Media and War:

An Analysis of World War II and Vietnam

Ryan Bourque

Amstud History 11

10 February 2014

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Greek poet and philosopher Aeschylus once said, “In war, the

first casualty is truth”. Not much has changed in 2500 years.

During times of war, whoever controls the public will control the

war. The news plays a large part in the public’s opinion, and

controlling what the public can see and hear is crucial to

maintaining a solid war effort. The legitimate causes of war do

not matter if there is a large enough movement backing the

conflict. In order to create support for wars, governments will

do whatever it takes to get the public on their side. The

government will tell lie after lie, with one goal: establishing a

solid base of public support. Throughout history truth has been

shielded from those back home, only those on the battlefield know

the real atrocities of war. For whatever reason; economic,

diplomatic or imperialistic, the government wants a large-scale

military conflict, there will always be an “excuse” for military

intervention. The media will blame one act or event on a nation,

and the public will rally around a cause. A small number of elite

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businessmen or bureaucrats benefit from war at the expense of

millions. While there are members of the public who like to see

and support war, they seldom know the real motives of the

government. One thing has changed undeniably in the past 100

years; towards the later end of the 20th century, coinciding with

a growing individualist spirit in America, journalism has catered

less to the will of the government and has attempted to be more

factual. Journalism has been very influential in recent wars,

especially World War II and Vietnam. In World War II, the

government instrumentally used the press to persuade the public

and help the war effort. In Vietnam, the press was, essentially,

more free, and therefore it had a much different role. The change

in the impacts of media on the war was largely due to the

expansion of technology and commercialization of the press, which

allowed the media to report free of government intervention.

Resulting from the change in the coverage of war and the

different mediums in which news was expressed, the media’s role

in war changed drastically from World War II to Vietnam.

World War II was the single bloodiest conflict the world

had ever seen. Its long-term effects can still be felt today. The

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bombing of Pearl Harbor, a day that will live in infamy, was the

game changer for America in World War II. Hours after the bombs

had been dropped, Americans were told that they were at war.

Radio was the dominant medium in the 1940’s. According to

broadcast journalist and scholar Marvin Kalb, “There were 45

million radios in the U.S, and people were listening to the radio

an average of four and half hours a day. Newspapers were way down

below that. So the most important means of communication was the

radio.”1 Across the country, broadcasts and reports from Pearl

Harbor interrupted the lives of Americans. The live report of the

attack on Pearl Harbor was broadcasted immediately as an act of

war. According to a live radio broadcast from Hawaii, “The city

of Honolulu has also been attacked and considerable damage done.

This battle has been going on for nearly three hours. . . . It is

no joke. It is a real war.”2 Directly following the bombings,

Americans already had their minds made up; they were entering a 1 Michael E. Ruane, “WAR! How a stunned media broke the Pearl Harbor news,” TheWashington Post, December 7, 2011, Accessed February 1, 2014. http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/war-how-a-stunned-media-broke-the-pearl-harbor-news/2011/12/06/gIQABzFtaO_story.html2 “Live report of the attack on Pearl Harbor,” KGU Radio in Honolulu, Live Report, KGU, December 7, 1941, https://archive.org/details/PearlHarborLiveReport

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war. The media didn’t ever question who could be responsible. The

Japanese were immediately blamed for the attacks on Pearl Harbor.

The government had their work cut out for them, the Japanese had

attacked, and the public was outraged. All the government had to

do was keep Americans interested and supportive.

As for Vietnam, the Gulf of Tonkin incident was the point

that changed America’s course of action. This incident allowed

for the escalation of war in Vietnam by American forces.

Propaganda was needed for the Government to establish grounds to

fight in Vietnam. The government manipulated the media in the

beginning of the conflict in order to establish a just cause for

entering Vietnam. A single incident was not enough for the public

to support a war. The government needed to influence the press,

and it needed to make the public believe there was a real

problem. John Pilger, in his book Heroes, observes,

The State Department published a White Paper whose centerpiece was the “provocation” of the “Gulf of Tonkin Incident”, together with seven pages of “conclusive proof” of Hanoi’s preparations to invade the South.This “proof” stemmed from the discovery of a cache of weapons found floating in a junk off the coast of central Vietnam. The White Paper, which would provide legal justification for the American invasion, was, in the words of Ralph McGehee [former CIA agent], a “master illusion”.3

3 John Pilger, Heroes, (United Kingdom. Vintage Press, 1986), 3

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The proof that the state department refers to in their press

release was considered “black propaganda” by Pilger. The U.S

government fed the press a planned scene that incriminated the

North Vietnamese Army. In the early stages of U.S involvement,

the government influenced the press and displayed only what it

wanted the public to see. This resulted in the press being pro-

war for the beginning period of the Vietnam War.

