Broadcasting Benevolence: Images of the Child in American, Soviet and NLF Propaganda in Vietnam, 1964–1973

Abstract

From 1964 to 1973, Soviet, American, and Vietcong propagandists generated incredible numbers of pamphlets, television shows, films, and radio programs that focused on the image of the child. How these depictions of children were created and what functions they performed as symbols of national strength and mobilization are the subjects of this article. Images of youth provide a category of analysis for understanding how these propaganda programs succeeded and sometimes failed in their attempts to win the allegiances of the Vietnamese people. Based on previously unexplored transnational sources, this article examines the contested meanings of the child’s image as a way to understand the conceptual boundaries that were established and transgressed by the Soviet, American, and Vietcong propaganda programs. By comparing and contrasting these programs with each other, this article shows how images of youth served as cultural currency in each side’s efforts to determine what was at stake in the war and what needed to be done to win it. Youth, which played such a central role in articulating and humanizing Soviet, American, and Vietcong policies, took on different meanings when contextualized by the moral and political ambiguities of the Vietnam War.