What was one of the major student organizations engaged in organizing protests and demonstrations against the Vietnam War?

1970The War

March 10, 1970: The US Army accuses Captain Ernest Medina and four other solders of committing crimes at Songmy in March 1968. The charges range from premeditated murder to rape and the "maiming" of a suspect under interrogation. Medina was the company commander of Lt. William Cally and other solders who are charged with murder and other crimes in My Lai. [Bowman, p. 251

Documents related to the court martial of Ernest Medina

April 30, 1970: The United States and South Vietnam invade Cambodia, attacking North Vietnamese and Vietcong bases and supply lines. Angered by the move, four men from Henry Kissinger's National Security Council staff resign the next month. [NYT, 5/23/70]

Listen to Richard Nixon's address to the nation regarding the Cambodian invasion

Text of Nixon's address (also available at http://www.mekong.net/cambodia/nixon430.htm)

May 22, 1970: In an address on the Vietnam war to a Republican dinner in Houston, Texas, Vice President Spiro Agnew lambasts student movements and the "impudent core of effete snobs who characterize themselves as intellectuals."

Several months earlier, Agnew had delivered another speech at a Republican fund-raising dinner in St. Louis in which he said: "Senator [William] Fulbright said some months ago that if the Vietnam War went on much longer the 'best of our young people' would be in Canada. Let Senator Fulbright go prospecting for his future party leaders in the deserters' dens of Canada and Sweden; we Republicans shall look elsewhere." [NYT, 2/11/70]

Listen to an except from Agnew's "impudent snob" speech

View an except from Agnew's "impudent snobs" speech

Transcript of an excerpt from Agnew's "impudent snob" speech

Listen to an except from Agnew's "deserters' dens" speech

December 22, 1970: The Cooper-Church amendment to the U.S. Defense Appropriations Bill forbids the use of any U.S. ground forces in Laos or Cambodia. [NYT, 5/16/70; NYT, 12/15/70]

Anti-War/Political Activism

Something's In the Air

Documentary program about anti-war demonstrations in the late 1960's and 1970's at UC Berkeley. Contains on-site recordings of student demonstrations and skirmishes over Cambodia, ROTC, and other issues related to the war.

February - December, 1970: The Weather Underground is either accused of or takes credit for a series of bombings across the country: 13 February 1970: two bombs explode in the parking lot of the Berkeley police stationhouse, inuring three officers, one seriously [NYT, 2/18/70]; 17 February 1970: San Francisco police stationhouse is bombed, seriously injuring a police sargeant [NYT, 2/18/70]; 9 June 1970: The New York City Police Headquarters is bombed in response to what the Weathermen call "police repression" [NYT, 6/10/70]; 27 July 1970: The Presidio Army Base in San Francisco is bombed to mark the 11th anniversary of the Cuban Revolution. [NYT, 7/27/70]; 8 October 1970: Bombing of Marin County Courthouse in retaliation for the killing of Jonathan Jackson, William Christmas, and James McClain. [NYT, 8/10/70] On the same day a bomb blast damages an armory in Santa Barbara, California, and a bomb is discovered and disarmed on the Berkeley campus; 14 October 1970: The Harvard Center for International Affairs is bombed [NYT, 10/14/70]

February 14-15, 1970: After numerous courtroom outburst, Judge Julius Hoffman sentences four Chicago 7 defendants to lengthy prison terms for contempt of court. As the jury continues to deliberate, defense attorneys William Kunstler and Leonard Wineglass, along with three more defendants, are sentenced to prison for contempt of court. [NYT, 2/15/70; NYT 2/16/70]

In Berkeley, crowds assemble to protest the contempt sentences given to the Chicago 7 attorneys. After the meeting, the crowd marches to the University, breaking the windows of 60 businesses along the way. 15 are arrested and 9 injured. [NYT, 2/18/70]

February 18, 1970: The jury returns its verdict in the Chicago 7 trial, finding five of the seven defendants guilty of violating the Anti-Riot Act of 1968. These five are sentenced to five years imprisonment and fined $5,000. Froines and Weiner are acquitted. [NYT, 2/19/70] [See Also: May 11, 1972]

