Containment and Credibility delayed until November 2016

The release of Pat's latest book, Containment and Credibility, has been delayed until November 2016 to give reviewers time to publish reviews.  But the book is still available for pre-orders at a number of booksellers.

Amazon.com

Barnes & Noble

IndieBound.org

Containment and Credibility: The Ideology and Deception that Plunged America into the Vietnam War is a compelling account of the domestic political debate over the Vietnam War. It follows the evolution of the argument between successive administrations, the press, academia, the Congress, and antiwar activists as they struggled to move public opinion about the war.

More of Pat Proctor's media appearances up at his Website

I have appeared recently in a number of local and national news venues to talk about the End of the Iraq War, continuing violence in Iraq, and Iraq's uncertain future. These appearances coincide with the release of my new book, Task Force Patriot and the End of Combat Operations in Iraq. Audio of these appearances is available at my Website.  Just click on the dates to listen to the appearances.

• 22 December 2011, on the Lou Dobbs Show with guest host Dom Giordano
• 20 December 2011, on WOR Radio's Joan Hamburg Show with host Joan Hamburg

Task Force Patriot is published by Government Institutes Press, an imprint of Rowman & Littlefield. The book is now available in stores, or you can order it on Amazon.com.

Creating the Credibility Gap

William M. Hammond, Public Affairs: The Military and the Media, 1962-1968, Washington, D.C.: Center for Military History, U.S. Army, 1988, 429 pages.


In the years since the end of the Vietnam War, both war correspondents and historians have written extensively about press coverage of the war. Very few works, however, have covered this topic from the perspective of the government and the military, particularly the US Embassy and Military Assistance Command Vietnam (MACV) personnel who fought on the front lines of the media war in Vietnam. This is the territory covered in William Hammond’s Public Affairs: The Military and the Media, 1962-1968. Hammond provides a fascinating “behind the scenes” look at the actions that shaped the official message on Vietnam throughout the Kennedy and Johnson administrations.


This book is an in-depth, “blow by blow” account of both media coverage of the war, and the efforts by both Saigon and Washington to shape that coverage. Public Affairs: The Military and the Media, 1962-1968 also covers two particularly interesting periods, both the “Americanization” of the war in 1964 and 1965 and the collapse of public support for the war after the Tet offensive. In the end, Hammond concludes, “Most of the public affairs problems that confronted the United States in South Vietnam stemmed from the contradictions implicit in Lyndon Johnson’s strategy for the war” (p. 385). Because Johnson wanted to commit the country to war without jeopardizing either America’s global commitments or his own domestic agenda, Hammond writes, Johnson placed public affairs personnel in Vietnam in an impossible position.

Public Affairs: The Military and the Media, 1962-1968 is excellent, meticulously crafted history. The rigor with which William Hammond has reconstructed the actors and decisions that shaped the government’s message in Vietnam is without equal. Yet, the book suffers for its perspective. This book was, after all, written for the US Army Center for Military History; throughout the book, Hammond is overtly sympathetic to the government/military perspective. Again and again, Hammond details the ways in which the US mission in Saigon and MACV, tried to hide, slant, or outright misrepresent the situation in South Vietnam to favor the government position. He unapologetically paints both the military and State Department as enthusiastically complicit in hiding both the scope and the nature of the war. Yet, at the same time, he paints the press as unreasonably adversarial, as if one were not connected to the other. Hammond’s underlying premise is that the role of military and embassy public affairs is not to inform, but to influence the American public--a premise roundly rejected both by other writers on the subject and modern military public affairs doctrine (largely shaped by the lessons of Vietnam).

Even if one disagrees with Hammond’s perspective, this is still very well executed history. In that respect, Public Affairs: The Military and the Media, 1962-1968 is a must read for anyone interested in media coverage of the Vietnam War.

"Message versus Perception" published in The Historian

Over the forty years since the beginning of the Vietnam War, a historical narrative has developed in the United States to explain the substantial support the Johnson administration enjoyed during the escalation. According to this narrative, Johnson deceived the American people into war...Virtually nothing has been written about this period from the perspective it was seen by the American people, in the media of the day. Through an examination of contemporary media, this article will clearly show that, again and again, despite aggressive administration efforts to downplay the growing American commitment, the American press had a very clear picture of the escalation and clearly communicated this picture to the American people.

Pat's article, "Message versus Perception during the Americanization of the Vietnam War". Appears in the Spring 2011 edition of, The Historian.

To see an excerpt,click here!

"Fighting to Understand" published in Military Review

The city of ad Dawr did not seem to be responding as we expected. Security was always good in the city—until U.S. forces entered. When the Proud American Soldiers entered the city of ad Dawr, they encountered uniform animosity from the populace. The unit that preceded us in ad Dawr, Bravo Company, 2d Battalion, 35th Infantry Regiment, received small arms fire nearly every time they entered the city. Despite Task Force Patriot’s heavy engagement with the leadership and a significant surge of Commander’s Emergency Relief Program (CERP) money, it was not long before our battalion met with the same reception. This violence finally culminated in tragedy when Corporal Tony Carrasco was shot and killed in ad Dawr on 4 November 2009.

Pat recounts his 2009-2010 deployment to Iraq in "Fighting to Understand," which appeared in the March-April 2011 edition of Military Review.

To read the full article, click here!

Armchair General Review of "Media War"

The interactive history magazine, Armchair General just posted a review by Peter Suciu of my first full-length book, Media War: The Media-Enabled Insurgency in Iraq.

"A fascinating book that news junkies will appreciate deeply."

To read the full review, click here.

Media War is available for the Amazon Kindle and as a Google eBook.

ProSIM announces the publication of "Media War" as a Google eBook

“In Operation Iraqi Freedom, insurgent and terrorist groups have demonstrated the capability to use small, relatively insignificant tactical attacks, amplified through the megaphone of the media, to dramatic effect on the will of the American public to prosecute the war. This capability has neutralized the overwhelming advantage the US military has in firepower in Iraq by bypassing it completely. Recent trends (including Israel’s abortive war in Lebanon in 2006) suggest that this capability is proliferating and will characterize every enemy the US military faces for the foreseeable future. Left unchecked, this capability will weaken the United States’ ability to project military power for all but the most finite, decisive future conflicts.”

ProSIM Company is now a Google Books partner! Their first entry at the Google ebookstore is my first full-length book, Media War: The Media-Enabled Insurgency in Iraq. This book is the culmination of over two and a half years of study of the US military, the insurgency, and the media in Iraq, including lessons learned from my first, six-month tour in Iraq working on the front lines of the media war.

To get Media War: The Media-Enabled Insurgency in Iraq at the Google ebookstore, click here.

Approaches to the War on Terrorism

A Usenet newsgroup discussion about my latest book, Media War: The Media-Enabled Insurgency in Iraq has turned into a quite lively debate about approaches to the War on Terrorism. You can check out the conversation here:

"ProSIM Co.'s newest release"

The discussion starts to heat up around post 30.

The lines in the above discussion get kind of blurred between my role as a game developer, writer, and military professional, so I feel compelled to add the standard disclaimer:

"The views expressed on this blog and in the link above are those of the author(s) and do not reflect the official policy or position of the Department of Defense or the US Government."