Social organizations of the Vietnam war period

The Vietnam War was one of the most notorious political events of the baby boom generation. What had seemed like a small skirmish in a far-away country turned out at the center of American politics. It changed not only a huge amount of human fates but also social situation in the country generally. It gave rise to social tensions, opposition ideas, protest activity, countercultures, spirit of nonconformism, and anti-war movements. It was the first “television war,” the first “rock and roll war,” and the first war strongly influenced by its rising unpopularity at home.

Firstly, anti-war protests began as an opposition to the draft. This system was found as socially unfair – people to be mobilized first were blue-collar Americans and African-Americans. Then, when the U.S. army needed more and more soldiers, the draft increased to mobilize various social groups.

After the draft opposition, new arguments against intervention appeared. These arguments arose mostly among students. Some believed that the Communist threat was used as a scapegoat, and accused the United States of having imperialistic goals in Vietnam. The war was also criticized as immoral when photographic evidence of civil deaths emerged [13].

The Vietnam War was the first war which got media coverage. The events on battlefield were shown to public by such means as television. Footage of casualties eliminated any thoughts of glorious war and helped opposition growth.

The Vietnam War flew into Vietnam Syndrome – a phenomenon, which means having a loss of faith and a defeatist attitude, a reject to support the U.S. intervention in un-winnable war, which costs a lot of human lives [13].

Anti-war movement had existed before the beginning of the war, but it reached the national prominence only with the Vietnam War, and remained powerful during the whole conflict.

Anti-war movement in the United States involved students on campuses, soldiers in the military, and civilians marching in the streets. Though students are considered to be the most memorable activists who played the key role in bringing pacifist ideas to the society, other social groups should not be underestimated.

Talking about student activism, it is important to mention, first of all, SDS. Students for a Democratic Society started in 1960 as a small multi-issue organization, which main interests were civil rights, equality, economic justice, peace, and democracy, but with the rise of the Vietnam War it transformed into the largest and the most influential radical student organization concerning antiwar movement [2].

As soon as the aerial bombing of Vietnam began and the U.S. troops were introduced, SDS started small demonstrations against the war. That was approved by other pacifists, and by the end of March of 1965 there were 52 chapters of SDS all over the country.

The first anti-war teach-in was held in the University of Michigan. It was supposed to start at 8 p.m. and continue as long as necessary. This teach-in attracted three thousand students and lasted 12 hours. It gave rise to hundreds similar events all over the country. The largest one was held at University of California, Berkeley. It attracted 36 thousand students and lasted 36 hours [3].

Such teach-ins helped thousands of students to understand the reality, so more and more people got involved into the anti-war movement. On the April 17 1965, SDS called the first national demonstration against the war in Vietnam. 25 thousand people, mostly college students, arrived in Washington. Paul Potter, the president of SDS, gave a speech that made many people to rethink their attitude to the country’s not only foreign but also interior policy. One of demonstrators expressed it much more briefly: "Oh God! Everything they told me was a lie!"

As SDS members became more disappointed with the government’s policy, they became more daring and radical. The slogan "from protest to resistance" pretty well expressed organization’s intentions and mood.

In 1967 SDS organized a series of direct actions with the goal of not just protesting the war, but disrupting the "war machine." In October 1967, several hundred students at the University of Wisconsin organized a demonstration to prevent Dow Chemical Company, the largest producer of napalm (which was barbarously used to destroy civilians), from holding a job fair on campus. The police eventually forced the demonstration to end, but Dow was banned from the campus [2].

Also in October, SDS chapters on different campuses protested their administrations' involvement in the draft. Berkeley’s SDS chapter organized a weeklong series of demonstrations and direct actions against the local draft board. However, each time, the answer was the same: The administration called the police to arrest or even beat demonstrators. After that events thousands of students who had doubted before joined the anti-war movement.

SDS members became concerned that not only the Vietnam War was an unsuccessful political action but also that the whole American political system was rotten to the core. As the result of that disappointment SDS got revolutionary mood. In 1969 SDS had 100 thousand members – the biggest number the organization ever had. However, SDS soon collapsed. SDS split into two rival factions, one dominated by the Maoist-turned-Stalinist Progressive Labor Party

(PL) and the other called the Revolutionary Youth Movement (RYM), which promptly split into two rival factions itself [3].

For African-Americans anti-war movement was closely connected with the civil rights movement. Fighting for the better life conditions they also fought for the life itself. Their struggle against the war was mostly connected with the draft.

Another anti-war organization, Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, was the civil rights movement organization founded in 1960 and firstly did not care much of American foreign policy. However, at the beginning of 1966 SNCC joined the movement against the Vietnam War. The idea was that African-Americans were compared to the Vietnamese. According to SNCC, both of them were poor, non-white, and the United States did not care much of their lives. SNCC inspired African-American men to avoid the draft and join the movement for the freedom in the country [10].

The National Black Anti-War Anti-Draft Union was formed in 1968 as organization against the war in Vietnam and the draft in African-American community. Their method was ordering young African-American men not to register for the draft though it was illegal. Also they asked African-American lawyers to protect unregistered. The motto of NBAWADU was "Hell No, I Won't Go!"

