Public Affairs: The Military and the Media, 1968-1973 (Paperbound)

United States Army in Vietnam. CMH Pub. 91-2-1. Describes the efforts of the United States Military Assistance Command, Vietnam, to manage relations with the news media during the Vietnam War. Follows the development of changes introduced into the program by General Creighton Abrams, General William C. Westmoreland's successor, through to the end of the war. Carries the story from just after the Tet Offensive through the administration of President Richard M. Nixon to the final withdrawal of American forces from South Vietnam in 1973. L.C. card 94-35531.

This book continues the description of the U.S. Military Assistance Command, Vietnam's efforts to manage relations with the news media during the Vietnam War. Beginning shortly after the Tet offensive of 1968, where its predecessor, Public Affairs: The Military and the Media, 1962-1968, left off, it describes the changes introduced into the program by General William C. Westmoreland 's successor, General Creighton Abrams, and follows their development through to the end of the war.

Since Washington agencies, especially the White House, throughout the war but particularly toward its end, exerted a major influence over the military's public affairs policies, [the author has] continued to take as broad an approach to the subject as time and available source materials have allowed. Because no Pentagon Papers exist to detail official thinking at the highest level during the Nixon administration, [the author has] made extensive use of President Richard Nixon's hitherto unavailable national security files to provide context for the reader but also to flesh out procedures and events that would lack meaning and substance if seen only from the perspective of field agencies. In that way, [the author] sought to trace the many turns public affairs policies took on issues surrounding such events as the My Lai massacre, the incursion into Cambodia, and LAM SON 719 from the time when they began to take shape in Washington until they found their way through the military bureaucracy to units in the field. 

Table of Contents (Summary):

Prologue

"War in a Goldfish Bowl"

The November Bombing Halt

"I Will Not Warn Again"

Contradictions

Vietnamization

Keeping Control: South Vietnam

The Mood in the United States

Race and Drugs

Discipline and Dissent

My Lai and Other Atrocities

The My Lai

Controversy Broadens

Improving Official Credibility: Laos

Cambodia Becomes an Issue

Incursion Into Cambodia

A Change of Direction

Morale Becomes an Issue

Embargo-DEWEY CANYON II

LAM SON 719

Saving Face

Holding the Line, 1971

The Easter Offensive

Ultimatum: "Settle or Else!"

The Realities of Power

Conclusion

Bibliographical Note

Photo Credits

Index

Tables

Maps 

Illustrations

Historians, history students and professors studying media and/or the Vietnam War, governmental policymakers, members of the military (especially Vietnam Veterans), and members of the general public interested in the role of media during wartime and conflicts would find this a useful reference.