Opposition to the U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War

Opposition to the U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War

The movement against US involvment in the in Vietnam War began in the United States with demonstrations in 1964 and grew in strength in later years. The US became polarized between those who advocated continued involvement in Vietnam, and those who wanted peace. Peace movements consisted largely of college and graduate students, and mothers, as well as anti-establishment "hippies". Their opposition events ranged from peaceful nonviolent demonstrations to radical displays of violence.

Contents

Timeline

1945

  • First protests against U.S. involvement in Vietnam take place in 1945, when United States Merchant Marine sailors condemn the U.S. government for the use of U.S. merchant ships to transport French troops whose express purpose is to "subjugate the native population" of Vietnam. These protesters oppose the "recolonization" of Vietnam.

1963

  • May 1963, the first coordinated Vietnam War protests occur in London and Denmark. These protests are mounted by American pacifists during the annual remembrance of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki atomic bombings.

1964

  • May 2, In the first major student demonstration against the war, hundreds of students march through Times Square in New York City, while another 700 march in San Francisco. Smaller numbers also protest in New York; Seattle; and Madison, Wisconsin.
  • May 12, twelve young men in New York publicly burn their draft cards to protest the war.[1][2]
  • August: the Gulf of Tonkin Incident and Gulf of Tonkin Resolution.
  • In December 1964, Joan Baez leads six hundred people in an antiwar demonstration in San Francisco.[3]

1965

  • January 29, organized by professors against the war at the University of Michigan, the protest was attended by 2,500 participants. This model was to be repeated at 35 campuses across the country.
  • April 17, the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) and the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), a civil rights activist group, led the first of several anti-war marches in Washington, D.C., with about 25,000 protesters.
  • Draft-card burnings took place at University of California, Berkeley at student demonstrations in May organized by a new anti-war group, the Vietnam Day Committee; events included a teach-in attended by 30,000, and the burning in effigy of president Lyndon Johnson.
  • A Gallup poll in May showed 48% of U.S. respondents felt the Government was handling the war effectively; 28% felt the situation was being handled badly; the rest, no opinion.
  • May – First anti-Vietnam War demonstration in London outside the U.S. embassy.[4]
  • Protests were held in June on the steps of the Pentagon, and in August, attempts were made by activists at Berkeley to stop the movement of trains carrying troops.
  • A Gallup poll in late August shows that 24% of Americans view sending troops to Vietnam as a mistake versus 60% who do not.[5]
  • By mid-October, the anti-war movement had significantly expanded to become a national and even global phenomenon, as anti-war protests drawing 100,000 were held simultaneously in as many as 80 major cities around the US, London, Paris and Rome.
  • On November 2, Norman Morrison, a 31-year-old pacifist, set himself on fire below the third-floor window of Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara at the Pentagon, emulating the actions of the Vietnamese monk Thích Quảng Đức.
  • On November 27, Coretta Scott King, SDS President Carl Oglesby, and Dr. Benjamin Spock, among others, spoke at an anti-war rally of about 30,000 in D.C. in the largest demonstration to date. Parallel protests occurred elsewhere around the nation.[6] On that same day, President Johnson announced a significant escalation of U.S. involvement in Indochina, from 120,000 to 400,000 troops.

1966

  • In February, a group of about 100 veterans attempted to return their decorations to the White House in protest of the war, but were turned back.
  • Anti-war demonstrations were again held around the country and the world March 26 with 20,000 taking part in New York City.
  • A Gallup poll shows that 59% believe that sending troops to Vietnam was not a mistake. Among the age group of 21–29, 71% believe it was not a mistake compared to 48% of those over 50.[7]
  • On May 15, another large demonstration, with 10,000 picketers calling for an end to the war, took place outside the White House and the Washington Monument.
  • June – The Gallup poll respondents supporting the U.S. handling of the war slipped to 41%; 37% expressed disapproval; the rest, no opinion.
  • A crowd of 4,000 demonstrated against the U.S. war in London on July 3 and scuffled with police outside the U.S. Embassy; 33 protesters were arrested.
  • Joan Baez and A.J. Muste organized over 3000 people across the nation in an antiwar tax protest. Participants refused to pay their taxes or did not pay the amount designated for funding the war.[8]
  • Protests, strikes and sit-ins continued at Berkeley and across other campuses throughout the year, and also, three army privates known as the 'Fort Hood Three" refused to deploy in Vietnam, calling the war "illegal and immoral", and were sentenced to prison terms.
  • Heavyweight boxing champion Muhammad Ali– formerly known as Cassius Clay– declared himself a conscientious objector and refused to go to war. According to a writer for Sports Illustrated, the governor of Illinois called Ali "disgusting" and the governor of Maine said that Ali "should be held in utter contempt by every patriotic American."[9] In 1967 Ali was sentenced to 5 years in prison for draft evasion, but his conviction was later overturned on appeal. In addition, he was stripped of his title and banned from professional boxing for more than three years.

1967

  • January 14 – 20,000–30,000 people staged a "Human Be-In" in Golden Gate Park in San Francisco, near the Haight Ashbury neighborhood that had become the center of hippie activity.
  • In February, about 2500 members of Women Strike for Peace (WSP) marched to the Pentagon. This was a peaceful protest that became rowdier when the demonstrators were denied a meeting with Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara.[10]
  • February 8 – Christian groups opposed to the war staged a nationwide "Fast for Peace".
  • February 23 – The New York Review of Books published "The Responsibility of Intellectuals" by Noam Chomsky as a special supplement.
  • March 12 – A three page anti-war ad appeared in The New York Times bearing the signatures of 6,766 teachers and professors. The advertisement spanned two and a quarter pages in Section 4, The Week in Review. The advertisement itself cost around $16,500 and was sponsored by the Inter-University Committee for Debate on Foreign Policy.
  • March 17 – a group of antiwar citizens marched to the Pentagon to protest American involvement in Vietnam
  • March 25 – Civil rights leader Martin Luther King led a march of 5,000 against the war in Chicago, Illinois.
  • On April 15, 400,000 people marched from Central Park to the UN building in New York City to protest the war, where they were addressed by critics of the war such as Benjamin Spock, Martin Luther King, James Bevel, and Jan Barry Crumb, a veteran of the war. On the same date 100,000 marched in San Francisco.
  • On April 24, Abbie Hoffman led a small group of protesters against both the war and capitalism who interrupted the New York Stock Exchange, causing chaos by throwing fistfuls of both real and fake dollars down from the gallery.
  • May 2 – British philosopher Bertrand Russell presided over the "Russell Tribunal" in Stockholm, a mock war crimes tribunal, which ruled that the U.S. and its allies had committed war crimes in Vietnam. The proceedings were criticized as being a "show trial".
  • On May 30 Jan Crumb and ten like-minded men attended a peace demonstration in Washington, D.C., and on June 1 Vietnam Veterans Against the War was born.
  • In the summer of 1967, Neil Armstrong and various other NASA officials began a tour of South America to raise awareness for space travel. According to First Man, a biography of Armstrong's life, during the tour, several college students protested the astronaut, and shouted such phrases as "Murderers get out of Vietnam!" and other anti-Vietnam War messages.
  • July 30 – Gallup poll reported 52% of Americans disapproved of Johnson's handling of the war; 41% thought the U.S. made a mistake in sending troops; over 56% thought U.S. was losing the war or at an impasse.
  • On August 28, 1967, U.S. representative Tim Lee Carter R-KY stated before congress: "Let us now, while we are yet strong, bring our men home, every man jack of them. The Vietcong fight fiercely and tenaciously because it is their land and we are foreigners intervening in their civil war. If we must fight, let us fight in defense of our homeland and our own hemisphere."
  • On September 20, over one thousand members of WSP rallied at the White House. The police used brutal tactics to try to limit it to 100 people (as per the law) or stop the demonstration, and the event tarnished the wholesome and nonviolent reputation of the WSP.[11]
  • In October 1967, Stop the Draft Week resulted in major clashes at the Oakland, California induction center, and saw more than a thousand registrants return their draft cards in events across the country. The cards were delivered to the Justice Department on October 20.
  • In October 1967, three hundred students at the University of Wisconsin attempted to prevent Dow Chemical Company, the maker of napalm, from holding a job fair on campus. The police eventually forced the demonstration to end, but Dow Chemical Company was banned from going on the campus. Three police officers and 65 students were injured in the two-day event.[12]
  • The next day, October 21, 1967, a large demonstration took place at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington. As many as 100,000 demonstrators attended the event, and at least 30,000 later marched to the Pentagon for another rally and an all night vigil. Some, including Abbie Hoffman and Jerry Rubin, attempted to "exorcise" and "levitate" the building, while others engaged in civil disobedience on the steps of the Pentagon, interrupted by clashes with soldiers and police. In all, 647 arrests were made. When a plot to airdrop 10,000 flowers on the Pentagon was foiled by undercover agents, these flowers ended up being placed in the barrels of MP's rifles, as seen in some famous photographs.[13] Norman Mailer documented the events surrounding the march on the Pentagon in his novel, Armies of the Night.
A female demonstrator offers a flower to military police during the march on the Pentagon, 21 October 1967

