Vietnam Veterans Against the War

Vietnam Veterans Against the War (VVAW) is a tax-exempt Non-profit organization and corporation, originally created to oppose the Vietnam War. VVAW describes itself as a national veterans' organization that campaigns for peace, justice, and the rights of all United States military veterans. It publishes a twice-yearly newsletter The Veteran, previously published more frequently as 1st Casualty (1971-1972) and then as Winter Soldier (1973-1975). VVAW considers itself as "anti-war", although not in the pacifistic sense.

History

VVAW was founded by six Vietnam war veterans, including Jan "Barry" Crumb, Mark Donnelly, and David Braum, in New York City in June 1967 after they marched together in the April 15, 1967 Spring Mobilization to End the War anti-war demonstration with over 400,000 other protesters. After talking to members of the Veterans for Peace group at that march, Barry discovered there was no organization representing Vietnam veterans.

Notable VVAW Sponsored Events

Operation RAW

During the Labor Day weekend of September 4-7, 1970, Operation RAW ("Rapid American Withdrawal") was a march from Morristown, NJ, to Valley Forge State Park by over 150 veterans. Mock search and destroy missions were conducted by the veterans and "guerrilla theater" actors during the march. Members of the Youth International Party (YIP) were invited to participate as blindfolded "Vietcong" prisoners, but decided not to participate because such a passive role would be a "bore" and a "drag". The 86 mile long march culminated in a rally at Valley Forge where over 1500 people attended. The honorary commander during this event was Brigadier General Hugh B. Hester, US Army (Retired). Sponsors included Senators George McGovern and Edmund Muskie, Rep. John D. Conyers, Jr., Paul O'Dwyer, Mark Lane, and Donald Sutherland. Scheduled speakers were John Kerry, Joe Kennedy, Rev. James Bevel, Mark Lane, Jane Fonda, and Donald Sutherland. Congressman Allard Lowenstein, Mike Lerner, and Army First Lt. Louis Font also spoke.

Winter Soldier Investigation

In January 1971, VVAW sponsored The Winter Soldier Investigation to gather testimony from soldiers about war crimes being committed in Southeast Asia and demonstrate they were committed as a result of American war policies. Intended as a public event, it was boycotted by much of the mainstream media, although the Detroit Free Press covered it daily and immediately began investigating what was being said.

Veterans applying for participation in the investigation were asked if they witnessed or participated in a whole list of transgressions, including search and destroy missions, crop destruction, POW mistreatment.

This event was financially supported by the efforts of several celebrity peace activists. Winter Soldier Investigation testimonies were read into the Congressional Record by Senator Hatfield. In 1972, VVAW continued antiwar protests, and released Winter Soldier, a 16mm black-and-white documentary film showing participants giving testimony at the 1971 hearing, as well as footage of the Dewey Canyon III week of protest events. This film is currently on limited distribution and is now available on DVD. Membership in the VVAW was over 20,000 just after this WSI event.

Dewey Canyon III - Washington, D.C., April 1971

This peaceful anti-war protest organized by VVAW took its name from two short military invasions of Laos by US and South Vietnamese forces. Dubbed Operation Dewey Canyon III, it took place in Washington, D.C, April 19 through April 23, 1971. It was referred to by the participants as "a limited incursion into the country of Congress." The level of media publicity and Vietnam veteran participation at the Dewey Canyon III week of protest events far exceeded the Winter Soldier Investigation and any previous VVAW protest event.

Led by Gold Star Mothers (mothers of soldiers killed in war), more than 1100 veterans marched across the Lincoln Memorial Bridge to the Arlington Cemetery gate, just beneath the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. A memorial service for their peers was conducted by Reverend Jackson H. Day, who had just a few days earlier resigned his military chaplainship. Included with his passages of scripture and citations of poetry was a personal statement, including the following:

Maybe there are some others here like me--who wanted desperately to believe that what we were doing was acceptable, who hung on the words of "revolutionary development" and "winning the hearts and minds of the people." We had been told that on the balance the war was a good thing and we tried to make it a good thing; all of us can tell of somebody who helped out an orphanage, or of men like one sergeant who adopted a crippled Vietnamese child; and even at My Lai the grief of one of the survivors was mixed with bewilderment as he told a reporter, "I just don't understand it ... always before, the Americans brought medicine and candy." I believe there is something in all of us that would wave a flag for the dream of an America that brings medicine and candy, but we are gathered here today, waving no flags, in the ruins of that dream. Some of you saw right away the evil of what was going on; others of us one by one, adding and re-adding the balance sheet of what was happening and what could possibly be accomplished finally saw that no goal could be so laudable, or defense so necessary, as to justify what we have visited upon the people of Indochina.

