a
OPINION
Wednesday, August 6,1989
Wed i
Government admits
lied about Vietnam
A book published by the Army says the
American people often got more
straight information about the Vietnam
War from the press than from the gov
ernment.
Mike
Feinsilber
By Mi
Associated Press
STAFF
The government lied to the people,
the book says, although it avoids using
that blunt word.
“But newsmen went into thefierj
served napalm exploding and recj
its effects with their cameras,”hki
l lammond writes.
On one issue, “the facts were differ
ent” from what was put out by the De
fense Department, it says. On another
occasion, U.S. officials “dissembled”
about what Americans were actually
doing at a time they were in Vietnam as
“advisers.”
One early-in-the-war dispatchlii
New York Times’ David Halbersiat
porting gains by an “almost coch
Cong in the Mekong Delta, sour f
mined the official view of progres
Secretary of State Dean Rusk pich
apart at a news conference.
That is rare official candor. Even 20
years after the fact, it is unusual for the
government to own up to misleading
the people.
Woodstock ’89: The Yuppie Generation
We’ve heard a lot about the Woods
tock Music and Arts Estival in the past
weeks, because it’s the 20th anniversary
of the “weekend of peace, love and mu
sic,” as its promoters called it. Yet even
20 years after the event, many people
don’t remember Woodstock as anything
more than the bird in the Peanuts comic
strip.
If something like Woodstock hap
pened today, would it be anything more
than comical? As Woodstock was a sym
bol of the ’60s generation, Woodstock
’89 would be a symbol of our genera
tion.
i
^ t
spectators
taste.
who are devoid of musical
Timm
Doolen
Matt
McBurnett
Of course Posin’ (oops, Poison)
couldn’t compare to the big stars of the
festival, Pistils ’N Flowers and Bon Jovi,
singing songs that are incomprehensible
but obviously sexual.
Candor’s author is William M. Ham
mond, a civilian historian on the Penta
gon payroll. His book, “Public Affairs:
The Military and the Media, 1962-
1968,” issued by the Government Print
ing Office, is part of a series the Army is
publishing on every aspect of its role in
the Vietnam War.
But when Halberstam’s story Wi
back to Saigon for an autopsy,
military, while disputing someofltit
tails, “failed to contradict the repor:
main point — that the war in the4
was going against the South Viet
ese,” Hammond reports.
Woodstock, New York, has unpre
dictable weather, so it should be held
somewhere where the climate is de
pendable — like Palm Springs, but we’d
still call it “Woodstock.” But instead of
holding it in Palm Springs, it’d be held
45 miles a way at a place with a lot of
parking— maybe a mall.
who didn’t die before they got old,
could put on a set, but I doubt any-
body’d be able to hear them, including
Townshend.
There is always a chance that rap mu
sic would rear its ugly head at the ’89
festivities. Highlights of the show would
the be Eazy E.’s performance featuring
an actual drive-by killing and Run
D.M.C.’s on the spot filming of an Ad
idas commercial.
In recounting the tortured history of
relations between the government and
the press during the war, Hammond il
lustrates the perils when a democracy
wages a second-hand war that the Con
gress hasn’t declared and the people
haven’t committed themselves to.
It wasn’t that reporters were
than the military. Instead, theU.S
sion in Saigon, eager to placate te
ington and buck up the South Vietr.
ese, ignored the same evidence tha;
newsmen found.
The biggest battles would be over
who gets the movie rights and who
would be the biggest sponsor. Coca-Cola
vs. Pepsi, IBM vs. AT&T, Miller vs.
Coors — who would win? The fans, I’m
sure. Trojan would surely be a major
backer, supplying condom machines for
the hundreds of thousands of fans. And
the Red Cross would have to be on hand
to provide AIDS testing — no more of
that “free love” bit.
Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young would
probably perform, but David Crosby
would have to be under the watchful
eyes of his parole officer and the people
at Nutri-Systems. Jefferson Airplane (or
is it Jefferson Starship, or is it just
Starship?) might fly in but Grace Slick’s
voice would be in absentia.
Whereas almost everybody at Woods
tock was on drugs, most of the people at
the ’89 festival would be on diets. In
stead of the “freakout tent” for pe'ople
on bad acid trips, they’d have the “frea
kout tent” for people who had broken
their diets and had eaten real ice cream
instead of yogurt. An announcement
over the loudspeakers: “The brown yo
gurt now circulating among us is not
specifically too good.”
Because neither public nor legislative
backing had been won, the Kennedy
and Johnson administrations felt com
pelled toward constant optimism. Until
it became a mocking phrase, Washing
ton had constantly to report that “the
light at the end of the tunnel” was in
sight.
