Central Historical Questions: Why did some Americans oppose the Vietnam War?
Central Historical Questions: Why did some Americans oppose the Vietnam War?
Station
PHOTOS
1965 & 1967
TET &
CRONKITE
1968-9
FORTUNATE
SON
1969
KENT STATE
MAY 1970
WINTER
SOLDIER
APRIL 1971
DATA
1965-1971
NIXON
1985
Main Ideas
Evidence
Central Historical Questions: Why did some Americans oppose the Vietnam War?
Vietnam War protesters. Wichita, Kansas, 1967
Central Historical Questions: Why did some Americans oppose the Vietnam War?
March on Washington, March 1965.
Group Discussion Questions:
 PHOTOGRAPHs:
1. What kind of protest is this: anti-war or pro-war? How can you tell?
2. Who do you think are the people/groups in the picture?
3. If there are any posters, describe the message.
4. What do these photos tell you about the protest movement as a whole?
Central Historical Questions: Why did some Americans oppose the Vietnam War?
Tet Offensive
Several years after the war in Vietnam was “escalated,” American military officials and government leaders continued to tell the public
that a victory over the Communists was within sight. However, in the early months of 1968, in what became known as the Tet Offensive,
the North Vietnamese Army conducted a coordinated attack of dozens of major cities in the South. Television cameras recorded
American and Vietnamese soldiers fighting in this gruesome seemingly guerilla style of urban warfare. Watching these scenes on
television disturbed many Americans.
Walter Cronkite, anchorman for the CBS Evening News was one of America’s most
respected journalists. He traveled to Vietnam in February of 1968, as the Tet
Offensive was winding down. Upon his return, CBS broadcast a special news
report about the war. During that report, Cronkite delivered a stunning editorial
(excerpted below).
Who won and who lost in the great Tet offensive against the
cities? I'm not sure. The Vietcong did not win by a knockout, but
neither did we. The referees of history may make it a draw….
It seems now more certain than ever that the bloody experience
of Vietnam is to end in a stalemate… for every means we have
to escalate, the enemy can match us, and that applies to
invasion of the North, the use of nuclear weapons, or the mere
commitment of one hundred, or two hundred, or three hundred thousand more American troops to the
battle. And with each escalation, the world comes closer to the brink of cosmic disaster.
To say that we are closer to victory today is to believe, in the face of the evidence, the optimists who have
been wrong in the past. To suggest we are on the edge of defeat is to yield to unreasonable pessimism. To
say that we are mired in stalemate seems the only realistic, yet unsatisfactory, conclusion. On the off
chance that military and political analysts are right, in the next few months we must test the enemy's
intentions, in case this is indeed his last big gasp before negotiations. But it is increasingly clear to this
reporter that the only rational way out then will be to negotiate, not as victors, but as an honorable people
who lived up to their pledge to defend democracy, and did the best they could.
American Public Opinion Polls
Pre-TET
Approves Johnson's handling of job as president
48%
Post-TET Change
36%
-12
Approves Johnson's handling of Vietnam
39%
26%
-13
Regards war in Vietnam as a mistake
45%
49%
+4
Proportion classifying themselves as "hawks1"
60%
41%
-19
Group Discussion Questions:
 How did the Tet Offensive change/affect American’s perceptions of the war in Vietnam?
1
Hawks supported war.
Central Historical Questions: Why did some Americans oppose the Vietnam War?
Kent State
On May 4, 1970 students at Kent State University in Ohio began protesting the expansion of the Vietnam War into Cambodia. President Nixon
had run on a campaign platform of decreasing the US involvement in the war and the invasion of Cambodia signaled an increase in American
involvement. Members of the National Guard fired into the crowd killing four students and injuring others. Some of the students who were shot
were just on their way to class.
Group Discussion Questions:
 PHOTOGRAPH:
1. What has happened to the
young man facing down?
2. What are the reactions of the
people in the picture?
3. What does this event tell you
about the protest movement
in general?
Central Historical Questions: Why did some Americans oppose the Vietnam War?
Report of the special grand jury that investigated
the Kent State tragedy. The grand jury was
composed of fifteen middle-aged local residents.
