Profiles in ambiguity: how three 1960s American TV dramas “broached the unbroachable”—Vietnam

ABSTRACT

Although American prime-time TV in the 1960s witnessed an “eruption” of comedies and dramas with military or combat settings, series television, like big-screen Hollywood films, virtually never dealt with Vietnam, ostensibly because the topic was “too hot” or “toxic.” Yet three overlooked series of the period did engage the war, with relative levels of explicitness and critique: Route 66 (1960–64), The Lieutenant (1963–64), and I Spy (1965–68). This paper analyzes the ways each of these dramas represented the Vietnam War, probes the implicit and explicit ideological positions each show articulated (or avoided), and offers a more nuanced account of the historical and industrial context that shaped and constrained the treatment of Vietnam in American prime-time television storytelling.

KEYWORDS:

• Vietnam war
• American television
• the Sixties
• military drama
• Route 66
• The Lieutenant
• I Spy

Acknowledgments

The author extends sincere gratitude to the two reviewers of the manuscript, who offered extremely useful and pertinent comments. Sincere thanks also go out to Katie Gandhi for excavating the Norman Felton papers at the University of Iowa, to Debby Lazar for tracking down Marc Cushman and his I Spy archive, to Marc for generously providing access, and to Sue Stapleton for unearthing scripts and related materials therein.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. Fore, Perils of Patriotism, 212.

2. Hallin, “Vietnam on Television,” 2448.

3. The Star Trek episode “A Private Little War” (1968) is frequently posited as a story about Vietnam transposed to outer space. See, for example, Pearson and Davies, Star Trek and American Television, 178–179. H. Bruce Franklin argues that four episodes of the series broadcast between 1967 and 1969 chart a change in America’s, and the series’ stance on Vietnam, from pro- to anti-. See Franklin, “Vietnam, Star Trek, and the Real Future,” 90–107. Barney Rosenzweig, producer of Daniel Boone (1964–70) claimed to have instructed writers to portray the Revolutionary War as Vietnam in that series, “with the colonials as the Vietcong, and the English as the Americans.” See Gitlin, Inside Prime Time, 90.

4. Gitlin, Inside Prime Time, 227.

5. Gitlin, Inside Prime Time, 227. TW3 is discussed in depth in Hersey, “NBC’s That Was the Week That Was”; Laugh-in and Smothers Brothers are discussed insightfully in Bodroghkozy, Groove Tube.

6. MacDonald, Television and the Red Menace, 111–121; Barnouw, Tube of Plenty, 374. I consider the following series to constitute the military cycle:

• Comedies set in World War II: McHale’s Navy (1962–66), Mr. Roberts (1965–66) Broadside (1964–65), Hogan’s Heroes (1965–71).

• Comedies with contemporary settings: Ensign O’Toole (1962–63), Don’t Call me Charlie (1962–63), No Time for Sergeants (1964–65), Gomer Pyle (1964–69).

• Drama with a contemporary setting: The Lieutenant (1963–64).

• Dramas set in World War II: Combat! (1962–67), The Gallant Men (1962–63), Twelve O’Clock High (1964–67), The Wackiest Ship in the Army (1965–66), Convoy (1965), Jericho (1966), The Rat Patrol (1966–68), Garrison’s Gorillas (1967–68).

MacDonald’s version of the cycle includes series set during American Revolution, the frontier American west, and the sci-fi, but these shows exceed the generic boundaries, in my view.

7. The Kennedy administration took great pains to keep America’s involvement out of the public eye, and the war remained largely unknown to the citizenry until the Gulf of Tonkin incident in 1964. Lunch and Sperlich, “American Public Opinion and the War in Vietnam,” 29. Hallin (Uncensored War, 15) suggests that “Vietnam probably entered the consciousness of most Americans for the first time in Aug. 1964. Lyndon Johnson’s administration continued to downplay the expansion and potential scope of the war even after committing combat troops, passing off major escalation moves as a continuation of existing policies; see Hallin, Uncensored War, 59–101. By 1967 a majority of Americans thought the war was “a mistake” – and yet a majority also supported escalation, according to Lunch and Sperlich, “American Public Opinion,” 30.

8. The remakes were Twelve O’Clock High, Mister Roberts, and The Wackiest Ship in the Army. Combat! was created by Robert Pirosh, who wrote the features Hell is for Heroes and Battleground; all drew on Pirosh’s wartime experiences. Garrison’s Gorillas is often touted as being inspired by The Dirty Dozen (both depicted criminals fighting the Nazis), although it premiered just three months after the movie was released; the best-selling 1965 novel The Dirty Dozen may have influenced the series. Hogan’s Heroes resembled Stalag 17 enough that the authors of the play on which the feature was based brought a plagiarism suit against the comedy’s producers. See Royce, Hogan’s Heroes, 22–23.

