policy - The Black Vault

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wars' costs as they proceeded. Mueller does not argue that the AmerirAn
pubjic related their support for the wars to the numbers of casualties
themselves, but rather to the timing of the casualties. Thus, Mueller
contends that the heavy casualties at the beginning of the Korean War had a
greater impact on public opinion than the far larger numbers of casualties
suffered by US forces in the latter part of the Vietnam War. Polls indicate
that support for both wars slipped substancially in their initial
stages as it became clear the wars would be long.
Thereafter, the support
for the wars seems to have stabilized, though the support for the Vietnam
War drifted downward over the years. Nevertheless, there does not seem to
have been a dramatic later decline in support for the Vietnam War in spite
of the casualties after 1966. 24/
Alonzo Hemby notes that the poll data that is available concerning the
public's attitude toward the Korean and Vietnam Wars confounds the impression
that the opposition to the Vietnam War was more widespread. He
observes that polls do
not gauge the intensity of the feeling held by
different groups, and argues that the impression of much greater opposition
to the Vietnam War than the Korean War was directly related to the differences
in political culture that had developed in the US
1950's and 1960's. 25/
during the late
L. Elowitz and J. Sanier have concluded that there are significant
similarities between the American public's reaction to the Korean and Vietnam
Wars and that the US political system seems to "lock in" almost automatically
even under less then optimal conditions.
trends in support for the Korean and Vietnam Wars
They argue that the
indicate that once a
president is caught between a rising level of public dissatisfaction with
war policies and declining congressional support, there is little he can do
to stem the erosion of his position. Elowitz and Spanier note that the
Korean and Vietnam Wars had a similar impact on the political careers of
Presidents Truman and Johnson. 26/
It should be emphasized that the decline of public support for the
Korean and Vietnam Wars occurred when US
forces were not winning military
N. victories. The public appears to have reacted differently to the heavy
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