Vietnam (19 page)

Johnson told the TV audience that he had halted the bombing because of favourable developments in Paris. The North Vietnamese delegation took the hint and, in exchange for the bombing halt, agreed to enter into more meaningful discussions in Paris. To find a way around the impasse, it was suggested that the talks be widened to include delegations from the South Vietnamese government and the Vietcong. If this was designed to swing the election it failed. The Democratic candidate in 1968 was Hubert Humphrey, Johnson's vice president. Although by this time the Democrats had turned sharply against the war, it was hard for Humphrey to distance himself from the policies of the Johnson administration that had got America into the war in the first place. On the other hand, the Republicans had picked Richard Nixon, a former hawk who now promised to 'bring an honourable end to the war'. However, he failed to bring an honourable end to the election. Behind the scenes, a prominent supporter of Richard Nixon offered South Vietnam's President Thieu better terms if they stayed out of the talks in Paris. On 2 November, the Saigon government announced they would boycott the talks because of the presence of the NLF. Explaining Saigon's position, Vice-President Ky said, 'We can no longer trust the Americans: they are just a band of crooks'. On 5 November, six years after losing the gubernatorial race in his native California and dropping out of politics, former vice president in the Eisenhower administration Richard Nixon was elected 37th President of the United States.

After a situation briefing at the White House on 11 November, Nixon said that Johnson spoke for him on the war until he assumed office in January. Meanwhile, on the ground, the Communists made a mad scramble to improve their position in the South prior to Nixon's inauguration. The US announced that the movement of military vehicles in southern North Vietnam had increased three-fold since the bombing ended. The NVA moved back into the DMZ and the Vietcong High Command ordered an all-out effort to smash the Phoenix Program. Although targets in the North were now off limits, B-52s were used to bomb Communist bases near the Cambodian border and to stifle any renewed attack on Saigon.

However, to the end, Johnson tried to sue for peace. After heavy US pressure, the Saigon government agreed to join the peace talks, despite the presence of the NLF. But when the South Vietnamese delegation under Vice President Ky arrived in Paris on 26 November, the talks immediately hit a snag again over the shape of the table. The Hanoi government wanted a square table, while the US wanted it oblong. Eventually, they compromised on a round one.

PROTESTS ABOUT THE
us involvement in Vietnam began before the large-scale commitment of American ground troops in March 1965. The early protesters were for the most part old-fashioned pacifists and liberal intellectuals, but when the war started in earnest, student activists already committed to the civil rights movement and other radical causes soon began coming out against it.

In April 1965 Students for a Democratic Society, the student civil rights organisation under Tom Hayden, mobilised a 25,000-strong national march on Washington, DC. What impact it had was largely negative. In January 1965 a Harris poll showed that 59 per cent of Americans were cool on the Johnson administration's policy in Vietnam. By the summer, in contrast, a solid two-thirds majority backed the administration. The anti-war movement intensified in parallel with the intensification of the conflict, however, and over time, that majority was gradually eroded.

There were good reasons for students to take a stand against the Vietnam War. One was that the young men who actually had to go and fight the war had cause to question its purpose. This was especially true on campus, where the civil rights movement had familiarised students with the effectiveness of protest. At the time, there was a moral battle going on for the heart of America that was being fought and won by committed pacifists. Since the early 1960s, nonviolent civil rights marchers – both black and white – had been abused, beaten and even killed, protesting against segregated schools, housing, transportation, and unfair literacy and civics tests that barred many African-Americans in the southern states from voting. Despite baton-wielding state troopers, Ku Klux Klan bombers, White supremacist snipers, rock-throwing racists and the murderous assaults of police chiefs such as Birmingham, Alabama's Bull Connor who set dogs on child protesters, nonviolent tactics were seen to triumph. With the passing of the Voting Rights Act in August 1965, the civil rights protesters felt they had won the first round in the civil rights struggle. This left a large number of radical activists with a wealth of organisational ability and the feeling that they could win any battle, whatever was ranged against them. Soon the anti-war movement and the civil rights movement became closely intertwined.

Many of the civil right leaders were committed pacifists. Martin Luther King Jr spoke out against the war, bringing to bear his enormous moral authority. The war itself was racially divisive. African-Americans did not find it as easy as middle-class white youths to evade the draft. Under the Selective Service Act of 1948, 26,800,000 young American males were eligible for military service. Of these, 8,720,000 volunteered for military service and 2,215,000 were drafted. Those who volunteered could often wangle a noncombatant job, or they could join the National Guard, spending six months on active duty training before returning to civilian life, though for the next six years, they would have to attend a two-week summer camp and meetings every other weekend. This was the path favoured by George W. Bush. Only 2.5 per cent of those eligible for the draft, 570,000 in all, became 'draft dodgers'. They avoided the call-up by failing to register or by moving abroad. Canada, Mexico, and Sweden provided havens for those avoiding conscription. The Canadian immigration authorities registered some 30,000 draft dodgers, but it is thought another 50,000 settled there illegally. Bill Clinton sat out the war in Britain, but this option became unpopular when, controversially, some US citizens were deported back to America to face military service. However, the problem of draft dodgers was tiny compared with the 15,410,000 men who were disqualified or obtained some exemption or deferment more or less legitimately. The sons of well-off whites could easily get a deferment by staying on at college, getting married, feigning homosexuality, or faking a medical condition. Some took drugs to raise their blood pressure, others punctured their arms to simulate needle tracks. Doctors – usually middle-class white men themselves – were often sympathetic.

