Government v. Press

This week's Graphical History Tour bravely sallies forth against censorship of newsmedia in the United States.

As a political cartoonist who has just been among a few dozen other political cartoonists, Your Humble Scribbler has a vested interest against censorship of editorial cartoons in particular. 

During the First Golden Age of my profession, in the late 18th Century and into the next, newspaper publishers saw the popularity and influence of the Thomas Nasts and Johannes Kepplers drawing for the national weeklies, and hired some of the best editorial cartoonists to grace their newspapers' front pages. And not incidentally, to push the publishers' political agendas.

"No Honest Man Need Fear Cartoons" by Homer Davenport in New York Journal, Apr. 22, 1897

Local politicians did not take kindly to being lampooned on those front pages. Upset by Homer Davenport's cartoons of influential Republican Mark Hanna, New York political boss Senator Thomas Platt, pushed a bill in the state assembly to ban cartoon depictions of real persons without their consent.

Davenport drew the parallel with Platt's predecessor, William Tweed, who had famously complained that although his constituents didn't read the papers, they saw "them damn pictures." Platt's bill failed to pass, but that didn't stop similar bills from cropping up elsewhere.

"The Governor Has His Revenge" by Robert Edgren in San Francisco Examiner, Feb. 25, 1899

A copycat bill by California Republicans failed to pass on its first go-around, but was passed during the next legislative session and signed by newly elected Republican Governor Henry Tifft Gage. As in New York, the partisan Democratic cartoons in Hearst newspapers were a major impetus for the bill; specifically, a cartoon of Gage being led on a leash by railroad magnate C.P. Huntington.

Having been signed into law, California's anti-cartoon bill was laughed — and ignored — into obscurity. Hearst cartoonist Robert Edgren offered an unusual motive for Governor Gage to sign the anti-cartoon bill: that the cartoonists were not drawing him any more.

Frankly, the man was a caricaturist's dream. Too bad he was voted out of office after one term.

by Walter McDougall in North American, Philadelphia, Jan. 30, 1903

Responding to daily cartoons in Philadelphia's North American by Charles Nelan depicting gubernatorial candidate Samuel Pennypacker as the pet parrot of Republican Party boss Senator Matthew Quay, Pennypacker's inaugural address demanded censorship of the "disreputable" North American. Obligingly, State Representative Frederick Pusey introduced a bill outlawing publication of any cartoon 

"portraying, describing, or representing any person, either by distortion, innuendo, or otherwise, in the form or likeness of beast, bird, fish, insect, or other unhuman animal, thereby tending to expose such person to public hatred, contempt, or ridicule."

The North American's other editorial cartoonist, Walt McDougall, responded with a cartoon stretched across the top of the front page depicting Quay, Pusey, and Pennypacker as a series of inanimate objects. (I have folded his cartoon to fit into a square format.) In an accompanying editorial, McDougall exhorted his fellow cartoonists, "Every cartoonist has a Noah's Ark full of worn, broken, and decrepit animals, bugs, and such, but the fresh vegetable field is untouched."

Pusey's bill nevertheless passed the Pennsylvania legislature and Pennypacker signed it into law. It was promptly repealed after Pennypacker was defeated in the next election.

by Frank Spangler in Montgomery [Ala.] Advertiser, Feb. 3, 1915 

As part of a package of election regulation laws, the Alabama legislature entertained a bill sponsored by Samuel D. Weakly prohibiting the caricature of any "prominent" man or politician. "It will make the average newspaper reader smile," the Advertiser editorialized, 

"that a sacred class is to be made of officeholders and office seekers, for they are the bulk of prominent people whom newspapers cartoon. A cartoon is a semi-editorial expression, and a powerful method of reaching public opinion, because ridicule and sarcasm are vividly presented to the eye. Both weapons are enormously effective on the stump, and there is no reason why the press should be deprived of their use. In fact, such a bill is a distinct effort to muzzle the press, and is an infringement of its constitutional powers."

