Sharpy
ENC 1102, 9 a.m. MWF
Lucas
Final Draft of Research Paper
3 25 92

              The Peace Movement of the Vietnam War Era

     When most of us think of a peace movement, we remember the
days of the Vietnam War and the protests in the streets of major
cities and on the campuses of colleges and universities across
America. The images brought to mind are ones of draft card burnings,
sit ins and of flower children defiantly placing their flowers into
the gun barrels of national guardsmen. The resurrection of the peace
symbol in recent years has sparked a renewed interest in the
activities of that movement.
     The escalation of the Vietnam Conflict (it was never declared
a war by an Act of Congress) was the catalyst for different forms
of protest, mainly among many young adults who desired major
reforms in the handling of domestic problems and foreign affairs.
The indiscriminate use by the U.S. government of its military to
force its very unclear policies on a tiny nation like Vietnam
especially at the expense of the lives of our young men with no
choice in the matter  epitomized everything that was wrong with a
system gone mad with human rights violations inside and outside the
country.
     The most notable part of the antiwar coalition, the student
movement (or, as it had become known by the mid sixties, the New
Left) was comprised of the Students for a Democratic Society and
the Student Non Violent Coordination Committee. The sit in became
their Chief method of demonstration. The subsequent assaults and
Brutality by police on these mostly middle class students involved
in the freedom struggle caused a change in the way they saw the
lives of the oppressed. No longer blind to the plight of the civil
rights activists of the day, they now perceived the work of men
like Martin Luther King Jr. as only a small part of a bigger
problem. It was an enlightening experience which helped them see
that the enemy was right here at home (Wittner 279).
     The new awareness on the part of these students resulted in
attempts to join hands with other groups on the Left  civil rights
organizations, anti war groups, black militants and radical labor.
These efforts, however, were fruitless. For example, the National
Conference for New Politics, which met in Chicago in the fall of
1967, was a complete failure. It only exposed the differences in
priorities between the factions, and the Conference wavered between
anarchy and elitism (Finn 503). Any agreements between cival rights
activists and the peaceniks were on an individual basis, and were
attributed to the desire for love and brotherhood, not the antiwar
effort.
     It can be argued here that if it were not for the civil rights
movement, there would have been no antiwar demonstrations at all.
The antiwar tools  sit ins, marches and demonstrations  were copies
of the methods used by King. However, the civil rights movement    
might have benefitted from the publicity gained by the predominantly
white peaceniks, because this helped to condition the American
people to accept change through their reassessment of human values
("Chemistry..." 16).
     One of the values tested by some was the fundamental belief that
a person has the right to choose whether to take up arms against
another human being. Conscientious objectors had diverse reasons
for not wanting to shoot at someone. Some said it was not self
defense, it was murder.  Others declared the war's lack of a true
cause as a reason not to join the ranks of the brave, who did it for
God and Country.
     The guilt carried by the conscientious objectors in the ensuing
years was very real. Most, however, have come to grips with these
feelings. For example, Larry Voeller was a conscientious objector
during the war, and in his gruelling efforts to analyze what
transpired in those days, he has realized a  similarity between
himself and Vietnam veterans:

          I have talked to some Vietnam veterans who say they felt
       guilty when their buddies were blown away and they
       survived. `There for the grace of God'...that maxim was
       our mantra then. Though the specifics were different, our
       reactions to what we did and what happened to us are
       almost the same. (Voeller 8)

     The pressure felt by the conscientious objectors was typical of
the suffering endured by the Peace Movement at the hands of an
American public that, since the American Revolution, had come to
believe their government could do no wrong, that it had the blessings
of God almighty and was totally justified in whatever it did. It was
this blind faith that fueled the hatred between the New Left and the
conservatives.
     The generation gap thus created was felt throughout the country,
with our own Bay County area no exception. This was evident in a
letter written by a local resident to the editor of the Panama City
Herald:

           No person should be allowed to attend college with the
        appearance of a savage, and any college student who           
        creates disturbances in the college should be expelled
        and his record furnished to all other colleges...Recently       
        one of the officials of a Florida college openly and            
        publicly asked the students and teachers to overthrow and       
        take over the state owned college. I say any teacher or         
        professor in the schools and colleges of this country           
        which are teaching communism or the overthrow of our            
        country and colleges should not only be fired from their        
        job but tried for treason. ("Lawbreakers..." A:4)

     The reference here to the appearance and behavior of the student
protestors gives a clue to one reason why the anti war movement
failed. Their efforts to intentionally shock and offend with their
long hair, pot smoking and total disregard for established
institutions might have prevented the working class and rural people
from taking a firm stand against the war (Clotfelter167). Their
attempts to bring national attention to their cause in these ways
ultimately discredited, in the eyes of many, an otherwise viable
argument.
     Friction within the movement also contributed to the problems.
At a national meeting of the Student Mobilization Committee in June,
1968, a split occurred. One of the factions wanted to concentrate the
efforts of the organization on antiwar demonstrations, while the
others desired opposition of the draft and racism
("Student Peace..." A:3).  This kind of disagreement about what
should be the primary mission of the Peace Movement was central to
the conservatives' view that the antiwar movement as a whole was not
to be taken seriously, that it was not an exercise in democracy, but
a fiasco which served only to embarrass the American public.
     However disappointing these conflicts of interest were, the
movement left its mark. The seeds of peace were sown throughout the
world, and humanity has since been forced to look twice at matters
concerning individual rights and freedom of expression. Women's
Rights, Gay Rights and some Indian tribes, for instance, have
received much needed attention to their causes.  These types of
organizations draw strong criticism, but they are not openly attacked
by the military and police, thanks to the pioneering efforts of the
anti war demonstrators.  We still have a long way to go, though, if
we are to have a lasting domestic and international peace. And we
Americans have the biggest job ahead of us.
     Perhaps this point is best forwarded by William Sloane Coffin,
who was a leader in the anti Vietnam war movement and the civil rights
struggle:

           There are things in us today that we must bury, just as        
        the Soviets are trying to bury Stalinism, and the Chinese      
        Maoism. Probably the hardest thing for us is going to be       
        the understanding and feeling...that somehow the U.S. is       
        morally superior to every other country in the world.          
        This innocence about our misdeeds, not understanding that      
        we've been accomplices in the very evils we profess to         
        abhor, that's got to be buried. (Ungeheuer 76)

     The antiwar effort was a failure. But it gave us the assurance
that America can withstand criticism from within its own boundaries.
This relief from the fear of collapse will prove to be a valuable
tool in the worldwide quest for peace. It will become fashionable
among world leaders as they listen to the voice of their people to
work together to achieve compromise and a meaningful, lasting end to
conflict everywhere.