Opposition and support in the United States

What the specification asks for

“The effects of the war in the US, university protests; media coverage, opposition to war in USA; pro-war demonstrations. The Fulbright Hearings (1971).” — examined through change and difference. Incandio is aligned to specification 4HI1; it is not published by, endorsed by or affiliated with Pearson.

1 · Understand it

How opposition developed

Opposition grew through the second half of the 1960s rather than appearing at once, and it came from several distinct directions that did not always cooperate. Campus organisations, principally Students for a Democratic Society, held teach-ins from 1965. Churches and clergy organised on moral grounds. The civil rights movement divided over it, and Martin Luther King's public opposition from April 1967 was a decisive and costly intervention. Veterans organised: Vietnam Veterans Against the War became one of the most effective bodies precisely because its members could not be dismissed as ignorant of the war.

Two events transformed the scale. The Tet Offensive in 1968 destroyed the credibility of official reporting, and the Cambodian incursion in 1970 produced the largest student strike in American history after four students were killed at Kent State.

The Fulbright Hearings of 1971, held by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, gave this opposition an institutional platform. Veterans testified about what they had seen and done, in a Senate committee room, on television. In the same year the Pentagon Papers — a classified Defense Department history leaked by Daniel Ellsberg — showed that successive administrations had internally assessed the war far more pessimistically than they had described it publicly.

Support, and the class question

Opposition was never universal and the pro-war constituency was real. In May 1970 construction workers in New York attacked an anti-war demonstration in what became known as the hard-hat riot, and the President received their union's leadership at the White House shortly afterwards. Nixon won re-election in 1972 by an enormous margin. Polling throughout showed a substantial minority favouring escalation rather than withdrawal, including immediately after Tet.

The class dimension is the strand's most important analytical point. The draft operated with deferments for university students, which meant that the sons of families who could afford higher education were substantially protected while working-class and rural men were not. Black Americans were drafted and assigned to combat roles in proportions above their share of the population, particularly in the earlier years.

That is why the anti-war and civil rights movements converged, and why it produced real bitterness between the campus movement and the men who served. A protest conducted largely by people the draft had exempted, against a war fought largely by people it had not, is a genuinely difficult fact and it belongs in any honest account of American opinion.

Reading the evidence about opinion

There is more evidence about American opinion in this period than about almost anything else on the specification, and it needs handling carefully because different kinds of source measure different things.

Polling measures stated preferences at a moment and is the only source that samples the whole population; it shows support falling steadily from 1966 and a substantial minority favouring escalation throughout. Demonstrations measure organisational capacity and intensity, not numbers of people holding a view. Media commentary measures what editors and broadcasters believed, which is not the same as what audiences concluded. Congressional hearings measure what could be said publicly and by whom.

The commonest error is to read demonstration size as public opinion. Half a million people in Washington is an enormous mobilisation and a small fraction of a country of two hundred million, and in the same period a majority in several polls disapproved of the demonstrators as well as of the war.

2 · Learn it — the notes

The dates that earn marks

April 1967

Martin Luther King publicly opposes the war. Why this date: It links the civil rights and anti-war movements and cost him support among allies, which measures how contested the position still was.

May 1970

The hard-hat riot in New York; construction workers attack an anti-war demonstration. Why this date: It is the clearest evidence that opposition to the war was not universal and had a class dimension.

1971

The Fulbright Hearings; veterans testify; the Pentagon Papers are published. Why this date: Opposition acquires an institutional platform and documentary proof that public statements had diverged from internal assessment.

1972

Nixon is re-elected by a very large margin. Why this date: It is the hardest fact for any account that treats American opinion as uniformly opposed to the war by the early 1970s.

The figures, and how far to trust them

• 1966 — The year from which polling support for the war begins its steady decline.
• Above their share of the population — The proportion of black Americans in combat roles, particularly in the earlier years of the war. (Proportions changed over the course of the war as assignment policies were altered; the disparity was greatest before 1968.)
• 1972 — Nixon's re-election, by one of the largest margins in American history, while the war continued.

