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Walter Cronkite and the Tet Offensive (1968)

8/9/2018

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                      Source: David Halberstam. The Powers That Be (2012)
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​     By 1965, television had, among other aspects of the Vietnam War, magnified that it was impossible for US soldiers to differentiate between friend and foe in South Vietnam. On top of that, television also magnified the duration of the war, in that in TV years 1965 - 1968 was an eternity. The Vietnam War played out on TV in US homes, and it played too long, which made it seem to millions of Americans that US involvement in SE Asia was a never-ending enterprise, and by early-1968, Walter Cronkite came to that conclusion.
  Walter Cronkite, the CBS Evening News anchorman, was a great weathervane to see the changing attitudes in American unfold concerning the Vietnam War. Initially, Cronkite supported US involvement, but in early-1968, “The Most Trusted Man in America” came out against the government’s decisions/policies in Vietnam in respectable opposition, disassociating himself with the war. In the early years of the war, Cronkite used his massive credibility to lend assistance to the government and the military, viewing the the conflict in SE Asia as necessary. Rare was the American that saw the Vietnam War for what it truly was, a War of National Liberation (as was the American Revolution), so it was predictable that Cronkite agreed with the powers-that-be that the US should not appease the North Vietnamese Communists, and that North Vietnam should be contained. Cronkite, like the rest of America, had given his trust to those in power.
    Cronkite, who by 1965 had reached the pinnacle of his profession, figured that those in the top positions in the government and military knew what they were doing (as he did), and he took their word for the progress of the war. By his own admission, Cronkite, when he went to Saigon for the first time in 1965, was a George Kennan Containment Man, following the conventional wisdom of the Cold War Era.

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​     In 1965, Cronkite didn’t like the brashness of the young correspondents in Saigon, or their skepticism and pessimism about the war; Cronkite gave the government and military men the benefit of the doubt in 1965. Morley Safer, the CBS correspondent in Saigon, tried to educate Cronkite and connect him with talented correspondents, but Cronkite’s perspective was anchored in World War II, and that meant he trusted the powers-that-be. In fact, the government/military used Cronkite’s immense influence and credibility for their own ends, and even against Cronkite himself. Cronkite had been warned by friends and colleagues that he shouldn’t go to Saigon in 1965 since he would be used as a tool to promote government/military decision making in SE Asia, but Cronkite could not resist going. Cronkite felt a strong pull during WW II to go to Britain and cover the war, and that same feeling pulled him to South Vietnam.
    However, one thing did bother Cronkite in Saigon in 1965: he was repeatedly told that the war would be short and small, yet he witnessed massive military construction projects going on which flat-out countered that claim. On his return to the CBS Evening News anchor desk, Cronkite did feature enough reports from Safer and John Laurence (the other prominent CBS correspondent) where the White House referred to CBS as the “Communist Broadcasting Network”. Eventually Cronkite, like much of the nation, became frustrated at the endlessness of the war, and Cronkite increasingly came to doubt the credibility of the men in charge of the war.

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    Cronkite was great at leading and being led at the same time, so when the national mood towards the Vietnam War shifted, Cronkite was at the tip of that developing tidal wave. In 1967, it was announced that Harry Reasoner of CBS was heading to Saigon, and right away Reasoner got a call from LBJ to meet. LBJ outlined what he expected of Reasoner in terms of coverage in South Vietnam, and the President asked Reasoner if he had any questions. Reason asked if he could talk with the Secretary of Defense, Robert McNamara, and that conversation occurred almost immediately. Reasoner left for Saigon feeling that LBJ and McNamara were depressed and cornered men.
    By 1967, the word “stalemate” started to appear more-and-more in the world of journalism concerning Vietnam. As 1968 opened, LBJ was on the defensive, with television no longer an asset to the President, and increasingly, TV featured more-and-more of the anti-war perspective. Before 1968 the Viet Cong (VC) and the North Vietnamese Army (NVA) preferred nighttime raids, and they vanished before dawn, knowing that daylight was an additional enemy which led to more casualties. That strategy also meant that TV had a hard time documenting the actual war between the VC/NVA and the US and the South Vietnamese Army (ARVN).

