While there had been a long history in the United States of popular resistance to foreign wars, such as the Anti-Imperialist League’s campaign against the U.S. invasion of the Philippines in the early 20th century, the movement against the Vietnam War was unprecedented in scope. There already was a small peace movement prior to the escalation of U.S. involvement in Vietnam, based primarily on concerns around nuclear proliferation, particularly nuclear testing. This movement was led primarily by the Committee for Sane Nuclear Policy (SANE) established in 1957, but also included the pacifist Committee for Nonviolent Action (CNVA), founded that same year, and Women’s Strike for Peace (WSP). The early opposition to the Vietnam War was largely restricted to pacifists and leftists empowered by the successful application of strategic nonviolent action in the U.S. Civil Rights Movement. Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) emerged in 1960, espousing a democratic socialist vision and opposition to militarism and soon became primarily focused on ending the war. The first major protests began in 1964 and quickly gained strength as the war escalated. Starting at the University of Michigan, “teach-ins” on the Vietnam War modeled after seminars raising consciousness in support of the Civil Rights Movement, brought in thousands of participants. In addition to national protests, which attracted tens of thousands to Washington, DC, there were acts of civil disobedience that became more widespread over time, including sit-ins on the steps of the Pentagon, draft induction centers, and railroad tracks transporting troops, as well as the public burning of draft cards.
Opposition increased in tandem with the escalation of the war, as body counts escalated, reports of atrocities against civilians circulated, draft calls increased, and prospects of a U.S. victory dissipated. In particular, military conscription began to impact a growing number of working and middle class families and helped mobilize college students, who faced the prospects of being sent to Vietnam soon after graduation. Recruiters for the military as well as companies associated with the war—such as Dow Chemical, the chief manufacturer of napalm—were increasingly met by protesters when they came to campuses. In 1967, 300,000 marched in New York City and 50,000 protesters descended on the Pentagon, with over 700 being arrested. A national organization of draft resisters is formed in 1967, calling itself the Resistance, as many thousands were jailed, fled to sanctuary in Canada, or went underground. Young people increasingly fused political opposition with cultural experimentation, defying traditional American norms. Surveillance, smear campaigns and staged support rallies were organized by government agencies to inhibit the growth of the movement and media coverage was largely unsympathetic, yet by the end of 1967, public support for the war dropped to barely one-third of the population.
U.S. troop levels in Vietnam peaked in 1968 at 540,000, with more than 300 Americans being killed every week. Despite this, an NLF/North Vietnamese offensive at the end of January underscored the unwinnability of the war. The nomination of pro-war candidates by the two major political parties despite widespread anti-war sentiments, combined with violent police actions against anti-war demonstrators at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago and elsewhere, served to further radicalize the anti-war movement. A countercultural group calling themselves the Yippies staged innovative actions and guerrilla theater, radical priests raided offices of draft boards destroying records, and prominent veterans of the civil rights struggle, including Martin Luther King, Jr., became increasingly outspoken against the war. The news media began to become more skeptical in its war coverage and mainstream churches and unions began to speak out more boldly. Blockades of thoroughfares and other forms of nonviolent direct action became increasingly common. These pressures forced the Johnson administration to begin peace talks with the North Vietnamese and NLF and to suspend the bombing of North Vietnam.
What cohesion existed in the anti-war movement declined in the coming years despite a popular wave of energy and support, as many activists embraced far left ideologies, countercultural lifestyles, or abandoned their commitment to nonviolent tactics. Still, three million people participated in demonstrations as part of the Moratorium on the War in October 1969 across the country and half a million protested in Washington, DC the following month.
President Nixon’s hopes that the gradual withdrawal of troops and a concomitant decline in draft rolls would diminish the anti-war movement were shattered with the U.S. decision to invade Cambodia in the spring of 1970, which resulted in large-scale protests. Tensions between the anti-war movement and the U.S. government escalated further when six college students were killed and dozens wounded in anti-war demonstrations at Kent State University and Jackson State University. Hundreds of colleges and universities shut down from student strikes and occupations of campus buildings and other disruptions forced a withdrawal of U.S. ground forces from Cambodia less than eight weeks after the initial invasion.
Desertions and mutinies within the U.S. armed forces made prosecution of the war increasingly difficult. Three quarters of a million people marched on Washington in April of 1971, followed in early May by tens of thousands of protesters attempting to shut down government operations in the nation’s capital in early May by blockading bridges and thoroughfares. Further revelations of massacres of Vietnamese civilians by U.S. troops, systematic deceptions of the public and Congress by the administration, torture of political prisoners in South Vietnam, and domestic spying on U.S. citizens alienated the U.S. public further from U.S. government policy. However, increasingly violent protests—while still representing only a small minority of the movement—ended up alienating most Americans from the anti-war cause as well. Government agents would routinely infiltrate anti-war groups, encouraging them to use violence in order to marginalize the movement further.
Despite a brief upsurge in protests following and resumption of the air war against North Vietnam in the spring of 1972, the factionalization of the movement and the withdrawal of most U.S. forces led to a decline in protests. Still, the anti-war movement did force the United States to sign a peace treaty, withdraw its remaining forces, and end the draft in early 1973. Continued U.S. support for the Thieu dictatorship in Saigon and the breakdown of the cease-fire led to small ongoing protests, leading Congress to finally refuse additional U.S. aid to the South Vietnamese regime as the final NLF/North Vietnamese offensive forced the regime’s collapse in April of 1975. Vietnam was reunified under communist rule two years later.
By the end of the war, the U.S. anti-war movement had amassed an impressive record of nonviolent action. Over a decade of organizing, actions had included mass protests and vigils; sit-ins, occupations, and blockades; conscientious objection, draft resistance and desertion; guerrilla theater; obstruction of military recruiters, arms shipments and personnel; petitioning and letter-writing campaigns; destruction of draft files.
