Tim O’Brien’s The Things They Carried, Daniel Ellsberg,...

Tim O’Brien’s The Things They Carried, Daniel Ellsberg, and the Vietnam War Daniel Ellsberg once believed in the need to contain Communism, in America’s military supremacy, and in the sanctity of those who governed America’s democratic institutions, yet decades of American involvement in Vietnam changed these beliefs for him. The nature of the Vietnam War forced Ellsberg to revise his earlier faith in America’s ability to win any war and his faith in the trustworthiness of America’s leaders. By 1971, this former Defense Department official had so completely altered his thinking that he leaked classified documents to the press in order to encourage public scrutiny of American foreign policy decisions in Vietnam and of the integrity of†¦show more content†¦Like most people who came of age in the mid-40’s and 50’s, his perceptions of his country and its role in the world were profoundly shaped by World War II and by the resulting Cold War against Communism (Schrag 30-31). The 50’s and early 60’s w ere an â€Å"age of consensus† when the American experience of World War II and the Cold War had so shaped American cultural assumptions that the country, on the whole, became â€Å"confident to the verge of complacency about the perfectibility of American society [and] anxious to the point of paranoia about the threat of Communism† (Hodgson 98, 104). Most Americans during this time of â€Å"liberal consensus† agreed that Communism threatened cherished democratic institutions and American capitalism. They thus believed that fighting Communism was necessary, and with the victories of World War II still fresh in their minds, they were sure that their nation was strong enough to fight Communism and win. â€Å"Few of them doubted the essential goodness and strength of American society† (Hodgson 98) or the goodness and strength of the government officials that led them toward their goal of containing Communism. In America’s Longest War: the United States and Vietnam, 1950-1975, George C. Herring explains how this widely perceived need to contain Communism formed the basis of American foreign policy in Vietnam for over two decades (xi). Herring argues that even though various administrations cameShow MoreRelatedThe Things They Carried By Tim O Brien2000 Words   |  8 PagesDisorder, destruction, and death became the description for the Vietnam War. This war affected the soldiers more than any other war, even before they would ever go. As American soldiers left to fight the disorderly and deathly war, Americans were going through one of the most confusing time periods in American history: families being split by the draft, the fear of the communist domino theory, and the search for a new soldier to find oneself in the midst of all the chaos. The invention of the television