THE PEACE MOVEMENT IN THE
USA
Lobj: to consider why the Peace
movement gain popularity in
America
THE PEACE MOVEMENT IN THE USA
• For a war on such a scale the US needed the
support of the American public.
• Vietnam = A Media War – ‘living room’ war
• thousands of TV, radio, newspaper reporters and
photographers sent back to the USA pictures of
the fighting.
• No censorship!
MEDIA
• The media showed crying children burned by napalm –
is this why 90,000 young Americans had been drafted?
• Symbol of defeat and confusion (not the crusade
against communism)
• Media coverage had a decisive effect on public opinion.
• My Lai destroyed any idea the US was ‘morally right’
• TV reporting also began increasingly hostile to the War
STUDENT OPPOSITION
• First protests against the war were by students in
1964
• 1965 – Vietnam Day Committee – organised a 36
hour ‘teach-in’ against the war at the University of
California
• 1966 – burned draft cards
• 1967 – Christian groups joined – 100,000 marched in
Washington
Norman Morrison
• 31 year old, set himself on fire
KENT STATE UNIVERSITY
• Hundreds of demonstrations in universities across
USA – infamous demo at Kent State Uni – the
national guard killed 4 students (2nd + 4th May 1970)
• Public horrified – War seemed to be making the USA
unstable – images broadcast on TV
• Worldwide protests
• Made President Nixon realise the War could never be
won!
“Have we come to such a state in
this country that a young girl has
to be shot because she disagrees
with the actions of a
government?”
• John Filo's iconic Pulitzer Prize-winning photograph
of Mary Ann Vecchio, a fourteen-year-old runaway,
kneeling over the body of Jeffrey Miller after he was
shot dead by the Ohio National Guard.
SOLDIERS
• Start of war many soldiers believed in what
they were fighting for – by 1968 (Tet) no one
cared.
• Army was divided - “an army divided is an
army defeated”
• Handicapped by the public
SOLDIERS2
• Conscripting Feb 1965 – 3,000 men called a month.
• Oct 1965 – called 33,000
• Great opposition – dodge the draft – further
education, phoney certificates from doctors etc
• 600,000 Dodged in total – inc Bill Clinton & George
W Bush
EXPERIENCE OF BLACK SOLDIERS
• Treated like dirt
• Lived in ghettos – poverty
• Govt did little to help them
• Now being asked to fight for a country that didn’t recognise
their rights
• Often led to prison – Muhammad Ali – “I ain't got no
quarrel with them Viet Cong... They never called me nigger”
EXPERIENCE OF BLACK SOLDIERS
• Martin Luther King also against the war – “it costs half a
million dollars to kill a Vietcong soldier; we were are only
spending $53 on every poor black American”
• Not every dodger could be imprisoned!!
• This action led to growth in protests – then increased media
attention
• Hippie movement – long hair, bandanas, burned draft papers,
dress code!!
IMPACT OF PROTESTS
• “be the first on your block to have your boy come home
in a box”
RETURNING SOLDIERS.
• Turned to drugs, drink – many suffered break downs.
• Due to what they had seen and DONE in the War.
(psychologically devastated)
• Sim. to shell shock – post traumatic stress disorder
COSTS.
• The Vietnam War ended up costing the US
around $518bn (9.4 per cent of GDP).
• The real cost of Vietnam? For 58,000
Americans it cost them everything.
• 350,000 US casualties
• between one and two million Vietnamese
deaths
WORLD OPINION
• Soviets / Chinese support Ho Chi Minh
• British stayed out of the war
• New Zealand/ Australia involved – massively
controversial; widespread demos.
Summary
Why did some Americans oppose the
War?
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
Saw it on TV – saw its atrocities & failures
Draft dodgers did not want to fight
Waste of money
Civil rights issues – black men died
disproportionately
Conscientious objectors
Vietnamese veterans against the war – ashamed
Marchers were attacked – made them more
determined
National loss of confidence in America’s right to
impose democracy