A Comparison Of The My Lai Massacre And The Pentagon Papers

The Vietnam War was a conflict between the Vietnamese government that was under French administration and the pro-communist Vietnamese citizens who were fighting for independence from foreign influence. The United States’ armed forces entered into the conflict in support of the colonial administration in an attempt to stop the spread of Chinese and Soviet influence and communism in the region. The Vietnam War is arguably the longest war, lasting 11 years, from 1964 to 1975, and costing the lives of more than 58,000 Americans and countless numbers of Vietnamese. U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War came about when communist North Vietnam sought to unify an anti-communist South Vietnam (Benson, Sonia, et al., 2009). As the war escalated and the

With the media increasing its role in informing the American public about the war in detail, along with graphic images, war atrocities, such as the My Lai Massacre, became more difficult to cover up, which stirred even more violent public outcry. Not long after the media broadcasted the massacre, the release of the “Pentagon Papers” diminished what little trust was left of the government. The My Lai Massacre and the Pentagon Papers were two of the greatest contributors to the U.S. government credibility gap because the massacre exposed the horrors of an already controversial war and how far the government would conspire to conceal the truth, and the Pentagon Papers exposed numerous other government cover ups.

The My Lai Massacre contributed to the widening credibility gap and mistrust of the U.S. government because it revealed the government’s readiness to cover up atrocities that would add to the criticism of the government’s actions. On March 16th, 1968, American soldiers of the Charlie Company, First Battalion, 20th Infantry Division, gathered

government was the release of the Pentagon Papers because it exposed some of the highest ranked political leaders participating in scandals, including the Watergate scandal, which assisted in the downfall of the Nixon administration. Commissioned by the administration of former president Lyndon B. Johnson in 1967, the Pentagon Papers, a 47-volumed, 7,000 page document, detailed 3 decades of U.S. involvement in Vietnam and proved that the government knowingly took steps to increase its involvement in the conflict despite the government’s assurance to the public of the contrary (Rudenstine, 2003). Daniel Ellsberg, a consultant at the Rand Corporation and a contributor to the report, leaked the report to the New York Times in June 1971. Although Nixon attempted to block its publication, he failed to suppress the growing suspicions ("The Pentagon Papers.", 2009). I claim that the exposure of this report is another event which significantly contributed to the U.S. government’s credibility gap. The growing public’s skepticism and mistrust of the government were increased, now involving both peaceful and violent protests. The Pentagon Papers was the catalyst that eventually brought down the Nixon administration. Furthermore, I believe the majority of the American people who had originally supported the government-led conflict in Vietnam had a change of heart and viewed the administration’s