“Not Here To Spread” This: How The Leftist Mainstream Media Responded to Revelations of North Vietnamese Mass Murder at Hue in 1968

People in the city of Hue lay to rest their family members, friends, and neighbors, after South Vietnamese and U.S. forces liberate the city from communist occupation. Over the course of one month, the communists brutally murdered thousands of innocent people in the name of “revolution” (U.S. Army).

The “long story short” version of this is that in 1968, journalists in the mainstream U.S. media witnessed the shocking discovery of mass graves, created by the murderous communist regime, in the city of Hue, South Vietnam, and explicitly decided not to report on it. All the while, the liberal media continued its common practice of peddling pro-communist and anti-American propaganda to the American people, glorifying the evil communists, while vilifying the real heroes, which were the South Vietnamese and American troops.

With that main point established, we will now dive into detail about the coverup of the communist mass murder at Hue. The analysis provides another glaring example of how far leftists will go to protect and glorify totalitarian regimes at the expense of America.

Estimated reading time: 12-16 minutes

The Tet Offensive of 1968 and the Battle of Hue

In late January of 1968, the communist state of North Vietnam launched a surprise attack on its southern neighbor, the fledgling democratic nation of South Vietnam. The communists were hoping to knock South Vietnam and their U.S. allies out of the war for good, and ultimately, to establish control over all of Vietnam under the blood-red banner of Communism.

South Vietnam’s capital city of Saigon during the Tet Offensive of 1968 (UISA/NARA).

Sadly for the communists, they failed. Big time.

This fiasco by the communists would be known in history as the Tet Offensive of 1968.

The lunar new year period, known as “Tet” in Vietnam, is usually a time of peace, love, and friendship among Vietnamese. Though it was unstated, there was an understanding between the North and South that, for at least a few days, there would be a truce, and that no blood will be shed.

In hopes of gaining an upper hand, the communists violated the truce, and launched a massive military campaign against the South. Despite, their underhanded attack, the communists were still handily defeated by South Vietnam and U.S. forces.

Though initially surprised by the communist sneak attack, the South Vietnamese and their American allies responded quickly and resolutely, destroying the communist invaders and expelling them from nearly all of South Vietnam’s major cities.

South Vietnamese and U.S. Special Forces members. Photo taken in September 1968 (U.S. Army).

There were only a few key locations where the communists managed to hold on for a while. Eventually, these places too would be liberated from communist occupation by South Vietnam and U.S. forces.

The old imperial capital city of Hue was one of the last places to be freed from the communists. Victory at Hue was accomplished after 26 days of intense fighting.

This fight came to be known as the Battle of Hue, and lasted from January 31 to February 25, 1968.

At the end of this long and bloody battle, 384 South Vietnamese soldiers were killed, 216 U.S. soldiers were killed, and 5,113 communist soldiers were killed. The communist forces paid dearly at Hue and got ripped to pieces by the South Vietnamese and American troops (Smith 1999: x).

Following the battle, on February 26, 1968, “South Vietnamese and American troops made a horrifying discovery” at Hue (Zimmerman & Vansant 2009: 78).

The Hue Massacre and North Vietnam’s Official Policy of Violence and Murder

After the liberation of Hue from communist control, the South Vietnamese and U.S. forces uncovered bodies of men, women, and children buried in shallow graves all around the city. Some bodies had bullet wounds in them, others had their arms bound by rope and wire, and some bodies were still wet, as if drenched in water before being buried. It appeared that many of these people had been buried alive (Smith 1999: ix).

In a chilling anecdote, George W. Smith described many of the corpses as still having “their mouths open, silent screams frozen on their faces,” (p. ix).

South Vietnamese residents standing in the midst of the destruction in the aftermath of the Hue Massacre of 1968 (Douglas Pike Collection).

James H. Willbanks explains that after the communists had seized control of Hue, they started rounding up people all around the city and systematically executed them en masse (p. 55). In the words of Willbanks, most of the victims were either “shot, bludgeoned to death, or buried alive, almost all with their hands tied behind their backs,” (p. 55).