January-June, 1970: In January, UC Santa Barbara anthropology professor Bill Allen, an outspoken critic of the war, is denied tenure. On February 25, after a speech by Chicago 8 lawyer William Kunstler, a UC Santa Barbara student is arrested. (The arresting officer purportedly mistakes a bottle of wine for a molotov cocktail). Bystanders begin throwing rocks. They march on a local (Isla Vista) branch of the Bank of America and burn it down. Demonstrators battle with police for seven hours. The National Guard are called in by Governor Ronald Reagan. [LAT, 2/26/70; NYT, 2/27/70]

Isla Vista riots website

Isla Vista riots website (with audio and video clips

Time article on the Isla Vista riots

On April 18, an attempt is made to burn down another a Bank of America building; four students are wounded by police buckshot. Kevin Moran, a UCSB student who had attempted to disuade the crowd from using violence, is shot and killed by a Santa Barbara police officer.

In a press conference following the event, Ronald Reagan tearfully says, "It isn't very important where the bullet came from. The bullet was sent on its way several years ago when a certain element in our society decided it could take the law into its own hands." [LAT, 4/21/70; LAT, 4/22/70]

On June 4th, students angered by the indictment of 17 (4 UCSB students and 13 local youths) in the February 25th riots, attempt to burn down the rebuilt Isla Vista branch Bank of America. Street battles with police continue over the next several days. 667 people had been arrested. [NYT, 6/8/70]

March 10, 1970: Weather Underground members Diana Oughton, Theodore Gold, and Terry Robbins are killed in the basement of a Greenwich Village townhouse when a nail-studded bomb, which they intended to plant at a dance at the Fort Dix (New Jersey) army base, accidentally explodes. Kathy Wilkerson and Kathy Boudin escape the blast. [NYT, 3/11/70; UPI, 1970]

After the incident, Wilkerson, Boudin, Bernadine Dohrn, Bill Ayers, and other members go underground, where they and others co-write and publish the book Prairie Fire, participate in a clandestinely filmed documentary, and continue to direct bombings. In 1970 Bernadine Dohrn is put on the FBI's Ten Most Wanted list.

Police mugshot of Bernadine Dohrn

April 3, 1970: Twelve members of the Weathermen are indicted in Chicago in connection with the 1969 Days of Rage (see October 6-12, 1969)

April 15, 1970: During the Moratorium Day against the Vietnam war, Berkeley students attack the campus Navy ROTC building. The university declares a state of emergency. Campus is still under a state of emergency when the media announces the invasion of Cambodia (See April 30, 1970). Activist students at Yale University call for a national student strike over the invasion, and the strike spreads even more with the news about national guard murders at Kent State and Jackson State. (see May 1-4)

May 1, 1970: In informal remarks made at a Pentagon briefing, President Nixon condemns campus anti-war protesters: "You see these bums, you know, blowing up the campuses. Listen, the boys that are on the college campuses today are the luckiest people in the world, going to the greatest universities, and here they are burning up the books, I mean storming around about this issue -- I mean you name it -- get rid of the war; there will be another one." [as quoted in Nixon(PBS, 1990); see also Ambrose, p. 348]

May 1-4, 1970: On Friday, May 1, a day after Nixon's April 30 televised address regarding the U.S. incursion into Cambodia, students at Kent State University organizes a demonstration to protest the invasion of Cambodia, which includes burying the United States Constitution in front of the Victory Bell on the university Commons. The following Monday, May 4, an estimated crowd of 2,000-3,000 gathers on the Commons to continue their protest. Shortly after noon, members of the Ohio National Guard, which had been dispatched that weekend to control acts of civil disobedience, encounters the crowd. Guardsmen fire shots into the crowd, killing four students (Allison Krause, William K. Schroeder, Jeffrey G. Miller, Sandra L. Scheuer) and wounding nine others. [NYT, 5/5/70]

Vice President Sprio Agnew's response to the killings is: "Had the rocks not been thrown, there would have been no chance of the killings". [See also Time Magazine, May 11, 1970)

View video clips of events after Kent State

Listen to Agnew on "rocks and killing"

Photo: Mary Ann Vecchio gestures and screams as she kneels by the body of a student lying face down on the campus of Kent State University, Kent, Ohio on May 4, 1970. (AP Photo/John Filo) (AP Photo)

The Digital Journalist: Eyewitness: Howard Ruffner

Information and photographs of the Kent State confrontation

May 4 Archive

Four Dead in Ohio: 35th Anniversary of Kent State Shootings (audio and transcripts from the radio series Democracy Now)

