Moratorium to End the War in Vietnam

Background When the new Republican president, Richard Nixon, took office on January 20, 1969, about 34,000 Americans had been killed fighting in Vietnam by that point. During Nixon's first year in office, from January 1969 to January 1970, about another 10,000 Americans were killed fighting in Vietnam. who had previously worked on the unsuccessful 1968 presidential campaign of Eugene McCarthy, changed the concept to a less radical moratorium and began to organize the event as the Vietnam Moratorium Committee with David Mixner, Marge Sklencar, John Gage, and others. Brown, who was 25 years old in 1969, was a former divinity student who had worked hard as a campaign volunteer for Senator McCarthy in 1968, developed the concept of the moratorium protests. Brown felt that protests should take place in communities rather than on university campuses so that "the heartland folks felt it belonged to them". In a speech written by Patrick Buchanan, the Vice President, Spiro Agnew, demanded that the organizers of the Moratorium disavow Đồng's letter and accused them of being "communist dupes". Scott King told the marchers that it would have delighted her assassinated husband, Martin Luther King Jr., to have seen people of all races rallying together for the cause of peace. Across New York City, another quarter of a million people participated in moratorium events, from Wall Street to Bryant Park. About 100,000 people blanketed Boston Common, where John Kenneth Galbraith and Senator George McGovern spoke. Tens of thousands attended other events nationwide to mark the day, from Los Angeles to Philadelphia. Unlike the protests at the Democratic Convention in Chicago in August 1968 which led to a police riot, the Moratorium marches on October 15 were completely peaceful, attended by families and people of all ages and faiths, with the main theme being grief and sorrow over the war, instead of anger and rage. Agnew also accused the peace movement of being controlled by "hardcore dissidents and professional anarchists" who were planning "wilder, more violent" demonstrations at the next Moratorium. In his speech, Nixon professed to share the goal of the protesters of peace in Vietnam, but he argued that the United States had to win in Vietnam, which would require keeping the war going until such a time that the government of North Vietnam ceased trying to overthrow the government of South Vietnam. Nixon implicitly conceded the point to the anti-war movement that South Vietnam was not important, saying the real issue was America's credibility, as he maintained that America's allies would lose faith if the United States did not stand by South Vietnam. Nixon promised that his policy of Vietnamization would gradually lower American losses in Vietnam; stated he was willing to compromise provided that North Vietnam recognized South Vietnam; and finally warned that it would take "strong and effective measures" if the war continued. Nixon ended his "silent majority speech" with: "And so tonight, to you, the great silent majority of my fellow Americans—I ask for your support. Let us be united for peace. Let us be united against defeat. Because let us understand: North Vietnam cannot defeat or humiliate the United States. Only Americans can do that". The public response to Nixon's "silent majority speech" was very positive with the phone lines to the White House becoming jammed in the hours after he gave his speech as too many people called the White House to congratulate the president. Likewise, the response to Agnew's speech attacking the media was positive in certain quarters of America, through unlike Nixon's "silent majority speech" where he professed to be speaking on behalf of the "silent majority", Agnew's speech was intentionally meant to be provocative and polarizing. As Nixon's public approval ratings soared, he told his aides in a meeting in the Oval Office: "We've got those liberal bastards on the run now, and we're going to keep them on the run". On November 13, in Des Moines, Agnew lashed out in a speech against the Moratorium declaring that it was all the work of the media who were "a small and unelected elite that do not—I repeat do not—represent the view of America". Agnew accused the media of being biased against Nixon and for the peace movement, and further stated his belief that the media "to a man" represented "the geographic and intellectual confines of New York and Washington". Agnew in particular singled out The New York Times and The Washington Post for criticism. ==Second Moratorium==

