Walter Cronkite

Excerpt from an editorial about the Vietnam War

Broadcast on CBS Television, February 27, 1968

It is generally agreed that American media coverage of the Vietnam War had a major impact on public attitudes toward the conflict. But historians, military leaders, lawmakers, community leaders, and ordinary Americans have different opinions about the nature and quality of coverage provided by U.S. television and print journalists in Vietnam. Defenders of the American press in Vietnam claim that the journalists informed the American people about the true nature of the war at a time when their political and military leaders repeatedly deceived them. But critics in the government, the military, and elsewhere claim that the media was dominated by antiwar journalists who poisoned the American public against the war by delivering superficial and negative coverage of the conflict. Three decades later, the fairness and accuracy of American journalism in Vietnam remains a subject of fierce debate.

When the United States first became involved in Vietnam in the late 1950s and early 1960s, the relationship between America's press and its military and governmental leaders was fairly positive. This cordial relationship is generally attributed both to America's triumph in World War II and the economic prosperity the nation enjoyed in the late 1940s and 1950s. These events gave the American people great confidence in their government and their way of life. Not surprisingly, most U.S. newspaper and magazine news coverage reflected this perspective.

During the early 1960s, however, events in Vietnam put a strain on the generally positive relationship that existed between the press and U.S. governmental and military institutions. The journalists passed along official assurances about the South Vietnamese government's abilities to build popular support and eliminate the threat of the Communist Viet Cong guerrillas. But some members of the American and international press corps stationed in South Vietnam recognized that the country was more unstable than government officials wanted to admit. These reporters filed critical reports about the political and military situation in the country stating that the national government was actually quite corrupt and unpopular. They also noted that Viet Cong guerrillas controlled many of the country's rural regions. These blunt reports embarrassed and angered many American and South Vietnamese officials, and their relationship with the independent-minded journalists began to sour.

Still, most of the journalists who filed critical reports from South Vietnam during the war's early years actually supported American involvement in Indochina. They shared the U.S. government's belief that communism was a dangerous threat to the region. "At the beginning of the war," noted William Hammond, author of Reporting Vietnam, "correspondents . . . disagreed at times with official policy, but their reporting never questioned the ends [goals] of the war. Instead, placing great confidence in the American soldier, they argued in favor of more effective tactics and less official obfuscation [attempts to hide information]. The military, for their part, reciprocated [returned the favor], rejecting censorship of the press in favor of a system of voluntary guidelines that respected the willingness of reporters to avoid releasing information of value to the enemy."

American media coverage of the war increased dramatically in the mid-1960s, when U.S. troop commitments soared. "American news organizations cared little about Vietnam while it was primarily a fight between Vietnamese," confirmed Clarence Wyatt in Paper Soldiers. "But when American soldiers began to fight and die with regularity, journalistic interest and investment increased." As media coverage of the conflict expanded, President Lyndon Johnson, administration officials, and other supporters of the war all expressed concern that it might erode popular support for the U.S. commitment in Indochina.

By the late 1960s American society had become bitterly divided over the Vietnam War. The internal turmoil over the conflict was due in no small part to the contradictory information that the American people received from government officials, military leaders, and journalists. Many of America's leaders contended that the United States was steadily progressing toward meeting its goals of defeating North Vietnam and establishing a democratic government in South Vietnam. But many other people charged that the war had actually deteriorated into a wasteful stalemate that was destroying thousands of American and Vietnamese lives. Distrustful of government assurances that the Communists were being slowly crushed by U.S. firepower and strategy, critics of the war came to see independent American television and press journalists as a more reliable source of information on the conflict.

During this same period, press coverage of the growing antiwar movement also became a topic of heated debate. Supporters of U.S. involvement in Vietnam complained that American newspapers, magazines, and television programs slanted their coverage in favor of the antiwar demonstrators. Antiwar activists, on the other hand, charged that the press ridiculed their concerns and misrepresented their actions. In reality, American newspapers, magazines, and other media were divided on the issue of antiwar protest. Some voices were sympathetic to the antiwar movement, while others expressed great hostility toward the demonstrators.

