If the American public, after more than twenty years of U.S. involvement in Vietnam, remains confused about the politics and objectives of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam, it is primarily because of a steady diet of misinformation conveyed by the U.S. and South Vietnamese governments. The agents of this misinformation are primarily journalists and scholars who depend on the two governments for their facts.
During the long struggle in Vietnam it has been vitally important for successive U.S. administrations and their client regimes in Vietnam to persuade the American public of the justification for the intervention that is aimed at keeping local anti-Communists in power. Frequently, therefore, the same political warfare techniques used in Vietnam have been aimed also at the American public.