US Government Censorship During The Vietnam War

Words: 2189
Pages: 9

- 1 -
PLAN OF INVESTIGATION:

During the early years of Vietnam War the public support was high. The "fight against communist" was grounds for many public rallies to encourage and support the effort. Despite the high approval rating the US government still released crucial propaganda that displayed communist as the evil of the world. It wasn't until Nixon invaded Cambodia that many protests occurred, mostly by democratic college students that led to the US government censoring American media. During hostile times in the Vietnam War the US government fell to censoring the media in order to lower the amount of opposing riots against the government. During an age of independent journalism, however, the government was not showing the same

Through out the war, however, many things stood in the US' way that led to the extraction of the troops. The United States government was slapped with activists and protests that were anti-war; these activists were angered by not only the war but the government's infringement on the truth with silly censorships and propaganda material. It did not help that the presidency was also under conflict as President Nixon; one of the country's most popular presidents was entangled with an impeachment case entailing Watergate.

- 5 - Activists were a major problem for the US government during stages of the Vietnam War. While President Johnson held office after the assassination of Kennedy, he repeatedly sent troops to Vietnam in fear of being the only president in US history to lose a war. This sent Americans into a rage as the number of US troop casualties increased. The American society view was that we were losing men to a war effort that was not our battle, and the people urged for a time of peace and serenity after the World Wars and the Korean War. The amount of activist truly hit a threat level when President Nixon invaded Cambodia against what he promised which was a plan for extracting the troops. One of the strongest anti-war members was Harvard dean Ernest May, a known conservative, who stated," We've been trying to work quietly for a long time, but this time the President has gone too