War Abroad, Civil Rights to Revolution:

Wars at Home: The Needs of the

Vietnam and the “Other America”
Fracturing of America ! Legal inequality versus de facto inequality
! 22.1% poverty rate in 1960
! disproportionate numbers of racial minorities,
women, elderly, and rural residents living in
poverty
! Identity Politics Movements
! Cultural pride and raised awareness
! Institution building
! e.g. ethnic studies

1 2

A Great Society and Economic Opportunity Act

a War on Poverty (1965-
(1965-1974)
! “When I was young, poverty was so common that we didn’t ! 1 billion for the Office of
Economic Opportunity (10
know it had a name. An education was something that you programs)
had to fight for….It is now my opportunity to help every ! Head Start
child get an education, to help every Negro and every ! improve long-range
American citizen have an equal opportunity to have every educational
family get a decent home, and to help bring healing to the achievements of poor
children
sick and dignity to the old.”
! Upward Bound
! President Lyndon B. Johnson, 1965
! help low-income
! “A Great Society, [ which] rests on abundance and liberty teenagers develop skills
for all. It demands an end to poverty and racial injustice, needed for college
to which we are totally committed.” ! VISTA
domestic Peace Corps
! LBJ, 1964
!
! teachers into poor school
! “An unconditional war on poverty” districts

3 4

Education and the Arts The New New Deal

! Elementary and Secondary
Education Act (1965)
! 1st federal-
federal-aid-
aid-to-
to-education law
! $1.3 billion for textbooks,
! Job Corps
library materials, special-
special- ! vocational training for school dropouts
education programs
! Higher Education Act (1965) ! Neighborhood Youth Corps
! $650 million for scholarships
! provided work to 2 million between 16-
16-21
and low-
low-interest loans to needy
students ! 28% unemployed after 6 months of training
! funds for college libraries and (1966-
(1966-1967)
research facilities
! National Endowments for the Arts
and the Humanities (1965)
! federal funding for artists and
scholars 5 6

1
 Affirmative Action Welfare
! E.O. 11246 (1965)
! Banned discrimination on the basis of race, religion,and
national origin by employers awarded government ! Aid to Families with Dependent Children
contracts (1/3 of labor force)
! Launched by New Deal
! required employers to “take affirmative action to ensure
equal opportunity” ! 3 million to 10 million
! “to move beyond opportunity to achievement…[to ! Food Stamps Program (1961-
(1961-)
achieve] not just equality as a right and theory, but ! $ 1 million (1961)
equality as fact and as result.” ! $2 billion (1970s)
! required employers to bring composition of labor
force into line with available pool of qualified
candidates
7 8

Housing The Environment and

Rural Development
! Wilderness Preservation Act (1964)
! Omnibus Housing Act (1965)
! 9.1 million acres of federal lands
! $8 billion for low-
low-and middle income housing designated “wilderness areas”
! rent supplements for low-
low-income families ! barred from commercial development
! Created Department of Housing and ! 1965 Air and Water Quality Acts (1965)
Urban Development (1965) ! tougher air and water quality standards
! Appalachian Regional Development Act
(1965)
! $ 1 billion for highway construction, health
9
centers, and resource development 10

Medical Care Act (1965) Community Empowerment

! Medicare ! Community Action Program

! medical insurance for the elderly under social ! encouraged “maximum feasible participation”
security
! Medicaid
! Legal Services Program
! health care for welfare recipients
! provided poor with free legal aid
! $32 billion (1965-
(1965-1975)
! paid medical costs for 20% of Americans
(1976)
11 12

2
 The Limits of Reform
The ! 1964 tax cut ($10 billion)
Promise of ! poorest 1/5 received 5.1% of national
income (1964) 5.4% (1974)
America ! 75% of social welfare payments went to
the nonpoor
! construction industry, real-
real-estate
! “There was no child we could not feed, no adult
developers, bankers, rising physician
we could not put to work, no disease we could
fees and hospital costs
not cure, no toy, food or appliance we could not
safer, no air or water we could not clean.” ! Reform versus Transformation - who
controlled allocation of resources?
! presidential aide

