Vietnam, the uncensored War that changed the public support

Vietnam War  provided us with a before and an after, it was the first and unique war in which journalists had a non-biased access to the battlefield. As Carl von Clausewitz already said in 1820: “War is the continuation of politics but using other mediums”(Murcia Gómez V& Moreno Martinez O.2008, pp 38-58) Vietnam War showed to the world that communication media were also mighty mediums for doing War.

Since the Vietnam War, thanks to the auto-critical and watchdog information role played by the media denouncing the behavior of their own War and their own soldiers, the Government and the Army became more aware of the media influence thanks to the fact of that general people were able to follow the evolution of this conflict without censorship restrictions. As Michal Beschloss explained in his book Taking Charge “When United States began the War with Vietnam they didn’treally know what they were doing” (Beschloss M. Taking Charge 1997). The War model followed by the British during the Malvinas conflict give us a good example of the role played by most of the States in relation to the access of media to the battle after the Vietnam War. During the Malvinas War, London selected the reporters they wanted in accordance to their criteria, apart from that, the only information that the journalist had access to was given by the Army. As a consequence, English communication media were under the supervision of the British Army and the only information available about the Malvinas´ situation was disclosed by reporters who did not know the reality of the conflict. Once this media-government role was brought into action, this model was applied in most of the successive Wars after Vietnam conflict as happened with the Gulf War or the Iraq War. Nowadays the British conduct during the Malvinas War is exercised in all the NATO countries in accordance to the report written in 1986 saying how to behave with communication media when conflicts happen.

The fear to the opposition of the public opinion is still part of the reality. During the Vietnam conflict the Hollywood cinema followed an anti-war and critical approach to the War giving specific information about atrocities committed by Americans as we saw in movies such as “Apocalypse Now” from Francis Ford Coppola (Ramonet I. Hollywood y la Guerra de Vietnam,2000). The apprehension to the reincarnation of those lethal critics have made the censorship about the Vietnam War is still part of the reality. In a James Bond movie, thirty years after the Vietnam War, the screenwriters had to delete a sentence talking about the Vietnam War which said: “and maybe this time we will win”(Robb D. Operación Hollywood. 2006).

Vietnam War was the first TV war in history. However, the information distributed was not life content as it is supposed, due to the news was sent by plane to United States and then retransmitted with a difference of forty-eight hours. Despite this, Television made possible that a bigger quantity of people knew what was happening in the world. It was the first time in which literate and illiterate, rich and poor, urban and village people started to have a progressive and bigger access to information. Massive bombings and the war cruelty retransmitted by the media finished changing the image that still many European countries had about USA.

When the Vietnam War started, even the Government didn’t exercise a direct control over the media, most of the journalists decided to write news basing their information on the reports of the MACV (Military, Assistance, Command, Vietnam). As Gans explains: “At the beginning, until the Tet Offensive, the coverage was given by American Official Sources” (Wolf M. 2004. Page 246). The Army, the Air Force and the Pentagon were the only Vietnam War speakers. The State had the monopoly of information about the War, something which was reflected in the distort information given by the media during the conflict. Data about the number of death people during the War were erroneous as the Defense Department admitted, the margin of error was equal to the 30%, however not research or rectifications were made around this topic.

Most of the population and communication media in 1965 were in favor of the intervention of Vietnam (Crónicas de la Guerra de Vietnam, 1988). However, while the War continued the journalists attitude started to change. Since 1968 commenced the beginning of the end of the Vietnam War. From the Tet offensive, the Vietnam War started to be seen in a radical different way by communication media. Journalists started to report the war showing all the cruelty that characterized the war. The first report on the Communist attack to the U.S embassy in Saigon included realistic images and sounds of the gunfire in what until that moment was American territory. This information showing the cruelty of the War already started to change the perspective of the public´s perspective. The general public started to doubt if a quick victory of USA over North Vietnam was possible. Images showing the abuse of power of the American Army changed the general perception of the War, as happened with the execution of a Vietcong suspect killed by a Police without a previous judgment assuring his “guiltiness”. The War was being seen in all the American living-rooms this time with angry and violence.