The grand jury began meeting on September 14.
(The New York Times, October 17, 1970)
Those orders [to disperse], given by a Kent State
University policeman, caused a violent reaction
and the gathering quickly degenerated into a
riotous mob. . . .
Those who acted as participants and agitators are
guilty of deliberate criminal conduct. Those who
were present as cheerleaders and onlookers, while
not liable for criminal acts, must morally assume a
part of the responsibility for what occurred. . . .
It should be made clear that we do not condone all
of the activities of the National Guard on the Kent
State University campus on May 4, 1970. We find
however, that those members of the National
Guard who were present on the hill adjacent to
Taylor Hall on May 4, 1970, fired their weapons in
the honest and sincere belief, and under
circumstances which would have logically caused
them to believe, that they would suffer serious
bodily injury had they not done so. They are not,
therefore, subject to criminal prosecution under
the laws of this state for any death or injury
resulting therefrom.
It should be added that. . . . the verbal abuse
directed at the guardsmen by the students during
the period in question represented a level of
obscenity and vulgarity which we have never
before witnessed!
Testimony of unnamed Guardsman--a 23
year-old, married machinist. (Reported in
a Special Report by the Akron Beacon
Journal, May 24, 1970. Quoted in I. F.
Stone, The Killings at Kent State [1970], p.
125.)
Q.—Did you shoot to save your life?
A.—No. I didn’t feel that. Because, like it was
an automatic thing. Everybody shot, so I
shot. I didn’t think about it. I just fired…
Q.—Did you feel threatened?
A.—No, I didn’t think they’d try to take our
rifles, not while we could use the
bayonets and butts. . . . The guys have
been saying that we got to get together
and stick to the same story, that it was
our lives or them, a matter of survival. I
told them I would tell the truth and
couldn’t get in trouble that way.
Reflections of a Kent State student, Yvonne
Mitchell, who, according to the New York Times,
was an “average student, not greatly involved in
anything, but concerned.” (The New York Times,
May 11, 1970)
Question from Reporter: Did you think the Guard was
seeking a confrontation?
Yvonne Mitchell: There’s one thing that should be
said here. It was noontime. And lunch time. And a
change of classes. There were people who were just
curious. And there were some kids who were really
just trying to go to class. And the last thing in
anyone’s mind was that anyone would be getting shot.
That’s the sad part. There weren’t just kids messing
with the National Guard, or radical kids, or
conservative kids. There was just, like I say, an
integration of everybody. I heard so many times
people say, “Well, if you’re straight, if you’re not
starting anything, they won’t bother you.” Well, I’m
here to tell you, they didn’t care who you were. If you
were in the way, you just got run down.
Group Discussion Questions:
 What are the differences in the accounts?
 Why do you think the differences exist?
Central Historical Questions: Why did some Americans oppose the Vietnam War?
Fortunate Son
https://goo.gl/Lhm5DK
By Creedence Clearwater Revival
Some folks are born made to wave the flag
Ooh, they're red, white and blue
And when the band plays "Hail to the chief"
Ooh, they point the cannon at you, Lord
It ain't me, it ain't me, I ain't no senator's son, son
It ain't me, it ain't me; I ain't no fortunate one, no
Yeah!
Some folks are born silver spoon in hand
Lord, don't they help themselves, oh
But when the taxman comes to the door
Lord, the house looks like a rummage sale, yes
It ain't me, it ain't me, I ain't no millionaire's son, no
It ain't me, it ain't me; I ain't no fortunate one, no
Some folks inherit star spangled eyes
Ooh, they send you down to war, Lord
And when you ask them, "How much should we give?"
Ooh, they only answer More! more! more! yoh
It ain't me, it ain't me, I ain't no military son, son
It ain't me, it ain't me; I ain't no fortunate one, one
It ain't me, it ain't me, I ain't no fortunate one, no no no
It ain't me, it ain't me, I ain't no fortunate son, no no no
Source: Creedence Clearwater Revival. Fortunate Son. Jon Fogerty, 1969.
Group Discussion Questions:
 What do you think the artist means by “fortunate son”? What is a “fortunate son”?
 What is the artist saying about the wealthy/powerful in society?
