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Introduction to the Four Proxy Wars
The Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union began shortly after World War II came to a close. The war had catapulted the two countries to global superpower status, and their struggle to control the newly freed Nazi-occupied territories would escalate into a conflict of worldwide proportions as each state attempted to promote its political ideology and interests, and spread its influence.
Broadly, the first phase of the Cold War can be defined as containment, a policy adopted in 1947 by President Harry S. Truman aimed at containing communism to the Soviet Union and the Eastern Bloc.6 In an address to Congress, Truman defined containment as a policy “to help free peoples to maintain their free institutions and their national integrity against aggressive movements that seek to impose upon them totalitarian regimes.”7 The era of containment, occurring as European nations relinquished control over their colonies, was marked by American attempts to stop the spread of communism through military intervention, most notably in Korea (1950-1953) and Vietnam (1965-1973). During this period, tensions between the two superpowers were high, and the world held its breath as two countries came close to nuclear war during the October 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis.8 After years of tension and fear, efforts began in the early 1970s to de-escalate the conflict between the Soviet Union and the United States, a policy known as détente.9 The period of détente, which lasted through the presidencies of Nixon, Ford, and Carter, saw an expansion of trade between the two countries as well as agreements to reduce nuclear arms arsenals on both sides.10 Détente officially ended with the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in December 1979, and tensions between the two countries once again increased through the early 1980s under the Reagan administration and its aggressive anti-Soviet policies.11 In the late 1980s, Mikhail Gorbachev came to power in the Soviet Union and, in an attempt to save the crumbling state, implemented policies of openness (known as glasnost) and reform (perestroika).12 Ultimately, however, the Soviet Union collapsed in December 1991, finally marking the end of the long-lasting Cold War.
Although the United States and the Soviet Union were engaged in the political and ideological struggle of the Cold War for more than four decades, the conflict never reached the level of outright combat between the two superpowers. Despite the lack of direct fighting, the two powers battled for ideological dominance of the world by intervening in the politics and economies of other countries. Civil wars broke out across the globe, with one side receiving arms and support from the United States and the other side getting the same from the Soviet Union. In this way, American and Soviet weapons and money met on the battlefields of the world without the two powers ever directly waging war on one another.
As Soviet intelligence officer Nikolai Leonov put it, “The destiny of world confrontation between the United States and the Soviet Union, between Capitalism and Socialism, would be resolved in the Third World.”13 These conflicts became known as the Proxy Wars, or “Hot” Wars, of the Cold War. And while there were many proxy wars across the world in the Cold War period, this exhibition focuses in particular on the conflicts in Angola, Nicaragua, El Salvador, and Afghanistan and how each of these wars was covered in real time by PBS NewsHour predecessor programs, mainly The MacNeil/Lehrer Report and The MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour.
MacNeil/Lehrer Report and NewsHour Coverage
The proxy wars addressed in this exhibition were chosen not only because of the extensive attention paid to each by the NewsHour, but also because they represent how the Cold War impacted diverse areas across the globe and continues to play a part in the politics of today. These countries also were chosen to represent a variety of journalistic techniques and strategies employed by the MacNeil/Lehrer Report and NewsHour while covering these specific wars. The ability to score high-profile interviews is particularly on display during the proxy war coverage. Guests ranged from rebel leaders fighting in Afghanistan and Angola to the presidents of Nicaragua and El Salvador, with one NewsHour producer even going so far as to befriend the wife of Salvadoran President José Napoleón Duarte in order to secure an interview with him.14
These four conflicts also exemplify how the Report and the NewsHour approached covering wars both near and far. For El Salvador and Nicaragua, the proximity to the United States allowed the show to send correspondents into the field in these countries; in Angola and Afghanistan, conflicts that were inaccessible to NewsHour reporters, the show both utilized footage of outside journalists and secured representatives of those conflicts in the United States to be interviewed on air.
The Report and the NewsHour were uniquely positioned to cover these complex conflicts in a way that was both understandable to the public and did justice to the many nuances of war. While commercial network and cable news programs were driven by ratings and interrupted by advertisements, the Report and the NewsHour had the freedom to dedicate entire half-hour programs and lengthy segments of the hour-long show to unpacking the tangled web of history, cultures, economies, and policies at play in each of these countries. Time would prove critical to the program's success in covering the proxy wars. In control of how they spent each minute, the anchors ensured each guest was able to fully express their opinions, address critiques, and leave feeling as if they had been well represented. This format allowed regular appearances by experts, combatants, and high profile political leaders.
Coverage of each war varied depending on the nature of the conflict, the history of the region, and the extent of American involvement. Despite these differences, which are explored further below, several underlying themes run through the coverage of all four conflicts: the impact of the Vietnam War on American consciousness and policy, and the question of America's moral obligations to interfere –or not—in the outside world.
The Robert MacNeil Report, the first iteration of what is now the PBS NewsHour, began in October 1975, only months after the nation's exit from Vietnam, with America having failed to preserve a non-Communist South Vietnam. The war had been long, difficult, and unpopular; it cost more than 58,000 American lives, and by its end, most Americans believed that entering into the conflict had been a mistake.15 It was against this background that a war-scarred nation looked at the conflicts in Angola, Nicaragua, El Salvador, and Afghanistan. Across the board, fears were raised that American involvement in any of the conflicts could evolve into a “new Vietnam,” another taxing, uphill battle for the American people. Ironically, comparisons to Vietnam were especially strong in the coverage of Afghanistan, where the news anchors and political guests alike often related the Soviet Union's position in Afghanistan to that of the United States' in Vietnam.
Whether the United States had a moral obligation to interfere or stay neutral in the political crises of other countries was another common theme throughout the coverage of each conflict. Robert MacNeil, Jim Lehrer, and other correspondents pushed their guests—and the American people—to set the parameters of American morality and tolerance by forcing them to confront the ambiguities of war during a time when global conflicts often were painted by governments as simple good vs. evil affairs. In a time of global polarization, when one side would do nearly anything to stop the other, the NewsHour forced viewers to consider whether the human rights abuses of pro-U.S. governments should be overlooked in the name of stopping the spread of Soviet influence.
The proxy wars are presented in four sections in chronological order from the start date of each conflict. Each section begins with an essay presenting the historical context of the war, followed by an analysis of the coverage. Click on the embedded links to view the discussed segments.