9. MacDonald, Television and the Red Menace, vii, ix, 195; Barnouw, Tube of Plenty, 355; Kellner, Television and the Crisis of Democracy, 50.

10. Of the 17 series listed in note 6, only six lasted more than one season (some less than one). Of those, only Gomer Pyle was a top-ten hit during its run, at its best garnering a 27 Nielsen rating – meaning 73% of the TV-owning public did not tune in to the show. Only three other series, McHale’s Navy, Hogan’s Heroes, and The Rat Patrol made it into the top 20. Ratings are from Brooks and Marsh, Complete Directory, 1098–1101.

11. Mundey, American Militarism and Anti-Militarism in Popular Media.

12. Worland, “The Other Living-Room War,” 7.

13. Pierson, “The Long Fight,” 33.

14. See above 12. 13.

15. Shandley, Hogan’s Heroes.

16. The purported parallels between Hogan’s German brass and soldiers and Vietnam-era Pentagon and draft resisters are supported only by claims that 1960s viewers “could have,” or “would have had no trouble” making these connections – a huge and unsupported assumption. Anti-authoritarian tropes, reluctant recruits, and incompetent “brass” did not suddenly arise during Vietnam, but descended from the long tradition of Hollywood military comedies that mined those themes for more than a half-century before Hogan premiered. For an excellent overview, see Erickson, Military Comedy Films. Most curious of all, Shandley ignores the prime-time TV template for antiauthoritarian and even anti-military antics, The Phil Silvers Show (aka Sergeant Bilko, 1955–59), as well as McHale’s Navy (1962–66). See Mundey, “‘Bilko’s Bombers’,” 17–29.

17. See above 12. 4.

18. Newcomb and Hirsch, “Television as a Cultural Forum,” 566.

19. Laderman, “Small-Screen Insurgency,” 167–171.

20. For insightful discussions of the Vietnam vet in popular culture, see Jeffords, The Remasculinization of America and McClancy, “The Iconography of Violence.”

21. For more background on Route 66 see Alvey, “Wanderlust and Wire Wheels,” 143–164.

22. Watson, The Expanding Vista, 43.

23. Route 66, “Fifty Miles from Home,” original air date March 22 1963, written by Stirling Silliphant, directed by James Sheldon. Route 66: Complete Third Season. Dialogue is transcribed from the DVD. Air date is from Rosin, Route 66: The Television Series, 168.

24. “Semi-anthology” was a term used by industry trade papers to denote continuing character series that told anthology-style stories. See Alvey, “The Independents,” 150.

25. “Geeks” is obviously used here as a (rather bizarre) substitute for the racist slur “gooks.” I have been unable to determine whether this was written in the script, or changed during pre- or post-production to address objections by network censors or other parties. There is a cutaway to Willow when this line is spoken, so it is entirely possible that it was re-recorded and inserted during post-production. The relevant page in the script for this episode is missing in the extant copies that reside in both producer Herbert B. Leonard’s papers and writer-creator Silliphant’s papers at UCLA. Stirling Silliphant, “Fifty Miles From Home’, Final draft screenplay, February 12 1963(Rev. February 13 1963). Stirling Silliphant papers, Collection 1079, Box 12; Herbert B. Leonard papers, Collection PASC 29, Box 120.

26. Stirling Silliphant, telephone interview with the author, May 11 1987.

27. In many ways a successor to the “agrovilles” started by the French, Strategic Hamlets, which relocated peasants from their own villages to unfamiliar territory and expected them to defend it, proved to be ill-conceived, unworkable, and short-lived – and, as journalist/historian Stanley Karnow observes, rather than undermining the Viet Cong, often converted peasants into Viet Cong sympathizers. See Karnow, Vietnam: A History, 273.

28. William H. Tankersley (Director, CBS Program Practices) to Lancer Productions, Inc., February 14 1963. Herbert B. Leonard papers, Collection PASC 29, Box 120.

29. Route 66, “Narcissus on an Old Red Fire Engine,” original air date March 29 1963, written by Joel Carpenter (pseudonym for Arnold Manoff), directed by Ralph Senensky. Route 66: Complete Third Season. Dialogue is transcribed from the DVD. Air date is from Rosin, Route 66: The Television Series, 168.

30. Wright, Enduring Vietnam, 48.

31. Route 66, “Peace, Pity, Pardon,” original air date April 12 1963, written by Stirling Silliphant, directed by Robert Ellis Miller. Route 66: Complete Third Season. Dialogue is transcribed from the DVD. Air date is from Rosin, Route 66: The Television Series, 168.