'I save lives by keeping people out of the army,' said one.

President Johnson introduced a policy that drafted African-Americans preferentially. He did this, not for racist reasons, but because he felt that, by putting deprived black men in the armed services, he could provide them with improved health care and education, and promote their social advancement. Many African-Americans were not opposed to this, to start with. After centuries of discrimination, they saw fighting in the war as a chance to prove their worth to their country. Others thought that the war in Vietnam had nothing to do with them. The real enemy was back home. Al Harrison, civil rights organiser at Detroit's Wayne State University, said, 'We got no business fighting a yellow man's war to save the white man'.

In April 1967, the heavyweight boxing champion of the world Muhammad Ali refused to be inducted into the armed forces on religious grounds: in 1964, he had joined the Nation of Islam, better known then as the Black Muslims. He was stripped of his title and prosecuted. He was sentenced to five years in jail and fined $10,000 for draft evasion, though the conviction was overturned by the US Supreme Court in 1971. He won his title back by beating George Foreman in 1974.

It was indisputable that African-Americans bore an unfair burden in Vietnam. While just 8 per cent of the military were black, in 1965 African-Americans made up some 23 per cent of the enlisted soldiers killed in action. There were few black officers, though Major-General Beauregarde Brown III made head of MACV logistics. Since Vietnam, many African-Americans have been promoted to the highest ranks of the US Army. Colin Powell and others started their careers in Vietnam. But at that time, medals and stripes came easier to whites. Less than 3 per cent of the officers in the Army were black, less than 1 per cent in the Marines. The feeling that African-Americans were being unfairly sacrificed in a foreign war helped foment further racial conflict at home. It was only after the beginning of the Vietnam War that rioting spread to the black ghettos of the northern cities and those of the West Coast. In 1967, the 82nd Airborne had to be sent into Detroit's Twelfth Street ghetto to restore order, and the assassination of Malcolm X in 1965 and Martin Luther King in 1968 cranked up race tension to a level where groups such as the Black Panthers were openly advocating insurrection.

On 21 April 1965, a Buddhist monk publicly burnt himself to death in Saigon as a protest against the war. Television pictures of the ritual suicide were relayed around the world. Other Vietnamese monks and a young girl followed suit.

This potent form of protest was brought horrifyingly home to America on 2 November when Norman Morrison, a 31-year-old Quaker and father of three, burnt himself to death outside the Pentagon. He was holding his three-year-old daughter when his clothes caught fire, but dropped her just in time. She was rescued unharmed by a passerby. A week later, on 9 November, Roger Allen LaPorte of the Catholic Workers movement burnt himself to death outside the United Nations building in New York. The impact was enormous. Ninety-three per cent of American homes had a TV and Americans could witness these self-immolations in their own front rooms. Fortunately, they were few and far between; mass protest, sit-ins and, ultimately, full-scale riots were found to be a more effective tactic.

Anti-war activists also tried to halt troop trains. In June 1965 protesters held up the 173rd Airborne Brigade who were en route to Saigon. Later that summer the Vietnam Day Committee, formed on the campus of the University of California at Berkeley in the spring, organised further attempts to stop trains. These were unsuccessful, as only a handful of hard-core radicals were prepared to stand in front of a train full of armed troops. Most protesters would only picket local induction centres or march in demonstrations.

On 27 November 1965, a demonstration of 30,000 of the older, quieter protesters took place in Washington, DC. It was organised by SANE, the Committee for a Sane Nuclear Policy. Its most famous member was Dr Benjamin Spock, whose best-selling book
Common Sense Book of Baby and Child Care
was the paediatric bible to the parents of the Vietnam War generation. His presence was a major boost to the anti-war movement's respectability in the public's eyes and attracted many other older liberals. The more radical protesters carrying banners calling for the immediate withdrawal of US troops from Vietnam were persuaded to keep a low profile. The march's leaders made speeches calling for an end to the American troop build-up and condemning both sides for not making any serious effort to find a negotiated settlement.

As these so-called 'peaceniks', later known as 'Vietniks', marched around the White House, their moderate banners called for a 'Supervised Ceasefire' and claimed that 'War Erodes The Great Society'. President Johnson issued a statement the next day saying: 'Dissent is a sign of political vigour'. However, the vigour came, not from the liberals who protested outside the White House, but radicals across the country who had already adopted a new and dramatic form of protest.

In mid-October 1965 David Millar, a 22-year-old Jesuit charity worker in a Bowery soup kitchen, held up his draft card at an anti-war rally in New York City.