ABSTRACT
Westmoreland's stateside public appearances on his visits that year were carefully planned by the White House for maximum media coverage. In full military dress, a salad bar of battle ribbons and decorations on his chest, he was poster-perfect, the very model of confidence and command. Westmoreland said he had reported to the "Highest Authority", secretary of defense and Joint Chiefs of Staff that "we are grinding down the enemy". The administration could now portray "to the American people 'some light at the end of the tunnel'". Most journalists started out believing that it was a "good" war to prevent Chinese communism from expanding in the 60s the way Hitler's Germany had, unopposed, in the 30s. "Containment" of communism, in Asia as well as in Europe, was widely accepted US policy since the end of World War II. The public, a Pacific Ocean away, was getting its first taste of late, full-color moving pictures of Americans at war.
