Professor farber now teaches at the university of kansas. Offersan history tv students a seat in the classroom. This fall semester marks the 10th anniversary of its debut. Prof. Farber so weve been talking these last few weeks out loud about a few core issues that have in many ways given thematic intensity to the 1960s era. Weve been trying to think about the meaning and reality of equality in the United States in the 1960s era. Weve been pondering what Democratic Practice could and should look like in the United States, and then very pertinent to what well do today, what role the United States should play internationally. What role should the United States play in a world that was fast changing in the 1960s . So weve gotten to the point in this class where weve reached a point where president johnson has decided by early 1965 to begin a forthright military intervention by the United States in vietnam. And the reasons have been fairly compellingly laid out by johnson between 1964 and 1965. With the gulf of tonkin resolution in 1964, the president made his case that there was aggression coming from North Vietnam pointed at the south, and pointed at the United States as well in the attack on u. S. Ships in International Waters on that gulf of tonkin. And remember it is really important to understand when this resolution was brought before congress, every Single Member of the house of representatives, republican or democrat, liberal or conservative, from the south or from the north, all of them voted to approve this resolution in the house of representatives. In the senate, only two senators voted against the gulf of tonkin resolution. And they had very different reasons. One was a liberal republican. That is kind of an oxymoron in 2010 language. There were such things in the 1960s. A senator named senator morse from oregon, he smelled a rat. He had a source that said something was amiss about what johnson was telling the American People. About the incident in the gulf of tonkin. The other guy was a curmudgeon senator from alaska, the new state of alaska. It had only just become a United States state. And this guy, senator gruning, was a kind of hardnosed realist. He was doing a cost benefit analysis. His critique was, i dont get it. Why does it make sense for the United States to spend blood and treasure going to vietnam . There was no big moral critique. There was no larger issue about the meaning of americanness. It didnt add up for him. But again, these are two senators. Theres almost no visible critique as johnson launches what will quickly become an american war in vietnam. There were a few other voices, a few public voices that raised questions, mostly from that realist perspective. Does this add up . Its an Election Year in 1964. Johnson and goldwater, the republican and the democrat running for president , are both emphasizing this. Overwhelmingly what americans heard in their public lives, what their politicians were telling them, what their politicians believed was that the war in vietnam was justifiable and necessary. Now, johnson hammers this home in february 1965. After the pleiku incident in which for the first time American Marines were targeted, and eight of them were killed in their role protecting an american air base in vietnam. He goes on National Television to really make the case, not just for a resolution to allow the United States to move forward, but to tell the American People because of the aggression by the north, North Vietnam, because the defense of South Vietnam is necessary, were going to have to start escalating our commitment militarily to the republic of vietnam, South Vietnam. And he gives a kind of litany of what do americans see as compelling reasons . One, he said, we promise them wed do that. We pledged in 1954 that wed stand by South Vietnam. This is a commitment we have as a nation to another nation state. We have to do this. And then it echoes of something dwight d. Eisenhower, the president in the 1950s, had said about vietnam. He warned if we let vietnam fall, all of asia could fall to communism. Eisenhower called this the domino effect. Johnson, the democrat, seconded and agreed with the premise that his republican president counterpart in the 1950s had said. All of asia could fall if the United States doesnt honor its commitment to South Vietnam. And he also talked about the potential bloodbath that could [no audio]orth vietnam was and operation rolling thunder, as its called, begins in which massive amounts of bombs from u. S. Airplanes flown by u. S. Pilots begin to be unleashed on North Vietnam. Now these are targeted bombs. Theyre not wholesale destructions of cities. They are aimed at troop movements, they are aimed at factories building war materiel. Theyre targeted bombs. Theyre not terror bombing. Theyre not like what happened in the end of world war ii. But the bombs are intense. 