The Pro-War Movement
352 pages, 6 x 9
Paperback
Release Date:08 Jul 2013
ISBN:9781625340184
The Pro-War Movement
Domestic Support for the Vietnam War and the Making of Modern American Conservatism
University of Massachusetts Press
In the vast literature on the Vietnam War, much has been written about the antiwar movement and its influence on U.S. policy and politics. In this book, Sandra Scanlon shifts attention to those Americans who supported the war and explores the war's impact on the burgeoning conservative political movement of the 1960s and early 1970s.
Believing the Vietnam War to be a just and necessary cause, the pro-war movement pushed for more direct American military intervention in Southeast Asia throughout the Kennedy administration, lobbied for intensified bombing during the Johnson years, and offered coherent, if divided, endorsements of Nixon's policies of phased withdrawal. Although its political wing was dominated by individuals and organizations associated with Barry Goldwater's presidential bids, the movement incorporated a broad range of interests and groups united by a shared antipathy to the New Deal order and liberal Cold War ideology.
Appealing to patriotism, conservative leaders initially rallied popular support in favor of total victory and later endorsed Nixon's call for "peace with honor." Yet as the war dragged on with no clear end in sight, internal divisions eroded the confidence of pro-war conservatives in achieving their aims and forced them to reevaluate the political viability of their hardline Cold War rhetoric. Conservatives still managed to make use of grassroots patriotic campaigns to marshal support for the war, particularly among white ethnic workers opposed to the antiwar movement. Yet in so doing, Scanlon concludes, they altered the nature and direction of the conservative agenda in both foreign and domestic policy for years to come.
Believing the Vietnam War to be a just and necessary cause, the pro-war movement pushed for more direct American military intervention in Southeast Asia throughout the Kennedy administration, lobbied for intensified bombing during the Johnson years, and offered coherent, if divided, endorsements of Nixon's policies of phased withdrawal. Although its political wing was dominated by individuals and organizations associated with Barry Goldwater's presidential bids, the movement incorporated a broad range of interests and groups united by a shared antipathy to the New Deal order and liberal Cold War ideology.
Appealing to patriotism, conservative leaders initially rallied popular support in favor of total victory and later endorsed Nixon's call for "peace with honor." Yet as the war dragged on with no clear end in sight, internal divisions eroded the confidence of pro-war conservatives in achieving their aims and forced them to reevaluate the political viability of their hardline Cold War rhetoric. Conservatives still managed to make use of grassroots patriotic campaigns to marshal support for the war, particularly among white ethnic workers opposed to the antiwar movement. Yet in so doing, Scanlon concludes, they altered the nature and direction of the conservative agenda in both foreign and domestic policy for years to come.
A definitive history of how the pro-war argument was constructed in America during the Vietnam War, and also how the conservative movement developed a complex and variegated response to the conflict.'—Gregory L. Schneider, author of Cadres for Conservatism: Young Americans for Freedom and the Rise of the Contemporary Right
'Scanlon's important contribution is to show how Americans became activists on the right and how their actions and votes affected the arc of American political culture in the 1960s and beyond.'—Journal of American History
'As Scanlon describes it, the pro-war movement took shape as a reactionary force: first to the graduated measures employed by the Johnson administration, and then to the antiwar protests against U.S. involvement in Vietnam. . . . Scanlon deftly explores the means by which movement leaders, political elites, grassroots activists, and the Nixon administration navigated these currents and shaped each other's actions. . . . [A] finely reasoned, well-crafted book.'—American Historical Review
'Sandra Scanlon has filled a gaping hole in the historiography of the Vietnam War. And she does so with a scholarly detachment that will appeal to all serious students of the war. . . . The Pro-War Movement deserves a prominent place on graduate seminar reading lists and on the bookshelves of all who desire an analytically rich and thoroughgoing treatment of the political transformations wrought by the war in Vietnam.'—Michigan War Studies Review
'Scanlon's exhaustive research into the conservative response to the antiwar movement, and its effect on both the Johnson and the Nixon administrations, makes this book required reading for anyone studying those times. . . . This is an important book about an important subject, and anyone seeking to understand the full range of domestic response to the Vietnam War will need to read it.'—Journal of Cold War Studies
Sandra Scanlon is lecturer in American history at University College, Dublin.
