The Power of Protest: Final Stages of Opposition to the War in
Vietnam
The Vietnam Peace Commemoration
Committee (VPCC) is seeking university,
foundation and peace movement partners to collaborate in a national public
retrospective on popular opposition to the war in Vietnam and the wider
American war in Indochina. We anticipate organizing initially around the 50th
anniversary of the Paris Peace Accords (January 27, 1973), which ended direct U.S.
military operations in Vietnam.
Our intent is to offer an examination of the foreign policy
lessons and domestic legacies of the movement against the war, with an emphasis
on the 1972-73 events that led to the Accords and to a vigorous citizen
lobbying campaign that facilitated an end to the war two years later.
Memorable events occurred in this period. Nixon escalated the
bombing of North Vietnamese cities and mined the country’s harbor at Haiphong.
Protests were widespread, even on US military bases and ships at sea.
Celebrities flew to Hanoi to oppose U.S. policy. Public opinion shifted against
the war. Substantial medical assistance was sent to the
North by Americans defying government regulations. Over Christmas,
the B-52 bombing of Hanoi damaged Bach Mai Hospital. And against this
background, the Watergate investigation began to unfold.
The VPCC was formed in 2014 by Tom Hayden, David Cortright and
John McAuliff from the political, GI and faith streams of the Vietnam antiwar
movement to preserve the history of that unprecedented decade-long effort. The
organization has sponsored numerous in-person conferences and zoom seminars to
mark the 50th anniversaries of important events that occurred during
the early and middle years of that movement. We believe the time is ripe to
bring a substantive nationwide analysis of the effort to stop the war, now
widely regarded as a foreign policy catastrophe, to a broad audience of
Americans, to the academic community, and to the national press.
We lack the institutional resources to mount such an effort alone,
but believe we have much to contribute. We are the people who marched,
demonstrated, resisted, boycotted, sat-in, went on strike, and were arrested.
We also helped organize and lead many of the national and local antiwar
organizations that sprang up during the war. We lived through the turmoil,
helped shape the actions and strategies that defined the era, and can provide
dramatic first-person testimony about the events that occurred. We hope to
recruit celebrity activists to join us, like Jane Fonda, Joan Baez, Judy
Collins, Peter Yarrow, Daniel Ellsberg, and dozens of lesser-known leaders who
together can draw the press coverage that could make this retrospective a
national event.
We feel an urgent need to undertake this project. Just as the
passing of members of “the greatest generation” and of Holocaust survivors has
already silenced most eyewitness accounts of World War II, so too are Vietnam
antiwar activists becoming a diminishing resource. Most of us are now in our
70s and 80s. We want our experiences and
perspective to remain available to those who believe there are lessons to be
learned from what we lived through and did.
The U.S. in the early 1970s was split in ways similar to the
present. Indeed, the divisions then shaped the divisions we still live with
today. Conflict over the American war in Indochina intersected with conflicts
over racial justice, gendered discrepancies in power and authority, and
deepening divisions in wealth. The country that emerged after the Peace
Accords and Watergate was dramatically different from the Great Society that
was declared a decade earlier when the U.S. war first escalated and the
movement to end it was born.
The experiences of that movement, its successes and failures,
contain lessons for Americans today. Teasing them out, imagining how they can
be applied, and finding ways to communicate them to young activists and
scholars today and in the years to come, will be done in discussion with the
partners who join us in this project. The
form of the project (in-person, multi-day, multi-venue conference,
teach-ins or online events), its content and organization (panels, keynotes,
film screenings, slide shows, interviews) will be developed collaboratively
with partnering institutions and organizations.
The attached Appendix contains a preliminary list of topics and programs
VPCC has the experience and expertise to help create. Our initial focus is 1972-73,
with a particular emphasis on the largely ignored, pen-ultimate stage antiwar
movement. All played a role in moving the US toward an end to its war. We welcome
additional topics or modifying this list in consultation with potential partners.
Each partner can choose its own level of involvement, whether
developing one or two programs on suggested national topics or by emphasizing
local histories. Events can range from
tens to hundreds of participants. Our goal
is that all programs are carried out with a coordinated calendar and a common national
identity and are streamed and recorded for posting together. Partners
will promote each others’ initiatives by publicizing a collaborative web page.