600,000 tons of bombs will be dropped on North Vietnam in this operation rolling thunder. Largescale support at this point. So is there any critique at this point beyond those very few voices that i discussed earlier . Yeah. There are some americans who from the getgo, from the gulf of tonkin resolution right through the pleiku incident, the death of eight marines, the launching days later by Lyndon Johnson of operation rolling thunder, who do protest, who do raise questions. But most of these voices, most of these individuals and groups, are readily dismissed by most americans. In some cases, they are the people weve been talking about in here. One of the first and earliest voices raised against the war in vietnam comes from a radical pacifist, who runs a small almost underground magazine called liberation. It starts in the 1950s. Its not a 1960s thing. This is a magazine called liberation run by a guy named dave dellinger. Dellinger. A pacifist. He opposes all wars. During world war ii he was a young man. He had recently graduated from yale during world war ii. He was called up to be drafted. And dellinger refused to serve in world war ii. Hed gone to jail. Hed served time. It was a nonviolent protest against the war. He refused to be complicit. So this is a guy whos against all wars. So vietnam is just one more in another war hes going to protest, and his magazine is a beach front, so to speak, for that pacifist critique. So theres this tiny group of pacifists who speak out. Oh, my gosh, america is entering another war. This is morally indefensible. There were others. We talked about the student nonviolent coordinating committee. By 1964 and 1965, sncc, that group that had started in 1960 had become out of their experiences to become more and more radical. They werent just looking at instances of bad policy in the United States but were trying to create a more systemic critique of American Government policy. And one of the critiques they had developed by late 1964 or early 1965, sncc, the radical activists, was that the United States was complicit with the kind of imperialism they found so immoral and wrong in places like africa. So their critique of vietnam, as a theater in which the United States would become involved, stemmed from their already fairly, richly developed critique of u. S. Involvement in was called then the third world. So from africa to asia was for these sncc activists not a long leap. And other militant africanamericans, not just associated with sncc, also using this kind of critique. Began to speak out early about the war in vietnam. Now, this is not mainstream groups. The reverend king, for example, in 1964 and 1965, is not speaking out against the war in vietnam. He had private reservations, but he did not make public those concerns at this time. These are more, again, radical black activists in the United States. Again for the overwhelming majority of American People, like the pacifists, this was a group that could be essentially dismissed. Ok, these people are radical. Theyve got some overarching complaint about u. S. Policy. You know, whatever. And like the pacifists, these are not voices that are heard on the nightly news, theyre not reported in the New York Times or time magazine. Theres a fairly narrow window of mass media at this point. Its hard to get your voice into those few niches where you can be heard by more than a few hundred thousand people. These people are not being loudly heard or really barely heard at all. Theyre dismissible, pacifists, black radicals worried about imperialism. A third group that speaks out at this time is that kind of nascent new left we talked about, those white radicals that are in 1964 and 1965 relatively few in number, many of them associated with the students for Democratic Society, the group that was formed in 1960 and had begun to spread throughout other campuses around the United States from its foundation at the university of michigan. They had a similar critique as their black radical counterparts. There is something about vietnam that seems wrong. It seems, again, to be some kind of American Intervention in a thirdworld country where were probably not welcome, and were probably not serving the need for those people to have democratic selfdetermination. Remember, the sds activists, the white new left in particular, were really honed in on this idea of democratic selfdetermination. That people, including the American People, should have the tools and the means to realize their own destiny, to fulfill their own promise and their own policy concerns. So youve got white and black radicals. Youve got an older tradition, people who are generally chronologically older coming out of a pacifist tradition or a tradition of dissent that extends back into the 1940s and 1950s who are raising real questions. Early days about the war in vietnam. But again, a very quiet voice in the national conversation. A voice that a large majority of americans can dismiss as kooks, literally crazy people, radicals. So mainstream conversation, the New York Times, cbs news, time magazine, the president , the Senate Majority leader, the house speaker, republican, democrat, liberal, conservative, the establishment, as some young people have start to refer to all of these kinds is pretty much in lockstep with the policy thats developing, incrementally, but almost inexorably by the United States government in vietnam as the war escalates. And again month by month, incrementally, more troops are being sent from the United States to vietnam. More air missions are being launched from bases mostly at this point in vietnam to attack the north and to try to end the insurgency within the south of vietnam itself. So this is the process. So in some ways, it mirrors roughly, or at least maybe it rhymes with some of the concerns that black activists had had probably earlier days. In the early 1950s, lets say. Not the early 1960s, but the early 1950s. When youve got a large majority of the citizenry of the United States in essential agreement about a policy, a way of life, a vision of how