Mitchell K.

Hall

The Vietnam Era

Antiwar Movement

A
merica's military escalation in Vietnam during 1965 generated action to change what they saw as a mistaken policy. Radicals
a rapid and organized public opposition. As the war dragged perceived fundamental flaws in American society of which Vietnam
on. this dissent grew dramatically, becoming one of the largest was only a symptom. They viewed electoral politics as nonproductive
social movements in tbe nation's history. Ultimately as part of a larger and often used nonviolent civil disobedience to protest U.S, actions.
period of unrest, antiwar forces contributed to a general questioning Leftists comprised a minority within the antiwar coalition, but
of America's direction and values (i). played a visible role as the war continued. The small faction-ridden
The Vietnam Era antiwar movement emerged Old Left operated through groups such as the
from existing peace and social justice organiza- Communistand Socialist Workers parties. They
tions involved in civil rights or antinuclear activi- fought each other as passionately as they at-
ties. Mass demonstrations typically organized tacked capitalists. Despite their radical critique
by broad coalitions of national and local groups of American society, they favored legal and
attracted the greatest publicity, but most antiwar peaceful demonstrations, and demanded im-
efforts took place at the local level. Political mediate U.S. withdrawal from Vietnam. More
liberals represented the movement's largest con- influential was a growing New Left, a student
stituency, initially through groups like the Ameri- oriented movement that rejected both Marxist
can Friends Service Committee (AFSC), the dogma and capitalist inequalities. The New
Committee for a Sane Nuclear Policy (SANE), Left's main outlet. Students for a Democratic
and Women Strike for Peace (WSP). Their mo- Society (SDS), began as a liberal reform organi-
tives for opposing the war varied, but liberals zation, but as the 1960s progressed its national
were generally proud of America's record in leadership became increasingly radical and
advancing human rights and retained cold war advocated violent tactics (3). The leadership
suspicions of the Soviet Union. They believed, went so far left that it abandoned most of its
however, that Vietnam diverted resources from local membership, which remained predomi-
more important foreign interests and objected nantly reformist.
to supporting Saigon's authoritarian regimes. Given the broad diversity of the antiwar
TTiey used education, electoral politics, and peace- constituency, disputes over goals and tactics
ful protest in calling for a negotiated settlement were predictable. Two issues proved particu-
in Vietnam rather than continued fighting (2). larly divisive. Liberals distrusted Communist
Pacifists, divided into moderate and radical motives and feared association with them would
camps, frequently questioned America's cold damage their public credibility. As a resuh they
war policy. Their international perspective as- A peaceful demonstrator protesting the war in sought to exclude Communists from antiwar
signed equal blame to the U.S. and the Soviet Vietnam displays his sign at the main gate of the demonstrations. Pacifists, on the other hand,
NASA Ames Research Center (Moffet Field) in
Union for global instability. Pacifists often over- desired the broadest possible coalition and ar-
California, on February n , 1971. (I mage courtesy
lapped with liberals in their views and member- o f the N a t i o n a l Archives and Records gued that democracies should support the rights
ships, but organizations like the Fellowship of Administration NAIL NWDNS-428-KN-19335,) of all political tendencies. Most mass demon-
Reconciliation and the Committee for Nonvio- strations followed a nonexclusionary policy.
lent Action were predominantly pacifist. Moder-
The second issue was over the preferred solution to getting out of
ate pacifists favored electoral efforts, political lobbying, and direct
Vietnam. Moderate pacifists favored negotiating with the North Viet-

