Ambi:

You wrote:

It is disingenious to blame reporters for for the miscalculations of MACV and Johnson. When the reporters saw something that the military had said was not possible, then the trust was broken.

I am reminded of another battle. This occurred after the US had been in the war for three years, and was ostensibly winning. Days into the battle, the US Army suffered the worst defeat in that theater of operations, involving the surrender of two entire regiments, over 8000 men. In three years, no such mass surrender had EVER occurred.

US forces were thrown back by dozens of miles. It was so bad that there was genuine panic in US headquarters. Enemy saboteurs were reportedly everywhere, and even the in-theater commander had to go everywhere surrounded by guards in what was an ostensibly “secured” city. One US general, contrary to everything that had been reported the six months previously, warned, “We can still lose this war.”

How many heads rolled? Did the President have to deal with charges of lying to Congress and the American people?

Go take a look at the history and the contemporary press coverage of the Battle of the Bulge. The “defeated” German armies, which had been on the run since August, were able to launch a completely surprise offensive, and forced the surrender of teh bulk of the 106th Infantry Division. But the press did not act as though it was betrayed, that Ike had lied to them, that the Germans weren’t defeated, and there was no hounding of an American President out of office. (Ironically, the Nazi High Command had aimed to create just such a schism, in order to effect a separate peace.)

I’ve often been of the opinion that the press of today would have led to a separate peace (probably along the Rhine) if they’d been around in December 1944.