The
Internet Encyclopedia of International Relations
VIETNAM WAR:
DOMESTIC OPPOSITION
Geri D. Mondowney
Towson University
The
Vietnam War is a part of history that will never be forgotten. As
the second longest war in history, Vietnam spanned over three decades.
The massive American and civilian deaths that resulted left behind an earth
shattering impact. Vietnam appeared to be the war that just would
not end; and when it did end, the cries of “No more Vietnam’s” were far
reaching.
At the end of World
War II, French Indochina gained its independence from Japan; it became
known as the Democratic Republic of Vietnam. The communist leader
of the Vietminh,
Ho Chi Minh, became the leader of this Republic. When fighting broke
out between the Vietminh and France in the mid 1940’s, a struggle for control
of Southeast Asia resulted. In 1954, Vietnam was divided into two
parts; North Vietnam remained communist and continued to be led by Ho Chi
Minh; Ngo
Dinh Diem became president of the new republic of South Vietnam.
In 1959, the Viet
Cong from North Vietnam began reaping havoc on the South Vietnamese.
Because the United States had become an ally of South Vietnam (giving them
various types of aid), they sent advisors to help the South Vietnamese
prepare to defend themselves. In 1961, the wrath of the Viet Cong
continued to grow. Ngo Dinh Diem pioneered a plan to move many of
the South Vietnamese people into a village that would be guarded by soldiers
to keep them safe from the Viet Cong.
A failed assassination
attempt on Ngo Dinh Diem’s life prompted him to order martial law and a
curfew. Diem’s method of rule had began to resemble a dictatorship
more than a republic. Diem’s policies were strongly refuted, and
the U.S. encouraged him to change his policies, however Diem stood his
ground and his brother Ngo Dinh Nhu was his confidante and ultimate supporter.
In 1963, Diem’s government
was overthrown by General Duong Van Minh; the general and his men killed
both Diem and his brother. Months later, President
John F. Kennedy was assassinated in the U.S.
Ultimately, Vietnam
was divided between the North and South, that is, Communism and a republic.
In 1964 the United States military stepped in as the fight to have a unified
Vietnam continued. “[U.S. troops] went in because American officials
believed that the Vietcong guerrillas in South Vietnam were puppets of
a monolithic international communist power grab, led by the Soviet Union
and China, that had to be stopped” (Millet 1978:
119). One year after the U.S. military intervened, Russia
and China (both of which were aiding and supporting the Viet Cong) made
threats to supply troops to North Vietnam to further aid them. The
Viet Cong bombed the U.S. embassy in Saigon,
and attacked other U.S. bases. South Vietnamese and U.S. forces retaliated
by bombing bases in North Vietnam. The fighting continued on and
in May, Lyndon
B. Johnson, the current president attempted to negotiate an end to
the war, but the North Vietnamese forces refused. At that time about
55,000 U.S. troops were in South Vietnam, and several hundred had been
killed. The battling went on for nearly a decade. Casualties
accumulated in a devastatingly rapid manner. “War-weariness finally
led to a complete U.S. disengagement. With in a short time, Ho’s
forces triumphed, and Vietnam was unified in 1975” (Rourke
1989: 38).
Throughout the course
of the Vietnam War, domestic opposition to the war was an issue.
There are numerous reasons why people in the U.S. were opposed to the Vietnam
War; some of those reasons are simple ones such as “war is an unnecessary
evil,” however, more complex reasons exist. These reasons include
the conflict over the congressional role in the war, the present state
of civil rights in the U.S. during the time of the war, and the fact that
the United States’ goals in Vietnam were becoming more and more unclear.
It is well known that
the Constitution
of the United States affirms that Congress has the power to declare
war. However, on February 7, 1965, President Johnson attacked North
Vietnam without the authorization of Congress. This was a disturbing
revelation; in essence, Johnson involved the U.S. in an unauthorized war.
To realize the depth
of this deception, it is important to understand the process of election.
The President is not directly elected by the people; while the votes of
the people are important, the fate of his success lies in the electoral
college. On the other hand, members of Congress are directly elected
by the people. This means that U.S. citizens elect congressional
members that they feel will best represent their interests. It is
fair to say that Johnson’s unauthorized actions robbed U.S. citizens, because
the people they directly elected to make such decisions were not consulted,
and were in fact robbed of their constitutionally appointed duty.
“The Constitution recognizes that the power to initiate war is lodged in
two places: in Congress, and in a foreign enemy. It recognizes
no such power in the President” (Wormuth 1968:
4).
Johnson’s claim was
that he acted without consulting Congress because of the “sudden attack”
on South Vietnam. This attack that he had responded to in 1965, began
in 1959 (Wormuth 1968: 5). The President
and the State
Department, who had been supporting as well as offering justification
for his actions, both maintained that his actions were legitimate, however
“…our legal order does not commit the question of the measures appropriate
to protect the peace and safety of the Untied States to the judgement of
the Commander in Chief…it commits it to Congress. Until Congress
takes action the United States cannot legally initiate hostilities” (Wormuth
1968: 5). This legal order was ignored when Johnson attacked
North Vietnam, therefore the war was not legally entered into. In
light of this factor, many U.S. citizens strongly opposed the Vietnam War,
not only did Johnson “usurp the war power of Congress,” (Wormuth
1968: 5), but he had involved the United States in an “illegal”
war.
