Source C was written by Richard Hamer, an American journalist, in 1970 about the wide scale opposition to the war in Vietnam. Hamer questions the American tactics and he shows how their military actions contradict their objective of winning the support of Vietnamese civilians. The line, “One does not use napalm on villages and hamlets sheltering civilians… if one is attempting to persuade these people of the rightness of ones cause” is an example of one of the arguments used by anti-war protesters questioning American tactics in Vietnam. Hamer also shows the other side of the story, explaining the difficulties of fighting a guerrilla army by offering a common scenario which American soldiers have to deal with on a regular basis. The source is balanced and offers the arguments used by anti-war protesters therefore going some way to explaining why their was an anti-war movement.
Source D is a cartoon published in the British magazine Punch in 1967. It depicts a train which signifies the US economy which is fuelled by the funding for Johnson’s ‘Great Society’ scheme .This included feeding the homeless and providing more medical care. The steam emitted from the train has ‘Vietnam’ written through it showing that the product of the US economy is the war in Vietnam rather than the continued well being of the American public. This explains the motives of some protesters who believed that government money was going towards the Vietnam War rather than back into America through schemes like the Great society.
Source E is a statement made by BBC commentator Robin Day in 1970. Day explains the power of the media towards the public mentality and points out that “blood looks very red on the colour screen television,” Colour television has only recently been freely available for the working citizen and for the first time a war has been broadcast, uncensored back to the public. Day also points out that, “in a future democracy which has uninhibited television coverage in every home” if any war will able to be staged, just or not. The source does explain the actions of anti-war protesters as for the first time in the history of warfare, the civilians have had front row seats to the horrors of war. Even though Day is English, his views were shared internationally and it is hard to imagine protests on the same scale without frontline television coverage.
Source F is the protest song “Goodnight Saigon” by Billy Joel which was written in the 1970’s. Joel passes his views on many issues in this five minutes, thirty seconds song which range from drug use and mental health to inexperience and morale. The lines “We came in spastic/Like tameless horses/We left in plastic/As numbered corpses,” shows Joels view on how unexpierenced ‘tamelass’ young americans were being sent to their deaths.This source shows the war from the perspective of a soldier and the song is more of a protest song for Vietnam veterans rather than the American public. The source is helpful in discovering why there were anti-war protests in the 1960s and 1970’s.
In my opinion the strongest sources are sources B and E, as these two sources show how the American public were exposed to the horrors of war, and therefore they are the most likely reason for mass protest .The weakest source, in my opinion, is Source A because, although it tells us of a Low IQ and inexperience among soldiers it does not give reason for an anti-war movement in America. In conclusion, I believe that, throughout the sources, there is more than enough information for us to understand why there was an anti-war movement in the United States during the late 60s and early 70s.
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