May 1-7, 1970 During the first week of May, UC Berkeley students paralyze the school with massive rioting. Students attend their classes and demanded that the class discuss the Cambodian invasion and then disband. 15,000 attend a convocation at the Greek Theater, and the UC regents, fearing more intensified riots, close the university for a four-day weekend. [See Also: Time Magazine, 5/18/70]

On May 4, 1970, the presidents of 37 universities and colleges urge Nixon in a leter to "demonstrate unequivocally your determination" to end promptly US military intervention in Southeast Asia. "We implore you to consider the incalculable dangers of an unprecedented alienation of America's youth, and to take immediate action to demonstrate unequivocally your determination to end the war quickly." [NYT, 5/5/70]

May 6, 1970: More than 100 colleges are closed due to student riots over he invasion of Cambodia.

May 14: Two students at predominantly African American Jackson (Mississippi) State University are killed by police during a protest over civil rights issues and over the events at Kent State.

Information about this event at the African American Registry

June 1970: At 7:30 a.m., radio station KPFK (Los Angeles) receives a call from a woman identifying herself as a member of the Weather Underground (Bernadine Dohrn): "Hello. I am going to read a declaration of a state of war. This is the first communication from the Weathermen Underground. The lines are drawn...revolution is touching all of our lives. ...Freaks are revolutionaries, and revolutionaries are freaks. If you want to find us, this is where we are. In every tribe, commune, dormitory, farmhouse, barracks and town house where kids are making love, smoking dope and loading guns. Fugitives from American justice are free to go. ...Within the next 14 days we will attack a symbol or institution of American injustice."

Listen to Bernadine Dohrn reading the Weatherman Underground "Declaration of War" (Weatherman Underground Communication 1

Text of the "Declaration of War"

Listen to Bernadine Dohrn reading Weatherman Underground Communication 5

Recordings courtesy of The Freedom Archives

On June 7, shortly after this "Declaration of War", a bomb rips through police headquartes in New York City. [NYT, 6/10/70]

June 13, 1970: President Nixon establishes The President's Commission on Campus Unrest. The Commission holds 13 days of public hearings in Jackson, Mississippi; Kent State, Ohio; Washington DC and Los Angeles, California. No convictions or arrests of any military or law enforcement officer result from these hearings.

The Report offers the following summary of the events and feelings present among those involved: "The pattern established on Friday night was to recur throughout the weekend: There were disorderly incidents; authorities could not or did not respond in time to apprehend those responsible or to stop the incidents in their early stages; the disorder grew; the police action, when it came, involved bystanders as well as participants; and, finally, the students drew together in the conviction that they were being arbitrarily harassed." [LAT, 6/14/70][Report, 1970]

The report of the President's Commission on Campus Unrest.[Washington; For sale by the Supt. of Docs., U.S. Govt. Print. Off., 1970] (ED-P: LA229 .U54; MAIN: LA229 .U54; MOFF: LA229 .A54)

June 15, 1970: The Supreme Court (Welsh v. United States ) removes the religious requirement and allowed objection based on a deeply held and coherent ethical system with no reference to a Supreme Being. In 1971 the Supreme Court would refuse to allow objection to a particular war (Gillette v. United States). [NYT, 3/9/71]

August 24, 1970: A bomb rips through the Army Mathematics Research Center at the University of Wisconsin, killing a post-graduate student, Robert Fassnact, and injuring four others. A radical "guerilla" group calling itself "The New Year's Gang" takes credit for the bombing. [NYT, 8/25/70; NYT, 8/28/70; Bates, 1992]

September 14,1970: The Weather Underground springs Timothy Leary--ex-Harvard professor and research psychologist turned psychedelic guru and counterculture icon--from a minimum-security prison in San Luis Obispo, California to which he was sentenced to ten year for possession of marijuana. The Underground subsequently smuggles Leary and his wife out of the United States and into Algeria. The couple's plan to take refuge with the Black Panther Eldridge Cleaver failes after Cleaver attemptes to hold Leary hostage. The couple flees to Switzerland. [NYT, 9/14/70]

Listen to Leary 1971The War

February 1971: South Vietnam and the U.S. invade Laos in an attempt to sever the Ho Chi Minh Trail (Operation Lam Son 719) [NYT, 2/1/71]

March 1971: Opinion polls indicate Nixon's approval rating among Americans has dropped to 50 percent, while approval of his Vietnam strategy has slipped to just 34 percent. Half of all Americans polled believe the war in Vietnam to be "morally wrong."

