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.
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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.
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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
Exercise 2.7
Answer the following questions based on the information in ‘Declining support’.
1
Describe the people who were eligible for National Service in Australia?
_____________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________
2
Describe the selection process for National Service.
_____________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________
3
List three ways you could avoid the draft.
_____________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________
4
Explain why the case of Errol Noack made many Australians question the
National Service system.
_____________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________
5
Write your opinion of the draft system.
_____________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________
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81
Exercise 2.8
Read the following extract and answer the questions below.
Source: Publication from the Draft Resistance Movement, 1967
How NOT to join the Army — Advice for 20 Year Olds
BE MILITANT:
If you’re a way-out radical make sure they know you won’t
follow out their orders ...
BE GAY:
Play the homosexual bit. Don’t answer any questions on
homosexuality, just smile ...
THE MEDICAL:
Have you had pneumonia? Trick ankle, knee, elbow, back?
Asthma” Use them.
LONG HAIR:
You have long hair? Good. Let it grow longer.
Don’t wash, stink, pick your nose, start a petition to make
masturbation the National Sport. See how many four-letter
words you can string into one sentence. Never wear shoes.
DRINK:
If you like drinking make sure the doctors and your
interviewer know. You won’t have to tell them. Just arrive
rotten drunk ...
ACT SIMPLE:
Tell the doctor that when you’re away from home you wet the
bed. If he does not believe you, prove it as soon as you are
conscripted ...
Draft Resistance Movement, 1967 cited in Stewart D, 1985, Case Studies in Australian History,
Heinemann, Melbourne, pp 224-25.
1
Is the source primary or secondary? Explain your answer.
_____________________________________________________________________
2
Who is/are the author/s of the source?
_____________________________________________________________________
3
Where was the source found?
_____________________________________________________________________
4
Who is the intended audience of the source?
_____________________________________________________________________
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Australia in the Vietnam Era
5
What is the purpose of the source?
_____________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________
6
How is the source written? Quote two examples to support your answer.
_____________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________
7
What does the source tell an historian?
_____________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________
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83
Suggested answers:
Activity 10
1
true
2
true
3
false
Activity 11
1
1968
2
1968
3
1969
Activity 12
You may have used words like graphic, vivid, strong, horror, upset, disgusted, appalled,
anger, sad and fear.
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Australia in the Vietnam Era