2 - How did the coverage of the war in the USA lead to demands for peace?

Question 1

Media coverage

Answer 1

• from the start some Americans opposed a war which didn’t directly affect them
• Martin Luther King also said that the war affected African Americans more as they found it more difficult to avoid the draft and were usually sent to more dangerous combat areas
• people believed too much money was being spent on it

Question 2

The effects of the My Lai Massacre

Answer 2

• November 1969 it was revealed on TV
• US public shocked
• turned many opinions against the war
• people in South Vietnam turned against US and turned VC instead
• the guilty verdict of Lieutenant Calley was widely applauded

Question 3

Protest movements - burning draft cards

Answer 3

• men who were conscripted (drafted) into the war burned their draft cards in public or refused to go
• both illegal - by 1969 there were 34.000 draft-dodgers wanted by the police
• many escaped abroad eg to Canada to avoid arrest

Question 4

Protest movements - War Veterans marches

Answer 4

• these men were soldiers who had already fought in the war
• over 300,000 took part in a war veterans march in 1971
• they threw their combat ribbons, helmets, and uniforms on the Capitol steps, along with toy weapons.

Question 5

University protests

Answer 5

• students held demonstrations and protests, usually peacefully on uni campuses and in nearby towns and cities
• they went on strike
• they burned their draft papers
• they disrupted transport used for moving troops and army supplies

Question 6

Kent State Massacre

Answer 6

• 4th May 1970
• students had already burned one building to the ground
• the National Guard came to stop it by throwing tear gas, however when they ran out they retreated
• as a response to students throwing stones at them, they armed guards fired at them - killing four people
• this event was broadcast all over the USA

Question 7

The Fulbright Hearings

Answer 7

• who: William Fulbright, chair of Senate Foreign Affairs committee
• when: 1971
• why: ‘develop the best advice of the policy alternative available to the American participation in the war’
• what: 22 people gave evidence of atrocities and war crimes committed by US
• result: further anti-war protests and urgency to end the war