OAH Magazine of History • October 2004 13

namese over a mutually acceptable settlement. Radicals argued that attendance at national rallies were directed toward ending the war.
only the Vietnamese had the right to determine their future and that Activists tended to be middle class and well educated, and college
the U.S. should withdraw immediately. students made up a significant portion of the crowds. While mass
Complaints about U.S. policy in Vietnam occasionally arose in the rallies encouraged antiwar demonstrators and offered alternatives to
early 1960s. The beginning of the Rolling Thunder bombing cam- existing policy, they did not by themselves change the war's direc-
paign against North Vietnam in tbe spring of 1965, however, provided tion. Most Americans in 1967 were not willing to pull out and accept
a sharp focus and stimulation for a loose coalition of groups. Among a defeat in Vietnam.
the earliest actions specifically targeting the Vietnam War were a The war mixed with the drive for racial equality when Martin
series of teach-ins held on college campuses. The first to achieve Luther King Jr. added his strong dissent in early 1967. His position as
national attention occurred at tbe University of Michigan on March the nation's most respected civil rights activist brought added weight
24, 1965. Three thousand people attended a series of lectures and to antiwar arguments, though some believed his stand against the war
debates that ran all evening and into the next morning. About one would compromise civil rights gains. Few national civil rights leaders
hundred twenty teach-ins took place on campuses across the country or government officials welcomed his antiwar opinion. Boxing cbam-
by the end of tbe spring semester (4), A national teach-in in Washing- pion Muhammad Ah became another visible African American sym-
ton, D.C., reached one hundred thousand students by television bol. He was denied conscientious objector status on religious grounds
broadcast. At some universities, the war became entwined with other and convicted of refusing military induction in June 1967. The
issues, including civil rights, institutional bureaucracy, and leftist Supreme Court overturned the decision three years later.
politics. Though antiwar activity in 1965 represented a small minority Liberal antiwar efforts in the summer of 1967 included Negotia-
opinion, tbe early defection of part of the academic community tion Now, which supported congressional doves through ads and
troubled some members of the Johnson administration. petitions in major newspapers. Another project was Vietnam Sum-
From this early response, local antiwar actions continued until the mer, a door-to-door effort designed to inform citizens of the war's
war's conclusion. Public awareness of the movement, however, came impact. Vietnam Summer fell short of its hopes, however, meeting
primarily through the media's coverage of mass demonstrations {5}. apathy or hostiliiy in working class and poorer neighborhoods.
The initial major gathering occurred in April at an SDS sponsored The military draft stimulated a great deal of antiwar activity. The
rally in Washington, D.C, By drawing over twenty thousand partici- Selective Service System allowed conscientious objection, fhougb it was
pants, it showed that tbe administration could not rely on silent not easy to obtain, and a system of deferments and exemptions favored
acceptance of its decisions. The various antiwar tendencies created the middle- and upper- socioeconomic classes. Antiwar activists estab-
temporary coalitions to organize later events. The first was the Na- lished draft counseling centers to educate men about their options.
tional Coordinating Committee to End the War in Vietnam (NCC), Thousands resisted the draft through both legal and illegal methods. In
which sponsored the international days of protest in mid-October October 1967 an antidraft group called The Resistance collected over
1965. The movement's internal tensions were evident vi'hen the NCC eleven hundred draft cards from men who refused induction, a federal
refused to endorse a separate antiwar rally in November because its crime. In Oakland, police fought 3,500 radicals attempting to close
sponsor, SANE, excluded Communists. Tbe NCC faded over factional down the city's anny induction center. Thousands of men avoided the
disputes, but local groups like New York's Fifth Avenue Peace Parade draft illegally by fleeing to Canada, Sweden, or elsewhere. Ongoing
Committee carried on the commitment. Among the key figures in draft resistance, whether organized or conducted individually, con-
building and maintaining these early coalitions was Christian pacifist cerned the government, which tried to punish antiwar activity by
A. J. Muste, then nearly eighty (6). withdrawing exemptions from activists (8).
As SDS shifted focus to broader reform issues, liberals and Draft resistance was part of a larger trend within tbe movement.
pacifists dominated antiwar activity during 1966-1967. Hearings by Many of those who felt legal protest had proven ineffective in chang-
the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in February 1966, chaired by ing U.S. policy shifted to direct action, what they called going "from
}. William Fulbright, raised new questions from respected Americans protest to resistance." This was apparent when fall antiwar actions
about America's role In Vietnam, and the war occasionally appeared culminated with the October 2T, 1967 March on the Pentagon. Nearly
as an issue in the fall elections. Spring street demonstrations comple- one hundred thousand people attended a Washington, D.C. rally at
mented these efforts. Antiwar activity escalated as new organizations the Lincoln Memorial. Half of the crowd marched to the Pentagon for
formed or older ones shifted their focus to ending the war. Clergy and a two-day confrontation that brought over six hundred arrests and
Laymen Concerned About Vietnam, for example, formed in late 1965 focused national attention on the country's disintegrating consensus
and eventually became tbe country's largest religiously-oriented anti- (9). Despite the presence of violent elements, the frustrated majority
war group (7). Greater numbers of people unaffiliated with organized of the movement remained committed to peaceful change.
political and social groups attended demonstrations as frustration Although public support for the war gradually eroded, antiwar
with the war grew. activists never achieved widespread popularity. The presence of
A new national coalition, the Spring Mobilization Committee to countercultural clothing and hair styles, plus radicals' display of
End the War in Vietnam, sponsored rallies on April 15, 1967 that North Vietnamese flags and anti-American rhetoric at antiwar pro-
brought liberals, radicals, and pacifists together. Tbe inclusion of tests antagonized many moderates. The government's deliberate
Communists, however, kept some liberals away. Nevertheless, the and misleading attacks on tbe movement added further to its
demonstrations were among the largest yet: two hundred thousand in negative image. Throughout the war. administration officials and
New York and fifty thousand in San Francisco. conservatives accused antiwar forces of being controlled by commu-
While the leadership of the national coalitions fought continu- nists, but the movement was clearly indigenous and too broad and
ally over tactics and ideology, most activists were unaware or uncon- loosely organized to be manipulated by any single element (10). The
cerned with those debates. Their actions in local communities and movement was a constantly shifting coalition that attracted or re-