32. Roddenberry is quoted/paraphrased by writer Sy Salkowitz in Stempel, Storytellers to the Nation, 93.

33. NBC, The Lieutenant (Sales booklet), 1963, 12. Norman Felton papers, MsC 265, Box 51.

34. See Engel, Gene Roddenberry, 20–23.

35. Present-day sources that refer to a “peacetime” setting include the “The Lieutenant,” Archives of American Television, and Brooks and Marsh, Complete Directory, 509. Contemporary promotional materials that cast the context as “peacetime” include M-G-M TV, The Lieutenant: Promotion Campaign, 1963. Norman Felton papers, MsC 265, Box 51; “View From The Lion’s Den” (MGM ad), Television Age, August 5 1963, 12; “All Aboard for Fall,” Television, June 1963, 80.

36. NBC, The Lieutenant, 12, 28.

37. The Lieutenant, “A Troubled Image,” original air date November 16 1963, written by Herman Groves, directed by Don Medford. The Lieutenant: The Complete Series, Part 1. Dialogue is transcribed from the DVD. Air date is from IMDB: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0056771/episodes?year=1963&ref_=tt_eps_yr_1963.

38. Herman Groves, “A Troubled Image,” Television script, September 25 1963. Norman Felton papers, MsC 265, Box 131.

39. While ARVN officers did train in the U.S., female ARVN officers did not train for combat, but rather served support roles. See Nguyen, Memory Is Another, 60–61; Anderson, “Fighting for Family,” 30; Hanh, South Vietnam’s Women in Uniform.

40. The Lieutenant, “To Kill a Man,” original air date April 18 1964, written by Gene Roddenberry, directed by Vincent McEveety. The Lieutenant: The Complete Series, Part 2. Dialogue is transcribed from the DVD. Air date is from IMDB: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0056771/episodes?year=1963&ref_=tt_eps_yr_1963.

41. Gene Roddenberry, “To Kill a Man,” Television Script, February 29 1964. Norman Felton papers, MsC 265, Box 130.

42. Minh, “Declaration of Independence.”

43. As a former Viet Cong infiltrator told author Stanley Karnow years later, “I did work for the Communists, but my motives were patriotic, not ideological.” Karnow, Vietnam: A History, 38.

44. Lt. Col. John Paul Vann, quoted in Sheehan, A Bright Shining Lie, 524.

45. Hallin, Uncensored War, 115. Hallin covers network news treatment of the Viet Cong on pages 147–158.

46. I am grateful to one of the manuscript’s reviewers for sharing this insight.

47. It is unclear how widely the feature film was distributed, but certainly in Belgium, as Duel Dans la Jungle (Duel in de Jungle). The TV episode was augmented with a storyline about Rice’s tempestuous relationship with a woman stateside (played by Ann Helm), and adds a romance with Tuyet Le (Linda Ho), the woman who cares for him in the village after the rebel attack, who he ultimately marries.

48. “Week’s Video Highlights,” Globe-Gazette (Mason City, Iowa), April 17 1964, 12. For other blurbs that cite Vietnam as the setting for the action see “Tops Today,” The Boston Globe, April 12 1964, 221; “TV Programs,” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, April 18 1964, 16; “TV Time,” The Decatur Herald (Decatur, Illinois), April 18 1964, 12. Clippings from the Cushman I Spy collection.

49. Fully two-thirds of the American public in 1964 reported that “they paid little or no attention to developments in South Vietnam,” and it was not until the fall of that year, when the war became a campaign issue, that it would be topical enough for pollsters to begin assessing public opinion on it. Lunch and Sperlich, “American Public Opinion,” 22.

50. Producer Norman Felton’s papers from the series contain no clue as to why explicit reference to Vietnam was avoided (and the Roddenberry papers at UCLA are devoted exclusively to Star Trek). The episode’s director, Vincent McEveety, professed no knowledge of the source of the vagueness and also recalled no blowback from the network or sponsors over any aspects of the story (e-mail message to author, August 5 2016).

51. The Marines pulled their support from the series early in 1964. Felton claimed the bone of contention was “To Set it Right,” an episode about racial strife in Rice’s platoon (Engel, Gene Roddenberry, 27–28); Roddenberry cited “Mother Enemy,” a story about an officer denied a promotion because his mother was in the Communist Party, and claimed the flak about “To Set it Right” was from NBC, not the Marines. See Van Hise, The Man Who Created Star Trek, 15–16.

52. The Lieutenant was listed among “programs destined not to return to prime time next fall” by mid-season. See “1964–65 Will See 40% New Shows,” Broadcasting, January 27 1964, 27. The series had a 16.5 average audience rating in Oct. of 1963, ranking 56 in the national Nielsens; as of Dec., the rating had dropped to 15.2 – not abysmal, but far from renewal-worthy. See “Here’s how national Nielsen’s ranked this year’s shows,” Broadcasting, November 4 1963, 31, and “Another Look behind the Ratings,” NBC Research Bulletin, December 13 1963, 4. National Broadcasting Company Records. For three examples of the legend that the show had solid ratings, and ended because of the perception that the war had become “toxic,” Shindler and Hegel, “Commentary”; “The Lieutenant,” Crazy About TV; Greenberger, Star Trek: Complete Unauthorized, 16.