The people to place

• William Fulbright — Chaired the Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearings of 1971 that gave opposition an institutional platform.
• John Kerry — Testified before the committee in 1971 on behalf of Vietnam Veterans Against the War.
• Daniel Ellsberg — Leaked the Pentagon Papers, showing that internal assessments had been far more pessimistic than public statements.

How historians disagree

Attributed interpretations, never voiced — the AO4 seam.

• The 'divided nation' reading: The war split American society along lines of class, education and race, and the conflict between the protest movement and the men who fought is a central part of the period's history. Contested by The reading that overstates the division, since polling shows a gradual and broad decline in support across most groups rather than two entrenched camps, and Nixon's 1972 majority included many who wanted the war ended..

What students say — and what is actually the case

Not this: Most Americans opposed the war by the late 1960s.

This: Support declined steadily from 1966, and a substantial minority favoured escalation throughout. Nixon was re-elected by an enormous margin in 1972 while the war continued.

Not this: The anti-war movement was made up of the people fighting the war.

This: University deferments protected many of those most prominent in campus protest, while the draft fell hardest on working-class and rural men and on black Americans. Veterans' organisations were a separate and later strand of the movement.

Two things students merge

Blurred: Demonstration size and public opinion.

The distinction: A demonstration measures organisation and intensity; polling measures distribution across a population. Reading one as the other is the commonest error on this strand and it is easily avoided.

Blurred: Opposing the war and supporting the protesters.

The distinction: Polling repeatedly showed majorities disapproving both of the war and of the demonstrations. The two questions have different answers and sources usually address only one.

What a Grade 9 answer holds here

A Grade 9 answer keeps the polling and the photographs apart. Half a million people in Washington is a photograph of organisational capacity in a country of two hundred million, and in the same months a majority told pollsters they disapproved of the demonstrators as well as of the war — so a candidate who reads crowd size as national opinion has drawn a conclusion the evidence specifically contradicts.

3 · How it is examined

This strand is genuinely set through: Paper 2 Section A (a) (6 marks — “Describe TWO features of EITHER … OR ….”); Paper 2 Section A (b) (8 marks — “How far does Source A support the evidence of Source B about …? Explain your answer.”); Paper 2 Section A (c) (16 marks — “Extract C suggests that …. How far do you agree with this interpretation? Use Extract C, Sources A and B and your own knowledge to explain your answer.”).

What earns marks: The deferment point stated with its consequence: the draft exempted many of the protesters and fell on the men they were protesting for. It is precise, uncomfortable and directly examinable.

The cap that bites here: The 6-mark describe question is capped at 3 marks for one feature and takes no explanation.

4 · Prove it — the questions

Answered inside Incandio, where a marker checks what a correct answer must contain and tells you which half was missing. The marking stays in the app; the questions are here.

1. Describe two features of opposition to the Vietnam War in the United States. [6 marks · Paper 2 Section A (a)]
2. How far does Source A support the evidence of Source B about American attitudes to the Vietnam War? [8 marks · Paper 2 Section A (b)]
3. How far does Source A support the evidence of Source B about who fought the war? [8 marks · Paper 2 Section A (b)]
4. Extract C suggests that the American public turned against the war after the Tet Offensive. How far do you agree with this interpretation? [16 marks · Paper 2 Section A (c)]
5. Extract C suggests that the war divided American society along class lines. How far do you agree with this interpretation? [16 marks · Paper 2 Section A (c)]

Decide it

This lesson feeds a Decide History judgement — a position you commit to, an objection you answer, a criterion you name: Did television lose the war?.

Carry on through the option

• Previous lesson: Hearts and Minds, My Lai, Phoenix and defoliation
• Key topic 5 · The impact of conflict on civilians in Vietnam and attitudes in the USA · The Vietnam Conflict, 1945–75 · the option's timeline · Incandio History
• The other key topics of The Vietnam Conflict: The struggle against France for independence, 1945–54 · US policy and intervention, 1954–64 · Confrontation in the Vietnam War, escalation 1964–68 · Nixon and Ford's policies – Vietnamisation, peace and Communist victory, 1969–75