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     That changed with the Tet Offensive in January/February 1968. For the first time, the VC/NVA fought during the day, day after day, and TV captured it all . . . and day after day the credibility of LBJ and the White House decreased. The first results of the Tet Offensive was that the President’s Propaganda Machine was badly damaged, and that Cronkite’s perspective of the war changed. Also, Tet shook up the WW II orientation of the powerful figures in the media, which meant that the media would no longer automatically believe LBJ.
    During Tet, Cronkite decided to again go to Saigon, knowing full well that he was stepping out of his role as anchorman into an editorial role, and that his career may change for the worse. At a military press conference, General William Westmoreland (who was surprised when he heard Cronkite was present) stated that Tet was exactly what the US had wanted all along, that if the VC/NVA would fight a traditional war, the superpower would crush them. To Cronkite, it was an Orwellian experience, seeing the Ministry of Truth in Charge of Lying (No one in the military understood that Vietnam wasn’t a “Real Estate War” like WW II).
    Cronkite had trouble even landing in South Vietnam due to the fighting associated with Tet, so he was unable to go to Khe Sanh and instead went to Hue, where the NVA had in effect surrounded the Marines. Cronkite was truly an embedded wartime correspondent again: with his own eyes, he witnessed the gap between the reality of the war and the false/ignorant claims of the US government/military. Cronkite flew out from Hue accompanied by the body bags of 12 dead US soldiers.

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    Cronkite then meet with General Creighton Abrams (who was a friend, as was soon to replace Westmoreland) who confirmed Cronkite’s doubts of the war. Next Cronkite flew to Saigon to meet with CBS correspondents, and he talked to Laurence in particular. Cronkite transformed from a neutral anchorman to a personal journalist as a result of the Tet Offensive. Cronkite briefed his superiors on what he was going to do, and they gave him, if not their blessing, then permission to proceed, knowing that Cronkite’s televised opinion could be a severe blow to the reputation of CBS News. Cronkite didn’t want to go down that road, but the decision making of those in power plus the changing political landscape left him in essence with no choice but to air his views.
    Cronkite wrote a thirty minute broadcast special, and his conclusion was that it was time for the US to get out of Vietnam; he was ready to make that statement as was much of the nation to hear him. Cronkite changed the balance in that it was the first time in US History a war had been declared over by an anchorman. Cronkite was one of the reasons why LBJ announced on 31 March 1968 that he would not run again for President (the biggest reason was that RFK had entered the Democratic primaries, and he flat-out refused to lose to the man he hated more than any other . . . LBJ’s main fears were failure and humiliation).
    LBJ still liked Cronkite, believing that he was different from what he considered to be the unpatriotic renegades in the media. Cronkite was perhaps the only major journalist that LBJ respected and admired, knowing that Cronkite cared deeply about the welfare of the nation. LBJ realized that he had lost the “Center”, and the Cronkite must know things concerning the war that he, as President, didn’t know.
                           Also: Cronkite's Top Ten TV Moments . . .

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The Fulbright Hearings on the Vietnam War (1966)

8/1/2018

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                      Source: David Halberstam. The Powers That Be (2012)
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    The Fulbright Hearings in the Senate in 1966 was a first-order Constitutional confrontation over the Vietnam War and US foreign policy, and long overdue. The hearings covered a generation of Executive decisions/direction in foreign policy, and the corresponding appeasement by Congress. The hearings occurred almost a year after LBJ informed the US in July 1965 that 125,000 soldiers were being sent to South Vietnam.
   The media was complicit, perhaps more so than Congress, in terms of why/how the Executive Branch had become so powerful. Television in particular gave the impression that the President and federal government were united and confident about their course of actions in Vietnam. The truth was that the government had morphed into an entity that closely resembled the USSR as far as its desire for secrecy, believing that any open debate on foreign policy could only aid the enemies of the US (especially the USSR).
    Key Senators like William Fulbright (AR) that were foreign policy experts were told of actions after the fact by the such agencies as the CIA. Figures such as McGeorge Bundy and Henry Kissinger became more important than experts in Congress, as well as the State Department, since they were within the Executive Branch. Being the “President’s Men” also meant that they didn’t have to testify in front of Congress. The kind of debate envisioned by the Founding Fathers between the Executive and Legislative Branches simply didn’t occur over Vietnam until 1966 . . . before the Fulbright Hearings, the only debate on Vietnam occurred within the Executive. ​

