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Alex Ferguson examines the U.S. diplomatic mission in Vietnam’s management of the American press during the later stages of the Franco-Viet Minh War.

Image courtesy of interviewee. May 29, 2024

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This video discusses the early involvement of the United States in the Vietnam conflict during the 1950s, particularly the context of US support for French colonial efforts against the Viet Minh, a nationalist coalition seeking independence for Vietnam. The US viewed the situation through a Cold War lens, fearing the spread of communism, but initially hesitated to openly back France due to discomfort with colonialism. France sought to rebrand the conflict as a civil war intertwined with the Cold War to gain US support.

American military and economic assistance began in 1950, largely driven by aims to combat perceived Soviet influence and prevent a communist takeover. Despite this, French officials were wary of American journalists, whom they believed could undermine their efforts. The US government saw the press as a crucial component of public perception regarding the war and actively worked to manage journalists’ reports to maintain a favorable diplomatic image for French efforts.

US officials were particularly concerned that negative press could lead to diminished French morale, increased tensions between the US and France, and potential reductions in support from Congress. As journalists often relied on official sources for information, US diplomats engaged in various strategies, including informal relationships and direct interventions with media outlets, to influence the reporting landscape.

The article also highlights the impact of journalists and non-state actors in shaping the Cold War narrative, showing that despite the US's military power, its influence was limited and depended on cooperation, particularly from France. Ultimately, the US efforts to manage press coverage reflected a nuanced understanding of how public perception could affect geopolitical outcomes in the Battle for Vietnam during a tumultuous period marked by ideological conflicts.

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Here are some articles that may share similarities with the video you , focusing on the U.S. involvement in Vietnam, Cold War dynamics, colonialism, and the role of the media in shaping public perception:

1. **"America's Vietnam: The Interplay of Media and Military Strategy"**
This article explores how U.S. military policies in Vietnam were influenced by media coverage, emphasizing the pivotal role of journalists in shaping public opinion and policy decisions during the conflict.

2. **"The Cold War and the Birth of the Vietnam War"**
A historical overview that discusses the origins of U.S. involvement in Vietnam within the broader Cold War convideo, highlighting the fears of communism and the complexities of supporting colonial powers.

3. **"Fighting the Press: U.S. Media Management in the Vietnam War"**
This piece examines the strategies employed by U.S. officials to control war reporting and manage the narrative around the Vietnam conflict, illustrating how perceptions were carefully crafted to support U.S. diplomatic stances.

4. **"Colonial Legacies: The French War in Vietnam and its Impact on U.S. Foreign Policy"**
An analysis of how French colonial interests shaped American involvement in Vietnam, shedding light on the initial hesitance of the U.S. to align fully with colonial powers while still combating communism.

5. **"The Viet Minh: Nationalism, Communism, and the Struggle for Vietnamese Independence"**
This article delves into the formation of the Viet Minh and their fight against French colonialism, placing their struggle within the larger narrative of global decolonization and Cold War politics.

6. **"Public Opinion and the Vietnam War: The Role of the American Press"**
An investigation into how U.S. journalists influenced public perception of the Vietnam War and how government officials attempted to navigate this landscape in order to sustain support for the war effort.

7. **"Cold War Dynamics and the Vietnam Conflict: A Nationalist Perspective"**
This article provides an analysis of the Vietnam War from the perspective of nationalist movements, focusing on the intersection of local aspirations for independence and broader Cold War rivalries.

Each of these articles captures aspects of U.S. involvement in Vietnam, the significance of the media during the Cold War, and the implications of colonial attitudes in shaping foreign policy.

X-TIMESTAMP-MAP:LOCAL=00:00:00.000,MPEGTS=900000

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So the article is, focuses on the beginning

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of major US involvement in Vietnam during the early 1950s.

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Uh, this is when the United States sort

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of first becomes an active participant in the struggle

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for, for Vietnam.

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It makes a very fateful decision in 1950 to provide

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military, and economic support to the,

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to French imperial forces that are at

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that point engaged in a war to salvage.

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Um, what has sort of become the, the jewel in the crown

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of France, Asian empires, that's, Vietnam,

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and, other states in, in French, Indo China,

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as we often refer to, say, Laos and, and Cambodia.

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Um, so French, French forces become engaged in the war there

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following Wari.

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It's, they're, fighting,

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an organization called the Viet Min, which is,

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a nationalist coalition, that is led

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by communists.

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Uh, the most famous name,

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amongst those leadership figures is Ho Chi Minh.

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Uh, and that organization aims

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to win Vietnam's independence from French colonial rule

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and establish a, a communist, state in that corner of,

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of Southeast Asia.

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Um, so France, France is primarily interested in kind of

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in sort of retaking control

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of its former colonial possession for the United States.

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They're viewing developments in Vietnam in the late 1940s

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through a Cold War lens.

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So, because this Vietnamese organization has communist

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leadership, they're seeing it, as the sort

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of latest attempt by Moscow, by the Soviet Union to,

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establish additional communist territories

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around the world in this global struggle for the fate of,

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of, of mankind.

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Um, US officials, despite that, are pretty

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reluctant initially to support France's war.

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They're pretty uncomfortable with the idea

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of helping a colonial power, reestablish its,

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its imperial control

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and preventing,

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indigenous people from establishing an independent state.

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But France is pretty savvy over the, over the late 1940s,

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and its 1950 in rebranding what was

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to them at least a colonial war as something

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that was more than that, as something that was,

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a Vietnamese civil war,

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and something that was also an episode in the, the Cold War.

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So they, they do that by branding Ho Chi Minh as a sort

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of servant of the Soviet Union as a servant of Moscow.

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Uh, and they also give, a degree of independence

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to an anti-communist Vietnamese state that was led by the,

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the former emperor of Vietnam Bao die.

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Uh, and those are the sort of major decisions

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that eventually lead the United States to agree to,

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to sponsor support France War in,

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in Vietnam from the beginning.

