Fake History Episode 4

"In propaganda truth pays... It is a complete delusion to think of the brilliant propagandist as being a professional liar. The brilliant propagandist is the man who tells the truth, or that selection of the truth which is requisite for his purpose, and tells it in such a way that the recipient does not think he is receiving any propaganda... [...] The art of propaganda is not telling lies, but rather selecting the truth you require and giving it mixed up with some truths the audience wants to hear."
• Richard Crossman, the British Deputy Director of Psychological Warfare Division (PWD) for the Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force (SHAEF) during the Second World War.

I first referenced this quote previously in my discussion of Episode 3/Part 1. It is important as it relates to the entire Burns & Novick documentary “The Vietnam War.” In fact, in my opinion, the Burns & Novick documentary is a good example of just the sort of propaganda that Richard Crossman defines above.

First, there are a lot of truths in the Burns & Novick films, so far. Some of their statements can be interpreted differently, but it might be difficult to declare anything out and out false. However, they have selected which truths to tell and how to tell them, and which truths to leave out.

The insidious thing about history presented in a video documentary is that no one expects sourcing in footnotes, end notes, bibliography, etc. Without specifying the source of a statement, you may hear that in 1966 the Viet Cong controlled three-quarters of South Vietnam. What is the source of that information? What does it mean to “control” South Vietnam? There is no explanation of where the information came from nor just what it means. It can stand for whatever each viewer decides it means. That is one of the things that make this video propaganda. This is a history not told as truthfully as possible but told to influence the viewer to see the history as the maker of the documentary sees it.

Much is made of the happy Vietnamese working on filling in craters and maintaining the Ho Chi Minh Trail. The video showing this had to come from the North Vietnamese. Was it their own propaganda film designed to be shown to their own population? What did it leave out? Aren’t there allegations that all along the Ho Chi Minh Trail and in all the villages adjacent to it, Lao villagers were impressed into working as porters and road repairmen along the trail? Put in or left out, one way or another, it changes what influence this part of the video had on its viewers. Villagers’ involuntary impressment was left out. Had it been included would you see the communists differently?

In describing the North Vietnamese efforts to resupply their troops in South Vietnam, a mention is made of transshipment via Laos and Cambodia and that they are neutral countries. They were part of a greater battlefield that Burns & Novick only name "The Vietnam War” but there is never any specific mention of Laos and Cambodia being independent nations. Why leave out that the North Vietnamese were invading and using Laos and Cambodia for safe havens for their troops and to store supplies away from the South Vietnam battlefields? Would it weaken or undermine all the references to the North Vietnamese being in South Vietnam to “liberate” the oppressed South Vietnamese? Would it permit the viewer to wonder about the justification for invading independent nations to occupy them and from which to conduct war in a third nation?

Truth, half-truths, and left-out truths.