Post on 01-Mar-2023
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Drivers of Public Opposition to the Vietnam War
United States in the 20th Century HIST
3409A
Dr. Daniel Macfarlane
April 7th 2014
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The Vietnam War was one of the most controversial, and perhaps
the most divisive, in American history. Nixon’s plea to the great
silent majority of Americans, that unity at home was necessary
for victory in Vietnam, ultimately went unheeded and some feel
that the lack of domestic support for the war was a powerful tool
for intransigent North Vietnamese interlocutors at the
negotiating table1. Similar problems have blighted the United
States in its more recent conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan and
as wars like these increasingly appear to resemble the future of
American warfare it is vitally important to attempt to understand
drivers of U.S public opinion with regards to foreign wars. The
reasons for opposition to the Vietnam War are still hotly
contested today. Some feel that protest played a large part and
was representative of a shift in American morality and values
during the 1960’s and 70’s but others, like Henry Kissinger and
Conrad Black, argue that the opposition to Vietnam was the result
1 Kissinger, Henry. Ending the Vietnam War: A History of America's Involvement in and Extrication from the Vietnam War. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2003.
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of specific aspects of that war, rather than a paradigm shift in
the American consciousness. Black claims, in his biography of
Richard Nixon, that “The (Nixon) administration was faced by a
public that was increasingly tired of seeing body bags return
from Vietnam while no victory or discernible progress looked
remotely likely”2. Similarly Henry Kissinger states in his
reflections on the Vietnam War that, “The vast, decent middle of
the American public had little to nothing in common with those
who waved the flag of Ho Chi Minh and longed to see their country
humiliated… They simply couldn’t any longer support a war in
which young men died for such meagre returns.”3 Both suggest that
American opposition to the war was driven by the combination of
two factors. Firstly the rate of American fatalities in the
conflict and secondly the lack of discernible progress being made
for their sacrifice.
This paper will test the claims made by Black and Kissinger
by comparing fluctuations in American opinion towards Vietnam
with events transpiring on the ground in that war. Gallup polling
2 Black, Conrad. The Invincible Quest: The Life of Richard Milhous Nixon. Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 2007. Print.3 Ending the Vietnam War (2003)
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data will be analysed to this end. Gallup organised polling
throughout the Vietnam War and, among other questions, asked
Americans the following: “Was it a mistake to send troops into
Vietnam?”, and, “Do you approve of the Presidents handling of the
Vietnam War?” If the percentage of people answering these
questions each way rises and falls in correlation with important
events on the ground; like annual fatality rates, major military
setbacks and controversial events within the war, it could be
concluded that opinion was driven by facts unique to the Vietnam
War rather than a fundamental shift in American morality,
philosophy or perspective. This paper shows that this is not the
case. Opposition moved somewhat in lockstep with fatalities but
this trend reverses dramatically in the last two years of the war
suggesting that other factors were at play. Similarly, perceived
strategic progress does not appear to have a statistical
relationship with opposition to the war and the most
controversial incidents of the war appear to have no bearing on
American public opinion. Kissinger and Black make claims that
resonate with the American right, and make logical sense, but the
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Gallup poll data simply does not support their perception of the
drivers of public opposition to the Vietnam War.
It is highly plausible that the visual impact of seeing hundreds
of young men returning home in body bags every month on
television would have a profound psychological impact on the
American public. For that reason the first half of the position
taken by both Black and Kissinger, that opposition to the war was
largely driven by the human cost, has a certain logical appeal.
It also appears to be supported by the memories of William Hogue,
a veteran of the war, who, in an interview with New York State’s
Division of Military and Naval Affairs, said that “as the troop
build-up continued culminating at 500,000 troops, and the
casualties mounted, and there seemed to be little success in
terms of securing the south against the north, the protests grew
larger and in particular were populated more and more not just by
“hippies” but regular clean cut adults”4. His experience supports
4 "Alex Wisnewski Interviewing William P. Hogue, Vietnam Veteran (and NY StateResident for Many Years)." Interview by Alex Witzewski. New York Division of Military & Naval Affairs. DMNA, 6 May 2009. Web. 4 Apr. 2014. <https://dmna.ny.gov/historic/articles/WilliamHogueVietnam_Wisnewski.pdf>
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the idea that, rather than supporting the ideology of the Peace
Movement, the opinion of the American public coincidentally
aligned with theirs due to the destructive nature of the war.
