Certainly, the collective integrity of today's journalists preceded Mr. Cronkite into the grave a number of years ago.

During the second half of 1967 the administration had become alarmed by criticism, both inside and outside the government, and by reports of declining public support for its Vietnam policies.[15] According to public opinion polls, the percentage of Americans who believed that the U.S. had made a mistake by sending troops to Vietnam had risen from 25 percent in 1965 to 45 percent by December 1967.[16] This trend was fueled not by a belief that the struggle was not worthwhile, but by mounting casualty figures, rising taxes, and the feeling that there was no end to the war in sight.[17] A poll taken in November indicated that 55 percent wanted a tougher war policy, exemplified by the public belief that "it was an error for us to have gotten involved in Vietnam in the first place. But now that we're there, let's win - or get out."[18] This prompted the administration to launch a so-called "Success Offensive", a concerted effort to alter the widespread public perception that the war had reached a stalemate and to convince the American people that the administration's policies were succeeding. Under the leadership of National Security Advisor Walt W. Rostow, the news media then was inundated by a wave of effusive optimism. Every statistical indicator of progress, from "kill ratios" and "body counts" to village pacification was fed to the press and to the Congress. "We are beginning to win this struggle" asserted Vice President Hubert H. Humphrey on NBC's "Today Show" in mid-November. "We are on the offensive. Territory is being gained. We are making steady progress."[19] At the end of November, the campaign reached its climax when Johnson summoned Westmoreland and the new U.S. Ambassador, Ellsworth Bunker, to Washington, D.C., for what was billed as a "high level policy review". Upon their arrival, the two men bolstered the administration's claims of success. From Saigon, pacification chief Robert Komer asserted that the pacification program in the countryside was succeeding. Sixty-eight percent of the South Vietnamese population was under the control of Saigon while only seventeen percent was under the control of the Vietcong.[20] General Bruce Palmer, one of Westmoreland's three Field Force commanders, claimed that "the Viet Cong has been defeated" and that "He can't get food and he can't recruit. He has been forced to change his strategy from trying to control the people on the coast to trying to survive in the mountains."[21]

Westmoreland was even more emphatic in his assertions. At an address at the National Press Club on 21 November he reported that, as of the end of 1967, the communists were "unable to mount a major offensive...I am absolutely certain that whereas in 1965 the enemy was winning, today he is certainly losing...We have reached an important point when the end begins to come into view."[19] By the end of the year the administration's approval rating had indeed crept up by eight percent, but an early January Gallup poll indicated that forty-seven percent of the American public still disapproved of the President's handling of the war.[22] The American public, "more confused than convinced, more doubtful than despairing...adopted a 'wait and see' attitude."[23] During a discussion with an interviewer from Time magazine, Westmoreland defied the communists to launch an attack: "I hope they try something, because we are looking for a fight."[24]

The Best and the Brightest

The book offers a great deal of detail on how the decisions were made in the Kennedy and Johnson administrations that led to the war, focusing on a period from 1960 to 1965 but also covering earlier and later years up to the publication year of the book.

Many influential factors are examined in the book:

    * The Democratic party was still haunted by claims that it had 'lost China' to Communists, and did not want to be said to have lost Vietnam also
    * The McCarthy era had rid the government of experts in Vietnam and surrounding Far-East countries
    * Early studies called for close to a million US troops in order to completely defeat the Viet Cong, but it would be impossible to convince Congress or the US public to deploy that many soldiers
    * Declarations of war, and excessive shows of force, including bombing too close to China or too many US troops might have triggered the entry of Chinese ground forces into the war, and greater Soviet involvement (and perhaps repair the growing Sino-Soviet rift)
    * Some war games showed that a gradual escalation by the United States could be evenly matched by North Vietnam: every year 200,000 North Vietnamese came of drafting age and potentially could be sent down the Ho Chi Minh Trail to replace any losses against the US: the US would be 'fighting the birthrate'
    * Any show of force by the US in the form of bombing or ground forces would signal the US interest in defending South Vietnam and therefore cause the US greater shame if they were to withdraw
    * LBJ's belief that too much attention given to the war effort would jeopardize his Great Society domestic programs
    * The effects of strategic bombing: most people wrongly believed that North Vietnam prized its industrial base so much it would not risk its destruction by US air power and would negotiate peace after experiencing some limited bombing, but others saw that even in World War II strategic bombing united the victim population against the aggressor and did little to hinder industrial output.
    * The Domino Theory rationales are mentioned as simplistic.
    * After placing a few thousand Americans in harm's way, it became politically easier to send hundreds of thousands over with the promise that with enough numbers they could protect themselves, and that to abandon Vietnam now would mean the earlier investment in money and blood would be thrown away.

The book shows that the gradual escalation chosen allowed the LBJ Administration to initially avoid negative publicity and criticism from Congress as well as to avoid a direct war against the Chinese, but simultaneously removed the possibility of either victory or withdrawal.

Bui Tin interview.

The best I can do for Cronkite is to quote Shakespeare.

The evil that men do lives after them; the good is oft interred with their bones

The evil that men do lives after them; the good is oft interred with their bones

Years later I had to stop telling students that our press corps protected us against the excesses of power, money and government.  I remember when I read how Brian Williams announced his admiration for Rush Limbaugh.  I was stunned and disgusted.  Can you imagine Walter Conkite saying something so obnoxiously pathetic?  
Rush is just a McCarthy with a larger audience and more money....a fear mongering coward who uses the radio to keep himself in power and rich.  

I wondered often how Cronkite must have been so disgusted at how the press helped elect Reagan and W, how the millionaire pundit class partied with the people they were covering.......it's sad to think of how discouraged he must have been.

Explanations exist; they have existed for all time; there is always a well-known solution to every human problem -- neat, plausible, and wrong.

"The Divine Afflatus" in New York Evening Mail (16 November 1917); later published in Prejudices: Second Series (1920) and A Mencken Chrestomathy (1949)