South Vietnam Had an Antiwar Movement, Too

It's a sad irony that Americans should ever find it difficult to understand and sympathize with nationalist independence movements. For all its flaws--starting with their arrogant and contradictory rejection of the opinions of professional historians and other "experts"--Burns and Novick's first episode of The Vietnam War did do a decent job of showing that underlying virtually all the Vietnamese factions in Vietnam, back to the early 20th century, was the nationalist desire to throw off colonial rule and achieve independence. This article provides great detail of the diversity of later factions and movements within Vietnam, but ultimately they too were all struggles against what would prove to be one of the last gasps of the venerated and centuries-old European and more recently American mode of colonialism. What American, schooled from childhood about the glory of independence from colonial rule, can't get that? It is a testament to the blinding power of Cold War propaganda that so many of us "learned" not to recognize commonality with Vietnamese struggles for independence.

It pains me to see people STILL uncritically presenting the lies of the US government--in response to this thoughtful article--about the war in Vietnam. The fact is that the elections promised in 1954 in the Geneva agreements (signed by South Vietnam's government, the North Vietnamese government, the Soviet and Chinese governments--and supported by the Eisenhower administration in the US) were cancelled by the South Vietnamese government with the full support of the Eisenhower administration. If you read Ike's autobiography, he tells why the US agreed: he wrote that in a clean and fair election, all US intelligence sources said that Ho Chi Minh--the leader of the revolutionary forces who had defeated the French--would have won 80% of the vote! In other words, the US went along with the vote cancellation, and the US was ultimately responsible for killing 3.8 MILLION Vietnamese, with another 5.7 MILLION wounded, but somehow, it was the Communists (and the majority of Vietnamese Revolutionaries were NOT in the Party, as far as I can tell) who were the terrorists. Folks-get it through your heads: the US invaded Vietnam, not to help them, but to suppress any opposition to an illegal regime that the US supported. I'm a former Sgt in the USMC (1969-73) who turned around politically on active duty when I learned what we were REALLY doing in Vietnam. (And we're about to get more lies and distortions from Ken Burns this week: THINK, people, THINK!)

It's as Interesting to read the comments here as the article itself. The Vietnam War will finally be "over" when all of us who lived through it, fought in it, and opposed it are six feet under. All the commenters who vilify the anti-war movement ,whether in Saigon, or San Francisco, have to remember that the US government backed a corrupt and ineffective South Vietnamese cabal, and that there was never a formula for actually winning the war by US troops alone. There was never a political will to win. It was a fool's errand from the beginning.

The article shows the complexity of South Vietnamese society, and yes, there were all kinds of different views, and the government certainly wasn't perfect, but that all this could go on is a black vs white contrast with the North and that is what is truly significant. Also, that among the students (and the Buddhist monks) who opposed the war were actual communist supporters and agents, and while only a fraction of the antiwar people, had disproportionate influence. Students and former students led the VC and NVA into Hue in Tet '68 and then partook in the horrid massacres that took place. (Which only in recent years have any communist sources admitted, even tangentially.) And anyone who says no one in the USA heard about antiwar protests in RVN must not have been paying attention in those years. The coverage of demonstrations and monks burning themselves up was very thorough.

Who knew about antiwar efforts in South Vietnam? Not the American news coverage at the time. I am not surprised, however, to see the remains of the virulent anti-communist, pro-war memories that still dominate our discussions of this disastrous war of intervention. Like the voices now demanding "victory" against Muslims (regardless of sect or nationality) in the Mideast, we seem to have an inexhaustible cultural and military proclivity for war against "the others." Enough already.

I thank the NY Times for this excellent retrospective on the Vietnam War. I plan on watching Ken Burns' 18 part documentary on this war starting tomorrow on PBS. But I disagree with many who claim his documentary, or this NY Times series, is necessary to provide some kind of closure to this war. The people who fought in this war are in their 60s and 70s today. The war's architects are all dead. The debates have been had for decades. The full history has been revealed. The nation was forever changed (volunteer military, 18 year old vote, the bond between citizen and government forever suspect if not irretrievably broken.) The nation has closed the door on Vietnam even if there is no closure for some, even, as it seems, we've reopened the door lately on the Civil War. So I'll read this NY Times series and watch the Burns documentary because they are both excellent historical recollections. But they are excellent historical recollections of a time a half century ago.

The whole gut wrenching history of the U.S. and Vietnam still affects many. many people (to use one of Trumps phrases). And to think Vietnam is now a tourist attraction.

obviously their army had the same feelings

So an "antiwar" movement meant willing or tacit capitulation to Communist rule, since without a "war policy" to combat the Communists, their victory was assured. And under Communist rule, as exemplified by the brutal rise of Ho Chi Minh, no "anti" anything, war or other, would be permitted of course, unless it was anti-something the Communists approved. Without American support to the south it was not possible to stop a Communist takeover of all Vietnam. Without Chinese and Russian aid and assistance to North Vietnam, the latter could not have continued its drive to conquer the south. So what significance did the antiwar movement in the south have except to assist one way or another a North Vietnamese takeover? Is Vietnam better off because of that victory than if the south had prevailed? The only way to know is to hold free elections and ask the people there. That has never happened, just as it hasn't in Cuba since Fidel Castro took over.

I wonder if any of the anti war, anti American South Vietnamese students found their reward in the murderous tyranny that followed.

The times continues to refuse to see that the war was a response to the fear of falling Dominos and was supported by many southeast noncommunist countries. It might have been better run or more realistically viewed. But the times vilification of its leaders is both shameful and unhistorical. The times like trump evidently only wants 'winners', however ill defined the term.

In fact, toward the end of war in April 1975, it was these diversified but well-organized groups of students that ensured the continuing functions of South Vietnam's capital: Saigon. They approached their families, friends, acquaintances to keep water. power, communication centers going while themselves, controlled street safety matters and guided the communist victors to key installations...

Very interesting. Of course, North Vietnam did not have an "antiwar" movement, because anyone who would try to start one would be shot. One of the many differences between the North and South during that war, most of which eluded the American anti-war movement which not only saw no moral distinction between the two governments, but in many cases actively sided with Hanoi.