As far as I have been able to determine, Weakly's proposal did not make it into the final bill. The Act (#171, § 11) did require cartoons expressing an opinion on any candidate or election issue to include "upon its face" the name of the newspaper's owner or the chief executive of its corporation.

"The Light that Must Not Fail" by Harry Murphy ca. May 5, 1917

U.S. entry into World War I opened the doors for government censorship of newspapers, and not just for their cartoons.

The Espionage Act of 1917 made it a crime to publish with intent to interfere with the operation or success of the armed forces of the United States or to promote the success of its enemies during wartime; to cause or attempt to cause insubordination, disloyalty, mutiny, refusal of duty, in the military or naval forces of the United States; or to willfully obstruct military recruiting or enlistment.  The Act also gave the Postmaster General authority to impound publications that he determined to be in violation of the Act.

"That Wooden One" by Nelson Harding in Brooklyn Daily Eagle, May 5, 1917

The U.S. was drawn into Europe's war due in part to the sinking of the R.M.S. Lusitania by a German U-boat. Nelson Harding, in a single-column cartoon on the Brooklyn Eagle's front page, turned the incident back against advocates for press censorship.

"Is This Somewhere in Germany or Somewhere in America" by Beaumont Fairbank in Brooklyn Sunday Eagle, May 5, 1918

In the same newspaper on the same day, Beaumont Fairbank drew his cartoon in support of an amendment to the 1917 Espionage Act by Sen. Henry Cabot Lodge (R-MA) stating, 

"The use of the mails should not be permitted to any newspaper, magazine, periodical, circulars or pamphlets which are printed in whole or in part in the German language." 

Fairbank was by no means alone in advocating governmental censorship of the foreign language press. While that amendment had failed to be included in the final bill, local officials outlawed German-language newspapers in several cities in New Jersey and Long Island.

"Wenn Uns Jetzt Unsere Vorväter Sehen Könnten" by John Lenz in Vorbote, Chicago, Oct. 31, 1917

Protest against this censorship was almost exclusively limited to the foreign language newspapers themselves. The banner behind Congress in John Lenz's cartoon translates to "Freedom of Speech, Press Freedom, Right of Assembly." The rolled parchments beneath George Washington represent the Constitution and First Amendment.

"O Sorry Plight" by Arthur Young in Masses, New York, September, 1917

The Creel Commission also employed the U.S. Post Office to censor publication of material counter to the official line. Art Young's cartoon above appeared in the September issue of  the marxist, antiwar Masses after Burleson's USPS had declared the August issue "unmailable under the Act of June 15, 1917."

"A Convenient Perch" by Ted Brown in Chicago Daily News, May, 1918

If Art Young expected other publications to rally in solidarity with Masses, he would be sadly mistaken. The Committee on Public Information headed by George Creel created a Bureau of Cartoons, which produced a weekly bulletin for cartoonists to direct their attention to matters the Wilson administration wanted them to draw about. By and large, cartoonists and their publishers fell right in line.

Masses ceased publication after its November/December issue.

"It's Nothing Important" by Bill Sanders in Milwaukee Journal, Dec. 20, 1972

Jumping ahead over half a century, President Richard Nixon tried very hard to force newsmedia to slant the news the way he wanted it reported. His administration enlisted the Federal Communications Commission to pressure television networks, cut funding to public broadcasting, and took newspapers to court. He was stymied, however, without a cooperative Congress or courts.

Instead, his communications team went on to found Fox News.

