Walter Cronkite's Ridiculous Spin on the 1968 Tet Offensive in South Vietnam

[Deadstick]

Vietnam was unimportant to our security or our economy. The vast majority of the the Vietnamese supported the Communists. What don't you understand about that?

Your problem is you are simple and ignorant, study some Vietnamese history before you say anything instead of looking at Hollywood for history.

 

[Deadstick]

The moment of liberation, i like the way the stupid AP report headline is Russian tanks enter Saigon.

 

[Deadstick]

General Giap, this was the General responsible for victory, he fought French Colonialism and the Japs then the US Imperialists, if this man was American he would be as celebrated as Patten.

Vo Nguyen Giap | The Past

General Giap was one of the 20th century’s foremost military commanders. He made his name commanding the military wing of the Viet Minh during the Second Wo ...

the-past.com

 

[JoeB131]

Yes it does.

Bombing the enemy supply lines is very OK

In a neutral country in an illegal, undeclared war?

My post was clear .

The communists killed them agent orange did not

The Victims of Agent Orange the U.S. Has Never Acknowledged (Published 2021)

America has never taken responsibility for spraying the herbicide over Laos during the Vietnam War. But generations of ethnic minorities have endured the consequences.

www.nytimes.com

 

[Hector12]

Your problem is you are simple and ignorant, study some Vietnamese history before you say anything instead of looking at Hollywood for history.

What don't I know about the War in Vietnam that would cause me to agree with you if I learned?

What I do know is that President Eisenhower wrote in his memoirs that his advisers told him that as many as 80% of the Vietnamese supported Ho Chi Minh,

Selection from Eisenhower's Memoires

and that the Geneva Geneva Agreement of 1954 scheduled an election to be held in July 1956 to unify Vietnam, that the division of Vietnam into North and South was to be temporary, and that foreign troops were forbidden to be introduced to Vietnam.

Internet History Sourcebooks: Modern History

 

[Hector12]

 

[GMCGeneral]

Cronkite going pro-North Vietnam was the turning point for Democrats. That's when they realized that if they continued to be as strongly anti-Communist as Kennedy and Johnson were, they would lose the mainstream media. It was just called "the media" back then, or "the news." No need to label them "mainstream" because they had no competition. The big three had recently lobbied Congress to set aside the one remaining national broadcast spot for "public television" they knew almost no one would watch, so they were it.

Hard to believe now, but they were even more powerful and homogeneous then than they are now.

It was an incredible about-face for the Democratic Party, from strongly anti-black segregationists, anti-communists, to the buying black votes with welfare and college kid votes with their "the commies ain't so bad" stance.

And with the "Fairness" Doctrine, the Left had unfettered monopoly on print and broadcast media. Oh we hear all the time about the Conservative programs and papers, but where? As far as I can recall, there were none, zero, bupkus until 1987 when President Reagan rightfully killed off the (un)Fairness Doctrine giving rise to more prominent Conservative media.

 

[Soupnazi630]

Vietnam was unimportant to our security or our economy. The vast majority of the the Vietnamese supported the Communists. What don't you understand about that?

Many disagree about the importance your claim is not based on any expertise, logic or evidence,

The claim that most supported the communists is simply false

 

[Soupnazi630]

Soupnazi630, it is impossible to reason with you about a needless, immoral war. You deserve nothing but crude satire. This song expresses how preposterous the War in Vietnam was. I apologize for the use of the f word, but servicemen use it frequently. Country Joe probably learned to use that word when he was in the Navy.

The war was no more immoral or needless than any other war.

A dong is not a valid argyument just life the rest of your arguments.

 

[Soupnazi630]

We lost the War in Vietnam because the vast majority of the Vietnamese supported the enemy we were fighting. Their willingness to die for their country surpassed our desire to kill them.

Reality does not reflect that at all only a small percentage supported the communists,

Most Vietnamese did not support the communists or us or any other government

The average Vietnemese peasan was illterate and wanted to live in the same village their familiy had occupied for centuriesd. They just wanted to be left alone and did not give a damn one way or the other.

 

[Soupnazi630]

In a neutral country in an illegal, undeclared war?