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That's a pretty tense diplomatic relationship,

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despite the fact that the United States

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and France have a shared goal preventing this,

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this communist takeover of this.

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Um, French officials are happy to take American money

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and American arms,

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but they're much less keen on those Americans

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who arrive in Vietnam to staff,

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and expanding diplomatic mission.

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Uh, and those other Americans that are drawn to,

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to the Southeast Asian colony for other reasons.

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Among those, which is, pertinent for,

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for this discussion are journalists.

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So we see a number of American journalists begin

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to stop in Vietnam to report, on this list,

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flashpoint in the, the Cold War, struggle.

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Um, so French officials accused these Americans of seeking

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to sort of undermine their control, and perhaps even to try

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and usurp France in, in Vietnam.

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Um, and these officials, these French officials,

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frequently threaten to abandon Vietnam to the Communists.

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So they threaten to withdraw their troops from Vietnam,

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and leave the Communist to, to conquer that country.

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Um, that threat is taken pretty seriously

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in the United States.

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There's growing opposition to the war in France.

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By the time we get to the 1950s, it's been given the,

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the name Lasal Ge the Dirty War.

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Um, and there's a lot of fatigue.

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So France is spending a lot of money on this war.

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It's losing a lot of men

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and in particular military officers.

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And so there is an increasing appetite

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for France to get out.

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So the Americans become increasingly concerned

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that they antagonize the French too much,

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that France might actually follow

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through on these repeated threats to, to withdraw.

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Um, and that would leave the United States in a very

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dangerous position.

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Uh, it would either mean that they would have to

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commit ground troops of their own

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to continue fighting this war against communism.

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And they're pretty reluctant to, to do so, not least

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because they've been fighting a war,

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or concurrently they're fighting a war in Korea.

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Um, so another Asian land war that will,

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that will be pretty damaging.

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Um, so the choices between that

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or just simply allowing the country to slip into communism,

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and that's at this point in the early 1950s, something

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that the United States is just not prepared to do, to give

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the communists and the Soviet Union in particular,

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in particular, another win in this ideological struggle.

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As you might expect, the vast majority

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of what's been written about American press coverage,

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of the, of the struggle for Vietnam was focused on the,

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the later American war in Vietnam in the 1960s and 1970s.

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What we, as historians sometimes refer to

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as the second though, China War was obviously the war

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where American troops are doing a lot of the fighting

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and dying,

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and where there are various accusations made,

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that the media are sabotaging the US war effort

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by writing too critically, too pessimistically, about

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what the United States is, is, is doing there.

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So quite naturally, a lot

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of the attention from historians are sort

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of gravitated to that later,

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Uh, American war, particularly

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because of a lot of the, the scholars writing on the subject

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tend to be from the, from the United States.

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There's been much less written on this earlier,

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war in Vietnam to the first Indo China War,

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the Franco Viet Men War that I'm focusing on.

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Um, and what has been written tends to describe

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press coverage as a bit of a non-event, as a bit

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of a, a non-story.

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Um, and, and what those historians are really pointing to

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that suggested that essentially that journalists tended

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to align themselves quite closely with the position

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of the US government that they're reporting

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actually worked in various ways to sort

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of support us diplomacy in Vietnam.

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And that therefore, there's just not really

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a lot to, to talk about.

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Um,

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and they feel that there's historians that have that kind

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of come before me and written on this topic have, have come

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to that conclusion largely because, of notions of a kind

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of anti-communist consensus in the United States,

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that journalists tended to view

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global developments in the same Cold War lens

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as US policy makers, and

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therefore tended to be quite supportive of US efforts

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to contain communist expansion wherever it might arise.

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Um, and that actually in their reports,

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they've been pretty optimistic

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and, critical in the way that they reported on French

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efforts there, that they were happy

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to simply take French policymakers

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and American policymakers word for it.

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Um, and also that they, they kinda lacked,

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because this was a part

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of the world in which the United States had very little

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involvement prior to 1950.

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Um, journalistic organizations didn't have a huge amount

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of resources to dedicate to this story, particularly given

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that whilst the United States was becoming more involved,

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it wasn't yet at the, at the stage

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that would be in the sixties and seventies with American

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ground troops, doing the, doing the fighting.

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So it often meant that, the journalists sort of stopping

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by for a day or two here or there, and

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therefore that they weren't able to develop the contacts

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and insights that would allow them

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to more consistently challenge the sort

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of established narrative about, about the French War.

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Um, so in, in short, I guess their,

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their conclusion has been that news reporting was an issue

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that the US government gave little real thought about,

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because journalists were sort of onside

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and cooperating, with the US government in a, in a way

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that Washington felt was beneficial for its diplomatic,

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objectives.

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Um, so that's kind of existing position.

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The, the article also kind of taps into just,

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just in its focus on, on, on journalism, a sort

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of shift over the last 20

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or 30 years away from simply understanding the Cold War in

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military terms as this sort of nuclear

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or military standoff between the United States

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and the Soviet Union that sort of conjures images of,

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you know, missile crisis

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or, the Berlin Wall checkpoint, Charlie, all these kind

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of, of iconic images that we have, the, the Cold War very

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gravitated around this notion of a,

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a military confrontation.

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And actually historians over the last 20

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or 30 years have started to consider in, in,

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in more depth the Cold War as a battle of ideas,

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and as a struggle in which non-state actors, so actors

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who are not official government representatives,

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also played a, a critical role.

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Uh, and so one of the places that historians have been doing

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that is, is, is in focusing on journalists

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and media as part of this, this wider cohort struggle,

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contrary to what had been written before.

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The article reveals that US officials

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did care about American media reporting from Vietnam,

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but actually they treated it very, very seriously

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dedicated lots of time,

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and energy into trying into trying to ensure that

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what American journalists, reported

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would help us diplomatic objectives in Vietnam.

