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derivative filename/jpeg
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363-07920 to 363-07925.pdf
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Digital Object Identifier
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363-07920 to 363-07925
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Title
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Article about South Vietnamese criticism of American Media Coverage
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Description
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Keever's title: "The War to Get the News", Article draft about Madame Nhu [Trần Lệ Xuân]'s and American official's cricitisms of the coverage of South Vietnam in the American media, for Newsweek Magazine
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Transcript
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- Page 1
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Beverly Deepe
Apt. 5 Bis
101 Cong Ly
Saigon
Dechlor
South Vietnam's perky, petite First Lady, Madame go Dinh Nhu, in
a flowing, flowered ao dai dress, announced in high-pitched petulant
staccatos that the American press is "infiltrated with Communism.
Gripping the tape recorder speaker of Mutual Broadcasting's Stan Lawrence,
she said that, in fact, the correspondents in Vietnam were worse than
In the text of the speech released December 2, she explained,
"They (Western correspondents)
Communists.
are intoxicated by Communists. They
believe whatever they say and speak for them--for the Communists, butt in
a Western tone. That is why it is worse, according to me."
While the bombastic sister-in-law of bachelor President Ngo Dinh Diem
has previously blasted the foreign--particularly American--press and
*that crazy freedom in your country", it was more interesting that no free-world
embassy official in Vietnam refuted here statement.
Saigon's quiet
Viet Virginian, United States Ambassador Frederick E. Nolting was
unwilling to comment on it publicly. Only Senate majority leader, Mike
Mansfield, visiting Vietnam on a Presidential fact-finding mission, expressed
through an "official spokesman" that he was "concerned about her remarks.
(More)
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Deep e--2
Western newsmen were neither surprised, amused nor unduly distrubed
at the explosive statements of the First Lady, often described as "a woman who
controls nothing, but influences everything in Vietnam." What infuriated them
was that for three weeks they had unofficially been barred from going
into the critical southern third of the country, the rice-rich delta region in
known as III Corps, on the U. S. troop-carrying H-21 helicopters,
piloted by Americans and unti ultimately commanded by General Paul D.
Harkins, military Assistance Commander. Though fifth fifty United States
helicopters and 200 Americans were in combat on Thanksgiving Day in
one of the largest known helicopter missions in history, no firsthand
coverage was allowed and government news releases on it were irritatingly
scant.
In Vietnam, "where there's no such thing as a straightforward fact"
as one veteran correspondent explained--the foreign press concluded
"we have to use guerrilla tactics to get the news."
The unofficial ban was labelled a "misunderstanding."
To clarify the "misunderstanding" required three weeks' of bargaining
and bickering, of the "tears, sweat and blood" of American officialdom
from the lowest to the highest level between General Harkins and
Assistant Defense Minister Nguyen Dinh Thuan,
For three weeks, foreign newsmen stormed about the "press mess.
("Stop treating us like spies," one of them warned.
"
Another muttered, "They
think it's a prv privilege to wade waist-deep through rice paddies.") Some
protested to high-ranking officials in Saigon. Some urged their home offices
to protest to appropriate Washington officials in the Pentagon, State
Department and White House. (Washing expressed no concern or change of
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- Page 3
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Doepe--3
policy to Saigon military top--brass.) Others sputtered that with
the United States investing a million and half dollars a day and
the lives of American servicemen in Vietnam, the Americans were not
bargaining forcefully enough--that United States policy followed too
closely the Saigon by-words, "Don't rock the boat" or "It's a
Vietnamese war."
Some vociferously accused General Harkins, on whom the ultimate
American decision rested, of refusing to put his foot down.
is more than a commander here," one correspondent mused.
a full-time diplomat.")
("Harkins
"He's also
And others implied a concerted conspiracy between Vietnamese thinking
as expressed by Madame Nhu and American officials not only in Saigon,
but also in Washington, which had just lifted
restrictions during thoCuban crisis.
its own press
"Let's fact it," one correspondent said. "The Americans have a
worms here; they want to hid the facts. The war isn't
bucket of
going as well as they say it is."
Finally, this Tuesday, the time-fittering, lacksadasical Vietnamese,
without
once characterized as "people with the sense of urgency God gave a baby",
agreed that foreign correspondents could ride United States helicopters with
Vietnamese Defense Department authorization written for each correspondent
prior to each mission.
