Selling "Operation Passage to Freedom": Dr. Thomas Dooley and the Religious Overtones of Early American Involvement in Vietnam
Vietnam was partitioned at the 17th parallel on 21 July 1954 with the signing of the Geneva Accords. During the following three hundred days, between 600,000 and one million Vietnamese civilians traveled from North Vietnam to South Vietnam. Three hundred thousand of these individuals were transported in the United States Navy's evacuation efforts, dubbed Operation Passage to Freedom. The Navy recognized the propaganda value of the evacuation from areas under communist control, but American audiences did not respond to the coverage afforded to the American operation. In 1956, a year after the completion of the evacuation, Dr. Thomas Dooley released Deliver Us from Evil, a first-hand account of his own experiences in Vietnam during the evacuation. This book enjoyed literary success and became a bestseller. This study explores the reasons Dooley enjoyed propagandistic success while other pieces of propaganda failed to sustain American interest.
Thomas Dooley, Vietnam, Operation Passage to Freedom, refugees, propaganda
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