March 29, 1971: Lt. William Calley is found guilty of the murder of 22 My Lai civilians. He is sentenced to life imprisonment with hard labor, however, on August 20, the sentence reduced to 20 years, then 10 years. Out of 16 military personnel charged with offenses concerning the My Lai massacre, only five were actually court-martialed, and only Calley was ever found guilty. On September 23, Ernest Medina, earlier charged with war crimes, is acquitted of all charges after jury deliberates for 60 minutes.[See: March 16, 1968] [NYT, 3/30/71]

Documents related to the My Lai courts martial Anti-War Activism

1971: Jane Fonda, actor Donald Sutherland, musician Holly Near, and writer and comedian Paul Mooney organize the group known as F.T.A. (also known variously as Fuck the Army or Free the Army). The groups is an antiwar road show designed as an answer to Bob Hope's USO tour. The tour, referred to as "political vaudeville" by Fonda, visits military towns along the West Coast. The goup helps set up coffee houses and performs it work with the goal of establishing a dialog with soldiers regarding their participation in the war.

1971: The Weather Underground is either accused of or takes credit for a series of bombings across the country: March 1, 1971: A bomb is detonated in a toilet in the Senate wing of the Capitol building in Washington, D.C. The explosion is accompanied by a letter explaining that the act was taken in retaliation for Nixon's escalation of the war into Laos. Nixon denounces the bombing as a "shocking act of violence that will outrage all Americans." [LAT, 3/1/71];

January 1971: Vietnam Veterans Against the War sponsor The Winter Soldier Investigation to gather testimony from soldiers about war crimes being committed in Southeast Asia as a result of American war policies. (The term "Winter Soldier" is a play on words of Thomas Paine in 1776 when he spoke of the "sunshine patriot" and "summertime soldiers" who deserted at Valley Forge because the going was rough). Intended as a public event, it is boycotted by much of the mainstream media, although the Detroit Free Press coveres it daily and immediately begins investigating what was being said. Winter Soldier Investigation testimonies were read into the Congressional Record by Senator Hatfield.

Listen to Winter Soldier testimonies ( recordings listed on separate page)

Full transcript of the Winter Soldier Investigation, January 31, 1971, February 1 and 2, 1971

Winter Soldier (via Wikipedia)

Winter Soldier [videorecording] DVD 4949

April 19-23, 1971: Vietnam Veterans Against the War Dewey Canyon III march. Led by Gold Star Mothers (mothers of soldiers killed in Vietnam), more than 1100 veterans march across the Lincoln Memorial Bridge to the Arlington Cemetery gate, just beneath the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. A memorial service for their peers is conducted by Reverend Jackson H. Day, who had just a few days earlier resigned his military chaplainship. On April 23, the demonstration ends with some 1000 veterans throwing their combat ribbons, helmets, uniforms, and toy guns at the Capitol steps. [NYT, 4/19/71; NYT, 4/24/71]

First-hand account of this event by veteran Mark Hartford

July 1971: "Unsell the War:, an anti-Vietnam ad featuring John Kerry and disabled Marine Corps vet Bobby Muller is aired on national television.

View it (WGBH Open Vault) (Hall, 2007)

John Kerry - Senate Testimony, April 22, 1971

After returning from the Vietnam War, John Kerry became a prominent critic of the war. He testified before the Senate in 1971 and told of atrocities being committed by U.S. troops. He called for the immediate withdrawal of U.S. troops. And he asked: "How do you ask a man to be the last man to die in Vietnam? How do you ask a man to be the last man to die for a mistake?"

Photo of John Kerry during his Winter Soldier testimony

Listen to this recording (35 min.)

April 24, 1971: Massive anti-war rally of around 200,000 people is held on the Mall in Washington, D.C. In San Francisco, around 156,000 march--the largest such rally to date on the West Coast. Part way through ending rally in San Francisco's Golden Gate Park, a group of militant Chicanos seize the microphone and charge that the peace movement is "a conspiracy to quench the revolution." [LAT, 4/24/71; LAT, 4/24/71;LAT, 4/25/71; NYT, 4/25/71]

May 28-31, 1971, 1971: "On Memorial Day Weekend of that year, the Vietnam Veterans Against the War, again led by John Kerry, decided to create another visual, symbolic protest against the Vietnam War by retracing the April 19, 1775, route taken by Paul Rever from Boston to Concord (actually, Revere made it only to the outskirts of Lexington) - but the veterans were going to do it in reverse. They spent their first night in a bivouac at the National Park in Concord. During the day they practiced "guerilla" theater in Concord to "bring the war home." In Lexington the Board of Selectmen did not permit them to do "guerilla" theater. They instructed the veterans to walk into town single file. They unanimously voted to deny them the right to stay on the Lexington Battle Green.