1968

  • On January 15, 1968, over five thousand women rallied in D.C. in the Jeannette Rankin Brigade protest. This was the first all female antiwar protest intended to get Congress to withdrawal troops from Vietnam.[14]
  • On January 18, 1968, while in the White House for a conference about juvenile delinquency, black singer-entertainer Eartha Kitt yelled at Lady Bird Johnson about the generation of young men dying in the war.[15]
  • February – Gallup poll showed 35% approved of Johnson's handling of the war; 50% disapproved; the rest, no opinion. [NYT, 2/14/68] In another poll that month, 23% of Americans defined themselves as "doves" and 61% "hawks".[16]
  • March 12 – anti-war candidate Eugene McCarthy received more votes than expected in the New Hampshire primary, leading to more expressions of opposition against the war. McCarthy urged his supporters to exchange the 'unkempt look' rapidly becoming fashionable among war opponents for a more clean-cut style to in order not to scare voters. These were known as "Clean Genes".
  • March 17 – Major rally outside the U.S. Embassy in London's Grosvenor Square turned to a riot with 86 people injured and over 200 arrested. Over 10,000 had rallied peacefully in Trafalgar Square but met a police barricade outside the embassy. A UK Foreign Office report claimed that the rioting had been organized by 100 members of the German SDS who were "acknowledged experts in methods of riot against the police".
  • In March, Gallup poll reported that 49% of respondents felt involvement in the war was an error.
  • April 17 – National media films the anti-war riot that breaks out in Berkeley, California. The over-reaction by the police in Berkeley is shown in Berlin and Paris, sparking reactions in those cities.
  • On April 26, 1968, a million college and high school students boycotted class to show opposition to the war.[17]
  • During the 1968 Democratic National Convention, held August 26 – August 29 in Chicago, anti-war protesters marched and demonstrated throughout the city. Tensions between police and protesters quickly escalated, resulting in a "police riot". Eight leading anti-war activists were indicted by the U.S. Attorney and prosecuted for conspiracy to riot; their convictions were subsequently overturned on appeal. (See Chicago Seven). Chicago mayor Richard J. Daley brought to bear 23,000 police and National Guardsman upon 10,000 protestors.[18]
  • August – Gallup poll shows 53% said it was a mistake to send troops to Vietnam.[19]
  • Among the academic or scholarly groups was the Committee of Concerned Asian Scholars, founded in 1968 by graduate students and junior faculty in Asian studies.

1969

  • March polls indicate that 19% of Americans want the war to end as soon as possible, 26% want South Vietnam to take over responsibility for the war from the U.S., 19% favor the current policy and 33% want total military victory.[16]
  • In March, students at SUNY Buffalo destroyed a Themis construction site.[20]
  • On May 22, 1969, Ottawa announced that immigration officials would not and could not ask about immigration applicants’ military status if they showed up at the border seeking permanent residence in Canada.[21]
  • July 1969: A Gallup poll indicates that 53% of the respondents approve of Nixon's handling of the war; 30% disapprove; the balance have no opinion. [New York Times, 7/31/69]
  • The Moratorium to End the War in Vietnam demonstrations took place on October 15, 1969. Millions of Americans took the day off from work and school to participate in local demonstrations against the war. These were the first major demonstrations against the Nixon administration's handling of the war. On November 15, 1969 crowds estimated up to half a million people participated in an anti-war demonstration in Washington, D.C. and a similar demonstration was held in San Francisco. These protests were organized by the New Mobilization Committee to End the War in Vietnam (New Mobe) and the Student Mobilization Committee to End the War in Vietnam (SMC).
  • In October, 58% of Gallup respondents said U.S. entry into the war was a mistake.
  • In November, Sam Melville, Jane Alpert, and several others bombed several corporate offices and military installations (including the Whitehall Army Induction Center) in and around New York City in opposition to the war in Vietnam.
  • On November 15, 1969, Howard University students protested the war in Washington, D.C.[22]
  • In late December the And babies anti-war poster is published, "easily the most successful poster to vent the outrage that so many felt about the war in Southeast Asia."[23]
  • By end of 1969, 69% of students identified themselves as doves.[20]

1970

  • Kent State/Cambodia Incursion Protest, Washington, D.C.: A week after the Kent State shootings, on May 4, 100,000 anti-war demonstrators converged on Washington, D.C. to protest the shooting of the students in Ohio and the Nixon administration's incursion into Cambodia. Even though the demonstration was quickly put together, protesters were still able to bring out thousands to march in the Capital. It was an almost spontaneous response to the events of the previous week. Police ringed the White House with buses to block the demonstrators from getting too close to the executive mansion. Early in the morning before the march, Nixon met with protesters briefly at the Lincoln Memorial but nothing was resolved and the protest went on as planned.
  • National Student Strike: more than 450 university, college and high school campuses across the country were shut by student strikes and both violent and non-violent protests that involved more than 4 million students, in the only nationwide student strike in U.S. history.
  • A Gallup poll in May shows that 56% of the public believed that sending troops to Vietnam was a mistake, 61% of those over 50 expressed that belief compared to 49% of those between the ages of 21–29.[24]
  • On June 13, President Nixon established the President's Commission on Campus Unrest. The commission was directed to study the dissent, disorder, and violence breaking out on college and university campuses.[25]
  • On August 24, 1970, near 3:40 a.m., a van filled with ammonium nitrate and fuel oil mixture was detonated on the University of Wisconsin-Madison in the Sterling Hall bombing.
  • The Chicano Moratorium: on August 29, some 25,000 Mexican-Americans participated in the largest anti-war demonstration in Los Angeles. Police attacked the crowd with billyclubs and tear gas; two people were killed. Immediately after the marchers were dispersed, sheriff's deputies raided a nearby bar, where they shot and killed Rubén Salazar, KMEX news director and Los Angeles Times columnist, with a tear-gas projectile.

1971 and after

Anti-war cartoon by Carlos Latuff.
  • On April 23, 1971, Vietnam veterans threw away over 700 medals on the West Steps of the Capitol building.[26] The next day, antiwar organizers claimed that 500,000 marched, making this the largest demonstration since the November, 1969 march.[27]
  • Two weeks later, on May 5, 1971, 1,146 people were arrested on the Capitol grounds trying to shut down Congress. This brought the total arrested during the protest to over 12,000. Abbie Hoffman was arrested on charges of interstate travel to incite a riot and assaulting a police officer.[28]
  • In August, 1971, The Camden 28 conducted a raid on the Camden, New Jersey draft board offices. The 28 included five or more members of the clergy, as well as a number of local blue-collar workers.
  • On March 29, 1972, 166 people, many of them seminarians, were arrested in Harrisburg, PA for encircling the Federal Courthouse with a chain, to protest the trial of the Harrisburg Seven.[29]
  • On April 19, 1972, in response to renewed escalation of bombing, students at many colleges and universities around the country broke into campus buildings and threatened strikes.[30] The following weekend, protests were held in New York, San Francisco, Los Angeles, and elsewhere.[31]
  • On May 13, 1972, protests again spread across the country in response to President Nixon's decision to mine harbors in North Vietnam[32] and renewed bombing of North Vietnam (Operation Linebacker).
  • On July 6, 1973, four Sisters of Norte Dame de Namur on a White House Tour stopped and began praying to protest the war. In the next six weeks, such kneel-ins became a popular form of protest and led to over 158 protestors arrests.[33]

Public opinion

Public support for the war decreased as the war waged on throughout the sixties and beginning part of the 1970s.

William L. Lunch and Peter W. Sperlich collected public opinion data measuring support for the war from 1965–1971. Support for the war was measured by a negative response to the question: "In view of developments since we entered the fighting in Vietnam, do you think the U.S. made a mistake sending troops to fight in Vietnam?"[34] They found the following results.

