Why Protest the War



Why Protest the War?

• Main: it was a civil war, we had no business there

• US cannot police the world

• Vietnam War was draining US strength in important parts of the world: Euro and Mid East

• Morally Unjust

African Americans

• In 1st yrs of war, blacks totaled +20% of US combat deaths (only 10% of US pop)

• Angered Civil Rights leaders: 1967 MLKJ spoke out against the war: “cruel irony” blacks were dying for a country where they were 2nd class citizens

• Still faced racial tensions in platoons

• 1967 race riot in Long Binh, Vietnam

Females

• Not allowed to serve in combat

• 7,500 women served as nurses

• Thousands more volunteered in the Red Cross and USO (United Services Organization) – hospitality/entertainment to troops

Women in the Military Today

• In 1970: 40,000 women in uniform

• 1990: +225,000

• Carol Mutter, US Marine, 1st women 3-star general in 1996

• West Point’s 1st woman valedictorian graduated June 1995

• Resistance to women in combat duty still exists today

The New Left

• Growing youth movement in the ’60s

• “new” in relation to the “old left” of the 1930s which tried to move the nation toward socialism/communism

• Demanded sweeping changes in Amer society - socialist

Students for a Democratic Society

• The groups’ declaration, the Port Huron Statement,

– “We are the people of this generation, bred in at least moderate comfort, housed now in universities, looking uncomfortably to the world we inherit.”

– corporations and large gov’t institutions had taken over America

– Restore “participatory democracy” and greater individual freedom

Free Speech Movement

• Est. 1964, new left group

• Attacks American society

• Started b/c students and Administrators clash over free speech on campus

• Criticized: the American “machine”: faceless/ powerful business and gov’t institutions

Activism on Campus

• Campus issues:

– dress codes, Curfews, dormitory regulations, mandatory ROTC training

Veterans

• Those in the war returned home to protest

• Marched outside the White House

• Tried to return medals to LBJ

The War in Music

• Anti-war Songs

– Peter, Paul and Mary

– Eve of Destruction, by Barry McGuire

– War

– Bob Dylan

• Positive:

– “The Ballad of the Green Berets”

Protest to Resistance

• US gov’t imprisoned 4,000 draft resisters

• About 10,000 fled to Canada

• 1967 demonstration at Washington’s Lincoln Memorial: 75,000 protesters; 30,000 then locked arms to march to the Pentagon, they were tear-gassed/arrested

Doves vs. Hawks

• Doves

• Hawks

• 1967: 2/3 of Americans thought the war was still justified, pro-war march in NYC

• Dec. ’67: poll said 70% of protests were “acts of disloyalty”

Johnson Continues

• Keeps policy of slow escalation

• Saw protesters as misguided/ misinformed

• Problems in his own administration

– Nov. ’67 R. McNamara resigned to become head of the World Bank

• 1968 would be the worst year for the war

1968

• 2 assassinations

• A shocking political development…

• Surge in college campus protests

• Turning point in the war (Tet)

• Urban riots

• Elections of 1968

• My Lai Massacre

• Czechoslovakia invaded by Soviets

• 1968 Olympics

• Khe Sanh

• Civil Rights Act

Tet Offensive- January 1968

• Surprise attack by the Vietcong

• Vietnamese New Year, beginning of the lunar new year celebrations=Tet

• At the same time many funerals for victims of war, accompanied w/ fireworks/coffins

• In the coffins – weapons and many villagers were Vietcong

• 100 towns/cities and 12 US air bases

• Attacked US embassy in Saigon, killed 5 Amer.

• Tet Offensive lasted nearly a month before US and S. Vietnam regained control

• Westmoreland declared it an overwhelming defeat for Vietcong: Lost 32,000; US lost 3,000

• But … only a military victory for the US

|Indicator |Pre-TET |Post-TET |Change |

| Approves Johnson's handling |48% |36% |-12 |

|of job as president | | | |

|Approves Johnson's handling of|39% |26% |-13 |

|Vietnam | | | |

|Regards war in Vietnam as a |45% |49% |+4 |

|mistake | | | |

|Proportion classifying |60% |41% |-19 |

|themselves as "hawks" | | | |

White House Changes

• Clark Clifford, strong Vietnam supporter, replaced McNamara as defense secretary

• But once in office and studying the situation, he concluded – not winnable

America Turns on LBJ

• Feb 1968, almost 60% disapproved

• Even Dean Rusk commented on the turning point saying that if he lost Cronkite then he “lost Mr. Average Citizen”

Race for Presidency

• Democrats want RFK to replace LBJ as candidate, but RFK’s loyal to LBJ

• Eugene McCarthy will run against LBJ to end the war

– more attention after Tet; March ’68 won 40% of New Hampshire primary

• RFK saw there was a weakness, so declared candidacy

• March 31, 1968 LBJ announced: US seeks negotiations to end the war

• Steps - South to take a larger role in the war

• Then declared that he wouldn’t seek the nomination from his party (60% disapprove)

Democrats

• Democratic National Convention: bloody riot

• Main candidate: RFK, killed in June

• Eugene McCarthy against V.P. Hubert Humphrey

• Humphrey’s nomination was pre-determined; angered anti-war activists

Chicago

• 10,000 protestors at the DNC

• Yippies (Youth International Party): provoke violence to discredit the Dem. Party

• Aug. 28 police sprayed protestors w/ mace/beat w/ nightsticks

• Shouted “The whole world is watching” as police attacked demonstrators and bystanders (on TV)

• Party disorder inside: arguments; world watching still

Nixon

• When did we talk about him before?

