American News Stories Involving the Situation in Vietnam Around the Time of the Arrival of U.S Combat Troops
On March 8, 1965 3,500 marines arrived in Danang begining the longest war in American history, and also one of the most controversial. The Vietnam War was encompassed in a Cold War context, a mere extension of America's attempts to stem the spread of communism in the world. Many news articles that dealt with Vietnam in early March 1965 added pressure for America to quickly win the war in Vietnam and assert the dominance of democracy over communism. Many news articles dealt with social problems that were being faced by the Vietnamese. Stories reported how American troops disrupted Vietnamese life, their reactions to American intervention and the actions of their own government. The American sentiment for the war was similar to the arguments that are still made about the war today. Some Americans believed that America was going to become entangled in a war which it could not win. Some editorials went so far as to say that the war was with Vietnam misdirected; that the U.S. should not conduct hostilities toward North Vietnam and the Vietcong but against China or Russia. At the time American troops arrived in Vietnam the U.S. had been politically involved in Vietnam for eleven years and the arrival only marked an increase in that involvement. With the Cold War at its height, Americans feared that their freedom was being threatened by communist expansion which with increasing hostilities would lead to a nuclear war. However, many Americans felt that Vietnam was not the problem but that the war should be conducted against the communist superpowers of China and Russia. Some Americans flet that the war should be conducted specifically against China in order to stop the problem at its source.
International Response
The international community responded to American involvement in Vietnam in different ways, but the sentiment leaned against armed intervention. On March 5th the New York Times ran an article that confronted the sentiments of foreign nations. The article reported that Japan was critical of American involvement because they feared that the U.S. did not completely understand what kind of reaction it could expect from Asia. They thought that the war would spread throughout the area and create a setting for another world war. It also reported that President Sukarno of Indonesia blamed imperialist intervention as the cause of trouble in Southeast Asia. Further in the article Prince Sihanouk stated that the U.S provoked the problem by bombing North Vietnam without justification. On March 6th the paper reported that 45 English left-wing Labour government officials signed a motion in the House of Commons declaring that they would not support U.S. action in Vietnam. Another article stated that Pakistani President Mohammed Ayub Khan, in a trip to China, pleaded that his host consider peace talks to end the war in Vietnam. On March 10th the Wall Street Journal ran an article stating that France would not join the U.S. if a full-scale war were to break out with China, stating that France believed the only solution would be to conduct a conference accompanied by a cease-fire.
Internal Dissent
Life Magazine ran a story on March 5th that dealt with the deep internal political trouble in the South Vietnamese government. The story dealt with the lulls between confrontations, in one such lull there had been an attempt to overthrow General Khanh. It conveyed that China and Russia were close to entering the war, yet the South Vietnamese leaders were unable to trust each other. This lack of trust brought instability to the government and victory to the Vietcong that much closer. On March 7th the New York Times reported that Air Vice Marshal Nguyen Cao Ky had sent planes airborne to thwart a coup attempt, which had been suspected from reports that had been received.
Civil actions and reactions in both America and South Vietnam were also important topics for the newspapers. On March 6th in the New York Times a story informed the American public that 7,000 citizens of Danang would be moved from their homes on the outskirts of Danang, near the airbase, to another sector of the city. The removal was for security reasons and that once everyone had been moved out, the area would become off-limits to everyone at night and only accessible to authorized personnel during the day. The Wall Street Journal ran on the 18th a story about a woman in Detroit who started herself on fire by being doused with a flammable liquid. Reasons for her actions were indicated in a note stating that she conducted the act in imitation of South Vietnamese Buddhists who protested the arms race. The New York Times also ran a story on March 8th about an anti-war protest held at the University of Wisconsin-Madison reporting that there was opposition throughout the Midwest, but that only extremists held this view of opposition. Then on the 11th, the paper reported that American officers were becoming aware that the press was criticizing them for portraying the situation much more favorably than it actually was.
Unfulfilled Promises
The best indicator for the feelings of the American public can be found by reading the editorials and letters to the editor. By March 5th people were writing letters to Time Magazine that argued against American involvement in Vietnam, stating that the war should be conducted against communist China and that the U.S. should pull out now to save face. Others also argued that President Johnson went back on his word for peace during his campaign, betraying the American public's trust. The March 7th edition of the New York Times magazine, letters complained that negotiating a way out of the war would show weakness, while other letters stated that America was trying to push itself on the world, that it should back off and not allow the U.S. to get involved in another Korea or possible nuclear war. One of the letters submitted came from 16-year-old Rosalind Raymond who wrote “You cannot win a war without spilling blood … I refuse to pay this price … I demand my right to grow to maturity. I demand my right to live”. Other letters called for the end of war entirely while another one said that humanity was crying for peace.