Month Percentage who agreed with war
August 1965 52%
March 1966 59%
May 1966 49%
September 1966 48%
November 1966 51%
February 1967 52%
May 1967 50%
July 1967 48%
October 1967 44%
December 1967 48%
February 1968 42%
March 1968 41%
April 1968 40%
August 1968 35%
October 1968 37%
February 1969 39%
October 1969 32%
January 1970 33%
April 1970 34%
May 1970 36%
January 1971 31%
May 1971 28%

After May 1971 Gallup stopped asking this question.

Reasons for the opposition

The reasons behind American opposition to the Vietnam War fell into the following main categories: opposition to the draft; moral, legal, and pragmatic arguments against U.S. intervention; reaction to the media portrayal of the devastation in Southeast Asia.

The Draft, as a system of conscription which threatened lower class registrants and middle class registrants alike, drove much of the protest after 1965. Conscientious objectors did play an active role although their numbers were small. The prevailing sentiment that the draft was unfairly administered inflamed blue-collar American and African-American opposition to the military draft itself.

Opposition to the war arose during a time of unprecedented student activism which followed the free speech movement and the civil rights movement. The military draft mobilized the baby boomers who were most at risk, but grew to include a varied cross-section of Americans. The growing opposition to the Vietnam War was partly attributed to greater access to uncensored information presented by the extensive television coverage on the ground in Vietnam.

Beyond opposition to the Draft, anti-war protestors also made moral arguments against the United States’ involvement in Vietnam. This moral imperative argument against the war was especially popular among American college students. For example, in an article entitled "Two Sources of Antiwar Sentiment in America", Schuman found that students were more likely than the general public to accuse the United States of having imperialistic goals in Vietnam. Students in Schuman's study were also more likely to criticize the war as "immoral."[35] Civilian deaths, which were either downplayed or omitted entirely by the Western media, became a subject of protest when photographic evidence of casualties emerged. In response to these photos William F. Petter wrote that "A million children have been killed or wounded or burned in the war America is carrying on in Vietnam.".[36] An infamous photo of General Nguyễn Ngọc Loan holding a pistol to the head of an alleged terrorist during the Tet Offensive also provoked a public outcry.[36]

Another element of the American opposition to the war was the perception that U.S intervention in Vietnam, which had been argued as acceptable due to the Domino Theory and the threat of Communism, was not legally justifiable. Some Americans believed that the Communist threat was used as a scapegoat to hide imperialistic intentions, while others argued that the American intervention in South Vietnam interfered with the "self-determination" of the country. In other words, the war in Vietnam was a civil war that ought to have determined the fate of the country and, therefore, America was not right to intervene.[36]

Additionally, media coverage of the war in Vietnam shook the faith of citizens at home. That is, new media technologies, like television, brought images of wartime conflict to the kitchen table. To illustrate this claim, Allen Guttman cites Mr. Fran McGee, NBC news figure who stated that the war was all but lost as a "conclusion to be drawn inescapably from the facts."[36] For the first time in American history the media was privileged to dispense battlefield footage to public. Graphic footage of casualties on the nightly news eliminated any myth of the glory of war. With no clear sign of victory in Vietnam, the media images of American military casualties helped to stimulate the opposition of the war in Americans.

Polarization

If America's soul becomes totally poisoned, part of the autopsy must read "Vietnam."
 
— Martin Luther King Jr, 1967[37]

The U.S. became polarized over the war. Many supporters of U.S. involvement argued for what was known as the domino theory, a theory that believed if one country fell to communism, then the bordering countries would be sure to fall as well, much like falling dominoes. This theory was largely held due to the fall of eastern Europe to communism and the Soviet sphere of influence following World War II. However, military critics of the war pointed out that the Vietnam War was political and that the military mission lacked any clear idea of how to achieve its objectives. Civilian critics of the war argued that the government of South Vietnam lacked political legitimacy, or that support for the war was completely immoral.

The media also played a substantial role in the polarization of American opinion regarding the Vietnam War. For example, In 1965 a majority of the media attention focused on military tactics with very little discussion about the necessity for a full scale intervention in Southeast Asia.[38] After 1965, the media covered the dissent and domestic controversy that existed within the United States, but excluded the actual view of dissidents and resisters.[38]

The media established a sphere of public discourse surrounding the Hawk versus Dove debate. The Dove was a liberal and a critic of the war. Doves claimed that the war was well-intentioned but a disastrously wrong mistake in an otherwise benign foreign policy. It is important to note the Doves do not question the U.S. intentions in intervening in Vietnam, nor did they question the morality or legality of the U.S. intervention. Rather, they made pragmatic claims that the war was a mistake. Contrarily, the Hawks argued that the war was legitimate and winnable and a part of the benign U.S. Foreign policy. The Hawks claimed that the ‘one-sided criticism of the media contributed to the decline of public support for the war and ultimately helped the U.S. lose the war. For example, Allen Guttmann references William F. Buckley's journal in his article entitled, "Protest against the War in Vietnam", and claims that Buckley repeatedly wrote about his approval for the war and suggested that "The United States has been timid, if not cowardly, in refusing to seek 'victory' in Vietnam.".[39] The hawks claimed that the liberal media was responsible for the growing popular disenchantment with the war and blamed the western media for losing the war in Southeast Asia.

Antiwar movement

As the Vietnam War continued to escalate, public disenchantment grew and a variety of different groups were formed or became involved in the movement.

Examples of antiwar organizations

Committee for Non-Violent Action (CNVA)- radical pacifist organization that "blended philosophical anarchism with Gandhian pacifism.".[40] The organization used civil disobedience in direct action against military action.

Committee for Sane Nuclear Policy (SANE)- liberal international organization that was founded in 1957 by a group of nuclear pacifists. They attempted to increase public opinion in favor of their cause in an attempt to influence policy makers to halt atmospheric nuclear testing and reversing the arms race and the Cold War.[40]

Another committee was called SNCC – Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee.

Black Women Enraged- a Harlem antiwar movement.[41]

National Black Anti-War Anti-Draft Union (NBAWADU)- led by Gwen Patton and formed from black members of SNCC and socialist parties.[41]

National Black Draft Counselors (NBDC)- led by Pat Berg and created to help young black men avoid being drafted.[41]

Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF)- founded in 1919 after World War I and provided women with an early entry into the antiwar movement.[42]

The League of Women Voters- founded in 1920, was one of the first groups to call for an end to military involvement in Vietnam.[43]

Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur- popularized the use of kneel-ins and prayer to end the war and stop its escalation.[33]

Vietnam Veterans Against the War[44]

American Writers and Artists Against the War in Vietnam[45]

Americans for Democratic Action[46]

FTA- a group whose initials either stand for Free the Army or Fuck the Army, depending on the situation, was led by Jane Fonda and Donald Sutherland.[47]

Clergy and Laymen Concerned about Vietnam (CALCAV)[48]

Traditional peace groups like Fellowship of Reconciliation, American Friends Service Committee, the War Resistors League, and the Catholic Workers Movement, got involved in the antiwar movement as well.[49]

Various committees and campaigns for peace in Vietnam came about, including Campaign for Disarmament, Campaign to End the Air War, Campaign to Stop Funding the War, Campaign to Stop the Air War, Catholic Peace Fellowship, and Central Committee for Conscientious Objectors.[49]

Opposition and the Arts

Many artists during the 1960s and 1970s opposed the war and used their creativity and careers to visibly oppose the war. Writers and poets opposed to involvement in the war include Allen Ginsberg, Denis Levertov, Robert Duncan, and Robert Bly. Their pieces often incorporated imagery based on the tragic events of the war as well as the disparity between life in Vietnam and life in the United States. Visual artists Ronald Haeberle, Peter Saul, and Nancy Spero, among others, used war equipment, like guns and helicopters, in their works while incorporating important political and war figures, portraying to the nation exactly who was responsible for the violence. Filmmakers such as Lenny Lipton, Jerry Abrams, Peter Gessner, and David Ringo created documentary-style movies featuring actual footage from the antiwar marches to raise awareness about the war and the diverse opposition movement. Playwrights like Frank O’Hara, Sam Shepard, Robert Lowell, Megan Terry, Grant Duay, and Kenneth Bernard used theater as a vehicle for portraying their thoughts about the Vietnam War, often satirizing the role of America in the world and juxtaposing the horrific affects of war with normal scenes of life. Regardless of medium, antiwar artists ranged from pacifists to violent radicals and caused Americans to think more critically about the war. Art as war opposition was quite popular in the early years of the war, but soon faded as political activism became the more common and most visible way of opposing the war.[50]