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   In the CIA and the State and Defense Departments, the doubters of the Vietnam War stood at around 2/3’s of the important officials, but the media reflected very little of that indecision, showing unity, confidence, and righteousness. Fulbright had once been in LBJ’s “Circle of Trust” as one of his closest advisers, but after a year of Vietnam, Fulbright had become appalled at how the war had become a Presidential vehicle. So, for the first time in Fulbright’s life, it was HIS ox that was being gored.
    While Fulbright liked to see JFK use TV for political advantage, he was beyond-worried by 1966 with LBJ’s increased power and his relative powerlessness as the Chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. What also bothered Fulbright was that Executive Branch figures like SecState and various Presidential aids were on television getting exposure, but not a Senator (not necessarily him). Fulbright was one of the “Old Guard” and not one to use TV, and oddly enough, Fulbright didn’t crave the spotlight like most of the fellow Senators. Fulbright didn’t think much of the media, since he believed they brutalized/trivialized serious debate and, in essence, they were the intruders to the Order of Things.
    Fulbright actually didn’t want his hearings to be televised, thinking it would be a colossal distraction, but his hearings had always been open, and by 1966 that meant including television. That being said, Fulbright doubted that the networks would bother television the hearings. However, the Fulbright Hearings would be the first time since the “Loss of China” (1949) and the Korean War Era (1950-53) that TV had given a major platform to a member of Congress to challenge the direction of the nation’s foreign policy.

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   Fulbright didn’t seek out the confrontation w/ LBJ, he didn’t seek to be in the spotlight, and he didn’t like the role of dissident, but all three occurred nonetheless once the hearings started. Once Fulbright was committed to a goal, the Senior Senator from Arkansas was fearless and made of steel. LBJ believed that Fulbright held the hearings since he was bitter at not being nominated as Secretary of State, but that was not the case. Fulbright, unique among the high profile and high ranking Senators, did not have Presidential ambition. Fulbright was happy where he was in the Senate, and that was why he didn’t pursue SecState, even as far back as 1960 when LBJ pushed Fulbright to lobby JFK for the post. The pace/responsibilities of the Senate perfectly fit Fulbright’s talents, preferences, curiosity, and passion.
    By 1966, in many ways Fulbright was THE Senator, and he had a key ally in the world of journalism with Walter Lippmann, who was enthusiastically in Fulbright’s corner (Fulbright had moved into lockstep with Lippmann in terms of doubting the direction of US foreign policy). Fulbright wasn’t just challenging the power of the Presidency, but also the assumptions of the Cold War twenty years after WW II ended. And an added factor: for years Fulbright held reservations that the US should impose its values/institutions everywhere around the world. The Bay of Pigs fiasco intensified Fulbright’s doubts and increased his confidence. After the debacle, Senator Fulbright had no problem sending a memo to President Kennedy saying the attack was a bad idea: in his mind, that memo meant that he was right and the Executive Branch was wrong. ​

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​     Fulbright became suspicious of not only the flow of information but with the ambitions involved within the Executive Branch. Fulbright, out of necessity, had become far more dependent on journalists for information, for example, getting information from resident correspondents instead of US Embassy personnel. In 1964, Fulbright was so anti-Senator Barry Goldwater (AZ) that he didn’t pick up on LBJ’s machinations as soon as he probably would have, and worse yet, LBJ used the shadow of Goldwater to get Fulbright to spearhead the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution through the Senate in late-1964. As an added push, LBJ gave Fulbright a private promise that no US troops would be sent to Vietnam. Fulbright took on the Tonkin assignment with deep misgivings, and it became the public act he regretted the most by far as Senator.
    Fulbright knew that in order to get LBJ to see things more his way on Vietnam, he would need to take time to educate LBJ, but the President wasn’t a willing student. The split between LBJ and Fulbright actually started with the Dominican Republic (“Operation Power Pack”), where the US went in with overwhelming force for Containment (of Communism) reasons (a rough equivalent would be the Grenada invasion in 1983, “Operation Urgent Fury”). As a result of the quick and decisive result in the Dominican Republic, LBJ and many in the government believed that Vietnam would be no different, which only encouraged the arrogance associated with the Vietnam. Fulbright had disliked the US involvement in the Dominican Republic from the start, seeing the invasion as “Yankee Imperialism” at its worst.

