Turning Points In The Vietnam War

The power of protest and the influence of public opinion on our government is best exemplified in the Vietnam War era. The anti-war campaign began among leftist college students and peace activists. Initially, little attention was paid to their cause and the American people fully expected the Vietnam War to end quickly and successfully. Up until that point, America had always won the wars that it had fought and the American people believed the confident statements made by government officials at the time that victory was imminent. However, as the fighting continued the small band of protesters were able to broaden their coalition through effective use of the media to include civil rights activists, the women’s liberation movement, and members

The surprising success of the Tet Offensive ended the American government’s hopes that the war could be easily won and caused the public to finally understand that they needed to question the decision to continue having boots on the ground in Vietnam. Before 1968, the number of Americans strongly against the war and actively protesting it was small but after the Tet Offensive, hundreds of thousands of people were passionate about ending the war in Vietnam including many famous scholars and celebrities. Most notably, Martin Luther King Jr. publically disagreed with the United States’ decisions in the war, announcing, “we have been wrong from the beginning of our adventure in Vietnam”. King garnered vast attention to the anti-war campaign, but the civil rights activist was not the only social leader to publicize their opinion about the war. Ho Chi Minh, the leader of Vietnam, took advantage of the divisions within the American population when he said, “No Vietnamese has ever come to make trouble in the United States. Yet, half a million U.S. troops have been sent to South Viet Nam who are daily massacring Vietnamese people and burning and demolishing Vietnamese towns and villages”. Ho Chi Minh understood that diminishing public support for

Although the Americans’ initial initiative was to prevent the spread of communism, the length of the war and its brutality caused many citizens to believe there was no further purpose in continuing to fight. The protesters forced the government to rethink its position and ultimately decide to abandon the