ABSTRACT
As support for the nuclear disarmament campaign ebbed in 1964, the movement against the Vietnam War began to gain momentum. Both movements mobilized large numbers of demonstrators, made news and had an impact on public opinion. Both also promoted a culture of protest in the West. There were however important differences between the nuclear disarmament and Vietnam movements. Activists against the Vietnam War tended to reject utterly the USA’s world role since 1945, as an extension of their resistance to the Vietnam War and American anti-Communist ideology, and they also attacked domestic American politics and values. Their rhetoric was more violent than that of the protesters against nuclear weapons and their methods more militant. Although sections of the liberal American establishment moved from support for the war to organized opposition, the Vietnam movement created a profound division between the demonstrators and the millions of older, white, conservative citizens who comprised Middle America. The switch from liberal beliefs and non-violent protest, which characterized the nuclear disarmament campaigns, to a more revolutionary rhetoric and espousal of violent resistance was evident in the transnational campaign against the war as well as in the USA itself. Sections of the movement also aligned themselves with the National Liberation Front in South Vietnam and with Ho Chi Minh’s government in the North, hoping for victory over the American forces.
