DOCSLIB.ORG

Printer Emulator for Testing

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Printer Emulator for Testing ENABLERS OF A WAR: THE AMERICAN PRESS AND VIETNAM, 1954-1960 ____________ A Thesis Presented to the Faculty of California State University, Chico ____________ In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Master of Arts in History ____________ by Kevin Allen Luty Spring 2015 PUBLICATION RIGHTS No portion of this thesis may be reprinted or reproduced in any manner unacceptable to the usual copyright restrictions without the written permission of the author. iii TABLE OF CONTENTS PAGE Publication Rights ...................................................................................................... iii Abstract ...................................................................................................................... v CHAPTER I. Introduction .................................................................................................... 1 II. Collaborators in Colonialism, 1954-1955 ...................................................... 7 III. Encouragers of Optimism, 1955-1956 ........................................................... 31 IV. Purveyors of Pessimism, 1957-1960.............................................................. 49 V. Conclusion ..................................................................................................... 70 Bibliography .............................................................................................................. 75 iv ABSTRACT ENABLERS OF A WAR: THE AMERICAN PRESS AND VIETNAM, 1954-1960 by Kevin Allen Luty Master of Arts in History California State University, Chico Spring 2015 Previous historical studies of the Vietnam War have examined thoroughly the American news media’s opposition to the conflict. This thesis, however, will reveal how at first the American press acted as a promoter of U.S. intervention in Vietnam from 1954 to 1960. Operating under the “can-do spirit” of the era, journalists believed that the United States could succeed in creating an anticommunist state in Vietnam where the French had failed. Convinced of South Vietnam’s centrality in the global struggle to contain Communism, the press applauded when American negotiators successfully placed the nation under the umbrella protection of the Southeast Asia Treaty Organization (SEATO) in September 1954 and raised no protests when the U.S. Military Assistance Advisory Group (MAAG) began training and equipping the South Vietnamese Army. Despite evidence that South Vietnamese Premier Ngo Dinh Diem lacked v widespread support, the American press backed him and cited his fraudulent presidential victory in October 1955 as proof of his popularity. Unwilling to promote any course of action that might threaten Diem, the U.S. media joined him in rejecting the 1956 unification elections called for by the 1954 Geneva Accords. In May 1957, Diem’s supporters in the United States welcomed him when he visited Washington with a highly orchestrated public relations campaign falsely depicting the president as a successful democratic leader—a “Miracle Man of Asia.” In response to Diem’s few critics, American commentators simply rationalized his police-state tactics as necessary reaction to the Communist threat. Following a near-fatal coup attempt in 1960, the press finally began to criticize Diem, but remained convinced about the ultimate necessity for American involvement. vi CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION For the American press no less than the U.S. government, the Cold War pitted communism against the “Free World” in an existential battle for the future of civilization. In the pages of popular newspapers, news magazines, and journals the basic assumptions that underlay Washington’s Cold War consensus went unchallenged. Thus when the United States intervened in foreign lands to prevent the spread of communism, as the Eisenhower administration did in Vietnam from 1954-1960, the American press naturally paid close attention. This thesis will analyze how the American press treated major policy decisions that the U.S. government made in Vietnam during these formative years of its engagement. It will examine in close detail press coverage of the Franco-American negotiations over Vietnam, the U.S. government’s rejection of the all-Vietnam elections stipulated in the 1954 Geneva Accords and the Eisenhower administration’s commitment to South Vietnam’s President Ngo Dinh Diem. American press coverage of these issues and events, as the following pages will demonstrate, provided an important pretext for an expanding American intervention and ultimately the resort to war because it depicted the Republic of Vietnam as a vital security interest of the United States justifying providing significant quantities of military and economic aid to ensure its survival. In general, scholarship on the American press and Vietnam has focused on determining whether an adversarial relationship existed between journalists and the U.S. 1 2 government during the Vietnam War. Peter Braestrup’s groundbreaking two-volume study Big Story published in 1977 answers this question in the affirmative, claiming that the American press reported the 1968 Tet Offensive as a psychological and military victory for North Vietnam and the Viet Cong while officials correctly claimed the opposite.1 Right revisionist historians adopted the adversarial press thesis to argue that the media bears responsibility for the U.S. defeat in Vietnam. According