In the end, a total of 2,810 bodies were discovered in these mass graves, although the number is estimated to be much higher than this (Moore & Turner 2002: 278). Another 2,000 people were unaccounted for after the liberation of Hue. It is strongly suggested that they too were murdered in the communist mass executions (Herring 2002: 232; Moore & Turner 2002: 278).

The purpose of this organized and systematic murder of the people of Hue was to instil fear and terror into the South Vietnamese population, and to discourage people from supporting or associating with the South Vietnam government. There was also a revenge element, as the communists sought to punish “uncooperative” civilians in South Vietnam for not supporting the barbaric communist regime and their evil ideology (Moore & Turner 2002: 278).

As part of their terror campaign, the communists compiled a list of targets that included local politicians, civil servants, shopkeepers, and other civilian groups. This “execution list” had at least 3,000 names on it and was compiled before the Tet Offensive was even started (Aikman 2013; Moore & Turner 2002: 278).

North Vietnamese communist troops. During the Vietnam War, North Vietnam and their Vietcong subordinates committed grave atrocities that were largely covered up by the pro-communist mainstream liberal media (U.S. Army).

Upon the capture of Hue, the communists put their horrific execution plan into action, going house to house and butchering defenseless residents and civilians. This was not an isolated incident carried out by renegade, insubordinate, or unruly troops. It was a deliberate part of communist policy, planned, organized, and authorized at the highest level of the North Vietnamese government.

As explained by John Norton Moore and Robert F. Turner, “For the Viet Cong and the North Vietnamese, the ‘tactic’ of ‘political struggle’ included the use of terror to isolate the people from their government… Selected assassination of government officials was official policy.” Not only that, but for the communists, “Grave breaches” by their troops and cadres “not only went unpunished, they were mandated,” (p. 277-78).

The result of their terror and violence program was the death of thousands of innocent lives. Victims of this mass execution included schoolteachers, merchants, religious leaders, police, government employees, political officials, foreign visitors, and regular everyday civilians.

“We are not here to spread” this. The Liberal Media Coverup of the Hue Massacre

When the horrifying discoveries were being made at Hue, the leftist mainstream media was there. The liberal media saw with their own eyes the corpses of all the innocent people, being dug out of the ground by the dead’s traumatized and heartbroken relatives, friends, and neighbors. They knew that it was the North Vietnamese and their Viet Cong operatives that committed these atrocities. And they chose to say nothing about it.

One firsthand account by a German reporter, Uwe Siemon-Netto, showed just how blatant and deliberate the U.S. mainstream media was in their decision not to say a word about the mass killings at Hue.

In a review of Siemon-Netto’s 2013 memoir Duc: A reporter’s love for the wounded people of Vietnam, David Aikman described the interaction between the German reporter and some mainstream media liberals at Hue:

When this fastidious German reporter came upon a mass grave of victims, he was astonished to find an American television crew standing around with idle cameras. The crew refused to shoot the scene because, they said, they didn’t want to film “anti-Communist propaganda.”

Siemon-Netto would retell this experience himself in a 2018 letter to the Wall Street Journal.

I remember how furious Peter Braestrup, I and others were when Walter Cronkite stated in front of millions of U.S. viewers that the war couldn’t be won, when in fact we had just witnessed American and South Vietnamese soldiers shed their blood vanquishing the communists and destroying their infrastructure. I stood next to Braestrup at a mass grave filled with the bodies of old men, women and children. A U.S. television team walked idly about this site. Braestrup asked them: “Why don’t you film this scene?” “We are not here to spread anticommunist propaganda,” one answered.

As a result of the mainstream media’s decision not to report this tragedy, the world would pay “little attention to these atrocities at Hue… the ghastly events at Hue became footnotes in a highly unpopular war,” (Smith 1999: x).

