Distaste for the Violent Dovesthe Administration of Lyndon B Johnson and the Antiwar Movement

“DISTASTE FOR THE VIOLENT DOVES:” THE ADMINISTRATION OF LYNDON B. JOHNSON AND THE ANTIWAR MOVEMENT A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for graduation with Honors in History 2018 . ________________________ TABLE OF CONTENTS Acknowledgments iv Introduction 1 Chapter 1: “The Shibboleth of the Schism:” 1945-1964 12 Chapter 2: “A Small Hard Core of Dissenters:” 1965-1966 32 Chapter 3: “Public Discontent with the War is Now Wide and Deep:” 1967-1968 47 Chapter 4: “A Vast Heaving of the Public Impatience:” 1969 71 Conclusion 79 Bibliography 84 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS iv v INTRODUCTION The relationship between President Lyndon B. Johnson’s administration and the antiwar protest movement epitomized the forces at play on the cultural and political stage of the 1960s. Growing discontent over the Vietnam War spread across the nation and affected the lives of all Americans in a myriad of ways. Some, particularly the Baby Boomers of the postwar period, sought change and reformation in the institutions of American life. They demanded that the United States embody the ideals it professed to hold most dear. The tension between the establishment and the protesters was the foundation of the political and social conflict that came to dominate the 1960s. No one symbolized the U.S. establishment better than President Johnson. He was both a force of change and a roadblock to it. In the early years of his presidency he governed on the coattails of President John F. Kennedy’s Camelot, encouraging young Americans to work for the betterment of their country. These first years represented an alignment of the Johnson administration with those activists seeking social change. As the tide of protest turned toward the behemoth of the Vietnam War, however, conflict began to arise between the Johnson administration and the activists it had once worked alongside. This relationship can be best understood in two phases. The first phase, from 1965 through 1966, was defined by the activism of a small and vocal minority of mostly students and other young Americans. This dissent received little public attention from the Johnson administration, yet privately it sought to silence these voices. The second phase, which lasted from 1967 through 1968, saw the antiwar movement grow both more divided and increasingly mainstream. In response, the Johnson administration more actively condemned dissenters and became more proactive in its public opinion efforts. This dual framework is central to comprehending the evolution of the antiwar movement and its relationship with the Johnson administration. The key to understanding the conflict that existed between the Johnson administration and those participating in antiwar protest movements is why so many Americans could come to reject the prevailing liberal consensus and its accompanying Cold War culture. Overwhelmingly, the protesters were young people, Baby Boomers who had come of age in the postwar prosperity of the 1950s and 1960s. Unlike their parents, these individuals had not known the hardships of the Great Depression and World War. Instead, the righteousness of the Second World War had brought into focus the realities of injustice that were present in everyday American life. These young people were eager to close the gap between American ideals and American realities. While the prevailing attitudes held by this demographic changed throughout the 1960s, their commonalties remained a powerful force for social and political action. Ultimately, their actions would go on to define the impact the 1960s had on the decades that followed. In contrast to these protesters stood the established members of the Johnson administration. The men who worked in the White House, military, and government at large were primarily taking their lessons from World War II and the Cold War diplomacy that evolved it its wake. These older, white men saw the world, and the United States itself, in a significantly different way than those in the protest movement. They considered the United States to be an exceptional nation with an obligation to world leadership, particularly in regard to the protection and expansion of universal American values. The difference in makeup of these two prominent forces, the protesters and government leaders, laid the groundwork for later crises and conflicts. 2 Furthermore, the eventual conflict between the Johnson administration and the antiwar protesters was a gradual culmination of frustration. The movement itself was created inside the system and first attempted to tackle the problem of civil rights and racial tensions. Numerous sources trace the roots of the greater protest movement of the 1960s back to the organization of the Civil Rights Movement. The push for civil rights, and the backlash it invited, represented a protest movement that sought substantial changes from within the existing system. The Johnson administration worked in tandem with this effort, which culminated in the passing of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Voting Rights Act of 1965, and additional Great Society legislation. Working within the system to achieve slow but meaningful social change meant that successes could be counted in favor of the protesters without the rejection of the mainstream political body. The issue of the war in Vietnam, however, polarized American society and changed the relationship that existed between the president and protesters in a powerful way. The shift away from working within the system to working outside of it greatly shaped the history of protest movements in the latter part of the 1960s. Instead of seeking methods of change from within the political system, protesters of the war criticized the Johnson administration and began to perceive meaningful change as only possible from outside the system. This shift radically changed how the Johnson administration viewed and responded to the protesters. Instead of seeking gradual legislative victories, both sides began to condemn the other, creating a hostile environment with no space for conversation or compromise. As the Johnson administration became increasingly embroiled in the Vietnam War, protesters from different movements coalesced around the 3 issue, criticizing the war as the epitome of American arrogance and ignorance. For many protesters, the war in Vietnam represented American imperialism in its ugliest iteration. The Vietnam War was the focal point upon which the liberal consensus of the postwar period fractured. Examining the relationship between the Johnson White House and those who protested the war provides an insight into the values that governed American society in the 1960s and the ways those values were both challenged and permanently altered. Historiography The majority of the literature on the presidency of Lyndon B. Johnson and the emergence of the antiwar protest movement does not address the president’s response to protest against the war. Instead, it emphasizes the inner workings of both the Johnson administration and the antiwar movement, describing and analyzing the ways in which each operated independently. While there are numerous studies of the Vietnam War, they focus on the decision to escalate and the fighting of the war, but not the president’s response to the protest movement. Similarly, the secondary literature on the antiwar movement situates specific incidents in the context of the greater activism that marked the 1960s, but not its relationship to the administration. Filling this scholarly gap and describing the relationship of the administration to the protesters, helps us understand the president’s decisions and resentments in fighting the war. There is an abundance of available source material detailing the foreign policy of Lyndon B. Johnson. A great deal of this literature focuses on the developments of the Cold War, specifically its manifestation in Vietnam. Historians such as Godfrey Hodgson detail the diplomatic histories of the Cold War, tracing its roots back to earlier decades 4 and describing the justifications it crafted for the Vietnam War. Hodgson speaks to the contentious circumstances that defined the relationship between the Soviet Union and the United States, as well as the impact such tensions had on the status of U.S. foreign policy in the subsequent decades. Hodgson states: both the Soviet Union and the United States in 1945 were ideologically expansionist powers. The men who controlled the Soviet Union, and the majority of Americans, each held a political philosophy as the Truth. Each believed that in the end their truth must prevail universally. Each believed that history was on their side. It could only be a matter of time before two systems, each justified in its own view by political morality and historical necessity, came into conflict.1 These descriptions of the Cold War provide compelling evidence for the Vietnam War’s development on an international scale. Furthermore, Hodgson couches his analysis of Johnson-era foreign policy in the context of the bloated presidency that had developed in the postwar years. Hodgson explains that: the fateful decisions were taken by the President. But they were taken in the context of the ‘institutionalized presidency’ which had grown up in response to the supposed demands of the Cold War and which was virtually isolated by recruitment, style, intellectual tradition, and above all by secrecy from electoral politics.2 Such a claim describes the foundation of mistrust and miscommunication that would come to exist in the relationship between the Johnson administration and the antiwar 1 Godfrey Hodgson, America in Our Time: From World War II to Nixon—What Happened and Why (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2005), 25. 2 Hodgson, America in Our Time, 235. 5 movement. Similarly, the foreign policy and Cold War implications of Vietnam were highly criticized by the antiwar movement, making a complete understanding and analysis of such sources particularly important. In addition to understanding the Cold War origins of the conflict in Vietnam, scholars have examined Johnson’s reasons for going to war and the military strategy he adopted. The implementation of that strategy in Vietnam during the Johnson years created mounting frustrations, which in turn led to the growth of opposition. The military endeavors that the Johnson administration undertook shaped the goals and efforts made by the administration as a whole. Additionally, over time the military exploits of Vietnam came to dominate the Johnson presidency, to the point of neglect in the domestic sphere. Michael H. Hunt’s Lyndon Johnson’s War: America’s Cold War Crusade in Vietnam, 1945-1968, is reflective of the time and energy military operations took up in the Johnson administration itself. Even when Johnson was not mired in discussions with his foreign policy advisers on the minutiae of the war, he was consumed, both privately and publicly, with the impact of this particular U.S. military endeavor. Hunt explains that Johnson’s “answers [on why the United States should risk its own forces in Vietnam] amounted to Cold War clichés. The United States had to stop a brutal war of aggression…. Cold War commitments, the pledged word of American presidents, the fear of appeasements, and the hopes for a just world required action.”3 The realities of the Vietnam War as a military operation, both strategically and ideologically, are central to the literature that exists on the Johnson presidency. Such analyses are especially important in 3 Michael H. Hunt, Lyndon Johnson’s War: America’s Cold War Crusade in Vietnam, 1945-1968 (New York: Hill and Wang, 1996), 93. 6 understanding the role played by credibility as a driving force. Credibility as a world power drove Johnson, on an anticommunist mission, to Vietnam. In the same vein, the desire to maintain such credibility, both internationally and domestically, led to the growing disparity between American claims of progress and the realities of the war in Vietnam. Understanding such military realities provides key insight into this credibility gap and its eventual impact on the antiwar movement. Additionally, understanding the Johnson administration’s domestic policy efforts provides useful insight into the political goals most highly valued within the administration and by the president himself. John A. Andrew’s Lyndon Johnson and the Great Society describes the development of the Great Society programs that Johnson hoped would ameliorate poverty and inequality. Andrew articulates the importance of the Great Society to both Johnson personally and to his historical legacy, stating, “there is Lyndon Johnson, who had two presidencies: The Great Society and the war in Vietnam…. Not only was Johnson central to the vision of a Great Society, his personality and political skills were crucial to the politics necessary to implement it.”4 The attention paid by historians to Johnson’s domestic legislative agenda emphasizes the prominent role such policies held for Johnson. By exploring Johnson’s Great Society, one is able to better understand one of the key legacies of the Johnson presidency. Further, the legislative advancements of the Great Society established an early and positive-leaning relationship between Johnson and the leaders of the Civil Rights Movement, a dynamic that would go on to shape the continued activism of the decade. 4 John A. Andrew, Lyndon Johnson and the Great Society (Chicago: I.R. Dee, 1998), 9. 7 Key to understanding the historical weight of the antiwar movement and its links to the Johnson administration is conceptualizing it in the greater context of the movement. Historians like Terry Anderson characterize the movement as one interconnected body seeking to enact various iterations of social change. Similarly, Anderson predicated his claims about the movement as inherently connected to the war in Vietnam, posing the question, “what would have been remembered as the ‘sixties’ without Vietnam?”5 While the origins of the movement are often traced to the civil rights struggles that began to emerge in the 1950s, it took many forms as the 1960s came to pass. Situating the antiwar protest in this context allows historians to examine what values and motivations shaped its development. By conceptualizing the antiwar movement as a central aspect of the movement, one begins to understand the common frustrations held by those participating in antiwar protests, and what the origins of those frustrations were. Additionally, the antiwar movement is categorized in two specific ways throughout the historiography of the topic. The first ties the movement to more direct political action. These texts, such as Anthony Ashbolt’s A Cultural History of the Radical Sixties in the San Francisco Bay Area, claim that antiwar protests were political manifestations of discontent. These protests sought change brought about from inside the existing system. They posited that if such changes were implemented, the issues represented would be resolved. Activists working from within these confines, such as members of Students for a Democratic Society (SDS), used legislative and judicial 5 Terry H. Anderson, The Movement and the Sixties: Protest in America from Greensboro to Wounded Knee (New York: Oxford University Press, 1995), 130. 8 methods to work toward their vision of America’s future. Further, Ashbolt’s conception of the antiwar movement as a political body speaks to the movement’s efficacy. Ashbolt explains that there is a limited amount of historical literature dedicated to discussing the “struggles for democracy and community, as well as those against the war and racism, [that] deserve and have achieved positive rites of remembrance.”6 Ashbolt’s assessment of the antiwar movement situates the efforts as politically confrontational. This quality of the antiwar movement put greater effort in direct conversation with the decisions arising from within the Johnson administration. Conversely, other historians characterize the antiwar movement based on its association with the counterculture. The philosophy of the counterculture emphasized solutions outside of the system and advocated for dropping out of mainstream society. This characterization renders the protesters almost apolitical, thus reducing them to social and cultural commentators. As Nadya Zimmerman claims, “countercultural voices didn’t particularly advocate for actively combating or protesting the mainstream system, with its rigid structures and repressive values. On the contrary…the notion of disengagement was grounded in a negation of anything associated with the mainstream, including social activism.”7 Analyses of the counterculture do not adequately explore the forces that shaped the counterculture, particularly those of a political nature. Despite the proactively apolitical approach of the counterculture, the circumstances that catalyzed its development were undoubtedly political, as well as social and cultural, in nature. 6 Anthony Ashbolt, A Cultural History of the Radical Sixties in the San Francisco Bay Area (London: Routledge, 2013), 22-23. 7 Nadya Zimmerman, Counterculture Kaleidoscope: Musical and Cultural Perspectives on Late Sixties San Francisco (Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press, 2008), 1112. 