Chapter 2 ANTI-WAR PROTEST INTRODUCTION In the past three years protest against American involvement and conduct in Vietnam has become so familiar to our national life that it has almost acquired the status of an institution. Few people today would think of asking why this social force came into existence or how it has sustained itself and grown; even the movement's opponents seem resigned to its inevitability. In many respects, however, the very existence of a broadly based, militant opposition to foreign policy marks a sharp departure from longstanding and deeply embedded traditions, and future historians will probably marvel at the outpouring of protest and seek to explain it by reference to unprecedented conditions. In some advanced countries, such as Japan, protest has been virtually ritualized over the years. Attendant street violence is predictable and the issues are likewise stable-military pacts, foreign bases on native soil, delay in the return of confiscated territory, hospitality to nuclear submarines, and so forth. American war protest, by contrast, has until recently been a marginal, easily ignored phenomenon. The 1863 anti-draft riots had more to do with ethnic rivalries than with principled objections to the Civil War, and in other wars a magnified patriotism has obscured the voices of dissent.1 Once a war has gotten underway, those who formerly counselled against participation in it have sometimes emerged as its staunchest champions; World War II is perhaps the best example of this. Furthermore, although American wars have varied in the enthusiasm of their reception at home, nothing like the Vietnam protest movement has previously appeared. It is especially interesting that the wars most closely resembling the current one did not generate a comparable reaction. In the 1840's the United States annexed a large portion of Mexico and suppressed a "native uprising" under the cover of dubious legal arguments. Few listened to Henry Thoreau's protests jainst this action, and when Abraham Lincoln rose in the House of Representatives to detail the President's sophistries he doomed his chances for reelection. In the 1890's the United States aligned itself temporarily with Philippine nationalism in order to destroy Spain's colonial power, and then turned suppression of the nationalists themselves. Despite the fact that there were more than 100,000 Filipino casualties, mostly civilians, no concerted protest was heard; indeed, American historians are still reluctant to see the Philippine episode as the cynical and brutal adventure described by Mark Twain.2 A similar mental blackout has accompanied the numerous American incursions into Latin America, first by private filibustering expeditions and later by the Marines. There were no significant protests when Secretary of State Knox remarked, upon the sending of Marines into Cuba in 1908, that "The United States does not undertake first to consult the Cuban Government if a crisis arises requiring a temporary landing somewhere."3 Turning to recent history, we must note that the chief public objection to the invasion-by-proxy of Cuba in 1961 was that the invasion failed. And President Johnson was able to mobilize Congressional and public support for the invasion of the Dominican Republic in 1965, first on grounds of protecting American civilians and then with the retrospective justification that the "Sino-Soviet military bloc" had been behind the Dominican revolution.4 This support was mobilized despite organized opposition that may have been a precursor to the anti-Vietnam war movement. There have actually been significant exercises of American power that the American public has hardly noticed at all: few Americans are aware of the United States' invasion of Russia after World War I, coups in Iran and Guatemala, the intervention of U.S. troops in Lebanon, the attempted overthrow of the neutralist government of Laos, and the quiet deployment of 55,000 troops in Thailand. Finally, in seeking to explain recent protest it is especially useful, for purposes of contrast, to recall the Korean War, which resembled the Vietnam War in several respects and occurred within the memory of many current protesters. Though the similarities between South Korea under Syngman Rhee and South Vietnam under Ngo Dinh Diem were extensive and profound, no mass protest against intervention occurred. Even today, fifteen years after the Panmunjom Truce, few Americans know about, and fewer question, the presence of more than 50,000 American troops in South Korea. It is thus evident that a tradition of anti-interventionism is not in itself a significant factor in the shaping of American public opinion. Obviously, something more is required to account for the growth of a broad protest movement in this country. The case of Vietnam would thus appear to be a unique exception to the support which the American public habitually grants its leaders in matters of national security. There is, of course, a correlation between the degree of our military involvement and the size of protest; the first significant dissent against the war was heard in the spring of 1965, when the first “nonretaliatory” air attacks against North Vietnam began and the first acknowledged combat troops were landed in South Vietnam. Since then, the scope of protest has grown with the scope of hostilities. But the Korean example reminds us that the degree of American involvement and sacrifice cannot account for the level of protest; it was not until the spring of 1967 that American casualties in Vietnam surpassed those in Korea, and the total number of American combat deaths is still (November, 1968) lower for this war than for its predecessor.5 Whereas the high casualties in Korea chiefly