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That it would largely present as all rosy positive,

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optimistic impression of what the French were well to.

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And that that in doing so, would give France fewer options

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to say, well, with enough with this war,

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you've annoyed us too much.

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We are gonna leave and, and let you deal

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with the, the consequences.

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So that's the sort of central thrust

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of the article really is to, is to, is to showcase that it,

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it did matter, and it mattered a number of ways.

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They, American officials really concerned

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that it could do three things.

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A critical and pessimistic journalistic

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reporting of the war could do three things.

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Firstly, is that it could undermine French military morale

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if a, if representatives

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of a so-called ally were criticizing

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or were pessimistic about French chances of success there.

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Secondly, that it could simply antagonize the,

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the French create fissures,

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additional tensions in the Franco American relationship

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that would make France more likely

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to consider an exit from Vietnam.

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Um, and finally that it would have sort

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of domestic implications in the United States that it might

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push Congress who are funding

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and arming the French War effort to reconsider the aid

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that they were apportioning to,

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to the French in, in Vietnam.

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So they were concerned that that in those ways, that the war

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for Vietnam could be lost in the, in the pages

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of American newspapers and magazines.

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And it mattered what was printed there almost as much

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as it mattered what was happening in the, in the fighting

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between the, the French and the Vietnamese, communists.

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Um, they thought like that for a number of reasons.

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They took press press coverage

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seriously for a number of reasons.

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One of those is the red scare, the second red scare.

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So sort of increasing concerns about communist subversion in

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the United States, and in particular, whether

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or not, news companies, magazines,

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newspapers had been infiltrated by communist agents.

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They were aware of the press's influence

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and power to shape public opinion.

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So they, they saw that as a particular, weak spa

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that might be exploited by communist agents.

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Um, so they're fearful that, that, that

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that might be the case here.

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Um, and the other major event that that sort

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of factored into their consideration was the, the,

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so-called Fall of China, which was the victory of

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Macon's communist forces in the Chinese Civil War in,

12:29.585 --> 12:31.045
in 1949.

12:31.865 --> 12:35.005
Um, and there were concerns even by the early 1950s

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that actually Mao's victory

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and the defeat of the anti-communist Chiang Kai-shek,

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who was, United States' major ally in China,

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had been brought about in part by critical

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and pessimistic American press reporting that they'd sort

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of undermined him and helped

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to facilitate a communist victory.

12:53.615 --> 12:54.915
And the Americans were concerned

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that the same thing might repeat itself in the latest

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Cold War, battleground in in Indo China.

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Um, so these were the two kind of major events.

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And the, the other thing that, that, that mattered

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and why they took it so seriously was it just the French

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kept complaining about it.

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They frequently called in to the offices

13:13.615 --> 13:17.435
of the US diplomatic mission, to, to complain about,

13:17.855 --> 13:19.435
you know, so-called inflammatory

13:19.455 --> 13:21.435
or critical press reporting.

13:21.455 --> 13:24.195
So because the French were constantly reminding these

13:24.635 --> 13:26.755
American officials that it was irritating them

13:26.815 --> 13:29.835
and that it might have consequences on French morale,

13:29.895 --> 13:31.675
on French political opinion back home,

13:32.415 --> 13:34.755
the Americans were sort of corralled into thinking that,

13:34.945 --> 13:37.395
okay, we need to take press reporting seriously

13:37.395 --> 13:39.915
because this is something that can, that can have a, a,

13:39.915 --> 13:42.915
a tangible, impact on the, the outcome in Vietnam.

13:43.535 --> 13:45.715
Uh, whether or not this, this, this Southeast Asian,

13:45.715 --> 13:47.955
former Southeast Asian colony could be salvaged from,

13:48.025 --> 13:49.035
from, from communism.

13:50.335 --> 13:52.235
Uh, and so the article sort of sketches out

13:53.665 --> 13:56.065
American reporting, from Vietnam

13:56.125 --> 13:59.625
and looks at the various ways that us diplomats sort

13:59.625 --> 14:02.705
to manage, American reporting.

14:02.885 --> 14:06.585
So talks about things like briefing staff,

14:06.585 --> 14:09.105
and journalists about us diplomatic priorities,

14:09.765 --> 14:13.305
and forcing them to think about whether what you say or do

14:13.405 --> 14:17.585
or write is gonna have any harmful effects on us diplomatic

14:17.585 --> 14:19.705
objectives, whether it's gonna undermine them in any way.

14:20.605 --> 14:22.785
Um, they also move to, to woo

14:22.805 --> 14:25.305
or to butter up, journalists.

14:25.565 --> 14:28.225
So, entertaining them at their home, taking 'em out

14:28.225 --> 14:31.825
for dinner, doing them various favors of sorts as a way

14:31.825 --> 14:33.505
to encourage them to, to write in ways

14:33.505 --> 14:34.865
that would be beneficial to us.

14:35.045 --> 14:38.665
Um, objectives. Um, we also sort see more kind

14:38.665 --> 14:42.745
of coercive activities where they intervene with editors

14:42.765 --> 14:45.465
so they're aware that a piece is, has been written

14:45.645 --> 14:47.025
and that it might be published,

14:47.025 --> 14:49.665
and that it's likely to have harmful repercussions.

14:50.325 --> 14:52.525
Uh, and so they intervened attempt to intervene

14:52.525 --> 14:54.125
with various editors to kill the story

14:54.185 --> 14:57.205
before it makes its way into the, into the public realm.

14:58.225 --> 15:00.445
Um, and the other thing they do is that they,

15:00.515 --> 15:03.725
they don't see journalists as solely responsible

15:04.505 --> 15:06.565
for writing critical or pessimistic pieces.

15:06.565 --> 15:09.605
They actually feel that some of the time, at least,

15:09.605 --> 15:13.085
that actually the French are, are at fault for any, any

15:13.645 --> 15:15.445
damaging journalism that's produced.

