Manufacturing Consent_ The Political Economy of the Mass Media - Edward S. Herman [284]
116. Braestrup, Big Story, I, 671ff.; Burns W. Roper in Big Story, I, chapter 14.
117. For serious interpretations of the basis for the shift of government policy, putting Freedom House fantasies aside, see Herbert Schandler, The Unmaking of a President (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1977); Thies, When Governments Collide; Kolko, Anatomy of a War, noting particularly the crucial issue of the perceived economic crisis resulting from the costs of the war.
118. See Kahin, Intevention, pp. 421ff., for discussion of these important events.
119. Oberdorfer, Tet!; Porter, A Peace Denied, p. 66. On this forgotten massacre, and the various attempts to shift attention to the massacre carried out by the retreating NLF forces, see our PEHR, I, 345ff., and sources cited, particularly Gareth Porter, “The 1968 ‘Hué Massacre,’” Congressional Record, February 19, 1975, pp. S2189–94, and Porter’s review of Big Story. Porter notes that Braestrup’s estimate of destruction in Hué is far below that of U.S. AID, which estimated in April that 77 percent of Hué’s buildings were “seriously damaged” or totally destroyed.
120. Kolko, Anatomy of a War, p. 309.
121. PP, IV, 539. On third-country forces, introduced well before the first sighting of a battalion of North Vietnamese regulars in the South, see Kahin, Intervention, pp. 333f. Korean mercenaries began to arrive in January 1965, while Taiwanese soldiers had reached “several hundred” by mid-1964, in addition to “a considerable number of soldiers seconded from Chiang Kaishek’s army on Taiwan,” possibly as early as 1959 but certainly under the Kennedy administration, often disguised as members of the Nung Chinese ethnic minority in Vietnam and employed for sabotage missions in the North as well as fighting in the South. For McNamara’s estimate, see his statement before the Senate Armed Services Committee, January 22, 1968; excerpts in Big Story, II, 14ff.
122. Bernard Weinraub, New York Times, February 8, 1968; Lee Lescaze, Washington Post, February 6, 1968; in Big Story, II, 116ff.
123. New York Times, April 4, 1968. See appendix 3 for similar comments from news reporting.
124. Robert Shaplen, “Letter from Saigon,” The New Yorker, March 2, 1968. He estimates the NVA component of the forces engaged at 10 percent of some 50,000 to 60,000.
125. Jean-Claude Pomonti, Le Monde hebdomadaire, February 4–8, 1968. Pomonti was expelled from the country soon after. The head of the Newsweek Saigon bureau had already been expelled.
126. Charles Mohr, New York Times, February 14, 1968. On Mohr, see Big Story, I, 718.
127. CBS-TV, February 14, 1968, Hallin, “Uncensored War,” 171; Big Story, I, 158.
128. We return in appendix 3 to the evidence that Braestrup presents, comparing the facts with his rendition of them, including Cronkite’s reports.
129. Boston Globe, February 24, 1968.
130. See note 118, above.
131. Marc Riboud, Le Monde, April 13, 1968; Newsweek, February 19 (banned from Saigon), March 30; “CBS-TV Morning News,” February 12, 1968, cited in Big Story, I, 274; John Lengel, AP, February 10, 1968, cited in Big Story, I, 269. Such a psychological warfare program was indeed conducted, although not recognized as such by the media; see note 119 above and appendix 3.
132. Philip Jones Griffiths, Vietnam Inc. (New York: Macmillan, 1971), with pictures of the ongoing fighting. We return to coverage of Hué in appendix 3. See also note 119 above, and sources cited.
133. PP, IV, 546f.
134. Paul Quinn-Judge, “Soviet Publication Paints Bleak Picture of War in Afghanistan,” Christian Science Monitor, Moscow, July 21, 1987. Quotes are Quinn-Judge’s paraphrases.
135. Bill Keller, “Soviet Official Says Press Harms Army,” New York Times, January 21, 1988.
136. PP, IV, 441; his emphasis. On Komer’s role, as he sees it and as the record shows it, see FRS, pp. 84f.
137. See Seymour Hersh, The Price of Power (New York: Summit, 1983), pp. 582, 597, citing presidential aide Charles Colson and General Westmoreland.
138. For explicit references on these matters,