The Tet Offensive

In early 1968 North Vietnam launched a surprise invasion of the South. The Communists hoped that this attack—known as the Tet Offensive—would overwhelm South Vietnam and its American allies and trigger a nationwide revolt against the Saigon government. The massive assault stunned the American public, which had been repeatedly assured by President Lyndon Johnson (1908–1973) and other U.S. officials that victory was near.

As the Tet Offensive unfolded, hundreds of American journalists rushed to cover the event. The best known of these reporters was Walter Cronkite. Cronkite was a respected World War II correspondent who had served as anchorman of the CBS Evening News since 1962. By the time of the Tet Offensive, he had become one of America's most popular public figures. Indeed, he had built a reputation across the country as a level-headed, trustworthy, and patriotic journalist.

When Cronkite traveled to Vietnam to cover the Tet Offensive in February 1968, he was shocked by the military and political situation in the South. He had long held private doubts about the progress of the war, but he had hoped that official U.S. assurances that victory was near were true. As he toured the war-ravaged cities of Saigon and Hue, however, Cronkite realized that North Vietnam remained a strong and dangerous foe. Armed with this knowledge, the trusted broadcast journalist decided to air a grim editorial detailing his own impressions of the war in Vietnam.

Things to remember while reading the excerpt from Cronkite's editorial:

• As the Vietnam War dragged on and American casualties mounted, journalists and ordinary citizens began questioning official versions of events with greater frequency. Some supporters of the war claimed that this shift in attitude was unfair. But other historians and government officials have expressed amazement that the American press and public remained as supportive as they did for so long. Clarence Wyatt, author of Paper Soldiers, recalled that when Vice President Hubert Humphrey (1911–1978) visited South Vietnam in the fall of 1967, he asked a group of journalists to "give the benefit of the doubt to our side." "Benefit of the doubt?," replied one reporter. "Hell, what do you think we've been doing for the last six years?"
• Few Americans believed that North Vietnam was capable of defeating U.S. forces in direct combat on a regular basis. They recognized that the United States enjoyed big advantages over the enemy in areas such as military firepower, transportation capability, and resources. But the Communists used surprise attacks, guerrilla tactics, and America's unfamiliarity with Vietnam's mountains, jungles, and climate to neutralize the United States' military superiority throughout the war.
• Cronkite's remarks make it clear that he is uncertain whether either side managed to gain a military victory in the Tet Offensive. At one point he suggests that "the referees of history may make [the invasion] a draw." But Cronkite contends that whatever the outcome, the offensive showed that North Vietnam remained a dedicated and potent enemy. He also claims that Tet was a clear indication that U.S. and Vietnamese political leaders had been far too optimistic about their progress in defeating the Communists. "We have been too often disappointed by the optimism of the American leaders, both in Vietnam and Washington, to have faith any longer in the silver linings they find in the darkest clouds," declared Cronkite.

Excerpt from Walter Cronkite's Editorial on the Vietnam War:

There are doubts about the measure of success or setback, but even more, there are doubts about the exact measure of the disaster itself. All that is known with certainty is that on the first two nights of the Tet Lunar New Year, the Viet Cong and North Vietnamese Regular Forces, violating the truce agreed on for that holiday, struck across the entire length of South Vietnam, hitting the largest thirty-five cities, towns, and provincial capitals. How many died and how much damage was done, however, are still but approximations, despite the official figures.

The very preciseness of the figures brings them under suspicion. Anyone who has wandered through these ruins knows that an exact count is impossible. Why, just a short while ago a little old man came and told us that two VC were buried in a hastily dug grave up at the end of the block. Had they been counted? And what about these ruins? Have they gone through all of them for buried civilians and soldiers? And what about those 14 VC we found in the courtyard behind the post office at Hue? Had they been counted and tabulated ? They certainly hadn't been buried.

We came to Vietnam to try to determine what all this means to the future of the war here. We talked to officials, top officials, civilian and military, Vietnamese and American. We toured damaged areas like this, and refugee centers. We paid a visit to the Battle at Hue, and to the men manning the northernmost provinces, where the next big Communist offensive is expected. . . .

