Declining support
Australian support for the Vietnam War reached its peak in 1967. This is
evident in the overwhelming support (despite some protests) for the visit of
American President Johnson as well as in Prime Minister Holt’s landslide
election victory in the same year.
However, Australian support for both the war and conscription declined
slowly but surely from 1968. In this lesson, you examine some of the
reasons for this change in people’s attitudes. They include the Government’s
decision to send conscripts to Vietnam (where many died) and the role of
television in graphically bringing the horrors of war into the family home
night after night
The lottery of death
In light of the Cold War situation and the growing fear of communism, the
Menzies Government had passed the National Service Act of 1951. Until it
ended in 1959, this Act allowed for the compulsory call-up of eighteen yearold males for military training for a period of 176 days. Following their
training, the conscripts remained members of the Army Reserve for five
years. Some of these ‘nashos’ (as National Servicemen were called) served
in the Korean War, the Malayan Emergency and other conflicts.
Following the Gulf of Tonkin incident, the Menzies government decided to
reintroduce compulsory military training. The National Service Act of 1964
was passed on 24 November, establishing a scheme of selective national
service. All twenty year-old non-Aboriginal males had to register for
national service (Aboriginal peoples, as defined by the Act, did not have to
register). However, not all those who registered were called up.
Part 2 Australia goes to Vietnam
31
Activity 10
Write ‘true’ or ‘false’ in response to these statements from ‘The lottery of
death’.
1
Conscripts fought in the Korean War.
_________
2
The Gulf of Tonkin incident came before conscription
was reintroduced in 1964.
_________
All twenty year-old Australian males were forced to
serve in the armed forces if called up in 1964.
_________
3
Check your responses by going to the suggested answers section.
The ballot
The ballot to choose conscripts was similar to the lotto draws that you see
on television. In fact, marbles with dates on them were actually pulled out of
a lottery barrel.
A ballot was drawn each March and September. In the March draw, birth
dates from the first six months of the year were placed in a barrel and a
predetermined number of dates were drawn. In September, birth dates from
the second half of the year were drawn.
Assume the following birth dates were selected in 1968:
Months
Birth dates
January
2, 4, 6, 7, 9, 12, 13, 14, 17, 19, 23, 24, 25, 26, 31
February
1, 7, 8, 12, 15, 18, 20, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 29
March
3, 4, 5, 8, 12, 15, 17, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 27, 29, 30
April
1, 2, 7, 9, 10, 11, 15, 16, 18, 19, 22, 24, 28, 30
May
5, 6, 10, 14, 17, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31
June
1, 2, 3, 4, 7, 8, 9, 17, 18, 19, 20, 22, 28, 29
July
1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 12, 15, 19, 22, 28
August
2, 4, 7, 8, 11, 12, 13, 14, 18, 22, 24, 25, 26, 30, 31
September
1, 3, 4, 6, 9, 10, 13, 20, 21, 22, 23, 27, 28, 30
October
6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 13, 14, 17, 18, 20, 24, 26, 27, 28, 29
November
4, 5, 7, 8, 11, 14, 15, 16, 19, 20, 22, 23, 25, 27, 30
December
1, 5, 7, 9, 10, 12, 14, 15, 17, 18, 23, 26, 28, 30, 31
Now, let’s also assume that all your family and friends, or maybe your class,
are twenty year-old, male, non-Aboriginal citizens of Australia.
32
Australia in the Vietnam Era
On the following lines write down all the people you know who have just
been conscripted into the Australian Army. Are you one of them?
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
The ballots were held in private and the birth dates from the first eleven
ballots were not publicised. Why do you think the Government kept the
ballots a secret?
Those men whose birth dates were chosen were sent a notice to attend a
medical exam where they underwent physical, educational and
psychological testing. About 44 per cent of those people who were selected
by ballot failed these tests.
Other men selected for National Service were entitled to claim exemptions
for a variety of reasons. These included:
•
being a conscientious objector (this had to be proven in a court)
•
being married or currently undertaking a course of study.