"Ask Me Anything" by Pat Oliphant in Denver Post, Nov. 15, 1973

In the meantime, we learned that President Richard Nixon kept an "enemies list" of critics of his administration, including many journalists. Nixon had always had a testy relationship with the media well before being elected president. As the Watergate scandal unfolded, it was revealed that he used the Justice Department, FBI, and Internal Revenue Service to open investigations against individuals on that list — although at least he never barred Jack Anderson, Daniel Schorr, or Mary McGrory from White House press briefings. 

for Bergetoons blog, August, 2018

There has been no assault on the media and the facts to rival the Absolutely Corrupt Donald Trump Regime's campaign to quash any reportage that doesn't fawn upon Dear Misleader. The two terms of his presidency have seen government websites erased, responsible reporters banned first from the Pentagon and now the White House, and weaponization against the media of both the Justice Department and the Federal Communications Commission, this time with general compliance on the part of Congress and the Supreme Court.

for Q Syndicate, February, 2025

Unless approved by Trump himself, it's all just fake news.

"They give me only bad publicity, press. I mean, they’re getting a license. I would think maybe their license should be taken away, ... That’s all they do. If you go back, I guess they haven’t had a conservative on in years or something, somebody said. But when you go back, take a look, all they do is hit Trump. They're giving me all this bad press, and they're getting a license. When you have a network and they have evening shows and all they do is hit Trump, that's all they do — that license, they're not allowed to do that!" — Donald Joffrey Trump, September 16, 2025

Oliphant's Veeps

"Promises, Promises" by Pat Oliphant in Denver Post, April 1968

How many vice presidents do you count in the above cartoon?

I recently mused that since "Oliphant's Presidents" has already been done (you can buy the book at amazon), I could have commemorated Pat Oliphant's passing by collecting his Vice Presidents. Well, his career spanned several of them, so here they are.

"Click" by Pat Oliphant in Denver Post, October, 1968

Lyndon Johnson picked Hubert Humphrey as his running mate in 1964 to shore up his support with the liberal wing of the Democratic Party. To Baby Boomers too young to remember the Minnesotan speaking out on behalf of Black Americans' civil rights in 1948, however, Humphrey came to be seen as errand boy for the man sending that generation to fight and die in a far away forever war in southeast Asia.

Running for president in LBJ's place after Johnson withdrew from the race, Humphrey found it difficult to distance himself from the administration's unpopular war while promising to continue advancing its Great Society ideals.

Of course, Johnson qualifies as a former Vice President in this cartoon, too. I suppose it is possible that Aussie Oliphant penned a cartoon of LBJ sometime before November of 1963; John Kennedy's Vice President could well have said or done something to catch the attention of the Adelaide editorial pages.

"Our Earth Contact, Spiro, Is Pushing for a Landing Here by 1986" by Pat Oliphant in Denver Post, September 1969

Humphrey lost the 1968 election to Richard Nixon, whose first Vice President, Spiro Agnew, served as the new administration's attack dog, speaking out against the media, liberals, antiwar activists, and the nattering nabobs of negativism.

Oliphant has some fun with one of Agnew's less controversial pronouncements in this cartoon, just two months after the first manned landing on the moon.

There has not, in case anybody is wondering, been a manned mission to Mars as of this writing; but NASA landed a craft on the Red Planet ten years before Mr. Agnew predicted.

Agnew was easily the most caricaturable of the Veeps we're looking at today — at least of the ones who never got promoted to the top job — so five versions of him show up in Oliphant's single-panel cartoon.

Did you remember to count Nixon as a former Veep at the top of this post?

"The Lone Ranger" by Pat Oliphant in Denver Post, May 1974

Of course you did.

Less than nine months into Richard Nixon's second term, Agnew pled no contest to charges of bribery  and resigned the Vice Presidency, bringing about the first exercise of the 25th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Passed and ratified after JFK's assassination, it provided a mechanism to fill a vice presidential vacancy.

Gerald Ford was quickly named and confirmed as Agnew's replacement at a time when the President had some legal problems of his own. Yet, while Agnew cartoons were instantly recognizable, six months into Ford's vice presidency Oliphant still found it necessary to write Ford's name on his chest.

"I'd Like You to Meet Our New Vice-President" by Pat Oliphant in Denver Post, December 1974

No such problem with Nelson Rockefeller, the former Governor of New York who had run for the presidency in 1960, 1964, and 1968.