Communication media finally refused to silence the USA abuse, mass executions, the use of chemical weapons, the destruction of the environment with the use of defoliants and the annihilation of peaceful communities. Since the Tet Offensive in 1968 the North American press and TV carried to the general public the most complete, direct, stark and vivid information of war offered in the history. Following the CBS, the New York Times or the Newsweek was an essential task for foreign correspondents in order to inform about the crucial information about the conflict. As the journalist Victor de la Serna explains the news given by the main American media were then “reinterpreted, explained and sent to the rest of Europe” (Serva V. Narrar la Gran Derrota) The Vietnam War was a defeat, but above all it was a public relations defeat for the South of Vietnam and specially for United States.

The image of USA, a huge and powerful country, killing the soldiers of a small and weak country had terrible and devastating consequences. In 1968 the American President on those times, Lyndon Johnson, after the bad results in the public opinion poll and the prolongation of the Vietnam conflict decided not to go to the Presidential Elections. Establishing an analogy, in Vietnam occurred the same than in the Crimea War with the British foreign correspondent Howard Russell of the Times. Russell reported about the cruelty and abuses that he saw in the battlefield, and as a consequence the public opinion changed radically. After the Crimea War, Russell continued being a “war correspondent” however he didn’t have anymore a real access to the battlefield when War conflicts happened (Sierra F. Communication and Insurgency. 1997. Page 32). During the Vietnam War, as during the reports of Russell in Crimea, the reporting about unusual and critical facts of great importance altered the public opinion, however as history demonstrates this facts were only unusual, inspiring and isolated events during War reporting. After the Vietnam War, Governments realized the importance of media in order to have the support of the public opinion. However we should not forget that the people, the general people, should have the right to know what it is really happening. The Vietnam War serves as an example of the media importance when claiming unfair situations; the Vietnam War is an example of Journalist´s duties and responsibilities during war conflicts.

REFERENCES:

-Ignacio Ramonet. 1997. “La Guerra en los medios” Revista: Papeles http://www.edualter.org/material/globalizacion/medios.htm    

Victor de la Serna, narrar la gran derrota  http://www.elmundo.es/internacional/vietnam/victor.html

-Historia de las Relaciones Internacionales durante el siglo XX. La Guerra de Vietnam http://www.historiasiglo20.org/GLOS/vietnam.htm

-Alejandro Arévalo Salinas. 2004. “El Desempeño de los Medios de Comunicación en los Conflictos Bélicos” http://es.scribd.com/doc/7281782/El-Desempeno-de-Los-Medios-de-Comunicacion-en-Los-Conflictos-Belicos

-Luzdivina. 2011“Los Medios de Comunicación y La guerra de Vietnam”http://filocom.blogspot.es/1303916400/

-Gastón Flores. “Los medios de comunicación de masas en tiempos de guerra” publicado en “La trama de la Comunicaciónhttp://rephip.unr.edu.ar/bitstream/handle/2133/750/Los%20medios%20de%20comunicaci%C3%B3n%20de%20masas%20en%20tiempos%20de%20guerra_A1a.pdf?sequence=1

-Murcia Gómez V & Moreno Martínez O. 2008. “La postura de la representación y del discurso. O un trastocamiento de la metáfora usual de la nación”. Versión impresa: “Signo y Pensamiento”(http://www.scielo.unal.edu.co/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S0120-48232008000200003&lng=es&nrm=iso

-Beschloss  Michael. “Taking Charge: The Johnson White House Tapes, 1963-1964”.

-Ignacio Ramonet. “Golosina visual”. Chapter: “Hollywood y la Guerra de Vietnam”). 2000

-David Robb. “Operación Hollywood”. Barcelona, 2006.

-Mauro Wolf. “La investigación de la comunicación de masas, críticas y perspectivas”. Chapter 3.4 pp246. 2004.

-Sierra Francisco. “Communication and Insurgency”. 1997. pp32.