 What does this song tell you about how people felt about the war?
Central Historical Questions: Why did some Americans oppose the Vietnam War?
Winter Soldier Speech
By John Kerry
On April 22, 1971, Lt. John Kerry, spoke on behalf of Vietnam Veterans of America to the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations
Committee. Kerry later became a U.S. Senator himself, representing Massachusetts and was appointed Secretary of
State in 2013.
“The country doesn’t know it yet, but it has created a monster, a monster in the form of millions of men
who have been taught to deal and to trade in violence, and who are given the chance to die for the biggest
nothing in history; men who have returned with a sense of anger and a sense of betrayal which no one has
yet grasped.
As a veteran and one who feels this anger, I would like to talk about it. We are angry because we feel we
have been used in the worst fashion by the administration of this country.
…we cannot consider ourselves America’s best men when we are ashamed of and hated what we were
called on to do in Southeast Asia. In our opinion, and from our experience, there is nothing in South
Vietnam, nothing which could happen that realistically threatens the United States of America. And to
attempt to justify the loss of one American life in Vietnam, Cambodia, or Laos by linking such loss to the
preservation of freedom, which those misfits supposedly abuse, is to us the height of criminal hypocrisy,
and it is that kind of hypocrisy which we feel has torn this country apart.
… I want to relate to you the feeling that many of the men who have returned to this country express
because we are probably angriest about all that we were told about Vietnam and about the mystical war
against communism. We found that not only was it a civil war, an effort by a people who had for years
been seeking their liberation from any colonial influence whatsoever….
We found most people didn’t even know the difference between communism and democracy. They only
wanted to work in rice paddies without helicopters strafing them and bombs with napalm burning their
villages and tearing their country apart. They wanted everything to do with the war, particularly with this
foreign presence of the United States of America, to leave them alone in peace, and they practiced the art
of survival by siding with whichever military force was present at a particular time, be it Vietcong, North
Vietnamese, or American.”
Source: Congressional Record (92nd Congress, 1st Session) for Thursday, April 22, 1971, pages 179-210.
Group Discussion Questions:
 What is Kerry’s main idea/message?
 What evidence proves that this is his message?
Central Historical Questions: Why did some Americans oppose the Vietnam War?
“No More Vietnams”
By Richard Nixon
Richard Nixon was president of the US from 1968-1972. He increased the extent to which the US was involved
in the war, and he started the pullout from Vietnam as well. He was disliked by anti-war protesters and seen as
a pro-war president.
The assertion that the Vietnam War was an immoral war was heard more and more often as the years dragged
on.... Like all wars Vietnam was brutal, ugly, dangerous, painful, and sometimes inhumane. This was driven
home to those who stayed home perhaps more forcefully than ever before because the war lasted so long and
because they saw so much of it on television in living, dying color. They were right in saying that peace was
better than war. But they were wrong in failing to ask themselves whether what was happening in Vietnam was
substantively different from what had happened in other wars. Instead many of these naive; well-meaning,
instinctual opponents of the war raised their voices in protest.
Source: Richard Nixon “No More Vietnams” 1985
Group Discussion Questions:
 What does Nixon have to say about war in general?
 Why does he think so many people are against the war?
 What does he say about the protestors; how does he describe them?
 How do you think Nixon felt about the war? Do you think he feel sit should have been fought?
 What does this selection tell you about the conflict that was taking place in society during the
war?
Central Historical Questions: Why did some Americans oppose the Vietnam War?
Public Opinion and the Vietnam War
TET Offensive Jan. 31, 1968
"In view of developments since we
entered the fighting in Vietnam, do you
think the U.S. made a mistake sending
troops to fight in Vietnam?" (Gallup)
What do you think the United States should do next in regard to the Vietnam situation? (March 1969)






Escalate war, go all out
Pull Out, Let South Vietnamese Take Over
Continue Present Policy; negotiate & stay as long as necessary
End the War as soon as possible
Other options (volunteered by respondent)
No Opinion
25%
21%
15%
15%
3%
21%
Group Discussion Questions:
 What does the data reveal about American public opinion as the war in Vietnam progressed?