Throughout the 1960s and 1970s Americans became uneasy not only about the troubl

ed position of the United States in world affairs, but also about the disorder w
rought at home by foreign entanglements. Vietnam, either because of the searing
war experience itself or because of the lessons Americans later drew from the ex
perience, drastically altered society during the 1960s and 1970s. The belief in
the right to influence the internal affairs of other countries led to disaster i
n Southeast Asia. This disaster would forever be known as the longest war in the
nation's history (lasted 25 years), in which the world's most powerful military
(United States) spent itself in a futile attempt to subdue a peasant people. Vi
etnam became another test in the containment of communism for the United States.
Overlooking the native roots of the revolution and the tenacity of the people f
ighting for their own land, American leaders are going to make the mistake of lo
oking at Vietnam from a globalist point-of-view, and the events through a Cold W
ar lens. Robert F. Kennedy in 1968, came to recognize this as their flaw in the
war, he stated that the United States had "misconceived the nature of the war" (
Doc. E). Ultimately, the Vietnam War would come to heighten tensions in the soci
al, political, and economic aspects of the United States during the mid-1960s an
d early 1970s.
The social turbulence along with the growing movement opposing the Vietn
am War gave rise to Black Power, the radical politics of the New Left, and a rev
ived women's movement. The Americanization of the war in Vietnam bothered growin
g numbers of Americans. Television coverage brought the horrid pictures of comba
t into families' homes every night. Innocent civilians were caught in the line o
f fire, and villages considered friendly to the enemy were burned to the ground.
Essentially, America's missions were counterproductive; rather than winning the
war, they were molding an ever-growing population of anti-American peasants who
gave secret aid to the Vietcong. Atrocious stories such as the My Lai massacre
sparked antiwar sentiments in the United States. In this massacre, American unit
s, frustrated by their inability to pin down an elusive enemy, shot to death sco
res of unarmed women and children. This incident sparked even more frenzy when i
t was learned that the government tried to cover the incident up for more than t
wenty months. As the war ground on to no discernable conclusion, the army grew t
roubled, and morale sagged. Martin Luther King Jr. continued to be the most admi
red leader of the civil rights movement. He believed that the negroes were being
overlooked as far as civil rights were concerned, and that the nation was focus
ing more on foreign than domestic issues (Doc. C). Then a new concept emerged; i
n 1966 Stokely Carmichael called on blacks to assert Black Power, in order to be
truly free from white oppression. This was black nationalism at its finest. Gro
ups such as the Black Panthers arose with the ideals to denounce major political
parties and big business, and strove to "change the system". Inspired by the Fr
ee Speech Movement, a minority of students joined the New Left. Those who joined
the New Left were united in their hatred of racism and the Vietnam War. The New
Left was not a single organization or even a single movement. Some believed in
pursuing social change through negotiation; others were revolutionists who regar
ded compromise as impossible. In the wake of the New Left, appeared a phenomenon
that observers called the counterculture. It reflected new attitudes towards dr
ugs, sex, and ways of life. Rock festivals became cultural happenings, the most
famous of which was Woodstock. It was an upstate New York festival that attracte
d over 400,000 youths who sought alternative experiences through drugs and music
. As the Vietnam War escalated, the New Left and the counterculture discovered a
common cause and rooted itself into society. With such movements, it was not su
rprising when the National Organization for Women was founded in 1966 ( its purp
ose was to establish equal rights in partnership with men). Not long after its f
ormation, a new generation of radical feminists emerged which had a drastic impa
ct in American life. Unlike the members of NOW, the radical feminists practiced
direct action, as they protested the view of women as servants and sex objects w
ho were pressured to conform to society's expectations. Women came to realize th
at they, just as blacks, were second-class citizens. As the war dragged on, many
began to change their position of its purpose and necessity. Thousands of young
men also expressed their opposition to the war by fleeing the draft. During the
 war, half a million men committed draft violations. James Fallows wrote about t
his experience, he stated that the men signing up for service were like "cattle
of to slaughter". He believed that the nation was sending the troops into a diff
icult situation, in which high casualties would occur (Doc. F). This was the ess
ence of the antiwar protests. Marches and demonstrators against the Vietnam War
became a popular protest tactic. In October of 1965, the national committee to e
nd war mobilized 80,000 people in demonstrations across the nation. During the n
ext two years Students for Democratic Society (SDS) led groups in antiwar marche
s of several hundred thousand people in New York and San Francisco. There was ev
en a song made in 1965 (I-Feel-Like-I'm-Fixin'-To-Die) that basically stated tha
t the youth of America were being sent off to their death in Vietnam (Doc. B). B
y this time, a major part of the American public had stop believing in their ele
cted leaders, and wondered what good would come of the war.