9 These two categorizations, both of which prove useful, do not sufficiently address the overlaps that occurred, nor the paradoxical nature of many of the issues these groups were exploring. This desire, to place the antiwar movement into an existing binary, destroys the nuance and confusion that defined so much of the movement as it developed and changed throughout the decade. The multifaceted makeup of the antiwar movement meant that its social impacts were particularly wide-reaching. Such impacts would go on to shape the character of the 1960s as the war progressed and the movement grew in size and scope. This thesis seeks to bridge the gap in scholarship that defines the relationship between the Johnson administration and antiwar protesters. While the secondary material that describes and analyzes each of these entities separately is replete and multifaceted, there is a gap that neglects the nuanced and ever-changing responses the Johnson administration had to the antiwar protest movements, and how, in turn, those protesting responded to Johnson and the policies of his administration. Considering the relationship that existed between the two helps augment the existing strength in the scholarship and provides additional insight into the political and social ramifications of the Vietnam War. The relationship between the Johnson administration and the antiwar protest movement represented the spectrum of changing perceptions in American values throughout the years of the war in Vietnam. By understanding this relationship, one begins to understand the increasing polarization of the American people. The Vietnam War was the defining feature of the 1960s, not only for its military and foreign policy impacts, but, of equal importance, its social and cultural ones. This reality is most poignantly illustrated by the development of the antiwar movement. The importance of 10 the antiwar movement is only amplified by its quarrelsome relationship with the Johnson administration. In examining the relationship between the administration and the everchanging antiwar movement, it becomes clear that each of the increasingly polarized groups thought themselves representative of American values. This relationship, and its ability to mirror the most prominent contentions that existed between Americans in the 1960s, played an important role in the development of the American political and social milieu throughout Johnson’s presidency and in the years that followed. 11 CHAPTER ONE “THE SHIBBOLETH OF THE SCHISM:” 1945-1964 Lyndon Johnson came to the presidency at the height of the liberal consensus and the resulting Cold War culture provided key assumptions that guided the actions of his administration. The liberal consensus consisted of a collection of prevailing beliefs shared by the majority of Americans following the end of the Second World War. The culture of the postwar period emphasized normality, conformity, obeying authority, and embracing traditional gender roles, while the economic abundance of the era and commitment to growth economics promised prosperity and the comforts of materialism. These values were the gospel of parents raising middle-class Baby Boomers in white suburbia, and thus became the national standard. Politically, these values were folded into conceptions of the liberal consensus. The liberal consensus also had an important foreign policy element, specifically the implementation of containment policy, which sought to contain communism to the Soviet Union and keep it out of Europe and the Third World. Widespread acceptance of containment by the American public meant that it played an important role in the framework of the broader liberal consensus. Examining the development and realities of Cold War culture is central to understanding why the United States fought the Vietnam War and the opposition to it that developed. One key tenet of Cold War culture following the Second World War was the development of postwar prosperity. The United States experienced unprecedented prosperity from the late 1940s and into the 1960s. While Europe struggled to rebuild in the wake of war, U.S. industry blossomed, providing a higher standard of living for many Americans. These changes occurred so rapidly that the class structure of the nation 12 seemed to have radically transformed. Godfrey Hodgson speaks to this development, explaining that “no tenet of the consensus was more widely held than the idea that revolutionary American capitalism had abolished the working class, or—as approximately the same thought was sometimes expressed—that everybody in America was middle class now or that American society was rapidly approaching economic equality.”1 American politicians made the promise of both guns and butter, meaning that the United States could afford to advance its foreign policies throughout the world without jeopardizing the widespread prosperity at home. Such a promise was easy to believe in the postwar years. The American middle class had a new and distinct identity in the postwar period. The United States was increasingly homogenized, and the growth of the middle class facilitated such changes from coast to coast. These newfound similarities supported the ideological homogenization central to the maturation of the liberal consensus. The expansion of the American middle class in the subsequent years also produced the Baby Boom, the unprecedented high numbers of births, about seventy-eight million babies, from 1947 to 1965. Similarly, the prosperity of the postwar years fueled an unparalleled optimism about the United States and its actions, both foreign and domestic. Hodgson describes this quality, stating that “the United States entered the 1960s in an Augustan mood: united, confident, conscious of a historic mission, and mobilized for the great task of carrying it out. The Americans of 1960 felt the maturity of their power. They accepted the legitimacy of their institutions. They believed, not in the perfection, but in the 1 Hodgson, America in Our Time, 82. 13 perfectibility, of their society.”2 Such optimism would prove greatly influential on the political developments of the 1960s, including optimism about the war in Vietnam. That same faith compelled many to believe that social problems could be ameliorated via the strategic application of wealth. Hodgson describes the so-called New Economics, explaining that “the promise of American capitalism seemed to be that it could produce abundance on such a scale that social problems would be drowned under a flood of resources.”3 Furthermore, the cultural expectations and realties of the postwar period were reflective of the overarching values of the Cold War culture. Hodgson describes this milieu, stating that “American society at the beginning of the 1960s was still conservative. People wanted change; they did not want to be changed. Or, rather, they changed their clothes, their cars or their homes more easily than they changed their assumptions, their attitudes or their beliefs.”4 While ostensibly the United States was undergoing staggering changes, values and attitudes were slow to follow such progress. The everyday lived experiences of Cold War culture were central to shaping how most Americans experienced this era. The cultural expectations of the Cold War played an important role in shaping the childhoods of the Baby Boomers and the first experiences of those Americans who would, in time, go on to protest the war in Vietnam. Mark Hamilton Lytle describes his personal experience with this cultural climate, explaining that “if we worked hard, respected our parents, and attended school regularly, 2 Hodgson, America in Our Time, 12. Hodgson, America in Our Time, 18. 4 Hodgson, America in Our Time, 7. 3 14 we would succeed.”5 This was the prevailing ethos in the postwar period, and the vast majority of Americans subscribed to it. It seemed, to many Americans, that if they only followed the prescribed path they would be able to reap the astounding array of benefits that the United States could provide. Such incentives led to a widespread culture of conformity. Additionally, key to understanding Cold War culture was conceptualizing the Cold War itself and American perceptions of communism in the postwar years. In the wake of World War II, the dominance of American morality was affirmed by victory. Terry Anderson describes this phenomenon, stating that “the victory [in World War II] also reinforced the traditional American belief that in a world of good and evil our totalitarian enemies represented evil, and we exemplified good. The war enhanced America’s self-appointed position as the beacon of freedom, the shining light, the ‘City upon a Hill.’”6 This renewal of American exceptionalism meant that many citizens felt affirmed in their conceptions of the United States as a great and benign power with universal values that it wished to progress and protect across the globe. The supposed universality of American values played a key role in the development of postwar anticommunism, particularly in the construction of a bipolar world. Anderson describes this, claiming that “the U.S. sounded the alarm, talked tough, and then began posturing by dividing the globe into two parts—the Communists versus the ‘free world’—and forming alliances with any nation that might be on our side.”7 5 Mark Hamilton Lytle, America’s Uncivil Wars: The Sixties Era from Elvis to the Fall of Richard Nixon (New York: Oxford University Press, 2006), 17. 6 Anderson, The Movement and the Sixties, 5. 7 Anderson, The Movement and the Sixties, 7. 15 The creation of such bipolarity made the Cold War a zero-sum game, in which other nations were either aligned with the United States or standing against it. Americans perceived communism to be linked to Moscow and antithetical to nationalism and selfdetermination. The United States thought that the Soviet Union was inherently expansive, and each global superpower perceived the other to be a serious threat. Michael H. Hunt describes the feelings held by most Americans, stating that they believed “communism was a dangerous, monolithic enemy whose fundamental values challenged those of the United States and whose ultimate goal was world domination.”8 The shadow of monolithic communism colored all parts of American life during this period, despite the prosperity and general peace that marked the domestic landscape of the era. These prevailing conceptions of communism would prove key to American efforts in Vietnam. Hodgson sums up his conception of Cold War culture succinctly, claiming, “confident to the verge of complacency about the perfectibility of American society, anxious to the point of paranoia about the threat of communism—those were the two faces of the consensus mood.”9 The postwar liberal consensus and the resulting Cold War culture were the touchstones of the era. They represented the key assumptions and realities of life in the United States at this juncture and would prove central to the domestic and foreign developments to come in the subsequent decades. The liberal consensus marked a period of unprecedented homogeny, but it would not withstand the upheavals of the 1960s. 8 9 Hunt, Lyndon Johnson’s War, 4. Hodgson, America in Our Time, 75. 16 Central to comprehending how the Cold War developed is understanding the role of the presidency and the changes it underwent during the war years and in the decades that followed. The office of the presidency expanded substantially in scope during Franklin Roosevelt’s terms in office. New agencies and greater power concentrated in the executive were the primary features of such development. This tradition of expansion continued throughout the following presidencies. Unlike their predecessors, the presidents of the mid-twentieth century had an increased amount of agency and less accountability amongst the American people. Because of this shift, the president was seen as the most important political figure in the nation. Indeed, Hodgson notes this, claiming that “the President was seen as embodying the aspirations and responding to the needs of the nation as a whole.”10 The changes and growth that the office underwent throughout these years provide important evidence for understanding how the Vietnam War was able to escalate at its particularly rapid pace. The Vietnam War was the defining experience of the latter portion of the twentieth century, politically and culturally. The origins of the war were multifaceted and stretched over a number of years, yet the developments that began during World War II and in the years that followed were directly linked to the war fought by the Johnson administration throughout the 1960s. The beliefs Americans held about the conflict in Vietnam were a direct result of the assumptions of the liberal consensus. Hunt articulates the fears shared by American policymakers about a communist Vietnam, explaining that: Ho’s victory would transform a populous country rich in raw materials into a satellite of the Soviet-dominated bloc. The loss of Vietnam would in turn bring 10 Hodgson, America in Our Time, 109. 17 the swift submission of Cambodia, Laos, and other neighboring states of mainland Southeast Asia and set off shock waves that would put at risk U.S. Pacific defenses, Japan, South Asia, the Mideast, and even Europe.”11 Concerns about this so-called Domino Effect put Vietnam in the international spotlight and garnered it substantial military and political attention. While Roosevelt trumpeted self-determination and an end to imperial rule, he approached the situation in Vietnam, then French Indochina, with pragmatism. Hunt explains that, “Roosevelt admitted defeat rather than strain Allied wartime cooperation and perhaps even poison postwar cooperation.”12 With such action Roosevelt placed the maintenance of postwar international cooperation ahead of his own conceptions of what democracy should be. While Vietnam was written off by Roosevelt as a necessary sacrifice to maintain the Allied order, it would prove to be home to a powerful people in the decades that followed. The issue of Vietnam remained important, but not central, to the presidential administrations that immediately followed Roosevelt’s. The increase in responsibility of the expanded presidency allowed the president to exert more control, yet it also left him responsible for the actions taken by the nation as a political body. Hunt describes the development of the Truman Doctrine, noting that “in March 1947 Truman went public in a major address to the country. He called for the defense of all free people threatened by communist aggression or internal subversion.”13 The Truman Doctrine set an important precedent regarding American intervention and its relationship to communist-controlled 11 Hunt, Lyndon Johnson’s War, 11. Hunt, Lyndon Johnson’s War, 7. 13 Hunt, Lyndon Johnson’s War, 9. 12 18 entities. By placing the United States in the role of arbiter and peacemaker, the Truman Doctrine expanded the American role in combating communism on the global stage. The Vietnam War was the culmination of such policies and beliefs. Vietnam was located in a vulnerable and strategic part of the world, with alarming proximity to China and the Soviet Union. With precedent and policy established in the early postwar years, the Kennedy and Johnson administrations felt they had to escalate U.S. involvement. The administration of President John F. Kennedy brought Vietnam to the attention of the nation and the globe in a new way. Kennedy’s approach to the presidency was unlike that of his predecessors, particularly in his attention to international affairs and his ability to inspire young Americans who had come of age in the postwar period. Hodgson describes Kennedy’s approach to the presidency, explaining that “the President-elect talked about the New Frontier, giving popular currency to an earlier coinage of the intellectuals. It was a brilliant slogan, because it combined the promise of restless adventure with reassuring undertones of tried and true American tradition.”14 President Kennedy’s ability to recast the American political landscape in a way that engaged young Americans helped only to solidify the beliefs of the liberal consensus. Kennedy’s hiring of the so-called best and brightest as his advisers was reflective of this engagement with the younger generation. Despite the generational shift that occurred with the start of the Kennedy administration, the existing assumptions about the Cold War persisted. Hunt describes the ascendancy of the Kennedy administration, explaining that “the brainy newcomers [of the Kennedy administration] quickly proved themselves committed cold warriors, with a deep belief in the critical international role played by the United States as 14 Hodgson, America in Our Time, 7. 19 the champion of the free world. They viewed Vietnam almost completely within the context of the fight against communism.”15 By conceiving of Vietnam only within the framework of the Cold War, the Kennedy administration escalated the American commitment without any real progress being made in the region. It was this problematic situation that Johnson unexpectedly inherited in the wake of Kennedy’s assassination. Hunt explains the situation well, stating that “Lyndon Johnson inherited a Vietnam policy that had required an ever-greater commitment of U.S. money and personnel…. The United States would find itself still tied to a weak ally in the face of an effective communist foe.”16 Johnson had not sown the seeds of the war in Vietnam, but he did subscribe to the same set of assumptions that had led the United States there in the previous decades. Johnson began his tenure in office assuming that the United States could maintain both guns and butter, meaning he sought to improve the standard of living domestically while still exerting military strength on the global stage. Hodgson speaks to this belief, stating that Johnson’s “ideology…had always taken it as a fundamental assumption that the economic strength of the American system could produce the resources both to improve society at home and to resist communism and spread the American gospel abroad: both were inseparable parts of America’s duty and privilege.”17 Johnson wanted to balance out U.S. actions abroad with successes at home, particularly in the realm of civil rights and the eradication of poverty. The Great Society legislation was the focus of his domestic efforts and the epitome of the values he held and near and dear to his heart. 