15:15.465 --> 15:17.205
And that's because they feel the French is,

15:17.705 --> 15:20.525
as the French are placed, too restrictive,

15:20.585 --> 15:23.325
or too oppressive restrictions on press reporting.

15:23.385 --> 15:26.565
So reducing the places that journalists could travel to,

15:26.865 --> 15:30.645
the people that they could talk to, intervening

15:30.645 --> 15:31.805
to tell them what they could

15:31.805 --> 15:34.885
and couldn't published, not not allowing things to pass

15:34.885 --> 15:37.005
through sensors that back in the

15:37.005 --> 15:38.085
United States would be fine.

15:38.105 --> 15:40.365
And there was an attempt there by,

15:40.425 --> 15:42.845
US government officials to push fronts than liberalize

15:43.545 --> 15:45.765
its attitude to, to managing the press.

15:45.785 --> 15:48.805
And their hope was that a more liberal French press policy

15:49.255 --> 15:52.085
would make these journalists more open to, more receptive

15:52.085 --> 15:55.125
to French, the French position on the war, and

15:55.125 --> 15:57.005
therefore more likely to publish pieces that will,

15:57.035 --> 15:59.365
that will help you as diplomatic objectives rather than,

15:59.465 --> 16:00.565
rather than damage them.

16:01.145 --> 16:03.495
So I think there are a number of things

16:03.495 --> 16:06.295
that we can draw from this, this sort of episode.

16:07.815 --> 16:10.675
One is the limits to us

16:11.245 --> 16:13.075
power in the, the Cold War.

16:13.335 --> 16:16.905
Um, I mentioned just, just a minute ago, US hopes

16:16.905 --> 16:19.785
of pushing France to liberalize its press policy in Vietnam

16:19.785 --> 16:22.345
in ways that would be beneficial to us objectives.

16:22.345 --> 16:24.105
Those, those efforts largely fail.

16:24.725 --> 16:28.025
The French are pretty resistant to us efforts to, to,

16:28.045 --> 16:29.985
to move in that, that region.

16:30.325 --> 16:31.785
Um, and that's, and that's largely

16:31.785 --> 16:35.105
because Paris is aware that the Americans need them.

16:35.535 --> 16:37.545
They know that they know

16:37.545 --> 16:39.585
that the United States want French forces

16:39.605 --> 16:41.825
to do the fighting in dying in Vietnam, and

16:41.825 --> 16:44.225
therefore they know that they can get away with ignoring

16:44.965 --> 16:47.985
us suggestions without any real consequences.

16:48.685 --> 16:50.945
Um, America, the Americans both need France

16:50.945 --> 16:53.505
to fight in Vietnam, but they also need,

16:53.505 --> 16:55.865
French support in Western Europe,

16:56.315 --> 17:00.025
where they're concerned about Soviet expansion,

17:00.025 --> 17:01.945
from Eastern Europe into, into Western Europe.

17:02.165 --> 17:03.905
And there's a large

17:04.485 --> 17:06.905
and quite powerful communist party in France itself.

17:06.925 --> 17:08.105
So they're sort of concerned

17:08.615 --> 17:11.385
that France itself might become a communist state.

17:11.405 --> 17:13.065
So they feel like there, there's a need there

17:13.065 --> 17:14.305
to keep France happy,

17:14.965 --> 17:17.985
and that allows them to resist us pressure

17:17.985 --> 17:19.465
to liberalize their press policy.

17:19.725 --> 17:22.145
So in some ways, the article speaks to the limits,

17:22.205 --> 17:23.785
to us power in the Early Cold War

17:23.785 --> 17:26.225
and the agency that is enjoyed

17:26.245 --> 17:29.185
by junior actors in the Cold War, you know, nation states

17:29.185 --> 17:30.465
that don't often receive a lot

17:30.465 --> 17:33.985
of attention when we think about the, the kind of dynamics

17:33.985 --> 17:35.105
of the, the Cold War.

17:36.485 --> 17:38.505
Um, I think one of the other things that's important is

17:38.505 --> 17:40.945
that we see here the importance

17:41.735 --> 17:44.905
that US officials imbued in the actions

17:44.965 --> 17:48.825
and behaviors of a quite diverse cast of characters,

17:48.935 --> 17:52.045
often figures that weren't officially employed

17:52.105 --> 17:54.245
by the US government,

17:54.955 --> 17:58.205
that was seemingly insignificant maybe to US diplomacy,

17:58.205 --> 18:01.425
but actually US officials treated these figures,

18:01.495 --> 18:02.585
with great, great care

18:02.605 --> 18:06.625
and felt that they, they held the potential to,

18:07.245 --> 18:09.545
to assist the United States in either winning

18:09.645 --> 18:13.865
or losing this Cold War struggle in, in, in Southeast Asia.

18:14.525 --> 18:16.865
Um, so we get a bit of a sense there of the importance

18:16.865 --> 18:21.045
of non-state actors about how individuals seemingly

18:21.605 --> 18:23.605
unimportant could be seen as ambassadors

18:23.605 --> 18:24.685
of the United States,

18:24.715 --> 18:26.765
even if they weren't officially employed by,

18:26.945 --> 18:28.245
by the US government.

18:30.065 --> 18:33.775
Um, I guess the other, the other thing that may,

18:33.805 --> 18:38.165
that comes out of the piece is that one

18:38.165 --> 18:41.005
of the reasons why the United States invested so much time

18:41.025 --> 18:42.645
and effort in managing the press is

18:42.645 --> 18:44.605
because it was one of the few places

18:44.655 --> 18:47.445
where they felt they could have a, a tangible impact

18:48.105 --> 18:49.925
on developments in, in Vietnam.

18:50.665 --> 18:53.965
Um, the aid and, and, and money that they

18:54.165 --> 18:57.665
provided to the French seemingly, was, was not enough

18:57.665 --> 18:59.585
to tip the sort of balance of the military struggle.