The rest went on to serve in the Australian Army for a period of two years.
This was followed by three years in the Army Reserve.
Following the decision to commit Australian troops to Vietnam the
government amended the Defence Act so that conscripts could also serve
overseas. They decided that unlike American conscripts, Australian ‘nashos’
would be spread throughout the army. This meant each troop would be a
mixture of regular army soldiers and conscripts.
You can probably think of some reasons for conscription becoming less
popular as the Vietnam War dragged on. Major reasons for the decline in
support of conscription and the war itself were:
•
the totally random nature of the selection process
•
the reality that many people ‘invented’ reasons for not going into the
army
•
the secretive nature of the ballot
•
the fact that Australia was fighting a war that was no threat to its own
shores.
Another incident that focused national attention on conscription was the
death of Errol Noack on 24 May 1966. Just over 500 Australians died in
Vietnam, so what was so significant about this one death? Errol Noack was
the first ‘nasho’ to die in the Vietnam War. Two hundred other conscripts
Part 2 Australia goes to Vietnam
33
had followed him by the end of the war. His death fuelled the growing antiwar protest movement.
Not our war
Can you remember the official reason for Australia's involvement in the
Vietnam War? In 1964, Prime Minister Sir Robert Menzies had declared
that Australia was legitimately committing troops at the request of the South
Vietnamese Government, as their country was being threatened by North
Vietnam.
The leader of the ALP, Arthur Calwell, had a different opinion. He believed
that Australia was illegally sending troops to participate in a civil war in
Vietnam.
Think about it: A more recent, similar situation was when critics believed
Australia's involvement in the Iraq War was illegal, just as Calwell had
felt about the Vietnam War.
In 1965, he stated that Australian troops would be fighting ‘at the request of,
and in support … of an unstable, inefficient, partially corrupt military
regime which lacks even the semblance of being, or becoming,
democratically based ... Our present course is playing right into China’s
hands’ (A Calwell 1965).
He believed that North and South Vietnam should sort out their differences
without interference from outside. He didn’t support the government’s
commitment of troops to the region and was against the conscription of
young men.
Calwell’s perspective, including his stinging criticism of the government of
South Vietnam, was not a view shared by many other Australians, even
some in his own party. However, as the war dragged on, more and more
people were echoing his opinion that Vietnam was not our war.
The following poll results show how support for Australia's involvement in
Vietnam began to decline. In response to the question, ‘Do you think we
should continue to fight in Vietnam or bring our forces back to Australia?’
this is what the Australian public believed:
34
Australia in the Vietnam Era
Source: Results of Morgan Gallup Polls, 1965-70 (as percentages)
Date
Continue
Bring back
Undecided
September 1965
56
28
16
September 1966
61
27
13
May 1967
62
24
14
October 1968
54
38
8
December 1968
49
37
14
August 1969
40
55
6
October 1970
42
50
9
Morgan Gallup Poll: APOP Subscribers’ reports cited in King P, 1983, Australia's
Vietnam, Allen and Unwin, Sydney, p 135.
The figures in the ‘undecided’ column would suggest that Australians were
forming more definite opinions about the war as the years passed by.
Activity 11
Colour in the circle that best answers the questions based on the Morgan
Gallup Poll results.
1
2
Support for Australia's involvement in the Vietnam War began to
decline in:
a
1966
b
1968
c
1969
d
1970.
Support for Australia's involvement in the Vietnam War dropped below
half the people polled in:
a
1966
b
1968
c
1969
d
1970.
Part 2 Australia goes to Vietnam
35
3
A clear majority of pollsters believed Australian troops should be
brought home from Vietnam in:
a
1966
b
1968
c
1969
d
1970.
Check your responses by going to the suggested answers section.
Another reason for the drop in Australian support for the Vietnam War was
the far greater media coverage it had received than any previous conflict.
The source of this higher exposure was the new medium of television.
The television war
Vietnam is often referred to as the television war. This is because it was the
first major conflict since the introduction of television to Australia in 1956.