15 Hunt, Lyndon Johnson’s War, 43. Hunt, Lyndon Johnson’s War, 78. 17 Hodgson, America in Our Time, 245. 16 20 He was hell-bent on not letting his prized legislation be derailed by the conflict in Vietnam. Anderson explains this effort, stating that, “significantly, the administration also attempted to conceal the escalation and downplay involvement in Vietnam. LBJ was more concerned with civil rights and passing his Great Society legislation, and he did not want to provoke the Soviets, Chinese, or the Americans.”18 Undoubtedly, Johnson initially prioritized his Great Society legislation over the war in Vietnam, yet the assumptions of the Cold War proved to have their own political might. Hunt reiterates Anderson’s claim, stating that “Johnson did not want a deepening conflict in Vietnam to imperil his Great Society program. He was pouring his incredible energy into some twenty major bills that defined that program and that would finally stand as his most significant domestic accomplishment.”19 This tension, between foreign and domestic, would prove disastrous for the Johnson administration. In time, the Vietnam War thoroughly derailed the efforts of the Johnson administration to pass social welfare legislation. By the end of his term in office, Johnson had managed to retain neither guns nor butter with any real success. As the Johnson administration became increasingly involved in Vietnam, those protesting the war also grew in strength and number. The movement was multifaceted and many who protested the war were also involved in other social movements throughout the decade. The movement, and particularly the antiwar movement, was decentralized with little specific leadership. Instead, there were overlapping networks of 18 19 Anderson, The Movement and the Sixties, 123. Hunt, Lyndon Johnson’s War, 83. 21 diverse individuals working to express their frustrations regarding the war in Vietnam. Melvin Small described the casual organization of the movement, explaining that: if you said you were in the movement, you were accepted as a member in good standing. You became part of an ever-shifting coalition of pacifists, liberals, social democrats, socialist, Communists, and cultural radicals, many of whom were college students, working people, suburbanites, clerics, politicians, journalists, intellectuals, and even proverbial little old ladies in tennis shoes.20 This lack of structure and centralization was a defining feature of the antiwar movement, and it reflected, in many ways, the values of its members. Many individuals protesting were frustrated by the strict structure that defined life in the postwar years. These individuals, who had come of age at the height of Cold War culture, were no longer willing to be restrained by the strictures of a conformist society. Similarly, many of those protesting had lost faith in the institutions of the United States and saw such demonstrations of authority as deeply, and in some cases inherently, flawed. Furthermore, the movement was incredibly varied, and individuals involved in one of its facets were likely involved in others as well. The different iterations of the movement, whether civil rights, antiwar, women’s liberation, or anything in between, were inextricably linked by their common desire to change the System either through reform or revolution. Participants in the movement articulated the System as the overarching power structure that defined the United States and its culture. They felt that the System was oppressive in many facets, and they sought to upset the control it had 20 Melvin Small, Antiwarriors: The Vietnam War and the Battle for America’s Hearts and Minds (Lanham, Maryland: SR Books, 2002), 3. 22 over American society. For most activists, the System upheld inequality, in its many forms, throughout the United States. Hodgson describes the unification of those against the system, explaining that: what gave unity to all these different forms of rebellion, joining rebels and radicals in a common cause, was their shared condition, vague but unshakable, of the unity of what they were rebelling against. Behind each specific movement of the sixties there was one underlying Movement, because behind each specific injustice there was perceived, shadowy but all-powerful, one System. All voices that shattered the decorum of consensus were welcome, because the ultimate enemy was consensus itself.21 The movement would prove to be a powerful force in the reimagining of American society, and the antiwar protesters occupy an important space among those campaigning for change. The movement at large traced its roots to the strategies and approaches developed and refined throughout the Civil Rights Movement. Hodgson states that “the roots of the radical peace movement have always been entangled with those of the civil rights movement.”22 In the immediate postwar period the Civil Rights Movement began to blossom. Following the Second World War, many black Americans became increasingly aware of the disparities between the values of the United States and the realities of life as black Americans. Hodgson speaks to this paradox, explaining that “by demanding what in theory the national creed ought to allow them—equality—blacks had revealed the 21 22 Hodgson, America in Our Time, 309. Hodgson, America in Our Time, 275. 23 inconsistency between the egalitarian ideals of the American creed and the inequality of the actual condition of black people in American society.”23 This disparity catalyzed change through a legal strategy. While the attempt at crafting a legal strategy was agonizingly slow to many, particularly young, black Americans, it proved successful in the 1954 Supreme Court decision of Brown v. Board of Education. The end of legal segregation opened the floodgates to more nuanced change as time wore on. However, there was a mounting frustration among many young activists with the slow methods of legal and legislative change. Out of this desire for a more aggressive strategy came the lunch counter sit-ins. Anderson describes the importance of the sit-ins, explaining that “the lunch counter sit-ins…were a decisive break with earlier civil rights demonstrators and with cold war culture. The sit-ins ignited a young generation of blacks to become activists, and more important, they stimulated some southern and many northern whites to participate in something they began calling ‘the movement.’”24 The sit-ins helped catalyze a new and more proactive iteration of the Civil Rights Movement. They soon led to other instances of activism, such as the 1961 Freedom Rides and 1964 Mississippi Freedom Summer. These new forms of activism, particularly those that included white northerners, such as the Freedom Rides and Freedom Summer, exposed swaths of young Americans to numerous instances of injustice across the nation. Those who took part in the Civil Rights Movement firsthand would take the skills and strategies they had learned and go on to apply them in other ways across the broad construction of the movement itself, most prominently in protest of the Vietnam War. 23 24 Hodgson, America in Our Time, 159. Anderson, The Movement and the Sixties, 45. 24 The most direct beneficiary of the training of young, white college students was the Free Speech Movement that developed at Berkeley. After a summer of volunteering as civil rights activists, several students returned to Berkeley eager to share information about the work and the important efforts that were sweeping the nation. In short order, however, the distribution of their material was banned. What followed was an incredible display of activism by a minority of student activists who were determined to enact change upon the System. Hodgson highlights the key point of the effort, explaining that “the idea of free speech—not an organization, not a leader—generated the activism, and that remained true throughout the sixties.”25 The Free Speech Movement was so impactful because it was made up of a group of diverse individuals with a common goal in mind. It was a powerful instance that highlighted the potential for activism and the concern it caused to the older generation and the existing establishment. Furthermore, the activism at Berkeley emphasized that protests were not limited to those who were excluded from the benefits of the System. Those participating in the movement at Berkeley were the direct beneficiaries of postwar prosperity. These students had been raised in the white, middle-class suburbs of a prosperous nation. In spite of the privileges afforded to them by this lifestyle, they too perceived injustice in the American system. Hodgson explains the parallels of these movements, describing, “Berkeley…equals Mississippi equals Vietnam. That double equation was the shibboleth of the schism that split America after 1965. If you assented to it, you were on one side; if it stuck in your throat, then you are on the other.”26 The movement was an intricately 25 26 Anderson, The Movement and the Sixties, 109. Hodgson, America in Our Time, 299. 25 linked network, full of overlapping participants and ideologies. Hodgson further articulates this notion, stating that “the Free Speech Movement was the bridge between the civil rights movement and the antiwar movement.”27 The Free Speech Movement grew out of and operated concurrently with the Civil Rights Movement. The development of these successive iterations of the greater movement emphasize the particular universality that defined the social movements of the 1960s. Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) was an organization that straddled the thin lines between movements and declared themselves the cultivators of the New Left. Their 1962 manifesto, “The Port Huron Statement,” outlined their perceptions of what change was needed for the future. As Anderson explains, “the monolithic 1950s had alienated and provoked these young intellectuals, and the ‘Statement’ was their strike against consensus, their declaration of war on cold war culture.”28 Students for a Democratic Society and the New Left focused on grassroots and community-based changes, taking many of their cues from the nonviolent civil disobedience of the Civil Rights Movement. “The Port Huron Statement” was a key document because it clearly depicted the perspective of those who participated in the movement. The first lines of “The Port Huron Statement” were particularly impactful: “we are people of this generation, bred in at least modest comfort, housed now in universities, looking uncomfortably to the world we inherit.”29 While activists were always in the minority on their campuses, “The Port Huron Statement” helped underscore common discontentment among college students across the nation. Lytle describes the philosophy held by the 27 Hodgson, America in Our Time, 297. Anderson, The Movement and the Sixties, 62. 29 Anderson, The Movement and the Sixties, 62. 28 26 members of SDS, explaining that “these young radicals condemned the spiritual, political, and moral bankruptcy of the world they had inherited from their elders.”30 Participants in SDS wanted to fundamentally change those American institutions that bred inequality, and part of that was condemning such institutions. That said, SDS was optimistic about its ability to create fundamental political change and improve existing American society. As time went on and the war in Vietnam progressed, SDS became a vehicle for organized antiwar protest. Students for a Democratic Society was an inherently political group, which was reflected in its actions. In a culture that valued political consensus, dissent was oftentimes taboo, which in turn fueled fairly widespread political apathy. Lytle engages with such perceptions, explaining that “[Tom] Hayden [co-founder of SDS] concluded that political apathy was an even more serious issue than war or racism.”31 The determination of SDS to be an active political group engaged in these conversations helped cement its role within the movement as a force for change. Each of these iterations of the movement would, in time, have opportunities for the expression of antiwar sentiment. While the antiwar movement was inherently political, it also helped breed the counterculture, which was decidedly not. Anderson describes the rationale of the countercultural hippie, explaining that “a growing number of young people had decided to drop out—to reject war, racism, and indeed, the entire American Way of Life.”32 While the conflation of these movements was inherent in their lack of structure, many young Americans wished to embrace some values of the 30 Lytle, America’s Uncivil Wars, 87. Lytle, America’s Uncivil Wars, 87. 32 Anderson, The Movement and the Sixties, 170. 31 27 counterculture while remaining politically engaged. Indeed, Anderson speaks to this notion, claiming that “Berkeley activists had no desire to turn their backs on the war, to take drugs and forget the movement; in 1965 they wanted to organize, to demonstrate, to fight and change America.”33 The counterculture complicated the movement, forcing it to reckon with its own goals and compromises. The 1960s hold a prominent place in the cultural perception of recent history, and no element more viscerally than the counterculture. The distinctive aesthetic and sound of the movement has secured the significance of its legacy in the subsequent decades. The counterculture stood in direct contrast to the Cold War culture of the postwar period, providing a stark example of the changes that were seeping into mainstream America. The apolitical, paradoxical, and generational aspects of the counterculture further confused and outraged the majority of Americans who still held fast to the traditional values of the postwar era. Further, the look of countercultural hippies in conjunction with the rise of rock ’n’ roll music reflected these newfound antithetical beliefs. Young people in the 1960s began to question the verities of Cold War culture, taking increasingly subversive viewpoints. Terry Anderson sums up this change well, explaining that, “a theme of cold war culture…was ‘just say no.’ The creed was the Protestant Ethic: work. The motif of the sixties was ‘just say yes,’ and the canon was the Pleasure Ethic: fun. Live for the moment. Have a Happy Day.”34 This was a substantial shift in American culture, and it was unsettling for those committed to the values of the Cold War. However, despite the seeming irrationality of such a transition, Anderson 33 34 Anderson, The Movement and the Sixties, 142. Anderson, The Movement and the Sixties, 258. 28 describes the logic of the counterculture, stating that “to many youth, the great American institutions seemed to be failing, and that contradicted their upbringing.”35 These contradictions within American society were the fault lines of the liberal consensus and Cold War culture. The values of the counterculture were in many ways antithetical to those of the prevailing Cold War culture. Anderson summarizes this well, writing, “the counterculture must be defined broadly. The movement developed as a counter to the political establishment: the counterculture was a counter to the dominant cold war culture.”36 The counterculture rejected materialism, American exceptionalism, conformity, authority, family values, and the war, among other pillars of the liberal consensus. These changing values manifested in a variety of ways, chief among them new fashion aesthetics, lifestyles, and, above all, rock ’n’ roll music. To best understand the ways that the counterculture introduced change into American culture, one must conceptualize its apolitical, paradoxical, and generational nature. While members of the counterculture held a variety of political convictions, the majority of those participating during the mid-to-late-1960s were apolitical. Anderson speaks to this makeup, explaining that: some [members of the counterculture] dropped out and became as apolitical as possible, others participated in what they considered was a cultural revolution, but most rejected the values of the predominant culture and then developed and 35 36 Anderson, The Movement and the Sixties, 249. Anderson, The Movement and the Sixties, 241. 29 practiced different lifestyles. While this seemed difficult for the older generation to comprehend, it was readily understood by freaks all over the nation.37 Members of the counterculture felt that the institutions of the United States were inherently flawed, that they must be entirely abandoned rather than reformed. This form of criticism, done outside of the system, was difficult for many people to understand, even other young people. The antiwar movement existed amidst a wide network of overlapping and decentralized protest movements throughout the 1960s. It grew out of a tradition that began with the Civil Rights Movement at a time in American life when the verities of Cold War culture were being called into question. As Anderson describes, “the Vietnam War became the engine of the sixties. While the civil rights struggle began the era and introduced the moral debate, the war, more than any other issue, defined and shaped the decade.”38 The war, and the response to it by policymakers, presidents, and protesters alike, was the defining feature of the decade. The postwar period and the decades that followed introduced fundamental changes to American society, culture, and politics. The rise of the Cold War had profound impacts on the way Americans perceived their role in the international landscape. Similarly, the growth of the Cold War led in turn to the development of Cold War culture amidst the resounding prosperity of the postwar years. The foundations of the Vietnam War were laid during these years. Along with developments in Vietnam, Johnson dealt with developing his own domestic policies, particularly in regard to the 37 38 Anderson, The Movement and the Sixties, 244. Anderson, The Movement and the Sixties, 135. 