U.S. Reporters’ Views On Vietnam

Press, Volume CVII, Issue 31439, 4 August 1967, Page 10

U.S. Reporters’ Views On Vietnam

Some American journalists in South Vietnam believe that most of the Viet Cong are South Vietnamese, supplied with arms and directed by the North Vietnamese.

They believe the war in South Vietnam is largely a civil war, or at most a war between the United States and the Viet Cong.

Four American reporters representing leading newspapers and news services put their views in a National Educational Television film shown in Christchurch last evening by the Society of Friends.

One, with five years’ experience in Vietnam, said he was utterly cynical about the role of the United States in Vietnam. To him the war was a clash of Chinese and American influence in the Western Pacific. It was not an ideological war, but the settling of old scores between the Vietnamese themselves.

The four agreed that the American public were badly informed about the war because of their own apathy. A poll by Stamford University had found that 10 per cent of

the people thought the Viet Cong were allies of the Americans.

One reporter said that American troops were fighting alongside “a semi-friendly army.” Another said that American policy in Vietnam was being directed by people too ignorant of the real situation to be capable of making intelligent decisions. Another said the South Vietnamese preferred in some cases to be on their own, because there was less chance of Communist attacks while

the Americans were not there.

All agreed that the system of obtaining information from official sources in South Vietnam was completely unreliable. Bulletins issued by the military authorities were often compiled by persons who had not been near the fighting. They also agreed that the authorities tried to hide that the war was being carried on by the Americans from bases in Thailand, and that Laos was involved.

One of the most difficult problems in reporting the war was to get across who and what the Viet Cong are. About 250 persons who saw the film were told by a member of the Society of Friends that his organisation had sponsored its showing to try to influence people against the war. The society wanted New Zealand troops in Vietnam to be repatriated. The film will be shown at the W.E.A. rooms tomorrow evening.