14 OAH Magazine of History • October 2004

 Although antiwar sentiment in 1968 Increas-
ingly moved into electoral politics, violence captured
many of the headlines. On several occasions au-
thorities called out military forces to control demon-
strations. Martin Luther King |r. and Robert Kennedy
were assassinated. At tbe Chicago Democratic na-
tional convention, fifteen thousand protesters
clashed with police, leading many people to con-
clude tbat "the war in Southeast Asia . , . was causing
a kind of civil war in tbe United States" (14), With the
Democratic Party in disarray, Richard Nixon vi'on
tbe election by a slim margin.
Antiwar activists were unimpressed with Nixon's
efforts, and after a brief interval escalated their pro-
tests. The idea of a Moratorium, a suspension of
normal activities, appealed to moderates by building
local actions around a one-day protest, with actions
expanding one additional day each month until the war
ended. Tbe first Moratorium on October 15, T969
exceeded the most optimistic expectations. At least one
million participants made it the largest, most diverse
By 1969, antiwar protest marches, like this one in Washington, D.C., brought together
thousands of people. (Image courtesy of Kenneth Hoffman, Department of Communication,
and pervasive protest of the entire war. Citizens con-
Seton Hall University.) ducted vigils, distributed literature, attended religious
services or discussion groups, showed films, held
pelled activists depending upon events in Vietnam and at home. The public readings of the names of the casualties, or joined candlelight
vast majority of antiwar activists came from the broad political and marches. Many of the rallies featured the repeated lines of a |obn
cultural mainstream. Lennon song; "all we are saying is give peace a chance" (15}.
The 1968 Tet Offensive was a rude awakening to the realities of the Nixon struck back during a televised speecb on November 3.
war that prompted a reevaluation of the nation's commitment. Having blatantly attacking antiwar forces and appealing for support from the
been repeatedly told by political and military leaders that the Commu- "silent majority." Vice-President Spiro Agnew followed up with in-
nists were fading and that there was "light at the end of the tunnel," creasingly bitter and divisive attacks on protesters and the news
tbe public was stunned to find tbe enemy still capable of such an effort. media. Press coverage of antiwar actions became more negative {16).
The new reality reinforced public discontent vi/ith the war. The administration's rhetorical assaults failed to deflect protest.
In tbe wake of Tet, the American media took an increasingly In fact, it drove the different ideological wings of the movement closer
unfavorable view of U.S. policy. Both print and television journalists together. Moratorium organizers coordinated their November actions
questioned America's commitment, perhaps best summarized in with the more radical New Mobilization Committee. Meeting in
Walter Cronkite's February 27 broadcast: "To say that we are mired in Washington from November 13-15, tbe Moratorium sponsored a
stalemate seems the only reasonable, yet unsatisfactory conclusion" religious "mass for peace" and a thirty-six hour March Against Death,
(ii). When tbe New York Times reported that General William one of the era's most moving actions. The Mobilization's rally on
Westmoreland had requested 206,000 more troops, additional public November 15 attracted perhaps five hundred thousand people.
protests followed. Despite criticism from Westmoreland and others The fall 1969 antiwar demonstrations proved to be the high
that a hostile media turned the public against tbe war, numerous point of organized dissent. Both the Moratorium and the New
studies refute the charge {12). The press reflected rather than led Mobilization Committee faded by the following spring.
public opinion. Vietnamization brought U.S. troop levels down, and this combined
Congress reacted as well. In March, the Senate Foreign Relations with declining U.S. casualties helped defuse domestic protest, si-
Committee conducted hearings on the war and members of tbe lence congressional critics, and strengthen Nixon's support. They
House of Representatives called for a complete review of Vietnam also, however, limited American military and political options, and
policy. These responses reinforced the Johnson administration's efforts to end the war continued.
belief that additional escalation would prove increasingly divisive. The U.S. invasion of Cambodia in April 1970 produced some of
Public opinion polls indicated a growing lack of confidence in the the war's most extensive and tragic protests. Nixon underestimated
president's handling of the war. This disaffection found a political the fury tbat this controversial decision would unleash. The antiwar
outlet in Senator Eugene McCarthy's challenge for tbe Democratic movement reacted quickly to this expansion of the war, particularly on
presidential nomination. Running largely unnoticed as tbe year college campuses. At Ohio's Kent State University, on May 4 National
began, his campaign received a significant boost from the Tet Offen- Guardsmen fired into a crowd and killed four people. Over five
sive. His strong support in tbe New Hampshire primary also enticed hundred college campuses closed down in the following days, and
Robert Kennedy to enter the race as an antiwar candidate (13), Largely nearly one hundred thousand protesters converged on Washington
because of his dvifindling support on the war, President Johnson on May 9. The next week, Mississippi police killed two more students
withdrew from his reelection campaign. at Jackson State University. Although polls showed that many Ameri-
cans supported the Cambodian invasion, the massive public demon-