to these writers, who ironically challenged the initial orthodox position on the left that accepted news coverage of Tet as accurate, correspondents intentionally misled the American public about Tet to sour domestic attitudes toward the war and the U.S. military and civilian officials carrying it out.2 Other leftist critics of American foreign policy such as Noam Chomsky and Edward Herman, on the other hand, reject the adversarial label altogether. They argue that the American press continued to defend U.S. involvement in Vietnam as a noble, if misguided, venture despite disagreeing with U.S. government tactics during the war.3 Prior scholars, by focusing on real or imagined conflict between the American press and U.S. government, have paid only cursory attention to Vietnam news coverage from the years 1954 to 1960. The studies that do exist mention this period if only to note the glaring lack of disparity between the opinions that American journalists and the U.S. officials charged with the task of nation-building in Vietnam expressed. According to 1 Peter Braestrup, Big Story: How the American Press and Television Reported and Interpreted the Crisis of Tet 1968 in Vietnam and Washington, 1 (Boulder: Westview Press, 1977), 156. 2 Charles Mohr, “Once Again-Did the Press Lose Vietnam?” Columbia Journalism Review 22, no. 4 (November/December 1983): 53. 3 Edward Herman and Noam Chomsky, Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media (New York: Pantheon Books, 1988), 299. 3 most writers, the press lacked both the manpower and expertise to report accurately about Vietnam in the 1950s and early 1960s, and thus relied on U.S. government sources who exaggerated the successes of Ngo Dinh Diem and his American supporters. Philip Knightley, in The First Casualty: The War Correspondent as Hero and Myth Maker from the Crimea to Iraq, states the case succinctly: “There were few experts on the area, and most articles, in the period from 1954-1960, concentrated on the Communist menace and the need for greater American involvement.”4 According to Susan Welch, the American press uncritically accepted President Dwight D. Eisenhower’s policies in Vietnam largely due to the absence of access to any contradictory information outside the U.S. government.5 Daniel Hallin, in The Uncensored War, claims that articles journalists who went to Vietnam in the early 1960s wrote tended to “reflect . the perspectives of American officialdom generally.”6 While certainly largely dependent on official sources during this period, journalists also granted legitimacy to U.S. nation-building techniques in Vietnam and the regime of Ngo Dinh Diem because they genuinely feared Communist expansion in Southeast Asia and accepted the “Domino Theory” as fact. Like the American press, many observers accuse the academic community of misrepresenting or underreporting Vietnam in the scholarly journals during the 1950s and early 1960s. In his study of intellectuals and the Vietnam War, Robert Tomes 4 Phillip Knightley, The First Casualty: The War Correspondent as Hero and Myth-Maker from Crimea to Iraq (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2004), 409. 5 Susan Welch, “The American Press in Indochina, 1950-1956,” in Communication in International Politics, Richard L. Merritt, ed. (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1972), 221. 6 Daniel Hallin, The Uncensored War: The Media and Vietnam (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1986), 9. 4 characterizes coverage as suffering from “a basic state of confusion over the objective facts.”7 Similarly, Robert Scheer, in his 1965 study entitled How the United States Got Involved in Vietnam, claims that the social scientists who researched Vietnam during the 1950s created “propaganda for the cause” that glorified Ngo Dinh Diem’s anti- communism and the American commitment to create a democratic South Vietnam.8 Reinforcing this viewpoint, other studies claim that the American Friends of Vietnam (AFV), an influential lobby group with government ties, exerted an inordinate influence on early Vietnam press coverage, specifically regarding coverage of Ngo Dinh Diem. In America’s
Load more

Recommended publications
  • America and Vietnam: the Unending War Author(S): George C. Herring Source: Foreign Affairs, Vol
    America and Vietnam: The Unending War Author(s): George C. Herring Source: Foreign Affairs, Vol. 70, No. 5, America and the Pacific, 1941-1991 (Winter, 1991), pp. 104-119 Published by: Council on Foreign Relations Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20045006 Accessed: 04/05/2009 15:34 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available at http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp. JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless you have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and you may use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use. Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=cfr. Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printed page of such transmission. JSTOR is a not-for-profit organization founded in 1995 to build trusted digital archives for scholarship. We work with the scholarly community to preserve their work and the materials they rely upon, and to build a common research platform that promotes the discovery and use of these resources. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. Council on Foreign Relations is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Foreign Affairs. http://www.jstor.org George C.
