The Antiwar Movement

The loosely-organized coalition that came together to stop the war in Vietnam in the United States in the late 1960s and early 1970s presents a study in contrast. It was an antiwar movement whose target was not a war at all, but a “conflict,” among forces within the former French colony of Vietnam that nevertheless resulted in monumental civilian and military losses within the country. The movement brought together men and women whose religious and/or pacifist principles asserted the immorality of taking human life, along with cultural and political radicals of a young generation whose ideas ranged from personal liberation to revolutionary discipline and even violence. The antiwar coalition included individuals and organizations with disparate political views united in a common cause. It included soldiers and recent veterans, many of whom had enlisted because they believed in the justice of the American cause in Southeast Asia. This chapter explores the movement against the Vietnam War in the United States with all its ambiguities.