Vietnam and the U.S., 1954 to 1968

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On January 20, 1969, President Johnson’s last day of office, there were about 500,000 American troops in South Vietnam. North and South Vietnam had been bombed on a daily basis, weather permitting, for four years. Peace feelers had come and gone. 30,000 U.S. troops had been killed in action. But the U.S. did not appear to be any closer to winning its war than it had when Johnson first took on his duties as President. In fact a Vietcong campaign called the Tet Offensive, launched on January 30, 1968, convinced many Americans that the United States was losing the war.

Opposition to the war within the United States grew rapidly between 1965 and 1968. It originated with groups that were either pro-communist, such as the Communist Party U.S.A. and smaller Marxist groups, and with dedicated peace groups of long standing such as Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom, which held its first protest against the war in March 1963 [Catherine Foster, Women for All Seasons,  p. 8]. Given that American’s knew little about Vietnam and its history, it is only natural that they began with great confidence in Lyndon Johnson. It should also be kept in mind that while an anti-war movement developed, there was a more powerful right-wing, anti-communist, pro-war section of the American public and political establishment that pushed Johnson to escalate the war far beyond what he actually authorized.

College students became a particular locus of opposition to the war. Partly this is because such students have time for learning and analyzing new information, as do their professors. Partly it was a period when an anti-authoritarian counter-culture was becoming popular, and the civil rights movement, including the urban riots of that era, also encouraged a culture of resistance to the government. The main factor, however, came to be the draft, as conscription for military service was called. Some level of drafting men (women were not subject) had been in place since World War II.  The number of men drafted into the U.S. military services was relatively low in the first few years of the 1960’s, and a deferment was available for men attending college and married men. The number of men drafted escalated with the war [figures needed]. Awareness grew that the United States was the aggressor in the war, and resentment grew that men’s lives were interrupted and endangered to fight an unjust war.

In 1968 the United States was transitioning from a system where Presidential candidates of political parties were mainly selected by political bosses to a system where they were selected by the citizens registered with those parties in state-by-state primaries. This would be the last election in which the Democratic Party was mainly a conglomeration of urban political machine in the northern and western United States and the white racist machinery of the former Confederate slave states. Senator Eugene McCarthy of Minnesota decided to challenge Lyndon Johnson in the primaries, centering his campaign on opposition to the war in Vietnam. The first primary was in New Hampshire. McCarthy did not win, but received 49% of the vote against 51% for Johnson. On March 31, 1968 Lyndon Johnson announced he would not be seeking another term as President. Then Robert Kennedy and Hubert Humphrey entered the race. Robert, an early supporter of the War, now declared he was against it. Even Humphrey started to back away from the war after he had won the nomination.

But Richard M. Nixon, the Republican candidate who had been Vice President of the United States under Dwight Eisenhower, stated he had a secret plan to end the war. Also George Wallace, former governor of Alabama and an avowed racist, detracted from Humphrey’s support by running as the American Independent Party candidate. This and a conservative backlash against the civil rights and anti-war protests made Nixon less unpopular than Humphrey. And so he was elected President, and the Vietnam War became his war.

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