He did not make a lasting impression as Ford's second in command, however. Not long ago, contestants on Jeopardy! needed to come up with the name of the vice president who followed Gerald Ford, and none of the three knew who it was.

I'm sure my very intelligent readership had no problem spotting him in the cartoon at the top of today's post.

"Ah Plan a Highly Important Staff Role" by Pat Oliphant in Denver Post, January 1977

The vice presidency is notoriously a thankless make-work job. John Nance Garner likened it to a bucket of warm spit, or something that rhymed with it. Thomas Marshall joked about two brothers, one of whom went to sea while the other was elected Vice President, and neither was heard from again. Julia Louis-Dreyfus's Selina Meyers in Veep was a character study in constant frustration and humiliation.

Jimmy Carter actually followed through with his promise to give Walter Mondale a substantial policy role in his administration. Mondale, the first vice president to have an office inside the White House, was Carter's adviser and trouble-shooter, the Georgian's conduit to Capitol Hill Democrats.

"There Is No Truth Whatever in the Rumor" by Pat Oliphant, October 10, 1988

There was nothing fair about that purse Oliphant always drew with Vice President George Herbert Walker Bush — Oliphant went further than almost any other mainstream editorial cartoonist in exploiting Bush's so-called Wimp Factor.

Having criticized Ronald Reagan's "voodoo economics" when Bush was a rival for the Republican presidential nomination in 1980, Bush served as a major cheerleader for Reaganomics and the rest of that administration's policies. Behind the scenes, Bush continued the Mondale model of the vice presidency: an experienced advisor who didn't seek credit for administration successes. By the same token, he also avoided the limelight during the Iran-Contra scandal.

The purse, and the Wimp Factor, disappeared once Bush as President dispatched troops to overthrow the government of Panama.

"How Come Is It" by Pat Oliphant, January 9, 1992

Young and handsome J. Danforth Quayle presented cartoonists with a real caricaturing challenge, which Oliphant answered by drawing him as a child. The vice presidency didn't lend Quayle much opportunity to dispel the cartoonists' depiction of him as a callow, inexperienced goofball; attempting to correct a schoolboy's flawless spelling of "potato" didn't help him.

It was a case of peaking too soon; he might have been taken more seriously after a few more years gave him a face fit for presidential central casting. I wouldn't have recognized him in the second pew at Dick Cheney's funeral over three decades later if he hadn't been sitting next to his wife.

"Where Do We Put Mr. Gore" by Pat Oliphant, November 8, 1993

Oliphant leaned into Al Gore's wooden reputation here, a product of the Vice President's extremely careful, measured, parsed, and deliberate speaking style. If Dan Quayle came off as a not-too-bright schoolboy skating by on his looks, Al Gore could have been the guidance counselor patiently explaining the importance of responsible life choices to a school assembly full of Quayles.

"The Energy Show" by Pat Oliphant, May 1, 2001

Dick Cheney was a completely different animal than any previous Vice President. Oliphant consistently portrayed him as the real power behind a frat boy President who got the job on the strength of having been a legacy student who made it to graduation because Dad's name was on a wing of the administration building.

Chief of Staff for President Ford, Congressman from Wyoming, and Defense Secretary under Bush the Elder, Cheney was more recently Chair of the Halliburton Corporation, a multinational oil service conglomerate. Tapped to find Bush the Younger a running mate in 2000, he found one in the mirror.

"I'm Smilin' Joe Biden and I'm Running for President" by Pat Oliphant, January 23, 2013

A commenter at Daily Cartoonist regretted that Pat Oliphant had never drawn Joe Biden. True, Oliphant's eyesight had failed him by the time Biden won the presidency; but he had drawn Biden as Vice President (and as Senator).

Which is where this Graphical History Tour must wrap things up. I know of no Oliphant cartoons of Mike Pence or Kamala Harris, and it's highly unlikely that he ever drew J.D. Vance.