america operates. In the case of these black civil rights activists, this was jim crow laws, White Supremacy and other means of maintaining a racial hierarchy. So now you have got another group in the 1960s, a small group of pacifists, radicals, who are trying as a small minority to convince, convey, inform the large majority that the policy they take is a given. That the conventional wisdom that theyve been bestowed by their political leaders is wrong. Flawed, immoral, the nature of the critique is fluid. But youve got this tiny minority saying, what were doing in vietnam is wrong. And even though the large majority of americans think its fine, we have to somehow wrestle them into rethinking this proposition. Well, so how do you do that . All right, if youre this small minority trying to convince a large majority that your president has misled you, that congress is wrong, that the mass media is either misinformed or misinforming the public, what do you do . And again a lot of these people are either people who have been living in many ways outside of the mainstream for a long time, or in the case of the white and black radicals i have just described, are, you know, your age. Theyre 20. Theyre 25. Theyre 18. What do you do . Literally, what do you do . What repertoire of tactics, tools, methods, do you use, again, to try to convince a majority that theyre wrong . You know, you can sort of imagine in your head theres all sorts of ways you might proceed on that. Now, this is happening at a time when their already is a kind of rich movement culture, rich movement of people who have already embraced tools, techniques, tactics to change political life. Its happening simultaneously with the Civil Rights Movement. So 1965, for example, roughly at the time that Lyndon Johnson is telling the American People, weve begun to escalate a military involvement in vietnam, youve got Martin Luther king and tens and tens of thousands of others marching in selma, alabama to ensure the right of africanamericans to vote in a state that had long disenfranchised them. So right . So theres this kind of parallel social movement occurring as these early, and we can use the word now, antiwar advocates are trying to come up with solutions. So obviously to some extent, this nascent antiwar activism is going to look at the Civil Rights Movement. They have a repertoire. We already have some means and tools and practices that might be adaptable to our cause. So thats one piece out there. Theres another piece out there thats almost happening simultaneously, but its again a precursor to this. We talked earlier about what was happening on the university of california Berkeley Campus in the fall of 1964, really just weeks after the gulf of tonkin resolution is passed. On the campus at the university of california, you remember, you had the Free Speech Movement erupting. Mario savio getting on top of the police car, telling the students of the university of california, you have a right to political practice on campus. You have a right to speak out freely on campus about the political causes of the day. Now, he was talking about civil rights issues, about Racial Justice issues. He was not talking about vietnam. But he was offering again a kind of interesting locus, a place from which you might launch some kind of political protest. And here its more pertinent for the white majority. Heres a white radical activist on a University Campus of suitable age saying we can use this place. We should be allowed to use this place, the University Campus, as a place to mobilize, organize, and perhaps launch protests against a policy we dont think is right. So right, there is this there is already this sort of available language and this available set of understandings and practices out there as these nascent antiwar activists are trying to think, what do we do . Well, following that model, its intriguing to see what happens. And johnsons speech in 1965, march 1965, is like a, a match that lights well, its not a bonfire at this point. Its like a little tiny fire that begins to erupt around places in which there already is an established political arena and critique in the United States. So one of the first places in which a kind of antiwar mobilization effort begins is on a University Campus at the university of michigan. Again, remember the place where the students for Democratic Society had been first founded a few years earlier. Theres a Movement Among faculty, not undergraduates, not graduate students, but basically junior faculty. These are men, almost all men. It might have been all men. I cant quite remember. In their late 20s and early 30s who, for various reasons, are suspicious of literally what johnson has just told them in this speech, this nationally televised speech about why after pleiku we have to start escalating our involvement in vietnam. About 20 of these young professors, untenured, they have no job security, they gather together in a room not unlike this and they say, what should we do . I think we have to do something on campus to bring the attention of young people that something is amiss in vietnam. They literally sit around like this and try to brainstorm. What can we do . They do like a tick list. What are the tools we could use . What are the possibilities . They say, we should not have classes on a date certain. Well pick a day. And instead of teaching our normal classes, well have a kind of moratorium on everyday business. And they use the word moratori