Transcript Part C: Representations of History and the Vietnam

Part C: Representations of
History and the Vietnam War
Objective: To explore the strength of support for
the war within the USA and the growth of
protest against the war
Support for the Vietnam War
In the vast literature on the Vietnam War, much has been written about the anti-war
movement and its influence on U.S. policy and politics. In this book, Sandra Scanlon shifts
attention to those Americans who supported the war and explores the war’s impact on the
burgeoning conservative political movement of the 1960s and early 1970s.
Believing the Vietnam War to be a just and necessary cause, the pro-war movement pushed
for more direct American military intervention in Southeast Asia throughout the Kennedy
administration, lobbied for intensified bombing during the Johnson years, and offered
coherent, if divided, endorsements of Nixon’s policies of phased withdrawal.
Appealing to patriotism, conservative leaders initially rallied popular support in favor of
total victory and later endorsed Nixon’s call for “peace with honor.” Yet as the war dragged
on with no clear end in sight, internal divisions eroded the confidence of pro-war
conservatives in achieving their aims and forced them to re-evaluate the political viability of
their hardline Cold War rhetoric. Conservatives still managed to make use of grassroots
patriotic campaigns to marshal support for the war, particularly among white ethnic workers
opposed to the anti-war movement.
Domestic Support for the Vietnam by Sandra Scanlon, Massachusetts Press 2013
Anti-Communist feeling in US
Support for Johnson’s Vietnam war effort
Pro War Demonstration NYC 1967
Support for the War: Kennedy
Kennedy's speech had a considerable impact on many young
Americans. Philip Caputo was one of those who traced back
his decision to join the US Marines to Kennedy's
inauguration speech: "War is always attractive to young men
who know nothing about it, but we had also been seduced
into uniform by Kennedy's challenge to "ask what you can do
for your country" and by the missionary idealism he had
awakened in us... we believed we were ordained to play cop
to the Communists' robber and spread our own political
faith around the world.
The Vietnam Conflict: John Simpkin, Spartacus Ed
SUPPORT FOR THE WAR: JOHNSON
After the assassination of John F. Kennedy, his deputy, Lyndon B. Johnson became the
new president of the United States. Johnson was a strong supporter of the Domino
Theory and believed that the prevention of an National Liberation Front victory in South
Vietnam was vital to the defence of the United States: "If we quit Vietnam, tomorrow
we'll be fighting in Hawaii and next week we'll have to fight in San Francisco.“
The House of Representatives passed the Gulf of Tonkin resolution by 416 to 0. This
resolution authorised the President to take all necessary measures against Vietnam and
the National Liberation Front. President Johnson's belief that the bombing raid on North
Vietnam in August, 1964, would persuade Ho Chi Minh to cut off all aid to the NLF was
unfounded.
In comparison to Goldwater, Lyndon B. Johnson was seen as the 'peace' candidate.
People feared that Goldwater would send troops to fight in Vietnam.
In the election of November, 1964, the voters decided to reject Goldwater's aggressive
policies against communism and Johnson won a landslide victory. What the American
public did not know was that President Johnson was waiting until the election was over
before carrying out the policies that had been advocated by his Republican opponent,
Barry Goldwater.
The Vietnam Conflict: John Simpkin, Spartacus Ed
Support for the war from workers and
Trades Unions
The Hard Hat Riot occurred on May 8, 1970 in Lower Manhattan. The riot started about
noon when about 200 construction workers attacked about 1,000 high school and college
students and others protesting the Kent State shootings…. near the intersection of Wall
Street and Broad Street. The riot, which spread to New York City Hall, lasted little more than
two hours. More than 70 people were injured, including four policemen. Six people were
arrested.
The US labor movement was deeply divided over support for President Richard Nixon's
Vietnam War policy. AFL-CIO President George Meany and most labor leaders in the United
States were vehemently anti-communist and strongly supported US military involvement in
Southeast Asia.
One of the strongest supporters of the president's war policy was Peter J. Brennan. Brennan
was president of the Building and Construction Trades Council of Greater New York….Shortly
after the Kent State shootings, anti-war protesters announced they would hold a rally near
City Hall to commemorate the four dead students. Brennan decided to organize a counterrally of construction workers to show support for the Nixon administration.
New York Times 1970
• Bodhisattva Thich Quang Duc protests against
Diem’s persecution of Buddhists
Opposition grows
As the war continued, more and more Americans turned against it. People were
particularly upset by the use of chemical weapons such as napalm and agent orange.
In 1967, a group of distinguished academics under the leadership of Bertrand Russell,
set up the International War Crimes Tribunal. After interviewing many witnesses, they
came to the conclusion that the United States was guilty of using weapons against the
Vietnamese that were prohibited by international law. The United States armed forces
were also found guilty of torturing captured prisoners and innocent civilians. The
Tribunal, and other critics of the war, claimed that the US behaviour in Vietnam was
comparable to the atrocities committed by the Nazis in Europe during the Second
World War.