served the arguments of those who wanted to extend the war into China, the high casualties in Vietnam have chiefly been emphasized by proponents of negotiation or withdrawal. It is plain, therefore, that an unprecedented constellation of factors must have gone into the making of the anti-war sentiment that prevails today. This chapter, which analyzes these factors, begins with an examination of the organization of the anti-war movement. This examination indicates that organizational structure per se is of little value in accounting for its growth. Indeed, the movement is best understood as a result of events, not as a generator of future actions. These events, which were widely communicated, led to a deep skepticism about the war among wide segments of the American public and also led an amorphous set of organizations to oppose the war. Thus our analysis turns to an examination of these events and why they had the effect they did. THE DISORGANIZATION OF THE ANTI-WAR MOVEMENT There is little general agreement about the makeup and nature of the Vietnam protest movement. From within, the movement seems disorganized to the point of chaos, with literally hundreds of ad hoc groups springing up in response to specific issues, with endless formation and disbanding of coalitions, and with perpetual doubts as to where things are headed and whether the effort is worthwhile at all. From without, as in the view taken by some investigating committees and grand juries, the movement often looks quite different-a conspiracy, admittedly complex but single-minded in its obstruction of American policy. In the latter interpretation, leaders and ideology are of paramount importance; in the former, the movement is simply people "doing their own thing." The interpretation offered here will be that the peace movement does have some broad continuities and tendencies, well understood by the most prominent leaders, but that its loosely participatory, unstructured aspect can scarcely be overestimated. Would-be spokesmen can be found to corroborate any generalization about the movement's ultimate purposes, but the spokesmen have few constituents and they are powerless to shape events. Tom Hayden's influence on the developments outside the Democratic Convention in Chicago, for example, was probably minuscule compared to that of the Chicago authorities; and Hayden's subsequent call for "two, three, many Chicagos" has no status as a strategical commitment. If there are to be more "Chicagos" it will require similar occasions, similar attitudes on the part of civic and police authorities, similar causes for political desperation, and similar masses of people who have decided on their own to risk their safety. No one, not even Tom Hayden, is likely to show up for ideological reasons alone or because someone told him to. The more one learns about the organizational structure and development of the peace movement, the more reluctant one must be to speak of its concerted direction. As the following pages will show, the movement has been and remains in a posture of responding to events outside its control; the chief milestones in its growth have been its days of widespread outrage at escalations, bombing resumptions, draft policies, and prosecutions. As Chart I shows, the size of demonstrations varies directly with the popular opposition to the war during the period 1965 to 1968. Thus, the strength of the movement would seem to be causally related to widespread American attitudes and sentiments toward the war. When we reflect on the variety of the critics of the war, we can well understand why the movement has never yet had the luxury, or perhaps the embarrassment, of defining either its parameters or its long-term aims. There is a widespread feeling among those who participate in active criticism of the war that the movement would collapse without the presence of a worsening military situation and a domestic social crisis, and this feeling gains credence from the slackening of protest after President Johnson's speech of March 31, 1968, and the preoccupation with "straight" politics during the McCarthy and Kennedy campaigns. Although it may seem tautological to say so, one must bear Source of Data: Per Cent Disapprovals, Gallup Polls; Numbers of Participants in Anti-war demonstrations involving 1,000 or more persons, NEW YORK TIMES INDEX and FACTS ON FILE. S = Spring F = Fall W = Winter CHART I: Size of Anti-War Demonstrations and in mind that the chief sustaining element in the Vietnam protest movement has been the war in Vietnam. Not even the most avid partisans of the movement can guarantee its continued growth when the issues become less immediate and dramatic. This fact needs to be emphasized repeatedly in view of the widely divergent political opinions of people who must be counted as having served the movement. The Chinese-oriented Progressive Labor Party has been part of the movement, but so have United States Senators. The Communist journalist Wilfred Burchett has had less impact than Harrison Salisbury, and the Republican Blue Book on Vietnam probably contributed more than Bertrand Russell's International War Crimes Tribunal. For that matter, it is unlikely that any demonstration mobilized American opinion as effectively as Premier Ky did when he declared his only hero was Adolf Hitler.6 Innumerable small events such as that casual remark drew great numbers of normally apolitical American citizens into signing petitions, participating in vigils and marches, and supporting peace candidates. One must resist the tendency, fostered both by would-be leaders of the movement and by those who want to blame them as the source of all trouble, to identify the movement with its most radical and estranged seg |