I Will Continue to Continue, to Pretend.... Message Board

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Politics : I Will Continue to Continue, to Pretend....

Public Reply Prvt Reply Mark as Last Read File

Previous 10 Next 10 Previous Next

To: Sully- who wrote (9502)	4/30/2005 11:12:08 AM
From: Sully-	Read Replies (1) of 35834

Remembering the fall of Saigon Power Line Thirty years ago today North Vietnamese tanks rolled into Saigon and the last American troops stationed in Vietnam were airlifted off the roof of the American embassy. South Vietnam was reduced to Communist vassalage as the first wave of Vietnamese "boat people" sought escape from servitude. Today's papers are full of retrospectives; a Google search on Vietnam this morning turns up 16,800 hits on "Vietnam." For me, the horrible sights of April 29 and 30, 1975 bitterly highlighted the necessity of unlearning the many lies and myths of the American antiwar movement that I had merrily bought. The much-derided doctrine of containment that had more or less led us to resist the Communist takeover of South Vietnam was vindicated within remarkably few years -- crowned with success by the dissolution of the Soviet Union and the liberation of its conquered provinces and former satellites. One didn't need to wait that long for reason to rethink the narrative that American newspapers and networks had imposed on the war. By 1977 former Washington Post Saigon bureau chief Peter Braestrup had meticulously documented the pitiful performance of the American press covering the war in 'Big Story: How the American Press and Television Reported and Interpreted the Crisis of Tet 1968 in Vietnam and Washington'. (Click here for a good account of the book and here for a 1995 oral history interview with Braestrup.) airpower.maxwell.af.mil 64.233.161.104 Is there a retrospective on that subject today? Not that I can find. Standing out among the retrospectives today is one that attempts to rethink the meaning of the war in the light of subsequent history and experience. Thomas Lipscomb's Chicago Sun-Times column is "Prosperous Southeast Asia proof U.S. didn't fight in vain." Update: Decline and renewal? In the post above I mention Peter Braestrup's study of the press coverage of Tet, Big Story. Braestrup's book also makes a cameo appearance in Terry Eastland's interesting Wilson Quarterly essay: "The collapse of big media: Starting over." Coincidentally, Braestrup founded the Wilson Quarterly after he left the Washington Post for the Woodrow Wilson International Center, where he wrote 'Big Story'. powerlineblog.com wwics.si.edu wwics.si.edu powerlineblog.com news.google.com amazon.com suntimes.com

Report TOU Violation

Share This Post

Public Reply Prvt Reply Mark as Last Read File

Previous 10 Next 10 Previous Next