    [Show full text]
  • Catering to the Silent Majority the My Lai Massacre As a Media Challenge
    JANA TOPPE Catering to the silent majority The My Lai massacre as a media challenge Free University of Berlin 10.10.2011 Intensive Program: "Coming Together or Coming Apart? Europe and the United States in the Sixties" September 12 – 24, 2011 Session 6: Lessons of Vietnam and Military Reform Session Chair: Professor Dr. Mark Meigs, Université de Paris-Diderot Table of contents 1 Introduction…………………………………………………..…1 2 Vietnam, the administrations and the media…………….….…..2 2.1 Bone of contention: media coverage of Cam Ne…….……..2 2.2 Nixon, Agnew and the troubles of television………………4 2.3 Expendable lives: Media dehumanization………...………..7 3 Uncovering the atrocities of My Lai……………………….….10 3.1 The media‟s role in publishing the massacre – a tale of hesitancy and caution……………………………....11 3.2 Source: “The My Lai Massacre” - Time, Nov. 28, 1969….17 4 Conclusion…………………………………………………….19 5 Bibliography…………………………………………………..22 5.1 Sources……………………………………………...……..22 5.2 Secondary Literature………………………………..……..22 6 Appendix………………………………………………………23 Jana Toppe 1 Catering to the silent majority 1. Introduction In March 1968, the men of Charlie Company entered the village of My Lai under the command of First Lieutenant William Calley with the objective to „search and destroy‟ the Viet Cong believed to reside there. The village was instead populated by unarmed South Vietnamese civilians, mostly women and children, who were then massacred by Charlie Company. The incident was kept under wraps by the military for a year until an investigative journalist, Seymour Hersh, uncovered the story in 1969. The revelation of the My Lai cover-up and the expanding press coverage was not the watershed moment or turning point in press coverage as one may be tempted to think.
    [Show full text]
  • The Diem Coup After 50 Years – John F
    The Diem Coup After 50 Years – John F. Kennedy and South Vietnam, 1963 By John Prados Region: Asia Global Research, November 04, 2013 Theme: History The National Security Archive 1 November 2013 Washington, D.C. – Continued investigation of the presidency of John F. Kennedy further strengthens the view that the origins of U.S. support for the coup which overthrew South Vietnamese president Ngo Dinh Diem 50 years ago today traces directly to President Kennedy, not to a “cabal” of top officials in his administration. As thedocuments posted by the National Security Archive in 2009 and new material posted today indicates, the often- told story that a “cabal” of senior officials, in combination with U.S. ambassador to Saigon Henry Cabot Lodge, were responsible for the coup is a myth. The 2009 posting (below) used the then-newly released audiotapes of President Kennedy’s discussions on South Vietnam in late August 1963, combined with the declassified documents on the same meetings, and the State Department cables to Saigon bearing instructions for Ambassador Lodge, to show that Washington officials acted in unison in determining the U.S. approach. Additional evidence presented here supports this conclusion. The additional evidence combined with the 2009 evidence demonstrates: Senior officials who, in a widely-held standard view, were supposed to have come together to excoriate the “cabal” for making an “end-run” around the bureaucracy in securing approval for the coup policy, did not act any differently after revelation of the maneuver than before. If anything, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), by the traditional account the most steadfast opponent of a coup, cooperated more closely with State Department members of the cabal after the NSC meeting where the coup policy had supposedly been denounced (Document 17).
