Popular support for both initiatives was, accordingly, quite high. In Vietnam, it was not the decline of popular support, but the splintering of elite support that brought about the government's decision to withdraw from the seemingly endless conflict. This change resulted, in part, from the response of the media to the Tet offensive of 1968, when many former hawks were able to see the difference between what the American military believed was possible, and what reporters were seeing. In the Gulf, however, events happened quickly, and were astutely managed from the beginning of the invasion crisis, in August 1990, through the Iraqi surrender in late February 1991. The media, lacking in alternatives, and needing to fill space, very consistently echoed the framing devices employed by the government and the armed forces.
For the American people, and their news media, the story in Vietnam was only the story of American involvement there. The country's direct involvement in Vietnam's civil war began with John F. Kennedy's installation of U.S. advisors in 1961, increased with Lyndon Johnson's troop buildups, and, after 1969, gradually subsided as Richard Nixon began the withdrawal of American soldiers. The number of reporters and photographers in Vietnam rose and fell in relation to the number of American combatants. Thus, from the final withdrawal of American troops in 1973 to the fall of Saigon in 1975, "the Vietnam story became all but invisible" in the American media.
Depending on the speaker's point of view, the American news media have been blamed for, or credited with, the collapse of public support for the U.S. effort in Vietnam. This overstates the influence of the media--though it is impossible to deny that they did have a considerable impact on the course of events. Certainly, the relatively free access of reporters in Vietnam enabled them to develop their own perspectives on the story, even though the majority w...