Postscript: We are painfully
aware as we reach out on behalf of this project that the world once again is overwhelmed
with tragic images of a powerful modern military force seeking to impose its will
on another nation, with horrendous cost to innocent civilians. The US
media and political leaders are embracing an outmatched resistance energized by
national pride and the sentiment of Ho Chi Minh that “nothing is more precious
than independence and freedom.” This may
be an especially important time for Americans to recall an era when the roles
of the US and Russia were reversed. The political
context and power of repression are different, but the determination of peace
activists in the US then and in Russia now are profoundly similar.
For individual involvement, please complete the survey available here or write to jmcauliff@ffrd.org
Appendix:
Potential Program
Topics for 2022-2023 Collaboration
- The failure of
US diplomacy. The U.S. and North Vietnam reach a peace agreement in
October 1972. Kissinger’s
declaration that ‘peace is at hand’ affects the election but collapses
because of South Vietnam’s rejection.
The US tries to force change in Hanoi’s position with the Christmas
bombing, but virtually
identical provisions are signed on January 27. 1973. Recruit: Dan Ellsberg, Greg
Grandin, Amb. Dang Dinh Quy
- The
Movement. VPCC has unique ability to bolster the
historical record of the antiwar movement. We can offer eye-witness
accounts of:
- Responses to 1972 air war escalations (bombing civilians and river dikes in North
Vietnam, mining Haiphong harbor). Demonstrations, celebrity trips to
North Vietnam (Ramsey Clark, Jane Fonda), public opinion shifts against
the war. Recruit: Jane Fonda
- Republican and Democratic Conventions Summer of 1972
Vietnam Veterans Against the War and other peace groups make their
presence felt protesting Nixon’s nomination and celebrating McGovern’s. Substantial focus on danger of bombing
the dike system.
- The Movement shifts from a focus on demonstrations to public education and lobbying (Indochina
Peace Campaign, Indochina Resource Center), medical assistance (Medical
Air for Indochina), broader church opposition. Both the Indochina Peace
Campaign and Medical Aid for Indochina established offices across the
country in 1972, the Indochina Mobile Education Project sponsored
national tours, American Friends Service Committee redoubled its nationwide
peace education work.
- The
Christmas bombing. The Bach Mai Hospital and civilian
neighborhoods are decimated when B-52s bomb Hanoi. The Pentagon attempts a
cover-up, but their account is debunked by American eyewitnesses,
including Joan Baez and former Nuremburg prosecutor Telford Taylor. Medical
Aid for Indochina launches a US campaign to rebuild the hospital, which
results in broad support (full-page ads, Leonard Bernstein concert, more).
Recruit: Joan Baez.
- Mounting
pressure on Nixon to sign the Accords: Does heightened opposition force Nixon to
sign the peace agreement to obtain a “decent interval” before defeat? Project Redress organizes more celebrity
protestors, public opinion shifts further after the Christmas bombing,
Bach Mai Hospital Fund raises large sums, editorial opposition to the war
becomes widespread, demonstrators disrupt Nixon inaugural. Recruit:
Robert Jay Lifton, Noam Chomsky, Judy Collins, other Redress participants.
- Unprecedented
direct assistance to and communication with the “enemy”: Journalists and antiwar leaders are in direct
touch with the North Vietnamese government and the Provisional
Revolutionary Government of the south meeting in Canada, Europe and Vietnam.
The Committee of Liaison provides
direct contact with POWs. Medical
Aid for Indochina, Science for Vietnam and AFSC send medical and
reconstruction supplies to Hanoi.
The Paris
Peace Accords and digests of the Pentagon Papers are widely distributed.
- IPC
tour fall of 1972. Tom Hayden and Jane Fonda lead antiwar
activists and entertainers to 70 cities over 70 days prior to the
presidential election, delivering skits, lectures, songs, slide shows,
and appearances on local radio and TV. Recruit: Jane Fonda, Holly Near,
other participants.
- The
end of the increasingly dysfunctional draft is announced on January 27, 1973 (the
same date as the Paris agreement); after growing resistance, the last
draftee is inducted on June 30, 1973.
What is the impact on the antiwar
movement when its base is no longer at risk (and on opposition to later
wars)?
- Self-exile
in Canada and Europe is chosen by some who oppose the
war and the draft or remove themselves from military service. Some remain active and work with host
country opponents of the war and GI.
- Retrospective programs will correct the absence in the
historical record of these key developments and contributions:
- Military mutinies and their impact. Vietnam
Veterans Against the War, after throwing their combat medals back at the
government, continue their dramatic actions. Sabotage occurs on US Navy
ships, Air Force pilots refuse to bomb, G.I. coffee houses publish
newspapers and organize soldiers against the war, antiwar POWs write to
Nixon, fragging of combat officers undermines ground operations.