18:59.845 --> 19:03.185
Um, the war was, was largely a stalemate.

19:03.685 --> 19:05.865
Uh, and in 1954, France suffers a,

19:05.905 --> 19:09.385
a humiliating defeat in northwest Vietnam at a place called

19:09.725 --> 19:11.305
Dmb fu,

19:11.305 --> 19:14.385
which eventually facilitates a French withdrawal from the,

19:14.385 --> 19:17.265
from the country and a, a new beginning, a new, a new stage

19:17.265 --> 19:20.265
of the, the struggle for Vietnam that didn't involve,

19:20.445 --> 19:22.185
the French Empire.

19:23.085 --> 19:24.955
Um, and

19:24.955 --> 19:27.475
because, so US military aid doesn't really have

19:27.475 --> 19:28.555
an effect on the war that much.

19:28.555 --> 19:29.675
It helps France keep going,

19:29.695 --> 19:32.515
but it ultimately doesn't enable them to be successful.

19:33.215 --> 19:35.275
And as, as I've mentioned earlier, France is also

19:35.855 --> 19:37.315
not particularly receptive

19:37.695 --> 19:39.755
to American intrusion in other aspects

19:39.775 --> 19:41.235
of the situation of Vietnam.

19:41.235 --> 19:42.675
So they're not willing to listen

19:42.835 --> 19:44.675
to American ideas about military strategy

19:45.535 --> 19:48.035
or providing additional independence

19:48.035 --> 19:49.755
to this anti-communist Vietnamese government.

19:50.455 --> 19:51.755
Um, and so in the end,

19:51.775 --> 19:53.595
things like press management become important

19:53.835 --> 19:54.835
'cause it is one of the few places

19:54.835 --> 19:57.755
where they feel like they can actually have an impact on the

19:58.115 --> 19:59.795
situation in, in Vietnam.

20:00.615 --> 20:02.835
Um, so it's, I think this story is important

20:02.835 --> 20:04.035
for, for that reason as well.

20:04.035 --> 20:08.115
It gives us a sense of what American officials believed

20:08.335 --> 20:12.145
to be possible in, in Vietnam and some of the limits,

20:12.205 --> 20:14.425
and again, restrictions of what they felt they were able

20:14.425 --> 20:17.905
to achieve at a moment in time in which they are the

20:17.905 --> 20:19.225
world's sole regiment.

20:19.225 --> 20:22.025
You know, they're an enormously powerful military

20:22.025 --> 20:23.945
and economic power by the time we get into the mid

20:24.625 --> 20:27.465
20th century, but there are still things that they're unable

20:27.485 --> 20:31.185
to do, and it seems like US officials recognized that.

20:32.555 --> 20:34.495
Um, and then the final thing I would say in terms of sort

20:34.495 --> 20:37.675
of implications and wider findings is

20:37.675 --> 20:40.115
that US officials did enjoy some success in

20:40.395 --> 20:41.795
managing, managing the press.

20:42.815 --> 20:47.095
Um, journalists were often quite receptive to US government,

20:47.345 --> 20:49.565
efforts to, to get 'em right about, to get 'em

20:49.565 --> 20:51.325
to write about the war in a particular way.

20:52.215 --> 20:55.955
Um, but there were moments where these systems,

20:56.205 --> 20:58.515
these interventions failed and were critical

20:58.515 --> 21:02.395
and pessimistic stories, slipped by,

21:02.415 --> 21:05.475
and did inflict damage on the Franco America relationship

21:05.815 --> 21:09.675
and cause genuine concern about the future of us,

21:09.725 --> 21:11.875
objectives in, in Vietnam and whether

21:11.875 --> 21:14.235
or not Vietnam would fall to, to communism.

21:14.235 --> 21:17.355
And, and the reason for that is largely relates

21:17.375 --> 21:18.555
to journalistic culture

21:18.895 --> 21:21.595
and this notion of objective journalism that is,

21:21.595 --> 21:24.155
that journalists would rely primarily

21:24.495 --> 21:27.155
for their information on official government sources.

21:28.015 --> 21:29.275
And so it meant for the large part

21:29.275 --> 21:31.835
that actually if government figures were largely positive,

21:32.455 --> 21:34.555
and uncritical in their reading of the French, that

21:34.555 --> 21:36.275
that could, that could help the United States

21:36.275 --> 21:37.555
government in its management of the press.

21:38.255 --> 21:40.515
But the problem was that the war wasn't going particularly

21:40.515 --> 21:43.275
well, as I said, it entered a, a stalemate.

21:43.655 --> 21:46.315
And so there were, if journalists looked hard enough,

21:46.625 --> 21:48.715
officials who were willing to go on the record

21:49.295 --> 21:51.995
and speak of the war in a more critical and pessimistic way

21:51.995 --> 21:53.075
and ways, and that

21:53.075 --> 21:55.275
therefore meant that when they published stories

21:55.305 --> 21:57.435
with these sources, they were able to better resist

21:57.975 --> 22:00.555
the efforts of the US government to, to get 'em

22:00.555 --> 22:03.915
to kill a story which might be damaging to us,

22:04.085 --> 22:05.515
diplomatic objectives.

22:07.045 --> 22:09.825
In terms of future research, there are a, a few things

22:09.825 --> 22:12.185
that I'm looking at developing further from this piece.

22:12.245 --> 22:15.705
One, one of these is the kind

22:15.705 --> 22:18.185
of cultural environment in which journalists

22:18.185 --> 22:20.225
and government officials were brought up.

22:21.155 --> 22:24.375
Um, I think there's a growing sense in the literature

22:24.445 --> 22:25.935
that they shared.

22:26.095 --> 22:30.655
A lot of spaces were part of many of the same networks,

22:30.655 --> 22:31.895
you know, brought up in the same schools,

22:31.995 --> 22:34.535
the same universities, often drawn from the same class.