If this was indeed the case, the expectation would be that
base levels of opposition to the war would rise gradually, as the
overall death toll rose, but that fluctuations would occur
whereby opposition would rise dramatically during the most deadly
phases of the conflict, and more gradually as fatalities reduced
after their peak in 1968. In 1968, due largely to the Tet
Offensive, 16,592 American soldiers were killed in combat5. In
this year the rise in opposition to the Vietnam War was dramatic,
8% from 46 to 54%6. External factors should, of course be born in
mind. 1968 was a year of global revolution and Lyndon B.
Johnson’s overall popularity as a president was extremely low.
That said, in this case the correlation does appear to be
evident. 1969 saw the inauguration of a new President, Richard M.
Nixon, and a reduction in death rates of almost 5,000, down to
5 "Statistical Information about Casualties of the Vietnam War." National Archives and Records Administration. National Archives and Records Administration, Aug. 2013. Web. 03 Apr. 2014.6 Public Opinion of the Vietnam War: 1965-2000. Opinion Poll, Conducted: 1968 Rep. New York: Gallup, 2000. Web. 03 Apr. 2014.
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11,7807. Opposition to the war initially dipped to 52% and rose
to 55% by the end of that year8. This initial reduction
correlates with the reduction in deaths and the gradual rise can
be explained by the cumulative effects of an increasing death
toll, even as the rate was reducing. This trend continued almost
identically in 1970 when a reduction of similar scale, to 6,1789,
saw an initial dip in opposition to 52% rise to a new high of 56%
which became 59% by January of the next year10.
1971 saw the announcement of the policy of “Vietnamization”,
a term coined by Secretary of Defence Melvin Laird to describe
the handing over of responsibility to South Vietnamese forces.
With this came a massive 61% reduction in U.S fatalities to
2,21411 men over the course of 1970. This was a serious de-
escalation of the conflict from a U.S perspective and the impact
of the policy itself will be explored in the next section. It is
also important to consider that the 9% drop in opposition, from
7 "Statistical Information about Casualties of the Vietnam War." (2013)8 Public Opinion of the Vietnam War: 1965-2000. Opinion Poll, Conducted: 1969 Rep. New York: Gallup, 2000. Web. 03 Apr. 2014.9 "Statistical Information about Casualties of the Vietnam War." (2013)10 Public Opinion of the Vietnam War: 1965-2000. Opinion Poll, Conducted: 1970 Rep. New York: Gallup, 2000. Web. 03 Apr. 2014.11 "Statistical Information about Casualties of the Vietnam War." (2013)
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59 to 50%12 may have resulted from other factors, like Nixon’s
ability to appeal to patriotism or anger at the extremism of
anti-war protests. However, this correlation does appear to
support the argument for a link between U.S fatalities and
opposition to the war itself.
The final two years represent something of a challenge. The
trend that was, by and large, holding reverses dramatically
during 1972 and 1973. 1972 sees only 759 casualties and 1973 just
6813, although this occurred in just 28 days before the
ceasefire. One would expect such a serious reduction in U.S
casualties to correspond with a reduction in opposition to the
war but the Gallup poll responses showed that opposition rose in
1972 from 53 to 56%14 and was measured at 60% by the only poll of
197315, just days before the signing of the ceasefire. While this
reversal challenges claims that public opinion was linked to
fatality rates it is important, before rejecting this notion
12 Public Opinion of the Vietnam War: 1965-2000. Opinion Poll, Conducted: 1971 Rep. New York: Gallup, 2000. Web. 03 Apr. 2014.13 "Statistical Information about Casualties of the Vietnam War." (2013)14 Public Opinion of the Vietnam War: 1965-2000. Opinion Poll, Conducted: 1972 Rep. New York: Gallup, 2000. Web. 03 Apr. 2014.15 Public Opinion of the Vietnam War: 1965-2000. Opinion Poll, Conducted: 1973 Rep. New York: Gallup, 2000. Web. 03 Apr. 2014.
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outright, to understand a fundamental paradigm shift that
occurred in the war in 1972. In this year the Nixon
administration revealed that Henry Kissinger had been engaged in
secret peace talks with Le Duc Tho and that, according to
Kissinger, peace was at hand. Given that the exact wording of the
Gallup question was “Was it a mistake to send troops to Vietnam?”
it is likely that the knowledge that the U.S was on the verge of
signing a treaty that would leave North Vietnam intact, leave
South Vietnam highly vulnerable and mean that thousands of U.S
troops had died to achieve so little would cause a swell in
negative responses that would overwhelm any reduction in
opposition caused by the reduction in U.S fatalities.