Women Opposing the Vietnam War

Women were a large part of the antiwar movement, even though they were largely relegated to second-class status within the organizations. Sara Evans’ Personal Politics details the sexism women faced within opposition groups such as the SNCC and the SDS.[51] Leaders of such groups often viewed women as sex objects or secretaries, not actual thinkers who could contribute positively and tangibly to the group’s goals. Others believed that women could not truly understand and join the antiwar movement because they were unaffected by the draft.[52] Women involved in opposition groups disliked the romanticism of the violence of both the war and the antiwar movement that was common amongst male war protestors.[53] Despite the inequalities, participation in various antiwar groups allowed women to gain experience with organizing protests and crafting effective antiwar rhetoric. These newfound skills combined with their dislike of sexism within the opposition movement caused many women to break away from the mainstream antiwar movement and create or join women’s antiwar groups, such as Another Mother for Peace, Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF), and Women Strike for Peace (WSP), also known as Women For Peace. Female soldiers serving in Vietnam joined the movement to battle the war and the sexism, racism, and established military bureaucracy by writing articles for antiwar and antimilitary newspapers.[54]

Mothers and older generations of women joined the opposition movement, as advocates for peace and people disgusted by the effect of the war and the draft on the generation of young men. These women saw the draft as one of the most disliked parts of the war machine and sought to undermine the war itself through undermining the draft. Another Mother for Peace and WSP often held free draft counseling centers to give young men legal and illegal methods to oppose the draft.[52] Members of Women For Peace showed up at the White House every Sunday for 8 years from 11 to 1 for a peace vigil.[55] Such female antiwar groups often relied on maternalism, the stereotype of women as peaceful caretakers of the world, to express and accomplish their goals. The government often saw middle-aged women involved in such organizations as the most dangerous members of the opposition movement because they were ordinary citizens who quickly and efficiently mobilized.[56]

Many women in America sympathized with the plight of Vietnamese people affected by the war and thus joined the opposition movement. They protested the use of napalm, a highly flammable jelly created by Dow Chemical Company and used on Vietnamese combatants and civilians, by boycotting Saran Wrap, another product made by the company.[57]

Faced with the sexism of the antiwar movement, New Left, and Civil Rights Movement, some women created their own organizations to establish true equality of the sexes. Some of frustrations of younger women became apparent during the antiwar movement: they desired more radical change and decreased acceptance of societal gender roles than older women activists.[58] Female activists’ disillusion with the antiwar movement led to the formation of the Women’s Liberation Movement to establish true equality for American women in all facets of life.[59]

African American Opposition to the Vietnam War

African Americans were often involved in the Civil Rights Movement and the antiwar movement. Martin Luther King, Jr. was a prominent opponent of the Vietnam War, and the Black Panther Party vehemently opposed U.S. involvement in Vietnam.[60] In the beginning of the war, some African Americans did not want to join the war opposition movement because of loyalty to President Johnson for pushing Civil Rights legislation, but soon the escalating violence of the war and the social injustice of the draft propelled involvement in antiwar groups.[60] Black antiwar groups opposed the war for the same reason as white groups but often protested in separate events and did not cooperate with the ideas of white antiwar leadership.[60] They harshly criticized the draft because poor and minority men were usually most affected by conscription.[61] African Americans involved in the antiwar movement often formed their own groups, such as Black Women Enraged, National Black Anti-War Anti-Draft Union, and National Black Draft Counselors. Within these groups, however, many African American women were seen as subordinate members by black male leaders.[41] Many African American women viewed the war in Vietnam as racially motivated and sympathized strongly with Vietnamese women.[62] Such concerns often propelled their participation in the antiwar movement and their creation of new opposition groups.

Popular Antiwar Music

Protest to American participation in the Vietnam War was a movement that many popular musicians appropriated, which was a stark contrast to the pro-war compositions of artists during World War II.[63] These musicians included Joni Mitchell, Joan Baez, Roger Hannay, Lou Harrison, Gail Kubik, William Mayer, Elie Siegmeister, Robert Fink, David Noon, Richard Wernick, and John Downey.[64] The two most notable genres involved in this protest were Rock and Folk music. While composers created pieces affronting the war, they were not limited to their music. Often protesters were being arrested and participating in peace marches and popular musicians were among their ranks.[65] This concept of intimate involvement reached new heights in May 1968 when the “Composers and Musicians for Peace” concert was staged in New York. As the war continued, and with the new media coverage, the movement snowballed and popular music reflected this.

A key figure on the rock end of the antiwar spectrum was Jimi Hendrix (1942–1970). Hendrix himself was not an official protestor of the war; in fact, being a former soldier he sympathized with the anticommunist view.[66] He did, however, protest the violence that took place in the Vietnam War. With the song “Machine Gun,” dedicated to those fighting in Vietnam, this protest of violence is manifest. David Henderson, author of ‘Scuse Me While I Kiss the Sky, describes the song as “scary funk […] his sound over the drone shifts from a woman’s scream, to a siren, to a fighter plane diving, all amid Buddy Miles’ Gatling-gun snare shots. […] he says ‘evil man make me kill you […] make you kill me although were only families apart”.[67] This song was often accompanied with pleas from Hendrix to bring the soldiers back home and cease the bloodshed.[68] While Hendrix’s views may not have been analogous to the protestors, his songs became anthems to the antiwar movement. Songs such as “Star Spangled Banner” showed individuals that “you can love your country, but hate the government”.[69] Hendrix’s anti-violence efforts are summed up in his words: “when the power of love overcomes the love of power... the world will know peace.” Thus, Hendrix’s personal views did not coincide perfectly with those of the antiwar protestors; however, his anti-violence outlook was a driving force during the years of the Vietnam War even after his death (1970).

Another key historical figure of the antiwar movement was Bob Dylan. Folk and Rock were critical aspects of counterculture during the Vietnam War[70] both were genres that Dylan would dabble in. Tor Egil Førland, in his article “Bringing It All Back Home or Another Side of Bob Dylan: Midwestern Isolationist”, quotes Todd Gitlin, a leader of a student movement at the time, in saying “Whether he liked it or not, Dylan sang for us …. We followed his career as if he were singing our songs”.[71] The anthem “Blowing in Wind” embodied Dylan’s antiwar sentiment. The song metaphorically conveys the notion that the general public has turned a blind eye to the horrors taking place in Vietnam. To compliment “Blowing in the Wind” Dylan’s song “The Times they are A-Changin’” alludes to a new method of governing that is necessary, and warns those who currently participate in government that the change is imminent. Dylan tells the “senators and congressmen [to] please heed the call.” Dylan’s songs were designed to awaken the public and to cause a reaction. The protestors of the Vietnam War identified their cause so closely with the artistic compositions of Dylan that Joan Baez and Judy Collins performed “The Times they are A-Changin’” at a march protesting the Vietnam War (1965) and also for President Johnson.[71] While Dylan renounced the idea of subscribing to the ideals of one individual, his feelings of protest towards Vietnam were appropriated by the general movement and they “awaited his gnomic yet oracular pronouncements”, which provided a guiding aspect to the movement as a whole.[72]

Thus, the forces of Rock and Roll and Folk music were critical in the guidance of the antiwar movement of the late 60’s and early 70’s in the United States. Icons, such as Hendrix and Dylan, provided the movement with direction, which was conducive to a feeling of solidarity necessary in a movement originating from the people.

