TV set in their room - well, you can't fool them any more” It was a terrifying gap between what the home front witnessed in retrospect to government reports (Harris, 83).
Fine Points of Reality
What was more frightening was the revelation that the youths of America were murdering innocents. Soldiers committing the brutalities created language barriers with detached connotations. Helpless villagers “infested the area”, which U.S. prepare for “destroying the social infrastructure” by demolishing the civilian villages. Ten thousand feet bombing of resident occupations translated into “an air interdiction of hostiles” (Harris 76).
The slaughter of unarmed became necessities of the war. Ironically, “In the battle for hearts and minds, the Americans disarmed themselves by the lavish use of firepower – especially air power in South Vietnam” (Record, 88). The broadcast of the desperate search and destroy method the U.S. government employed to uproot the Vietcong over pacification strategy took a devastating toll psychologically in the Vietnamese, U.S. soldiers, and most of all – the public view.
Stirring of Tensions
In addition to what the media reported on the battlefields, the stirring discontent of the young men forcibly enlisted in the selective services to fight for a wrong cause became apparent. Why should they die for a cause they do not believe in, bleed for a stranger’s freedom?
A cause of class tensions was the 1960’s American counterculture movement as the students, rebelled against the situation displayed by the media. As anti-war protests sprang up, media soon invented terminology such as draft dodgers, sympathizers, and peaceniks that rendered the peace movement radically unappealing (Harris, 83).
Michael Mandlebaum pointed out “The war became unpopular, the antiwar movement was always more unpopular” (Record, 6). This claim was probably true, as the majority were colored by convictions that the protestors were unpatriotic.
War Disillusionment
In the transition of Johnson’s Administration to Nixon’s, class tensions consisted of disillusioned people. The public passion, aroused by propaganda that South Vietnam must not fall, was doused after the Tet Offensive and revealing of the Pentagon papers. The public dismay rapidly led to loss of respect in government decision-making. Among the U.S. troops, there were general lack of motivation and the soldiers’ doubt of the competence of the government officials.
The war could not be spread for political reasons to Cambodia and Laos, where the Vietcong supply centers were. Bad decision makers in Washington checked a definite victory, which was how the troops thought of Cronkite’s “War unwinnable”(Harris, 89). The media showed men unwilling to sacrifice for a futile attempt.
As the support of the people wavered with the media coverage, the full impact of American intervention on the sinking morale of frustrated soldiers was realized. Nixon tried to rectify the error by expanding the War to invade Cambodia. The military had a chance to shorten the war, yet antiwar protesters and Congress resented Nixon’s decision.
May 4th 1970
National Guard was on riot duty in Ohio, sleepy, fearful, armed with guns, tear gas canisters, gas masks and “an amazing lack of military judgment”. The demonstrators were protesting the Cambodia bombings on Kent State University campus, packed full of onlookers and students. None were armed, though some in the crowd threw rocks. Seconds away from the corner of a building, the alarmed Guardsmen wheeled and fired into the mass of college students, hit thirteen and killed four. After the deaths, President Nixon called the parents of the student who was a bystander and ROTC member to express his sympathies. Nixon did not call the parents of the shot demonstrators.
There was a stall in the government investigation. Many of the guards either removed or covered their nametags “classic ploy of law enforcement officer about to commit brutality in the ‘60’s and ‘70’s”, so it was difficult to find the guardsmen responsible. The guardsmen suffered no punishment, except for some minor bruises from the flying rocks. Nixon’s “public atmosphere” deliberately led people to believe that the demonstrators deserved to be fired upon. Tapes show Nixon regarded “demonstrators were bums” and had no regrets. The media had a field day. There was the possible involvement of a FBI informant, Terry Norman, undercover with a gun. Hearsay also concerned the Secret Service. Nixon’s attitude fueled speculation about what “non-intervention” could mean in future demonstrations and whether the police would truly enforce peaceful order if a war supporter beats on a demonstrator opposing war (Kent).
