Credibility Gap Part 3: Other Factors

Credibility Gap Part 3: Other Factors

Another factor that contributed to the credibility gap was President Kennedy’s relaxing of the “official military censorship of World War II and Korea in favor of managed news”[i]. Kennedy was concerned about negative press over censorship.

His caution backfired as a press corps that was used to a certain amount of wartime censorship got a taste of freedom, so to speak. When the Saigon government maintained the censorship that Kennedy lifted, it angered the press corps.

This was about the time when WWII correspondents were retiring and a new guard of young reporters entered the stage lacking experience with the military censorship.

I mentioned before that the old guard knew it could cost lives to reveal sensitive information so they were trusted to hear classified information and were able to comprehend and formulate informed opinions about the war in the context of the big picture.

In an attempt to get a scoop, some young reporters released enough information to get people killed. So the young guard with no tolerance for military censorship, gradually (and in some instances very rapidly) found the information gateways becoming clogged with misinformation and doubletalk.

 

Another communications nightmare was that the new guard was not trained in military strategy[ii]. Therefore they were confused by military jargon and often dismissed what they were being told as political doubletalk. Sometimes the doubletalk was doubletalk, and sometimes it was military or political jargon that was not understood.

The US military leaders were also aware that information that showed up on the international wire services was accessed by North Vietnam and available to the Vietcong as well.

So Kennedy’s “managing news” meant information about ongoing operations became scarce and non-committal. ... Causing the press to distrust more and write negatively about it. ... Causing the government spokespersons to tighten up even more & sometimes lie ... angering the reporters who ...

... “mistrusted the press releases, (that) while often valid, were extrapolated from ‘double check and confirm’ to reject without confirmation simply because the report came from the government[iii]”

Well, you get where this is going, a circle of mistrust and bad feelings spiraling out of control.

But if that’s not bad enough, the press, failing to get information they needed from official sources, went to sources that often had one-sided or incomplete information. Skewed conclusions were drawn.

Subjective reporting and editing replaced the objectivity that is required by the social contract between the press and the people.

The reporters that were looking for the sensational stories of death and destruction, ignored the stories about the many good things that were happening:

Major General James C. Smith recalls that “a reporter followed him around for several days ... but his series was never printed because it was too complimentary”[iv]. 

The politicians made mistakes with the press as well. Cosmos states, “By deliberately understating the scale and costs of the U.S. commitment in July 1965, President Johnson made inevitable an erosion of congressional and public trust in his administration as the conflict went on”[v].

Politicians felt the press made mistakes too. “The war was reported battle by battle,” Nixon counseled. “But little or no sense of the underlying purpose of the fighting was conveyed. Eventually this contributed to the impression that we were fighting in military and moral quicksand, rather than toward an important and worthwhile objective”[vi].

An example of this is found in the coverage of Hamburger Hill. The media never bothers to mention the millions of tons of weapons and supplies that were captured and destroyed when Hamburger Hill was taken. They don't mention that the loss of these supplies delayed the next communist offensive by 7-8 months.

Nor do they mention that the deep underground 2000 lb-bomb-proof storage bunkers along with their contents were destroyed before abandoning the Hill. These bunkers could not be blown by B-52s.

They also failed to mention that destroying these underground storage bunkers & their contents was the main objective of operation. The bunkers were very labor intensive to build & rebuild. The enemy troops that were employed rebuilding the bunker had to be diverted from some other purpose. Again, significantly hindering the communist war effort.

A high enemy body count was the gravy for the operation, not the objective. The weapons supply depot had to be taken by ground pounders.

Why abandon the base once it was taken? To keep the base may have created another Khe Sanh. Strategists calculated it was less costly to abandon and retake the hill later, if it became necessary, than to spend the effort to hold the hill. It was quite possible the enemy would rebuild elsewhere land we would be holding the hill for nothing.

It is not wise to let your enemy know what your strategies are. Yet, this simple truth escaped the Vietnam press corps. They complained there was no strategy, but they could not understand that the military would not reveal their strategy to the press because they did not want it given to the enemy.

It’s Wartime Security 101. How could they not know that if the revealed critical strategic information it could cause American and Allied casualties?

The Pentagon Papers didn’t help matters much either.

So bottom line the media didn’t trust the government and the government didn’t trust the media. The problems created by the Credibility Gap have ripples that are felt even today.

Please email questions and comments to VietnamWarMyths@gmail.com

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[i] Tallman, G., & McKerns, J. (2000). Press Mess: David Halberstam, the Buddhist Crisis, and U.S. Policy in Vietnam, 1963. Journalism & Communication Monographs, 2(3), 109-153. Retrieved from Communication & Mass Media Complete database, p. 116.

[ii] Lawrence, John (2002). The Cat From Hue. New York: Public Affairs, p. 51; (Even the greenest rookie in the Army would know the answer to the question he poses); p. 388 (He doesn’t understand a principle as simple as reinforcements filling the ranks of the dead in the destroyed unit. JL is one example of ignorance being a wedge in the communication process. A combination of these various wedges led to the Credibility Gap).

[iii] Tallman, G., & McKerns, J. (2000). Press Mess: David Halberstam, the Buddhist Crisis, and U.S. Policy in Vietnam, 1963. Journalism & Communication Monographs, 2(3), 109-153, p. 116.

[iv] Kinnard, D., (,2001, pp. 445-456). Vietnam Reconsidered: An attitudinal Survey of U.S. Army General Officers. Unknown periodical. Op articles > 543316generalssurveyed.pdf p. 451.

[v] Cosmos, G. A., (2006). MACV: The Joint Command in the years of escalation, 1962-1967, (United States Army in Vietnam). Washington D.C.: Center of Military History, United States Army, p. 245.

[vi] Nixon, R. M. (1978), The Memoirs of Richard Nixon. Grosset and Dunlap, New York, p. 350.