During the time of
the Vietnam War, Civil Rights in the Untied States were a huge issue. The
Civil Rights Movement was occurring, and changes in how Blacks were
treated and viewed were slowly being made, however extreme racism still
existed. The U.S. government had become consumed in Vietnam and the
injustices that existed there, and a large portion of the Black population
in the U.S. felt that there were issues of equal importance right here
in the U.S. that were being ignored. “The charge most often flung
at the Johnson administration by Negroes in connection with the Vietnam
War can be summed up in one word: hypocrisy. If the government
is dedicated to the expansion of freedom in far-off parts of the world,
then why is it not equally dedicated to freedom for the Negro at home?”
(Zinn
1967: 23).
This view, that the
U.S. government was more concerned with the problems of the Vietnamese
than the Black citizens of the U.S. was fundamental in the opposition of
Blacks to the Vietnam War.
The Negro compares the magnitude of national effort to bring what is claimed
to be “freedom” to 13 million people in South Vietnam, with the magnitude
of the effort for 15 million Negroes who are poor at home. He compares
the $2 billion spent each month on the war with the pitiful sums of money
spent on behalf of the Negro. He compares the willingness to commit
mass murder in Vietnam, presumably justified by “freedom,” with the unwillingness
of the federal government to arrest on the spot a sheriff in Mississippi
whom FBI men watch beating a Negro. He compares the 350,000 soldiers
sent to Vietnam with the frequent refusal of the federal government to
send even a handful of marshals to protect Negroes from violence.
He compares all the spurious legalistic argument to explain why the federal
government cannot protect civil rights workers in the South with the crass
violations in Vietnam of international agreements, to say nothing of one
of the most important provisions in the United States Constitution, giving
Congress alone the power to declare war (Zinn 1967:
23).
These comparisons show the neglect that the Black community felt
in the U.S. Not only were civil rights issues at home taking a back
seat to Vietnam, but Blacks, too, were fighting in Vietnam for a country
that seemed to anathematize them; “…blacks have been dying too long for
this Country. We have died in every war. We are dying in Vietnam
today fighting the wrong enemy” (Meier 1965: 548).
The U.S. invested
huge sums of money in Vietnam, money that could have been used at home,
not only for blacks, but for all Americans. Martin Luther King Jr.
made the following remark about the economic problem of the poor in the
U.S.: “And we are honest enough to feel that we aren’t going to get
any instantaneous results from Congress, knowing its recalcitrant nature
on this issue, and knowing that so many resources and energies are being
used in Vietnam rather on the domestic situation…These problems, of course,
are overshadowed by the Vietnam War…We are spending all of this money for
death and destruction, and not nearly enough money for life and constructive
development” (Meier 1965: 588-589).
When a country becomes
involved in a war there typically exists a reason for their involvement;
this reason deals with the country’s national
interest. Southeast Asia had very little to offer the U.S., but
because of national interest, the U.S. became involved. The U.S.
had already become an ally of South Vietnam which was a republic, however
communist North Vietnam was threatening to make a unified communist Vietnam.
“Communist domination of all Southeast Asia would seriously endanger in
the short term, and critically in the long term, United States security
1/ ” (Salisbury 1984: 15).
This was the primary interest that the U.S. had in its intervention in
Vietnam. Outside of its security interests, the U.S. was involved
because of its views on world peace and being a dominating force on the
world stage, “abandoning the South Vietnamese people, however, would jeopardize
more than lives in South Vietnam. It would threaten our longer term
hopes for peace in the world. A great nation cannot renege on its
pledges. A great nation must be worthy of trust” (Menzel
1971: 157).
The whole concept
of the U.S. maintaining the image of a trustworthy and dependable nation
seemed to keep the Vietnam War waging on. On the surface, a country
that remains involved in a war that they are obviously losing may appear
to be an unwillingness to give up; an action that would typically be praised.
However, the United States’ continued involvement in the Vietnam War sullied
the American perception of their country: “A vision that Americans
had of their country that they had lost over the course of the Vietnam
War was, a vision featuring the belief that Americans could not commit
atrocities, that wars undertaken by the United States were always just
wars, that no foreign will could prevail over that of the United States,
that Americans could not lose wars. From the point of view of the
government, the widespread public realization that none of these propositions
was any longer true constituted a real and present danger…” (Werner
1993: 249). In general, as the goals became more and more
unclear, opposition to the war grew and the American view of the U.S. was
altered.
The Vietnam War will
indeed remain a highly controversial part of history. Words that
were said, and actions that were carried out will forever be used as a
framework of what not to do. In a work by Sam Ackland Brown entitled,
Why are we still in Vietnam? The U.S. governments actions and results are
summarily addressed: “The ruthless and deliberate destruction of
the Vietnamese society, a desperate military effort to win a ‘people’s
war’ with modern conventional weapons is rooted in the U.S. policy maker’s
indifference toward, and ignorance of, the Vietnamese people, their history,
their culture, and their revolution” (Brown 1970:
59). The “indifference and ignorance” of the United States government
did indeed lead to the opposition to the Vietnam War on the home front.
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An excerpt from the 1952 National Security Council Statement on "U.S. Objectives
and Courses of Action with Respect to Southeast Asia." Return
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