On the other hand, I could have included cartoons he drew of former Vice Presidents Thomas Jefferson and Harry Truman, and there is probably one of Teddy Roosevelt somewhere along the line. But this post is already long enough.

And I could never be certain that I hadn't missed a cartoon featuring William Rufus Devane King or Charles Curtis.

This Week's Sneak Peek

My tribute to the great editorial cartoonist Pat Oliphant, who passed away a week ago, was posted here last year, so I didn't come up with another one for my latest Graphical History Tour. 

Several of my colleagues who actually got to meet him have put out wonderful remembrances of him. I have no such story to tell; one of my greatest regrets in life is and will forever be that I missed the convention of the Association of American Editorial Cartoonists in Salt Lake City at which he was a featured presenter. (I had been hired for a wedding that weekend, and it turned out that all the couple wanted me for was to start and stop a fucking CD.)

Since today is the 57th anniversary of the first manned landing on the moon, here's a Pat Oliphant cartoon from the 1960's I came across in a 1972 civics textbook, America's Political System: People/Government/Policies by Woll and Binstock.

The book is peppered with several editorial cartoons in every chapter, brightening up a book that otherwise would be 790 pages of dry, gray text. What a pity that so few newspaper publishers see the value of illustrated commentary any more. 

(Okay, so cutting out the cartoons would probably have reduced the textbook by ten to fifteen pages...)

What's the News Across the Nation?

The spineless cancelation of Jimmy Kimmel by ABC has gotten a lot of attention this week. Almost lost in the hubbub has been this dark warning from Premier Donald Berzelius Trump on Air Force One on Wednesday:

"They give me only bad publicity, press. I mean, they’re getting a license. I would think maybe their license should be taken away, ... That’s all they do. If you go back, I guess they haven’t had a conservative on in years or something, somebody said. But when you go back, take a look, all they do is hit Trump. They're giving me all this bad press, and they're getting a license. When you have a network and they have evening shows and all they do is hit Trump, that's all they do — that license, they're not allowed to do that!"

"We Hear That You Have the Ridiculous Idea That Freedom of the Press Includes the Right to Criticize Our Administration" by Bill Sanders in Milwaukee Journal, Nov. 18, 1969

This week's Graphical History Tour makes an emergency landing at a presidency not so long ago to some of us.

President Richard M. Nixon had a notoriously testy relationship with news media, dating back to his running for Vice President with Dwight Eisenhower. Upon losing the race for Governor of California in 1962, he blamed the press, growling "You won't have Dick Nixon to kick around any more!"

"You Have Just Heard a Speech by the President of the United States" by Herbert Block in Washington Post, Nov. 16, 1969

But of course, he was elected President in 1968, and very quickly determined to bringing news media to heel. 

In November of 1969, Nixon gave a televised speech about the Vietnam War. His Chair of the Federal Communications Commission, Dean Burch demanded transcripts from the three television networks (ABC, CBS, and NBC) of all their commentaries on the address. Days later, Vice President Spiro Agnew set out on a speaking tour to criticize the media.

"Anybody Else, Boss?" by Frank Miller in Des Moines Register, Nov. 18, 1969

"One Federal Communications Commissioner considers the power of the networks to equal that of local, state and federal governments combined. Certainly, it represents a concentration of power over American public opinion unknown in history. 

"What do Americans know of the men who wield this power? Of the men who produce and direct the network news, the nation knows practically nothing. Of the commentators, most Americans know little, other than that they reflect an urbane and assured presence, seemingly well-informed on every important matter. 

"Well, We Don't Have Nixon to Kick Around Any More" by Don Wright in Miami News, Nov. 21, 1969

 "We do know that, to a man, these commentators and producers live and work in the geographical and intellectual confines of Washington, D.C., or New York City."

"We Feel the Public Is Getting All the Views It Needs" by Herbert Block in Washington Post, Sept. 25, 1970

Agnew protested that "I am not calling for government censorship," but his speeches raised the prospect of denying broadcasting licenses to broadcast outlets that leaned left, or were, in the words written for him by Patrick Buchanan, "the nattering nabobs of negativism."