Families sitting around their televisions at night or groups huddled around
the windows of electrical stores (television was still too expensive for some
people) were exposed to some of the horrors of the war.
During World Wars I and II, the fighting was only covered by radio, written
press reports and film reels shown in the local cinema. Photographs and
drawings of wartime events sometimes accompanied news articles to
provide evidence of the experience of war. Even then, a lot of war news
received at home was heavily censored. However, the invention of
television brought war into people’s homes and made the experience all the
more real.
As opposition to Australia's participation in Vietnam increased, television
also gave far more detailed, and often sensationalised, reporting of such
activities as anti-war protests than radio or the print media. In fact,
television exposure of protest activities was in turn responsible for greater
support of the protest movement, especially amongst university students.
The following images are some of the most graphic from the Vietnam War.
While most of the television coverage centred on political and diplomatic
aspects, even when seen only occasionally, images like these had a powerful
effect on the Australian public.
36
Australia in the Vietnam Era
1 February 1968
© copyright Australian Associated Press (AAP),
Source: Photograph of a North Vietnamese soldier being executed, 1968
Television image cited in Pemberton G, 2002, Vietnam Remembered, New Holland
Publishers, Sydney, p 113.
© copyright AAP, 8 June 1972
Source: Photograph of Vietnamese villagers running from a napalm attack
Television image cited in Pemberton G, 2002, Vietnam Remembered, New Holland
Publishers, Sydney, p 133.
Part 2 Australia goes to Vietnam
37
© copyright Associated Press, June 1968
Source: Photograph of the effects of intense fighting in Saigon
Television image cited in Rowe J, 1987, Vietnam, the Australian Experience, TimeLife Books, Sydney, p 93.
The first two images in particular, were two of the most famous and explicit
from the Vietnam War. As well as alarming television audiences around the
world, they were also used by anti-war groups as powerful symbols of the
barbaric nature of the conflict.
Activity 12
In the following box, write down words to describe how you feel looking
at these images.
Check your responses by going to the suggested answers section.
In particular, Australians were horrified to see young Vietnamese children and
women involved in the conflict. This added to the impact of the images to the
viewing public.
Go to the exercises section and complete Exercises 2.7 to 2.8 as
directed by your teacher.
38
Australia in the Vietnam Era
Increasing protest
Many groups were formed to object to both Australia’s participation in the
Vietnam War and the conscription of twenty year-olds to fight. The early
protests were largely peaceful, but the later groups became more militant in
their actions.
In this lesson, you identify the anti-war and anti-conscription groups formed
during the Vietnam War. You compare the groups who expressed their
opposition to the war through peaceful means with the more militant protest
groups.
You then learn about a series of events that united the groups — the three
Moratorium marches of the early 1970s. These were some of the biggest
demonstrations of ‘people power’ in Australian history.
The peaceful groups
Throughout the Vietnam War, much of the protest action was organised
within Australia's universities. Student groups banded together to hold
demonstrations that attracted hundreds of students, unionists and members
of the public.
Some of the student-directed groups included the Vietnam Action
Committee, the Vietnam Day Committee and Students for Democratic
Action.
The photograph on the following page shows the membership of these
protest groups to be mainly young people.
Part 2 Australia goes to Vietnam
39
Source: A photograph of a demonstration against Australia's involvement in the Vietnam
War
Cowie H, 1987, Obedience or Choice, Jacaranda Press, Sydney, p 494.
Youth Campaign against Conscription
Largely made up of Sydney University students, the Youth Campaign
against Conscription (YCAC) formed after the Federal Government
announced the new National Service Act in November 1964.
In June 1965, the YCAC placed an advertisement in The Australian
newspaper seeking support. The advertisement was in the form of
a petition opposing overseas conscription and was signed by 144 potential
conscripts. The YCAC advertisement encouraged any other twenty yearolds to sign and send in the pledge:
‘I support the campaign against overseas conscription.’
Hundreds of twenty year-old men responded to the YCAC advertisement,
signing and returning the pledge of support for the YCAC campaign.