We'd like to sum up our findings in Vietnam, an analysis that must be speculative, personal, subjective. Who won and who lost in the great Tet Offensive against the cities? I'm not sure. The Viet Cong did not win by a knockout, but neither did we. The referees of history may make it a draw. Another stand-off may be coming in the big battles expected south of the Demilitarized Zone. Khe Sanh could well fall, with a terrible loss in American lives, prestige, and morale, and this is a tragedy of our stubbornness there; but the bastion no longer is a key to the rest of the northern regions, and it is doubtful that the American forces can be defeated across the breadth of the DMZ with any substantial loss of ground. Another stand-off. On the political front, past performance gives no confidence that the Vietnamese government can cope with its problems, now compounded by the attack on the cities. It may not fall, it may hold on, but it probably won't show the dynamic qualities demanded of this young nation. Another stand-off.

We have been too often disappointed by the optimism of the American leaders, both in Vietnam and Washington, to have faith any longer in the silver linings they find in the darkest clouds. They may be right, that Hanoi's winter-spring offensive had been forced by the Communist realization that they could not win the longer war of attrition, and that the Communists hope that any success in the offensive will improve their position for eventual negotiations. It would improve their position, and it would also require our realization, that we should have had all along, that any negotiations must be that—negotiations, not the dictation of peace terms. For it seems now more certain than ever that the bloody experience of Vietnam is to end in a stalemate.

This summer's almost certain stand-off will either end in real give-and-take negotiations or terrible escalation; and for every means we have to escalate, the enemy can match us, and that applies to invasion of the North, the use of nuclear weapons, or the mere commitment of 100-, or 200-, or 300,000 more American troops to the battle. And with each escalation, the world comes closer to the brink of cosmic disaster.

To say that we are closer to victory today is to believe, in the face of the evidence, the optimists who have been wrong in the past. To suggest we are on the edge of defeat is to yield to unreasonable pessimism. To say that we are mired in stalemate seems the only realistic, yet unsatisfactory, conclusion. On the off chance that military and political analysts are right, in the next few months we must test the enemy's intentions, in case this is indeed his last gasp before negotiations. But it is increasingly clear to this reporter that the only rational way out then will be to negotiate, not as victors, but as an honorable people who lived up to their pledge to defend democracy, and did the best they could.

What happened next . . .

Many of South Vietnam's cities and towns became war zones during the Tet Offensive. But the invasion failed to spark a general uprising against the South Vietnamese government, and the Communist forces suffered tremendous losses at the hands of U.S. and South Vietnamese military forces. North Vietnam eventually was forced to call a general retreat. Their massive invasion had been a military failure.

Nonetheless, Tet proved disastrous for the Johnson administration. In the months prior to the invasion, the president and America's military leadership had repeatedly told the American people that they were on the verge of victory in Vietnam. The scale of the Communist invasion, however, made it clear that defeating the North would require significant new commitments of troops, weapons, and money. As a result, Tet destroyed the credibility of the Johnson administration among large segments of the American public. Many historians believe that this collapse in confidence was best symbolized by journalist Walter Cronkite's post-Tet description of Vietnam as a "stalemate." In fact, Johnson reportedly watched Cronkite's commentary, then flipped off the television and said, "If I've lost Cronkite, I've lost middle America."

American press coverage of the Vietnam War continued to draw criticism from lawmakers and military leaders throughout the remainder of the conflict. President Richard Nixon (1913–1994), who succeeded Johnson in January 1969, expressed frustration with U.S. news coverage on numerous occasions. In 1971 he even stated that aside from the Communists, "our worst enemy seems to be the press." This comment, which was echoed by many of Nixon's pro-war allies, reflected a genuine belief that the press reported events in Vietnam with a negative slant. But the American media, antiwar lawmakers, and other observers dismissed these complaints. They charged that Nixon and other government officials disliked the press coverage because it exposed their flawed policies to the world. In any case, day-to-day coverage of the war declined dramatically in American newspapers and network news programs in the early 1970s, as the U.S. withdrawal from Vietnam accelerated.