    [Show full text]
  • The Rhetorical Antecedents to Vietnam, 1945-1965
    Marquette University e-Publications@Marquette College of Communication Faculty Research and Publications Communication, College of 9-1-2018 The Rhetorical Antecedents to Vietnam, 1945-1965 Gregory R. Olson Marquette University George N. Dionisopoulos San Diego State University Steven R. Goldzwig Marquette University, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://epublications.marquette.edu/comm_fac Part of the Communication Commons Recommended Citation Olson, Gregory R.; Dionisopoulos, George N.; and Goldzwig, Steven R., "The Rhetorical Antecedents to Vietnam, 1945-1965" (2018). College of Communication Faculty Research and Publications. 511. https://epublications.marquette.edu/comm_fac/511 The Rhetorical Antecedents to Vietnam, 1945–1965 Gregory A. Olson, George N. Dionisopoulos, and Steven R. Goldzwig 8 I do not believe that any of the Presidents who have been involved with Viet- nam, Presidents Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, or President Nixon, foresaw or desired that the United States would become involved in a large scale war in Asia. But the fact remains that a steady progression of small decisions and actions over a period of 20 years had forestalled a clear-cut decision by the President or by the President and Congress—decision as to whether the defense of South Vietnam and involvement in a great war were necessary to the security and best interest of the United States. —Senator John Sherman Cooper (R-KY), Congressional Record, 1970 n his 1987 doctoral thesis, General David Petraeus wrote of Vietnam: “We do not take the time to understand the nature of the society in which we are f ght- Iing, the government we are supporting, or the enemy we are f ghting.”1 After World War II, when the United States chose Vietnam as an area for nation building as part of its Cold War strategy, little was known about that exotic land.
    [Show full text]
  • Günter Bischof “Busy with Refugee Work” Joseph Buttinger, Muriel Gardiner, and the Saving of Austrian Refugees, 1940–1941
    Aus: Zeithistoriker – Archivar – Aufklärer. Festschrift für Winfried R. Garscha, hrsg. v. Claudia Kuretsidis- Haider und Christine Schindler im Auftrag des Dokumentationsarchivs des österreichischen Widerstandes und der Zentralen österreichischen Foschungsstelle Nachkriegsjustiz, Wien 2017 115 Günter Bischof “Busy with Refugee Work” Joseph Buttinger, Muriel Gardiner, and the Saving of Austrian Refugees, 1940–1941 At a time when Austria is experiencing political turbulences over the current “refugee crisis” of Syrian, Near Eastern and African asylum seekers, looking for a safe haven in Europe from the political turmoil in their regions, it might be worthwhile remembering that there were times in the twentieth century when Austrian refugees survived in similarly tumultuous situations with sup- port from the “kindness of strangers.” Joseph Buttinger (1906–1992) and his wealthy American wife Muriel Gardiner (1901–1965) personally helped hun- dreds of Austrian Socialists and Jews (often both) persecuted by the Dollfuss- Schuschnigg regimes and the Nazis to get out of Austria – and later Europe – to save their lives. They were generous in helping to provide the necessary immi- gration papers and funds for refugees to start a new life in the United States. After the end of World War II they supported a hundred or so families with CARE packages over several years. The Buttingers became shining examples of professional and humanitarian refugee workers. Their empathetic “refugee work” stands as a paragon of humanitarian aid for our days as well. Joseph Buttinger was born in Bavaria in 1906 and grew up in great poverty in Upper Austria. His father worked in various odd jobs and as a miner and fought on the Dolomite front in World War I; he died after being wounded.