Vietnam was the first uncensc
modern American war. The Kenu
administration toyed with censors
but ultimately felt it could notwi
the inevitable charge that it was:
Americans to perish in a “clandts Antonie
war.” When the Saigon governra bock,
tried to kick out troublesome reporif
the U.S. Mission felt bound to comt
the reporters’ defense.
Hammond reaches this conclusion
AUS
ns pro
ion an<
Texas,
n gove
iepubli
or.
The
man pk
with an
One Continental Army Command
memo cabled to Saigon, borrowing a
line from songwriter Johnny Mercer,
urged American advisers to “accentuate
the positive and eliminate the negative.”
The Grateful Dead might play, but
the audience might be better off dead
than listening to Santa Claus (oops, I
mean Jerry Garcia) try to play “Uncle
John’s Band” at the age of 135.
On Sunday morning they’d have to
have the “breakfast in bed for 400,000”
but this time it would be egg McMuffins
and diet Coke, special-ordered from the
local McDonald’s.
Instead of “three days of peace and
music” as the theme, the theme could be
“getting a piece of the pie, love of
money and video music.” Or they could
be honest with the theme and instead of
calling it “three days of peace, love and
music,” call it “three days of sex, money
and self-gratification.”
Gone would be the Indian gurus.
Woodstock ’89 could feature the spiri
tual leader of contemporary pop, Deb
bie Gibson. Our teenage pundit could
show by example that it is possible to be
quite popular with eighth-grade lyrics.
Her right-hand men could be any of the
Euro-dance groups such as New Order.
Eventually the music groups would
finish and the crowds would wander
back to their suburbs, but the youth of
our generation would have a symbol to
rally around for 20 years or more. Well,
maybe.
Reporters weren’t under such re
straints. If Buddhists were setting fire to
themselves to oppose a repressive Ngo
Dinh Diem regime, or if the American-
advised and ill-led South Vietnamese
army refused to engage an enemy it out
numbered and outgunned, reporters
felt free to so report — no matter what
frustrations resulted in Washington or
what tensions were aggravated between
the U.S. Embassy and the presidential
palace in Saigon.
Information officers wereinani
possible position. They could noiife
what reporters could see for therasel'
despite pressure from Washington
keep the news out of Saigon fromca
tradicting official optimism.
Everyone would show up early in
their BMWs and private planes. None
of this free nonsense, the charge would
be a $30 minimum to cover expenses
(Visa and Mastercard accepted but no
American Express.) And despite the
heavy corporate sponsorship, a percent
age of the profits from the extravaganza
would have to go to charity, so it
wouldn't look like they were doing it for
the money.
The stage would be easy to set up be
cause everything would be computer
generated. In fact, most of the show
could proceed without the use of a sin
gle guitar or a drum set.
Timm Doolen and Matt McBurnett
are junior engineering majors and col
umnists for The Battalion.
Policy makers in Washington refused
to allow information officers in Vietnam
to acknowledge the use of napalm be
cause they didn’t want the Communists
to make propaganda from it.
But the American governmento
deny the truth. In lying to the public
lied to itself too, and at a terrible price
Mark S
embark
other ci
In a
Dallas .
posed t
mission
aointed
tducati
T he <
mission
ans, sail
would s
“Critics of the press within the
tary paid great attention tothemisti
of the news media but little to them
of the majority of reporters, who
tempted conscientiously to tell alls cations
of the story. . . . What alienatedt ( | e .^j l ) 1 | l )
American public, in both the Kort constitu
and Vietnam Wars, was notnewsco
age but casualties. Public supporl
each war dropped inexorably by 15p!
centage points whenever total U.S.o
unities increased by a factor of 10.”
bond f
mandat
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“New V
Mike Feinsilber is a writer for&§
Associated Press.
The dance/pop “music” segment
could conclude with a rousing perfor
mance by Depeche Mode highlighted by
a band member playing the synthesizer
with his teeth and then setting it on fire
and smashing it against the stage.
Janis Joplin and Jimi Hendrix proba
bly wouldn’t show up, but many of the
old greats would. The Who, the guys
Next could come the poser-metal
portion of the entertainment. Twenty
years after Ten Years After’s Alvin Lee
dazzled the crowd with what were called
“the fastest fingers at Woodstock,” the
gals from Poison, devoid of talent, could
strum their way into the hearts of those
The Battalion
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Southwest Journalism Conference
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Ellen Hobbs,
Editor
Juliette Rizzo,
Opinion Page Editor
Fiona Soltes,
City Editor
rew Leder, Chuck Squatriglia,
News Editors
Steven Merritt,
Sports Editor
Katny Haveman,
Art Director
Hal Hammons,
Makeup Editor
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Parenthood
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