The Hue Massacre was not the only massacre committed by the communists during the Vietnam War. There were others, many others, and the media would stay overwhelmingly silent on them. That, however, is a discussion for another time.

The Mainstream Media. Liars Since At Least the Vietnam War

What happened at Hue between January to February of 1968 was a massacre. A mass slaughter of innocent lives by a murderous communist regime propped up by the Soviet Union and Red China, and widely adored by leftists and traitors in the U.S.

The communists carried out a violent and horrific purge of innocent people in South Vietnam, and their friends in the U.S. mainstream liberal media helped them cover it up. It would be decades before the world learned of the Hue Massacre, and even then, it would not be widespread knowledge.

The remains of the Brinks Hotel in Saigon after a bombing attack by Vietcong terrorists on December 24, 1964. At the time, military personnel and civilian guests were inside the hotel. Terrorism was a core strategy of the communists during the Vietnam War. Much of the communists’ terrorist activities were, like the Hue Massacre, either ignored, covered up, or denied by the mainstream liberal media (U.S. Air Force).

From the evidence, it would seem that, according to leftists, something they see with their own eyes, a literal fact, may constitute as “propaganda” if it does not align with their points of view. Opinions, hearsay, and outright lies, on the other hand, may serve as “fact” if it affirms whatever the leftists are thinking and feeling.

Leftists in the U.S. loved the North Vietnamese for some reason, and were so determined to paint communists as heroes that they covered up a mass slaughter to make it happen. The liberal media covered up a genocidal act by North Vietnam in order to advance a pro-communist narrative. Let that sink in.

When we look at the mainstream liberal media today, defending Marxist riots in U.S. cities, enabling anarchy, waging a war on police, silencing those who quietly suffer from this violence and unrest, and overall, just lying to the American people every second of every day (not just misleading, but outright lying), just know that this is nothing new.

They have had a lot of practice.

The Third Police Precinct in Minneapolis, Minnesota, is set ablaze by rioters in the wake of the murder of George Floyd by dirty cop Derek Chauvin on May 28, 2020. Democrats, the media, and general leftist elites have largely and wrongfully described the violence and looting across America as “peaceful protests,” glorifying the criminals, vilifying the police (of which the overwhelming majority are good, great people), and ignoring the cries of everyday people of all colors who are adversely affected by the unrest (Wikimedia Commons).

The liberal media has been doing this for decades. Glorifying communists, anarchists, terrorists, and totalitarian regimes, all the while vilifying real heroes, patriots, and regular everyday good people who just happen to disagree with them.

The mainstream media is pro-communist and anti-American, and they have gotten away with peddling their treasonous agenda to the public, to our youth and children, for far too long. It is time that we see the leftist media for what they truly are: Liars, cowards, and traitors.

As President Donald J. Trump has said many times before: The leftist mainstream media is dishonest, fake, and the enemy of the people.

From the Vietnam War to now, and most likely well into the future, the leftist mainstream media cannot be trusted. They can never be trusted.

Bibliography:

Aikman, David. “The Lost Cause,” (October 7, 2013). The Weekly Standard, reproduced by The Washington Examiner. https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/weekly-standard/the-lost-cause

“Debating Fake News and the Tet Offensive,” (February 14, 2018). The Wall Street Journal. https://www.wsj.com/articles/debating-fake-news-and-the-tet-offensive-1518642077

Herring, George C. America’s Longest War: The United States and Vietnam. New York: McGraw Hill. 2002.

Moore, John Norton and Robert F. Turner. The Real Heroes of the Vietnam War: Reflections. North Carolina: Carolina Academic Press. 2002.

Smith, George W. The Siege at Hue. Colorado: Lynne Rienner Publishers Inc. 1999.

Willbanks, James H. The Tet Offensive: A Concise History. New York: Columbia University Press. 2007.

Zimmerman, Dwight and Wayne Vansant. The Vietnam War: A Graphic History. New York: Hill and Wang. 2009.