Taking Stands
People display their stands defiantly, spurred by Kent State demonstration, there was the inevitable clash of opinion on the war. The antiwar protest was countered by patriot demonstration in the working class whose sons were serving in the War (Troubled). The media “demoralized military troops” influenced class tensions.
Desperate to save the falling morale level in the Army, the public was split between supporting and withdrawing the American word of commitment. Because the government’s lack of accurate information, and the media’s changed attitude of the war, Americans confronted on the younger generations with “love it or leave it”(After).
The Vietnam War became the bone of contention in the pitched and heated fight of the draft dodgers against the hard hats. The working class waved American flags while the protestors bore peace signs. On May 8th, the standoff turned catastrophic.
HardHat Riots
It was the third day that the anti-war demonstrators gathered at corner of Wall and Broad Street. The demonstrators had expected a mob, since the day before a group of hardhats retrieved the flag from the protestors. Anticipating police protection, the demonstrators set up a rally as before to protest Kent State and the War. Fed up with the “peace now” chants of college students, with little punishing enforcement, Nixon’s ‘silent majority’ no longer held their peace or tempers (Troubled).
Joined by office workers from four directions, the laborers mobilized before noon. The working class at Wall Street cheered and threw ticker tape, as three hundred construction workmen in helmets with lead pipes, crowbars, and flagpoles stormed the barricaded patrolmen lines and fiercely raised American flags on the George Washington statue. One bystander said it was “like watching John Wayne take Iwo Jima”. While the police were busy rushing the workers off the Subtreasury Building steps, the hard hats pursued an alleged protestor who spat on the flag. The construction workers began beating the running demonstrators and helpers for three hours. Workers marched to City Hall and full-staffed the American flag at 12:45, chanting “U.S.A. All the Way.” Around 1:15, the workers descended on Pace College threw rocks and attacked students because of the hanging antiwar flag. Some shop stewards and contractors might have organized the mob.
The Mayor’s office, which had half-staffed the flag for the Kent State victims, prepared for another showdown when the hardhat riots illustrated “a breakdown of the police as a barrier between [the people of New York] and wanton violence”. New York Civil Liberties Union accused “police in some instances joined in the assaults”.
While this riot wasn’t the only hardhat/protestor clash, it was the bloodiest one by far. On the following Monday, the Wall Street Journal called this blue collared mob a “melee”, reported about 60 victims treated at nearby Trinity Church. The workers ripped down a Red Cross banner when Reverend Woodward locked the gate. “Nice quiet guys” transformed into “storm troopers”. When asked about the “hippies” beaten, George Tangel said “I think this will help out boys over there by pulling this country together” (After).
Rationale
People were compelled to show their allegiances, to vent aggravations beyond the happenings at Kent. There was no single cause that sparked the rioting, rather the convergence of several incidents. As the War progressed, media coverage helped turn a supported war into the wrong war.
The government reports and what the people saw on network TV conflicted. The absence of information caused lack of confidence and trust. When government lost credibility, the people resorted to their versions of America’s next step for Vietnam. Class tensions swept the 1970’s, riots became contagious, and the country was sickened. The troops were working class draftees and volunteers so the hardhat parents, the blue collared society, banded together to support the Nixon and the soldiers (Troubled).
In Conclusion
The troops blamed the administration for the lack of dispatches, wrong strategies, and getting into the situation to begin with. Nixon scorned Congress for not having the commitment to continue (Record, 56). Congressional opinion faulted the lack of public support. Public’s unwillingness could be credited to the media’s harsh delineation of the War, taken as reality in lieu of inaccurate government assessments (Harris, 107). What if the U.S. had full support?
The misunderstanding remained that the war was ours to assign blame in the first place: the North Vietnamese might have beaten us fair and square on their own grounds (Hillstrom, 102). Before the “what if” culpability chain spreads to fester, it would be fair to keep in mind that the class tensions were the ultimate effect of many causal relations.
For it was as Indian leader Mahatma Gandhi wrote in Non-Violence in Peace and War: the “truth never damages a cause that is just.”