53. I Spy, “The Tiger,” original air date Jan., 5 1966. Written by Robert Culp, directed by Paul Wendkos. I Spy, Season 1 (1966–66, Three F Productions; Chatsworth, CA: Image Entertainment, 2000), DVD. All dialogue is transcribed from the DVD. Air date is from Cushman and LaRosa, I Spy, 103.

54. Robert Culp, “The Tiger,” Television Script, May 4 1965, Marc Cushman collection.

55. Culp, “The Tiger,” 14. The only explicit reference to Vietnam in the script is a short description that describes a device that Kelly straps to a tree after he parachutes into the jungle: “(n.b. THIS OBJECT IS A RELAY STATION, COMMONLY USED NOW IN VIETNAM BY U.S. FORCES).” Culp, “The Tiger,” 32.

56. Robert Culp noted that he based the character on Dooley, principally Dooley’s 1960 book, The Night They Burned the Mountain. Robert Culp, commentary, I Spy, “The Tiger,” DVD. On Dooley, see Fisher, Dr. America.

57. Rebecca Onion, “The Snake Eaters and the Yards.” November 27 2013. Slate.com, accessed December 27 2021, https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2013/11/the-green-berets-and-the-montagnards-how-an-indigenous-tribe-won-the-admiration-of-green-berets-and-lost-everything.html.

58. Reviews that refer to the guerillas as “communists” include Dave Kaufman, “Telepic Followup,” Daily Variety, January 7 1966, n.p.; “Lew Ayres is Guest,” The Times-Tribune (Scranton PA), December 31 1965, 4; Rick DuBrow, “I Spy Rises Above Plots,” The News Journal (Wilmington Delaware), January 6 1966, 10; “Ayres is Featured on ‘I Spy’ Show,” The Paducah Sun, January 5 1966, 8. A syndicated squib appearing in multiple newspapers refers to Kelly and Sam’s captors as “Reds,” e.g.: The Pittsburgh Press, January 5 1966, 75; The Decatur Herald (Decatur, Illinois), January 5 1966, 10; The Edwardsville Intelligencer (Edwardsville, Illinois), January 4 1966, 5. All clippings are from the Cushman I Spy collection.

59. I Spy Music Director Earle Hagen refers to “The Tiger” as such in an interview. “Vietnamese Music on ‘I Spy’,” Journal and Courier (Lafayette, Indiana), January 1 1966, 47.

60. Culp, “The Tiger,” 7.

61. The papers of I Spy producer Mort Fine and the I Spy script collection at UCLA Library Special Collections do not hold files on “The Tiger.”

62. Robert Culp, commentary, I Spy, “The Tiger,” DVD.

63. Lunch and Sperlich, “American Public Opinion,” 30.

64. Doherty, Projections of War, 283; Silliphant is quoted in Hobson, “TV’s Disastrous Brain Drain,” 185.

65. Apocalypse Now “is filled with double binds and mixed messages in its attempt to have it both ways” (that is, pro- and anti-war), in Frank Tomasulo’s word (“The Politics of Ambivalence,” 153). As Sarah Hagelin notes, even Deer Hunter, condemned by many critics as racist and jingoistic, has been the subject of enough “multivalent readings’ to ultimately render its politics a “puzzle” (Reel Vulnerability, 51). Tony Grajeda writes that Platoon’s blend of unremitting realism and mythic patriotism suggests writer-director Stone’s “own ambivalence to the subject” (“The (Un) Reality of War,” 53). Bill Krohn observes that Full Metal Jacket is ideologically “slippery,” hailed as an anti-war statement by some and a “recruiting film” by others (“Full Metal Jacket,” 428–435).

66. One oft-cited exception to American TV’s avoidance of Vietnam was the 1967 made-for-television movie The Final war of Olly Winter. Set in 1963, the film depicts a Black Army sergeant’s odyssey of survival after a Viet Cong ambush. The movie was well received critically (see Jack Gould, “TV: ‘The Final War of Olly Winter’: Poignant Drama Opens ‘C.B.S. Playhouse’,” New York Times, January 30 1967, 59. https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1967/01/30/83016795.html?pageNumber=59). Actor Ivan Dixon was nominated for an Emmy for his portrayal of Sgt. Winter.

67. Tim Appelo, “Where the war goes on and on …” Entertainment Weekly, Feb., 23 1990, 54.

68. Ballard-Reisch, “China Beach and Tour of Duty,” 135–149.