policy - The Black Vault

THE BDM CORPORATION
and the demonstrations
that were
questions:
From its very beginning, the antiwar movement,
its most visible manifestation, forced a number of key
(1) What was the nature of the Vietnam War, i.e., was the war a
symptom of larger failures in American politics and society?
(2) What was the objective of the antiwar movement? Should the
mov ;ment be directed primarily at ending the war or resolving the
larger questions facing Americans society?
F (3) What was the appropriate strategy for the antiwar movement?
Should the demonstrations remain nonviolent in the spirit of
Martin Luther King's crusades, or should violence be used to end
violence?
(4) Should communists and extreme radicals participate in the movement?
Should the . movement exclude elements whose political
positions are repugnant to the great majority of Americans?
Throughout the Vietnam War years, differing elements within the
antiwar movement sought to answer these questions. It is the thesis of
this chapter that many of the decisions that were made concerning direction
of the movement led it
increasingly to the left and thereby reduced its
appeal to the general population and even to many segments of the earlier
peace movement. 22/
The first major antiwar demonstration, March 24-25, 1965 at the
University of Michigan Teach-in, sought to hear both sides of the escalation
question and to develop a coherent response. The success of the Ann
Arbor experience brought scores of campuses around the country to stage
their own teach-ins. Characteristically, by the time the teach-in idea had
spread to Berkeley, on May 21, and 22, 1965, the California students moved
the topic of the discussion one step farther than the rest of the country
from concentration on Vietnam War policy to examination of the Vietnam War
as a symptom of deeper things wrong with America.
In the 1960's, yulth's rejection of traditional authority and
their acceptance of new standards and lifestyles established the fundamental
element of the "generation gap."
That gap made understanding and
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