13 14

War on Poverty vs. War in Vietnam

Race and Poverty
! Rioters - suffered from ! $1.2 billion vs. $22 billion (1966)
“raised expectations” ! < $2 billion/year vs. $2 billion/month
white, middle- “If I left the woman I really love - the Great Society - in order to get
! middle-class !
involved with that bitch of a war on the other side of the world,
world, then I
backlash would lose everything at home. All my programs. All my hopes to to
! 75% of poor were feed the hungry and shelter the homeless….But if I left that war and
white and escaped let the Communists take over South Vietnam, then I would be seen as
poverty at a faster rate a coward and my nation would be seen as an appeaser and we would
than blacks both find it impossible to accomplish anything for anybody anywhere
anywhere
! but racial minorities on the entire globe….Losing the Great Society was a terrible thought,
thought,
perceived as recipients but not so terrible as the thought of being responsible for America’s
America’s
of aid losing a war to the Communists. Nothing could possibly be worse than
! “special interest” that.” - LBJ
legislation ! The Great Society was “shot down on the battlefields of Vietnam.”
Vietnam.”
Martin Luther King, Jr.

15 16

Overview of the Vietnam War Why was the U.S. in Vietnam?

Longest war in U.S.
!
history (1965-
(1965-1973)
! French Colonialism and Japanese
! 6.2 million tons of Occupation during WWII
bombs dropped by ! 1945 - Independent Republic of Vietnam
U.S.
founded by the Vietminh and Ho Chi Minh
! 3x WWII

! 2.8 million Americans ! 1945-

1945-1954 - anti-
anti-French War of Resistance
served ! U.S. aid to French >$2 billion as part of cold war
! 47,000 died ! “You have a row of dominoes set up, you knock over
! 11,000 MIA the first one, and what will happen to the last one is
! 300,000 wounded the certainly that it will go over very quickly.”
! Eisenhower
! spent $150 billion
17 18

3
 Covert Operations
The Division of Vietnam ! Pro-
Pro-American government in South
Vietnam
! Geneva Accord (1954) ! Ngo Dinh Diem, anticommunist
! temporarily partitioned at the 17th parallel Catholic, elected premier in a fixed
! committed France to withdraw election (won 98.2% of vote)
! free elections within 2 years ! U.S. Aid and CIA operatives
! U.S. refused to sign and prevented ! $200 million/year and 675 advisors (1955-
(1955-
national election from taking place 1961)
! 16,000 helicopter units and special forces
(Green Berets) by November 1963
19 ! support for military coup (October 1963) 20

Anti-
Anti-government Escalation
protests in South ! “I am not going to the President who saw Southeast
Vietnam Asia go the way China went.”
! LBJ
! corruption ! Gulf of Tonkin Resolution (Aug. 7, 1964)
! religious ! requested Congressional authority to “take all
necessary measures to repel any armed attack
persecution against the forces of the United States and to
! National Liberation prevent further aggression.”
Front (1960) and ! draft version ready for several months before
unverified attack against two U.S. destroyers,
Vietcong (guerrilla engaged in covert operations, off the coast of North
forces) Vietnam

21 22

U.S. Ground Troops

Operation Rolling ! Protect American air bases to search-
search-and-
and-
Thunder !
destroy
War of attrition
! “You can kill ten of my men for every
one I kill of yours, but even at those
odds, you will lose and I will win.”
! Ho Chi Minh to the French

! “It became necessary to destroy the town

! Bombing attacks against North
Vietnam
! target Ho Chi Minh Trail -
transportation route for military
equipment and soldiers
! 1965-
1965-68, 1 million tons of bombs (800
tons/day)
! chemical warfare
! 20 million gallons of agent orange
to defoliate > 5 million acres
! napalm
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in order to save it.”
! My Lai Massacre (1968, 1970)
! 350 Vietnamese villagers killed,
women raped on Lt. William L. Calley’s
order
! sentenced to life in prison, sentence
reduced by Nixon and paroled in 1974
! 9% veterans committed abusive violence
against civilians or prisoners of war
! 30% witnessed such acts
! by 1968, 30% of South Vietnamese
population became refugees 24