The Victims of Agent Orange the U.S. Has Never Acknowledged (Published 2021)

America has never taken responsibility for spraying the herbicide over Laos during the Vietnam War. But generations of ethnic minorities have endured the consequences.

www.nytimes.com

Yes

The war was legal

 

[Soupnazi630]

In a neutral country in an illegal, undeclared war?

The Victims of Agent Orange the U.S. Has Never Acknowledged (Published 2021)

America has never taken responsibility for spraying the herbicide over Laos during the Vietnam War. But generations of ethnic minorities have endured the consequences.

www.nytimes.com

Your NY times article is opinion with no scientific or empirical evidence

 

[Hector12]

Many disagree about the importance your claim is not based on any expertise, logic or evidence,

The claim that most supported the communists is simply false

Ok, Big guy. Explain the expertise, logic or evidence I lack.

When you disagree about the popularity of Ho Chi Minh you are not disagreeing with me. You are disagreeing with President Eisenhower.

 

[Hector12]

The war was no more immoral or needless than any other war.

A dong is not a valid argyument just life the rest of your arguments.

I am still waiting for you to posts facts that prove that the War in Vietnam was justified.

 

[Hector12]

Reality does not reflect that at all only a small percentage supported the communists,

Most Vietnamese did not support the communists or us or any other government

The average Vietnemese peasan was illterate and wanted to live in the same village their familiy had occupied for centuriesd. They just wanted to be left alone and did not give a damn one way or the other.

We did not leave them alone. We bombed their villages and killed them.

 

[Desperado]

Imagine if shortly after the start of the Battle of the Bulge in 1944, an American newsman had announced on TV that perhaps we needed to seek a negotiated end to WWII because the Germans had launched a massive attack that no one thought possible?

This is not too drastically different from what Walter Cronkite did on February 27, 1968, less than four weeks after the North Vietnamese and their Viet Cong subordinates launched their disastrous Tet Offensive on January 30. Here are the two most often-quoted statements from Cronkite's commentary:

To say that we are mired in stalemate seems the only realistic, yet unsatisfactory, conclusion.

But it is increasingly clear to this reporter that the only rational way out then will be to negotiate, not as victors, but as an honorable people who lived up to their pledge to defend democracy and did the best they could.

You would never guess from Cronkite's spin that the Communists had suffered a horrendous military defeat, suffering staggering losses while failing to seize nearly all of the towns and cities they had targeted (and the few places they did manage to seize were retaken in a matter of weeks).

We now know from North Vietnamese sources that the Tet Offensive was a desperate gamble that Hanoi's leaders took because they realized they were losing the war. Also, the North Vietnamese had assumed that once the offensive began, the majority of South Vietnamese would rise up and help them overthrow the Saigon government, but the vast majority of South Vietnamese remained loyal to their government.

Walter Cronkite and most of the rest of the news media turned the Communists' crushing military defeat into a key propaganda victory for the Communist war effort.

The Tet Offensive Revisited: Media's Big Lie

Cronkite had it right. We never belonged in Vietnam and the US never went there to win the war.

 

[Hector12]

Cronkite had it right. We never belonged in Vietnam and the US never went there to win the war.

You're half right: we never belonged in Vietnam.

 

[Soupnazi630]

What don't I know about the War in Vietnam that would cause me to agree with you if I learned?

What I do know is that President Eisenhower wrote in his memoirs that his advisers told him that as many as 80% of the Vietnamese supported Ho Chi Minh,

Selection from Eisenhower's Memoires

and that the Geneva Geneva Agreement of 1954 scheduled an election to be held in July 1956 to unify Vietnam, that the division of Vietnam into North and South was to be temporary, and that foreign troops were forbidden to be introduced to Vietnam.

Internet History Sourcebooks: Modern History

He did not write 80% would vote he simply vote he simply wrote Minh would win.

 

[Soupnazi630]

Cronkite had it right. We never belonged in Vietnam and the US never went there to win the war.

Cronkite never said any of thjat and he had it wrong

 

[Soupnazi630]

We did not leave them alone. We bombed their villages and killed them.

The north atttacked them and tortured and slaughtered them