Something to ponder on while considering what party to look at during war time.

A history of Vietnam protests and Presidents under which they occured.

Roosevelt (Democrat) 1933 - 1945
Truman (Democrat) 1945 - 1953
Kennedy (Democrat) 1961 - 1963
Johnson (Democrat) 1963 - 1969
Nixon (Republican) 1969- 1974

1945

Roosevelt (D) 1933 - 1945
Truman (D) 1945 - 1953

The first protests against U.S. involvement in Vietnam were in 1945, when United States Merchant Marine sailors condemned the U.S. government for the use of U.S. merchant ships to transport French troops to "subjugate the native population" of Vietnam; these protesters opposed the "recolonization" of Vietnam. [2]

1963

Kennedy (D) 1961 - 1963

In August 1963, the first organized Vietnam War protests took place in New York and Philadelphia held by American pacifists during the annual commemorations of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki atomic bombings

[1964

Kennedy (D) 1961 - 1963
Johnson (D) 1963 - 1969

On May 2, 400 to 1000 students marched through Times Square, New York and another 700 in San Francisco in the first major student demonstration against the war. Smaller numbers also marched in Boston, Seattle, and Madison, Wisconsin.
August: for reference, the Gulf of Tonkin Incident and Gulf of Tonkin Resolution occurred in August 1964.

1965

Johnson (D) 1963 - 1969

On March 24, the anti-war Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) attended the first teach-in, organized by some teachers, against the war at the University of Michigan, attended by 2,500 participants. This was to be repeated at 35 campuses across the country.
On April 17, the SDS and the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), a civil rights activist group, led the first of several anti-war marches in Washington DC, with about 25,000 protesters.
The first draft card burnings took place at University of California, Berkeley at student demonstrations in May organized by a new anti-war group, the Vietnam Day Committee, where a coffin was marched to the local Draft board office, a teach-in was attended by 30,000, and president Lyndon Johnson was burned in effigy.
Gallup poll in May showed 48% of US respondents felt the Government was handling the conflict effectively; 28% felt the situation was being handled badly; the rest, no opinion.
Protests were held in June on the steps of the Pentagon, and in August, attempts were made by activists at Berkeley to stop trains carrying troops from moving.
Polls in late August show that 24% of Americans view sending troops to Vietnam as a mistake versus 60% who do not. [3]
In mid-October, the anti-war movement had significantly expanded to become a national and even global phenomenon, as anti-war protests drawing 100,000 were held simultaneously in as many as 80 major cities around the US, London, Paris and Rome.
On November 2, Norman Morrison, a 31-year-old pacifist, poured kerosene on himself and set himself on fire in below the third-floor window of Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara at the Pentagon, emulating the actions of Thích Quảng Đức.
On November 27, some 40,000 protesters led by several student activist groups surrounded the White House, calling for an end to the war, then marched to the Washington Monument. On that same day, President Johnson announced a significant escalation of US involvement in Indochina, from 120,000 to 400,000 troops.2.5 million people died


1966

Johnson (D) 1963 - 1969

In February, a group of about 100 veterans attempted to return their decorations to the White House in protest of the war, but were turned back.
Anti-war demonstrations were again held around the country and the world March 26 with 20,000 taking part in New York City.
On May 15, another large demonstration, with 10,000 picketers calling for an end to the war, took place outside the White House and the Washington Monument.
June - The Gallup poll respondents supporting the US handling of the war slipped to 41%; 37% expressed disapproval; the rest, no opinion.
A crowd of 4,000 demonstrated against the US war in London on July 3 and scuffled with police outside the US Embassy; 33 protesters were arrested.
Protests, strikes and sit-ins continued at Berkeley and across other campuses throughout the year, and also, three army privates known as the 'Fort Hood Three" refused to deploy in Vietnam, calling the war "illegal and immoral", and were sentenced to prison terms.
Heavyweight boxing champion Muhammad Ali — formerly known as Cassius Clay — declared himself a conscientious objector and refused to go to war. According to a writer for Sports Illustrated, the governor of Illinois called Ali "disgusting" and the governor of Maine said that Ali "should be held in utter contempt by every patriotic American."[4] In 1967 Ali was sentenced to 5 years in prison for draft evasion, but his conviction was later overturned on appeal. In addition, he was stripped of his title and banned from professional boxing for more than three years.


