The Anti-War Movement of the 1960s and 70s
Summary of "The War At Home," a documentary of the anti-war movement in the 1960s in Madison, Wisconsin, home of the University of Wisconsin.
Bob Dylan sings at the beginning of the film. The words are from the last two stanzas of his song, "When the Ship Comes In" from 1963. (Click here to see the words to the whole song and listen to it.)
...
Oh the foes will rise
With the sleep still in their eyes
And they'll jerk from their beds and think they're dreamin'.
But they'll pinch themselves and squeal
And know that it's for real,
The hour when the ship comes in.
Then they'll raise their hands,
Sayin' we'll meet all your demands,
But we'll shout from the bow your days are numbered.
And like Pharaoh's tribe,
They'll be drowned in the tide,
And like Goliath, they'll be conquered.Click here to watch the opening scene of the film. In this opening, you see some scenes of various social protest activities: the anti-nuclear bomb testing demonstrations and the Civil Rights Movement, which were the causes that a few young white people of the time supported.
1964
Students coming to the University of Wisconsin in the fall of 1964 and then 1965 saw demonstrations and received political pamphlets challenging the US government's explanations for what was happening in Vietnam. Some accepted the government's side; others began to have doubts, express their opinions and relate their experiences.
President Eisenhower and then Kennedy carried on the growing involvement in Vietnam. Eisenhower talked about how important tin and tungsten from there was. Kennedy said that it was difficult to fight a guerilla war but that they could do it with a 10 to 1 ratio of soldiers to guerrillas.
The first anti-Vietnam War demonstrations began in 1963, but in 1964 the United States carried out an anti-North Vietnamese propaganda campaign. This campaign culminated in faking an attack by the North Vietnamese on American ships. The US claimed these ships were in international waters on routine patrols. Actually, they were inside North Vietnamese waters carrying out secret military operations against the anti-North Vietnamese, including aiding attacks by the South Vietnamese, as described by Senator Ernest Gruening, an anti-war Senator from Alaska. Ernest Gruening and Wayne Morse were the only two senators to vote against the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution which gave President Johnson the power to carry out the war in Vietnam.
Students coming to the University of Wisconsin had different reactions to the anti-war demonstrations. In the film, one student is against the demonstrators. He thinks they are helping "the enemy," who are the Communists in Vietnam. He believes Johnson is trying to "get out of" Vietnam.
A second man was a student in the ROTC (Reserved Officers Training Course, which was a course for students to take who wanted to join the military after finishing college). He remembers how he immediately saw student anti-war demonstrators when he came to the campus as a freshman. This was the first time he had ever met people who criticized American foreign policy.
A third man describes how his father told him not to get mixed up with any politics because it was dangerous. He was afraid the US government would get his name and put him on a list of Communists.
A fourth student describes how he hesitated a lot but finally decided to go to an SDS meeting. The SDS, the Students for a Democratic Society, was not only an anti-war group. It was dedicated to changing the whole of American society to make it more just.. He felt that the important issue was not the war, but the life that America offered him as a young man. He wanted to change it so he could find a more meaningful life (than doing business and making money.)
Hear these four students in the film.
Click on the links below to go to the events at the University of Wisconsin of that year.