Worth noting is the public support for each war individually

as they progressed. Throughout World War II, public opinion

steadily increased as the war went on. This can be contributed to

a multitude of factors. An obvious factor is the bombardment of

propaganda by the government. During Vietnam, however, public

opinion started off strong, then fell as the war progressed4. The

media highly influences public support, but the media can take on

different roles depending on the circumstances. The impacts that

the media created were linked to the roles that the media took on

during each war.

The defining characteristic of the media during World War II

was that it took a supportive and helpful stance. This pro-war

4 George H, Gallup, The Gallup Poll: 1935-1971.

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media created public support for the war and helped the war

effort itself. This is attributed to the government’s involvement

with the press, and the nature of the media in the 1940’s.

Patriotism was the central theme of advertising during the war.

Large-scale campaigns were launched to sell war bonds, encourage

efficiency in factories, dispel rumors, and preserve civilian

morale.5 These advertisements frequented American radio stations,

as private and public corporations encouraged the purchase of war

bonds. The War Advertising Council was created to supervise

advertising media in the US. This agency encouraged the sale of

war bonds through radio commercials and encouraged corporations

to do the same. All kinds of products, from Coca Cola to car

manufacturers, linked their products to the war effort through

advertisements.6

Pop culture was also very influential in the promotion of

World War II in the United States. Hollywood movies reenacted

American victories and antagonized axis powers. The movie “Thirty

Seconds Over Tokyo” celebrated America’s first triumph against

5Inger L. Stole, Advertising at War: Business, Consumers, and Government in the 1940s, (Champaign, IL: University of Illinois Press. 2012), 38.6 William L. Neill, A democracy at war : America's fight at home and abroad in World War II, (Toronto: Maxwell Macmillan International, 1993), 122.

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the Japanese since the attacks on Pearl Harbor.7 Eventually,

World War II films became a prominent genre of Hollywood films.

Big name actors received draft deferments so they could continue

making movies during the war. The creation of war movies was not

only patriotic, but also extremely profitable for Hollywood

producers.8 Academy Award winning picture Casablanca influenced the

opinions of audiences at home during the war. Richard Raskin, in

his study of Casablanca and US foreign policy asserted that, “The

film's pro Free-French orientation undoubtedly left its mark on

audiences… it probably led millions of movie-goers to assume

that operation TORCH and the Casablanca Conference were

fulfillments of the democratic values celebrated in Casablanca.”9

Movies during the war, like Casablanca, were extremely influential

in shaping public opinion. For events like the United Sates

invasion of Northern Africa during World War II, where the public

didn’t know a lot about what was really going on, movies like

7Robert Heide and John Gilman. Home Front America: Popular Culture of the World War II Era, (San Francisco: Chronicle Books, 1995), 68.8 Ibid9 Richard Raskin, CASABLANCA and United States Foreign Policy, (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1990), 4.

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Casablanca were extremely influential, leading the public to

believe that the U.S was fulfilling democratic values.

The media’s patriotic tone during World War II is the result

of specific government agencies and their direct influence on

what was and wasn’t said in the news. The Office of War

Information (OWI), created under President Franklin D. Roosevelt,

handpicked information to send to journalists. The OWI flooded

Americans with propaganda, an official statement from the OWI

stated that, “people should wake up to find a visual message

everywhere like news snow – every man, woman and child should be

reached and moved by the message.”10 Elmer Davis, as director of

the OWI, helped lay down some ground rules for the presentation

of the war on the home front. No casualties were to be shown in

any pictures, and radio broadcasters were only to focus on

specific themes. The OWI outlined all the specific requirements

in the Radio War Guide, a publication given to radio stations that

told broadcasters what to say, when to say it, and how to present

it. The six themes that were stressed in the guide were; the

issue, the enemy, the allies, work and production, sacrifice, and10 Public Broadcasting Services, “The War at Home,” Accessed February 1, 2014,http://www.pbs.org/thewar/at_home_communication_propaganda.htm

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the fighting forces.11 The themes were very patriotic, as the

guide encouraged the broadcasters to be sensational and to appeal

to audiences’ emotions. The OWI ranked the importance of issues

that should be covered, putting the promotion of war bonds,

recruiting for the army, and supply rationing as top priorities.

