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Unlock This CourseVietnam is often called the first television war. By the mid-1960s most American homes had a television, and the evening news was how many people learned about the war. Reporters were given easy access to the fighting. There was no formal censorship, and journalists could travel with US troops and film what they saw.
Early reports were mostly supportive. As the war dragged on, viewers saw wounded soldiers, burning villages and refugees. Newspaper and magazine photographs did the same. The My Lai photographs appeared in 1969, and a famous picture of children fleeing a napalm attack was published in 1972. Reporters also noticed that official briefings did not always match what they saw in the field. This added to the credibility gap, the gap between what the government said and what people could see.
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Many people at the time thought so. In November 1969 Vice-President Agnew accused the TV networks of bias. Opinion polls did show support falling, and by 1971 most Americans told pollsters that sending troops had been a mistake.
But historians argue about how much the media really changed minds. Support also fell because casualties rose, because the draft touched families, and because the war seemed to have no end. In other words, the pictures mattered, but the war itself gave people reasons to doubt it.
Protesters were loud, but many Americans disagreed with them. On 3 November 1969 Nixon spoke on television, a few weeks after huge protests called the Moratorium. He asked for support from the 'great silent majority' of Americans and said that policy must not be set by demonstrators. Thousands of supportive letters and telegrams reached the White House.
On 8 May 1970, four days after National Guardsmen shot dead four students at Kent State University in Ohio, construction workers attacked student protesters near Wall Street in New York. Many wore hard hats, which gave the movement its name.
In May 1970 tens of thousands of workers marched through New York carrying flags in support of the President. The leader of the building trades unions gave Nixon a hard hat.
These events showed that Americans were split, not just against the war. Many working-class people backed the soldiers and the President. Some resented students, who often avoided the draft with deferments.
Senator J. William Fulbright chaired the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, which held hearings in 1971 on bills to end the war. Fulbright had once backed the war, but he became one of its leading critics in Congress.
On 22 April 1971 the committee heard from John Kerry, a young Navy veteran speaking for Vietnam Veterans Against the War. Kerry told senators that veterans had seen terrible things in Vietnam, and asked, 'How do you ask a man to be the last man to die for a mistake?' The hearing was shown on television, and it mattered because the criticism now came from men who had fought. The veterans' week of protest in Washington ended with some throwing away their medals.
Do not say the media 'won' or 'lost' the war. Say what it influenced, then weigh up the other causes. Also remember that the silent majority was Nixon's claim, not a measured fact.
Extract C (a practice extract written for this lesson, in the style of a modern history book)
The war was lost in American living rooms. Television brought the fighting, the body bags and the burned villages into every home, and the protests that followed shook the government. By 1971 the pressure from public opinion had left Nixon with no choice but to withdraw, whatever his hopes of victory.
Source A: From a television speech by President Nixon to the American people, 3 November 1969.
I would be untrue to my oath of office if I allowed the policy of this Nation to be dictated by the minority ... by mounting demonstrations in the street. ... And so tonight, to you, the great silent majority of my fellow Americans, I ask for your support. ... the more divided we are at home, the less likely the enemy is to negotiate at Paris.
Source B: From the statement of John Kerry, for Vietnam Veterans Against the War, to the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee, 22 April 1971.
We rationalized destroying villages in order to save them. ... how do you ask a man to be the last man to die in Vietnam? How do you ask a man to be the last man to die for a mistake?
Study Extract C. Extract C suggests that the war was lost because of opinion at home. How far do you agree with this interpretation? Use Extract C, Sources A and B and your own knowledge to explain your answer. [16 marks]
Extract C argues that the war was lost at home, through television and protest. There is a good deal of support for this view. Source A shows that Nixon himself believed opinion mattered: he says 'the more divided we are at home, the less likely the enemy is to negotiate at Paris', which admits that protest weakened his bargaining position. Source B shows how far opposition had spread, because a veteran told a Senate committee, on television, that Americans were being asked to die 'for a mistake'. My own knowledge supports Extract C as well. After the Tet Offensive was shown on American screens in 1968, Johnson decided not to stand again, and after Kent State in 1970 hundreds of colleges closed.
However, other evidence challenges the extract. Source A is mainly an appeal to the 'great silent majority', and Nixon treats the protesters as a 'minority'. He had some reason to do so. In May 1970 construction workers attacked student protesters in New York, and tens of thousands then marched in support of him. Nixon was re-elected by a landslide in 1972, so protest did not remove him. Extract C also says he had 'no choice' but to withdraw, yet he did not simply leave. He used Vietnamisation to hand the fighting to South Vietnam, widened the war into Cambodia in 1970 despite the protests, and ordered heavy bombing of North Vietnam in December 1972. US troops left only after the Paris Peace Accords of January 1973, a deal made with North Vietnam. Finally, Extract C ignores events in Vietnam itself, where the Vietcong could not be beaten by search and destroy and the South Vietnamese government stayed weak.
Overall I agree only partly. Television and protest mattered because they turned Tet into a political defeat and limited what Johnson and Nixon could do. But the test of what ended US involvement is wider: the war could not be won at an acceptable cost, and Nixon chose withdrawal by stages. Opinion at home shaped when and how the USA left, rather than being the only cause, so the extract overstates its case.
What lifts it to the top level: it uses the extract and both sources for and against, adds precise own knowledge, and reaches a judgement against a clear criterion (what ended US involvement).
In a 16-mark interpretation question, name Extract C and both sources, quote a few words from each, and add facts that appear in none of them.