    [Show full text]
  • Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training Foreign Affairs Oral History Project THEODORE J. C. HEAVNER Interviewed By: Char
    Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training Foreign Affairs Oral History Project THEODORE J. C. HEAVNER Interviewed by: Charles Stuart Kennedy Initial interview date: May 28, 1997 Copyright 2 ADST TABLE OF CONTENTS Background Born and raised in Canton, O io Nort western University and (Case) Western Reserve University of Iowa Harvard University U.S. Army - ,orean War Entered Foreign Service - .900 UNESCO .900-.901 Duties State Department - Foreign Service Institute - .902 3ietnamese 4anguage Training Cornell University - Sout east Asia Program .902-.908 Nort versus Sout 3ietnam Saigon, 3ietnam - Political Officer .908-.909 Diem and private armies Relations wit government officials Cinnamon production Ambassador Durbrow 3iet Cong t reat Consular district Duties Ngo Din Can Reporting Cat olic C urc role Diplomatic colleagues Environment 7ontagnards Pleiku 3ietnamese military 1 Tran 3an Don Saigon, 3ietnam - Political Officer .910-.91. 4yndon B. 9o nson visit Ambassador Ale:is 9o nson and Diem ,ennedy;s 3ietnam policy State Department - 3ietnam Working Group .91.-.913 Averell Harriman Counterinsurgency U.S. policy re Nort 3ietnam Strategy options Ot er agency programs Diem regime 3ietnamese loyalties T ieu ,y regime President ,ennedy interest Defoliants Roger Hilsman C ina role State Department - Foreign Service Institute (FSI) .913-.914 Indonesian 4anguage Training 7edan, Indonesia - Consul and Principal Officer .914-.911 Ambassador Howard 9ones Ambassador 7ars all Green Sukarno and communists Anti-U.S. demonstrations Sumatra groups
    [Show full text]
  • The Legacy of American Photojournalism in Ken Burns's
    Interfaces Image Texte Language 41 | 2019 Images / Memories The Legacy of American Photojournalism in Ken Burns’s Vietnam War Documentary Series Camille Rouquet Electronic version URL: http://journals.openedition.org/interfaces/647 DOI: 10.4000/interfaces.647 ISSN: 2647-6754 Publisher: Université de Bourgogne, Université de Paris, College of the Holy Cross Printed version Date of publication: 21 June 2019 Number of pages: 65-83 ISSN: 1164-6225 Electronic reference Camille Rouquet, “The Legacy of American Photojournalism in Ken Burns’s Vietnam War Documentary Series”, Interfaces [Online], 41 | 2019, Online since 21 June 2019, connection on 07 January 2021. URL: http://journals.openedition.org/interfaces/647 ; DOI: https://doi.org/10.4000/interfaces.647 Les contenus de la revue Interfaces sont mis à disposition selon les termes de la Licence Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International. THE LEGACY OF AMERICAN PHOTOJOURNALISM IN KEN BURNS’S VIETNAM WAR DOCUMENTARY SERIES Camille Rouquet LARCA/Paris Sciences et Lettres In his review of The Vietnam War, the 18-hour-long documentary series directed by Ken Burns and Lynn Novick released in September 2017, New York Times television critic James Poniewozik wrote: “The Vietnam War” is not Mr. Burns’s most innovative film. Since the war was waged in the TV era, the filmmakers rely less exclusively on the trademark “Ken Burns effect” pans over still images. Since Vietnam was the “living-room war,” played out on the nightly news, this documentary doesn’t show us the fighting with new eyes, the way “The War” did with its unearthed archival World War II footage.
