Drivers of Public Opposition to the Vietnam War

Marcus Charlesworth 1

Drivers of Public Opposition to the Vietnam War

United States in the 20th Century HIST

3409A

Dr. Daniel Macfarlane

April 7th 2014

Marcus Charlesworth


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.


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)


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


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>


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.


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)


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.


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.


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


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.


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


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)


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)


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)


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)


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)


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)


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.


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


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.


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


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)


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


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


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.


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Drivers of Public Opposition to the Vietnam War

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