The Gold Star Mothers and a few others approached the cemetery gate to enter and lay wreaths, but the gate had been closed and locked upon word of their impending arrival. They placed the wreaths instead along the gate, and peacefully departed.

The march reformed and continued to the Capitol, with Congressman Pete McCloskey joining the procession en route. McCloskey, and fellow Representatives Bella Abzug, Donald Edwards, Shirley Chisholm, Edmund Muskie and Ogden Reid addressed the large crowd in a show of support. VVAW members defied a Justice Department ordered injunction that they not camp on The Mall, and they set up camp anyway. Later that day, the District Court of Appeals lifted the injunction. Some members personally visited their Congressmen to lobby against the U.S. participation in the war in Vietnam. They presented Congress with their 16-point suggested resolution for ending the war in Vietnam.

On Tuesday, April 20, a couple hundred veterans listened to hearings by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on proposals to end the war. Other veterans, still angry at the insult to the Gold Star Mothers when they were refused entry to Arlington National Cemetery the previous day, marched back to the front gate. After initial refusal of entry, the veterans were finally allowed in. Veterans performed guerrilla theater on the Capitol steps, re-enacting combat scenes and search and destroy missions from Vietnam. Later that evening, Democratic Senators Claiborne Pell and Philip Hart held a fund-raising party for the veterans. During the party it was announced that Chief Justice Warren Burger of the United States Supreme Court had reversed the decision of the Court of Appeals and reinstated the injunction. The veterans were given until 4:30 the following afternoon to break camp and leave the National Mall. It was noted that this was the fastest reversal of an Appeals Court decision in recorded history.

On Wednesday, April 21, more than 50 veterans marched to The Pentagon and attempted to surrender and turn themselves in as war criminals. A Pentagon representative took their names and then turned them away. More veterans continued to meet with and lobby their representatives in Congress. Senator Ted Kennedy spent the day speaking with the veterans. The guerrilla theater re-enactments were moved to the steps of the Justice Department. After a close vote by the veterans, they decided to remain where they were. Many of the veterans were prepared to be arrested for continuing to camp on the National Mall, but none were arrested. Several of the patrolling park police officers reassured the veterans that arrests were not going to be made, despite orders to do so. Headlines the following day read, "VETS OVERRULE SUPREME COURT."

On Thursday, April 22, a large group of veterans demonstrated on the steps of the Supreme Court, and demanded to know why the Supreme Court had not ruled on the constitutionality of the war in Vietnam. The veterans sang "God Bless America" and 110 were arrested for disturbing the peace, and were later released. John Kerry, as VVAW spokesman, testified against the war for 2 hours in front of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee before a packed room of observers and media. [1] Lobbying on Capitol Hill by the veterans continued all day. A Washington District Court judge angrily dissolved his injunction order, rebuking the Justice Department lawyers for requesting the court order and then not enforcing it. Veterans staged a candlelight march around the White House, while a huge American flag was carried upside down in the historic international signal of distress.

On Friday, April 23, more than 800 veterans, one by one, tossed their medals, ribbons, discharge papers and other war mementos on the steps of the Capitol, rejecting the Vietnam war and the significance of those awards. Several hearings in Congress were held this week regarding atrocities committed in Vietnam, the media's inaccurate coverage of the war, and also hearings on proposals to end the United States participation in the war. A tree was planted on the mall as part of a ceremony symbolizing the veteran's wish to preserve life and the environment.

Senators George McGovern and Mark Hatfield helped arrange at least $50,000 in fundraising during preparations for Dewey Canyon III. The VVAW paid $94,000 for an ad to advertise this event in the April 11, 1971 New York Times.

Walter Reed Memorial Service

In May 1971, the VVAW and former Army chaplain Reverend Jackson Day conducted a service for veterans at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center. Injured and disabled veterans who were inpatients at Walter Reed were brought into the chapel in wheelchairs. The service included time for individual prayers or public confession, and many veterans took the floor to recount things they had done or seen for which they felt guilt or anger. This would be the last service performed by Jackson Day for almost two decades.

Operation POW

Operation POW, organized by the VVAW in Massachusetts, got its name from the group's concern that Americans were prisoners of the Vietnam War, as well as to honor American POWs held captive by North Vietnam.