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     Fulbright ran hearings on the US invasion in the Dominican Republic, and an expert on Latin American affairs lectured the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that they didn’t have the information that the Executive Branch had, saying such things as “if you had only seen the cables”. Fulbright demanded to see those cables, and in the flush of victory-and-arrogance, the White House turned them over to the committee.
    What the cables really showed was that the LBJ administration went into the Dominican Republic without accurate information and then tried to reshape events later to fit their point-of-view. Fulbright decided to give a speech about the cables since his committee was split and therefore there would not be a committee report. Fulbright knew full well that the speech would mean the end of being part of LBJ’s circle (although by then he was in the outer ring).  Fulbright’s speech was given as Vietnam was heating up, and as far as LBJ was concerned, Fulbright was politically dead to him, and as far as Fulbright was concerned, LBJ had broken that promise made in private where he stated he wouldn’t send US troops to South Vietnam. Fulbright saw the situation as similar to the “Divine Right of Kings”, and the King and his Princes were on television every day, spreading and disseminating their version of events and decisions.

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​   In January 1966, a very frustrated, angry, and betrayed Senator Fulbright saw his opportunity during a part of a hearing on a supplemental foreign aid bill. On 28 January 1966, Secretary of State Dean Rusk testified, and Fulbright and Senator Wayne Morse (OR) jumped the SecState, and Fulbright’s view on Vietnam and LBJ’s level of power came out loud and clear in a very combative questioning period. The networks did not air Rusk’s testimony, but all three did feature a segment on the evening news.
    Six days later, CBS aired another round of the supplemental hearings, and the producers wanted Fulbright to keep the session to thirty minutes so that the only show canceled on CBS would be Captain Kangaroo. But Fulbright simply didn’t care about the programming on CBS, and the hearings (which proved to be great TV) continued, and CBS kept airing the hearing, and kept canceling regular programming. NBC aired the hearings as well, but their shows weren’t as lucrative, so NBC didn’t lose nearly as much advertising revenue as did CBS.
    It was during the Fulbright hearings that LBJ decided that it would be a good time to take Air Force One to Honolulu to meet with a high-ranking South Vietnamese military official; LBJ was losing control of the media, and he wanted it back. During the hearings, when it came time for George Kennan to testify, CBS ran “I Love Lucy” reruns while NBC stayed with the hearings (CBS had egg on its face, especially since the witnesses that day were high level men with titles from the Executive Branch). As it turned out, there would be no other Congressional hearings concerning the Vietnam War on television.

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    Early in the Vietnam War, TV had trivialized the debate and the opposition in SE Asia while at the same time confirming the legitimacy of the President, which made JFK and LBJ look like they knew what they were doing, and the opposition was portrayed as social/political outcasts. The Fulbright hearings gradually changed that imbalance, similar to the impact that the Ervin hearings had during the Watergate Scandal.  A slow educational process on Vietnam unfolded on TV that turned the tide against LBJ and his propaganda machine. From 1966 on, dissent became more respectable and centrist, with the exception being the radical elements.
   In the end, the government and military witnesses at the Fulbright hearings, under intense questioning, were unable to make a case for the Vietnam War, and as a result, the White House had started to lose control of the war on television. The point was reached where General Matthew Ridgway, a true American hero from WW II and the Korean War, refused to testify at the Fulbright hearings since he was unwilling to criticize a war he knew was wrong/unwinnable while soldiers were in harm’s way.
    Slowly, TV magnified the inconsistencies/brutalities of Vietnam, but at first, TV was part of the President’s team, which made it a consensus medium. But that changed in part because the war kept going and victory was elusive, which showed the predictions of the Great Men in Washington, D.C. were wrong. Also, the Viet Cong and the North Vietnamese Army controlled the pace and intensity of the war to fit their needs, which meant that the pace and intensity of the war didn’t match what President Lyndon Johnson wanted or needed.

Below: An analysis of the Fulbright Hearings, focusing on SecState Dean Rusk's testimony . . .

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