All afternoon Saturday Lexington residents swarmed onto the Green. The day was a clamor of discussions and debates with clergy, townspeople and members of the town government that lasted into the evening hours. After nightfall, there were still hundreds of people on the Green. Many townspeople chose to find sleeping bags and spend the night. Upon instructions of the Board of Selectmen, the police chief ordered everyone to leave the Green. At 3 A.M. on Sunday morning 458 veterans and townspeople were arrested and taken by school buses to be jailed at the Public Works garage on Bedford Street. Later that morning, those arrested were again taken in school buses to a special Sunday session of the Concord District Court where most pled guilty to disobeying a town bylaw and were fined $5, "the cost of a night's lodging," as Concord Court Judge John Forte put it." (Lexington Battle Green web site]

Unfinished Symphony: Democracy and Dissent Media Resources Center DVD X3247

June 13, 1971: The New York Times begins publishing leaked secret government documents (later known as The Pentagon Papers) under the headline: "Vietnam Archive: Pentagon Study Traces 3 Decades of Growing U.S. Involvement." The Papers were later revealed to have been leaked by Department of Defense worker Daniel Ellsberg [See Also June 28]

On Tuesday June 15, the government seeks and wins a restraining order against the Times - an injunction subsequently extended to the Washington Post when that paper picked up the cause. The epic legal battle that ensued culminated on June 30, 1971 in the U.S. Supreme Court's 6-3 decision to lift the prior restraints - arguably the most important Supreme Court case ever on freedom of the press. [NYT, 6/1/71; NYT 6/1/71a]

View video of Arthur Sulzberger (NYT publisher) and Daniel Ellsberg on the Pentagon Papers (requires Real Media player)

Daniel Ellsberg Talk at Berkeley, March 23, 2007 (part I) (View it on YouTube)

Daniel Ellsberg Talk at Berkeley, March 23, 2007 (part II) (View it on YouTube)

Daniel Ellsberg: Secrets - Vietnam and the Pentagon Papers (Talk at UC Santa Barbara) (View it on YouTube)

Listen to Nixon telephone conversations concerning the Pentagon Papers(via National Security Archives) (includes transcripts)

The Pentagon Papers: Secrets, Lies, and Audiotape(via National Security Archives)

History of the Pentagon Papers (via Vietnam Veterans of America website)

New York v United States, June 26-30, 1971 (Supreme Court case re Pentagon Papers - includes text and audio of pleading) (via Oyez Project)

The Most Dangerous Man in America [videorecording] Media Resources Center DVD X2484

June 28, 1971: Daniel Ellsberg declares that he had given the Pentagon study of the Vietnam war to the press. Moments later he surrenders to the United States Attorney for arraignment on charges of unauthorized possession of secret documents. [NYT, 6/29/71]

August 21-22, 1971: Camden, New Jersey. Protests against the Vietnam war are spreading across America. A group of 28 non-violent activists plan to break into a local draft board office and destroy records in an attempt to strike a blow against the 'system.' But a mole has infiltrated their operation and within hours of beginning their mission they are rounded up and arrested by the FBI, under the personal authority of J. Edgar Hoover. [NYT, 8/23/71; NYT 8/23/71a]

The Camden 28 [videorecording] Media Resources Center DVD 8472

August 29, 1971: Bombing of the Office of California Prisons in San Francisco and the State Department of Rehabilitation in San Mateo, California allegedly in retaliation for the killing of George Jackson [LAT, 8/29/71]; 17 September 1971: The New York Department of Corrections in Albany New York is bombed to protest the killing of 29 inmates at Attica State Penitentiary. [NYT, 9/18/71]; 15 October 1971:: The bombing of William Bundy's office in the MIT research center. [NYT, 10/15/71]

Prisoners of War Against the War, September 20, 1971

[Announcer David Selvin]: "The tape we're about to hear was obtained this afternoon from the Vietnam Veterans Against the War (VVAW)who received it while visiting North Vietnam in August [1971]. The tape itself contains four statements made by two unidentified POWs and two other POWs identified as John A. Young and Dr. F. Harold Kushner."