- The unrecognized role of women. Women are
often under-acknowledged for their contribution to stopping the war and
reducing the suffering it caused: in the political movements against the
war, in the military in Vietnam, in service organizations in Indochina,
and in the Vietnamese government and military.
- Black
leadership in the antiwar movement.
From individuals like Muhammad
Ali to organizations like the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee
(SNCC) and the National Black Anti-war Anti-draft union (NBAWADU), African-American
activists link the call for racial justice to the call to resist the
draft and oppose the U.S. war in Vietnam in the mid-1960s. Their actions profoundly influence the
course of the war. How did African-American antiwar activism manifest in
the 1970s? Recruit: Cleveland Sellers, Robyn Spencer
- Hispanic
and Asian Communities and Vietnamese studying in the US play
a little known but significant part in the antiwar movement
·
The Reaction: Watergate links to
fear of the antiwar movement. Publication
of the public opinion shaping Pentagon Papers leads Nixon’s advisors to create
the Plumbers who break into the office of Daniel Ellsberg’s psychiatrist, ultimately
leading to dismissal of the case against Ellsberg. Key figures in the Plumbers
direct the Watergate break-in, resulting in the famed hearings and resignation
of Nixon and his distraction from continuing the war.
·
COINTELPRO. Major resistance is planned (and thwarted) to
undermine Nixon’s re-election, including a John Lennon concert tour. Nixon moves
the convention from San Diego to Miami, resistance mounts, COINTELPRO (including
plans for detention camps) is revealed, and Nixon becomes obsessed with the
antiwar movement.
·
The hidden wars in Laos and
Cambodia. Illegal
U.S. troop incursions and massive (often secret) bombing campaigns (which made
Laos the most heavily bombed country per capita in history) wrought extensive
and lasting physical damage in both countries, caused massive dislocation of
the population and an estimated 450,000 casualties. U.S. support of the coup
that ousted Prince Sihanouk set the stage for the rise of the Khmer
Rouge in Cambodia and for the genocide that followed.
·
Films and slide shows educate and
motivate activists and a wider public Films
from Newsreel circulate by peace organization and are supplemented by sponsored
media from NARMIC and the Indochina Peace Campaign. Mainstream media reach a wider public with “Born
on the 4th of July”, “Hearts and Minds” and implicitly M*A*S*H.
Potential Program
Topics for 2023-2025 Collaboration
·
Post-Accords lobbying effort. The
Coalition to Stop Funding the War is founded in January 1973 to bring together
the secular and religious peace movements to press Congress to end all US
military activities with legislation adopted in August 1973 and to pass the War
Powers Act in November.
·
End
Game
Military appropriations for South Vietnam are significantly reduced
three times over the next two years, leading to the end of the war in April
1975. Antiwar Members of Congress (Drinan, Dellums, Abzug, Holtzman) play a
significant role. Recruit: Elizabeth Holtzman.
·
Direct engagement of US peace
activists and in-country Quaker and Mennonite staff with Third Force
counterparts in South Vietnam whose participation was specified in
the political provisions of the Peace Accords but brutally repressed by the
Thieu government
·
Truth
and reconciliation. Failure to appoint an official commission to
investigate reasons for and character of US intervention in Indochina and
specific war crimes (saturation bombing targeting civilians, forced relocation,
free-fire zones, assassination teams, atrocities by rogue units) in Vietnam,
Laos and Cambodia? Agent
Orange, landmines and unexploded ordnance problems are ongoing, and the Peace
Accords stipulate US aid to heal the wounds of war. How does a country’s memory
of war affect its collective conscience and its proclivity to wage new wars? What
might a T & R Commission look like, and what might its impact be? Recruit
Robert Jay Lifton, Noam Chomsky, Charles Bailey, Susan Hammond.
·
Interpretations of the end of the
war Kerry Kennedy’s film vs.
eyewitness accounts from an antiwar perspective
·
The Postwar War I refugees and reeducation
·
The Postwar War II frustrated
efforts at early normalization, third Indochina war, failure to address Khmer
Rouge extremism by peace activists and US government, Cambodian civil war and
Paris Agreement
·
Planting seeds for reconciliation Friendshipment, AFSC and MCC aid to reunified
Vietnam, ten NGO conferences address post war legacies and humanitarian/development
aid programs