1967

Johnson (D) 1963 - 1969

January 14 - 20,000-30,000 people staged a "Human Be-In" anti-war event in Golden Gate Park in San Francisco, near the Haight Ashbury neighborhood that had become the center of hippie activity.
February 8 - Christian groups opposed to the war staged a nationwide "Fast for Peace".
February 23 - The New York Review of Books published The Responsibility of Intellectuals by Noam Chomsky as a special supplement.
March 12 - A three page anti-war ad appeared in The New York Times bearing the signatures of 6,766 teachers and professors. The advertisement spanned two and a quarter pages in Section 4, The Week in Review. The advertisement itself cost around $16,500 and was sponsored by the Inter-University Committee for Debate on Foreign Policy.
March 17 - a group of antiwar citizens marched to the Pentagon to protest American involvement in Vietnam
March 25 - Civil rights leader Martin Luther King led a march of 5,000 against the war in Chicago, Illinois.
On April 15, 400,000 people marched from Central Park to the UN building in New York City to protest the war, where they were addressed by critics of the war such as Benjamin Spock, Martin Luther King, and Jan Barry Crumb, a veteran of the conflict. On the same date 100,000 marched in San Francisco.
On April 24, Abbie Hoffman led a small group of protesters against both the war and capitalism who interrupted the New York Stock Exchange, causing chaos by throwing fistfuls of both real and fake dollars down from the gallery.
May 2 - British philosopher Bertrand Russell presided over the "Russell Tribunal" in Stockholm, a mock war crimes tribunal, which ruled that the US and its allies had committed war crimes in Vietnam. The proceedings were criticized as being a "show trial".
On May 30 Crumb and ten like-minded men attended a peace demonstration in Washington, D.C., and on June 1 Vietnam Veterans Against the War was born.
In the summer of 1967, Neil Armstrong and various other NASA officials began a tour of South America to raise awareness for space travel. According to First Man, a biography of Armstrong's life, during the tour, several college students protested the astronaut, and shouted such phrases as "Murderers get out of Vietnam!" and other anti-Vietnam War messages.
July 30: Gallup poll reported 52% of Americans disapproved of Johnson's handling of the war; 41% thought the US made a mistake in sending troops; over 56% thought US was losing the war or at an impasse.
On August 28, 1967, US representative Tim Lee Carter R-KY stated before congress: "Let us now, while we are yet strong, bring our men home, every man jack of them. The Vietcong fight fiercely and tenaciously because it is their land and we are foreigners intervening in their civil war. If we must fight, let us fight in defense of our homeland and our own hemisphere."
In October 1967, Stop the Draft Week resulted in major clashes at the Oakland, California induction center, and saw more than a thousand registrants return their draft cards in events across the country. The cards were delivered to the Justice Department on October 20.
The next day, October 21, 1967, a large demonstration took place at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington. As many as 100,000 demonstrators attended the event, and at least 30,000 later marched to the Pentagon for another rally and an all night vigil. Some, including Abbie Hoffman and Jerry Rubin, attempted to "exorcise" and "levitate" the building, while others engaged in civil disobedience on the steps of the Pentagon, interrupted by clashes with soldiers and police. In all, 647 arrests were made. When a plot to airdrop 10,000 flowers on the Pentagon was foiled by undercover agents, these flowers ended up being placed in the barrels of MP's rifles, as seen in some famous photographs.[6] Norman Mailer documented the events surrounding the march on the Pentagon in his novel, Armies of the Night.

1968

Johnson (D) 1963 - 1969


February: Gallup poll showed 35% approved of Johnson's handling of the war; 50% disapproved; the rest, no opinion. [NYT, 2/14/68] In another poll that month, 23% of Americans defined themselves as "doves" and 61% "hawks".[5]
March 12: anti-war candidate Eugene McCarthy received more votes than expected in the New Hampshire Primary, leading to more expressions of opposition against the war. McCarthy urged his supporters to exchange the 'unkempt look' that was rapidly becoming fashionable among war opponents, for a more clean-cut style, in order to petition middle-class and 'soccer mom' votes; these were known as "Clean Genes".
March 17 - Major rally outside the US Embassy in London's Grovesnor Square turned to a riot with 86 people injured and over 200 arrested. Over 10,000 had rallied peacefully in Trafalgar Square but met a police barricade outside the embassy. A UK Foreign Office report claimed that the rioting had been organised by 100 members if the German SDS who were "acknowledged experts in methods of riot against the police".
In March, Gallup poll reported that 49% of respondents felt involvement in the war was an error.
During the 1968 Democratic National Convention, held August 26–August 29 in Chicago, anti-war protesters marched and demonstrated throughout the city. Tensions between police and protesters quickly escalated, resulting in a "police riot". Eight leading anti-war activists were indicted by the U.S. Attorney and prosecuted for conspiracy to riot; their convictions were subsequently overturned on appeal. (See Chicago Seven).
August: Gallup poll shows 53% said it was a mistake to send troops to Vietnam.[1]


1969

Johnson (D) 1963 - 1969
Nixon (R) 1969- 1974


March polls indicate that 19% of Americans want the war to end as soon as possible, 26% want South Vietnam to take over responsibility for the war from the U.S., 19% favor the current policy and 33% want all-out military victory. [6]
July 1969: A Gallup poll indicates that 53% of the respondents approve of Nixon's handling of the war; 30% disapprove; the balance have no opinion. [New York Times, 7/31/69]
The Moratorium demonstrations took place on October 15, 1969. Millions of Americans took the day off from work and school to participate in local demonstrations against the war. These were the first major demonstrations against the Nixon administration's handling of the war. On November 15, 1969 crowds estimated up to half a million people participated in an anti-war demonstration in Washington, D.C. with a similar demonstration being held in San Francisco, these protests being organized by the New Mobilization Committee to End the War in Vietnam (New Mobe) and the Student Mobilization Committee to End the War in Vietnam (SMC).
In October, 58% of Gallup respondents said US entry into the war was a mistake.
In November, Sam Melville, Jane Alpert and several accomplices bombed several corporate offices and military installations (including the Whitehall Army Induction Center) in and around New York City in opposition to the war in Vietnam.

