Anti-War Demonstrations and American Public Opinion on the War in Vietnam

Abstract

Evidence was brought to bear on the question of the crediting of anti-Vietnam war demonstrations with the American public's disenchantment with the war in Vietnam. Demonstrations had no measurable effect on the decline in favourable public opinion as measured by Vietnam-related poll and survey questions; such changes in opinions largely were explicable by other factors (presidential policy initiatives and war-related events in the short-run; casualties and duration of the war in the long-run). The American public's general dislike for Vietnam war protesters also makes it unlikely that demonstrations could have served as 'mediating links' between the war and the American public; it appears that the news media served this purpose. The major implication of this account is that anti-war demonstrations in the U.S.A. are not effective instruments for changing American pbulic opinion. On several occasions, the late President Ho Chi Minh of North Vietnam noted occurrences of anti-Vietnam war protest in the United States and expressed his gratitude to the Americans who demonstrated in opposition to their government's policies in Vietnam.l These remarks probably would be best interpreted as appreciation for the sentiments that the protesters expressed; President Ho does not appear ever to have stated that he thought anti-Vietnam war protests themselves would have any effect on what the American government decided to do in Vietnam. One would suppose, though, that anti-Vietnam demonstrators sought to change American policy in Vietnam in terms of one basic objective: the withdrawal of American troops from Vietnam.2 How protest would yield this result does not appear to have been explicitly spelled out. Presumably, however, anti-Vietnam war protest in large part was intended as 'educational', to convert the American people to the antiwar perspective.3 According to some accounts, these efforts were successful. One observer commented that some returned Vietnam veterans 'were expressing their disgust [with the Vietnam war] long before antiwar protests had begun to make a serious dent on public opinion'.4 Another asserted that 'the war [in Vietnam] would still be