4
 Who was the Enemy? Who were the
troops?
Race and War ! Youngest fighting force in U.S.
! “You never knew who was the enemy and who was the history - 19 years-
years-old (26 year-
year-
friend. They all looked alike. They were all Vietnamese. old during WWII)
Some of them were Vietcong.” ! 26th Amendment (1971)
reduced voting age to 18
! “It wasn’t like the San Francisco Forty-
Forty-Niners on one side of !

one-
one-year tour of duty and
the field and the Cincinnati Bengals on the other. The enemy !
returned home alone
was all around you.” “From my own small hometown
! 7,000 women enlistees [Plainsville, Kansas] all but two of a
! “The only thing they told us about the Vietcong was they ! all-
all-volunteer force in 1973 dozen high school buddies would
were gooks. They were to be killed.” ! draftees accounted for 62% of eventually serve in Vietnam and all
! “If it’s dead and Vietnamese, it’s VC [Vietcong]” deaths in 1969 were of working-class families….I
80% poor and working-
working-class know of not a single middle-class son
! “I went out and killed one VC and liberated a prisoner. Next !
of the town’s businessmen, lawyers,
affluent more likely to receive
day the major called me in and told me that I’d killed !
student deferments, medical doctors, or ranchers from my high
fourteen VC and liberated six prisoners. You want to see the exemptions, and appointments school graduating class who
medal?” 25
to National Guard and reserve experienced the Armageddon of our
26
units generation.”

The Credibility Gap Anti-

! A televised war
! an unwinnable war?
! Federal deficit and inflation
! 10% surcharge on federal income
taxes (1968)
! The Tet Offensive (1968)
! Vietcong assault on 41 major
urban areas in South Vietnam
! 42% doves to 41% hawks
! Pentagon Papers (1971)
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Anti-war movement
! Students for a Democratic Society (1962)
! 40 students met in Port Huron, Michigan
! grew to 100,000 members on 300 colleges
! participatory politics, grass-
grass-roots
organizing
! The “New Left”
Left”
Free Speech Movement (1964)
“Last summer I went to Mississippi to join the struggle there for civil rights. This fall
I am engaged in another phase of the same struggle, this time in Berkeley. The two
battlefields may seem quite different to some observers, but this is not the case. The
same rights are at stake in both places - the right to participate as citizens in a
democratic society and to struggle against the same enemy. In Mississippi an
autocratic and powerful minority rules, through organized violence, to suppress the
vast, virtually powerless majority. In California, the privileged minority manipulates
the university bureaucracy to suppress the students’ political expression.”
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Campus/Community Protests The Counterculture:

! Draft resistance (1966) Sex, Drugs, and Rock n’ Roll
! Summer of Love
! Stop the Draft Week (1967) (1967)
100,000 protestors ! 20,000 in S.F.
! 170,000 became conscientious ! “Turn on to the
objectors scene, tune in to
! 60,000 fled the country what is happening,
and drop out.”
! 200,000 failed to register ! Timothy Leary

! Defense Research ! communes

! economic and
! 60% of university research In 1968, Columbia University
sexual
budget came from government students protest against military alternatives to
contracts research contracts and the nuclear families 400,000 people attended the 3-day Woodstock
! removal of ROTC construction of a gymnasium in
Music and Art Fair
nearby Harlem 29 30

5
 The Reemergence of ! Betty Friedan's Feminine Mystique

Women in Politics
(1963) Women’
Women’s Rights
! the unhappy housewife

! “the problem that has no name”

name”
! Commission on the Status
! National Organization for Women
of Women (1961-
(1961-1963) (NOW) - 1966
! Womanpower needed to ! “a civil rights organization for
win the Cold War women”
women”
! Need for child care, paid ! “The purpose of NOW is to take

maternity leave, action to bring women into full

participation in the mainstream of
unemployment and American society now, exercising all
minimum-
minimum-wage benefits the privileges and responsibilities
for women previously thereof in truly equal partnership with
not covered men.”
men.”
! 1,000 (1967) to 15,000 (1971)
! Equal Pay Act (1963)
! 25% men
! Equal wage for equal
work 31 32

