The Prestige Press and the Christmas Bombing, 1972: Images and Reality in Vietnam (review)

BOOK REVIEWS The Prestige Press and the Christmas Bombing, 1972: Images and Reality in Vietnam. By Martin F. Herz, assisted by Leslie Rider. Washington, D.C: Ethics and Public Policy Center, 1980, 103 pp. $5.00 (paper). On December 14, 1972, in one of the most controversial decisions made during the Vietnam war, President Richard M. Nixon ordered the renewed mining of the Haiphong Harbor and the bombing of military targets in the Hanoi-Haiphong area. Negotiations for a ceasefire, the release of prisoners of war, and the American withdrawal had reached an impasse the previous day and resulted in an abrupt halt of the Paris peace talks between Henry Kissinger and Le Due Tho. Believing that a bold military initiative would bring North Vietnam back to the negotiating table, the president lifted the bombing restrictions. Four days later, American planes reappeared in the skies over the Red River Delta. With the exception of Christmas Day, the raids continued through December 29. The reactions of the American media were impassioned and critical. In its lead editorial of December 28 entitled "Terror Bombing in the Name of Peace," The Washington Post referred to the administration's action as the "most savage and senseless act of war ever visited, in a scant ten days, by one sovereign nation upon another." The same piece went on to lament "the havoc our bombers are wreaking on innocent civilians with the heaviest aerial onslaught of this or any other war." The December 22 New York Times editorial, "Terror From the Skies," depicted the bombing as a "massive, indiscriminate use of the United States' overwhelming aerial might," and labeled the action as "terrorism on an unprecedented scale." Concluding the December 29 evening telecast, CBS news commentator Eric Sevareid spoke of the Nixon initiative as an event "which has to mean the mass killing of civilians." Additional charges of extensive civilian casualties and property damage, administration culpability in the collapse of the peace talks, "criminal carpetbombing " of heavily populated areas, and the futility of the action flourished in the leading print and television media. In a provocative and convincing case study, former ambassador Martin F. Herz, director of studies at the Georgetown University Institute for the Study of Diplomacy, argues that the media failed to provide a balanced and unbiased appraisal of a major mili231 232 SAIS REVIEW tary and political development. With the help of research assistant Leslie Rider, Herz undertakes a methodical analysis of the Christmas bombing and its coverage by what he terms the "prestige press" — The New York Times, The Washington Post, Time, Newsweek , and the three commercial television networks. The study sets out to measure, as scientifically as possible, the ratio offavorable versus unfavorable reporting on six major aspects of the bombing: who was responsible for the breakdown of the Paris talks; the likelihood of the bombing achieving its purpose; the emphasis on civilian rather than military damage; the use of the B-52 bomber; foreign opinion; and public reaction in the United States. Following the presentation (in both tabular and narrative form) of his findings, the author reviews, albeit a bit more subjectively, commentaries by the prestige press. He concludes that an enormous and "unwarranted" discrepancy existed between what actually was occurring in Vietnam and what was reported by the country's major sources of information and opinion. Herz maintains that, contrary to charges made by the media, (a) no evidence has been produced to document instances of "carpet bombing" of civilian centers; (b) despite the magnitude of the operation (724 B-52 sorties, 640 strikes by A-7s, F-4s, and F-Hs, 1,384 sorties by reconnaissance, escort, combat, search-and-rescue, and SAM/flak suppression aircraft, plus 20,000 tons of ordnance dropped) only 1,318 civilians were killed in Hanoi, according to North Vietnamese accounts; and (c) aerial reconnaissance photographs and subsequent accounts of property damage, along with the low casualty figures, indicate a record of precision bombing which invalidates accusations of reckless and criminal use of the B-52. Although it can neither be proved nor disproved, the administration 's contention that the action would return the North Vietnamese to the negotiating table is plausible. Kissinger...