Paper Soldiers: The American Press and the Vietnam War [Paperback]

Clarence R. Wyatt (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 1, 1995 | ISBN-10: 0226917959 | ISBN-13: 978-0226917955

Praised and condemned for its aggressive coverage of the Vietnam War, the American press has been both commended for breaking public support and bringing the war to an end and accused of misrepresenting the nature and progress of the war. While in-depth combat coverage and the instantaneous power of television were used to challenge the war, Clarence R. Wyatt demonstrates that, more often than not, the press reported official information, statements, and views. Examining the relationship between the press and the government, Wyatt looks at how difficult it was to obtain information outside official briefings, what sort of professional constraints the press worked under, and what happened when reporters chose not to "get on the team."

"Wyatt makes the Diem period in Saigon come to life—the primitive communications, the police crackdowns, the quarrels within the news organizations between the pessimists in Saigon and the optimists in Washington and New York."—Peter Braestrup, Washington Times

"An important, readable study of the Vietnam press corps—the most maligned group of journalists in modern American history. Clarence Wyatt's insights and assessments are particularly valuable now that the media is rapidly growing in its influence on domestic and international affairs."—Peter Arnett, CNN foreign correspondent

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

For two decades and more, "conventional wisdom" has been that the American press was a major factor in the U.S. failure in Vietnam. Simply put, author Wyatt (history, Centre Coll.) demolishes that theory. With prodigious research, he has pieced together a study that reveals that the press was not the scapegoat; more often than not, the press reported official information, statements, and views with relatively little dissent. "The press," Wyatt writes, "was more a paper soldier than an antiwar, anti-government crusader." As the war dragged on, it became clear that there was a growing lack of public confidence in the credibility of both the government and the press. An important book; recommended for all libraries.
- Chet Hagan, Berks Cty. P.L. System, Pa.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Kirkus Reviews

A tellingly detailed overview that casts a cold eye on the US media's vaunted role in the Vietnam War. While conventional wisdom holds that the press exerted substantive, even decisive, influence over home-front opinion and the course of the protracted conflict, Wyatt (History/Centre College) concludes that, on the whole, news coverage was neither actively adversarial nor remarkably antiestablishment. Without overstating the case, he draws on the public record and archival material to show that correspondents generally were singularly uncritical of the information they obtained from the American military and its civilian superiors. Only when official sources clammed up, lied, or were overtaken by events (as during the Tet Offensive) did the fourth estate's dispatches and broadcasts betray anything akin to skepticism. In fact, Wyatt notes, US news organizations tended to report the frequently unrealistic, party- line construals of cold warriors in Saigon, Washington, or elsewhere as fact even if their on-the-scene representatives urged caution. To a great extent, the author argues, American journalists were inclined to treat combat throughout Southeast Asia as a sort of police beat. At the tacit behest of their stateside editors, moreover, they largely ignored the tangled issues of Vietnamese politics, focusing instead on the short-run fates of US facilities and forces. Citing chapter and verse, the author documents how ethnocentricity remained a dominant theme of field coverage throughout the fighting. Not until full-scale troop withdrawals were under way during the early 1970's did the American people learn about three of the war's biggest stories--the My Lai massacre, the secret bombing of Cambodia, and the Pentagon Papers. Disclosure of these headline-making scandals, Wyatt observes, was attributable to tips checked out by US-based reporters, not to investigative digging by foreign correspondents. Revisionist perspectives that shed new light on an American institution unlikely to reappraise, let alone critique, its performance during a watershed era. (Maps--not seen.) -- Copyright ©1993, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Product Details

• Paperback: 272 pages
• Publisher: University Of Chicago Press (March 1, 1995)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0226917959
• ISBN-13: 978-0226917955
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.5 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.5 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #524,822 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars If you know how to write history, you know how good this is, February 1, 2001

By 

CJ - See all my reviews

This review is from: Paper Soldiers: The American Press and the Vietnam War (Paperback)

As a graduate student of history, I know that you cannot possibly write about every aspect of anything (especially the Vietnam War) in a book. If one were to write about everything on the Vietnam War, there would be a library full of volumes. Wyatt has chosen to focus on one aspect, one that has been ignored so often (which is why the previous reviewer can only cite one public avenue - television). Many books have been written on the role of television. The challenge to historians is to find something new, and Wyatt does a beautiful job of it. The intricacies he finds within the paper media are amazing, and his analysis never fails.

Wyatt is an incredible historian and an equally incredible man. I absolutely recommend this book.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars An easy, informative read, April 28, 2004

By A Customer

This review is from: Paper Soldiers: The American Press and the Vietnam War (Paperback)

This book is, for starters, a fairly easy read, and doesn't require much background knowledge of Vietnam. While it deflates the often overglorified view of the role of the press in Vietnam, the book does seem to favor the press over the South Vietnamese and U.S. governments. Wyatt stops short of actually laying blame of any negative reporting on the government, but they are certainly presented as the main indirect source. As for the common thread of television mentioned in other reviews, his attention paid to the topic is disappointing. While television should not have been the focus of the book, it probably deserves more than the one or two pages alloted to it. Still, overall the book does an excellent job of clarifying the role of news media in the war. I would certianly recommend reading it in order to gain a more enlightened view on this topic.

5.0 out of 5 stars Detailed Exploration of Print Reporters in Vietnam, January 24, 2007

By 

ManicPanic (CA United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Paper Soldiers: The American Press and the Vietnam War (Paperback)

Paper Soldiers is an in-depth look at print media and those who wrote it during the Vietnam War. Wyatt has really given us a LOT of information here:

- The media build-up during America's march to war.

- How, when and with whom the government's media briefings were held.

- Relationships between reporters (including preferential treatment of those newsmen who worked for organization giving pro-government coverage).

- Life in Saigon for the hundreds of newsmen who flocked there.

- Who really was in control of the flow of information, and how it was disseminated to the public.

Yes, Wyatt leans toward the media and away from the government, but in comparison to a lot of other Vietnam War sources out there this one weighs heavy on facts and light on commentary and/or bias.

And it purposely leaves out television news (except for comparison against print content) as a subject that's already been covered in depth.