This is, in many ways, the core problem with this thesis.
While public opinion certainly did rise inexorably as the war
went on and while fluctuations did match changes in battle
deaths, up to a point, the last two years demonstrate the impact
that other factors had on American public opinion. In order to
get a fuller and more comprehensive picture of what drove U.S
public opinion on the Vietnam War it is necessary to consider
some of these other factors.
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One such factor is invoked by the second part of the claims
being made by Black and Kissinger. Both feel that it was not only
the amount of deaths that troubled Americans but also the lack of
demonstrable gains being made as a result of them. Americans may
not like seeing their soldiers die but they are surely far more
averse to seeing them die for nothing. The public was initially
very supportive of the war but after 1968 opinion began to turn
against it at a rapid rate. It is possible that this was largely
due to with the fact that America’s war effort was so
unsuccessful in Vietnam. Americans have been conditioned, by a
history of swift and glorious victories, to expect the U.S
military to sweep all before it, as they did in most of the
preceding wars of their history. Vietnam, however, quickly became
seen as a quagmire, with little obvious progress being made
towards victory. According to Daniel C. Hallin, the Vietnam War
was also unprecedented in that media coverage became central to
shaping popular opinion. People had an unprecedented level of
insight and knowledge about the progress of the war. Hallin
states that, “The American news media had come to dominate
domestic opinion about its purpose and conduct. In each night's
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T.V news and each morning's paper the underlying purpose of the
fighting was conveyed. Eventually this contributed to the
impression that we were fighting in military and moral
quicksand"16 . It is, then, theoretically plausible that American
opposition to the war grew as it became clearer to the American
public that very little progress was being made towards victory
and that America was not winning in any meaningful sense.
It is difficult to measure the impact of strategic success
and failure on public opinion because of the fact that the
influence of the media, political commentary and the sometimes
secretive nature of U.S Vietnam policy created a distance between
military perceptions of success and failure and those of the
public. A good example of this is the Tet offensive, which was
negatively perceived by the wider public in spite of the fact
that it caused massive damage to the North Vietnamese, and was
seen as a victory by the military17. This paper will therefore
take public disproval of Presidential policies towards Vietnam as
being evidence of a perception of success or failure. Gallup 16 Hallin, Daniel C. The "Uncensored War": The Media and Vietnam. New York: Oxford UP,1986.17 Black, Conrad. Flight of the Eagle: A Strategic History of the United States.
London: McClelland & Stewart, 2013.
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asked Americans, throughout the war, the question: Do you
approve/ disapprove of Johnson’s/Nixon’s handling of the Vietnam
War? While approval of the policy may not necessarily suggest the
perception that the war is going well, or better than before, it
does suggest that the policies being pursued by the government
are policies which one either supports in theory or believes
successful in practice. One can therefore assume that
disapproving of the Presidents handling of the war implies the
perception that the U.S is failing in Vietnam.
Also worth noting is the fact that, after the first year of
this data sample, the American Presidency changed hands from
Johnson, who left with historically low popularity, and Nixon,
who was chosen by a small majority of the American electorate.
This is an explanation for the disparity between the 1968 and
1969 levels of approval for the President’s policies. Johnson had
pursued a confused policy towards Vietnam. He had escalated and
“Americanized” the war, he had ordered bombing pauses that served
to give Ho Chi Minh time to recover and he had failed to gain any
concession or make any progress in negotiations with the North
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Vietnamese18. This strategic approach to Vietnam was clearly not
considered greatly successful by the large plurality of 46%,
dropping from a high of 54%19, responding negatively to the
Gallup poll. This coincided with the aforementioned 8% rise in
opposition to the war and supports the idea that opposition to
the war was linked with a belief in American strategic failure on
the ground.