The war abroad, brought on inflation and the rise of economic tensions t
hroughout the nation. Determined to unite the country behind the unfulfilled leg
islative program of the martyred president, President Johnson pushed the new pro
gram he called the Great Society. He advocated a "War on Poverty" and in 1964 he
signed into law the Economic Opportunity Act of 1964, which allocated almost $1
billion to fight poverty. Two bills enacted in 1965 became legislative mileston
es in the economic realm. The Medicare program insure the elderly against medica
l and hospital bills. The Elementary and Secondary Education Act became the firs
t general program of federal aid to education. However, these times of aid could
not help anyone with the skyrocketing inflation in 1971. Massive deficit spendi
ng to support both the Vietnam War and the Great Society had fueled the inflatio
n. Soon the word stagflation would be coined to describe this coexistence of eco
nomic recession and inflation. In August, in an effort to correct the nation's b
lance-of-payments deficit, Nixon announced he would devalue the dollar by allowi
ng it to "float" in the international markets. Finally, to curb inflation, Presi
dent Nixon froze prices, wages, and rents for ninety days, then sent limits on t
heir increase. The inflation cause by the acts of the Great Society greatly heig
htened the tension that the nation was feeling during this time period.
Because of the increasing struggles the United States were experiencing
in the Vietnam War, political tensions intensified as it dragged on. What came t
o heighten the tension in the political realm, and what persuaded the United Sta
tes to take action in Vietnam, was the Domino Theory. This was a speculation tha
t if communists were allowed to take over one country, then all neighboring coun
tries would fall to communism. This theory sent shudders down America's spine, b
ecause it meant that the U.S. would lose influence in international affairs. In
August of 1964, an incident in the Gulf of Tonkin, off the coast of North Vietna
m, led to accelerated American war making. On August 2, the U.S.S. Maddox, came
under attack from northern Vietnam patrol boats. Even thought the Maddox sailed
away unscathed by the incident, American leaders had no problem in using this as
a motivation for serious action. President Lyndon B. Johnson knew that the evid
ence available was questionable, but he went forward to face the American people
on television and stated that the United States was retaliating against unprovo
ked attack. Thus on August 7, Congress gave LBJ the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, w
hich authorized the president to "take all necessary measures to repel any armed
attack against the forces of the United States." (Doc. A) Over time, the Gulf o
f Tonkin Resolution would come to serve as the Declaration of War that Congress
never voted on. Only in 1970 would Senators repeal it, realizing too late, that
Congress had surrendered their powers in the foreign policy process by giving th
e president a wide latitude to conduct war. Then in 1973, Congress would also co
me to pass the War Powers Act, further limiting executive power in war (Doc. I).
In January of 1968, a shocking event forced Johnson to reappraise his position
on the war. During the Vietnamese Lunar New Year, the Vietcong and North Vietnam
ese forces struck all across south Vietnam, capturing provincial capitals. The d
estruction of the village of Ben Tre, revealed the cost of driving the Vietcong
out. "It became necessary to destroy the town to save it." This became known as
the Tet Offensive, and it jolted Americans as they began to question the purpose
of the war. The Tet Offensive and its impact on public opinion bewildered the W
hite House. It showed the Americans that the war in Vietnam could not be won. As
antiwar protests increased dramatically, President Johnson on March 31, 1968 an
nounced that he had stopped the bombings on North Vietnam, and had already begun
negotiations. At home, the war had brought inflation, attacks on civil libertie
s, and retrenchment from reform programs. When Nixon went in as president after
the election of 1968, he too faced much chaos. Nixon's misfortunes would increas
e in 1971. On June 13, the New York Times began to publish the Pentagon Papers,
a top-secret study of the Vietnam War ordered in 1967. The study revealed that t
he government had consistently lied to the American people about the war. This a
ngered many Americans, because they believed that the so-called "attacks" on Ame
rica might have been a lie orchestrated to rally public opinion in favor for the
war. These tension would only come to heighten with following cover-ups and lie
s to the American public.
The experience of the Vietnam War called into question the ideals and va
lues of the nation. A majority of the people came to see the effects of the war
as a threat to their economic well-being, social stability, and political system
. After the war, Americans had not reached a consensus about the lessons of the
Vietnam War; but fearing America's slippage from its high world rank, Americans
were eager to restore its pre-eminence and repair their own frayed society.