1970

Nixon (R) 1969- 1974

Kent State/Cambodia Incursion Protest, Washington, D.C. A week after the Kent State Shootings, on 4 May, 100,000 anti-war demonstrators converged on Washington, D.C. to protest the shooting of the students in Ohio and the Nixon administration's incursion into Cambodia. Even though the demonstration was quickly put together, protesters were still able to bring out thousands to march in the Capital. It was an almost spontaneous response to the events of the previous week. Police ringed the White House with buses to block the demonstrators from getting too close to the executive mansion. Early in the morning before the march, Nixon met with protesters briefly at the Lincoln Memorial but nothing was resolved and the protest went on as planned.
National Student Strike more than 450 university, college and high school campuses across the country were shut by student strikes and both violent and non-violent protests that involved more than 4 million students in the only nationwide student strike in U.S. history.

On June 13, President Nixon established the President's Commission on Campus Unrest. The commission, was directed to study the dissent, disorder, and violence breaking out on college and university campuses.[7]
On August 24, 1970, near 3:40 a.m., a van filled with ammonium nitrate and fuel oil mixture was detonated on the University of Wisconsin-Madison in the Sterling Hall bombing.
The Chicano Moratorium: on 29 August 1970, some 25,000 Mexican-Americans participated in the largest anti-war demonstration in Los Angeles. Police attacked the crowd with billyclubs and teargas; two people were killed. Immediately after the marchers were dispersed, sheriff's deputies raided a nearby bar, where they shot and killed Ruben Salazar, KMEX news director and Los Angeles Times columnist, with a teargas projectile.



Nixon (R) 1969- 1974

1971 and after

Famous anti-war protesters: John Kerry with ex-Beatle John Lennon during a protest rally at New York City's Bryant Park in 1972.

Avoiding service in the Vietnam War later became an issue in American politics. Politicians criticized for avoiding service included Vice-President Dan Quayle, President Bill Clinton, President George W. Bush, and Vice-President Dick Cheney.

Opposition to the Vietnam War in Australia followed along similar lines to the United States, particularly with opposition to conscription. While Australian disengagement began in August 1971 under Prime Minister John Gorton, it was not until the election of Gough Whitlam in 1972 that conscription ended.

In August, 1971, The Camden 28 conducted a raid on the Camden, New Jersey draft board offices. The 28 included five or more members of the clergy, as well as a number of local blue-collar workers.

The bombing of Hanoi on December 24, 1972 resulted in harsh reactions from the prime-minister of Sweden Olof Palme. During his famous speech that same day to the media (Nowadays referred to as "The Christmas speech"), he expressed harsh criticism for the war, comparing it with several of Nazi Germany's worst deeds. This froze the diplomatic climate between the United States and Sweden, which lasted until March 1974.


Nixon (R) 1969- 1974

"Peace With Honor"

A phrase Richard M. Nixon used in a speech on January 23, 1973 to describe his plan to pull out of the Vietnam War. The plan specified that a cease-fire would take place four days later, on January 27, 1973. According to the plan, within 60 days after the cease-fire, the North Vietnamese would release all US prisoners, and all US troops would withdraw from South Vietnam. The plan failed, and the war did not end until April 30, 1975.

Good post Coachman the two things that they never teach in history we would never have had a Vietnam conflict if JFK had took the Military advice and pulled all Advisers out of Country instead he sent 10,000 more but I guess all the promises made by (D) Harry S Truman to Ho Chi Mien about the Japanese occupy of Vietnam was part of it.Then the French returned and screwed it up some more.

I thought the fact that the only time we go to war is when the republicans are in the seat of power, seems like these were when the seat of power was held by the democrates. Just my .02 worth.

It is true we have a few insidents like Gulf 1 but other than that it has been Dem. in power.I guess that is why at present my whole Family Vote(D) and me and my kids vote (R)I guess my thoughts is the policies in the (R) party is where true Democrates normly are and Democrates are almost Socicalism.I have not for a long time voted Party Line.

We may visit 'The Wall' online as it's now virtual and interactive.


http://go.footnote.com/thewall

Thank You for the shortcut Weatherman1956.

Seven presidents were involved with decisions that impacted America’s presence in Vietnam: Truman, Roosevelt, Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon and Ford.
http://www.essortment.com/all/vietnamwarprot_rlcz.htm

This is an interesting approach to this subject. It is another manipulation of statistics to benefit an end. This country has had protests against every war since before we became official. We have never had a war in which someone did not disagree with our involvement.

Also, are you saying World War II was not justified? You did mention how Democrats got us into wars – which seem to be the point. Were any of them good or worth the effort? It amazes me that you left Korea out of the equation. The only war we lost was under Nixon – who ran as an anti-war president.

You are also ignoring the protests against the current Iraq war – which are many. Whether you agree or disagree with the war in Iraq or its protesters – they do exist and the war lacks the overall support of the American people.

That, of course, has noting to do with the current election.