05/09/2024 ****************************************************** The following is only my OPINION based on my memories, and it's been a long time :-) I Googled a few things to refresh my memory and get some exact dates on things. I appreciate others might remember or interpret things very differently than I do. I respect that, and I don't want to get in any arguments with anybody - please just take this or leave it as it is. I was playing some anti Viet Nam War protest songs last week because current protests reminded me about them. ***************** As I thought about it, I don't think ANY of the 1960s protests did ANYTHING in terms of ENDING the war. The war lasted almost 20 years - I remember about the last dozen of those years. I honestly think the "powers-that-be" totally ignored those protests and just did what they wanted to do. ***************** The oldest thing I remember about the Viet Nam War was a Buddhist Monk committing suicide by lighting himself on fire to protest the treatment of Buddhists by the Vietnamese government. It was the summer before sixth grade (June 11, 1963). My brother told me it was no big deal for them, because Buddhists believed in reincarnation, but it still impressed me as pretty intense! ***************** 1968 was a pivotal year for the Viet Nam War. And it was the CRAZIEST year of my life - (in terms of major events that is - not me personally :-) Most years have one BIG THING happening in them. Like last year was the start of Israel/Palestine war (2023). The year before Russia invaded Ukraine (2022). Covid-19 in 2020, and so forth. But usually there's just -ONE- BIG THING in a year - like 9-11 in 2001, or the JFK assassination in 1963, etc. But 1968 had about a DOZEN BIG THINGS in it! It was ALL CRAZYTOWN! - REALLY, REALLY CRAZYTOWN! I even thought that way at the time. - This CAN'T be a normal year! - The world can't take this! ***************** Here's a list of stuff in 1968: (okay not eveerything was BIG - but a lot were!) From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1968 ***************** Assassinations of Martin Luther King (followed by race riots over it) and Robert F. Kennedy. Things like the Pueblo Incident - North Korea grabbed one of our spi ships and held the crew prisoner. The "Prague Spring" which then ended with Russia crushing Czechoslovakia. The Thule accident - a U.S. bomber carrying four hydrogen bombs crashed in Greenland. The bombs ruptured spreading radioactivity all over the place. Three winning black athletes raise their fists in a "black power" salute at the Mexico City summer Olympics. Apollo 8 orbited the moon with three astronauts onboard as the final big test before the Moon Landing in 1969. And so on and so on. Any one of which would have been big enough! ***************** Anyway, in 1968 there was still a fair amount of support for the war in the general public. Nobody WANTS war, but people were sort of resigned to it by then, at least to some extent. At the end of 1967, Gen. Westmooreland, the top U.S. commander in Viet Nam came back and told Congress the war was essentially over - WE WON! - we had crushed the Viet Cong (the "commie bad guys") and it was just a matter of mopping things up - it was really, basically over. WOW! WHAT GREAT NEWS! Trouble was, the first BIG THING of 1968, was the Tet Offensive in January. The ENTIRE country of Viet Nam EXPLODED with Viet Cong attacks EVERYWHERE! And we didn't see any of it coming! It created what was called, "the credibility gap". It suddenly appeared that our government was LYING to us about what was REALLY going on over there - they said everything was going great but it was really going bad - VERY, VERY BAD! CBS evening news anchor Walter Cronkite, "the most trusted man in America", reported from Viet Nam: “To say that we are closer to victory today is to believe, in the face of evidence, the optimists who have been wrong in the past. To suggest we are on the edge of defeat is to yield to unreasonable pessimism. To say that we are mired in stalemate seems the only realistic, yet unsatisfactory, conclusion. . . . But it is increasingly clear to this reporter that the only rational way out then will be to negotiate, not as victors, but as an honorable people who lived up to their pledge to defend democracy, and did the best they could.” –Walter Cronkite (February 27, 1968) That helped lead to LBJ announcing that he wouldn't run for reelection (1968 was a election year). “If I’ve lost Cronkite, I’ve lost Middle America.” - LBJ. Supposedly, during the Battle of Bến, an unnamed American Major was reported to have uttered the famous quote "It became necessary to destroy the town to save it." In March, another BIG THING was the My Lai Massacre. U.S. soldiers under Lt. William Calley, MURDERED an entire village of 504 unarmed Vietnamese civilians. That was a pretty shocking war crime! After all we're ALWAYS the "good guys", aren't we? Weren't we there to HELP those people? In May, another BIG THING, the Paris Peace Talks between the U.S. and North Vietnam opened - and stalled. ***************** But I think the real kicker BIG THING in 1968 was the Chicago