Vietnam was a country divided in two by communism in the North and capitalism in the South. The Vietnam War, fought between 1959 and 1975, was essentially a struggle by northern nationalists to unify the nation under a communist government. This was a long-standing conflict between the two sides that had lasted for years. It was not until 1959 that the United States intervened, alongside the South Vietnamese, to stop the spread of communism. It was a war that failed to capture the hearts and minds of the American people because it was seen as a war that the American military could not win and therefore the government lost the people's support for the war . This ultimately led to the withdrawal of the US military from Vietnam. Some people, such as government and military officials, have attributed this loss of popular media support to the fact that this was the first televised war that allowed the American people to experience firsthand the atrocities of war, while others Some argue that the media, with its focus on television, could not have single-handedly diverted a nation from war. The debate over why America lost is still hotly debated today, not only because it is still on the minds of the living, but also because of the legacy it left behind that continues today. The guilty media thesis is the one that blames the media for America's loss. war; It was primarily government and military officials who took this view, and they insisted that the war was "lost in the living rooms of America, not on the battlefields of Vietnam." It was the first televised war ever fought with technological advances facilitating instantaneous transmission of information. Reporting on the conflict showed that the brutality of the war turned people against it in the middle of the newspaper......, The “Uncensored War” The Media and Vietnam, (Los Angeles, 1989), p. . 106 Carruthers, Media, p. 113Clarence R. Wyatt, Paper Soldiers: The American Press and the Vietnam War, (Chicago, 1995) p.81David Culbert, “Television's Vietnam and Historical Revisionism in the United States”, Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television, Vol.8 , No. 3 (1988), pp. 259 - 260Hallin, uncensored, p.107Hallin, uncensored, pp 107 - 108Carruthers, Media, p. 111 “Tet Offensive”, The History Channel website, http://www.history.com/topics/tet-offensive, accessed January 2, 2014Culbert, Televisions Vietnam, p. 255Bruce Southhard, quoted in David Culbert, 'Television's Vietnam and Historical Revisionism in the United States', Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television, Vol.8, No. 3 (1988), pp. 257 - 256Bonior, Champlin, Kolly, Vietnam Veteran, pp. 4 - 5