"It's Nothing Important" by Bill Sanders in Milwaukee Journal, Dec. 20, 1972

White House Director of Communications Herbert Klein was explicit: “You in TV should examine yourself or the government will come in.”

Lest you think, however, that President Nixon was just like Dear Leader For Life Trump, please note that there were important differences between then and now.

Uncaptioned by Bill Mauldin in Chicago Sun Times, 1972

We have not gotten to the point where journalists are getting thrown in jail for not revealing their sources. Largely because newspapers and TV are pulling their punches when it comes to investigative journalism.

"Ask Me Anything" by Pat Oliphant in Denver Post, December 15, 1973

And asking embarrassing questions doesn't get you put on the president's Enemies List. Instead, you show up at the press room to find that your seat has been taken by the dude from the White Guys Grievance Podcast Dot Com.

"We're Considering Him for a High Position" by Herbert Block in Washington Post, Nov. 12, 1971

Herblock made a clever little play on words here, but when it comes to high positions nowadays, being a right-wing spokesflack on Fox Noise is plenty qualification enough to head a cabinet department in the line of succession to the presidency itself.

An Oliphant Gallery

If you happen to be in Washington D.C. looking for something worthwhile to do, "A Savage Art" The Life & Cartoons of Pat Oliphant" premieres today at the DC/DOX'25 film festival. Bill Banowsky's documentary examines Oliphant's career through interviews with the cartoonist himself, his family, and colleagues. We are told that the documentary also features several of his cartoons.

Pat Oliphant in Denver Post, ca., Feb. 12, 1966

I can't be there (and if the AAEC convention organizers get permission to screen it at our convention in Baltimore in September, I'm afraid it appears unlikely that I'll be able to be there, either), so instead, today's Graphical History Tour highlights some of Oliphant's amazing work. 

A collection of my favorite Oliphant cartoons would require a sequel post or seven, so I have limited my choices to cartoons that do not include caricatures of actual persons. I would like to focus on the artistry that inspired so many cartoonists of my generation to mimic his style.

by Pat Oliphant in Denver Post, March 3, 1970

Compare his 1966 depiction of Vietnam, atop this post, with this one four years later. The sarcasm is the same, but the tone is entirely different.

Not only is the setting much darker, the clean-shaven kids in the first cartoon have been replaced by grizzled, war-weary adults, even though the soldiers would be about the same age in either cartoon. (The best and brightest guys in the white shirts and skinny ties are gone entirely in the 1970 cartoon.)

by Pat Oliphant  in Denver Post, April 18, 1972

Here Oliphant demonstrates an adeptness in portraying the ravages of age on his cartoon character as a parallel with the ravages of war on her country. The forty years between France reclaiming Indochina from its (brief) Japanese occupation after World War II to North Vietnam's conquest of the South three years after Oliphant drew this cartoon wear heavily on her, successive liberators notwithstanding.

By Pat Oliphant in Washington Star, Nov. 6, 1980

Here’s a theme Oliphant revisited more than once, but this is his most impressive depiction of the American Electoral Machine as something massive, complex, and somewhat antiquated. Its engines, gears, fly wheels, pistons, and furnace occupy almost every square millimeter of the frame, save for the exhausted Uncle Sam dwarfed by it in the lower right corner. You can almost feel the heat and smell the coal, soot, and metal in the air.

By Pat Oliphant for Universal Press Syndicate, March 22, 1982

Ronald Reagan, complaining about TV news reporting of the recession early in his presidency, griped, "Is it news that some fellow out in South Succotash who has just been laid off should be interviewed nationwide?" Pat Oliphant took that dismissive, elitist remark and created this excellent cartoon. 

Neatly divided by the railroad, we have dirty, downtrodden, and darkly satanic South Succotash on the wrong side of the tracks. Layoffs and welfare frauds (a longtime Republican byword) combine to outnumber the population. You wouldn't want to live there.