Developments In early November 1969, two disclosures put the wind back into the sails of the antiwar movement. Colonel Robert Rheault of the U.S. Army Special Forces was charged with ordering the murder of a South Vietnamese official suspected of being a Viet Cong spy, which was described euphemistically in an Army report as "termination with extreme prejudice". The My Lai massacre become a symbol to the anti-war movement of the brutality of the Vietnam war, and much of the success of the second Moratorium march was due to the revelation of the My Lai massacre. This massive Saturday march and rally was preceded by the March against Death, which began on Thursday evening and continued throughout that night and all the next day. Over 40,000 people gathered to parade silently down Pennsylvania Avenue to the White House. Hour after hour, they walked in single file, each bearing a placard with the name of a dead American soldier or a destroyed Vietnamese village, and carrying a candle. Nixon joked that he should send helicopters to blow out the candles. The Woodstock Music Festival had drawn about 400,000 people in August 1969, and it was estimated by some that the second Moratorium had brought out a number equal to "two Woodstocks". On Moratorium Day, half a million demonstrators gathered across from the White House for a rally where they were led by Pete Seeger in singing John Lennon's new song "Give Peace A Chance" for ten minutes or more. His voice above the crowd, Seeger interspersed phrases like, "Are you listening, Nixon?", "Are you listening, Agnew?", "Are you listening, in the Pentagon?" between the choruses of protesters singing, "All we are saying ... is give peace a chance". Others who joined the second Moratorium included the composer Leonard Bernstein, the folk music group Peter, Paul and Mary, the singer John Denver, the folk musician Arlo Guthrie and the Cleveland String Quartet who all played for the crowd. In San Francisco, over a quarter million of people took part in the march against the war on November 15. The school boards in San Francisco refused permission for high school students to take part in the second moratorium, declaring that the moratorium was "unpatriotic". As a result, over 50% of the students in San Francisco high schools missed classes on November 14, as they instead went out to protest against the war the day before the march. Aftermath Activists at some universities continued to hold monthly "Moratoria" on the 15th of each month. ==Australian Moratoriums==

Background Following the success of the November 1969 Moratorium in the United States, a series of citizen groups opposed to the war in Vietnam decided to band together to put on a Moratorium in Australia. Late in 1969, they formed the Vietnam Moratorium Campaign or VMC, which had its own executive, a permanent secretary and a number of affiliated organizations. The group that claims credit for mooting the idea is the Congress for International Co-operation and Disarmament (or CICD), a pacifist organization formed out of the Melbourne Peace Congress of 1959. The VMC and CICD certainly shared a number of members, among them Jim Cairns, who was made Chairman, and John Lloyd, secretary of both organizations. The VMC was, however, a much more representative body, including a wide variety of pre-existing Australian groups: Church groups, Trade Unions, radical and moderate student organizations, pacifist groups and anti-war groups. The VMC inherited the CICD's interstate connections with the Association for International Co-operation and Disarmament (its NSW equivalent), the Campaign for Peace in Vietnam (SA) and the Queensland Peace Council for International Co-Operation and Disarmament, giving it a truly national character. The structure of the Moratorium, in Victoria at least, was conflicted—the VMC executive vied for control with the Richmond Town Hall mass public meetings, which could involve up to 600 members and usually went late into the evening, full of arguments over slogans and policies. Moratoriums Work began quickly to organize the Moratorium. The original date was set for April 1970, but changed soon after to May 8, 9 and 10, to coincide with protests in the US, just days after the killings of four students at Kent State. The demonstration in Melbourne, held on May 8 and led by member of Parliament Jim Cairns, had over 100,000 people taking to the streets in Melbourne alone. Similar demonstrations were held in Sydney, Brisbane, Adelaide and Hobart. Across Australia, it was estimated that 200,000 people were involved. The second Vietnam Moratorium in September 1970 was smaller; more violence occurred. Fifty thousand people participated and there were violent incidents between police. Two hundred people were arrested in Sydney. The Melbourne and Brisbane marches were held on September 18. The third moratorium in June 1971 closed the Centre. In Melbourne, on June 30, 1971, there was a march of nearly 100,000 people. By this time public opinion was beginning to turn decisively against conscription and Australian involvement in the war. ==See also==

• • Karnow, Stanley (1983). Vietnam: A History. New York: Viking Press. • Scates, Bob (2022). Draftmen Go Free: A History of the Anti-conscription Movement in Australia. Book review and whole book. The Commons Social Change Library.