1970's Government and Politics | The Government and Domestic Dissent

The Antiwar Movement.

Vietnamization succeeded in neutralizing much of American antiwar opinion. As the troops came home, antiwar protests dissipated. By early spring 1970 the Vietnam Moratorium Committee, which organized the widespread, middle-class protests of 1969, announced that they were closing their Washington, D.C., office. Nixon, however, was highly antagonistic toward the antiwar movement. He believed it undermined the American will to win; it challenged his ability to conduct foreign policy; it threatened the same political defeats that destroyed Johnson. Nixon was therefore determined to change public opinion and crush the antiwar movement.

The Weathermen.

Some elements of the antiwar movement fueled Nixon's antagonism. By 1970 small groups of extremists turned from protests to street riots and terrorist violence. In 1969 a radical splinter group known as the Weathermen, calling for revolution in the...