OAH Magazine of History • October 2004 15

 l Cjuard troops advance or Taylor Hall at Kent State University in Ohio after firing tear gas into the crowd. May 4, 1970. (News Service Photographs.
Image courtesy of the May 4 Collection, Kent State University Libraries Special Collections and Archives.)

strations limited Nixon's options. The public would not tolerate any shaping Indochina policy as Congress asserted greater control. Re-
expansion of a war they believed was winding down {17). flecting a national weariness with Vietnam, it condemned the ongo-
Congress reacted to the invasion with a rare rebuke. In June, the ing bombing of Cambodia as illegal, and the House of Representatives
Senate overwhelmingly voted to repeal the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution. cut off funds for additional air missions. Though Nixon vetoed a bill
The Cooper-Church amendment proposed cutting off U.S. funds for immediately ending all military operations in Indochina, Congress
American troops in Cambodia after June 30, and the Hatfield- forced a compromise deadline of August 15.
McGovem amendment called for withdrawing US forces from Viet- By the time of the Paris Agreement, activists had been fighting for
nam by the end of 1971. President Nixon survived this crisis by pulling eight years to stop the war. Some continued their work until the war's
U.S. troops out of Cambodia by late |une, defusing most of the conclusion in 1975, monitoring government policy to prevent any new
congressional and antiwar pressure. The House of Representatives escalation and advocating amnesty for draft resisters and military
rejected the Cooper-Church amendment, while both the Senate and deserters. The movement's diverse composition was an extraordinary
House voted down Hatfield-McGovern. achievement as it united people of numerous occupations, ideologies,
The American-supported invasion of Laos in February 1971 stimu- ages, and backgrounds into a sometimes uneasy and fragile coalition.
lated further protests. Coalition demonstrations in late April preceded That they struggled together for so long and against great odds attests
the radicals' May Day attempt to block city streets and shut down the to their commitment. Ultimately, they earned partial victory. The public
capital. The radicals failed, but the courts ruled illegal the massive largely accepted the movement's message even as it often rejected the
government sweep that arrested over twelve thousand protesters. activists themselves. Unable to end the war directly, the movement was
Antiwar activism in the 1970s continued to draw from diverse strong enough to alarm the government, creating social conditions that
constituencies. Vietnam Veterans Against the War (VVAW) con- limited policy options and made stopping the war possible. Q
ducted a few highly dramatic events, and their presence at mass
protests brought increased notoriety and legitimacy to the antiwar Endnotai
movement. The publication of The Pentagon Papers beginning June 13, 1. Excellent overviews of the Vietnam antiwar movement are Charles
1971, leaked by Defense Department analyst Daniel Ellsberg, dam- DeBenedetti and Charles Chatfield, An American Ordeal: The Antiwar
Movement of the Vietnam Era (Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press,
aged the government's credibility on the war, created greater public
1990); Melvin Small, Antiwarriors: The Vietnam War and the Battie for
disillusionment, and decreased tolerance for an extended commit- America's Hearts and Minds {Wilmington, DE: Scholarly Resources,
ment in Vietnam. The advertising community created a campaign to 2002); and Tom Wells, The War Within: America's Battie Over Vietnam
"Unsell the War," which consisted of antiwar print ads and radio and (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1994).
television commercials in 1971 and 1972. Many of these aided dovish 2. DeBenedetti and Chatfield explain the ideological differences. For indi-
candidates during the 1972 elections. The Indochina Peace Cam- vidual organizations, see Amy Swerdlow, Women Strike For Peace:
paign, organized by Tom Hayden and |ane Fonda, criticized the war Traditional Motherhood and Radical Politics in the i^Gos (Chicago: Uni-
with a traveling show from 1972 until the war's end (r8). versity of Chicago Press, 1993) and Milton Katz, Ban the Bomb: A History
of SANE, the Committee for a Sane Nuclear Policy. 1957-19S5 (Westport,
The U.S. ended its direct military involvement in Vietnam with the CT: Greenwood Press, 1986).
Paris Peace Agreement in January 1973. Nixon lost some flexibility in 3. An Old Left perspective is Fred Halstead, Out Now!: A Participant's Account