22:35.475 --> 22:39.295
You have instances in Vietnam where influential columnists,

22:39.515 --> 22:42.295
so people like Joseph Op, are related

22:42.595 --> 22:44.295
to figures in the US mission.

22:44.315 --> 22:47.455
So there's some, family connections there at work.

22:47.555 --> 22:51.255
So I'd be interested in, in sort of probing the degree

22:51.275 --> 22:55.415
to which those networks, those cultures shaped us efforts

22:55.415 --> 22:56.935
to try and manage the press and in,

22:56.955 --> 23:00.375
and in, in large part, encouraged American journalists

23:00.395 --> 23:04.575
to align themselves with US diplomatic, objectives

23:04.575 --> 23:07.015
because they were often talking from the same position

23:07.015 --> 23:08.695
and from the same places as many

23:08.695 --> 23:11.655
of their counterparts within the, within the US government.

00:00 - So the article is, focuses on the beginning of major US involvement in Vietnam during the early 1950s. this is when the United States sort of first becomes an active participant in the struggle for, for Vietnam. It makes a very fateful decision in 1950 to provide

00:19 - military, and economic support to the, to French imperial forces that are at that point engaged in a war to salvage. what has sort of become the, the jewel in the crown of France, Asian empires, that's, Vietnam, and, other states in, in French, Indo China, as we often refer to, say, Laos and, and Cambodia. so French, French forces become engaged in the war there following Wari. It's, they're, fighting,

00:48 - an organization called the Viet Min, which is, a nationalist coalition, that is led by communists. the most famous name, amongst those leadership figures is Ho Chi Minh. and that organization aims to win Vietnam's independence from French colonial rule and establish a, a communist, state in that corner of, of Southeast Asia. so France, France is primarily interested in kind of

01:21 - in sort of retaking control of its former colonial possession for the United States. They're viewing developments in Vietnam in the late 1940s through a Cold War lens. So, because this Vietnamese organization has communist leadership, they're seeing it, as the sort of latest attempt by Moscow, by the Soviet Union to, establish additional communist territories around the world in this global struggle for the fate of, of, of mankind.

01:48 - US officials, despite that, are pretty reluctant initially to support France's war. They're pretty uncomfortable with the idea of helping a colonial power, reestablish its, its imperial control and preventing, indigenous people from establishing an independent state. But France is pretty savvy over the, over the late 1940s, and its 1950 in rebranding what was to them at least a colonial war as something

02:16 - that was more than that, as something that was, a Vietnamese civil war, and something that was also an episode in the, the Cold War. So they, they do that by branding Ho Chi Minh as a sort of servant of the Soviet Union as a servant of Moscow. and they also give, a degree of independence to an anti-communist Vietnamese state that was led by the, the former emperor of Vietnam Bao die. and those are the sort of major decisions that eventually lead the United States to agree to,

02:44 - to sponsor support France War in, in Vietnam from the beginning. That's a pretty tense diplomatic relationship, despite the fact that the United States and France have a shared goal preventing this, this communist takeover of this. French officials are happy to take American money and American arms, but they're much less keen on those Americans who arrive in Vietnam to staff,

03:12 - and expanding diplomatic mission. and those other Americans that are drawn to, to the Southeast Asian colony for other reasons. Among those, which is, pertinent for, for this discussion are journalists. So we see a number of American journalists begin to stop in Vietnam to report, on this list, flashpoint in the, the Cold War, struggle. so French officials accused these Americans of seeking to sort of undermine their control, and perhaps even to try

03:40 - and usurp France in, in Vietnam. and these officials, these French officials, frequently threaten to abandon Vietnam to the Communists. So they threaten to withdraw their troops from Vietnam, and leave the Communist to, to conquer that country. that threat is taken pretty seriously in the United States. There's growing opposition to the war in France. By the time we get to the 1950s, it's been given the, the name Lasal Ge the Dirty War.

04:12 - and there's a lot of fatigue. So France is spending a lot of money on this war. It's losing a lot of men and in particular military officers. And so there is an increasing appetite for France to get out. So the Americans become increasingly concerned that they antagonize the French too much, that France might actually follow through on these repeated threats to, to withdraw.

04:32 - and that would leave the United States in a very dangerous position. it would either mean that they would have to commit ground troops of their own to continue fighting this war against communism. And they're pretty reluctant to, to do so, not least because they've been fighting a war, or concurrently they're fighting a war in Korea. so another Asian land war that will, that will be pretty damaging.

04:56 - so the choices between that or just simply allowing the country to slip into communism, and that's at this point in the early 1950s, something that the United States is just not prepared to do, to give the communists and the Soviet Union in particular, in particular, another win in this ideological struggle. As you might expect, the vast majority of what's been written about American press coverage, of the, of the struggle for Vietnam was focused on the, the later American war in Vietnam in the 1960s and 1970s.

05:28 - What we, as historians sometimes refer to as the second though, China War was obviously the war where American troops are doing a lot of the fighting and dying, and where there are various accusations made, that the media are sabotaging the US war effort by writing too critically, too pessimistically, about what the United States is, is, is doing there. So quite naturally, a lot of the attention from historians are sort

05:55 - of gravitated to that later, American war, particularly because of a lot of the, the scholars writing on the subject tend to be from the, from the United States. There's been much less written on this earlier, war in Vietnam to the first Indo China War, the Franco Viet Men War that I'm focusing on. and what has been written tends to describe press coverage as a bit of a non-event, as a bit of a, a non-story.

