Forty years ago, Maurice Isserman, James L. Ferguson Professor of History, attended the Oct. 21 march on the Pentagon, a protest organized by the National Mobilization Committee to End the War in Vietnam. In an article titled "The Flower in the Gun Barrel" in the Oct. 19 issue of The Chronicle of Higher Education, Isserman recounts his experience as a participant and analyzes the event's importance in the evolution of the Vietnam anti-war movement.
The New York Times's writer James Reston made claims that many of the Pentagon protesters were ugly and vulgar provocateurs. "They spat on some of the soldiers in the front line at the Pentagon and goaded them with the most vicious personal slander," said Reston. Isserman disputes Reston's reporting, "…we had been pretty true to Gandhian principles as we sat in below McNamara's office window." A member of a military-police battalion from Fort Bragg, N.C., who took up a position outside the Pentagon that afternoon, when interviewed by Isserman, reported, "So far, I've heard from 4 MP's who were at the Pentagon in 67. … None of them recall seeing or hearing about anybody being spit on. One MP ... whom I spent considerable time with on the line, described the protesters as friendly and peaceful ... As another said, 'If one of our guys had been spit on there would have been a retaliation.' I have no doubts about that."
Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara had sent the White House a confidential memo outlining his "growing doubts" about American involvement in Vietnam five months before the protest. Isserman reflects, "If only Robert McNamara had recognized its [the protest's] true Gandhi-like character. If only he had responded to the protesters' chants of 'Join us!' and come down from his office and out into our ranks, and, symbolically, laid down his own arms. Maybe he would have had a better day. And maybe we would have been spared the extremes to come."
The New York Times's writer James Reston made claims that many of the Pentagon protesters were ugly and vulgar provocateurs. "They spat on some of the soldiers in the front line at the Pentagon and goaded them with the most vicious personal slander," said Reston. Isserman disputes Reston's reporting, "…we had been pretty true to Gandhian principles as we sat in below McNamara's office window." A member of a military-police battalion from Fort Bragg, N.C., who took up a position outside the Pentagon that afternoon, when interviewed by Isserman, reported, "So far, I've heard from 4 MP's who were at the Pentagon in 67. … None of them recall seeing or hearing about anybody being spit on. One MP ... whom I spent considerable time with on the line, described the protesters as friendly and peaceful ... As another said, 'If one of our guys had been spit on there would have been a retaliation.' I have no doubts about that."
Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara had sent the White House a confidential memo outlining his "growing doubts" about American involvement in Vietnam five months before the protest. Isserman reflects, "If only Robert McNamara had recognized its [the protest's] true Gandhi-like character. If only he had responded to the protesters' chants of 'Join us!' and come down from his office and out into our ranks, and, symbolically, laid down his own arms. Maybe he would have had a better day. And maybe we would have been spared the extremes to come."