The event sought to tie antiwar activism to patriotic themes. Over the May, 1971 Memorial Day weekend, veterans and other participants marched from Concord, Massachusetts to a rally on Boston Common. The plan was to invoke the spirit of the American Revolution and Paul Revere by spending successive nights at the sites of the Battle of Lexington and Concord and the Battle of Bunker Hill, culminating in a Memorial Day rally with a public reading of the Declaration of Independence.

When the participants tried to camp on the village green in Lexington, Massachusetts, at 2:30 a.m. on May 30, local and state police awoke and arrested 441 demonstrators for trespassing. All were given the Miranda warning and were hauled away on school buses to spend the night at the Lexington Public Works Garage. Julian Soshnick, charismatic lawyer of Boston Strangler fame, volunteered to represent the demonstrators. He worked out a deal with Concord Court Judge, John Forte. The protestors later paid a $5 fine and were released. The mass arrests caused a community backlash and ended up giving positive coverage to the VVAW.

Statue of Liberty occupation

In December 1971, fifteen VVAW activists barricaded and occupied the Statue of Liberty for two days. Simultaneous protests took place at the historic Betsy Ross house in Philadelphia (for 45 minutes) and Travis Air Force Base in California (for 12 hours). Other VVAW members in California also occupied the Saigon Government conciliate in San Francisco.

Kansas City meeting

During a meeting in Kansas City, Missouri in mid November 1971, Scott Camil a radical leader of Vietnam Veterans Against the War proposed the assassination of the most conservative members of Congress, as well as any other powerful opponents of the antiwar movement.

According to interviews with VVAW members who were present at the Kansas City meeting, Camil suggested something he called "The Phoenix Project," named after the original Phoenix Program operations during the Vietnam War used to assassinate the Viet Cong. Mr. Camil's Phoenix Project plan was to execute the Southern senatorial leadership that was backing the war including John Tower, Strom Thurmond, and John Stennis. In Camil's words, "I was serious. I felt that I spent two years killing women and children in their own fucking homes. These are the guys that fucking made the policy, and these were the guys that were responsible for it, and these were the guys that were voting to continue the fucking war when the public was against it. I felt that if we really believed in what we were doing, and if we were willing to put our lives on the line for the country over there, we should be willing to put our lives on the line for the country over here." [2] The assassinations were to be executed during the Senate Christmas recess.

The plan was voted down, although the closeness of the vote is debated. Although John Kerry claims he had resigned from the organization prior to the Kansas City meeting, one account indicates Kerry was present for the vote, voted against it, and simultaneously resigned from the organization in disgust. Kerry, however, continued to speak at anti-war events for several more months.

Post Vietnam War Activities

By 1973, US combat involvement in Vietnam ended, and VVAW changed its emphasis to include advocating amnesty for draft resisters and dissenters. President Jimmy Carter eventually granted an amnesty in 1980.

There were two significant battles fought simultaneously by VVAW after the fighting in Vietnam ended in 1975, that of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and Agent Orange.

As VVAW gained members in the late '60s they realized that many veterans were having readjustment problems. As early as 1970 VVAW initiated "rap groups" in which veterans could discuss the troubling aspects of the war, their disillusionment with it, and their experiences on arriving home. Their continued pressure and activism caused what had been known as "Post-Vietnam Syndrome" to be recognized in 1980 as Post Traumatic Stress Disorder by the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. The VVAW "rap group" treatment methods are the basis for treating PTSD today.

In 1978 Chicago Veterans Administration caseworker Maude de Victor noticed a pattern in cancers and other illnesses suffered by Vietnam veterans and linked those illnesses with exposure to herbicides like Agent Orange, and it's dioxin contaminants. VVAW led the struggle to force the government to test, treat and compensate the victims of those poisons. Congress mandated a study of Agent Orange in 1979. Veterans sued the herbicide manufacturers in 1982. Two years later the companies settled the suit for $180 million to compensate what at that time was over 200,000 claimants.

These were lonely campaigns since the "main stream" veterans groups regarded Vietnam veterans as "crybabies and losers" in general, and VVAW in particular was seen as being unpatriotic and anti-American. A natural ally, Vietnam Veterans of America, wasn't founded until 1978 and fielded only a handful of chapters in the next few years. It wasn't until 1990 that the American Legion and VVA filed suit against the government for failing to conduct the study ordered by Congress in 1979.

VVAW continues to organize programs and fundraising events in support of veterans, peace, and social justice.

Allegations of leadership collaboration with North Vietnam

Some declassified documents allege that VVAW leadership was actively coordinating with members of the North Vietnamese Peace delegation toward the common cause of ending US participation in the war and changing US policy in Southeast Asia. Some leaders in the VVAW organization were alleged by informants to the FBI to have cultivated ties with the North Vietnamese representatives, forming collaborative efforts to oppose US policy in Southeast Asia. The FBI managed to gain the confidence of several VVAW members and used them to perform surveillance of the group’s activities, as part of its controversial COINTELPRO operation.

