The War in Vietnam and the Media’s Role

By Emily Tibbitts

Editor’s note: Emily Tibbitts is a junior at Ashland University, majoring in Political Science and Electronic Media Production with a minor in journalism. She is an Ashbrook Scholar in the Ashbrook Center for Public Affairs, and a recipient of Ashland’s Presidential Scholarship. Emily served as an intern with the American Veterans Center in 2007, with her major research project being a study of the Vietnam War, the men and women who served there, and the media’s role in the war. After much hard work, and diligent research, the final product is the following story.

The Early Years

The war in Vietnam was not a war like any previously experienced by the American people. The United States was looking for a victory that was non-descript, un-defined and largely misunderstood, making it hard to comprehend why we were there, why we were not winning, and even more importantly, what winning would look like. With the United States military present only as advisors to the South Vietnamese Military for the first years of conflict, it was hard to convey the importance of the war, or why it was even our war. Americans were accustomed to battlefronts and pins on a map that showed progress against a clear enemy who posed an obvious threat to our nation’s security. But in Vietnam, we were fighting a war that did not appear to be ours with an end that was difficult to recognize. Though we were preventing South Vietnam from falling to communism it appeared that we were always on the defense, playing world police in hopes to prevent future problems that may or may not arise. It was not successfully communicated to the American public that support of South Vietnam was necessary to prevent the spread of communism that could pose threats to our security.

After the conference in Geneva in 1954, Vietnam was separated as the North and South. The Vietnamese had little experience in participating in their own government, and struggled to form a structure of government that was effective. The North had an advantage by building upon the structure of Ho Chi Minh’s communist party, but the South was left with nothing at almost every level of government. As government organization began in South Vietnam, Ngo Dinh Diem rose to power gaining the support of Washington along the way. In an attempt to impede the rise of Ho Chi Minh, President Eisenhower provided Diem with an American mission in Vietnam. The U.S. eventually entered Vietnam as military advisors and its commitment continued to grow. The American presence was justified by noting the relevance of the stability of South Vietnam in relationship to its own national security. In 1959 Eisenhower clarified that:

“Strategically, South Vietnam’s capture by the communists would bring their power several hundred miles into a hitherto free region. The remaining countries of Southeast Asia would be menaced by a great flanking movement. The loss of South Vietnam would set in motion a crumbling process which could, as it progresses, have grave consequences for the forces of freedom.”

In spite of efforts to explain our presence, many Americans never fully grasped what it was they were to support. In Secretary of State Dean Rusk’s nationwide broadcasted statement before the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations in 1966, he defended the war with similar arguments to Eisenhower’s. He affirmed, “We are not there merely because we have power and like to use it…But we are in Viet-Nam because the issues can profoundly affect the nature of the world in which we and our children live.” He then continued to make clear that we were in “a process of preventing the expansion and extension of communist domination by the use of force against the weaker nations on the perimeter of communist power.” Acknowledging that “[communists] see the struggle in South Viet-Nam as part of a larger design for the steady extension of communist power through force and threat,” he declared, “We cannot leave while force and violence threaten them.”