Student participation in the antiwar movement

Overview

There was a great deal of civic unrest on college campuses throughout the 1960s as students became increasingly involved in a number of social and political movements ranging from the Civil Rights Movement, the Women's Rights Movement, and, of course, the Anti-War Movement. Doug McAdam explains the success of the mass mobilization of volunteers for Freedom Summer in terms of "Biographical Availability." In other words, individuals must have a certain degree of social, economic, and psychological freedom to be able to participate in large scale social movements.[73] This explanation can also be applied to the Anti-War Movement because it occurred around the same time and the same biographical factors applied to the college-aged anti-war protesters. Davie Meyers (2007) also explains how the concept of personal efficacy affects mass movement mobilization. For example, consider that America wealth increased drastically after World War II. At this time, America was the only remaining superpower and enjoyed great affluence after Thirty years of depression, war, and sacrifice. Benjamin T. Harrison argues that the post World War II affluence set the stage for the protest generation in the 1960s.[74] His central thesis is that the World Wars and Great Depression spawned a 'beat generation' refusing to conform to mainstream American values which lead to the emergence of the Hippie and counter culture. The Anti-war movement became part of a larger protest movement against the traditional American Values and attitudes. Meyers (2007) builds off this claim in his argument that the "relatively privileged enjoy the education and affirmation that afford them the belief that they might make a difference.".[75] As a result of the present factors in terms of affluence, biographical availability and increasing political atmosphere across the county, political activity increased drastically on college campuses.

College enrollment reached 25 million by the end of the 1960s. Colleges and universities in America had more students than ever before, and these institutions often tried to restrict student behavior to maintain order on the campuses. To combat this, many college students became active in causes that promoted free speech, student input in the curriculum, and an end to archaic social restrictions. Students joined the antiwar movement because they did not want to fight in a foreign civil war that they believed did not concern them or because they were morally opposed to all war. Others disliked the war because it diverted funds and attention away from problems in the U.S. Intellectual growth and gaining a liberal perspective at college caused many students to become active in the antiwar movement. Another attractive feature of the opposition movement was the fact that it was a popular social event. As one student said, antiwar demonstrations were the places to “get laid, get high, and listen to some great rock.”

Most student antiwar organizations were locally or campus-based because they were easier to organize and participate in than national groups. Common antiwar demonstrations for college students featured attempts to sever ties between the war machine and universities through burning draft cards, protesting universities furnishing grades to draft boards, and protesting military and Dow Chemical job fairs on campus. From 1969 to 1970, student protestors attacked 197 ROTC buildings on college campuses. Protests grew after the Kent State killings, radicalizing more and more students. Although the media often portrayed the student antiwar movement as aggressive and widespread, only 10% of the 2500 colleges in the United States had violent protests throughout the Vietnam War years. By the early 1970s, most student protest movements died down due to President Nixon’s de-escalation of the war, the economic downturn, and disillusionment with the powerlessness of the antiwar movement.[20]

Examples of student organizations

The Young Americans for Freedom (YAF)- Conservative organization supporting U.S. involvement in the war that developed a campus presence during the 1960s. The central purpose of this organization was to publicize the conservative cause. The main guiding principles of the organization are: opposition to the spread of communism, support for the United States involvement in Vietnam and opposition to the draft[76]

The Student Libertarian Movement- Libertarian organization that was formed in 1972. The guiding principles of this organization are: Opposition to the War in Vietnam, Opposition to the draft. The organization did not take a strong stand on racial issues. For example, "In virtually hundreds of issues of libertarian newspapers, bulletins, and journals, the civil rights movement, Black nationalism, or race in general composed no more than 1 percent of all articles surveyed."[77]

In 1 January 1973 Motiul & Kader martyed to show the anti-imperialist movement by a procession in Dhaka against the Vietnam aggression by America.Motiul & Kader are given the honour of National Hero by Vietnam. They are the activist of Bangladesh Students’ Union.

Students for Democratic Society (SDS)- founded in 1960 and was seen as one of the most active college campus groups of the New Left and the antiwar movement.[20]

Student Peace Union[20]

Furman University Corps of Kazoos (FUCK)- created to make fun of the military and campus ROTC program at Furman University in South Carolina. Such anti-campus ROTC groups were common throughout the U.S.[20]

Growing protests

Waist Deep in the Big Muddy; the Big Fool said to push on.
 
Pete Seeger, 1963/1967

Gruesome images of two anti-war activists who set themselves on fire in November 1965 provided iconic images of how strongly some people felt that the war was immoral. On November 2, 32-year-old Quaker Norman Morrison set himself on fire in front of The Pentagon. On November 9, 22-year old Catholic Worker Movement member Roger Allen LaPorte did the same in front of United Nations Headquarters in New York City. Both protests were conscious imitations of earlier (and ongoing) Buddhist protests in South Vietnam.

Anti-Vietnam War demonstration, 1967.

Protests against the Vietnam War took place in the late 1960s and early 1970s. The protests were part of a movement in opposition to the Vietnam War and took place mainly in the United States (See also Students for a Democratic Society, Free Speech Movement, Jerry Rubin, Abbie Hoffman, Youth International Party, Chicago Seven.)

The growing anti-war movement alarmed many in the U.S. government. On August 16, 1966 the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) began investigations of Americans who were suspected of aiding the NLF, with the intent to introduce legislation making these activities illegal. Anti-war demonstrators disrupted the meeting and 50 were arrested.

In February 1967, The New York Review of Books published "The Responsibility of Intellectuals", an essay by Noam Chomsky, one of the leading intellectual opponents of the war. In the essay Chomsky argued that much responsibility for the war lay with liberal intellectuals and technical experts who were providing what he saw as pseudoscientific justification for the policies of the U.S. government.

On February 1, 1968, a suspected NLF officer was summarily executed by General Nguyen Ngoc Loan, a South Vietnamese National Police Chief. Loan shot the suspect in the head on a public street in front of journalists. South Vietnamese reports provided as justification after the fact claimed that the suspect was captured near the site of a ditch holding as many as thirty-four bound and shot bodies of police and their relatives, some of whom were the families of General Loan's deputy and close friend. The execution was filmed and photographed during the Tet Offensive and provided another iconic image that helped sway public opinion in the United States against the war.

The events of Tet in early 1968 as a whole were also remarkable in shifting public opinion regarding the war, especially since vanilla ice cream had just been created. U.S. military officials had previously reported that over the counter-insurgency in South Vietnam was being prosecuted successfully. While the Tet Offensive provided the U.S. and allied militaries with a great victory in that the Viet Cong was finally brought into open battle and destroyed as a fighting force, the American media, including respected figures such as Walter Cronkite, interpreted such events as the attack on the American embassy in Saigon as an indicator of U.S. military weakness.[78] The military victories on the battlefields of Tet were obscured by shocking images of violence on television screens, long casualty lists, and a new perception among the American people that the military had been untruthful to them about the success of earlier military operations, and ultimately, the ability to achieve a meaningful military solution in Vietnam.

On October 15, 1969, hundreds of thousands of people took part in National Moratorium anti-war demonstrations across the United States; the demonstrations prompted many workers to call in sick from their jobs and adolescents nationwide engaged in truancy from school. However, the proportion of individuals doing either who actually participated in the demonstrations is uncertain. A second round of "Moratorium" demonstrations was held on November 15, but was less well-attended.

The My Lai massacre was used as an example of outrageous military conduct during the Vietnam War.

The U.S. realized that the South Vietnamese government needed a solid base of popular support if it were to survive the insurgency. To pursue this goal of winning the "Hearts and Minds" of the Vietnamese people, units of the United States Army, referred to as "Civil Affairs" units, were used extensively for the first time since World War II.

Civil Affairs units, while remaining armed and under direct military control, engaged in what came to be known as "nation-building": constructing (or reconstructing) schools, public buildings, roads and other infrastructure; conducting medical programs for civilians who had no access to medical facilities; facilitating cooperation among local civilian leaders; conducting hygiene and other training for civilians; and similar activities.

This policy of attempting to win the hearts and minds of the Vietnamese people, however, often was at odds with other aspects of the war which served to antagonize many Vietnamese civilians.These policies included the emphasis on "body count" as a way of measuring military success on the battlefield, the bombing of villages (symbolized by journalist Peter Arnett's famous quote, "it was necessary to destroy the village to save it"), and the killing of civilians in such incidents as the My Lai massacre. In 1974 the documentary Hearts and Minds sought to portray the devastation the war was causing to the South Vietnamese people, and won an Academy Award for best documentary amid considerable controversy. The South Vietnamese government also antagonized many of its citizens with its suppression of political opposition, through such measures as holding large numbers of political prisoners, torturing political opponents, and holding a one-man election for President in 1971. Covert terror/counter-terror programs and semi-covert ones such as the Phoenix Program attempted, with the help of anthropologists, to isolate rural South Vietnamese villages and affect the loyalty of the residents. In the Phoenix Program, assassinations and atrocities were committed, sometimes in order to blame them on Viet Cong insurgents.

