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Nixon vs. Nam Vets (VVAW that is)

By VVAW

As the inside workings of the Nixon Administration seep into public view with the release of more and more Nixon documents, Nixon and his lawyers are still sitting on much information relation to Vietnam veterans. No non-national security matter has had as many documents withheld at Nixon's request.

What is known is sparse but intensely interesting. In February 1971, Nixon ordered the White House to plan to mobilize Vietnam vets in support of Nixon's Vietnam policy. Charles Colson—Watergate jail bird and born again Christian—was put in charge; for awhile the plan was shelved because Colson feared that a new organization, sponsored by the White House, would cut into recruiting by the VFW and American Legion.

In March of the same year the head of the Veterans Administration, Donal Johnson, wrote to Colson with the analysis that "Vietnam veterans tend to see their experiences as an exercise in survival rather than a defense of national values. The majority, given the opportunity in company of their peers, express both intense anger and much guilt." That a VA honcho could have been so perceptive in 1971 is remarkable. That it took the VA until 1979 to started with their outreach program—which is based on this kind of analysis—is a tribute to bureaucratic ineptness and stupidity.

While the White House was initially impressed by Johnson's thinking, the response changed 6 weeks later when VVAW, in Operation Dewey Canyon III expressed the anger that Johnson mentioned. Many VVAW members did—and do—see the war as an exercise in survival. But following DC III the White House formulated a policy to opposed any recognition that vets had either adverse effects from the war or that Vietnam veterans questioned U.S. policy in Vietnam.

[The above information comes from Stars & Stripes, a veterans paper published in Washington DC. It opens some interesting possibilities for a researcher with time and expertise—anyone interested should get in contact with the VVAW National Office which will offer whatever help we can provide. Any VVAW member who was around during the Republican Conventions of '72 will remember the feeble attempts of Nixon's Committee to Re-elect the President (CREEP) to come up with Vietnam vets who supported Nixon's war policies. They found 6 people, and only one of those was a Vietnam veteran.]