• Republican nomination

• Promised: restore law and order, vague terms: end war in Vietnam

• Democrat George Wallace running as an independent, for school segregation/states rights

The Candidates of 1968

Humphrey Nixon George Wallace

Democrat Republican Independent

Democratic Party in Chaos Promised to stop Pro-Segregation

Pro War or Anti-War? Chaos State’s Rights

Johnson Peace Talks

• all N. V. forces to w/draw from the South

• Thieu to remain in power

• What did the Vietcong and North want?

Nixon’s Vietnamization-Public Opinion

• Withdraw all troops immediately = 19%

• Withdraw all troops by the end of 1970 = 22%

• Withdraw troops but take as long as needed for Vietnamization to work = 40%

• Send more troops and step up fighting = 11%

• No Opinion = 8%

• massive bombing campaign against supply routers and bases in N. V.

• Why were bombs dropped on Laos and Cambodia?

• Wanted enemy to believe he was capable of anything

Silent Majority

• Wanted support from moderate, mainstream Americans who quietly support the president’s strategy

Mai Lai Massacre

• March 16,1968: looking for Vietcong

• None found; but shot +100 Vietnamese

• Lt. ordered, “Kill anything that breathed.”

25 officers charged w/ involvement; only Lt. Calley was convicted and imprisoned

Cambodia

• April 30, 1970 US invaded Cambodia

• Campus protests erupted: 15 million students closed 1,200 campuses

• Nixon lost political support: didn’t notified Congress for bombing/invasion

Kent State University, Ohio

• 1st general student strike in nation’s history

• Led to the burning of the ROTC building

• National Guard

• May 4,1970 guards shot into a crowd (throwing rocks)

• Gunshots wounded 9, killed 4 (2 were bystanders)

• May 14, similar situation at Jackson State

• Many Americans supported the Nat’l Guards; students “got what they deserved”

• “hardhats”: rally to support the gov’t

• “You see these bums, you know, blowing up the campuses. Listen, the boys that are on the college campuses today are the luckiest people in the world, going to the greatest universities, and here they

are burning up the books, I mean storming around about this issue -- I mean you name it -- get rid of the war; there will be another one.” -- Nixon

Pentagon Papers

• Dec. 31, 1970 Congress repealed Tonkin Gulf Resolution

• Daniel Ellsberg leaked the Pentagon Papers

• 7,000 pgs, said gov’t was preparing to enter the war while Johnson promised he wouldn’t send troops; never a plan to end the war if N. persisted

Longest War

• March 1972: N. V. biggest attack since Tet

• Nixon responds: massive bombing on N. cities and Comm allied supply harbor

• Bombs halted the N.V attack

• Now Nixon finally takes steps to pull out

Henry Kissenger

• Polls: Americans wanted to w/draw by end ‘71

• Pres.’ advisor for Nat’l security affairs

• Chief negotiator in Vietnam

• Finally agreed the N. did not have to fully leave S. before w/drawl of US troops

• Declared: “Peace is at Hand”

Nixon wins Reelection!

• The South’s regime rejected Kissinger’s plan

• Talks ended; Dec.8: bombing campaign on Hanoi and Haiphong

• Called “Christmas bombings”: US dropped 100,000 bombs for 11 days, pause on Christmas

• Everyone, from Congress to Moscow wanted the war to end

January 2, 1973

• US signed treaty to end war; restore peace in Vietnam

• N. V. would stay in S. but if broke treaty Nixon promised to respond w/ full force

• March 29, 1973: last US combat troops left

• For America, war had ended

1974-1975

• Saigon

• Communist victory became certain, a massive evacuation began. In just 19 hours, 81 helicopters carried + 1,000 Americans & 6,000 Vietnamese out of the city-under-siege and to the safety of aircraft carriers waiting offshore.

• For every Vietnamese who successfully fled the city, however, dozens more were denied transport.

1976-Postwar-Ho Chi Minh City (formerly Saigon)

• Comm takeover; Saigon is renamed to Ho Chi Minh City.

• Vietnam's most populous city remained unstable under Communist rule.

Unified Nation

• Communist terror: imprisoned +400,000 S. Viet. in “reeducation”/labor camps

• Almost 1.5 million fled Vietnam

– Businessmen/citizens support US

– Boat people: poor fled on any water craft across S. China Sea; 50,000 died in route

Khmer Rouge- US invasion of Cambodia created civil war

• Communist grp: Khmer Rouge1975 wanted to transform country to a peasant society, executed gov’t officials/academics, believed to kill 2 million Cambodians

Numbers

• 58,000 Americans were killed and 365,000 wounded

• 1,100,000 North V. military personnel killed in Vietnam War

• $24 billion: Amer. Aid to S. V. 1955-1975

• $165 billion: Direct US expenditures for V. war

• N. and S. Vietnamese deaths: 1.5 million leaving SE Asia unstable and more war in Cambodia

Welcome Home?

• No victory parades/cheering crowds

• 15% of 3.3 million diagnosed w/ delayed stress syndrome

• Some apathetic, other abused drugs/alcohol

• Several thousand committed suicide

• Created the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in D.C. to honor vets (1982)

Policy Changes in US

1. Gov’t abolished the draft

2. Steps to limit the President’s war-making power: War Powers Act

• Pres must inform Congress within 48 hrs if US forces are sent into a hostile area w/out a declaration of war.

• Troops may remain no more than 90 days w/out Congressional approval of the President’s actions or declares war

Vietnam Syndrome

• The war altered US views on foreign policy

• Now pause to reflect on possible risks to own interest before the decision is made to intervene in the affairs of other nations

• Americans grew suspicious of the gov’t b/c of the misleading info (LBJ)/conceal activities (Nixon), became cynical

• Had faith in gov’t during Ike and JFK yr

................
................

In order to avoid copyright disputes, this page is only a partial summary.

Google Online Preview   Download