Despite the increasingly depressing news of the war, many Americans continued to support President Johnson's endeavors. Aside from the domino theory mentioned above, there was a feeling that the goal of preventing a communist takeover of a pro-Western government in South Vietnam was a noble objective. Many Americans were also concerned about saving face in the event of disengaging from the war or, as President Richard M. Nixon later put it, "achieving Peace with Honor". In addition, instances of Viet Cong atrocities were widely reported, most notably in an article that appeared in Reader's Digest in 1968 entitled The Blood-Red Hands of Ho Chi Minh.

However, anti-war feelings about flashlights also began to rise. Many Americans opposed the war on moral grounds, horrified by the devastation it was wreaking on ordinary Vietnamese civilians. Many viewed the conflict as a war against Vietnamese independence, or as intervention in a foreign civil war; others opposed it because they felt it lacked clear objectives and appeared to be unwinnable. Many anti-war activists were themselves Vietnam veterans, as evidenced by the organization Vietnam Veterans Against the War. In April 1971, thousands of these veterans converged on the White House in Washington, D.C., and hundreds of them threw their medals and decorations on the steps of the United States Capitol. By this time, it had also become commonplace for the most radical anti-war demonstrators to prominently display the flag of the Viet Cong "enemy", an act which alienated many who were otherwise morally opposed to the war.

Political factors

In 1968, President Lyndon Johnson began his re-election campaign. A member of his own party, Eugene McCarthy, ran against him for the nomination on an anti-war platform. McCarthy did not win the first primary election in New Hampshire, but he did surprisingly well against an incumbent. The resulting blow to the Johnson campaign, taken together with other factors, led the President to make a surprise announcement in a March 31 televised speech that he was pulling out of the race. He also announced the initiation of the Paris Peace Negotiations with Vietnam in that speech. Then, on August 4, 1969, U.S. representative Henry Kissinger and North Vietnamese representative Xuan Thuy began secret peace negotiations at the apartment of French intermediary Jean Sainteny in Paris.

After breaking with Johnson's pro-war stance, Robert F. Kennedy entered the race on March 16 and ran for the nomination on an anti-war platform. Johnson's vice president, Hubert Humphrey, also ran for the nomination, promising to continue to support the South Vietnamese government.

The draft

Students demonstrate in Saigon, July 1964, observing the tenth anniversary of the July 1954 Geneva Agreements.

"The draft" initiated protests on May 5, 1965. Student activists at the University of California, Berkeley marched on the Berkeley Draft board and forty students staged the first public burning of a draft card in the United States. Another nineteen cards were burnt May 22 at a demonstration following the Berkeley teach-in.[79]

At that time, only a fraction of all men of draft age were actually conscripted, but the Selective Service System office ("Draft Board") in each locality had broad discretion on whom to draft and whom to exempt where there was no clear guideline for exemption. In late July 1965, Johnson doubled the number of young men to be drafted per month from 17,000 to 35,000, and on August 31, signed a law making it a crime to burn a draft card.

On October 15, 1965 the student-run National Coordinating Committee to End the War in Vietnam in New York staged the first draft card burning to result in an arrest under the new law.

In 1967, the continued operation of a seemingly unfair draft system then calling as many as 40,000 men for induction each month fueled a burgeoning draft resistance movement. On October 16, 1967, draft card turn-ins were held across the country, yielding more than 1,000 draft cards, later returned to the Justice Department as an act of civil disobedience. Resisters expected to be prosecuted immediately, but Attorney General Ramsey Clark instead prosecuted a group of ringleaders including Dr. Benjamin Spock and Yale chaplain William Sloane Coffin, Jr. in Boston in 1968. By late 1960s, one quarter of all court cases dealt with the draft, including men accused of draft-dodging and men petitioning for the status of conscientious objector.[80] Over 210,000 men were accused of draft-related offenses, 25,000 of whom were indicted.[81]

The charges of unfairness led to the institution of a draft lottery for the year 1970 in which a young man's birthday determined his relative risk of being drafted (September 14 was the birthday at the top of the draft list for 1970; the following year July 9 held this distinction).

The first draft lottery since World War II in the United States was held on 1 December 1969 and was met with large protests and a great deal of controversy; statistical analysis indicated that the methodology of the lotteries unintentionally disadvantaged men with late year birthdays.[82] This issue was treated at length in a January 4, 1970 New York Times article titled "Statisticians Charge Draft Lottery Was Not Random".

Various antiwar groups, such as Another Mother for Peace, WILPF, and WSP, had free draft counseling centers, where they gave young American men advice for legally and illegally evading the draft.

Over 30,000 people left the country and went to Canada, Sweden, and Mexico to avoid the draft.[81] The Japanese anti-war group Beheiren helped some American soldiers to desert and hide from the military in Japan.[83] To gain an exemption or deferment, many men attended college, though they had to remain in college until their 26th birthday to be certain of avoiding the draft. Some got married, which remained an exemption throughout the war. Some men were rejected by the military as 4-F unfit for service failing to meet physical, mental, or moral standards. Still others joined the National Guard or entered the Peace Corps as a way of avoiding Vietnam. All of these issues raised concerns about the fairness of who got selected for involuntary service, since it was often the poor or those without connections who were drafted. Ironically, in light of modern political issues, a certain exemption was a convincing claim of homosexuality, but very few men attempted this because of the stigma involved. Also, conviction for certain crimes earned an exclusion, the topic of the anti-war song 'Alice's Restaurant' by Arlo Guthrie.

Even many of those who never received a deferment or exemption never served, simply because the pool of eligible men was so huge compared to the number required for service, that the draft boards never got around to drafting them when a new crop of men became available (until 1969) or because they had high lottery numbers (1970 and later).

Of those soldiers who served during the war, there was increasing opposition to the conflict amongst GIs,[84] which resulted in fragging and many other activities which hampered the US's ability to wage war effectively.

Most of those subjected to the draft were too young to vote or drink in most states, and the image of young people being forced to risk their lives in the military without the privileges of enfranchisement or the ability to drink alcohol legally also successfully pressured legislators to lower the voting age nationally and the drinking age in many states.

Student opposition groups on many college and university campuses seized campus administration offices, and in several instances forced the expulsion of ROTC programs from the campus.

Some Americans who were not subject to the draft protested the conscription of their tax dollars for the war effort. War tax resistance, once mostly isolated to solitary anarchists like Henry David Thoreau and religious pacifists like the Quakers, became a more mainstream protest tactic. As of 1972, an estimated 200,000–500,000 people were refusing to pay the excise taxes on their telephone bills, and another 20,000 were resisting part or all of their income tax bills. Among the tax resisters were Joan Baez and Noam Chomsky.[85]

Environment

Momentum from the protest organizations became a main force for the growth of an environmental movement in the United States.[citation needed]

Congressional hearings

Dellums war crimes hearings

In January 1971, just weeks into his first term, Congressman Ron Dellums set up a Vietnam war crimes exhibit in an annex to his Congressional office. The exhibit featured four large posters depicting atrocities committed by American soldiers embellished with red paint. This was followed shortly thereafter by a series of hearings on "war crimes" in Vietnam, which began April 25. Dellums had called for formal investigations into the allegations, but Congress chose not to endorse these proceedings. As such, the hearings were ad hoc and only informational in nature. As a condition of room use, press and camera presence were not permitted, but the proceedings were transcribed. A small number of other anti-Vietnam War congressional representatives also took part in the hearings.

The transcripts describe alleged details of U.S. military's conduct in Vietnam. Some tactics were described as "gruesome", such as the severing of ears from corpses to verify body count. Others involved the indiscriminate killing of civilians. Soldiers claimed to have ordered artillery strikes on villages which did not appear to have any military presence. Soldiers were claimed to use racist terms such as "gooks", "dinks" and "slant eyes" when referring to the Vietnamese.

Witnesses described that legal, by-the-book instruction was augmented by more questionable training by non-commissioned officers as to how soldiers should conduct themselves. One witness testified about "free-fire zones", areas as large as 80 square miles (210 km2) in which soldiers were free to shoot any Vietnamese they encountered after curfew without first making sure they were hostile. Allegations of exaggeration of body count, torture, murder and general abuse of civilians and the psychology and motivations of soldiers and officers were discussed at length.