Tapes followed by interviews with Mrs. Kushner and Joe Ugo who along (VVAW)with a number of other people was responsible for obtaining the tapes from Hanoi.

Listen to this recording (35 min.)

Marc Coleman's Nonviolent Attack on the Oakland Draft Center, September 1971

Member of the Berkeley Peace Brigade discusses his efforts to set up an anti-draft table in front of the local draft Board. Interview by Dave Lawsky.

Listen to this recording (35 min.)

Organizing in the Belly of the Monster, October 23, 1971

Bay Area Concerned Military (BAYCOM) Conference. Vietnam veterans against the war and Congressman Ron Dellums discuss their concerns regarding the war and veterans rights.

Listen to this recording (35 min.)

August 30, 1971: The Weather Underground bombs the the Department of Corrections office in San Francisco after the August 21, 1971 shooting of black revolutionary leader George Jackson at San Quentin Prison.

1972The War

May 8, 1972: President Nixon orders the mining of all North Vietnamese ports. He takes this action without first consulting Congress. When he announces his decision to do this, he states that it was to prevent the flow of arms and other supplies to North Vietnam until all American prisoners of war were returned and the North Vietnamese government agreed to an internationally supervised ceasefire. The government of North Vietnam calls Nixon's decision to mine Hai Phong harbour and step up the air war 'the gravest step in escalation of the war to date'. [War and Protest- the US in Vietnam (1972 - 1975); Bowman, pp. 309-310]

December 18, 1972: Nixon orders "Christmas bombing" of North to get North Vietnamese back to conference table. For the next 12 days U.S. B-52 bombers and other aircraft drop 36,000 tons of bombs on North Vietnam, exceeding the tonnage for the past two years before. [Carrol, 2002; Herring, pp: 315-17]

December 28, 1972: The North Vietnamese announced that they will return to Paris if Nixon ends the bombing. The bombing campaign was halted and the negotiators met during the first week of January, 1973.

Anti-War Activism

May 8-12, 1972: In reaction to the Nixon's May 8th announcement regarding the mining of Haiphong and other harbors in North Vietnam, violent anti-war clashes occur across the country. At Columbia, baton-wielding police charge a crowd of 600 demonstators; 450 demonstators scuffled with police at Stanford University. In Los Angeles, demonstrators block U.S. Highway 101, picket President Nixon's birthplace and conduct a "die-in" at Nixon's campaign headquarters in Los Angeles. Students and police battle at Berkeley and Columbia and a score of other universities. Two students at the University of New Mexico (Albuquerque) are wounded by police buckshot. On May 10, former Senator and Democratic contender for the presidency Eugene McCarthy calls upon Congress to impeach of Nixon. [LAT, 5/9/72; LAT, 5/10/72; NYT, 5/10/72]

May 11, 1972: The Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals reverses the contempt convictions of the Chicago Seven and their two defense attorneys, Leonard Weinglass and William Kunstler. On November 21, 1972, the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals reverses the convictions of Hoffman, Rubin, Dellinger, Davis, and Hayden. The Court cites as one reason for its reversal Judge Hoffman's "antagonistic" courtroom demeanor. [NYT, 11/22/72; LAT, 11/22/72]

May 19, 1972: A bomb purportedly planted by the Weather Underground detonates in a woman's restroom in the Air Force offices of the Pentagon. A phone call shortly before the blast claims that the Weather Underground is responsible. A note left with the New York Post indicates that the bombing is in retaliation for the new U.S. bombing raid in Hanoi. [NYT, 5/19/72]

July-August 1972: Actress and anti-war activist Jane Fonda visits Hanoi, where she advocates opposition to the war. Her detractors label her "Hanoi Jane", comparing her to war propagandists Tokyo Rose and Hanoi Hannah. [See also Fonda, 1988]

Text of Fonda's Radio Hanoi broadcast

Listen to excerpt from a 1970s Jane Fonda talk at UC Berkeley (exact date unknown) Recordings courtesy of The Freedom Archives

August 23, 1972: Three parapalegic Vietnam war veterans, including Ron Kovic (See Also July 15, 1976) disrupt Richard Nixon's acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention in Miami with shouts of "Stop the bombing! Stop the killing!" They are roughly ejected from the hall by plainclothes policemen. On their way out, a spectator spits in the eye onf one of the veterans. [LAT, 8/24/72]

1973

January 23, 1973: President Richard M. Nixon announces the Paris agreement, praising it as the fulfillment of his promise to bring "peace with honor" to Vietnam. Four days later, on January 27, representatives of the United States, North and South Vietnam, and the Vietcong signed the peace agreement, officially ending America's involvement in the Vietnam War. Its key provisions included a cease-fire throughout Vietnam, the withdrawal of U.S. forces, the release of prisoners of war, and the reunification of North and South Vietnam through peaceful means.

