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30:3 A Nation Divided. A Manipulatable Draft. Selective Service 18-26 Medical exemptions Lenient Draft boards Enlist in National Guard or Coast Guard College deferment Working class war. Draft Dodgers????. Clinton-Oxford Bush-Lieutenant TX Air National Guard. African American Service.
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A Manipulatable Draft • Selective Service 18-26 • Medical exemptions • Lenient Draft boards • Enlist in National Guard or Coast Guard • College deferment • Working class war
Draft Dodgers???? • Clinton-Oxford • Bush-Lieutenant TX Air National Guard
African American Service • 10% of population • 20% of combat deaths • MLK- “cruel irony”
Women in Vietnam • 10,000 noncombat positions • Red Cross • USO
The New Left • Goal: Corporations and Government was too powerful and dominant (American Machine), need greater individual freedoms and return of government to the people (participatory democracy) • Students for a Democratic Society SDS-400 chapters • Free Speech Movement FSM
Why youths opposed the War • Civil War • SV-oppressive and corrupt • Draining American police power elsewhere • Morally unjust
Protests • 1967 Burning draft cards-Central park • Draft Dodging • 1967 March on Washington • 75,000 • 30,000 Pentagon
Doves v. Hawks Doves: opposed to war/immediate withdrawal Hawks: support war/more military force to win! Popular support 70%
1968 Tet Offensive • January 30, 1968 Lunar New Year • Week long truce • Migration to cities for celebration and funerals
1968 Tet Offensive • 100 town/cities in SV • 12 U.S. Air Bases • U.S. Embassy Saigon • 1 month to reclaim control
Tet: Turning Point • Who Won? • Casualties • Political and psychological implications • Widened Credibility gap
Public support dwindles • Influence of the media • Walter Cronkite “more certain than ever that the bloody experience of Vietnam is to end in a stalemate” • LBJ “If I’ve lost Walter then it’s over. I’ve lost Mr. Average Citizen”
LBJ and the 1968 Election • “I shall not seek, and I will not accept, the nomination of my party for another term as your President” • “The war killed the lady I really loved-The Great Society” • Democrats divided
MLK’s Assassination • April 4, 1968 • James Earl Ray • Memphis, TN
RFK/Bobby Kennedy’s Death • Primary campaigns D-Bobby Kennedy • Assassinated June 5, 1968 • SirhanSirhan
Chicago Riots-Democratic National Convention • August 1968 • 10,000 Anti war protestors v. 17,000police and national guard • Yippies-provoke violence/discredit Democrats
1968 Presidential Elections • D-Hubert Humphrey • R-Richard Nixon
Nixon’s Campaign Promise • Restore law and order instead of riots and protests • End the war in Vietnam