30 Great Society. These cultural shifts, represented in part by the changes brewing within the Great Society legislation, helped usher in the start of the movement. The movement sought to bring about social change throughout the United States, and in the 1960s it took many forms, the most prominent and impactful being the antiwar movement. Understanding the political and cultural milieu that produced the antiwar movement is key in comprehending the values it held most dear, the changes it most wanted to enact, and why it proved to be such a challenge to the Johnson administration. 31 CHAPTER TWO “A SMALL HARD CORE OF DISSENTERS:” 1965-1966 Throughout 1965 and 1966 a dialogue began to develop between the Johnson administration and the budding antiwar movement. Some of the first dissent on the Vietnam War came from Congress, most notably Idaho Democrat Frank Church. While Church was a fairly isolated voice, he nonetheless attracted the wrath of President Lyndon B. Johnson. Further, starting in 1965 certain segments of the wider movement began to focus on the Vietnam War. These groups were primarily made up of young Americans, oftentimes college students. While the student movement was fairly limited in size, it did demand attention from Johnson, much to the administration’s chagrin. The growth of this facet of the antiwar movement triggered a direct response from within the Johnson administration, as well as from many mainstream Americans who supported the war. This conversation played out between the university teach-ins and the resulting government truth teams. The perceptions that most Americans had of these antiwar protesters were negative and rooted in radical imagery and ideology that only in part defined the movement. Publicly, the Johnson administration tolerated the existence of dissenting voices, even though it took concerted efforts to combat them. Despite the development of an opinionated minority, by the close of 1966 the vast majority of Americans still supported both the Vietnam War and the Johnson administration. By tracking these early developments of dissent, one begins to understand how President Johnson and his administration were able to maintain good public opinion even in the face of a growing antiwar movement. 32 Nineteen sixty-five introduced new realities for the war in Vietnam, specifically military escalation. In earlier years, Vietnam had been on the back burner of American politics. Yet, as military efforts in Southeast Asia intensified, so too did the American public’s attention. For many participants in the nascent movement, the war represented the systematic problems plaguing the United States. As the war proved itself to be the epitome of Cold War foreign policy, a small but growing opposition positioned themselves against it. Despite the lengthy involvement of the United States in Indochina, it was not until the military escalation of 1965 that a concerted opposition to the war began to develop. Among the first clear voices opposing the war in Vietnam and the Johnson administration’s efforts there was Senator Frank Church, a Democrat from Idaho. As David F. Schmitz and Natalie Fousekis explain, Church “went public in December 1964...[and] immediately became a front-page story.”1 Church’s decision to dissent publicly, particularly as a leading member of the American government, raised new questions about the role of the United States in Vietnam and how the American public understood that role. Church’s statements placed him in unique company. Schmitz and Fousekis note that, “Church’s comments…made him the third and most prominent senator to publicly oppose American escalation in Vietnam, and the foremost critic of the war.”2 Church became a spokesman for a particular facet of the antiwar movement, 1 David F. Schmitz and Natalie Fousekis, “Frank Church, the Senate, and the Emergence of Dissent on the Vietnam War,” Pacific Historical Review vol. 63, no. 4 (November 1994): 569. 2 Schmitz and Fousekis, “Frank Church,” 562. 33 specifically that iteration that piqued the interest of mainstream American politics and the corridors of Washington. Senator Church’s decision to oppose the Vietnam War had two especially important facets. The first was his rationale behind dissenting, namely his concern about the increase in Third World campaigns being undertaken by the United States since the beginning of the Cold War. Schmitz and Fousekis echo this notion when they note that “American actions were part of what Church had termed an ‘excess of interventionism’ that had come to characterize American relations with ex-colonial areas of the world.”3 Church’s objection to the Vietnam War was primarily linked to the implementation of specific U.S. foreign policy, rather than the systemic charges brought about by his contemporaneous dissenters. Schmitz and Fousekis reiterate this notion, claiming that Church, by the end of 1965, had “criticized Johnson for pursuing a policy which exceeded the nation’s power, violated American principles and values, and cast the United States in the role of world policeman.”4 In the greater scheme of the antiwar movement, Church represented a moderate critique of the U.S. role in Vietnam during the mid-1960s. Within prevailing accounts of the antiwar movement there are limited mentions of Church and his fellow Congressional dissenters. The second key feature of Church’s dissent came from his reluctance to directly critique President Johnson’s handling of the war. Schmitz and Fousekis explain that “Church criticized American policy, but he never directly blamed the President. He hoped in this way to maintain LBJ’s confidence while influencing him away from 3 4 Schmitz and Fousekis, “Frank Church,” 561. Schmitz and Fousekis, “Frank Church,” 562. 34 escalation toward negotiations. He described Johnson as a ‘man of peace.’”5 Church’s disinclination to criticize Johnson further set him apart from the typical antiwar protester. The student-driven antiwar movement that was growing during the time of Church’s dissent was directly critical of Johnson, and it predicated its arguments around his personal failures. Clearly, Senator Church occupied a unique space within the antiwar movement. While he was publicly vocal about his concerns in Vietnam, his approach and the minutiae of his beliefs meant that his role in the movement was unique. Despite the prominence of Church and his dissent, his voice was substantially muted by the contemporary and vocal student-run antiwar movement. In 1965 and 1966, the primary participants in the antiwar movement were students on college campuses across the country. The population growth of the Baby Boom meant that by the mid-1960s there was an unprecedented number of young Americans attending college. Indeed, as Melvin Small notes, “college students, who would be among the most important participants in the antiwar movement, were increasing their presence in society.”6 The political and demographic environment on college campuses made them ripe breeding grounds for social upheaval. The linkage between the larger movement and the more focused antiwar movement meant that many students grew to have antiwar sympathies simply because of their association with issues such as civil rights and free speech. As Charles DeBenedetti notes: more explicitly, a constituency for antiwar protest gathered on the political left. Various activists seized upon Vietnam partly as a flagrant example of 5 6 Schmitz and Fousekis, “Frank Church,” 570. Small, Antiwarriors, 7. 35 Washington’s determination to crush revolutionary socialism and liberation in the Third World. They hoped also that the issue would help them to build campus constituencies and to emphasize the priority of domestic change.7 The most unified antiwar efforts appearing on college campuses came from SDS. Despite the fact that the origins of SDS lay in participatory democracy and grassroots organization, by 1965 it made opposition to the Vietnam War a key aspect of its mission for change within the System. As Todd Gitlin observed, “the year 1965 was a pivotal one in the history of SDS, and in the student movement as a whole: pivotal both in reality and in the realm of publicity. SDS organized the first major national demonstration against the Vietnam war.”8 The role of SDS as a force for antiwar opposition proved central to the development of the movement throughout the mid-1960s. Furthermore, SDS sought to engage directly with the Johnson administration in order to enact political and military change. In a letter to President Johnson from April 1965, leaders of SDS explained that: 30,000 concerned Americans gathered under the shadow of the Washington monument today to urge you to call a halt to the bombing of North Vietnam to declare a cease fire in South Vietnam and to bring meaning to the Easter season by inviting all concerned parties to the conference table to end the war in Vietnam now. This message was adopted unanimously by our rally today.9 7 Charles DeBenedetti with Charles Chatfield, An American Ordeal: The Antiwar Movement of the Vietnam Era (Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 1990), 96-97. 8 Todd Gitlin, The Whole World Is Watching: Mass Media in the Making & Unmaking of the New Left (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1980), 21. 9 Letter, April 23, 1965, White House Central Files, Human Rights 4 (hereafter HU), Box 60, Lyndon B. Johnson Presidential Library, Austin, Texas (hereafter LBJL). 36 The clear, concise, and virulently antiwar position of SDS emphasized the relationship between the student movement and the antiwar movement. The antiwar movement was further linked to the student movement and the university as an institution by the teach-ins that began in the spring semester of 1965. Simon Hall defines the notion of a teach-in and outlines its main goals, stating that: during 1965 the escalation of the war in Vietnam was accompanied by a growing domestic debate over the wisdom of America’s military involvement. One of the earliest and most dramatic manifestations of this unease emerged on the nation’s college campuses in the form of the ‘teach-in.’ A mix of direct-action protest and academic seminar, teach-ins offered a forum for the exchange of views between supporters and opponents of the administration’s policy in Vietnam.10 Teach-ins, which began at the University of Michigan, provided spaces for public discussion about the war and afforded students the opportunity to challenge the prevailing liberal consensus and Cold War culture that had defined the entirety of their lifetimes. Hall further notes the far-reaching impact of the efforts: the teach-ins ‘legitimized dissent at the outset of the war’ and, by exposing a ‘vacuum of understanding’ they helped to create a ‘market for information,’ and forged a nucleus of academics willing to challenge government policy that, over the longer term, would prove important. The wave of teach-ins also helped to make the war a national issue…and put the government on the defensive. For the participants, meanwhile, the teach-ins often proved to be an exhilarating and 10 Simon Hall, Rethinking the American Anti-War Movement (New York: Routledge, 2012), 12. 37 energizing experience, and they helped to invigorate the emerging antiwar movement.11 The teach-ins epitomized the impact of activism on a college campus. Undoubtedly, the teach-ins were representative of the changing nature of the university and the shifting views held by a strong faction of its students. The nationwide spread of the teach-ins proved that young Americans could effectively organize around controversial issues, even in the age of consensus. Despite the ripe conditions for antiwar protest on college campuses, the protesters were only a small minority of students. While, in time, college campuses would be known as political spaces, prior to the 1960s they were anything but. As indicated by the New York Times in 1965, “Vietnam protest movements on American college campuses involve only a small hard core of dissenters, top officials of 85 colleges and universities told the Associated Press. Put into perspective, members of organizations protesting the draft and United States involvement in Vietnam represent only a minute fraction of the students on each campus.”12 Those protesting the war in Vietnam from college campuses were fairly small in number. What they lacked in quantity, however, they made up for in other ways, particularly in shock value and the cultivation of perceived radicalization. The size and scope of the antiwar movement during 1965 and 1966 provided important insights into how the war functioned as an object of public opinion. As Melvin Small notes, “the amorphous, decentralized, and often anarchic nature of the movement 11 Hall, Rethinking the American Anti-War Movement, 14. “Survey Finds Campus Protests on Vietnam War Are ‘Minute,’” New York Times, October 29, 1965. 12 38 was both its strength and weakness.”13 These qualities defined the antiwar movement, allowing it to occupy a unique space within the political landscape of the United States. The fact that there were numerous factions of the antiwar movement meant that opinions were diverse, but it also prevented the creation of a unified message. Due to this quality, the best resource for the antiwar movement was its members. Small explains that “as demonstrations came to define the antiwar movement for the rest of the country, crowd size became a key to success. If the movement wanted to demonstrate to the administration that it was growing in potential influence, it had to attract ever-increasing crowds.”14 The visual demonstration of the antiwar movement’s fortitude became the primary method of displaying its strength. The perception held by many in the Johnson administration was that antiwar protesters were radical and frustrating, yet ultimately inconsequential to U.S. foreign policy. They were unable to effect any real change and they only sparked the outrage of Americans who thought their actions were unforgivably unpatriotic. Additionally, the media played a large role in discrediting the movement by the images it sent into the homes of most Americans. Hodgson explains that, “the power of television, in particular, to change a significant fraction of public opinion overnight by emitting one of these political charged particles does a lot to explain why people feel they live in an age of accelerated change.”15 The media helped construct a particular image of the antiwar movement, reaffirming the claims made by the Johnson administration that it was radical and contradictory to American values. Small, too, emphasizes the prominent role played 13 Small, Antiwarriors, 4. Small, Antiwarriors, 27. 15 Hodgson, America in Our Time, 356. 14 39 by the media in negatively shaping the public image of the antiwar movement, stating, “the media generally presented conservative estimates of crowd size, gave considerable attention to the handful of raucous counter demonstrators on the fringes of the crowd, and paid little attention to the contents of the speeches.”16 This particular impression echoed throughout the minimal press coverage garnered by the earlier iterations of the antiwar movement. The press coverage that the antiwar movement did receive was crucial in shaping the strong reactions of many Americans. A 1965 U.S. News & World Report piece on backlash to antiwar protesters claimed that, “student protests against the war in Vietnam suddenly were having this opposite effect: a tidal wave of public support for American servicemen on the fighting front.”17 Most Americans responded to those protesting the war with outrage and frustration. Many could not conceive of how anyone could believe that the United States was making a mistake with its foreign policy, and even fewer could understand why such a subset of young people would be so vocal in their criticisms. As Small notes, “some observers reasoned, if those are the sorts of people who are against the war, then we must be for the war.”18 While some Americans were frustrated by these developments, they had little cause for concern in 1965 and 1966. Anderson explains that, “the antiwar demonstrations…were significant because of what did not happen—the Johnson administration did not change policy in Vietnam. In fact, most Americans 16 Small, Antiwarriors, 28. “Now, a ‘Backlash’ to Anti-Vietnam Protests,” U.S. News & World Report, November 8, 1965, 11. 18 Small, Antiwarriors, 27. 17 40 considered peace marchers beatniks, kooks, or Communists, and the demonstrators received little press and had little impact.”19 The extreme unpopularity of the antiwar movement was an important theme for the duration of antiwar activism. A public statement from fall 1965, echoing this notion, was brought to the attention of the White House: Sen. Robert F. Byrd, D-W.Va., said last night anti-Viet Nam protests are giving ‘aid and comfort to the enemy’ and he criticized President Johnson for not telling demonstrators so…. Byrd said the anti-war demonstrators ‘encourage the Viet Cong, impair the morale of our fighting men, and undermine the position of our government in Viet Nam and the world.’ He termed the protests ‘senseless, diabolical, abominable, disgraceful and hurtful.’20 The fact that President Johnson was criticized for not condemning antiwar protesters underscores the deep disdain many Americans felt for this movement. This critique of the antiwar movement came from all sides, including harsh remarks from antiwar Senator Wayne Morse of Oregon in November 1965. Morse claimed that, “the youthful protesters who ignore the many means of peaceful and orderly protest open to them under the first amendment to the Constitution, are affording to the entire Nation the opportunity to dismiss all dissent from Government policy as lawless, reckless, and bordering on sedition.”21 The antiwar movement was criticized almost universally for its radical nature, yet it held firm to its positions despite such harsh perceptions. 19 Anderson, The Movement and the Sixties, 126. Summary of Public Statement, November 30, 1965, White House Central Files, HU 4, Box 59, LBJL. 21 Wayne Morse, “Protests Against Vietnam Policy,” Vital Speeches of the Day, November 15, 1965, 74. 20 41 The Johnson administration’s response to the initial growth of the antiwar movement was multifaceted. Members of the administration were confident in the assumptions behind their policy in Vietnam and had no reason to perceive the protesters as a valid threat to public opinion. Undoubtedly, the antiwar movement was vastly unpopular amongst the American people and, arguably, helped the Johnson administration maintain its control over public opinion. Despite these realities, the antiwar movement got under Johnson’s skin. As Small notes, Johnson “was the first president in modern history to be subjected to such constant public disrespect. It demeaned him personally as well as the office he held.”22 The most concerted effort made by the Johnson administration against the antiwar movement was its response to the teach-ins. The realities of what happened at the teachins rattled the Johnson administration, particularly because they occurred within the legitimate institution of the university. In order to combat the flourishing of antiwar ideology on various campuses in the spring of 1965, Small notes that, “the administration dispatched ‘truth squads’ to campus to explain its point of view to the students. The teams of diplomats and military officials often met unfriendly and uncivil audiences who did not always give them a chance to make their presentations.”23 The decision to send out these truth teams was not in and of itself impactful on the development of pro-war and antiwar sentiment, yet it revealed a deep insight into the thought process of those within the Johnson administration. This was echoed in a report from April 1965, which stated: 22 23 Small, Antiwarriors, 48. Small, Antiwarriors, 24. 42 we [in the White House] simply aren’t doing our propaganda job right in this country…. We need to target college campuses as our immediate objective. Every student anti-U.S. policy demonstration is priceless gold for the Viet Cong. We need a counter-offensive on college campuses to combat the pacifist group demonstrators and to use it as our own propaganda weapon.24 This organized plan was contrary to the White House’s public strategy toward the movement. It revealed that the Johnson administration had real fears about the antiwar movement. Frequently, the Johnson administration couched its public discourse on the antiwar movement in terms of the constitutional right to protest. Indeed, Johnson described his own history with protesting, explaining in remarks from August 1965: if you feel like protesting, I hope you will. I have been protesting all my life— protesting against poverty, protesting against illness, protesting against ignorance, protesting against injustice and discrimination, and against waste, and above all, against war. And I expect to continue, and I expect you to continue, until all of these evils are overcome in our land and around the world.25 By framing the action in such a way, Johnson was able maintain his position as pro-civil rights while exploiting the notion that antiwar protesters were abusing their rights. This conception, that these rights extended even to those who scorned the United States, worked in Johnson’s favor. He completed this task masterfully, ensuring moderate support for his administration. In a letter from February 1966, Johnson sympathized with 24 Report, April 23, 1965, White House Central Files, HU 4, Box 59, LBJL. Public Papers of the Presidents: Lyndon B. Johnson, 1965, (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1966), 831. 25 43 one American who disdained the protesters, explaining that, “the disappointment you feel because of demonstrations in our country is understandable. But demonstrations underscore the importance of the work of our servicemen—protecting a way of life in which people are free to express the most unpopular opinions as compared to systems of government which harshly suppress them.”26 Johnson’s maneuvering under this strategy gave him a skillful command of the political center. Despite Johnson’s public praise for the right to protest, he also brought media attention to those voices calling out the protesters. The Johnson administration made an effort to praise and affirm those Americans who spoke out against the antiwar movement. Senator Wayne Morse criticized the Johnson administration for this tactic, stating in fall 1965 that: “I expect that in the weeks ahead, the Nation will be treated to a vast public relations campaign that will seek to create the impression that anyone who questions what is being done in Vietnam is a draft evader, or is the tool or dupe of Communists, or trying to further Communist objectives.”27 In giving these Americans sympathy and the ear of the president, Johnson was able to assert his position in an aggressive manner. This approach to combatting antiwar protest was an effective one. Validating the backlash gave many Americans a voice in the political and social conversation. As the antiwar movement grew, so too did Johnson’s realization that he had to be a master of public opinion. The movement had a powerful social impact and, as Anthony Ashbolt notes, “certain issues have the potential to generate feelings of solidarity which can, in turn, inspire a sense of community, however fragile. Civil rights, free speech and 26 Letter, February 2, 1966, White House Central Files, HU 4, Box 60, LBJL. Wayne Morse, “Protests Against Vietnam Policy: An Undeclared War,” Vital Speeches of the Day, October 19, 1965. 27 44 then Vietnam were such issues.”28 Johnson most notably sought to mold public opinion during his April 7, 1965 speech at Johns Hopkins University. As Melvin Small describes: the Johns Hopkins speech was the first major example of the impact of antiwar and other dissenting activities on the making of foreign policy during the Vietnam War. George Reedy remembers the Hopkins speech as ‘a response to the teachins,’ whereas George Ball has ‘no doubt’ it was directly related to the growing antiwar activities in the country. William Bundy talks about the speech being given ‘to stabilize public opinion.’29 The rhetoric of Johnson’s speech was powerful because it utilized the language of the Cold War in order to justify the costs of Vietnam. Johnson claimed that, “we fight because we must fight if we are to live in a world where every country can shape its own destiny. And only in such a world will our own freedom be finally secure.”30 Throughout the period from 1965 to 1966, the dialogue between the Johnson administration and the antiwar movement was dominated by the White House as public support for the war remained strong. As Johnson escalated the war in 1965, the antiwar movement increased its spheres of influences. Congress became the site of some early and important public dissent, yet it was at the university that such sentiment experienced substantial growth. The student-driven and university-led teach-ins helped define this period of the antiwar movement, whereas the truth teams revealed the pressing concerns from within the Johnson administration. Despite the changing tides of this relationship, 28 Ashbolt, A Cultural History of the Radical Sixties, 64. Melvin Small, Johnson, Nixon, and the Doves (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1988), 40. 30 Public Papers of the Presidents: Johnson 1965, 394. 29 45 one fact remained the same through the end of 1966: The Johnson administration still had the widespread support of the American people. By the start of 1967 the Johnson administration was still riding high on the liberal consensus, unable to see the crises upon the horizon. 46 CHAPTER THREE “PUBLIC DISCONTENT WITH THE WAR IS NOW WIDE AND DEEP:” 1967-1968 The later years of the Johnson presidency were defined by the rapid disintegration of the postwar liberal consensus and the emergence of a divided nation. The war in Vietnam was an increasingly contentious issue for many Americans, and by 1968 public opinion had shifted dramatically from the widespread support of 1965. These shifts in public opinion, and the ways in which the Johnson administration sought to counter them, were a defining feature of both 1967 and 1968. Growing dissatisfaction with the war catalyzed new efforts within the Johnson administration to address issues of public opinion in the greater context of the Vietnam War strategy. These changing tides of public opinion were further altered by the 1968 Tet Offensive. While public opinion was not dramatically responsive to the fallout of Tet, the attack marked a substantial shift in U.S. military policy. In the wake of the Tet Offensive, many of the prevailing assumptions behind the Cold War came under scrutiny within the Johnson administration. This uncertainty, coupled with political challenges from within the Democratic party for the presidential nomination, left the Johnson administration floundering. These developments culminated in the president’s March 31 speech where he announced his withdrawal from the race and the of riots 1968 Democratic National Convention. These scenes epitomized the multifaceted frustrations that the American people faced as the crisis year of 1968 drew to a close. The politically, militarily, and socially tumultuous developments of 1967 and 1968 catalyzed the rapidity of change and loss of support for 47 the war. This, in turn, changed the focus of the Johnson administration in Vietnam during its final years. Throughout 1967 and 1968 antiwar protest became more prominent in the United States. In response, the Johnson administration began to increase its efforts at countering antiwar attitudes. It did so primarily by taking an increasingly hardline stance against the proliferation of antiwar sentiment. Earlier, as Melvin Small explains, “the Johnson administration remained outwardly tolerant of domestic criticism,” even as it internally sought to silence its critics.1 As opposition to the war grew, however, the Johnson administration responded by becoming increasingly vocal. By 1967 there was outright mutual hostility between the antiwar movement and the Johnson administration. Due to the expansion of the movement, and in spite of the Johnson administration’s increasingly aggressive stance toward it, dissent regarding the Vietnam War began to gain more mainstream attention in 1967. By 1967, the sentiments of frustration and fear had seeped through the ever-growing cracks in the consensus. As the year wore on, polling data revealed an increasing dissatisfaction amongst the American people regarding the war in Vietnam. The encroachment of this discontent was slow, yet it represented an important shift, particularly among mainstream American citizens. No longer were antiwar dissents isolated to fringe protest groups, but instead such sentiment had infiltrated the middle class. David F. Schmitz describes the development well, stating: at the beginning of 1967, this number [of Americans who believed that the United States had made a mistake in sending troops to Vietnam] had only grown to 30 1 Small, Johnson, Nixon, and the Doves, 19. 48 percent as a sizable majority continued to support the war. Yet by the fall of that year antiwar opinion broke out of the confines of the campuses and traditional peace groups and spread throughout American society…. The broad-based nature of the antiwar sentiment was demonstrated in October when polls showed that for the first time a plurality of Americans thought the war was a mistake by a margin of 46 to 44 percent.2 This change marked the growing frustration of many Americans with the perceived stalemate of the Vietnam War. It also emphasized how divided the nation was and how central the issue of the Vietnam War had become for many Americans. Schmitz sums up these divisions, explaining that as 1967 drew to a close, “there was now a critical disjuncture between the administration and a sizable portion of the population over the importance of the war to the United States and its security.”3 The fact that this gap can be so clearly defined as between the presidential administration and the American people emphasizes the primary concerns of the American people. Thus, it fell to the Johnson administration to try to restore support for the Vietnam War. Of equal, if not greater, importance than the development of this plurality was the makeup of those now voicing their objections to and concerns with the Vietnam War. While the earlier years of the antiwar movement were defined by smaller groups composed mostly of young students, the growing antiwar movement encapsulated many middle-class Americans. These primarily white, middle-aged liberals saw the war as a mistake, one that did not discredit the essential goodness of American institutions. 2 David F. Schmitz, The Tet Offensive: Politics, War, and Public Opinion (Lanham, Maryland: Rowman and Littlefield, 2005), 52-53. 3 Schmitz, The Tet Offensive, 53. 49 Despite their frustrations with Vietnam, as Hodgson notes, “few of them doubted the essential goodness and strength of American society.”4 These newfound dissenters changed the conversation on the war throughout the nation and within the Johnson administration. Dissent obtained unprecedented credibility and left Johnson struggling to modify his public opinion strategy. Despite the prevailing stereotype of an antiwar protester, Small reiterates that even “housewives…were among the most important participants in the antiwar movement.”5 Nineteen sixty-seven had a slow start and the first half of the year maintained the status quo from 1966, with many Americans still supporting the Johnson administration and the war in Vietnam. In the fall of 1967, however, as the Vietnam War seemed to be mired in a stalemate, Johnson gathered the so-called Wise Men to discuss developments in U.S. foreign policy, particularly the strategy in Vietnam. The Wise Men consisted of what Schmitz calls “leading statesmen,” primarily former government officials and cabinet members with expertise in U.S. foreign policy in the postwar period.6 As Schmitz notes, there was a paradox in the administration’s understanding of the domestic opinion on the Vietnam War. Indeed, Schmitz writes, “at the same time that the support for the war dropped significantly, officials in Vietnam rejected the analysis that the war was a stalemate and reported to Washington that while it was slower coming than initially expected, definite progress was being made.”7 It was this paradox that Johnson sought to understand when he gathered the Wise Men. 4 Hodgson, America in Our Time, 68. Small, Antiwarriors, 57. 6 Schmitz, The Tet Offensive, 59. 7 Schmitz, The Tet Offensive, 54. 5 50 The conclusions drawn at the 1967 Wise Men meeting were universally optimistic. Indeed, as Schmitz describes, “the group was unanimous in opposing any idea that the United States should get out of Vietnam.”8 They agreed with the military assessment that the United States was winning the war in Vietnam and that victory was simply taking a bit longer than initially planned. There was no doubt amongst the Wise Men that the prevailing Cold War ideology behind the Vietnam War was correct. Schmitz explains that many of the Wise Men believed that “it was a matter of staying the course to demonstrate the soundness of the strategy and the correctness of the policy.”9 The Wise Men maintained their belief in the Cold War policies of the postwar period, and they posited that the paradox of 1967 was an issue of swaying public opinion rather than changing political or military strategy. When the Wise Men reported back to Johnson they concluded that the primary issue surrounding the Vietnam War had to do with a negative shift in public opinion rather than any need to substantively changed their strategy. Schmitz reiterates the notion of the paradox, explaining that “all of the reports from Vietnam, all the analysis, all of the statistics, indicated an ever-increasing improvement of the situation on all fronts. Yet at the same time, popular support for the war was steadily declining.”10 The main goal put forth by the Wise Men was to change public opinion on the war. While the concerns regarding public opinion were substantial, few in the Johnson administration thought the protesters or dissenters to be a real threat to anything other than national morale. McGeorge Bundy advised the president on this topic: 8 Schmitz, The Tet Offensive, 61. Schmitz, The Tet Offensive, 63. 10 Schmitz, The Tet Offensive, 58. 9 51 ‘keep calm’ and stay the course. He acknowledged that ‘public discontent with the war is now wide and deep,’ and that ‘one of the few things that helps us right now is public distaste for the violent doves.’ Still, ‘people are getting fed up with the endlessness of the fighting,’ and it was that and ‘the cost of the war in lives and money, coupled with the lack of light the end of the tunnel,’ not the doves’ arguments, that was causing a loss of support. Only seeing progress would turn that around.11 Clearly, by the end of 1967 the Johnson administration was feeling frustrated over the state of both Vietnam and those protesting the war. Bundy articulated the malaise that was overtaking the nation on the issue of Vietnam—Americans were exhausted by the cost of a war that seemed to be locked in a stalemate. The Wise Men and the Johnson administration concluded that a public opinion campaign would be a step toward resolving the problem of declining support. The goal of the public opinion campaign was to articulate to the American people the reality of what was happening in the Vietnam War. Many in the Johnson administration, specifically the Wise Men, saw sagging polling data as representative of a fundamental misunderstanding of U.S. successes in the war. Schmitz explains that “what the Wise Men did recommend to the president was more and better communication with the nation on the progress that was being made in Vietnam.”12 It was important for the Wise Men and for Johnson that the problem of public opinion be resolved. 11 12 Schmitz, The Tet Offensive, 64. Schmitz, The Tet Offensive, 62. 52 Primarily, the public opinion campaign involved the return of military leadership from Vietnam to the United States in order to give the American people updates on the status of the war while simultaneously winning back their support. Small describes this strategy, explaining that “General William Westmoreland was summoned home from Vietnam for a nationwide speaking tour. Responding to the protests, demonstrations, and general decline in public support, Westmoreland tried to blunt the criticism by painting a bright picture of progress in Vietnam.”13 Westmoreland was the main agent in this campaign, and he spoke to the success of the United States and its army. Schmitz notes that “the public relations campaign culminated on November 21 with Westmoreland’s speech to the National Press Club. ‘I am absolutely certain,’ he declared, ‘that whereas in 1965 the enemy was winning, today he is certainly losing.’”14 General Westmoreland’s emphatic claim of an American victory in Vietnam, and indeed the entire public relations campaign, had a minimal effect on the opinions held by the American people. Polling numbers indicated that changes were insubstantial and Schmitz claims that “all of their [the Johnson administration’s] positive evaluations and optimism barely changed the public’s view of the war.”15 The ultimate failure of the public relations campaign and the Johnson administration’s inability to sway public opinion underscored the broader flaws of the Vietnam War as seen by American society and reinforced the growing credibility gap. As the opinion of mainstream Americans 13 Melvin Small, “The Impact of the Antiwar Movement on Lyndon Johnson, 19651968,” in The Vietnam Antiwar Movement, Walter L. Hixson ed. (New York: Garland Publishing, 2000), 15. 14 Schmitz, The Tet Offensive, 69. 15 Schmitz, The Tet Offensive, 71. 53 shifted toward disapproval of the Vietnam War, the Johnson administration was left struggling to retain the trappings of consensus. The calculus of the Vietnam War was substantially altered by the January 1968 Tet Offensive. Speaking broadly about the far-reaching effects of Tet, Schmitz claims that “Tet changed the nature of debate about the war, enlarged the credibility gap between the administration’s explanations of events in Vietnam and the public’s understanding of the war, created an economic crisis at home, and bolstered the presidential aspirations of antiwar candidates.”16 The fallout of Tet was amplified by the fact that, as Terry Anderson notes, “the offensive also raised the question of the Johnson administration’s credibility and policy.”17 Schmitz also speaks to the breadth of this impact, stating that “the Tet Offensive’s importance goes beyond its military aspects to its political, psychological, and economic impact in the United States.”18 The fallout from Tet was multifaceted and had substantial repercussions both militarily and domestically. Militarily, the Tet Offensive came as a total surprise. Tet defied every expectation that the U.S. government had placed on the North Vietnamese military and government. The U.S. military did not think that the North Vietnamese army was capable of launching a large-scale surprise attack, especially not in the cities. Tet brought about a serious crisis of confidence for Johnson and his administration, who had previously been so optimistically steadfast in their policies. Schmitz lays out this sudden self-doubt, explaining that: 16 Schmitz, The Tet Offensive, xiii. Anderson, The Movement and the Sixties, 185. 18 Schmitz, The Tet Offensive, 84. 17 54 While the United States could hold on militarily, what was it accomplishing in the process? This question changed the nature of the discussion about the war inside the Johnson administration, energized the antiwar movement, enlarged the credibility gap, and brought to the fore the economic crisis the war was creating in the United States. The interplay of the military battles and the growing political debate in the United States made Tet the pivotal moment in the war.19 Tet brought to light previously undiscussed questions that straddled the lines of military strategy and public relations. Militarily, Tet was regarded as a serious miscalculation, yet the response from General Westmoreland was a request for an escalation of ground troops. Tet caused the Johnson administration to reconsider its military efforts in Vietnam. Indeed, there was a pause in deliberate military action while Johnson considered the necessary changes to be made in U.S. military strategy. While the Johnson administration was bogged down in the military mire of Tet, the American public was forced to reckon with new conceptualizations of the Vietnam War. The Tet Offensive caused a crisis of confidence. As Schmitz notes, Johnson himself had to directly address the concerns of the public. Schmitz explains that “the president also appeared in public to reassure the nation and rally support for the war. International communism, Johnson stated, was testing the will of the United States, but the country would not falter.”20 Clearly, Johnson stuck to the prevailing Cold War ideology that had fueled the war in the first place, but many Americans were not so easily placated. Schmitz references another pillar of American authority, explaining that “Walter 19 20 Schmitz, The Tet Offensive, 84. Schmitz, The Tet Offensive, 96. 55 Cronkite, the well-respected and trusted CBS News anchor, represented the views of many Americans when he declared upon receiving the first reports on the Tet Offensive: ‘What the hell is going on? I thought we were winning the war!’”21 Cronkite represented the most mainstream of Americans and their inability to fully conceive of what was happening in Vietnam. Furthermore, the Tet Offensive compounded the preexisting issues of public opinion that had started in the fall of 1967. Schmitz describes these far-reaching effects, stating that: the impact of the Tet Offensive was being felt outside of the corridors of power in Washington, DC, as well. Those who had already thought the war was a mistake found further convincing evidence while others who had questions but continued to back the administration, and were persuaded by its case in the fall of 1967, or had fully supported the war, now had reason to doubt the statements from American officials and reevaluate their views as the credibility gap widened.22 Tet did not cause a sudden implosion of public opinion, but it did cause many Americans to reconsider the validity of statements coming from the Johnson administration. As Anderson notes, “Tet shattered the myth. Throughout the century, and especially since World War II, Americans had assumed that their nation was invincible on the battlefield, a country with virtually unlimited power. No longer: disillusionment soared in the weeks after Tet.”23 21 Schmitz, The Tet Offensive, 99. Schmitz, The Tet Offensive, 110-111. 23 Anderson, The Movement and the Sixties, 185. 22 56 The growth of the credibility gap, which represented the disparity between the Johnson administration’s military understanding and that which it shared with the American public, was damaging for the Johnson administration and its hopes for swaying public opinion. In the sphere of public relations, the most impactful aspect of Tet was the trend it restarted. Schmitz indicates this, claiming that “Tet did not cause a dramatic shift in public opinion. Rather, polls indicated that the slight improvement of support for the war in the wake of the fall 1967 public relations campaign was ended by Tet and the trend of a steady decline of support for the war returned.”24 Another factor that played into public opinion during and after Tet was the use of media and press coverage. While media, particularly television, had a huge impact on how many Americans consumed the news and imagery of the Vietnam War, the press had little impact on the decisions made within the Johnson administration. As Schmitz claims, “what is most important to note about the press coverage of the Tet Offensive is that it was not a factor in the decisive decisions made by the Johnson administration after Tet. Senior officials in the Johnson administration were not directly influenced by public opinion and certainly not by television’s coverage of the war.”25 Clearly, the role of the media in Vietnam was amplified in the wake of the Tet Offensive, yet it did not have a direct impact on the Johnson administration’s military strategy, nor its public opinion strategy. While the media was not in direct conversation with the Johnson administration, it did magnify the development of wartime policy with a particular keenness after the disaster of Tet. 24 25 Schmitz, The Tet Offensive, 112. Schmitz, The Tet Offensive, 163. 57 The Johnson administration was rocked by the fallout of the Tet Offensive, prompting it to take action in a myriad of ways. One such example of this action was the Clifford Task Force. At the end of February 1968, just prior to the official start of Clark Clifford’s tenure as Secretary of Defense, Johnson asked him to lead a task force on the war in Vietnam. Secretary Clifford was no dove. Indeed, Melvin Small claims that “Clark Clifford was a quintessential man of the establishment.”26 As head of the task force, Clifford was meant to completely reexamine the prevailing policies and military strategies of the Vietnam War, and indeed, the brief but intense project produced by the Clifford Task Force would have lasting implications. Schmitz claims that “the examination of the questions, analysis of the issues, and debates produced by Clifford’s task force would bring about a fundamental change in American policy.”27 The impact of Clifford’s Task Force radically altered Johnson’s conception of the war in Vietnam and his own leadership. Clifford concluded that victory in Vietnam would not be possible in an acceptable time frame and that negotiation was the only alternative to stalemate. Schmitz sums this up well, stating that “escalation would not bring victory, but it would increase the costs of the war and the internal divisions within the nation. The task force concluded that the resulting debate from an approval of the troop request would be ‘prolonged and divisive,’ and would have a profoundly negative economic impact within the nation.”28 Clifford’s assessment of the situation in Vietnam was a radical departure from the prevailing beliefs within the administration, opined by 26 Small, Johnson, Nixon, and the Doves, 141. Schmitz, The Tet Offensive, 118. 28 Schmitz, The Tet Offensive, 135. 27 58 the Wise Men as recently as November 1967. The disparity created by Clifford’s report underscores the overall importance of Tet as a key pivotal moment in the Vietnam War. In late March 1968, Johnson reconvened the Wise Men to discuss the developments in the Vietnam War in the wake of the Tet Offensive. Almost every member of the group had changed their opinion. Schmitz describes the change, explaining that: indeed, the views of the Wise Men, particularly McGeorge Bundy and Dean Acheson, could not have been more different from the positions they took in the fall, and were much more negative presentations of the situation than Johnson had been receiving from Rostow. In November 1967, Johnson had gained support and renewed confidence in his policy from their advice. Now they were telling him it was all for naught, that the United States could not win.29 This radical shift in opinion from leaders in the U.S. foreign policy establishment was of the utmost concern to Johnson. With consensus as a prevailing force for so long, the reversal of opinion was shocking to him. The combined effects of the Clifford Task Force and the second Wise Men meeting radically shifted Johnson’s policy and political future. On March 31, 1968 President Johnson gave a televised speech before the American people where he outlined changes in his administration’s Vietnam policy. President Johnson explained that, “in the hope that this action will lead to early talks, I am taking the first step to deescalate the conflict. We are reducing—substantially reducing—the present level of hostilities. And we are doing so unilaterally, and at 29 Schmitz, The Tet Offensive, 146. 59 once.”30 Johnson decided to cap escalation and begin to limit the efforts of the bombing campaign. This policy shift came as a direct result of the assessments given by Clifford and the Wise Men. Additionally, Johnson announced that he would neither seek nor accept the presidential nomination from the Democratic Party. He reflected on this decision, stating: “I have concluded that I should not permit the Presidency to become involved in the partisan divisions that are developing in this political year.”31 In looking out at the divided nation, Johnson perceived himself to be too divisive of a figure to continue on in leadership. Undoubtedly, as Hunt notes, “Cold War axioms obstructed Johnson’s understanding of Vietnam.”32 In short order, the Vietnam War had destroyed Johnson’s presidency and permanently marred his political legacy. As March drew to a close, not even two months after the chaos of the Tet Offensive, the Johnson administration was beginning its last gasp as the crises of 1968 raged on. The later years of the Johnson administration saw the earlier form of the antiwar movement undergo significant shifts and fractures. Broadly speaking, the antiwar movement was still a group comprised primarily of middle- and upper-middle class whites, particularly college students. While the groups that represented antiwar sentiment were split into divisive factions, there was some ideological solidarity. As Schmitz claims, “the antiwar movement developed two fundamental critiques of the claim that it was a just war: that there was no threat to the national interest in Vietnam, and that U.S. 30 Public Papers of the Presidents: Lyndon B. Johnson 1968-69 (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1970), 470. 31 Public Papers: Johnson 1968-69, 476. 32 Hunt, Lyndon Johnson’s War, 104. 60 policy and actions violated America’s professed ideals and values.”33 This construction provided a solid foundation for the antiwar movement and was representative of the prevailing ideologies amongst different antiwar groups. While this central ideology was inherently political, the use of direct political action amongst antiwar groups rapidly decreased in both 1967 and 1968. The antiwar movement was not successful in effecting meaningful change within the Johnson administration, even as the war grew increasingly unpopular amongst the American people. Indeed, rarely if ever were its efforts at direct political action successful. Instead, the antiwar movement was successful in bringing attention to the conflict. Melvin Small explores this idea when he describes the role of protest on college campuses. Small states that, “it is here that the antiwar movement and New Left ultimately affected policy, because as the sons and daughters of the upper-middle and upper classes, the children of the establishment, became radicals or hippies or both, their parents paid attention.”34 Despite the fact that the antiwar movement was successfully able to garner the attention of the American public, such attention was almost universally negative. As unpopular as the Vietnam War grew to be, the antiwar movement remained more unpopular. By 1967 and 1968, however, the antiwar movement began to grow into something else. Nineteen sixty-seven was the year that most Americans learned what a hippie was. Hippies were predominately young people who rejected the trappings of mainstream American society and instead took dropped out of the system. The Vietnam War played a 33 34 Schmitz, The Tet Offensive, 48-49. Small, Antiwarriors, 88. 61 central role in the development of the counterculture and the growing number of hippies. Anderson speaks to this reality, explaining that “the older generation was fighting a war, one that many younger citizens felt was illegal, inhumane, and immoral. For draft-age youth, the war forced a response. A young man could either go along with the establishment and join the military, fight the machine by protesting and resisting the draft, or drop out.”35 A small subsection of young Americans sought to drop out of the system in order to protest it. This change was indicative of a less overtly political approach from within the antiwar movement. Indeed, the rise of the often explicitly apolitical counterculture represented the culmination of prevailing frustration with and failure of the antiwar movement. For many young people, the nature of the antiwar movement had shifted. In his 1968 article for Nation, Carey McWilliams described this internal change, explaining that “so intense is the feeling of powerlessness that it has given rise to ‘anti-movements’ and ‘anti-politics.’ Instead of building new, strong, viable organizations through which to exercise political power, the tendency—at least on the Left—has been to move in the reverse direction, that is, to reject the instruments of politics.”36 This rejection of conventional politics was a direct response to the lack of progress being made by those still in the midst of the movement. As Small notes, “many leaders and activists…[were] becoming frustrated and burned out from their failure to stop the war, despite enormous energies expended.”37 The lack of success in the movement and the development of the 35 Anderson, The Movement and the Sixties, 247. Carey McWilliams, “Protest, Power and the Future of Politics,” Nation, January 15, 1968, 71. 37 Small, Antiwarriors, 103. 36 62 counterculture complicated what it meant to be a member of the antiwar movement in this time of national tumult and confusion over the Vietnam War. This concern was further magnified by the split focus of many movement leaders, specifically those who had temporarily left the movement in order to work on political campaigns for the 1968 election. As Small notes, “many activists who might have thrown themselves into demonstrations were working on the McCarthy and Kennedy campaigns in the spring of 1968.”38 As dissatisfaction with the war grew in the fall of 1967, Minnesota Senator Eugene McCarthy announced that he would challenge Johnson in the Democratic primaries as an antiwar candidate. Senator McCarthy’s campaign began as an incredible long shot. Indeed, Schmitz explains that, “at first, few gave the soft-spoken McCarthy any chance of gaining significant support, much less upsetting a sitting president and becoming the Democratic nominee.”39 He soon, however, garnered a small but enthusiastic following. Most of McCarthy’s supporters were young people who were dissatisfied with the war. Indeed, as Anderson claimed, “McCarthy’s most important supporters…were his army of volunteers. Student power moved from the campus to mainstream politics.”40 Many of them had been influenced by the counterculture and earlier protest movements. Schmitz claims that McCarthy was supported “by a dedicated faction of the party that sought to dump Johnson and use the election as a referendum on the war. Hundreds of young people volunteered to go to New Hampshire and canvass for his campaign, going ‘Clean for Gene’ to rally support of their candidate and in doing so 38 Small, Antiwarriors, 96. Schmitz, The Tet Offensive, 116. 40 Anderson, The Movement and the Sixties, 187. 39 63 end the war.”41 The unexpected enthusiasm for McCarthy was representative of the depth of frustration many Americans felt toward the war. Indeed, Small echoes Schmitz’s sentiment, stating that: the McCarthy campaign counted on ‘People Power,’ especially college students who trooped to New Hampshire as they once trooped to the South for voterregistration drives. Understanding American politics, many of those who rang doorbells and handed out leaflets at the supermarkets became ‘Clean for Gene’— they shaved off their beards, cut their hair, and put on coats and ties and dresses and heels.42 The willingness of young people to reenter the Establishment in order to effect direct political change marked yet another meaningful change from within the greater movement. Going Clean for Gene once again reunited the antiwar movement with the political end goals that were its initial foundation. The culmination of Senator McCarthy’s campaign efforts came during the New Hampshire primary. Prior to the Tet Offensive, McCarthy was barely a blip on the national political radar. However, his polling numbers skyrocketed in the wake of the attack and by the time of the New Hampshire primary in mid-March he lost to Johnson by just a few percentage points. Schmitz describes this phenomenon, stating that “New Hampshire voters had mixed reasons for casting their ballots for McCarthy. For some it was a peace vote, for others it was a way to register their dissatisfaction with President Johnson and the state of the war. They wanted to win or get out.”43 New Hampshire was 41 Schmitz, The Tet Offensive, 116-117. Small, Antiwarriors, 84. 43 Schmitz, The Tet Offensive, 139. 42 64 a bellwether for the national mood and the results of the primary were, in many ways, reflective of the feelings held by many Americans. The results of the New Hampshire primary were a blow to Johnson’s own confidence, and a catalyst for Robert Kennedy’s campaign. Just days after the New Hampshire primary, and two weeks before Johnson pulled out of the race, Robert Kennedy announced his own campaign for the presidential nomination. In the opening lines of his announcement Kennedy described his rationale, stating: “I run because I am convinced that this country is on a perilous course and because I have such strong feelings about what must be done, and I feel that I’m obliged to do all that I can.”44 Kennedy, like McCarthy, built his campaign around his opposition to the war in Vietnam. He explained how he had come to this position, noting: “I have traveled and I have listened to the young people of our nation and felt their anger about the war that they are sent to fight and about the world they are to inherit.”45 Much like McCarthy, Kennedy voiced the concerns held by many Americans. While McCarthy was tied primarily to students, RFK was able to encapsulate a greater number of causes and, thus, Americans into his bid for the presidency. Kennedy’s efforts, furthermore, were swiftly bolstered by his successful coalitionbuilding. As Schmitz claims, “now he [Robert Kennedy] joined the race confident that the president could be defeated and, with the Kennedy name, support from civil rights organizations, labor, and liberals, that he could secure the nomination.”46 Kennedy was 44 “Robert F. Kennedy Presidential Campaign Announcement,” C-SPAN, https://www.cspan.org/video/?443225-1/robert-f-kennedy-presidential-campaignannouncement. 45 “Robert F. Kennedy Presidential Campaign Announcement.” 46 Schmitz, The Tet Offensive, 140. 65 able to capitalize on the momentum of McCarthy’s campaign while simultaneously adding in the broader support of his personal political network. Kennedy articulated this strategy in his announcement speech, claiming: “I run to seek to new policies—policies to end the bloodshed in Vietnam and in our cities, policies to close the gaps that now exist between black and white, between rich and poor, between young and old, in this country and around the rest of the world.”47 Once Johnson made his decision not to seek reelection, Vice President Hubert Humphrey also entered the race. The contentious primaries, which culminated in the chaotic Democratic National Convention in Chicago, were reflective of the deep divisions within the Democratic Party. Kennedy was on the cusp of victory in securing the nomination when he was assassinated on June 5, shocking the nation. His death led to a series of technical issues surrounding the nomination process. The anger, grief, and frustration over both Kennedy’s death and the Vietnam War culminated during the 1968 Democratic National Convention, which took place in Chicago. The Democratic National Convention in many ways epitomized the tensions that had swept the country starting in the fall of 1967. Indeed, as Simon Hall notes, “the Chicago convention provided the dramatic dénouement to some of the most extraordinary months in American political history.”48 Chicago prepared for the convention like it was readying itself for war. Mayor Richard M. Daley had barbed wire up to keep protesters out and placed the police force on high alert. Frank Kusch describes the atmosphere of the city as the late-August convention drew near, explaining that “the mood in the city 47 48 “Robert F. Kennedy Presidential Campaign Announcement.” Hall, Rethinking the American Anti-War Movement, 35. 66 was tense and grim seemingly with little room for compromise politically or civically by police, politicians, or protesters.”49 The groups that arrived in Chicago were multifaceted factions of the broader antiwar movement. Kusch details this arrival, claiming that “a shadow had descended on the Second City in the form of hippies, Yippies, various antiwar groups, conventioneers, and members of the national media.”50 The amalgamation of people that came to Chicago represented the diversity that defined the movement. Certain subgroups of the Chicago protesters drew particular attention, including the absurdist Yippies, the more sedate and political National Mobilization Committee to End the War in Vietnam, and the remaining staffers and volunteers of the McCarthy campaign. The overlapping of forces, both political and more countercultural, only served to muddy the waters on the goals held by the protesters. One prevailing issue faced by the protesters was the unwillingness of the city government to issue them the permits they desired. In his 1968 article for the New York Times, Donald Janson explained that “so far the city has withheld parade and rally permits from anti-war and anti-Administration demonstrators who plan a march on the convention Aug. 28, the night they expect Vice President Humphrey to be nominated for the Presidency.”51 This decision created obstacles for the protesters, but it did not halt their efforts. The protesters utilized the judicial system to attempt to gain access to the permits. Janson stated that “both groups [the Yippies and the National Mobilization Committee to End the War in Vietnam] took their plea to Federal District Court here, 49 Frank Kusch, Battleground Chicago: The Police and the 1968 Democratic National Convention (Westport, Conn.: Praeger, 2004), 70. 50 Kusch, Battleground Chicago, 69. 51 Donald Janson, “Guard Is Called Up To Protect Chicago During Convention,” New York Times, August 21, 1968. 67 charging Mayor Daley and other city officials with conspiring to deny them the use of public facilities and the right to free speech and assembly.”52 This action, which utilized the existing system, underscored the willingness of the protesters to work within the establishment in order to complete the goals they perceived to be particularly important. The permits were denied, making demonstrations illegal and paving the way for police forces to take a particularly aggressive interest in the convention demonstrations. Even before its inception, the Democratic National Convention promised to be contentious. In many ways it represented the culmination of the antiwar movement’s frustrations. Some were there to protest the System, while others made last ditch efforts to promote McCarthy, hedging their bets in favor of the Democratic Party. Numerous forces for change, almost all of which were in some semblance of opposition, made Chicago their battleground. After the governor of Illinois put out word to the National Guard to prepare troops, Donald Janson wrote, “the convention thus became, before it even convened, the first national political convention in memory to require the protection of troops.”53 The stakes were high from the start, but once the convention began the situation started to become increasingly worrisome. Protesters and police swiftly came into direct conflict, oftentimes exchanging blows as the protests devolved into full-on riots. Writing for the New York Times in 1968, J. Anthony Lukas painted the scene, explaining that “policemen outside on the broad, tree-lined avenue were clubbing the young demonstrators repeatedly under television lights and in full view of delegates’ 52 53 Janson, “Guard Is Called Up To Protect Chicago During Convention.” Janson, “Guard Is Called Up To Protect Chicago During Convention.” 68 wives looking out the hotel’s windows.”54 The imagery of the convention was nightmarish. Police frequently targeted journalists trying to capture the violence, and many passersby were caught in the crossfire. All of this happened in the streets of downtown Chicago as the leaders of the Democratic Party endeavored to craft a campaign platform and nominate a presidential candidate. Despite the brutality of the police, the protesters at the convention were resilient. Lukas claimed that “although clearly outnumbered and outclassed by the well-armed security forces, the thousands of antiwar demonstrators, supporters of Senator Eugene J. McCarthy and Yippies maintained an air of defiance throughout the evening.”55 Many of the individuals actively participating in the protests were past the breaking point of their frustrations with the war and the system that allowed its perpetuation. The division of the American people rose to new heights and offered a slew of disturbing new images in the immediate aftermath of the Democratic National Convention. While the protest raged on outside, Vice President Hubert Humphrey was nominated as the Democratic candidate for president. Humphrey was far from a popular choice for many Americans, particularly those who had ardently supported antiwar candidates McCarthy and Kennedy. Johnson kept a tight hold on Humphrey, refusing to let him break with his support of the war until closer to the general election. Humphrey’s bid for the presidency was the result of a historic confluence of political events during a tumultuous time. Despite the disdain for Humphrey of disenchanted McCarthy and 54 J. Anthony Lukas, “Police Battle Demonstrators In Streets,” New York Times, August 29, 1968. 55 Lukas, “Police Battle Demonstrators In Streets.” 69 Kennedy supporters, the race against Richard Nixon was a close one. The election of 1968 would reshape the antiwar movement. Johnson watched as a lame duck while Republican Richard Nixon won the presidency by a small margin. It was the end of Johnson’s tenure in office. He had been elevated to the high office amidst tragedy and left defeated by a war that would have further casualties. As Schmitz notes: events moved quickly, from shock when The New York Times published the news of the troop request to Senator Eugene McCarthy’s near upset win in New Hampshire and Senator Robert Kennedy’s decision to enter the presidential race, to the Wise Men shifting their position away from support of the war. In the center of it all was President Lyndon Johnson.56 The relationship between the Johnson administration and the antiwar movement was contentious from the start, but President Richard Nixon would usher in a new era of policies in Vietnam and would be at the mercy of a new brand of antiwar protest. 56 Schmitz, The Tet Offensive, 126. 70 CHAPTER FOUR “A VAST HEAVING OF THE PUBLIC IMPATIENCE:” 1969 The defeat of the Democratic Party and the end of the Johnson years had a lasting impact on the antiwar movement and its legacy. In the immediate wake of the inauguration of President Richard Nixon on January 20, 1969, the antiwar movement continued on its trajectory into the mainstream of American society. Nixon’s election and the decisions he made regarding the Vietnam War further polarized an already divided nation. Hodgson notes this increased polarization, claiming that “even for steadier souls, it was hard to get away from the feeling that consensus had now been replaced by polarization: that the nation was splitting, indeed had to an alarming extent already split, into two antagonistic camps with irreconcilable views on almost every issue.”1 When Johnson assumed the presidency in the fall 1963 it had been at the pinnacle of the postwar liberal consensus. By the time Nixon took office, the national mood had shifted drastically. The issue of the war in Vietnam had splintered the nation into separate, hostile parties. Questions regarding the universality of American values were increasingly mainstream, and the backlash all the more vitriolic. The relationship between Nixon and the antiwar movement epitomized the growing polarization of the nation. While President Johnson’s relationship with the antiwar movement had been anything but friendly, Nixon’s attitude toward the protesters was openly hostile. As Small explains, “Nixon had declared all-out war on the movement and its supporters in the 1 Hodgson, America in Our Time, 362. 71 media.”2 Nixon’s condemnation of the antiwar movement served only to increase its zeal and prevalence in American life. He had hoped to discredit the protesters and their beliefs by utilizing military efforts to win peace in Vietnam, claiming that the antiwar movement, despite its growth in size and influence, had no effect on his foreign policy decisions. Indeed, in a 1969 article for the New York Times, John Herbers explained that “the White House, however, gave every indication that President Nixon was continuing his earlier determination not to be influenced by the demonstrations in his policy of ending the war.”3 The American people, however, were already growing more accepting of protesters, particularly those who refrained from the radical behavior of the counterculture. Commenting on the increasing influence of the antiwar movement, Tom Wicker wrote, in a 1969 article for the New York Times, that “mere numbers have never been a sufficient gauge of the peace movement, despite its visible spread in the last two years from its original campus base into most aspects of American life.”4 Wicker was describing the notion that not only had the antiwar movement increased substantially in size, but that it had also grown in national prominence. The antiwar movement of the Nixon years was defined by the participation of middle-class adults, rather than the young radicals that had shaped the movement’s earlier years. Nixon’s hard line on the war and against the demonstrators would have a substantial impact on his ability to sway public opinion and conduct foreign policy. 