    [Show full text]
  • The Geneva Conference of 1954 5
    )*4503*$"-$3*4*4$0..*55&& #"$,(306/%(6*%& 7"/$067&3.0%&-6/*5&%/"5*0/4 ~ the 13th annual conference ~ Vancouver Model United Nations The 13th Annual Conference • February 14–16, 2014 Parker Nann Dear Delegates, Secretary General • My name is Paul Redelmeier, and I am the director of the Historical Crisis Committee for VMUN 2014. I began participating in Model UN in Grade Brett Dowling & 6, and have enjoyed each and every Model UN conference I have attended Steven Hao since. I am proud to be directing the HCC at my 6th and fnal VMUN. As Chiefs of Staf your director, I am looking forward to watching you debate, negotiate, and resolve an important historical matter: the rise of communism in the Indo- Kate Yeh chinese peninsula. Director-General Te Geneva Conference of 1954 was a very important meeting, and our • simulation will require both compromise and innovation. It directly in- volves the whole of Southeast Asia while indirectly involving most, if not Kelvin Zhu all, of the rest of the world. Resolving the issues raised in the Geneva Con- USG Delegate Afairs 1 ference will require action from both the small countries in the area and the Nina Liu global superpowers who have vested interests in the fate of the Indochinese USG Delegate Afairs 2 peninsula. Although this is a challenging scenario, I am confdent that over a weekend of strong debating and resolution-writing you will achieve excel- Chansey Chiang lent solutions. USG Marketing Please feel free to ask me any questions you have over the coming months, as I am always happy to help.
    [Show full text]
  • Occupation and Revolution
    Occupation and Revolution . HINA AND THE VIETNAMESE ~-...uGUST REVOLUTION OF 1945 I o I o 1 I so lWoroeters -------uangTri ~ N I \\ Trrr1~ Sap Peter Worthing CHINA RESEARCH MONOGRAPH 54 CHINA RESEARCH MONOGRAPH 54 F M' INSTITUTE OF EAST ASIAN STUDIES ~ '-" UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA • BERKELEY C(5 CENTER FOR CHINESE STUDIES Occupation and Revolution China and the Vietnamese August Revolution of 1945 Peter Worthing A publication of the Institute of East Asian Studies, University of Califor­ nia, Berkeley. Although the Institute of East Asian Studies is responsible for the selection and acceptance of manuscripts in this series, responsibil­ ity for the opinions expressed and for the accuracy of statements rests with their authors. Correspondence and manuscripts may be sent to: Ms. Joanne Sandstrom, Managing Editor Institute of East Asian Studies University of California Berkeley, California 94720-2318 E-mail: [email protected] The China Research Monograph series is one of several publications series sponsored by the Institute of East Asian Studies in conjunction with its constituent units. The others include the Japan Research Monograph series, the Korea Research Monograph series, and the Research Papers and Policy Studies series. A list of recent publications appears at the back of the book. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Worthing, Peter M. Occupation and revolution : China and the Vietnamese August revolu­ tion of 1945 I Peter M. Worthing. p. em. -(China research monograph; 54) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-1-55729-072-4 1. Vietnam-Politics and government-1858-1945. 2. Vietnam­ Politics and government-1945-1975. 3. World War, 1939-1945- Vietnam.
    [Show full text]
  • Staring Death in the Face During Times of War: When Ethics, Law, and Self-Censorship in the News Media Hide the Morbidity of Authenticity Clay Calvert
    Notre Dame Journal of Law, Ethics & Public Policy Volume 25 Article 4 Issue 1 Symposium on Censorship & the Media 1-1-2012 Staring Death in the Face during Times of War: When Ethics, Law, and Self-Censorship in the News Media Hide the Morbidity of Authenticity Clay Calvert Follow this and additional works at: http://scholarship.law.nd.edu/ndjlepp Recommended Citation Clay Calvert, Staring Death in the Face during Times of War: When Ethics, Law, and Self-Censorship in the News Media Hide the Morbidity of Authenticity, 25 Notre Dame J.L. Ethics & Pub. Pol'y 87 (2012). Available at: http://scholarship.law.nd.edu/ndjlepp/vol25/iss1/4 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Notre Dame Journal of Law, Ethics & Public Policy at NDLScholarship. It has been accepted for inclusion in Notre Dame Journal of Law, Ethics & Public Policy by an authorized administrator of NDLScholarship. For more information, please contact [email protected]. STARING DEATH IN THE FACE DURING TIMES OF WAR: WHEN ETHICS, LAW, AND SELF- CENSORSHIP IN THE NEWS MEDIA HIDE THE MORBIDITY OF AUTHENTICITY CLAY CALVERT* & MIRELIs TORRESt INTRODUCTION Photos are trickier than words, because their content is in large measure emotional, visceral, and because you can't edit their content. That's how Bill Keller, executive editor of The New York Times, succinctly describes the difficulty and dilemma posed in deciding which wartime images newspapers should publish.' A recent, real-life scenario illustrates the problem: during a Taliban ambush in the Helmand province of southern Afghanistan, a U.S.
