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The West Australian (Perth)
January 28, 2011 Friday
First Edition
Media chief tried to control information in a losing war
Barry Zorthian, 90, was the US government's chief media spokesman in
Saigon during the Vietnam War. He won grudging respect from many
reporters for the grace with which he responded to demands for a full
accounting of the American war effort but he was trying to sell a war
America was losing.
It was America's first war without media censorship and Zorthian tried
hard to establish credibility for the fight by controlling the flow of
sensitive information rather than quashing it entirely. He believed in
the war and thought Americans would support it if only the government
could manage to explain the purpose of the bloody conflict.
Zorthian was sent to Saigon in 1964 to improve relations with
journalists, who had become increasingly disgusted with US officials
and suspicious of the government's rosy version of events.
As media adviser to the US commander in Vietnam, Gen. William
Westmoreland, Zorthian started a daily briefing which gave reporters
an opportunity to question government officials. But the briefings
were so lacking in information that they became known as the Five
O'Clock Follies.
Barry Zorthian was born in 1920 to Armenian parents in Turkey. He was
a boy when his family migrated to the US. After graduating from Yale
University in 1941, he joined the Marine Corps and served in the
Pacific.
After the war, he got a law degree and spent 13 years with Voice of
America. He worked in India for the State Department and then headed
the US Public Affairs Office in Vietnam.
Zorthian also co-ordinated psychological warfare operations. His
agency dropped tonnes of propaganda leaflets; dampened anti-US rallies
by ordering local palm readers to tell customers to avoid crowds and
tried to frighten Vietcong troops by using loudspeakers on planes to
broadcast funeral dirges through the jungle.
After leaving Vietnam in 1968, Zorthian worked as a senior executive
for Time and headed Time's government affairs division.
He is survived by two sons and two grandchildren. Died: December 30.
From: A. Papazian
January 28, 2011 Friday
First Edition
Media chief tried to control information in a losing war
Barry Zorthian, 90, was the US government's chief media spokesman in
Saigon during the Vietnam War. He won grudging respect from many
reporters for the grace with which he responded to demands for a full
accounting of the American war effort but he was trying to sell a war
America was losing.
It was America's first war without media censorship and Zorthian tried
hard to establish credibility for the fight by controlling the flow of
sensitive information rather than quashing it entirely. He believed in
the war and thought Americans would support it if only the government
could manage to explain the purpose of the bloody conflict.
Zorthian was sent to Saigon in 1964 to improve relations with
journalists, who had become increasingly disgusted with US officials
and suspicious of the government's rosy version of events.
As media adviser to the US commander in Vietnam, Gen. William
Westmoreland, Zorthian started a daily briefing which gave reporters
an opportunity to question government officials. But the briefings
were so lacking in information that they became known as the Five
O'Clock Follies.
Barry Zorthian was born in 1920 to Armenian parents in Turkey. He was
a boy when his family migrated to the US. After graduating from Yale
University in 1941, he joined the Marine Corps and served in the
Pacific.
After the war, he got a law degree and spent 13 years with Voice of
America. He worked in India for the State Department and then headed
the US Public Affairs Office in Vietnam.
Zorthian also co-ordinated psychological warfare operations. His
agency dropped tonnes of propaganda leaflets; dampened anti-US rallies
by ordering local palm readers to tell customers to avoid crowds and
tried to frighten Vietcong troops by using loudspeakers on planes to
broadcast funeral dirges through the jungle.
After leaving Vietnam in 1968, Zorthian worked as a senior executive
for Time and headed Time's government affairs division.
He is survived by two sons and two grandchildren. Died: December 30.
From: A. Papazian