Criticisms of American media coverage of the war

Since the Vietnam War ended in 1975 with a Communist victory, the debate over American media coverage of the conflict has remained a bitter one. The most common complaint heard from critics of the U.S. media performance in Vietnam is that the majority of America's television, newspaper, and magazine journalists were personally opposed to the war. They claim that these reporters provided negative and misleading coverage of the war, and that their slanted coverage turned American public opinion against U.S. involvement.

Some lawmakers, military leaders, and historians also contend that American journalists did not do a good job of explaining or interpreting events in Vietnam. Nixon, for example, argued that the media did not provide any sense of the "underlying purpose" of the battles and maneuvers that Americans saw, heard, and read about. "Eventually this contributed to the impression that we were fighting in military and moral quicksand, rather than toward an important and worthwhile objective," he claimed. Other critics claim that some journalists simply jumped to the wrong conclusions when reporting events in Vietnam. The most commonly cited example of this phenomenon is the Tet Offensive, which some American reporters initially—and mistakenly—interpreted as a military defeat for the United States.

Other critics complained that the rivalry among news organizations created superficial and incomplete coverage, as reporters competed to submit the most dramatic stories. In addition, journalists were widely criticized for emphasizing coverage of American combat troops at the expense of less glamorous but nonetheless important issues. "An intense focus on spot reporting of day-to-day combat activity, to the detriment of coverage of less dramatic . . . but equally important social and political stories . . . typified American journalism in Vietnam," commented Wyatt. "During the height of American military involvement, even the most interested, diligent [dedicated] news consumer could conclude that the war in Vietnam was primarily an American effort in which non-military issues were either nonexistent or unimportant."

Finally, many observers believe that television coverage of Vietnam had a tremendously negative impact on American attitudes toward the war. Supporters of this theory claim that when the grim imagery of the Vietnam War—including fierce bombing raids, wounded American soldiers, and crying refugees—appeared on America's television screens, the footage gradually eroded public support for the war. As Daniel C. Hallin noted in The "Uncensored" War, "television shows the raw horror of war in a way print cannot." One Marine officer even claimed in Military Review magazine that "the power and impact of television was the deciding factor in turning American public opinion from one of supporting the U.S. defense of South Vietnam to one of opposing it."

American media coverage defended

Criticism of the American press in Vietnam has remained strong over the years. But many of the journalists who covered the war defend their performance, and they are supported by a wide range of historians, lawmakers, and members of the U.S. military. As Vietnam reporter Don Oberdorfer noted in The Bad War, "coverage of Vietnam was a complicated subject, most of which is conveniently forgotten by one side or the other in the debate. For the American press, Vietnam was a learning experience—much as it was for the rest of the country and the government. We knew very little at the beginning, but as the war progressed people in the press, along with people in the government, who were our sources after all, began to get this very hazy, fuzzy situation into focus. And this picture was not the same picture that was being portrayed in the official reports."

Historians and Vietnam-era reporters agree that the coverage of the war was sometimes superficial. Many also believe that journalists sometimes focused too much on American wartime experiences at the expense of informing readers and viewers about Vietnamese perspectives on the conflict. But they strongly object to the charge that they slanted their coverage because of personal opposition to the war. "Republicans in Washington were questioning [Democratic President Lyndon Johnson's] credibility on the war long before most television correspondents were," stated Hallin. "At least a year before Cronkite called the war a 'bloody stalemate' and urged negotiation, the secretary of defense [Robert McNamara] had reached essentially the same conclusion."

Moreover, many observers believe that the American press corps provided a much more objective account of the war than the U.S. government, which repeatedly distorted events to suit its war aims. "Press coverage of the Vietnam War . . . often conveyed more of the truth than official pronouncements on such significant matters as drug abuse, race relations, the state of military morale, combat operations, and conditions within the South Vietnamese government and armed forces," declared historian William Hammond of the U.S. Army Center of Military History.