The White House sits perched high on the hills of North Succotash, home to a pleasant golf course, and lovely trees. Its 500 residents pull down millions yet somehow pay no taxes.

And it all fits in one 3-by-5 panel. No animated panorama. Not even color.

By Pat Oliphant for Universal Press Syndicate, Feb. 24, 1983

Upwind of South Succotash, Oliphant’s Burfordville, named for one of Ronald Reagan’s Environmental Protection Agency administrators (incidentally also the mother of a current Supreme Court Justice), cannot possibly exist in the real world. But Oliphant has rendered it in such rich detail that you would swear that it must be real. 

By Pat Oliphant for Universal Press Syndicate, June 6, 1983

A horse cannot roll around on the ground convulsed with laughter, but if it could, this is exactly what it would look like.

Credit the portion of Oliphant's career living out West perhaps. He is a master at drawing — and sculpting — horses, and you can tell how much more loving care he puts into drawing horses than, say, cats. For years, I struggled to depict horses that appeared to be capable of motion; I credit Pat Oliphant as a reference point for every horse I have drawn successfully.

Now, I would have liked to include some more recent cartoons in this discussion, but I had a problem finding examples of superior draftsmanship that didn't include caricatures. So compare this cartoon from 2001...

by Pat Oliphant for Universal Press Syndicate, Feb. 6, 2001

...with a similarly themed cartoon from 1980:

by Pat Oliphant in Washington Star, Oct. 30, 1980

Both cartoons convey the wind and chill, dampness and dreariness outside their respective pawn shops. The earlier one, however, is meticulously rendered, whereas the later one appears rushed and cursory. The elevated perspective of "Lee Iacocca Sent Us" is visually arresting in a way that the Presidential Seal cartoon isn't.

Of course, there's no point in drawing the same cartoon twice, right?

Oliphant's eyesight has betrayed him these days, and there could be some of that showing up by 2001. His having rejected the use of duoshade since 1980 also makes a difference; yet I would point out that the South Succotash, Burfordville, and Western character cartoons are all drawn without it.

With that, I leave you to draw your own conclusions. 

...It Tolls for Thieu

"American Monument in Southeast Asia" by Frank Miller in Des Moines Register, March 20, 1975

Two weeks ago, our Graphical History Tour visited southeast Asia for the 50th anniversary of the fall of Phnom Penh to the communist Khmer Rouge. Today, we return for Part Thieu.

"We're Gettin' Out of Here" by Dave Engelhardt in St. Louis Post-Dispatch, April 1, 1975

North Vietnam launched a full-scale invasion of the South in January, 1975, its People's Army of Vietnam (PAVN) and the Viet Cong (properly, the National Liberation Front of South Vietnam)  racking up a string of victories. As it became crystal clear that the U.S. Calvary was not going to ride in to save the day, South Vietnamese President Nguyễn Văn Thiệu pulled back the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN) for a last-ditch, desperate bid to protect his capital, then known as Saigon.

"We Would Be Much Braver Than This" by Pat Oliphant in Washington [DC] Star, ca. Apr. 3, 1975

ARVN’s hurried retreat left  military hardware abandoned in its wake, and ran through the panicked evacuation of civilians. Anyone with any connection to civilian government or the U.S. military fled in fear for their lives, with whatever they could carry.

The Chicago Tribune reported isolated instances of Americans in the path of the retreat being robbed by ARVN soldiers. The report quoted an anonymous Westerner that, "The South Vietnamese soldier feels he has been stabbed in the back by the Americans. He feels that he has had to suffer because of the war, but Americans come and go in Vietnam, brandishing their dollars, and he feels they owe him something, anything."

by Jeff MacNelly in Richmond [VA] News-Leader, ca. Mar. 30, 1975 

That report quoted an American teacher in Saigon: "The Vietnamese people are convinced that America has betrayed them. They believe we led them into the battle, then ran away and left them to fight. They have very little respect for us as a people."