As the U.S. began to escalate the war in Vietnam they also began to suppress information that they was being given to the press. The Wall Street Journal reported on March 17th that information about U.S. air strikes was intentionally being made vague, that U.S. officials were not allowing the press to find out how many planes were going to be involved or from where the operations would originate. Then on the 18th it reported that foreign correspondents in South Vietnam were complaining about U.S. authorities barring reporters from speaking with pilots and only allowing reporters on the bases with an escort. The article also noted that operations conducted over the Laotian border had typically been conducted in secrecy. These complaints were well founded because the New York Times reported on March 6th that Vice President Hubert Humphrey assured the American press, which he called the best in the world, that President Johnson recognized that the American population was entitled to information about the war, but that there was an obligation to the military to preserve the lives of American soldiers by not allowing certain information to be revealed.
The Imperialsim Begins
President Johnson assured the public that the increase in manpower and American strategy did not mark a change in American policy in an article run on March 14th in the New York Times. He stated that the reason for bombing North Vietnamese targets was to convince them to come to the bargaining table. Johnson stated in the article that the situation was difficult because of the instability of the South Vietnamese government, which still had not improved with the increased American military role. An article on the 9th insinuated that U.S. attempts to win the support of the Vietnamese meant that American forces would have no intention of withdrawing from the country. On the same day a story about the objectives of the North Vietnamese in Hanoi reported that it was not very likely that the communists would come to a compromise satisfactory to all the parties involved, including China and Russia. It also stated that while North Vietnam was allowing the Vietcong insurgency to appear as if it were being conducted only as an indigenous revolt to the South Vietnamese government, they were eager to have the Vietcong establish themselves politically, so that a communist takeover could be achieved.
Life magazine reported the story in its March 19th edition in superior American fashion that American troops were both smarter and better trained than their Vietnamese counterparts. On March 8th in the Wall Street Journal a story reported that North Vietnam was protesting to the International Control Committee about the troop arrival, expressing that it would be an “intolerable provocation”. In an article the next day next day the paper stated that the Moscow press had called the American troop arrival “a new phase in the aggressive policy of the U.S.”. On March 7th the New York Times mentioned that the Defense Department had been denying the deployment for a week and that U.S. officials were stressing that it would take at least four full divisions of 50,00 men to successfully be able to defend against the guerilla attacks.
The letters found in the Wall Street Journal tended to find a consensus by arguing against the government in South Vietnam. On March 9th a letter submitted stated that America had withdrawn from Germany after World War II, from China when politicians quit supporting Chiang Kai-shek, withdrew from implied support for maintaining freedom in Hungary, and that we had withdrew our support of the “only strong and friendly leader South Vietnam ever had”. The author then ended the letter by asking where our next withdrawal would come. The next day Arthur Gutman wrote that America should find a way to pursue both isolationism and intervention, in essence to find a happy medium. He believed that peace could only be achieved by educating the population, not through the threat of nuclear weapons. Another letter submitted stated that Americans feel so superior and that their government is the best in the world, yet America has to impose its ideals upon nations that resent both intervention and help while other nations only achieve American support through threatening to side with the communists. On March 16th a writer argued that the American policy in Vietnam was futile because of the lack of interest shown by a population with little heart to fight for a leaderless government.
Concluding Points
Although American society was facing a social upheaval of its own that captured much of the attention of the nation, the social problems of South Vietnam were also being reported to American society. America’s own problems were being reported next to the problems 3,000 miles away. It was only evident that Americans would take a strong stance either way on Vietnam with the coverage that the situation received. The Vietnam War was probably the most covered story in American history while also one of the most controversial issues. Because of the attention it received, the way it played out, the way in which it was conducted, and through the way in which its politicians had deceived the American public, many problems were created for those who served in Vietnam when they made their way home. Only recently had America been able to look back on the scar of Vietnam and give honor to those who served a war that did not hold much meaning for a huge portion of the population.
The Vietnam Memorial-The Wall-This
site offers essays and poems of people who visited the Vietnam Veterans Memorial
in Washington D.C.
Vietnam Veterans Against the War, Inc.-This
site provides a history of the Vietnam War, commentary by veterans, photos,
an image gallery, links, and other information on veterans.
Tomb of the Unknown
Soldier-This site takes a look at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in the
Arlington National Cemetery. This site offers a story on one of the Unknowns
from the Vietnam War that was identified and returned home to be buried.
This site is an off-shoot of the Arlington National Cemetery website and
provides links back to that site.
This is a picture I took on Memorial Day weekend 2002 of the Tomb of the
Unknown Soldier. 
Here is a view of a section of the Arlington National Cemetery. It is hard
to tell from this picture, but the gravestones seem to go on forever, a testament
to American intervention in both foreign and domestic affairs.
