Another wingnut lie exposed

[warrens]

Wingnut says that his UPI brethren stood up and cheered news we lost the Vietnam war. What did they really cheer that day? The word "PEACE."


From TOM FOTY:

Dear Editor (with apologies for length):

In a recent commentary that could otherwise be characterized as a "mea
culpa" for no-longer operative Iraq policy boosterism, Tom McClanahan turns the clock back thirty one years in his career and makes an assertion about an early employer that defames a once great news organization. Trying to bolster a case for what he calls a "deep, unquestioning antipathy for all things military" which he maintains "still infects many in today's media," McClanahan says he was working for United Press International in Dallas in the spring of 1975 and adds:

One sunny day in April, bells started ringing from the dozens of printers scattered around the room. We knew it was an item with "flash" priority, which carries 10 bells. I looked down. A printer tapped out: "Saigon falls." What happened next was astonishing. Many of my colleagues, young journalists who had come of age politically
during the heyday of the anti-war movement, stood up and
cheered. Oh, goodie. The United States has lost a war. Many were my
friends, but the scene left me cold.

It is not possible to prove a negative of course, but his account does leave much room for doubt about the accuracy of his recollections.

In the 1977 book "55 Days - The Fall of South Vietnam" (Prentice Hall),
Alan Dawson, UPI last Saigon bureau manager, describes and reproduces the UPI flash:

>>>>
FLASH''''''''''

SAIGON - SAIGON GOVERNMENT SURRENDERS

NTL 1021AM
>>>

followed by:

>>>

BULLETIN''''''
PEACE 4-30
BY ALAN DAWSON

SAIGON (UPI) - PRESIDENT DUONG VAN (BIG) MINH TODAY ANNOUNCED THE SURRENDER OF SOUTH VIETNAM AND TOLD GOVERNMENT SOLDIERS TO STOP FIGHTING.

(MORE) LD/PDV

NTL 1022AM

>>>

[Hissyspit]

1. What an idiot. They were cheering the end of a lie and the end of a nightmare.

A seemingly endless nightmare. The end of their colleagues dying. The end of the napalm shearing the skin off of children (how's that for being left cold?). Would he preferred them cheering Shock and Awe?

[JustABozoOnThisBus]

2. Shock and awe

I remember feeling shock and awe watching TV images of Sailors and Marines pushing perfectly good helecopters off the deck into the sea, to make room for more incoming helecopters. For some reason that image struck me (even though it made perfect sense).

[jwirr]

3. The end of any war is a reason to cheer for peace. The day

Saigon fell was a day I remember having a burden of grief lifted from my shoulders. The men could come home, the Vietnamese could start over again and we could turn our eyes to the needs of our own country.

[warrens]

4. See, you're just another traitor troop-hater

Oh, I just HATE Repukes. This guy is getting slapped around good where it hurts him the most...at Romanesko, the gossip site for us media types. If you're interested, go to poynter.org and click on Romanesko, on the right.

[jwirr]

5. Thanks. The fundies have been calling me names since I ran

a county office for George McGovern in 72. I just ignore them.