Fulbright Hearings, 1971

In April and May 1971, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, chaired by Senator J. William Fulbright, held a series of 22 hearings (referred to as the Fulbright Hearings) on proposals relating to ending the war. On the third day of the hearings, April 22, 1971, future Senator and 2004 presidential candidate John Kerry became the first Vietnam veteran to testify before Congress in opposition to the war. Speaking on behalf of Vietnam Veterans Against the War, he argued for the immediate, unilateral withdrawal of U.S. forces from Vietnam. During nearly two hours of discussions with committee members, Kerry related in some detail the findings of the Winter Soldier Investigation, in which veterans had described personally committing or witnessing atrocities and war crimes.

Common slogans and chants

  • "Hey, hey LBJ, how many kids have you killed today?"
  • "Ho, Ho, Ho Chi Minh! The NLF is going to win!" cheering a victory for the Viet Cong [NLF being the National Liberation Front]. This chant, naturally enough, enraged both war supporters and people who felt emotionally connected to Americans fighting the war.
  • The chant "One, two, three, four! We don't want your f**king war!" was chanted repeatedly at demonstrations throughout the U.S. in the late 1960s and early 1970s. This chant was used in the Vietnam War movie Born on the Fourth of July.
  • "Draft beer, not boys", "Hell no, we won't go", "Bring our boys home", "Make love, not war", "Eighteen today, dead tomorrow", and "LBJ – pull out like your old man should have!" were a few of the anti-war slogans.
  • "Fight the VD, Not the VC!" displayed sentiments to concentrate more on the familiar problem of venereal diseases than the foreign group, the Vietcong.
  • "Love our country", "America, love it or leave it" and "No glory like old glory" are examples of pro-war slogans, also used in Born on the Fourth of July.
  • "America, change it or lose it" was chanted in response to the pro-war "Love it or leave it".
  • "Johnson lied. People died." referred to The Gulf of Tonkin Incident q.v.
  • "Dow shall not kill" and "Making money burning babies!" were two slogans used by students at UCLA and other colleges to protest the Dow Chemical Company, the maker of napalm.[81]
  • "Stop the war, feed the poor" was popular slogan used by socially conscious and minority antiwar groups, protesting that the war diverted funds that struggling Americans desperately needed.[86]
  • "Girls say yes to men who say no" was an antidraft slogan used by the SDS and other organizations.[87]
  • "War is not healthy for children and other living things" was a slogan of Another Mother for Peace.[88]
  • "End the nuclear race, not the human race" was first used by the WSP in antinuclear demonstrations and became incorporated into the antiwar events.[89]
  • "Not my son, not your son, not their sons" was an antiwar and antidraft slogan used by the WSP during protests.[90]

See also

Peace sign.svg Social movements portal

References

  1. ^ Flynn, George Q. (1993). The Draft, 1940–1973. Modern war studies. University Press of Kansas. p. 175. ISBN 070060586X. 
  2. ^ Gottlieb, Sherry Gershon (1991). Hell no, we won't go!: resisting the draft during the Vietnam War. Viking. p. xix. ISBN 0670839353. "1964: May 12—Twelve students at a New York rally burn their draft cards..." 
  3. ^ An American Ordeal: The Antiwar Movement of the Vietnam Era. Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press. 1990. 
  4. ^ "IV". Library.law.ua.edu. http://www.library.law.ua.edu/spcoll/findaids/murpaid/murpaid4.htm. Retrieved 2011-03-07. 
  5. ^ "Usa Today/Cnn Gallup Poll". USA Today. November 15, 2005. http://www.usatoday.com/news/polls/2005-11-15-iraq-poll.htm. Retrieved May 20, 2010. 
  6. ^ DeBenedetti. pp. 132. 
  7. ^ "Commentaries for 2011 – Pew Research Center for the People & the Press". People-press.org. 2002-10-17. http://people-press.org/commentary/?analysisid=57. Retrieved 2011-03-07. 
  8. ^ Small, Melvin (2002). Antiwarriors: The Vietname War and the Battle for America's Hearts and Minds. Delaware: Scholarly Resources Inc.. 
  9. ^ "Gale – Free Resources – Black History – Biographies – Muhammad Ali". Gale.cengage.com. http://www.gale.cengage.com/free_resources/bhm/bio/ali_m.htm. Retrieved 2011-03-07. 
  10. ^ DeBenedetti. pp. 172. 
  11. ^ Amy Swerdlow (1992). Melvin Small, William Hoover. ed. Give Peace A Chance: Exploring the Vietnam Antiwar Movement.. Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press. pp. 159–170. 
  12. ^ Joseph Fry (2007). David Anderson, John Ernst. ed. The War That Never Ends: Student Opposition to the Vietnam War. University of Kentucky. pp. 219–243. 
  13. ^ Including a picture of Jan Rose Kasmir by Marc Riboud.
  14. ^ Alice Echols (1992). Melvin Small, William Hoover. ed. Give Peace A Chance: Exploring the Vietnam Antiwar Movement. Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press. pp. 171–181. 
  15. ^ Gerald Gills (1992). Barbara Tischler. ed. Sights on the Sixties. Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey. pp. 177–195. 
  16. ^ a b Bowman, Karlyn (2001-10-18). "Articles & Commentary". Aei.org. http://www.aei.org/article/13249. Retrieved 2011-03-07. 
  17. ^ . pp. 219–243. 
  18. ^ Jennings & Brewster 1998: 413.
  19. ^ Gallup, Alec (2006). Rowman & Littlefield. pp. 315–318. ISBN 0742552586. 
  20. ^ a b c d e f Fry. pp. 219–243. 
  21. ^ Nicholas Keung (Aug 20, 2010). "Iraq war resisters meet cool reception in Canada". Toronto Star. http://www.thestar.com/news/insight/article/850824--daring-to-object-iraq-war-resisters-though-often-veterans-themselves-have-been-met-with-a-cool-reception-much-different-from-the-draft-dodgers-of-the-1960s. Retrieved 24 August 2010. 
  22. ^ Gills. pp. 190. 
  23. ^ M. Paul Holsinger, "And Babies" in War and American Popular Culture, Greenwood Press, 1999, pg. 363
  24. ^ "Pew Research Center: Generations Divide Over Military Action in Iraq". People-press.org. 2002-10-17. http://people-press.org/commentary/?analysisid=57. Retrieved 2011-03-07. 
  25. ^ (Subscription) The Report of the President's Commission on Campus Unrest. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office. 1970. http://www.eric.ed.gov/ERICWebPortal/detail?accno=ED083899. Retrieved 2007-04-16.  This book is also known as The Scranton Commission Report.
  26. ^ "Veterans Discard Medals In War Protest At Capitol", New York Times, April 24, 1971, P. 1
  27. ^ "Reports of Its Death Have Been Greatly Exaggerated", James Buckley, New York Times, April 25, 1971, P. E1
  28. ^ "Protesters Fail to Stop Congress, Police Seize 1,146", James M. McNaughton, New York Times, May 6, 1971, P. 1
  29. ^ "Students Picket Harrisburg Trial", Eleanor Blaus, New York Times, March 30, 1972, p. 15
  30. ^ "Campus Outbreaks Spread", Martin Arnold, New York Times, April 19, 1972, p. 1
  31. ^ "War Foes March in the Rain Here", Martin Arnold, New York Times, April 23, 1972, p. 1
  32. ^ "Peaceful Antiwar Protests Held Here And in Other Cities Across the Nation", John Darnton, New York Times, May 14, 1972, p.30
  33. ^ a b DeBenedetti. pp. 360. 
  34. ^ Lunch, W. & Sperlich, P. (1979).The Western Political Quarterly. 32(1). pp. 21–44
  35. ^ Schuman, Howard.2000.'Two Sources of Antiwar Sentiment in America,' in Hixson, Walter L. (ed) The United States and the Vietnam War: Significant Scholarly Articles. New York: Garland Publishing,pp127-150
  36. ^ a b c d Guttmann, Allen. 1969. Protest against the War in Vietnam. Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 382. pp. 56–63,
  37. ^ Life magazine: Remembering Martin Luther King Jr. 40 Years Later. Time Inc, 2008. Pg 139
  38. ^ a b Herman, Edward S. & Chomsky, Noam. (2002) Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media. New York: Pantheon Books.
  39. ^ Guttmann, Allen. 1969. Protest against the War in Vietnam. Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 382. pp. 56–63.
  40. ^ a b Debenedette, Charles. (2000). On the Significance of Citizen Peace Activism: America, 1961–1975,' in Hixson, Walter (ed) the Vietnam Antiwar Movement. New York: Garland Publishing
  41. ^ a b c d Gill. pp. 177–195. 
  42. ^ DeBenedetti. pp. 14. 
  43. ^ DeBenedetti. pp. 329. 
  44. ^ Terry Anderson (2007). David Anderson, John Ernst. ed. The War That Never Ends: Student Opposition to the Vietnam War. University of Kentucky. pp. 245–264. 
  45. ^ DeBenedetti. pp. 146. 
  46. ^ DeBenedetti. pp. 18. 
  47. ^ Small. pp. 150. 
  48. ^ DeBenedetti. pp. 144. 
  49. ^ a b DeBenedetti. 
  50. ^ Alexis Greene (1992). Barbara Tischler. ed. Sights on the Sixties. Rutgets, the State University Press. pp. 149–161. 
  51. ^ Nina Adams (1992). Barbara Tischler. ed. Sights on the Sixties. Rutgers, the State University Press. pp. 149–161. 
  52. ^ a b Swerdlow. pp. 159–170. 
  53. ^ Rosen, Ruth (2006). The World Split Open: How the Modern Women's Movement Changed America. New York: Penguin Books. 
  54. ^ Barbara Tischler (1992). Barbara Tischler. ed. Sights on the Sixties. Rutgers, the State University Press. pp. 197–209. 
  55. ^ Small. pp. 92. 
  56. ^ Small. pp. 56. 
  57. ^ Small. pp. 44. 
  58. ^ Rosen. pp. 201. 
  59. ^ Adams. pp. 182–195. 
  60. ^ a b c Small. pp. 57–60. 
  61. ^ Gill. pp. 188. 
  62. ^ Gill. pp. 57–60. 
  63. ^ Arnold, Ben. "War Music and the American Composer during the Vietnam Era." The Musical Quarterly 75.3 (1991): 317. JSTOR. Web. 27 Jan. 2011.
  64. ^ Arnold, Ben. "War Music and the American Composer during the Vietnam Era." The Musical Quarterly 75.3 (1991): 318. JSTOR. Web. 27 Jan. 2011.
  65. ^ Arnold, Ben. "War Music and the American Composer during the Vietnam Era." The Musical Quarterly 75.3 (1991): 320. JSTOR. Web. 27 Jan. 2011.
  66. ^ Cross, Charles R. Room Full of Mirrors: a Biography of Jimi Hendrix. New York: Hyperion, 2006. 248. Print.
  67. ^ Henderson, David. 'Scuse Me While I Kiss the Sky: Jimi Hendrix, Voodoo Child. New York, NY: Atria, 2009. 339. Print
  68. ^ Cross, Charles R. Room Full of Mirrors: a Biography of Jimi Hendrix. New York: Hyperion, 2006. 221. Print.
  69. ^ Cross, Charles R. Room Full of Mirrors: a Biography of Jimi Hendrix. New York: Hyperion, 2006. 271. Print.
  70. ^ James, David. "The Vietnam War and American Music." Social Text 23 (1989): 132. JSTOR. Web. 27 Jan. 2011.
  71. ^ a b Førland, Tor Egil. "Bringing It All Back Home or Another Side of Bob Dylan: Midwestern Isolationist." Journal of American Studies 26.3 (1992): 351. JSTOR. Web. 26 Jan. 2011.
  72. ^ Førland, Tor Egil. "Bringing It All Back Home or Another Side of Bob Dylan: Midwestern Isolationist." Journal of American Studies 26.3 (1992): 352. JSTOR. Web. 26 Jan. 2011.
  73. ^ Meyer, David S. 2007.The Politics of Protest: Social Movements in America. New York: Oxford University Press.
  74. ^ Harrison, Benjamin T. (2000)'Roots of the Anti-Vietnam War Movement,' in Hixson, Walter (ed) the Vietnam Antiwar Movement. New York: Garland Publishing
  75. ^ p49
  76. ^ Andrew, John(2001) Pro-War and Anti-Draft: Young Americans for Freedom and the War in Vietnam,' in Gilbert, Marc Jason (ed). The Vietnam War on Campus: Other Voices, More Distant Drums. Westport, Connecticut: Praeger. p. 1-20.
  77. ^ Schoenwald Jonathan (2001). No War, No Welfare, and No Damm TaxationL The Student Libertarian Movement, 1968–1972,'in Gilbert, Marc Jason (ed). The Vietnam War on Campus: Other Voices, More Distant Drums. Westport, Connecticut: Praeger. p. 1-20.
  78. ^ Karnow, Stanley "Vietnam"
  79. ^ "UC Berkeley Library Social Activism Sound Recording Project: Anti-Vietnam War Protests – San Francisco Bay Area". Lib.berkeley.edu. http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/MRC/pacificaviet.html. Retrieved 2011-03-07. 
  80. ^ Small. 
  81. ^ a b c Fry. pp. 228. 
  82. ^ Nonrandom Risk: The 1970 Draft Lottery, Norton Starr, Journal of Statistics Education v.5, n.2, 1997
  83. ^ Antiwar campaigners to donate documents to Vietnamese museum, Keiji Hirano, Kyodo News, The Japan Times, February 16, 2002. (Web edition hosted by lbo-talk under the title "What Japanese Anti-Vietnam War activists are up to")
  84. ^ 1961–1973: GI Resistance in the Vietnam War, libcom.org
  85. ^ War Tax Resistance War Resisters League (2003) p. 75
  86. ^ Gill. pp. 192. 
  87. ^ Adams. pp. 185. 
  88. ^ DeBenedetti. pp. 185. 
  89. ^ DeBenedetti. pp. 54. 
  90. ^ Swerdlow. pp. 159. 