Women’s Liberation Race, Poverty, Gender, and War

! White women made up
about 50% of volunteers
in 1964 Freedom Summer
! “We didn’t come down here ! Imperialism and racism
to work as maids this
summer” ! war on poverty vs. war in
Anti-
Anti-War and New Left
!
movements Vietnam
“Girls say yes to guys who
!
say no” ! Militarism and gender
! Sexual liberation or sexual
exploitation?
oppression
! > 100 rapes during
summer of love The National Women’s Liberation party ! male decision makers
! “The Personal is Political” protested against the Miss America
pageant in 1968. The demonstration ! violence against women
- CR groups included a “freedom trash can” into which
and children
! “Sisterhood is Powerful” women threw false eyelashes, hair curlers,
brassieres, and girdles, I.e. symbols of
female oppression. 33 ! prostitution and rape 34

Vietnam Veterans and

anti-
anti-war sentiment Government Repression
! Low morale and rebellion (esp. after 1969)
! “fragging”
fragging” - attacks on officers by enlisted men ! 1968 Democratic Convention
! refusing combat orders
! a 3-
3-day “police riot”
! drug use (1/2 marijuana, 1/4 used heroin, opium)
! FBI Cointelpro
! Vietnam Veterans Against the War (1971)
! infiltrate social movements and disrupt their
! 40,000 protestors
work
! investigation of war crimes

! 2/3 would serve again ! Nixon’s “Law and Order” campaign

! “The left hated us for killing, and the right hated us ! “Peace with Honor”
for not killing enough.”
35 36

6
 Representing the “Silent Majority” Vietnamization
! Typical American was a white 47-
47-year-
year-old machinists’ ! Withdrawal of American
wife from Dayton, Ohio troops, replaced by South
! “To know that the lady in Dayton is afraid to walk the Vietnamese forces
streets alone at night, to know that she has a mixed
! secretly escalate war in
view about blacks and civil rights because before Cambodia
moving to the suburbs she lived in a neighborhood
that became all black, to know that her brother- ! bombings and ground
brother-in-
in-
law is a policeman, to know that she does not have troops
the money to move if her new neighborhood ! national student strike
deteriorates, to know that she is deeply distressed (May 4, 1970) National Guardsmen fired into a
crowd of students at Kent State,
that her sons is going to a community junior college ! 450 colleges closed, killing four people. At Jackson State
where LSD was found on campus - to know all this is 80% of colleges College in Mississippi, National
the beginning of contemporary political wisdom.” experienced campus Guardsmen stormed a dormitory and
! The Real Majority (1970) protest killed two black students.

37 38

U.S. Withdrawal Legacies of Vietnam

! Paris Peace Talks (1968-
(1968-1973) ! For Southeast Asia
! U.S. withdrawal of troops ! 1.5 million Vietnamese lives lost
! Return of American POWs ! devastation of physical and economic infrastructure
! continued presence of North Vietnamese ! political destabilization
troops in South Vietnam ! 10 million refugees
! Christmas Bombings (1972) ! U.S. immigration
! most devastating bombing of the war ! 650,000 Vietnamese
! 1973 cease-
cease-fire ! 150,000 Laotian
! 1975 reunification of Vietnam ! 150,000 Cambodians
! 90,000 Hmong
! 30,000 Amerasians
39 40

Lessons for the U.S.

! “Vietnam syndrome”
! fear of overseas military commitments
! limits to U.S. power/policy of containment
! Concern about media coverage of war
! Abuse of executive powers and distrust of secret government
operations
! War Powers Act (1973)
! required president to report any use of military force within 48 hours

! directed hostilities to cease within 60 days unless Congress declared

declared
war
! Freedom of Information At (1974)
! give citizens greater access to files of federal government agencies
agencies
! Distaste for dissention - era of conservatism
! Psychological and Physical Need for Healing
! 1/6 of veterans suffered from posttraumatic stress disorder
41