Television and the Vietnam War?

Porfirio Cahall: It would be difficult to determine if television lengthened or shortened the Vietnam War, but it's easy to determine that television certainly had an effect in the final outcome of it. Bringing the war to our living rooms was decisive in changing the course of U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War. Media at the time typically painted a different picture of what actually happened in Vietnam. For example, the Tet Offense was a huge defeat for the Viet Cong and NVA. The Viet Cong were destroyed as a military force and the NVA would take years to recover. However, the media portrayed the Tet Offense as an American defeat. The negative media perspective became the turning point of public support that eventually led to U.S. withdrawal nearly four years later and the fall of South Vietnam in six years. Hypothetically - had the media perspective been positive, ARVN and U.S. military forces would have mopped up the remaining Viet Cong forces and controlled all of So! uth Vietnam within months after the Tet Offense. Strategic bombing of North Vietnam would have kept the NVA from recovering and may have forced North Vietnam into a peace treaty possibly within a year after the Tet Offense - hypothetically. We will never really know the answer to your question, because we don’t have two endings to the Vietnam War to compare against. Television or no television, it ended as it did in the time it took to complete....Show more

William Vickerman: Totally shortened it.... television showed people back home what the conditions were like in Vietnam (eg: Americans), leading to a decrease in support for the war... then Vietnamization came in to allow troops to go back home

Hans Sachetti: Look up the "Five O'Clock Follies" for some enlightenment on the subject.

Roselee Mczeal: When Walter Cronkite expressed his opinion that the war could not be won it shook the confidence of the American people to the point that it was a factor in! shortening the war rightly or wrongly is a moot point .

Sherri Drakos: I don't know how television could have shortened or prolonged the war in Vietnam but the public was surely enlightened by all the media. I believe the war in Vietnam was prolonged completely by BAD politics.