The impact of the war at home in the United States

As the Vietnam War heated up on the battlefield in the mid-1960s, so did the concerns about the war in the United States. A small peace movement had existed for some time before the 1960s, based largely in Quaker and Unitarian religious beliefs. In the 1960s an antiwar movement grew out of college campuses when such groups as the Students for a Democratic Society and the Free Speech Movement shifted their focus from Civil Rights to the Vietnam War. The catalyst which brought wider public acceptance was the beginning of U.S. bombing of North Vietnam in early 1965. The first notable protest was an April 1965 march on Washington to protest this bombing, drawing between 15,000 and 25,000 protestors. Between 1965 and 1968, Civil Rights leaders began to emerge as active proponents of peace in Vietnam. Martin Luther King, Jr., expressed open support for the antiwar movement on moral grounds as well as the practical realization that the war was drawing resources from domestic programs.

It was the 1968 Tet Offensive which led many in the United States to question the veracity of the Johnson Administration, contributing at least partially to his decision not to seek re-election. After Tet, American public opinion shifted dramatically, with approximately half of the population opposed to escalation. Dissent turned to violence, with police using force to evict protesters occupying the Columbia University administration building. Raids on draft boards, in which activists smeared blood on records and shredded files, came quickly after in Baltimore, Milwaukee, and Chicago. Dow Chemical, manufacturers of napalm, was targeted for sabotage. Dramatic clashes between police and antiwar protesters at the August 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago were broadcast on nationwide television, raising even further the public concerns about the war and the attempts to influence the government to end it.

Between 1969 and 1973 the antiwar movement became at once more powerful and less cohesive. A second march on Washington, in November of 1969, drew an estimated 500,000 participants. But middle-class America was beginning to disapprove of the counter-culture types--widely labelled "hippies"--who were leading the protest movement in this period. A rather unique situation arose in which most Americans supported the antiwar cause, but opposed the leaders, methods, and culture of protest.

In 1970, the antiwar movement regained some solidarity after news of the My Lai massacre became public and President Nixon announced a military incursion into Cambodia. On May 4, 1960, Ohio National Guardsmen fired on student protesters at Kent State University, killing four and wounding sixteen. Congress began threatening the Nixon administration with challenges to presidential authority. With the publication of the Pentagon Papers, beginning in June of 1971, antiwar sentiment seemed no longer tainted with a sense of anti-Americanism. The 1973 announcement of the effective end of U.S. involvement in Vietnam by President Nixon really came in response to a mandate unequaled in modern times.

Readings:

1. Kolko, pp. 283-292, 312-355
2. Web Site: Barringer and Wells, "The Anti-War Movement in the United States"
3. Web Site: Winter Soldier Testimony (Note: Many original documents; pick and choose which to read)
4. Web Site: Franklin, "The Antiwar Movement We Are Supposed To Forget"

Questions for consideration and further discussion:

1. Should calls for the end to armed conflict be considered "anti-American?"
2. Why might the antiwar movement have been taken over by counter-culture types in the late 1960s?
3. Can violence, either on the part of demonstrators or on the part of authorities, be justified?
4. Might press censorship about the more sordid aspects of the Vietnam War have lessened the impact of the antiwar movement?
5. Is a protest "in the streets" an indication that government may not be working the way it should?