In November, 1965, Norman Morrison, a Quaker from Baltimore, followed the
example of the Buddhist monk, Thich Quang Due, and publically burnt himself to
death. In the weeks that were to follow, two other pacifists, Roger La Porte and Alice
Herz, also immolated themselves in protest against the war.
The Vietnam Conflict: John Simpkin, Spartacus Ed
Norman Morrison self immolation
Protest: November 2nd 1965
Norman Morrison was a Baltimore Quaker best
known for committing suicide at age 31 in an act
of self-immolation to protest United States
involvement in the Vietnam War.
He was married and had two daughters and a
son.
On November 2, 1965, Morrison doused himself
in kerosene and set himself on fire below
Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara's
Pentagon office. This was probably in emulation
of Buddhist monk Thich Quang Duc, who burned
himself to death in downtown Saigon of then
South Vietnam to protest the repression
committed by the South Vietnam government.
The decision to introduce conscription for the war increased the
level of protest, especially amongst young men. To keep the support
of the articulate and influential members of the middle class,
students were not called up. However, students throughout
America still protested at what they considered was an attack on
people's right to decide for themselves whether they wanted to
fight for their country.
In 1965, David Miller publically burnt his draft card call-up notice)
and was sentenced to two and a half years in prison. His actions
inspired others and throughout America, Anti-Vietnam War groups
organised meetings where large groups of young men burnt their
draft cards.
Between 1963 and 1973, 9,118 men were prosecuted for refusing
to be drafted into the army. The most famous of these was
Muhammad Ali, the world heavyweight boxing champion.
John Simpkin (British journalist) comments on the growth of
protest to the Vietnam War
John Lennon and Yoko Ono
protest against the war in 1969
US Casualties in Vietnam War
US Casualties in Vietnam War
1961
1962
1963
1964
1965
1966
1967
1968
1969
1970
1971
1972
1973
1974
16
53
122
216
1,928
6,350
11,363
16,899
11,780
6,173
2,414
759
68
1
• For more on the Vietnam War protest
movement: Follow this link
Tet Offensive
The Tet Offensive
The NLF even attacked the US Embassy in Saigon. Although they managed to enter the
Embassy grounds and kill five US marines, the NLF was unable to take the building.
However, they had more success with Saigon's main radio station. They captured the
building and although they only held it for a few hours, the event shocked the selfconfidence of the American people. In recent months they had been told that the NLF
was close to defeat and now they were strong enough to take important buildings in the
capital of South Vietnam. Another disturbing factor was that even with the large losses
of 1967, the NLF could still send 70,000 men into battle.
The Tet Offensive proved to be a turning point in the war. In military terms it was a
victory for the US forces. An estimated 37,000 NLF soldiers were killed compared to
2,500 Americans. However, it illustrated that the NLF appeared to have inexhaustible
supplies of men and women willing to fight for the overthrow of the South Vietnamese
government. In March, 1968, President Johnson was told by his Secretary of Defence
that in his opinion the US could not win the Vietnam War and recommended a
negotiated withdrawal. Later that month, President Johnson told the American people
on national television that he was reducing the air-raids on North Vietnam and intended
to seek a negotiated peace.
The Vietnam Conflict: John Simpkin, Spartacus Education
My Lai Massacre
On 16 March, 1968, American troops killed more than 500 people from the village of My Lai. A
young helicopter gunner, Ronald Ridenhour who saw the massacre wrote to President Nixon
about the incident. Attempts by the army to cover-up what had taken place were undermined
by the journalist, Seymour Hersh, who managed to persuade several soldiers involved in the
massacre to talk about what taken place at My Lai.
Some of Calley's men thought it was breakfast time as they walked in; a few families were
gathered in front of their homes cooking rice over a small fire. Without a direct order, the first
platoon also began rounding up the villagers... Sledge remembered thinking that "if there were
VC around, they had plenty of time to leave before we came in. We didn't tiptoe in there."
The killings began without warning... Stanley saw "some old women and some little children fifteen or twenty of them - in a group around a temple where some incense was burning. They
were kneeling and crying and praying, and various soldiers... walked by and executed these
women and children by shooting them in the head with their rifles.
There were few physical protests from the people; about eighty of them were taken quietly from
their homes and herded together in the plaza area. A few hollered out, "No VC, No VC,"...
Women were huddled against children, vainly trying to save them. Some continued to chant,
"No VC." Others simply said, "No. No. No."
Carter recalled that some GIs were shouting and yelling during the massacre: "The boys enjoyed
it. When someone laughs and jokes about what they're doing, they have to be enjoying it." A GI
said, "Hey, I got me another one." Another said, "Chalk up one for me." Even Captain Medina
was having a good time. Carter thought: "You can tell when someone enjoys their work." Few
members of Charlie Company protested that day. For the most part, those who didn't like what
was going on kept their thoughts to themselves.
