Robert E. Denton Jr.

Vietnam was the first television war. With the Persian Gulf conflict,
television became an instrument of war--an instrument of war as pow-
erful and targeted as any cruise missile. Television is an effective weapon
not simply because of any specific rules of journalism or agreements
between networks and government, but because of the unique charac-
teristics and requirements of the medium and contemporary technol-
ogies.

The dilemma becomes how to preserve national security and the free-
dom of the press in times of war. The press is caught in a balancing act
between providing adequate information for informed citizen action
(i.e., approval or disapproval) and the security and integrity of national
interests. As with any democracy, there will be a natural tension between
the two objectives.

As the Persian Gulf conflict progressed, I, like most Americans, was
on an emotional roller coaster. I agreed that Saddam Hussein should be
stopped, but at what price? When I saw the "video postcards"--mothers
saying goodbye to young children, interviews with members of grieving
families, then later charred bodies of innocent people--my will to fight
and to support military action was automatically questioned. Saddam
noted American sensitivity to human life and openly asserted that the
public would not tolerate a protracted military conflict. According to
conventional wisdom and myth, television coverage of the Vietnam War
contributed to the erosion of public support for the conflict. Thus, a
pragmatic question arises: Can a nation, with today's technologies, fight
a war, much less win one, by showing the instantaneous battles or the
bodies--the horrors of killing and destroying people? In this age of

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