According to FBI records, an informant "who has provided credible information in the past" stated that Al Hubbard traveled to, or would travel to Paris to meet with the North Vietnamese peace delegation to arrange for a Prisoner of War release, with his trip financed by the CPUSA. The FBI filed a report filed on November 24, 1971, stating that on August 13, 1971, Joseph Urgo, Second Vice-President of VVAW also traveled to Hanoi. Urgo’s aim coincided with a planned international action by active duty people to demonstrate against the Vietnam war. Urgo proposed to send tapes to the North Vietnamese to use in Radio Hanoi broadcasts to get US servicemen to stop fighting in Vietnam, and proposed to send a VVAW delegation to negotiate the release of American POWs. (FBI File (S9,p153-154))

On April 4, 1972, a confidential source reported that “a representative of a North Vietnamese Government at the Paris Peace talks telephoned the 'movement' in the United States telling them to be ready to take action, presumably demonstrations, to counter expected escalation of bombing by American air forces in South Vietnam and North Vietnam as a result of the increased military action of North Vietnamese forces in Quang Tri Province, South Vietnam.” The source reported that VVAW had no specific "actions" planned at that time but that the National Steering Committee would take it up at the next meeting, and announce its plans during a press conference. page 24

Mike Oliver had hoped to send a VVAW delegation to Hanoi to coordinate an American POW release with the North Vietnamese government. The rationale behind this was the release of US POW’s would be credited by the North Vietnamese to the VVAW organization, thereby boosting notability and credibility. Oliver had hoped that the successful release of prisoners could lead to more negotiations page 12. The VVAW's leadership also decided in a July 1971 Executive Committee meeting that terms such as "Vietcong" and "North Vietnamese" were not to be used in VVAW press releases and communications, because their use supported the "establishment idea that there are two Vietnams." Instead, they used PRG (Provisional Revolutionary Government) and DRV (Democratic Republic of Vietnam), to indicate the groups acceptance of these designations. [3]

Similarly-named different group

The relatively small group Vietnam Veterans Against the War Anti-Imperialist (VVAW-AI) is not a faction, caucus or part of VVAW. The VVAW web site describes VVAW-AI as "the creation of an obscure, ultra-left sect called the Revolutionary Communist Party (RCP) ... designed to pimp off of VVAW's history of struggle." In the mid-1970s, as VVAW membership severely dropped after the end of the war, members of Bob Avakian's militant RCP were able to gain influential positions in the VVAW, including the National Office. A rift in the remaining membership formed due to the opposed ideologies, and the RCP group formed a separate organization, Vietnam Veterans Against the War Anti-Imperialist (VVAW-AI). VVAW filed and won a lawsuit prohibiting the RCP group from using the VVAW name, logos and materials.

Further reading

• Kerry, John, and Vietnam Veterans Against the War. The New Soldier. MacMillan Publishing Company: October 1971. ISBN 0-02-073610-X
• Vietnam, A View from the Walls. History of the anti-Vietnam war U.S. protest, Posters, Freedom of Information surveillance documents, art, clips and narrative. ISBN 0-912424-08-7.
• Nicosia, Gerald. Home to war : a history of the Vietnam veterans' movement. Crown Publishers: 2001. ISBN 0-8129-9103-6
• Retzer, Joseph David. War and Political Ideology: The Roots of Radicalism Among Vietnam Veterans. Doctoral thesis. Yale University. 1976.
• W.D. Ehrhart. Passing Time: Memoir of a Vietnam Veteran Against the War. University of Massachusetts Press: 2nd edition, 1995. ISBN 978-0870239588

See also

• Going Upriver
• Fulbright Hearing
• Tiger Force (commandos)
• Winter Soldier Investigation
• Brian Willson
• David M. Shoup

External links

• VVAW web site
• History of the U.S. War in Vietnam By Barry Romo, Pete Zastrow & Joe Miller
• The Winter Soldier Investigation
• Internet Movie Database - Winter Soldier
• Freekerrybook.org - Partial online version of the VVAW book, The New Soldier (note: website hostile to Kerry and VVAW, heavily edited)
• http://www.snowshoefilms.com/veterans.html
• http://www.archive.org/details/VetsSpeakOut
• http://www.sirnosir.com/index.html
• My Lai Peace Park Project
• Iraq Veterans Against the War
• Vietnam Agent Orange Campaign