Some people also believe that the impact of television on American support for the war has been overstated. They agree that some violent television footage shocked and disturbed the American public. But studies indicate that most television coverage of the conflict in Vietnam did not feature scenes of outright warfare. "Television covered Vietnam nearly every day for more than seven years, producing hours of reporting on the war," wrote Hallin. "Some of that reporting concerned events of great immediate significance. But the majority did not: it was taken up with routine battle coverage .. . ; reports on technology; human-interest vignettes about the troops; occasional 'light' stories about such trivia as what it is like to parachute out of an airplane; and many speeches and press conferences." In addition, much of the television coverage—especially prior to Tet—emphasized the bravery and patriotism of the American soldiers. Some observers believe that this emphasis actually increased public support for the war (one 1967 Newsweek poll, for instance, reported that 64 percent of American citizens believed that television coverage heightened their support for the war effort).

Many journalists who reported on the war in Vietnam confirm that the tone of coverage became more critical in the war's latter stages, as American hopes for outright victory faded. But they insist that the tone of press coverage simply reflected the changing public view of the war. "The American news media both reflected and reinforced the trend [of support for the government], replaying official statements on the value of the war and supporting the soldier in the field, if not always his generals," wrote Hammond. "With time, under the influence of many deaths and contradictions, American society moved to repudiate [reject] that earlier decision. . . . The press followed along, becoming more and more critical of events in South Vietnam as withdrawals continued and the war gradually lost whatever purpose it had held."

Finally, defenders of American press coverage of Vietnam claim that the strongest criticism of the media came from U.S. lawmakers, government officials, and generals who wanted to shift the blame for the failed war away from themselves. "The press didn't lose the war for us," commented diplomat Richard Holbrooke—a former Johnson administration official—in The Bad War. "The war was lost because the strategy was wrong. The military lost the war; the political leadership of this country lost the war. Lyndon Johnson . . . and Richard Nixon and [Secretary of State] Henry Kissinger are the men who cost us this thing. Not the Case-Church Amendment [a law that placed restrictions on presidential war powers], not David Halberstam and Walter Cronkite, and not the antiwar demonstrators. . . . The war was not lost, as Nixon always likes to write, in the halls of Congress and on the pages of the New York Times; it was lost in the rice paddies of Indochina."

Did you know . . .

• According to media historian Lawrence Lichty, less than 5 percent of television news film reports from Vietnam between 1965 and 1970 showed scenes of "close-up" combat.
• During President Nixon's first term of office from 1969 to 1973, Vice President Spiro Agnew became well known for his attacks on American television and print journalists who questioned the administration's Vietnam policies. His description of reporters as "nattering nabobs of negativism" drew particular applause from supporters of the war.
• Since the Vietnam War, American officials have imposed greater restrictions on journalists assigned to report on conflicts in which U.S. troops are involved. In the 1991 Persian Gulf War, for example, the U.S. military and civilian officials limited media access to soldiers and prevented reporters from visiting some regions in which military operations took place.

Sources

Braestrup, Peter. Big Story: How the American Press and Television Reported and Interpreted the Crisis of Tet 1968 in Vietnam and Washington. Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1977.

Cronkite, Walter. A Reporter's Life. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1997.

Dougan, Clark, and Stephen Weiss. The American Experience in Vietnam.New York: W. W. Norton, 1988.

Elegant, Robert. "How to Lose a War." Encounter, August 1981.

Hallin, Daniel C. The "Uncensored War": The Media and Vietnam. New York: Oxford University Press, 1986.

Hammond, William M. Reporting Vietnam: Media and Military at War. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1998.

Mandelbaum, Michael. "Vietnam: The Television War." Daedalus, Fall 1982.

Porter, William E. Assault on the Media: The Nixon Years. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1976.

Turner, Kathleen J. Lyndon Johnson's Dual War: Vietnam and the Press. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1985.

Willenson, Kim, et al. The Bad War: An Oral History of the Vietnam War. New York: New American Library, 1987.

Wyatt, Clarence. Paper Soldiers: The American Press and the Vietnam War. New York: W. W. Norton, 1993.

"For it seems now more certain than ever that the bloody experience of Vietnam is to end in a stalemate."