However,
on Wednesday,
twenty
United States H-21 whirleybirds flew into combat--but without any correspondents
on them.
(More)
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Deep e4
Correspondents viewed the arrangement as generally unsatisfactory.
One called it a "two-steps-forward-and-one-step-backwards" victory
for the Vietnamese, who held the right to veto a specific newsman from
going on a specific mission at any time--or of allowing no one to go at
a specific time. It was interpreted not only as a defeat for adequate
press coverage, but also for American military politicy which failed to
articulate the right of U. S. four-star general Harkins to determine the
passenger list of helicopters under his command.
"Just call us the Obedient Americans, " one correspondent laughed.
Earlier than the helicopter haggle was an even more obnoxious
restriction. Vietnamese units and peronnel
"censor ship-at-the-source"
were warned to "be cautious in their relationship with reporters."
The
directive issued by Brig. Gen. Nguyen Khanh, Vietnamese Army Chief of Staff,
on October 13 and only recently enforced, ordered Vietnamese units to make
statements to the press only with consent and approval of the Defense
Department. And even with the Defense Department approval they "must
continue to request reporters to submit their written questions first and
then reply in writing." The written questions and answers must be approved
by the Defense Department and three other offices.
While gras Vietnamese press officials insist these elaborate
procedures are needed only for "press conference" type of news gathering,
Vietnamese soldiers in the x field are reluctant to talk.
Besides the blockage on news gathering, the Vietnamese government had in
AwiDE
(More)
the past ten weeks exercised the full gamut of press censorship methods:
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Deepe--5
restricted dissemination of information, intimidation by expulsions,
and increase in operational costs. A month afther the expulsion of Newsweek's
Francois Sully, NBC Far Eastern correspondent, James Robinson, Wes
ordered out, obstentisibly for visa violations, but more directly as a
"a matter of more calumnies and gratuitous insults", according to a
Department of Interior communique. The Vietnamese government disliked
several of his television tapes, including one of Diem's forces torturing
Viet Cong prisoners.
the Directorate
U. S. Embassy attempts to rescind both expulsion orders were
only scoffed at and the day after Robinson's exit
General of Information released a warning about "tendencious" reporting
to Associated Press Correspondent Malcom Malcolm Browne.
Ona Sept.
24,
the press was further warned to expect "blockage,
temporary or permanent, of entry into Viet Nam of mercenary publications
98
While no
peddling propaganda harmful to the national cause.
official ban on the importation of specific publications was announced,
the Sept. 17th Newsweek
Two issues of the New Yorker,
was the last issue to be sold in Vietnam.
covering Vietnam and a biography of
President Diem, and the Life magazine article on Madame Nhu were
also banned.
A month ago the government announced a seventy percent tax on call
all cable costs and telephone calls.
The "war-to-get-the-news" was sucintly summarized by John Stirling
of The Observer of London, when he wrote, "There is between the two sides
(Western press and Vietnamese government) a deep, almost unbridgeable gulf of
misunderstanding.".
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Deepe-6
It is perhaps an ironical twist that President Diem in an October 1
address to the National Assembly described the fighting against the
Communist guerrillas as a "war where the front is everywhere and nowhere,
where ideas play a role as decisive as arms..."
-30
Note to Ed: Because of the tense and delicate situation with the government,
it is understandable that information for the article was gathered
on a non-attributable basis.
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Date
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1962, Dec. 5
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Subject
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Vietnam (Republic), 1961-1975--Politics and government; Trần, Lệ Xuân, 1924-2011; Presidents' spouses; Mass media policy; Vietnam (Republic), 1961-1975--Press coverage; Public opinion
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Location
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Saigon, South Vietnam
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Coordinates
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10.8231; 106.6311
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Size
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20 x 26 cm
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Container
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B2, F4
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Format
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dispatches
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Collection Number
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MS 363
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Collection Title
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Beverly Deepe Keever, Journalism Papers
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Creator
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Keever, Beverly Deepe
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Collector
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Keever, Beverly Deepe
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Copyright Information
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These images are for educational use only. To inquire about usage or publication, please contact Archives & Special Collections.
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Publisher
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Archives & Special Collections, University of Nebraska-Lincoln Libraries
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Language
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English
