A Failure Masked as a Succeeding War Effort: The Vietnam War

This paper investigates how and why the U.S. government hid the reality of the failures of the Vietnam War from the public. In reviewing historical newspapers published during the spring and summer of 1965 alongside formerly classified government documents written at the same time, a clear picture of deception is painted. Even after the press discovered the reality of the failures of the war and shared it with the public, the government continued its war effort because of the entrenched post-World War II belief in American exceptionalism. Overall, the government hid proof that American soldiers were not wanted, that the Southern Vietnamese government was unstable and unpopular, and that the war was failing through only-positive press conferences and secrecy, and the media followed suit in its idealistic reports of success, manipulated interviews, and polls that encouraged support to continue the war to prove American exceptionalism to mask the reality that U.S. Foreign policy had failed