News Expert 456: PBS

News Expert 456: PBS
PBS No doubt from weak homework, not bias, the documentary understates U.S. buildup in Vietnam: "By the end of Humphrey’s first year as vice president, there were almost 200,000 American troops" in Vietnam, and "by December of 1967 there were nearly 400,000 American troops in Southeast Asia." Sources faulty on other points but better than PBS cite higher figures earlier. Robert McNamara’s Nov. 30, 1965 memo to President Lyndon Johnson stated that by year-end (three weeks before Humphrey’s V.P. anniversary), 220,000 U.S. troops would be in-country. Historian Robert Leckie wrote in June 1967 that 440,000 were in Vietnam and enough in Thailand and the Seventh Fleet to put the total "in Southeast Asia" above 500,000.