16 OAH Magazine of History • October 2004

 of the American Movement Against the Vietnam War (New York: Monad Vietnam: Media and Military at War (Lawrence, KS: University Press of
Press. 1978). For the New Left, see Kirkpatrick Sale, SDS {New York: Kansas. 1998); Clarence R. Wyatt. Paper Soldiers: The American Press and
Random House, 1973). the Vietnam War (New York: W. W, Norton, 1993).
4, Louis Menashe and Ronald Radosh, eds., Teach-im. U.S.A.: Reports, Opin- 13. leremy Larner, Nobody KUDU'S; Rejections on the McCarthy Campaign of ig68
ions and Documents (New York: F.A, Praeger, 1967). (New York: Macmillan, 1970): fack Newfleld, Robert Kennedy: A Memoir
j . Melviii Small, Covering Dissent: The Media and the Anti-Vietnam War (New York: E.P. Dutton, 1969).
Movement (New Brunswick, N|: Rutgers University Press, 1994). argues 14. Nancy Zaroulis and Cerald Sullivan, Who Spoke Up? American Protest
that mainstream media presented an unsympathetic and misleading Against the War in Vietnam. 196J-1975 (Garden City, NY: Doubleday,
picture of the antiwar movement, especially early in the war, 1984), 200.
6. )o Ann Ooiman Robinson. Abraham Went Out: A Biography ofA.j. Muste 15. Paul Hoffman, Morutorium: An American Protest (New York: Tower
(Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1981). Publications, 1970).
7. Mitchell K, Hall, Because of Their Faith: CALCAV and Religious Opposition to 16. Melvin Sm^W. Johnson, Nixon, and the Doves (New Bnmswick, N|: Rutgers
the Vietnam War (New York: Columhia University Press, 1990). University Press, 1988), 190.
8. For draft resistance, see Michael Ferber and Staughton Lynd, The Resistance 17. Peter Davies, The Truth About Kent State: A Challenge to the American
(Boston: Beacon Press. 1971); Michael S. Foley. Confronting the War Conscience (New York: Farrar, Straus, Giroux, 1973)-
Machine: Draft Resistance During the Vietnam War (Chapel Hill, NC: 18. Andrew Hunt, The Turning: A History of Vietnam Veterans Against the War
University of North Carolina Press, 2003): and Lawrence Baskir and (New York: New York University Press. 1999): David Rudenstine, The
William Strauss, Chance and Circumstance: The Draft, the War and the Day the Presses Stopped: A History of the Pentagon Papers Case (Berkeley,
Vietnam Generation (New York: Knopf, 1978), CA: University of California Press, 1996): Mitchell Hall, "Unsell the
9. Norman Mailer, The Armies of the Night: History as a Novel/The Novel as War: Vietnam and Antiwar Advertising," Historian 58 (Autumn 1995):
History (New York: New American Library, 1968}. 69-86.
10. Charles DeBeriedetti. "A CIA Analysis of the Anti-Vietnam War Move-
ment: Octoher 1967," Peace li Change 9 (Spring 1983): 31-41.
Mitchell K. Hall is a professor of history at Central Michigan University.
IT. Walter Cronkite, Who, What. When, Where, Why: Report from Vietnam by
Walter Cronkite. CBS, February 27, 1968, transcript reprinted in Robert
He is the author 0/Because of Their Faith: CALCAV and Religious
). McMahon. ed,. Major Problems in the History of the Vietnam War, 3rd Opposition to the Vietnam War (jggo) and The Vietnam War (2000).
ed, (Boston: Houghton Mifflin. 2003), 321. plus many journal articles. He is currently Vice-President of the Peace
12. Daniel C, HalHn. The "Uncensored War": The Media and Vietnam (New History Society, and is the former editor of the journal Peace & Change.
York: Oxford University Press, 1986); William M. Hammond, Reporting

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