Did Dan Enright cause the Vietnam War?

Dan Enright was a television producer back in the 1950’s. One of the shows he created was Twenty-One a popular game show. In 1956, two contestants on the show, Herb Stempel and Charles Van Doren, faced off with Van Doren winning. But in fact the contest had been rigged and Enright had promised Stempel a broadcasting job in exchange for throwing the contest and maintaining his silence. Enright broke his promise and Stempel talked, eventually testifying before Congress in 1958. Television networks were panicked by the threat of government action and undertook a program of “public service” to help their reputation. One aspect of this was an expansion of news coverage. As part of this, the networks volunteered to increase broadcasts of the 1960 Presidential campaigns including full coverage of the conventions and debates. The two candidates, Richard Nixon and John Kennedy, therefore had their full series of debates seen by millions of viewers. Virtually everyone agrees that Kennedy “won” the televised debates and he went on to win a close election. Unlike his predecessor Eisenhower, Kennedy felt the need to establish his reputation for “toughness” in foreign affairs and increased America’s military committment in South-East Asia. After Kennedy’s assassination, his successor Lyndon Johnson felt obligated to maintain this committment and send American troops to Vietnam.

Anyone else have an example, serious or not, of the trail showing how a trivial event caused a major historical movement?

Piffle.

Too convoluted, too strained.

Besides, there was already a war in Vietnam–the French were fightning it, & losing. It’s quite likely that any President of the era, pursuing the policy of containing Soviet power, would have gotten involved, to one degree or another.

Eisenhower sent the first military adviors to VN. I’ve heard and/or read several historians who speculate that Kennedy was not enthusiastic about increasing involvement beyond an advisory/financial role. Kennedy and Johnson did not have a close working relationship, so the escalation was primarily Johnson’s doing, perhaps he felt he had a point to make. His ultimate withdrawal from politics seems to confirm this.
Conspiracy theorists are fond of linking events in this manner. There are no end of examples, the Bermuda Triangle being a very famous one.

Wasn’t there a TV series called Connections, where the host used history to connect completely unrelated things, like the Inquisition led to the Space Shuttle?

I’ve often told people: “Don’t do that! Yu might start World War Three!”
When the look at me like I’m from Mars, I say something like: “If you [do thing] it might distract someone who’s driving by, causing him to crash into a construction zone, causing part of a building to fall onto a statue that falls onto the Chinese ambassador, killing him and causing a war!” The they usually look at me some more, then go and do the thing.

I recall from grad school that a noted historian – his name escapes me – argued that World War I began because of train timetables. IIRC, if Russia chose to partially mobilize its troops, the tracks would get tied up preventing a full mobilization. Therefore, Russia mobilized all its troops, and Germany responded.

However I also seem to recall that this historian wrote that article as a way to mock those who seek to boil complex events down to a single cause (eg, Enright caused Vietnam, Reagan caused the Soviet Union to collapse, etc.)

If Hitler was a little more artistically talented, he might have stuck with painting and never gone into politics. God knows what massive historical changes might have ensued, such as there being types of villians in “Raider Of the Lost Ark” and the Wolfenstein video games.

Nonsense. Too many holes in the theory:

The networks offered gavel-to-gave convention coverage starting in 1948. It was considered great TV (and it was at the time, when the nomination was not necessarily sewn up before the convention – for instance, in 1956, there was a battle for VP, with JFK losing).

There were not debates before 1960, but that wasn’t the network’s choice. The equal time rule meant that any presidential candidate – no matter what party – had to be granted equal time, and thus needed to appear. No one wanted to give the time to minor parties. Congress suspended the rule so that the 1960 debates could happen, but the networks would have loved to be able to televise them before that.

There is some debate as to who won – people who watched on TV thought JFK had won, while those who listened on the radio favored Nixon. But pointing out the debates as the major factor responsible for JFK’s victory is only a portion of the issue. Why not point out Richard Daley’s “delivering” the vote for JFK instead?

JFK was only advancing Eisenhower’s policy in SE Asia. And do you really think Richard Nixon – who built his reputation as being anticommunist – would have withdrawn from Vietnam and leave it to the reds? (Things were different in 1968; the “New Nixon” was willing to claim he had a peace plan, but that was based on his belief that North Vietnam would fear him as a rabid anticommunist. They didn’t and we were there for several more years as he flounded.

James Burke and yes.

And don’t forget while assembling your nifty conspiracy theory that Richard Goodwin, one of the people responsible for the “Twenty-One” hearings, went on to write speeches for Kennedy during that campaign! :eek:

People, this is MPSIMS not Great Debates. The OP was not intended as a serious attempt to open a discussion on Dan Enright’s role in causing American intervention in Southeast Asia. Which as we all know, was really Elvis Presley’s fault. So everybody lighten up.

Because Illinois was not crucial to Kennedy’s victory, (which also thwarts the mob involvement in the Kennedy assassination story, but some things just have to fall in the service of setting out facts).

On the other hand, the atomic bomb was clearly the fault of Gustavus Bartsch. He was the man who failed to rent an apartment to Einstein across the street from Einstein’s office, causing Einstein to have to find a flat several miles away, causing him to take the trolley to work each day, leading to his insight into relativity, and the rest is history.

Or not.

Maybe we’re looking at this the wrong way…maybe we should credit Dan Enright for preventing the Red Eurasia War, the terrible nuclear conflict between China and the USSR, sparked after Sino-Russian releations soured dramatically after China launched a disasterous general counterattack on pro-western Asian countries in retalliation for the US-led amphibious invasion of North Vietnam in 1964?

I loved Burke’s PBS show Connections, but the items weren’t unrelated – they were directly causally related, which was the entire point of the show (and the title). It’s just that following such a string of connections lead you to totally unexpected conclusions. It was more than just a cute gimmick for relating the History of Science and Technology, as Burke took pains to establish in the last episode. One of his points was that the usual method of teaching the history of science tyended to overlook or downplay such very important connections.

There’s a companion book. Many years later Burke did Connections 2 and Connections 3 for The Learning Channel (TLC). Sometime later, he did a “Connections” column for Scientific American. It ran about a year.
His other TV series, The Day the Universe Changed, its companion volume, and his two other books are also pretty Connections-like.

I always say, sardonically, that we have Hitler to thank for America’s becoming a prosperous world power.

I agree, I think the OP was looking more for something along the lines of the foul ball caught by Steve Bartman in the 2003 NLCS that caused the Florida Marlins to go on to win the World Series also cost the Miami Dolphins the Superbowl.

This is because the Dolphins and Marlins share the same stadium. Since the Marlins were in the playoffs, the dirt infield which would have been covered up at the end of the MLB season was still in place when the Dolphins hosted the Patriots. During the game, Miami had the opportunity to kick two game-winning field goals off of this dirt. Both were missed due to the poor footing on the dirt. Had either one of those kicks been made, then Miami would have won. Instead, the Pats won in overtime. Had Miami won that game, they would have been in the playoffs that year.

And if you’re one to blame Bartman for the Cubs loss, then by the same logic you have to conclude that Miami would have won the Superbowl, had they been in the postseason.