The resulting tone of the media from all of the pressing

factors was extremely uplifting, but the fact of the matter is

that journalists were not able to report the full truth. The

press had extremely limited access to actual fronts in World War

II, and certain legislation restricted the freedom of the press

for the sake of the war. According to Robert J. Hanyok, who has

studied the censorship of the radio during World War II,

“Legislation had been passed in 1938 that forbade unauthorized

photographs, sketches, or maps of military bases, and gave the

President the authority to define which types of military

information needed security protection.”12 This legislation also

created the Office of Censorship that guided journalists in their

11 The Office of War Information, “Radio War Guide,” World War II Archive, 1942, Accessed February 1, 2014, https://archive.org/details/RadioWarGuide12Robert J. Hanyok,“Intelligence in Recent Public Literature,” Review of Secrets ofVictory: The Office of Censorship and The American Press and Radio in World War II, by Michael Sweeney, CIA publications, Vol. 46, (2007).

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coverage and research, limiting the press to report only what

they were told by the government.13 The media during World War II

was extremely limited; the result of all the propaganda and

censorship in the news and in popular culture was a steady line

of support from the public. The public enthusiasm and effort that

resulted from the influence of media bolstered the war effort on

the home front.

The media during the Vietnam War had a similarly large, but

vastly different role than it had in World War II. For the most

part, media coverage of Vietnam was uncensored. This was because

the media was seemingly pro war on its own in the beginning of

the war. In coordination with the majority of Americans’

opinions, the press approved of the war in Vietnam in its early

stages.14 Due to the media’s favorable opinion of the war at

first, the U.S government had no reason to censor any journalism.

The position the government took on the lack of censorship early

on, unfortunately for them, set a standard for the rest of the

war. Journalists were allowed access to Vietnam virtually

13 Ibid, 114 Gallup, 1

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unrestricted, providing accurate and timely information to the

American public.

The coverage of the Tet Offensive transformed the domestic

image of the war. Before the Tet Offensive, the public believed

that the United States had a solid upper hand in the war, and the

percent of the population that labeled themselves as “doves”, or

anti-war proponents, was only 28 percent. But post-Tet polls

revealed that after the Tet Offensive, 41 percent of Americans

regarded themselves as “doves”, and 49 percent of Americans

believed the Vietnam War was a mistake.15 This change in public

support of the War can be directly attributed to the medias

presentation of the Tet Offensive. The Tet Offensive was a

disaster for U.S forces, but they were able to bounce back and

continue the fight. The problem with the coverage of the Tet

offensive was, as Journalism Historian Joseph Sobran says, “The

Tet offensive was clearly a military failure, but thanks to media

coverage it came across as propaganda-like triumph for the

Communists.”16 The press had widely reported that the Vietcong

15 Gallup, 116 Joseph Sobran, "Television’s Vietnam: the impact of the media," PBS, NationalReview. August 29, 1986.

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forces had made it inside the U.S embassy, yet no soldiers had

stepped foot inside the walls of the building itself.17 Clearly,

the press exaggerated events in Vietnam, and the public’s

response was intense.

Walter Cronkite, considered the most trusted man in America,

reported on Vietnam throughout the war. His noticeable change in

opinion influenced many Americans. His emotional subjectivity got

in the way of his neutrality, and he began to persuade audiences

that the war was a lost cause. In one of his most influential

broadcasts, he contradicted the opinion of the majority of

Americans; that the U.S was winning the war. “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.”18 Cronkite suggested

that the U.S forces were making no progress, and he openly

rejected President Lyndon B. Johnson’s enthusiasm for increasing

17 Ibid18 Milton J. Bates, Reporting Vietnam, Part 1: American Journalism, 1959-1969, (New York, NY:Library of America, 1998.) 581.

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military deployment to end the conflict in Vietnam. Cronkite not

only rejected the government’s position, but also contradicted

what the government had been telling Americans. Cronkite made it

seem like the government was lying to the public about what was

really going on in Vietnam. President Johnson supposedly said,

“If I've lost Cronkite, I've lost Middle America.”19 This

exemplifies the influence that Walter Cronkite had on the

majority of Americans. That a single journalist would prompt a

response from the president was unheard of, and goes to show how

influential even a single broadcast could be.

The visual effect of the news during the Vietnam War

horrified Americans. The news during the Tet Offensive changed

the way people saw the war. The photograph of the Saigon

execution of Nguyen Van Lem is a prime example of one image’s

effect on the public. Professor David D. Perlmutter cites

multiple politicians and scholars who have referred to the

photograph as, “The picture that lost the war.”20 Many Americans

were confused and horrified when they saw an innocent looking

19 Ibid, 58220David D. Perlmutter, “Just How Big an Impact Do Pictures of War Have on Public Opinion?” Orbis, (2005), Acessed February 2, 2014.