06:20 - and, and what those historians are really pointing to that suggested that essentially that journalists tended to align themselves quite closely with the position of the US government that they're reporting actually worked in various ways to sort of support us diplomacy in Vietnam. And that therefore, there's just not really a lot to, to talk about. and they feel that there's historians that have that kind

06:47 - of come before me and written on this topic have, have come to that conclusion largely because, of notions of a kind of anti-communist consensus in the United States, that journalists tended to view global developments in the same Cold War lens as US policy makers, and therefore tended to be quite supportive of US efforts to contain communist expansion wherever it might arise. and that actually in their reports, they've been pretty optimistic

07:13 - and, critical in the way that they reported on French efforts there, that they were happy to simply take French policymakers and American policymakers word for it. and also that they, they kinda lacked, because this was a part of the world in which the United States had very little involvement prior to 1950. journalistic organizations didn't have a huge amount of resources to dedicate to this story, particularly given

07:41 - that whilst the United States was becoming more involved, it wasn't yet at the, at the stage that would be in the sixties and seventies with American ground troops, doing the, doing the fighting. So it often meant that, the journalists sort of stopping by for a day or two here or there, and therefore that they weren't able to develop the contacts and insights that would allow them to more consistently challenge the sort of established narrative about, about the French War.

08:08 - so in, in short, I guess their, their conclusion has been that news reporting was an issue that the US government gave little real thought about, because journalists were sort of onside and cooperating, with the US government in a, in a way that Washington felt was beneficial for its diplomatic, objectives. so that's kind of existing position. The, the article also kind of taps into just, just in its focus on, on, on journalism, a sort

08:36 - of shift over the last 20 or 30 years away from simply understanding the Cold War in military terms as this sort of nuclear or military standoff between the United States and the Soviet Union that sort of conjures images of, you know, missile crisis or, the Berlin Wall checkpoint, Charlie, all these kind of, of iconic images that we have, the, the Cold War very gravitated around this notion of a, a military confrontation.

09:01 - And actually historians over the last 20 or 30 years have started to consider in, in, in more depth the Cold War as a battle of ideas, and as a struggle in which non-state actors, so actors who are not official government representatives, also played a, a critical role. and so one of the places that historians have been doing that is, is, is in focusing on journalists and media as part of this, this wider cohort struggle, contrary to what had been written before.

09:33 - The article reveals that US officials did care about American media reporting from Vietnam, but actually they treated it very, very seriously dedicated lots of time, and energy into trying into trying to ensure that what American journalists, reported would help us diplomatic objectives in Vietnam. That it would largely present as all rosy positive, optimistic impression of what the French were well to. And that that in doing so, would give France fewer options

10:06 - to say, well, with enough with this war, you've annoyed us too much. We are gonna leave and, and let you deal with the, the consequences. So that's the sort of central thrust of the article really is to, is to, is to showcase that it, it did matter, and it mattered a number of ways. They, American officials really concerned that it could do three things. A critical and pessimistic journalistic

10:29 - reporting of the war could do three things. Firstly, is that it could undermine French military morale if a, if representatives of a so-called ally were criticizing or were pessimistic about French chances of success there. Secondly, that it could simply antagonize the, the French create fissures, additional tensions in the Franco American relationship that would make France more likely to consider an exit from Vietnam.

10:56 - and finally that it would have sort of domestic implications in the United States that it might push Congress who are funding and arming the French War effort to reconsider the aid that they were apportioning to, to the French in, in Vietnam. So they were concerned that that in those ways, that the war for Vietnam could be lost in the, in the pages of American newspapers and magazines. And it mattered what was printed there almost as much

11:27 - as it mattered what was happening in the, in the fighting between the, the French and the Vietnamese, communists. they thought like that for a number of reasons. They took press press coverage seriously for a number of reasons. One of those is the red scare, the second red scare. So sort of increasing concerns about communist subversion in the United States, and in particular, whether or not, news companies, magazines, newspapers had been infiltrated by communist agents.

12:01 - They were aware of the press's influence and power to shape public opinion. So they, they saw that as a particular, weak spa that might be exploited by communist agents. so they're fearful that, that, that that might be the case here. and the other major event that that sort of factored into their consideration was the, the, so-called Fall of China, which was the victory of Macon's communist forces in the Chinese Civil War in,

12:29 - in 1949. and there were concerns even by the early 1950s that actually Mao's victory and the defeat of the anti-communist Chiang Kai-shek, who was, United States' major ally in China, had been brought about in part by critical and pessimistic American press reporting that they'd sort of undermined him and helped to facilitate a communist victory. And the Americans were concerned

12:54 - that the same thing might repeat itself in the latest Cold War, battleground in in Indo China. so these were the two kind of major events. And the, the other thing that, that, that mattered and why they took it so seriously was it just the French kept complaining about it. They frequently called in to the offices of the US diplomatic mission, to, to complain about, you know, so-called inflammatory or critical press reporting.

13:21 - So because the French were constantly reminding these American officials that it was irritating them and that it might have consequences on French morale, on French political opinion back home, the Americans were sort of corralled into thinking that, okay, we need to take press reporting seriously because this is something that can, that can have a, a, a tangible, impact on the, the outcome in Vietnam. whether or not this, this, this Southeast Asian, former Southeast Asian colony could be salvaged from,

13:48 - from, from communism. and so the article sort of sketches out American reporting, from Vietnam and looks at the various ways that us diplomats sort to manage, American reporting. So talks about things like briefing staff, and journalists about us diplomatic priorities, and forcing them to think about whether what you say or do or write is gonna have any harmful effects on us diplomatic objectives, whether it's gonna undermine them in any way.

14:20 - they also move to, to woo or to butter up, journalists. So, entertaining them at their home, taking 'em out for dinner, doing them various favors of sorts as a way to encourage them to, to write in ways that would be beneficial to us. objectives. we also sort see more kind of coercive activities where they intervene with editors so they're aware that a piece is, has been written and that it might be published,

14:47 - and that it's likely to have harmful repercussions. and so they intervened attempt to intervene with various editors to kill the story before it makes its way into the, into the public realm. and the other thing they do is that they, they don't see journalists as solely responsible for writing critical or pessimistic pieces. They actually feel that some of the time, at least, that actually the French are, are at fault for any, any damaging journalism that's produced.