President Nixon took office after a campaign in which the
Vietnam War was central. “Nixon claimed throughout the campaign
to that he had a secret plan for ending the Vietnam War, often
patting his breast pocket as though the plan were being kept
there, and the American people initially gave him the chance to
put this plan into action”20 . This may account for the drop in
disapproval that occurs when Nixon takes office, from 46% before
his inauguration to 26% after it and 25% by the end of 196921. It
may also be the result of public approval for the introduction of
Vietnamization. This presents an interesting question which is
central to the validity of Kissinger’s claim in particular. He 18 Ending the Vietnam War (2003).19 Carroll, Joseph. The Iraq-Vietnam Comparison. Rep. New York: Gallup, 200420 The Invincible Quest (2007)21 The Iraq-Vietnam Comparison (2000)
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felt that Americans were frustrated by the lack of success in the
war but did not wish to see the United State defeated of
humiliated. Vietnamization appears to have been a popular policy,
due to the low levels of disapproval for Richard Nixon, but
opposition to the war continued to grow gradually over this year.
It is therefore possible that the popularity of Vietnamization
stemmed from the fact that it involved major troop withdrawals
and the promise of an exit from Vietnam. This might suggest that
the American people did not in fact care anymore about winning
the war but rather wanted to see their troops come home as soon
as possible. This would put them far more on the side of the
Peace Movement than that of Kissinger or Black.
1970 saw a dramatic rise in Nixon’s disapproval rate from
24% to 33%22, in spite of a massive reduction in casualties. 1970
was not a year of major policy announcements in the U.S.A as
Vietnamization continued at a consistent pace. Although Henry
Kissinger had been sent to open up secret peace talks with the
North Vietnamese, a major development in the war, this would not
have been known to the American people until it was announced two
22 The Iraq-Vietnam Comparison (2000)
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years later. The major event of that year, with regards to
perceptions of U.S success in Vietnam, was the coup d’Etat in
Cambodia in which the friendly Prince Sinhaouk was usurped by the
pro-Western, but weak and unpopular Lom Nol23. This was a major
setback for the Americans, not only because it opened Cambodia to
full on infiltration by the North Vietnamese, but also because
Sinhaouk decided to pledge support to China in the hope that they
would re-instate him as Prince24. This major setback coincided
with the expansion of the war into Vietnam, which will be
discussed later, but not with a major jump in opposition to the
war. By the end of 1970 opposition was only 1% higher than it had
been in 196925.
1971 began with a major North Vietnamese victory in the
battle of Ban Dong which coincided with a jump to 46% in
disapproval for Nixon’s handling of the war26. It is impossible
to know how much of this was due to this strategic setback and
how much was due to anger at Nixon’s attempt to subdue the facts
exposed in the Pentagon papers about the Gulf of Tonkin 23 Ending the Vietnam War (2003)24 Ending the Vietnam War (2003)25 Public Opinion of the Vietnam War-1970 (2013)26 The Iraq-Vietnam Comparison (2000)
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Resolution and other aspects of American involvement in Vietnam.
Over the rest of the year disapproval dropped to 40% as troops
were regularly withdrawn and a certain level of stability was
maintained across the country. In this year public opposition to
the war also fell dramatically from 59%, possibly an anomalous
high caused by the Pentagon Papers, and ended the year at 50%27.
Opposition to the war does, in this case, seem generally to
correlate with approval of the President’s handling of the war
but as before it is hard to say whether this is the result of a
perception of success in the war, or whether it is the result of
troop withdrawals and reductions in U.S casualties.
1972 is an interesting year with regards to both the Vietnam
War and American domestic politics. That year saw a drop in both
disapproval of the President and opposition to the war. The
repulsion of the 1972 Easter Offensive was a major strategic
victory for the U.S.A because most of the fighting was done by
the South Vietnamese and what seemed to be a last ditch invasion
attempt by the North Vietnamese was repelled, albeit with higher
27 Public Opinion of the Vietnam War-1971 (2013)
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South Vietnamese casualties. The drop in opposition to the
President’s handling of the war from 40% to 33%28 also happened
to coincide with his revelation of the secret peace talks and the
claim by Kissinger that “peace is at hand”. A relatively
successful year from U.S perspectives, with a massive drop in
casualties, progress in negotiations and strategic victories over
the North Vietnamese, coincided with a drop in disapproval but
also a rise in public opposition to the war from 53% to 56%29.
While this is a smaller rise than was witnessed in some other
years, it does remain problematic. The impact of the peace talks
on opposition to the war has been discussed at length in
preceding sections. In fact this appears to conform to the idea
that once victory was off the table, opposition to the war rose
along with approval for progress towards peace. It is likely,
then, that the public approved less of the repulsion of the
Easter Offensive than they did the peace talks and the de-
escalation of the conflict. Another factor to consider, with
regards to approval of Nixon, is that this was an election year
and it is likely that Nixon’s supporters would have rallied
28 The Iraq-Vietnam Comparison (2000)29 Public Opinion of the Vietnam War-1972 (2013)
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behind him in the polls as America geared up for an election that
Nixon would win very handily.