The Vietnam Conflict: John Simpkin, Spartacus Education
(17) Thomas Powers, The War at Home (1973)
The Harlem riot in the summer of 1964 had been followed a
year later by the far larger and more serious uprising in the
Watts section of Los Angeles. Serious disturbances occurred in
several mid-westem cities in the summer of 1966, but nothing
had prepared the country for the size and violence of the
urban riots which began in Newark on Thursday, July 13, and in
Detroit ten days later.
During the five days of rioting in Newark, 26 people were killed
1,200 were injured, and 1,300 were arrested. More than $10
million worth of damage was reported... Overcrowded schools,
decrepit housing, hospitals with beds in the hallways, a lack of
jobs all made Newark a classic example of what would soon be
called a crisis of the cities... Part of the bitter, reckless mood
was the failure of Johnson's war on poverty, the readiest
explanation of which was the cost of the war in Vietnam.
John Sibley Butler
The Vietnam War saw the highest proportion of blacks ever to serve in an American
war. During the height of the U.S. involvement, 1965-69, blacks, who formed 11
percent of the American population, made up 12.6 percent of the soldiers in Vietnam.
The majority of these were in the infantry, and although authorities differ on the
figures, the percentage of black combat fatalities in that period was a staggering 14.9
percent, a proportion that subsequently declined. Volunteers and draftees included
many frustrated blacks whose impatience with the war and the delays in racial progress
in America led to race riots on a number of ships and military bases, beginning in 1968,
and the services' response in creating interracial councils and racial sensitivity training.
...
The participation of Americans of African descent in the U.S. military has a long and
distinguished history. But although African Americans have participated in all American
wars, they have sometimes faced almost as bitter a hostility from their fellow
Americans as from the enemy. Nevertheless, particularly since the 1970s, the U.S.
military has made a serious effort at racial integration, and while much remains to be
done, the military has achieved a degree of success in this area that surpasses most
civilian institutions.
from The Oxford Companion to American Military History. Copyright © 1999 by
Oxford UP.
U.S. involvement in Vietnam unfolded against the domestic backdrop of the civil rights
movement. From the outset, the use, or alleged misuse, of African American troops
brought charges of racism. Civil rights leaders and other critics, including the formidable Dr.
Martin Luther King, Jr., described the Vietnam conflict as racist—"a white man's war, a
black man's fight." King maintained that black youths represented a disproportionate share
of early draftees and that African Americans faced a much greater chance of seeing
combat.
The draft did pose a major concern. Selective Service regulations offered deferments for
college attendance and a variety of essential civilian occupations that favored middle- and
upper- class whites. The vast majority of draftees were poor, undereducated, and urban—
blue-collar workers or unemployed. This reality struck hard in the African American
community. Furthermore, African Americans were woefully underrepresented on local
draft boards; in 1966 blacks accounted for slightly more than 1 percent of all draft board
members, and seven state boards had no black representation at all.
African Americans often did supply a disproportionate number of combat troops, a high
percentage of whom had voluntarily enlisted. Although they made up less than 10 percent
of American men in arms and about 13 percent of the U.S. population between 1961 and
1966, they accounted for almost 20 percent of all combat-related deaths in Vietnam during
that period. In 1965 alone African Americans represented almost one-fourth of the Army's
killed in action.
David Coffey from Encyclopedia of the Vietnam War
At the height of the Vietnam war in 1969, John Lee Hooker recorded I Don't
Want To Go To Vietnam. In the song, he moaned grimly, "We've got so much
trouble at home," before adding simply, "We don't need to go to Vietnam." But
the black American soldiers already in Vietnam, trudging tirelessly across that
country's saturated rice fields or creeping through its elephant grass and sticky,
airless jungles, were understandably more explicit in expressing themselves.
Wallace Terry, the Vietnam correspondent for Time magazine between 1967 and
1969, taped black soldiers airing their anger in the summer of 1969. Throughout
the recording, their rage is tangible. Speaking about his team-mates, one black
soldier declares, "What they been through in the bush, plus what they have to
go through back in the world [America], they can't face it. They're ready to just
get down and start another civil war." Another adds, "Why should I fight for
prejudice?" When Terry inquires, "Tell me what you think the white man should
be called?" a chorus of "devil... beast" erupts from the group.
The Guardian Newspaper – on the Vietnam War
The perception that the Vietnamese were parallel sufferers of white
colonial racist aggression also flourished in the late 1960s and was
reflected in a comment made by Muhammad Ali on the TV
programme Soul!
"They want me to go to Vietnam to shoot some black folks that never
lynched me, never called me nigger, never assassinated my leaders."
Before his murder in 1968, Martin Luther King also damned America's
foreign policy. He charged the US government with being
"the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today“,
and urged those against the draft to seek the status of conscientious
objectors.
The Guardian Newspaper – on the Vietnam War