15:15 - And that's because they feel the French is, as the French are placed, too restrictive, or too oppressive restrictions on press reporting. So reducing the places that journalists could travel to, the people that they could talk to, intervening to tell them what they could and couldn't published, not not allowing things to pass through sensors that back in the United States would be fine. And there was an attempt there by,

15:40 - US government officials to push fronts than liberalize its attitude to, to managing the press. And their hope was that a more liberal French press policy would make these journalists more open to, more receptive to French, the French position on the war, and therefore more likely to publish pieces that will, that will help you as diplomatic objectives rather than, rather than damage them. So I think there are a number of things that we can draw from this, this sort of episode.

16:07 - One is the limits to us power in the, the Cold War. I mentioned just, just a minute ago, US hopes of pushing France to liberalize its press policy in Vietnam in ways that would be beneficial to us objectives. Those, those efforts largely fail. The French are pretty resistant to us efforts to, to, to move in that, that region. and that's, and that's largely because Paris is aware that the Americans need them.

16:35 - They know that they know that the United States want French forces to do the fighting in dying in Vietnam, and therefore they know that they can get away with ignoring us suggestions without any real consequences. America, the Americans both need France to fight in Vietnam, but they also need, French support in Western Europe, where they're concerned about Soviet expansion, from Eastern Europe into, into Western Europe.

17:02 - And there's a large and quite powerful communist party in France itself. So they're sort of concerned that France itself might become a communist state. So they feel like there, there's a need there to keep France happy, and that allows them to resist us pressure to liberalize their press policy. So in some ways, the article speaks to the limits, to us power in the Early Cold War

17:23 - and the agency that is enjoyed by junior actors in the Cold War, you know, nation states that don't often receive a lot of attention when we think about the, the kind of dynamics of the, the Cold War. I think one of the other things that's important is that we see here the importance that US officials imbued in the actions and behaviors of a quite diverse cast of characters, often figures that weren't officially employed

17:52 - by the US government, that was seemingly insignificant maybe to US diplomacy, but actually US officials treated these figures, with great, great care and felt that they, they held the potential to, to assist the United States in either winning or losing this Cold War struggle in, in, in Southeast Asia. so we get a bit of a sense there of the importance of non-state actors about how individuals seemingly unimportant could be seen as ambassadors

18:23 - of the United States, even if they weren't officially employed by, by the US government. I guess the other, the other thing that may, that comes out of the piece is that one of the reasons why the United States invested so much time and effort in managing the press is because it was one of the few places where they felt they could have a, a tangible impact on developments in, in Vietnam.

18:50 - the aid and, and, and money that they provided to the French seemingly, was, was not enough to tip the sort of balance of the military struggle. the war was, was largely a stalemate. and in 1954, France suffers a, a humiliating defeat in northwest Vietnam at a place called Dmb fu, which eventually facilitates a French withdrawal from the, from the country and a, a new beginning, a new, a new stage of the, the struggle for Vietnam that didn't involve,

19:20 - the French Empire. and because, so US military aid doesn't really have an effect on the war that much. It helps France keep going, but it ultimately doesn't enable them to be successful. And as, as I've mentioned earlier, France is also not particularly receptive to American intrusion in other aspects of the situation of Vietnam.

19:41 - So they're not willing to listen to American ideas about military strategy or providing additional independence to this anti-communist Vietnamese government. and so in the end, things like press management become important 'cause it is one of the few places where they feel like they can actually have an impact on the situation in, in Vietnam. so it's, I think this story is important

20:02 - for, for that reason as well. It gives us a sense of what American officials believed to be possible in, in Vietnam and some of the limits, and again, restrictions of what they felt they were able to achieve at a moment in time in which they are the world's sole regiment. You know, they're an enormously powerful military and economic power by the time we get into the mid 20th century, but there are still things that they're unable to do, and it seems like US officials recognized that.

20:32 - and then the final thing I would say in terms of sort of implications and wider findings is that US officials did enjoy some success in managing, managing the press. journalists were often quite receptive to US government, efforts to, to get 'em right about, to get 'em to write about the war in a particular way. but there were moments where these systems, these interventions failed and were critical and pessimistic stories, slipped by,

21:02 - and did inflict damage on the Franco America relationship and cause genuine concern about the future of us, objectives in, in Vietnam and whether or not Vietnam would fall to, to communism. And, and the reason for that is largely relates to journalistic culture and this notion of objective journalism that is, that journalists would rely primarily for their information on official government sources. And so it meant for the large part

21:29 - that actually if government figures were largely positive, and uncritical in their reading of the French, that that could, that could help the United States government in its management of the press. But the problem was that the war wasn't going particularly well, as I said, it entered a, a stalemate. And so there were, if journalists looked hard enough, officials who were willing to go on the record and speak of the war in a more critical and pessimistic way and ways, and that

21:53 - therefore meant that when they published stories with these sources, they were able to better resist the efforts of the US government to, to get 'em to kill a story which might be damaging to us, diplomatic objectives. In terms of future research, there are a, a few things that I'm looking at developing further from this piece. One, one of these is the kind of cultural environment in which journalists and government officials were brought up.

22:21 - I think there's a growing sense in the literature that they shared. A lot of spaces were part of many of the same networks, you know, brought up in the same schools, the same universities, often drawn from the same class. You have instances in Vietnam where influential columnists, so people like Joseph Op, are related to figures in the US mission. So there's some, family connections there at work. So I'd be interested in, in sort of probing the degree

22:51 - to which those networks, those cultures shaped us efforts to try and manage the press and in, and in, in large part, encouraged American journalists to align themselves with US diplomatic, objectives because they were often talking from the same position and from the same places as many of their counterparts within the, within the US government.

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