2 Small, Antiwarriors,113. John Herbers, “Moratorium Backers Say Nixon Will Have to React,” New York Times, October 17, 1969. 4 Tom Wicker, “Dissent: Deepening Threat of a Sharply Divided Nation,” New York Times, November 16, 1969. 3 72 Nixon’s inheritance of the war in Vietnam was marked chiefly by the changes that he implemented in military strategy. By the end of his time in office, Johnson had laid the groundwork to cap escalation and bring about an end to the Vietnam War. Soon after his inauguration, however, Nixon walked back this endeavor. Instead he increased the military efforts and attempted to use force to achieve victory. Nixon’s rapid escalation of the war in 1969 was covert, and in public he couched his policies in rhetoric of peace. Privately, Nixon developed what he called the madman theory. He wanted the North Vietnamese to believe that he was willing to use extreme military efforts in order to secure victory for the United States. Schmitz notes that with the madman theory, Nixon: while publicly presenting himself as seeking peace through de-escalation and negotiations…was covertly escalating the war in an effort to force concessions from Hanoi. He set out to prove to North Vietnam that he would stop at nothing, including bombing cities and irrigation dikes and using nuclear weapons, to achieve ‘peace with honor.’5 Nixon’s military escalation, in combination with his willingness to utilize all aspects of American military power, increased the stakes and cost of the Vietnam War. Nixon demonstrated his willingness to use the madman theory via his secret bombing campaign in Cambodia. Nixon’s efforts in Cambodia explored the administration’s increasingly hardline position and its commitment to expanding military efforts in Southeast Asia. The bombings in Cambodia were symbolic of a crucial shift in the Nixon administration’s approach to the conflict. As Schmitz explains, “the 5 David F. Schmitz, Richard Nixon and the Vietnam War: The End of the American Century (Lanham, Maryland: Rowman & Littlefield, 2014), 46. 73 willingness to bomb Cambodia demonstrated the administration’s ability to take unexpected actions.”6 The increased military force used in Cambodia was indicative of the changes in strategy Nixon sought to implement during his time in office. President Nixon’s increased militarization in Vietnam, despite the fact that it was couched in claims of peace, did not go unnoticed by the antiwar movement. The earlier trend of mainstream protest only grew during the Nixon years and it culminated in the October and November Moratoriums of 1969. The Moratorium was an antiwar protest of a different nature, and it marked a shift away from the radical efforts that drew such harsh condemnation from the American people. The Moratorium was a distinct snapshot in the antiwar movement. These protests occurred at a time when the larger movement was still fairly unified, and they represented a commonplace vexation with the state of American foreign policy. In an October 1969 edition of Life magazine, one article explained that, “the Moratorium demonstrated a kind unity of frustration, a vast heaving of the public impatience.”7 This description encapsulated the central message of the Moratorium, a mounting frustration with the realities of the American role in the Vietnam War. The first protest of the Moratorium occurred, across the nation, on October 15, 1969. The Moratorium involved Americans from numerous cities nationwide, all gathering in their own communities to protest the war in Vietnam. The same October issue of Life magazine described the details of the event, stating that “it was a display without historical parallel, the largest expression of public dissent ever seen in this country. Across the land the demonstrators gathered, talking, reading names from long 6 7 Schmitz, Richard Nixon and the Vietnam War, 50. “Over the Threshold of Dissent,” Life, October 24, 1969, 35. 74 lists of war dead, showing the V-sign of peace.”8 The enormity of the Moratorium was central to its lasting impact on the movement, yet the substance and imagery of the effort were also key. Primarily, the Moratorium was a peaceful protest march, one marked by solemnity and cohesion, rather than rowdiness or radicalism. Moreover, the defining feature of the October Moratorium was its makeup. Tom Wicker, writing for the New York Times in November 1969, explained that the October 15 Moratorium “involved ultimately, a broad spectrum of American citizens, many of whom were not active members of the peace movement but who for various reasons had come to desire a rapid end to a war that appeared ever more fruitless and inconclusive.”9 For many Americans participation in the October Moratorium represented a first foray into political protest. The expansion and moderation of the antiwar movement allowed it to have a greater impact on the prevailing public opinion of the Vietnam War. The October Moratorium drew a substantial amount of attention from the American people, as well as the Nixon administration. While the administration claimed not to be swayed by efforts at protest, on November 3, 1969 Nixon addressed the nation on the topic of the Vietnam War in his so-called Silent Majority speech. This response to the Moratorium, though not explicit, underscored the divided nature of the American people. Nixon sought to reestablish Cold War axioms and to situate the expansion of the Vietnam War in those familiar terms. In his speech, President Nixon spoke to this ideological foundation, stating, “let historians not record that when America was the most powerful nation in the world we passed on the other side of the road and allowed the last 8 9 “Over the Threshold of Dissent,” 35. Wicker, “Dissent.” 75 hopes for peace and freedom of millions of people to be suffocated by the forces of totalitarianism. And so tonight—to you, the great silent majority of my fellow Americans—I ask for your support.”10 Nixon capitalized on the perceived universality of American values, as well as the postwar tradition of American world leadership. His support of such prevailing Cold War ideology was indicative of the inflexibility of the Nixon administration’s perspective on Vietnam. Additionally, in his Silent Majority speech Nixon sought to condemn dissenting voices. He explained that: the more support I can have from the American people, the sooner that pledge can be redeemed; for the more divided we are at home, the less likely the enemy is to negotiate at Paris. Let us be united for peace. Let us also be united against defeat. Because let us understand: North Vietnam cannot defeat or humiliate the United States. Only Americans can do that.11 Nixon equated political dissent with military crisis and claimed that those Americans protesting the war in Vietnam were undermining the Nixon administration’s military efforts in Southeast Asia. Nixon’s vilification of the antiwar movement, particularly in this moment between the two iterations of the Moratorium, emphasized the divisions within the United States and the increasing conflict and mistrust between the president and the American people. Undeterred by the Silent Majority speech, the Moratorium movement held its second demonstration on November 15, 1969. This time the Moratorium took place 10 Public Papers of the Presidents: Richard Nixon, 1969 (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1971), 909. 11 Public Papers of the Presidents: Nixon 1969, 909. 76 primarily in Washington, DC and opened with individuals marching through the District carrying names of fallen soldiers before depositing them in coffins near the Capitol. The event attracted thousands of protesters, the vast majority of whom remained peaceful and solemn. The significance of the November Moratorium did not go unnoticed. Tom Wicker commented on the impact of the moment, stating, “only an event of the magnitude, timing and impact of this weekend’s mobilization for peace could finally label the war in Vietnam as Mr. Nixon’s war.”12 Wicker emphasized the fact that it was the Moratorium movement that fully linked antiwar protest to the Nixon administration. The Nixon administration personally felt the impact of the November Moratorium. As Small observed, “the administration was rattled by the most impressive antiwar demonstration in the nation’s history. What impressed them was the very favorable coverage in the media and the related fact that so many middle-class adults, together with prominent liberal and moderate officials and opinion leaders, participated in the dignified, respectful, and unique events.”13 Not only did the event attract unprecedented numbers and media attention, it also drew its membership from a wide array of American citizens. Further, the population of protesters was diverse, and it was dominated by the middle class. Small noted that “the vast majority of participants everywhere were adults, often in coats and ties, skirts and heels, who shunned obscene chants and radical placards to tell their government, quite simply, that they were dissatisfied with the pace that had been established for ending U.S. military involvement in Southeast Asia.”14 No longer was the antiwar movement defined by the radical 12 Wicker, “Dissent.” Small, Antiwarriors, 111. 14 Small, Antiwarriors, 110. 13 77 minority, but instead it had been brought into the mainstream. The Moratorium solidified this trend, which had started in the last of the Johnson years. As the war changed and continued to grow under Richard Nixon, so too did the antiwar movement. No longer was the movement the radical minority Johnson first encountered, nor the growing population that had pushed him out of office. Instead, this iteration of the antiwar movement represented mainstream Americans and their dissatisfaction with the Vietnam War. 78 CONCLUSION The relationship between the presidential administration of Lyndon B. Johnson and the antiwar protest movement was multifaceted and continually tumultuous. Throughout the turbulent years of the Johnson administration the antiwar movement held a variety of roles in the American political landscape. These changing roles, and the responses they elicited from the Johnson administration, were indicative of the changing tides of the Vietnam War. The evolution of this relationship can be split into two distinct eras and defined chronologically. The first phase was from 1965 to 1966 and it represented a small and fairly radical minority that grew out of the Civil Rights and Free Speech Movements of the early 1960s. In response to this phase, the Johnson administration was publicly unconcerned, yet privately sought to sway public opinion more fully in its favor. The second phase was from 1967 to 1968 and it was represented by a two-pronged shift in the antiwar movement. The earlier, ardent protesters grew frustrated, and frequently, more radical as the war continued. Further, a subset of this group trended toward the counterculture, seeking a more apolitical approach to social change. Additionally, in 1967 a moderate and mainstream group of Americans began to emerge in protest of the war. This group did not bear the same features of the initial antiwar movement, but instead represented more of mainstream America. In response to this development, the Johnson administration actively condemned the antiwar protesters and embarked on a public opinion campaign. These changes in both the nature of the antiwar movement and the Johnson administration’s response to it were indicative of the shifting beliefs surrounding the Vietnam War that defined the years of Johnson’s presidency. 79 The earlier iteration of the antiwar movement, which stretched from 1965 to 1966, was made up of a small minority of the American population. In many ways it built on the foundation laid by the Civil Rights Movement, both in ideology and in execution. Many members of this early antiwar movement sought to critique not only the war in Vietnam, but also the broader inequities of American society. Most were critical of the prevailing Cold War culture that defined the postwar period. For many of these young Americans, the Vietnam War represented all that they found problematic about existing American institutions. This group sought to expose, and eventually correct, the disparity between American ideologies and realities. The actions and ideologies of this antiwar movement were widely disdained by the mainstream. At this juncture, the Vietnam War was overwhelmingly popular and support for the Johnson administration was particularly high. Most Americans saw the antiwar movement as an ignorant and unpatriotic nuisance, believing it too extreme. This majority expressed their beliefs through a myriad of media, including newspaper articles and personal letters to Johnson himself. Yet, although the first phase of the antiwar movement was undertaken by a small minority of Americans, their impact and ideology had a lasting effect on the later antiwar movement, as well as social movements in the later part of the twentieth century. The Johnson administration’s response to the first phase of the antiwar movement was multifaceted. Publicly, the administration wrote off any concern suggested by the press. They claimed that the antiwar movement was an attention-grabbing group of confused and unpatriotic Americans that represented the views of very few. Instead, the Johnson administration chose to emphasize the successes of the Civil Rights Movement, particularly in regard to the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Meanwhile, in public the Johnson 80 administration extolled the importance of the constitutional right to protest, even defending the protesters in some instances. However, despite this publicly tolerant attitude, there was underlying concern within the Johnson administration. While Johnson did not believe the critiques of the antiwar movement had any merit, he did fear the degradation of public opinion on the topic of the war in Vietnam. Johnson sent members of his administration to college campuses in order to, ostensibly, inform them of the realities of the war and the necessity of victory. This quiet attempt to discredit the antiwar movement emphasized the importance of public opinion in the Johnson administration’s greater war effort. The second phase of the antiwar movement was more divided and decentralized than its predecessor. With the escalation of the war in Vietnam came the growing radicalization of the antiwar movement. Some subgroups took an increasingly hard line against the United States and its institutions. Similarly, the growth of countercultural influences meant that another faction of the already small group became increasingly apolitical, seeking to drop out of the system. The extremism of these groups only increased the vitriol of the public and the government. Conversely, among the broader American public the war was becoming increasingly unpopular. Polling data from this period of time revealed that a plurality of Americans did not support the war in Vietnam. For the first time since the beginning of the war the actions of the government in Vietnam were not widely popular with the American people. This slow but substantial decrease of support from the mainstream was of the utmost concern to the Johnson administration. The Johnson administration’s response to the second phase of the antiwar movement was as multifaceted as its response to the first. Its concern was amplified by 81 the breadth of dissent on the issue, but its primary frustration was not substantive. The Johnson administration did not perceive the growth in frustration over the war to be an issue of policy, but rather one of understanding. Thus, under mounting pressure, it embarked on an ultimately unsuccessful public opinion campaign in the fall of 1967 to convince the American public that the United States was winning the war. Any success of this endeavor was completely unraveled by the 1968 Tet Offensive, and it was in the wake of Tet that the Johnson administration began to truly worry about the role of the United States in the Vietnam War. This recognition, by both the Johnson administration and the American people, ultimately resulted in Johnson’s decision not to seek reelection. The volatility that defined this relationship, particularly in its final two years, was in many ways reflective of the changing tides of American culture and politics. President Lyndon Baines Johnson and his administration had a tumultuous relationship with the antiwar movement. Both entities sought to represent and reflect the values of the United States and the American people. In examining the tensions that defined this relationship, one is able to gain insight into the changing values of the era. The Johnson administration played an important role in shaping the political and cultural climate of the 1960s, from codifying the expansion of civil rights to escalating the Vietnam War. Similarly, the antiwar movement had a lasting impact on the social dynamics and culture of the period. It normalized political dissent and spread it from coast to coast. It gave young people new agency in the political milieu of the United States and rendered prevailing ideologies obsolete. The relationship between the Johnson administration and the antiwar movement was indicative of growing national tensions. 82 Such tensions would go on to fuel a change in values, which in turn would bring about an end to the American Century. 83 BIBLIOGRAPHY Primary Sources Christian Century Gallup, George. The Gallup Poll: Public Opinion 1935-197, Vol. III. New York: Random House, 1971. Lyndon B. 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