Within months YCAC branches were formed in all states.
40
Australia in the Vietnam Era
Save Our Sons
Two Sydney mothers, Joyce Golgerth and Pat Ashcroft, established the Save
Our Sons (SOS) organisation within weeks of the government’s 1965
announcement that it would send conscripts overseas.
Save Our Sons was set up by ‘mothers joining together to voice their
opposition to the conscription of their sons for the slaughter in Vietnam’
(YCAC Newsletter, August 1968). By the end of the year, SOS had branches in
Melbourne, Brisbane, Perth, Newcastle and Adelaide.
A photograph of an SOS group can be seen below. You will notice some
obvious differences in appearance between members of this group and those
of the YCAC.
© National Library of Australia, November 1966
Source: Photograph of a Brisbane SOS group protesting in November 1966
Murphy J, 1993, Harvest of Fear, Allen and Unwin, Sydney, p 141.
A name you can see on two of the placards is ‘Bill White’. He was the first
man to publicly refuse to report for national service. Bill White was also a
schoolteacher.
The YCAC and SOS held generally peaceful demonstrations at induction
centres, railway stations (when conscripts were leaving for training), and
other public places. Other action included draft card burnings and sit-ins
outside politicians’ homes and in public places.
Part 2 Australia goes to Vietnam
41
Activity 13
Write ‘true’ or ‘false’ in response to these statements from the
information in ‘The peaceful groups’.
1
YCAC was mainly made up of students.
_________
2
Bill White was a member of SOS.
_________
3
The members of YCAC and SOS were primarily anticonscription, rather than anti-war groups.
_________
Check your responses by going to the suggested answers section.
Much of the YCAC and SOS action in 1966 was directed at helping the ALP
win the federal election. When Labor suffered a massive defeat in the
November poll, branches of the YCAC began to disband.
The militant groups
The formation of the Draft Resistance Movement (DRM) in early 1968
signalled a start to a more aggressive protest movement. Whereas the
YCAC had tried to end conscription politically by supporting the Labor
Party, the DRM took more active measures. Although only in existence for a
few months, the DRM provided information to draftees to help them fail
their medicals and actively encouraged them not to register for national
service.
The extract on the following page leaves the reader in little doubt as to the
aggressive nature of the DRM and its strategies.
Source: Extract from a DRM publication
The DRM has not been formed to oppose conscription; it has been formed to wreck
it. We are opposed to the war in Vietnam and we intend to resist the conscription of
Australian youth for this war by all available means. We will hold demonstrations of
various kinds with the aim of making conscription as ineffective as possible; we will
supply information on how to fail medical exams and other methods of resisting the
draft and we will encourage people not to register. By these means we will help
those 20 year olds who do not wish to be conscripted for any reason.
The Peacemaker, February-March 1968 cited in King P, 1983, Australia’s Vietnam,
Allen and Unwin, Sydney, p 113.
You will notice that the word ‘all’ has been written in italics in the fourth
line. As with capital letters and underlining, italics are often used in writing
to emphasise a word or phrase. In this case, the DRM is making it very clear
that no tactic was beyond them.
42
Australia in the Vietnam Era
As well as demonstrations, sit-ins and draft card burnings, the DRM and other
militant groups such as the Students for a Democratic Society, the Pacifist
Society and the Students’ Democratic Alliance, participated in raids on
government offices. Demonstrations had also started to become more violent
and clashes with the police often resulted in the arrest of many protesters.
The defaulters
Twenty year-old Australians who refused to register, report for their medical
or obey their call-up were considered defaulters. Those who failed to
register without good reason could be arrested and imprisoned for the same
amount of time as their period of national service. That meant two years
until 1971, when the period of national service was reduced to eighteen
months.
The first defaulters were jailed in military prisons. However, in May 1968,
the government amended the National Service Act to impose a civil jail term
that meant instead of being sent to military prisons, defaulters were treated
as if they were criminals and were sent to normal prisons.