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Vietnamese man dressed like a civilian being executed on their

televisions and in their newspapers. The image was placed out of

context in the news, but nevertheless had a huge impact on those

who saw it. As David D. Perlmutter said, “the picture was a

climactic moment, proclaiming the horror and immorality of the

war, signifying its barbarity and its incoherence.”21 Anti-war

activists rallied around this image, claiming that this was an

unjust and inhumane war. The way news broadcasters presented the

photograph in such barbarity was the reason for the intense

public response. The photo was taken during the Tet Offensive,

where the media in the U.S began to change their opinion on the

war. As the media changed its outlook, the news became

sensationalized and biased against the war. Another event

broadcasted during the Tet Offensive was the attack on the U.S

embassy. The reports of the attack were extremely exaggerated by

the press, and understated by officials. Initially it was

reported by the associated press that three Vietcong solders had

infiltrated the grounds of the U.S embassy.22 Later in the day,

21Ibid22 Don Oberdorfer, Tet! : the turning point in the Vietnam War, (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2001)

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NBC reported that Vietcong had occupied the first floor of the

embassy and were exchanging fire with U.S troops.23 Although this

report was false, and later corrected, the initial reports had

shocked the American public. The media openly opposed the war,

the press exaggerated events and twisted stories to make the war

look bad. The media turned the public against the government, and

fueled the anti-war movement.

The effects of media on World War II and the Vietnam War

differ extensively due to the expansion of media and technology.

The negative effects of media on the Vietnam War were amplified

due to the rise in the prominence of the television. In the

1940s, fewer than 5 percent of American households had a T.V, by

the 1970s, 97 percent of American homes had T.Vs.24 The effect of

the Television on Vietnam was outstanding. The T.V created the

“living room war”, where the American family witnessed the

brutality of war every night in their homes. T.V was more

effective in shaping public opinion than print media, because

newsprint tended to be impersonal and detached from the reader,

23Ibid24 World Book Incorporated, "Television," The World Book Encyclopedia, (Chicago: World Book Inc., 2003) 119.

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while television was emotional and moving. Americans also trusted

television more than radio; therefore it provoked a more radical

response.25

Along with the new developing mediums for news outlets, the

whole process of reporting sped up with the advancement of

technology. The Vietnam War seemed more real to Americans than

did World War II, because they had immediate access to developing

stories. This led to increased sensationalism in the news in

Vietnam, because Americans could become enthralled in specific

events as they were progressing, as opposed to summaries and

reviews of events in World War II. The immediacy of the War in

Vietnam let events like the Saigon execution and the attack on

the U.S embassy have a greater impact than similar events would

have had on audiences in World War II. The change and expansion

of the media during the early second half of the 20th century

greatly effected how media influenced the public. The media’s

changing outlook can also be attributed to the increasingly

independent nature of the press from World War II to Vietnam. In

World War II, the media was dependent on the government for its

25 Sobran, 26

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information and access to the war.26 In Vietnam, however, the

rise of mass media and the commercialization of the industry led

the media to formulate its own opinions, independent of the

government. The news corporations during Vietnam no longer had to

rely on the government to fly reporters out to the front, due to

the new recourses corporations had. Since the media was no longer

dependent on the government, news reporters no longer felt

obliged to conform to the views of the government as a form of

gratitude.27

The media had a profound effect on both the Vietnam War and

World War II. During World War II, the media helped the war

effort significantly. Through the promotion of war bonds, victory

gardens, conservation and other pro war efforts, the media

positively impacted not only the public opinion of the war, but

also the fight itself. The media’s impact on Vietnam, on the

other hand, was extremely detrimental to public support of the

war. Analyzing the overall effect of media on both wars, the

outstanding conclusion remains that the media, by influencing

public opinions and action, has a significant effect on the 26 Hanyok, 727 Bates, 588

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outcome of war. In World War II, the government sailed to victory

with the public at its back. Media encouraged citizens to enlist

in the army, work in factories, and do whatever it takes at home

to win. In Vietnam, the government’s withdrawal of troops only

occurred after the majority of Americans realized that the U.S

had failed its job of bringing democracy to the region. Through

the presentation of the war in the media, Americans realized

Vietnam was a lost cause. The anti-war movement grew in response

to the portrayal of the war in the news, eventually effecting the

decisions of policy makers. The course that media can take during

a war can be as unpredictable as the war itself. While many

factors account for the outcomes of armed conflict, the influence

of the media remains a dominant one, exemplified by its diverse

yet powerful effects on both World War II and the Vietnam War.

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