This trend, where opposition to the war rises along with
approval for movement towards an exit, continues into the next
year. A peak of 60% opposition to the war30 probably resulted
from frustration at difficulties getting prisoners of war
released after the war had already been given up in the Paris
Peace Accords. Once “Operation Homecoming” successfully brought
America out of Vietnam Nixon, whose disapproval ratings reached
46%, suddenly found that disapproval for his policy towards
Vietnam had dropped to just 18%31. This would appear to suggest
that in the last two years of the war, after the announcement of
the peace talks, the American public approved mainly of steps
that would remove troops from Vietnam and did not appear overly
responsive to military or strategic successes and failures.
This challenges the second half of Kissinger’s and Black’s
assertions about the motives for opposition to the Vietnam War.
The American public, initially, does not often appear to be
30 Public Opinion of the Vietnam War-1973 (2013)31 The Iraq-Vietnam Comparison (2000)
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responsive in their opposition to the war to the successes or
failures of strategy in Vietnam. Even when disapproval of
American Vietnam policy dropped dramatically, as Nixon took over
from Johnson, opposition rose steadily. Popular policies like
Vietnamization had as little bearing on changes in opposition to
the war as major setbacks like the coup in Cambodia or the defeat
at Ban Dong. The most significant occasion on which decreases in
opposition to the war coincided with reductions in disapproval of
the Presidents handling of the war happened to coincide with the
revelation of the policy of Vietnamization, a policy that
promised to bring troops home in large numbers. The statistics
show that the American public were far less responsive to
strategic or military success than they were towards progress in
peace negotiations. Particularly after 1972 it appears that the
American public were far more interested in getting out of the
war than in winning it. While this does not necessarily put the
wider public in the camp of the Peace Movement it does challenge
the idea that the “silent majority” had nothing in common with
the protestors and that they were solely opposed to the fact that
America was gaining so little in return for so many lives.
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Another consequence of the unprecedented exposure of the
American people to the war was public awareness of the
destruction being caused by the war and in particular some of the
atrocities committed by American forces in Vietnam. This
explanation for the extreme divisiveness of and virulent
opposition to the Vietnam War lies in something that is not
directly proposed by Black or Kissinger but would support their
basic assumption. In this case opposition would not be result of
agreement with the Peace Movement but would convey the impact of
the media on the Vietnam War. This war was the first to be
followed on television by a majority of Americans almost as it
happened. It was not quite the “CNN War” but it was certainly a
more publicly scrutinized war than others. This may explain why
this war was more controversial and elicited more anger than the
now longer Afghan war or the more costly Second World War. Being
able to see more about the reality of war and particularly being
exposed to some of the more unsavoury aspects of American
behaviour in Vietnam may well have had a profound impact on
American perspectives of the war. This would probably not
represent a fundamental change in American values but would
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rather be the result of changes in media and public exposure to
war, thereby supporting the spirit of Black and Kissinger’s
perspectives.
There certainly seems to be a perception among certain
veterans that portions of the public were concentrating their
anger on certain U.S actions in Vietnam rather than considering
the bigger picture. On the 40th anniversary of the end of the
war, the Daily Mail conducted interviews with a number of
veterans from the conflict. For Example, Air force Srgt. Kern
stated that "the news media only showed the bad things the
military was doing over there...A lot of combat troops would give
their c rations to Vietnamese children, but you never saw
anything about that."32 Similarly Wayne Reynolds, an Army medic,
claims that 'I was literally spat on in Chicago in the airport,
No one spoke out in my favor"33 . This seems to suggest that the
experience of many returning veterans supports the idea that the
American public, or at least significant parts of it, were
32 Kern, Howard. "Americans Remember Vietnam War 40 Years after Last US TroopsWere Pulled from Bloody Battlefield." Interview by Helen Pow. The Daily Mail [London] 29 Mar. 2013: n. pag.33 Reynolds, Wayne. "Americans Remember Vietnam War 40 Years after Last US Troops Were Pulled from Bloody Battlefield." Interview by Helen Pow. The Daily Mail [London] 29 Mar. 2013: n. pag.