In fact, only fourteen men were actually imprisoned for disobeying a call-up
notice. However, almost 4000 were placed under investigation for suspected
violations of the National Service Act.
Activity 14
Colour in the circle that best answers the questions based on ‘The
militant groups’.
1
2
An example of a militant group was:
a
the DMR
b
the Pacific Society
c
Students for Democratic Action
d
Students for a Democratic Society.
In order to wreck conscription, the Draft Resistance Movement was
prepared to:
a
advise twenty year-olds on how to fail the medical test
b
break into government offices
c
burn draft cards
d
all of these measures plus a lot more.
Part 2 Australia goes to Vietnam
43
3
A defaulter was:
a
any Australian who refused to put their name on the
register
b
someone who could be jailed for three years
c
a person who didn’t attend their medical exam after being
called up
d
someone who didn’t go to Vietnam.
Check your responses by going to the suggested answers section.
Marching in the streets
By the start of 1970, Australian troops had been fighting in Vietnam for
nearly five years. Along with our allies, there had been no notable success in
defeating communism.
Nearly every family was affected by the war as sons, brothers, cousins and
friends were conscripted to fight in the jungles of Vietnam. The
overpowering images of war could be seen on television on a regular basis.
Anti-war groups from around the nation met in Melbourne at the start of
1970 to discuss a combined protest against the war. The idea of a
moratorium was acknowledged as the most effective way to demonstrate
large-scale opposition to the Vietnam War.
Just as the Melbourne Cup is said to be the ‘race that stops a nation’, the
objective of the Vietnam Moratorium was to bring Australia to a halt.
Normal business would pause while marches, rallies and meetings were held
around the country to protest against the war in Vietnam.
The Moratorium had two main demands:
•
the immediate, total and unconditional withdrawal of all United States
and allied troops from Indochina and the immediate, total and
unconditional withdrawal of all forms of support for the Saigon
Government, and
•
the immediate abolition of all forms of conscription.
The moratorium idea took off with great support in offices, factories,
schools and universities. Support was not only confined to the cities as
many regional areas also embraced the idea.
44
Australia in the Vietnam Era
For and against
Naturally the Government opposed the idea of a moratorium. It was suggested
by Prime Minister John Gorton that holding a mass sit-in in a public place was
illegal. His colleague, Billy Sneddon, went as far as suggesting that the
Moratorium organisers were guilty of ‘pack-raping democracy’. On the other
hand, many members of the Labor Party were enthusiastic supporters of the
Moratorium Movement.
Read the following extracts. They express different opinions of the
Moratorium. The phrase, ‘fifth column’, used in the first extract is a figure of
speech used to describe the media.
Source A
One view of the Moratorium
Tomorrow we are to witness in many Australian cities the culmination of the
activities of Australia’s own fifth column movement — the Vietnam Moratorium
Campaign … the main additional support for the Moratorium seems to be
coming from Australian Labor Party voters whose purpose is to attack
democracy…. I would describe the Moratorium as the most blatant
Communist–ALP unity ticket ever conceived.
Commonwealth Parliamentary Debates House of Representatives, 7 May 1970 cited in
Blackmore W, 1976, Australians and War, Methuen of Australia, Melbourne, p 80.
Source B
Another view of the Moratorium
There is intense and widespread opposition to the death and destruction. It
needs no messages or control from Hanoi or Peking. Is it surprising that there is
intense opposition to what has happened in Vietnam from students, workers
and all sorts of people all round Australia and in every country of the world?…
what is being done in the Vietnam Moratorium Campaign is an example of
government by the people; it is an example of people taking action about issues
that are important to them.
Commonwealth Parliamentary Debates House of Representatives, 7 May 1970 cited in
Blackmore W, 1976, Australians and War, Methuen of Australia, Melbourne, p 80.
Not only do the extracts give very different perspectives of the Moratorium,
they also express very different opinions of its democratic nature.
Activity 15
Complete the following table based on the two views of the Moratorium.
Source A
Source B
Is the source for
or against the
Moratorium?