On the other hand, a Vietnamese teacher at a Catholic school told the same reporter, "Americans have a tremendous guilt complex about what they have done in our country, the mistakes they have made, and now they feel everybody here hates them for it. Actually, the Vietnamese people don't hate the Americans, they just don't understand them. But who does?"

"Selling It to Congress Won't Be Easy" by Wayne Stayskal in Chicago Tribune, April 13, 1975

Acknowledging that the United States still had an obligation to the people who had relied on American promises, the Ford Administration opened the doors to as many Cambodian and South Vietnamese refugees as wanted to come to the U.S. 

In a joint effort, the U.S. military and Immigration and Naturalization Services (predecessor to today's ICE) scrambled to accommodate an estimated 120,000 refugees.

"Can the Congress Be So Calloused" by Hugh Haynie in Louisville Courier-Journal, April 16, 1975

The airlift started with Cambodian and Vietnamese children — mostly given up by terrified parents — arriving a Camp Pendleton, California, to be adopted by American parents. Then came whole families, sponsored by religious congregations and civic groups until they could make a living for themselves in a country where nobody spoke their language.

Sponsoring agencies had to commit to finding housing and jobs for the refugees, most of whom arrived with little more than the clothes on their backs, whatever their circumstances might have been back home.

"There Goes the Old Neighborhood" by Dick Locher in Chicago Tribune, May 11, 1975

The cost of caring for the refugees while they were in temporary camps awaiting resettlement was predicted to cost $500 million (in 1975 dollars, or nearly $3 billion today). Inevitably, Americans being Americans, resistance and resentment soon arose to the wave of  strangers who would supposedly — this may sound familiar — eat the neighborhood dogs and the cats. 

U.S. News & World Report described refugees as "a motley mixture, from professors to bar girls." Washington Post Columnist Nicholas von Hoffman accused some of being "the pimps, madams, and hijackers of American food and material" and "the torturers from Gen. Thieu's political police."

"Thank God It's All Thieu's Fault" by Tom Curtis in Milwaukee Sentinel, April 3, 1975

Nguyễn Văn Thiệu had been President of South Vietnam since 1967. What opposition there was to his rule was unable to unite around any rival leader during elections in 1971.

Refugees fleeing south as the communists advanced "are voting with their feet," wrote National Observer columnist James M. Perry. "Trouble is, there is no one for them to elect. The army is in panic, the Thieu regime is broken, and Thieu himself is finally exposed as the pusillanimous fraud he has always been."

by David E. Seavey in National Observer, Washington DC, April 12, 1975

Thiệu resigned the presidency on April 22 in a rambling speech in which he revealed that to get him to sign the 1973 Paris Peace Accord, then-President Richard Nixon had promised that the U.S. military would return if the peace failed. Tearfully blaming the U.S. for his plight, he told his nation, "I never thought that a man like Mr. Secretary of State Kissinger would deliver our people to such a disastrous fate. ... If the Americans don't want to support us any more, let them go, get out! Let them forget their humanitarian promises!"

"King Rat" by Paul Szep in Boston Globe, April 22, 1975

Thiệu turned the government over to his ailing 72-year-old Vice President, Trần Văn Hương, who then resigned, succeeded by ARVN General Dương Văn Minh, 59. A leader of the 1963 coup that overthrew Ngô Đình Diệm, "Big Minh" had nevertheless earned a reputation for indecision.

Three days after ascending to the presidency, with PAVN advancing into Saigon and the U.S. hastily evacuating its embassy, Minh ordered ARVN to lay down its arms and surrendered to North Vietnam. Having offered no resistance to the victorious North, he was allowed to retire in peace, but eventually left for France.

"Will the Last One Out..." by Wayne Stayskal in Chicago Tribune, April 27, 1975

Thiệu retired to the United States, living out his days here in obscurity. He died at age 78 in Boston, Massachusetts on September 29, 2001 after suffering a stroke.