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horrified by what they saw on television and formed opinions
about the war based on it.
In order to explore this possibility, the impact of major
events in the war, particularly the most negatively perceived
ones like the My Lai massacre and the violation of Cambodian
neutrality, and the changes they created in public opposition to
the war will be measured in the aftermath of these events. One
would expect that, if this explanation is valid, opposition to
the war would rise dramatically after the Cambodian incursion and
the My Lai massacre and in the polls following them, one would
expect atypically high increases in public opposition to the war.
However, this simply does not occur. In November of 1969, news of
the My Lai massacre filtered into the consciousness of the
American people. This massacre was undoubtedly morally
reprehensible. Whereas the Tet Offensive was a defensive act
countering North Vietnamese imperialist aggression, the My Lai
massacre was an indefensible slaughter of innocent civilians.
Today it is often held up as an example for moral condemnation of
the United States. In spite of this, the Gallup poll immediately
after the massacre became public knowledge, in late November
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1969, shows a 6% decrease in opposition to the war, from 57% to
51%34. This problematizes the assertion that revulsion to the
grim reality of war drove up opposition to the Vietnam War. If
the American public were not driven to increased opposition to
the war by the My Lai massacre it is unlikely that U.S atrocities
contributed to the rise in opposition to the war. Even though the
Cambodian Excursion of 29th April 1970, whose morality is still
hotly contested, preceded a 5% rise in public opposition to the
war, from 51% to 56%35 , it is probable, in light of the lack of
response to My Lai, that this was driven more by the strategic
setback that having to expand the war represented rather than
horror at the, arguable, violation of an, arguably, neutral
country.
It is therefore not possible to statistically support the
notion that public opposition was a visceral reaction to the
broadcasting of warfare, with all its horrors, into the homes of
Americans. Opposition sometimes rose when news of carnage and
morally dubious activity was heard. However, this was not always
34 Public Opinion of the Vietnam War-1969 (2013)35 Public Opinion of the Vietnam War-1970 (2013)
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the case. Most strikingly, after the My Lai Massacre became
known, there was in fact a drop in opposition to the war. It is,
therefore, impossible to accept this explanation for the level of
opposition created by the war in Vietnam. Interestingly, however,
this also challenges the notion that moral outrage at America’s
conduct in the war drove opposition to the war, challenging the
notion that the American people fundamentally changed in their
attitudes towards U.S militarism.
In conclusion, the picture painted by polling data from the
Vietnam War suggests that the drivers of public opinion are far
more diverse and complex than those allowed for by Kissinger or
Black. To state that opposition was due simply to the large loss
of American lives and the lack of significant progress in a
difficult war is not consistent with changes in American
opposition to the war. There is a general correlation between
fatality levels and opposition to the war. It trended upwards at
a fairly steady rate and that rate was more accelerated in the
most deadly years of the war than in some of the more stable
ones. However, in the last two years, after the secret peace
negotiations were revealed and the American abandonment of
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Vietnam became imminent, this trend reversed with rapidly rising
opposition in spite of relatively small numbers of deaths. This
suggests that there was more to anti-war sentiments than
revulsion at the loss of American life. Similarly the contention
that the lack of discernible progress towards victory drove
opposition to the war does not consistently match the empirical
evidence. Public opposition to the war does not seem to respond
to major strategic setbacks or gains except in 1972, when it may
well have been motivated by the idea of ending the war, through
Vietnamization, rather than winning it. Nor is it empirically
accurate to claim that exposure to the carnage of war and
American atrocities, through television media, had a profound
impact on American opposition to the war. Although a rise in
opposition followed the morally debatable, but certainly not
indefensible, Cambodian incursion of 1970 there was actually a
drop in opposition to the war after the American public became
aware of the indefensible and morally outrageous My Lai massacre.
In order to understand what really made the Vietnam War so
devisive and what made opposition to it so passionate it will be
necessary for future scholars to look deeper than the
Marcus Charlesworth 26
explanations offered by Kissinger and Black. Consideration of the
role of partisan newspapers, domestic political upheavals,
coverage of the anti-war movement and the often unreasonably
personal hatred of some for Richard Nixon would perhaps provide a
richer and more comprehensive explanation for the drivers of U.S
public opposition to the Vietnam War than those explored in these
papers.
Marcus Charlesworth 27
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