Mark Moyar

And I said, the Pentagon Papers are part of this because clearly people are being lied to.

Now, I do think it's exaggerating.

Some people say, well,

up until vietnam america trusts his leaders well if you actually go back and look at your history americans have always had a certain suspicion of our leaders you know going back to uh you know george iii so so i don't think it's quite the case that we just you know never thought there are you know leaders with a lot i mean if you look in the early republic too they're flinging all sorts of mud and you know saying how the other sides are are all a bunch of scoundrels so

I think it goes in cycles, too.

I mean, yes, in the 90s, and that's partly what, you know, when you get to the first Gulf War, there is, you know, a lot of people think, OK, well, yes, there are weapons of mass destruction.

And they seem to know what they're doing.

But again, obviously, that turned out to be huge.

And so now we're back in one of those periods of deep distrust.

and yeah i'm not sure what gets you out i mean i think it could be a president who you know i think that's one of ronald reagan's big accomplishments is that he was the kind of person who could help restore a certain degree of trust in the government um and i don't think we've really had a figure since then in this country who's been able to do that

Yes, I think, and certainly there's been great distrust in this country, and actually Vietnam really saw, I think probably the first time you had very deep distrust of the media among some parts, because it clearly became evident that the media was

increasingly monolithic ideology and clearly left of center.

And so conservatives complained for a long time.

There really actually wasn't much recourse.

And when you have Fox News and the Internet, it's actually changed things a lot because people have other sources of news to go to.

And she thinks important.

But, yeah, I mean, it is unfortunate.

And I think.

uh but we i think in this country gave up a while ago and hoping for something more impartial which is the bbc still strives to to be but um you know rlr media here uh pretty much is either left or right um so and i always tell students you want to listen to both to make sure you're getting information but a lot of people only listen to the side they agree with which isn't healthy

I mean, you do have a good number of conspiracies before Vietnam on the political right in terms of, although what was sometimes seen as communist conspiracies actually have been validated to have been true.