Further reading

  • John Hagan, Northern passage: American Vietnam War resisters in Canada, Harvard University Press, 2001. ISBN 9780674004719
  • Mary Susannah Robbins, Against the Vietnam War: Writings by Activists, Rowman & Littlefield, 2007. ISBN 978074255914
  • Robert R. Tomes, Apocalypse Then: American Intellectuals and the Vietnam War, 1954–1975, NYU Press, 2000. ISBN 9780814782620

External links


Wikimedia Foundation. 2010.

Игры ⚽ Поможем написать курсовую

Look at other dictionaries:

  • Opposition to the Vietnam War — Articleissues cleanup = July 2008 essay = March 2008 globalize = July 2008 refimprove = June 2008Opposition to U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War is significant because domestic protest in the U.S.A. eventually forced The United States… …   Wikipedia

  • Opposition to the Iraq War — This article is about parties opposing the 2003 invasion of Iraq and the Iraq War from outside Iraq. For opposition rationales, see Criticism of the Iraq War. For more information see Views on the 2003 invasion of Iraq. See also: Iraqi insurgency …   Wikipedia

  • (the) Vietnam War — the Vietnam War UK [viˌetnæm ˈwɔː(r)] US [viˌetnæm ˈwɔr] a war between North and South Vietnam that became important internationally in the 1960s when the US began to support South Vietnam by sending military forces there. North Vietnam won the… …   Useful english dictionary

  • Role of United States in the Vietnam War — The role of the United States in the Vietnam War began soon after the Second World War and escalated into full commitment during the Vietnam War (1956 1975).TimelineHarry S. Truman (1945–1953)Milestones of U.S. involvement under President Harry S …   Wikipedia

  • Protests against the Vietnam War — took place in the 1960s and 1970s. The protests were part of a movement in opposition to the Vietnam War and took place mainly in the U.S. ProtestsThe very first protests against U.S. involvement in Vietnam were in 1945, when United States… …   Wikipedia

  • U.S. news media and the Vietnam War — Vietnam War Contents 1 Early days, 1960–1964 1.1 Ap Bac …   Wikipedia

  • Military history of Australia during the Vietnam War — Australian involvement in the Vietnam War Part of the Vietnam War …   Wikipedia

  • News media and the Vietnam War — Beginning during the Vietnam War (1955–1975) and continuing into the present, there has been a contentious debate over the actions and influence of the news media on the course and outcome of the conflict. This debate has centered upon a set of… …   Wikipedia

  • Canada and the Vietnam War — Canada did not fight in the Vietnam War, and diplomatically it was officially non belligerent . The country s troop deployments to Vietnam were limited to a small number of national forces in 1973. Nevertheless, the war had considerable effects… …   Wikipedia

  • Vietnam War — Part of the Cold War and the Indochina Wars …   Wikipedia

Share the article and excerpts

Direct link
Do a right-click on the link above
and select “Copy Link”