Moderated by Mr. Williams, the panelists discussed the topic, “The Media and the Role of Public Opinion.” Topics included Vietnam as the first televised war, the changing nature of the war over several years, and reporting techniques on the battlefield and in airplanes. They related many of their personal experiences in Vietnam and Cambodia. They addressed issues of the power of television and whether the news coverage destroyed the Defense Department ‘lying machine,’ or helped lose the war by reporting only the bad news. The panelists answered written questions from audience members. Ms. Fitzgerald won the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award for Fire in the Lake: The Vietnamese and the Americans in Vietnam.

“Vietnam and the Presidency” was the first national conference sponsored by all the presidential libraries, from Hoover to Clinton, and the National Archives. Leading historians, key policymakers of the era, and journalists who covered the war examined the antecedents of the war, presidential decision-making, public opinion, lessons learned, and the influence of the Vietnam experience on subsequent U.S. foreign policy.