    [Show full text]
  • Intimate Perspectives from the Battlefields of Iraq
    'The Best Covered War in History': Intimate Perspectives from the Battlefields of Iraq by Andrew J. McLaughlin A thesis presented to the University Of Waterloo in fulfilment of the thesis requirement for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in History Waterloo, Ontario, Canada, 2017 © Andrew J. McLaughlin 2017 Examining Committee Membership The following served on the Examining Committee for this thesis. The decision of the Examining Committee is by majority vote. External Examiner Marco Rimanelli Professor, St. Leo University Supervisor(s) Andrew Hunt Professor, University of Waterloo Internal Member Jasmin Habib Associate Professor, University of Waterloo Internal Member Roger Sarty Professor, Wilfrid Laurier University Internal-external Member Brian Orend Professor, University of Waterloo ii Author's Declaration I hereby declare that I am the sole author of this thesis. This is a true copy of the thesis, including any required final revisions, as accepted by my examiners. I understand that my thesis may be made electronically available to the public. iii Abstract This study examines combat operations from the 2003 invasion of Iraq War from the “ground up.” It utilizes unique first-person accounts that offer insights into the realities of modern warfare which include effects on soldiers, the local population, and journalists who were tasked with reporting on the action. It affirms the value of media embedding to the historian, as hundreds of journalists witnessed major combat operations firsthand. This line of argument stands in stark contrast to other academic assessments of the embedding program, which have criticized it by claiming media bias and military censorship. Here, an examination of the cultural and social dynamics of an army at war provides agency to soldiers, combat reporters, and innocent civilians caught in the crossfire.
    [Show full text]
  • Signature Redacted Sign Ature Redacted
    VIET NAM'S STRATEGIC HAMLET: DEVELOPMENT AND DENOUEMENT By Leland E. Prentice Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Science at the MASSACHUSETTS INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY August 1969 Signature Redacted Signature of Author D&partment of Political Science Certified by Signature Redacted Tht1is S ulepervJsor Sign ature Redacted Accepted by Chairman, Departmental Commi ttee on Graduate Students Archives iAss. INST. rtEC. OCT 2 9 1969 rA RI S 77 Massachusetts Avenue Cambridge, MA 02139 MIT Libraries http://libraries.mit.edu/ask DISCLAIMER NOTICE Due to the condition of the original material, there are unavoidable flaws in this reproduction. We have made every effort possible to provide you with the best copy available. Thank you. Some pages in the original document contain text that runs off the edge of the page. I ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS As in most research, there are certain individuals who contribute to a study but do not appear on the title page. I am personally indebted to many individuals for their contributions throughout my period of study at The Massachusetts Institute of Technology. There are certain individuals to whom I wish to extend my personal appreciation for their efforts to aid me not only in the writing of this thesis, but also in the completion of my academic program. Professors William W. Kaufmann and Donald Blackmer greatly assisted me in my development as a student of political science. Colonel Marshall 0. Becker has relieved me of numerous responsibilities, to the burden of my fellow staff members, in order that I might complete this study.
    [Show full text]