Black Women Enraged, a Harlem anti-war movement which goal, first of all, was to oppose the draft system, had absolutely the same demands as SNCC. They demanded African-American to ignore the call for the military service and stay at home to fight against the segregation [6].

One more group of people who were tired of the war was its participants. People who got through the hell turned out to have done it in vain, for nothing. They understood that the Vietnam War was not the war for the democracy but it was the war against the humanity.

Vietnam Veterans Against the War was formed in 1967 after 6 veterans had marched together in a peace demonstration. VVAW is considered to be one of the most influent units of that period. The organization gave voice to them who had learned from their own experience how cruel the Vietnam War was. So they did their best for the world to see that truth. The thing differing this organization from the others was that VVAW fought not only for the end of the war but also for the rights and needs of veterans. In spring of 1970, VVAW had 600 members. Over the next several years, thousands more joined [12].

In September of 1970 VVAW organized Operation RAW ("Rapid American Withdrawal"). About 200 Vietnam veterans marched from Morristown, NJ, toward Valley Forge State Park demonstrating horrors of the war. While marching veterans left leaflets which described what could happen to the civilians if they were the Vietnamese. Also in these leaflets VVAW called the people for help in putting the end to the war [8].

In January of 1971, VVAW began Winter Soldier Investigation to collect the testimony of the war crimes in Vietnam, including rapes, tortures, cruelties, and killing of civilians. About 150 veterans testified from firsthand experience.

The reason to start such testimony search was a notorious 1968 massacre of Vietnamese civilians at My Lai [1].

In April of 1971, the demonstration named Operation Dewey Canyon III took place in Washington, D.C. It was called as Operation Dewey Canyon I and Operation Dewey Canyon II, which were the names of invasions in Laos in 1969 and in 1971. The demonstration was also called “a limited incursion into the country of Congress.” About one thousand veterans and several Gold Star parents (parents of soldiers killed in Vietnam) took part in this peaceful anti-war protest. The march continued from April 18th to April 23rd, and was the most powerful anti-war demonstration held up to that time; it sparked off a series of major demonstrations that made it clear that the American people wanted the US out of Indochina [12].

On December 26 of 1971 two dozen veterans occupied the Statue of Liberty for two days protesting U.S. aerial bombings of Vietnam. They unfurled an inverted American flag on the statue’s crown that meant a signal of distress [5].

Committee for Non-Violent Action was formed in 1957 as an organization against nuclear weapon. It was one of the first American peace groups which concentrated on nonviolent methods like organizing protest demonstrations. In the mid-1960s CNVA focused efforts on the movement against the Vietnam War. Three activists traveled to Saigon but were deported because of picketing the United States Embassy. In June of 1965 CNVA picketed the Oakland Army Base where soldiers were being deployed to Vietnam. They requested to be allowed to visit the soldiers and give them gifts and well wishes, including some reasons why they should refuse to go. As the result they were arrested. In 1966 Committee used A War Tax Protest - the method of resistance enclosing refusal to pay tax [4].

The National Committee for a Sane Nuclear Policy was founded in 1957 to oppose atmospheric tests of nuclear weapons. As the war in Vietnam reached its peak, SANE became more active in the anti-war movement. In 1965, SANE led rallies against the war in New York and Washington, D.C. Two years later, Committee co-chaired the spring Mobilization to End the War in Vietnam [9].

Vietnam Day Committee was found in May of 1965 after 35-hour teach-in against the Vietnam War, which gathered 35 thousand people at the University of California. VDC appointed October 15 and 16 as International Days of Protest Against American Military Intervention. The other anti-war groups, for example SDS, joined the protest organization. As the result the protest spread across the country. Between 10 and 15 thousand of students and other activists got involved on 15 October [11].

The National Mobilization Committee to End the War in Vietnam was formed in 1967. The organization first was called the Spring Mobilization Committee to End the War in Vietnam. The Mobe, as the committee was commonly known, organized a mass rally on April 15, 1967 in New York City with 400 thousand participants and in San Francisco with 75 thousand protestors. After the rally the name was changed into the National Mobilization Committee to End the War in Vietnam.

The main Mobe’s goal was to raise the public against the Vietnam War. The Committee also paid attention to the civil rights movement. The Mobe's motto was "What are we waiting for?"

In October of 1967 the Mobe organized the March on the Pentagon which gathered 150 thousand people [7].

The Vietnam War managed to sparkle anti-war movement not only within the country but also all over the world. The war gave rise to the opposition. A lot of social multi-issue organizations grew.

The most notable participants of the anti-war movement were the babyboomers, mostly students. They did not only form organizations (some of them still exist), which shook the political and social situation within the country; but also gave a birth to the hippie counterculture which spread around the world and forced the people change their consciousness.

People stopped being just “civilians”. They got a desire and a need to be an active part in the country’s life. Some of these organizations still exist, and their participants still remember the notorious event which helped them to get the voice. The Vietnam War pushed the people to fight for the things they found important.