Influencing the Decision Makers: The Vietnam Experience
| Published date | 01 June 1987 |
| DOI | 10.1177/002234338702400207 |
| Date | 01 June 1987 |
| Author | Melvin Small |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
Influencing
the
Decision
Makers:
The
Vietnam
Experience *
MELVIN
SMALL
Department
of
History,
Wayne
State
University
Although
much
has
been
written
about
foreign
policy
dissent
in
the
United
States,
little
is
known
about
the
relative
effectiveness
of
dissenting
tactics.
Using
evidence
from
the
author’s
larger
study
of
the
impact
of
the
anti-Vietnam
War
movement
on
Johnson
and
Nixon,
this
paper
describes
how
dissenting
opinion
reached
the
Oval
Office
and
those
activities
that
were
most
likely
to
attract
serious
attention
from
the
presidents
and
their
advisors.
During
the
Vietnam
War
period,
mass
demonstrations,
letter
writing,
public
petitioning,
and
face-to-face
meetings
with
officials
all
captured
administration
attention.
At
times,
dissenting
activities,
especially
several
large
demonstrations,
played
a
central
role
in
the
formulation
of
American
foreign
policy.
In
general,
however,
decision
makers
reacted
unpredictably
and
sometimes
irrationally
to
criticism.
Consequently,
foreign
policy
protesters
were
wise
in
employing
all
of
the
traditional
forms
of
dissenting
activities
since
all,
at
one
time
or
another,
reached
their
targets.
ISSN
0022-3433
Journal
of
Peace
Research,
vol.
24,
no.
2,
1987
1.
Introduction
What
can
American
citizens
do,
either
indi-
vidually
or
organized
into
groups,
to
influ-
ence
their
nation’s
foreign
policies?
Sur-
prisingly,
even
after
historians
and
other
observers
have
analyzed
such
nationwide
protest
movements
as
America
First
in
1940-
41,
SANE
in
the
fifties
and
sixties,
the
anti-
war
movement
in
the
sixties
and
seventies,
and
the
Freeze
in
the
current
period,
we
still
know
little
about
how
to
attract
the
attention
and
sympathies
of
the
president
and
his
or
her
advisors
on
major
foreign
policy
issues.
1
Obviously,
the
ultimate
way
to
attract
their
attention
is
to
turn
them
out
of
office.
For
the
most
part,
however,
foreign
affairs
have
played
a
minor
role
in
presidential
and
congressional
elections
(Small
1978,
p.
845).
Further,
those
fixed
quadrennial
and
bi-
ennial
elections
have
rarely
occurred
during
periods
in
which
presidents
were
pursuing
controversial
foreign
policies.
In
the
Ameri-
can
political
system,
no
Anthony
Edens
were
ever
forced
to
leave
office
precipitously
because
of
a
failed
foreign
policy.
Reward
or
punishment
at
the
polls
has
not
proven
to
be
an
effective
means
of
altering
the
nation’s
foreign
policies.
Instead,
citizens
have
written
letters
and
telegrams,
convened
*An
earlier
version
of
this
paper
was
presented
at
the
Peace
Science
Society
(International)
Meeting
in
Detroit,
Michigan,
on
November
10,
1986.
meetings,
demonstrations,
and
marches,
published
petitions,
broadsides,
and
mani-
festos,
and
formed
organizations
to
do
all
of
the
above
in
an
attempt
to
influence
their
government.
They
have
had
to
adopt
an
unscientific,
scatter-shot
approach,
in
part,
because
knowledge
of
the
components
of
an
effective
protest
campaign
is
so
sketchy.
For
the
past
several
years,
I
have
been
working
on
a
book
on
the
impact
of
the
antiwar
movement
on
policy
making
from
1965
through
1971.
I
am
trying
to
determine
how
the
many
collective
and
individual
acts
of
protest
and
dissent
affected
the
Johnson
and
Nixon
administrations
as
they
decided
how
and
when
to
escalate,
deescalate,
and
negotiate.2
It
has
not
been
an
easy
task.
For
one
thing,
American
politicians
claim
that
they
construct
their
programs
irrespective
of
public
pressures.
’Politics
stops
at
the
water’s
edge’,
’a
foreign
policy
cannot
be
con-
structed
by
plebiscite’,
’the
president
alone
interprets
and
protects
national
security’.
And
so on.
Thus,
no
presidents
and
few
of
their
advisors
have
admitted
to
having
been
swayed
by
demonstrators,
petitioners,
or
editorial
writers.3
The
British
also
adhere
to
such
an
ethic
(Cohen
1986,
p.
60).
Given
the
officials’
proud
tradition
of
refusing
to
admit
that
they
might
bow
to
the
caprices
of
an
uninformed
public,
those
interested
in
the
impact
of
dissenters
on
them
must
use
a
variety
of
sources
and
methods
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