Walter Cronkite (1916–)

Walter Cronkite ranks as one of the most influential journalists in American history. Born in St. Joseph, Missouri, Cronkite worked as a newspaper and radio reporter until 1939, when he became a correspondent for United Press International (UPI). He covered many of Europe's major battles during World War II (1939–1945). In 1946 he began a three-year stint as UPI's bureau chief in Moscow in the Soviet Union.

In 1950 Cronkite was hired by the CBS television network, and over the next decade he emerged as one of its leading broadcast journalists. In 1962 he was chosen to anchor the CBS Evening News, a position he held until 1981. He became a trusted father-figure to many Americans during this period. As a result, his critical comments on the Vietnam War had a significant influence on public opinion. After retiring from the CBS Evening News in 1981, Cronkite continued to pursue his interest in U.S. and world affairs. He worked as a special correspondent for CBS, and he hosted a variety of public affairs programs on PBS and other networks during the 1980s and early 1990s.

In 1996 Cronkite published an autobiography called A Reporter's Life, in which he provided additional commentary on the Vietnam War. He claimed that the Johnson administration (which occupied the White House from late 1963 to early 1969) mishandled the war in two basic areas. First, Cronkite charged that Johnson's efforts to "shield the American economy from the consequences of the war" created serious economic and social problems for the country. Second, Cronkite stated that "Johnson never leveled with the American people about the nature or likely extent of the war."

Cronkite's own "disillusionment" with American military involvement in Vietnam developed gradually, as the United States invested ever greater resources and soldiers in the conflict. With each passing month, Cronkite became concerned with what he called "the increasing reports from the military and the political foxholes of Vietnam that neither the battle to subjugate [defeat and bring under control] the Vietcong nor that to win over the Vietnamese villagers was meeting with any tangible success. Additionally, there was something distinctly uncomfortable about a war in which it was impossible for even the most optimistic military spokesmen to claim that we were liberating and holding any sizable parts of the territory of South Vietnam. The criterion [measurement] for success that our military adopted was the body count. The only way to measure victory, it seemed, was in terms of how many Vietcong we could kill. That was scarcely uplifting, scarcely inspiring, scarcely calculated to build the morale of either the fighting forces or the home front. It became increasingly difficult to justify the war as the terrible cost to ourselves in blood and material grew and the supply of Vietcong needing to be killed appeared inexhaustible."

Cronkite also expressed anger about accusations that the antiwar movement opposition to the conflict was a betrayal of the United States. "Patriotism simply cannot be defined," he said. "Many of those against the war protested with the most dedicated patriotism—in the total conviction that the war was not a just one and was besmirching [staining or ruining] the image of a nation they loved."

In 1975—two years after the last American combat troops left Vietnam—North Vietnam finally defeated South Vietnam to end the war. Cronkite anchored CBS's coverage of the fall of Saigon, South Vietnam's capital city, despite being troubled by a painful back injury. In fact, Cronkite rode to the CBS television studio in an ambulance, with a doctor by his side. Outfitted in a back brace, he reported on South Vietnam's final hours of existence while literally strapped to his anchor chair.

Years later, Cronkite continued to claim that he and the other CBS reporters offered fair and objective coverage of the war in Vietnam. He also points out that his famous commentary during the Tet Offensive was clearly labeled as an editorial. "I was proud of the degree to which we had kept our evening newscast free of bias, although on a subject as controversial as the war, we did not get credit from either side for doing so," he said. "A generation of officers later, there still lurks in the Pentagon [the headquarters of the Department of Defense] the belief that the media lost the war. We could have won, they insist, if the press had not shown those pictures of naked, napalmed Vietnamese girls fleeing our bombing, of prisoners being shot in the head, of burning hooches [huts], of wounded GIs [American soldiers]. Television brought the war into our living rooms at home and destroyed our will to fight, their theory goes."

Cronkite, though, argues that television and print journalists provided the American public with valuable information about Vietnam at a time when the U.S. government and military was not being truthful. "Let's be clear," he said. "There must be military censorship in time of war. Strategy, tactics, size of forces, success of operations are all legitimate secrets that the military must not disclose. [But] our government simply must not shy away from sharing with the people the unpleasant results of war. All aspects of such foreign adventures must be exposed, and discussed, in a free society."