What does the
source say about
the democracy of
the Moratorium?
Part 2 Australia goes to Vietnam
45
Check your responses by going to the suggested answers section.
The second extract was part of a speech made by ALP politician, Dr Jim
Cairns, in the House of Representatives. Dr Cairns was recognised as the
leader of the Moratorium Movement.
The right to protest
The Moratorium raised fundamental questions about how far Australians
could legally go in protesting about the laws that governed them. One of the
rights of citizens of a democracy is to express their opposition to
government policies, as long as this done in a non-violent way.
Some of these forms of protest are:
•
visiting or writing letters to Members of Parliament (MPs)
•
signing and sending petitions to MPs
•
writing to newspapers or calling talkback radio
•
holding protest meetings, rallies, marches and strikes (usually with prior
warning and/or permission)
•
holding debates, lectures or other ways to promote an opinion.
Following this thinking, the participants in the Vietnam Moratorium had
every right to protest by stopping their work or study, closing their shops,
businesses and offices to show their opposition to the government’s policy
on Vietnam.
The big day out
As you can see in the photograph below, Moratorium Day attracted huge
support from the Australian public. Approximately 200 000 people around
Australia marched for peace on 8 May 1970. In Melbourne alone, over
70 000 protestors took part in the street parade.
46
Australia in the Vietnam Era
Source: Photograph of the Moratorium March in Melbourne, 8 May 1970
Murphy J, 1993, Harvest of fear, Allen and Unwin, Sydney, p 247.
While shops and offices were temporarily closed the people were able to
show their objection to the war in Vietnam. Numerous functions were also
held outside city centres. As well as public meetings, there were concerts,
church services, dances, debates and other functions held to demonstrate
opposition to the war.
The May Moratorium was a peaceful affair. Although tens of thousands of
Australians gathered across the country to show their support for the antiwar movement, there were only a few arrests. However, subsequent
Moratoriums were not as peaceful.
Although the government had committed to reducing the number of
Australian troops in Vietnam, a second moratorium was planned for 18
September 1970. This and a third moratorium held on 30 June 1971,
attracted less support than the first although there were still many
Australians eager to protest. These demonstrations were also marred by
violence with several hundred people arrested.
Part 2 Australia goes to Vietnam
47
Activity 16
Complete the following passage by choosing the right word and writing it in
the space based on the information in ‘Marching in the streets’.
anti-war
conscription
democratic
demonstrate
illegal
right
The first Moratorium March was held on 8 May 1970. It attracted
about 200 000 people across Australia who wished to ____________
against Australia's involvement in the Vietnam War and the
____________ of soldiers to fight in the war.
As well as being a strong ____________ statement, the Moratorium also
raised important questions about the ____________ to protest in a
____________ society. Some people, such as Billy Sneddon, considered
the rally ____________. Others, like Dr Jim Cairns, believed that the
Moratorium was a perfect example of civics in action.
Check your responses by going to the suggested answers section.
Australia withdraws
In May 1969, Prime Minister Gorton declared Australian troops would remain
in Vietnam until they could be totally withdrawn. However, following an
announcement that the Unites States would begin bringing their troops home,
the Australian government decided in April 1970 that they would also begin a
partial withdrawal. In August 1971 the government declared most Australian
troops would be home by Christmas 1971.
Following the Labor Party’s election victory in December 1972, almost all
troops were immediately brought home. As well, conscription was abolished
and draft defaulters were released from prison. The war in Vietnam continued
until the Communists claimed victory in 1975.
The conflict resulted in hundreds and thousands of Vietnamese refugees, who
were either homeless and/or hunted by the victorious communist government
for their opposing views. Many of these refugees found their way to Australia
via a perilous sea journey. Most came in small, seriously overcrowded and
leaking boats. They became known as the ‘boat people’. In due course, they
would have a significant impact on Australian society.
Go to the exercises section and complete Exercises 2.9 to 2.10 as
directed by your teacher.
48
Australia in the Vietnam Era