Democratic Convention in late August. The networks were all there in force of course, to provide live television coverage. The anti-war protesters were also there in force to protest. I think they had the misguided notion that all the TV publicity would help their anti-war cause. The networks turned their cameras outside and saw hundreds of police clubbing hundreds of hippies - all in prime time - live and in color! All this REALLY did was just to SCARE most of the people watching it at home on their TV sets. In 1968 people still had a high regard for the police. If a policeman was seen having to club people to subdue them, the benefit of the doubt went to the policeman. The people being clubbed must deserve it - they must be really BAD people - real CRIMINALS - real LAW BREAKERS - people doing something REALLY bad. After all the police wouldn't do THAT if they didn't HAVE TO, right? And Chicago looks a lot like my hometown - those hippies might be coming HERE next! OH NO! ***************** As I recall, the 1968 election WASN'T so much about the war as it was about "LAW AND ORDER" - putting an end to all that chaos! (Anti war protests - Civil Rights protests and riots). Nixon promised it, George Wallace (third party) promised it. Nixon's "silent majority", the -good- people, supported the war, they weren't against it - they certainly didn't support those radical hippies. They wanted that to stop. ***************** In 1968 Nixon did say he had a "secret plan to end the war". What was it? - He can't tell you - it's secret. However, in the next four years, in spite of growing protests, Nixon never did end the war. So much for his "secret plan". ***************** The public did sour on the war, but I think it had more to do with the body count than the protests. In World War II there were distinct fronts. Our soldiers landed in Normandy and pushed on to Berlin. Territory was taken, cities liberated, people freed. The same in the Pacific with our "island hopping" on the way to Tokyo. There were RESULTS - PROGRESS was being made - VICTORY was being achieved. Viet Nam wasn't like that - AT ALL. It was just a "holding action". We were just denying the Viet Cong from taking over. And to what end? Every week had a steady drone of the body count on the evening news, like some nagging national headache that was ALWAYS there. So many dead Americans this week, making it so many for the month and so many for the year - week after week - month after month - year after year - with no end in sight! Where was the PROGRESS? Where were the RESULTS? Where were the VICTORIES? Nixon talked about "Vietnamization", turning the war over to the Vietnamese and starting U.S. troop withdrawals - but it was painfully slow - (if it was really happening at all). After a while everybody knew somebody who died over there. Two guys from my neighborhood were killed there, I didn't know them very well, but I knew who they were. One of them had been an older boy in my Boy Scout Troop. They were real people - NOT just statistics. The "light at the end of the tunnel" seemed a to be a cruel illusion. ***************** What we know NOW that we didn't know in 1968 - "The Chennault Affair". It came out just a few years ago, from released LBJ White House documents, that LBJ was about to announce an agreed upon, ALL party, PEACE AGREEMENT in OCTOBER 1968 - effectively ENDING THE VIET NAM WAR. LBJ even stopped the bombing of the north in October as a sign of good faith in preparation of the signing. But Nixon communicated to the South Vietnamese NOT to go through with it - that they'd get a BETTER deal from him if he got elected. Paris Peace Accords From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paris_Peace_Accords#:~:text=One%20of%20the%20largest%20hurdles,to%20acknowledge%20the%20legitimacy%20of "Johnson found out through the NSA and was enraged saying that Nixon had "blood on his hands" and that Senate Minority Leader Everett Dirksen agreed with Johnson that such action was "treason." Defense Secretary Clark Clifford considered the moves an illegal violation of the Logan Act." ***************** The Logan Act bans unauthorized ordinary citizens from engaging in or interfering with negotiations between the U.S. and foreign governments. It was signed into law by President John Adams in 1799. ***************** “Let’s declare victory and get out.” - George Aiken (1966) I think that what ACTUALLY ended the war was that Nixon got in trouble in the Watergate Scandal and hoped that ending the war would boost his popularity enough so he could survive politically and stay in power. He basically took the deal LBJ had in 1968. Except, of course, it was now 1973. Five years and 20,000 U.S. dead later. By 1975 it finally all fell apart, with the U.S. gone, the Viet Cong and North Vietnamese overran the south. We watched on TV as the U.S. embassy was evacuated by helicopters to ships off the coast. And then it was over. ***************** The Viet Nam War was more than just 1968, but I think 1968 was the key year in understanding all of it. ****************************************************** Stay Jazzed! --Tom Swezey --