Listen to excerpt from this speech(3:38 min.)

Text of Nixon's "Peace with Honor" speech

March 29, 1973: The last U.S. combat troops leave Vietnam.

March 29, 1973: Joan Baez sues David Harris for divorce [NYT, 3/27/73]

November 2, 1973: Karleton Armstong, a participant in the August 24, 1970 bombing of the the Army Mathematics Research Center at the University of Wisconsin, is sentenced to an indeterminate" prison sentence, not to exceed 23 years. [NYT, 11/2/73]

1974

April 30, 1975: A US trade embargo, already in effect against North Vietnam since 1964, is extended to the whole of Vietnam.

Early 1970s: Rennie Davis, one of the Chicago 7, becames a member of the Divine Light Mission and follower of its Guru Maharaj Ji (Prem Rawat). Davis acts as Maharaj's spokesperson during the DLM's widely-publicized Millennium festival in the Houston Astrodome in November 1973. Davis later becomes a venture capitalist and lecturer on meditation and self-awareness.

1973: After being released from prison in 1972, Bobby Seale renounces political violence and concentrates on conventional politics. In 1973 Seale runs for mayor of Oakland and comes second out of nine candidates, with 43,710 votes. Seale currently has his own web page in which he describes himself as "the old cripple-footed revolutionary humanist." Seale's site, entitled "From the Sixties to the Future!", discusses "getting to the future via the whole synthesis of the quantum, computer and DNA molecular revolutions, and within the cyberspace non-linear range."

October 10, 1973: Spiro T. Agnew resigns his office as Vice President of the United States. Agnew pleads nolo contendere (no contest) to a criminal charge of tax evasion, part of a scheme where he allegedly accepted $29,500 in bribes during his tenure as governor of Maryland. Agnew is fined $10,000 and put on three years' probation. He is later disbarred by the State of Maryland. After he leaves the White House, Agnew becomes an international trade executive. He dies on September 17, 1996. [NYT, 10/11/73]

February 4, 1974: Publishing heiress Patricia Hearst, then a Berkeley college student, is kidnapped from her apartment by a self-proclaimed revolutionary group known as the Symbionese Liberation Front. [NYT, 2/6/74; LAT, 2/6/74]

May 9, 1974: The House Judiciary Committee openes formal and public impeachment hearings against Nixon for his part in the Watergate affair. With impeachment seemingly inevitable, Nixon resigns his office on August 8, 1974.

Nixon resignation speech - audio and text

Nixon's farewell to the Whitehouse - audio and text

April 9, 1976: Folksinger Phil Ochs, whose protest songs "Draft Dodger Rag," and "I Ain't Marchin' Anymore," became anthems of the anti-war movement commits suicide. The events of 1968—the assassinations of Martin Luther King, Jr. and Robert F. Kennedy, the police riot in Chicago, and the election of Richard Nixon—had left Ochs feeling disillusioned and depressed. The cover of his 1969 album Rehearsals for Retirement eerily portrays a tombstone with the words: PHIL OCHS (AMERICAN) BORN: EL PASO, TEXAS, 1940

DIED: CHICAGO, ILLINOIS, 1968

Ochs had also had a long history of mental problems and alcoholism.

July 2, 1976: The National Assembly of Vietnam proclaims the official unification of the country as the Socialist Republic of Vietnam. Hanoi is declaired the capital. [NYT, 7/3/76]

July 15, 1976: Ron Kovic, a US Marine paralyzed from the chest down in the Vietnam war, addresses the Democratic National Convention in New York which had convened in New York to nominate Jimmy Carter for the presidency of the United States. After the war, Kovic had become an outspoken advocate for peace and veterans' rights. In his speech, Kovic nominated a Vietnam war resister as Vice Presidential candidate. (Walter Mondale was the Democratic Party's choice) Kovic began his speech with a poem he had written:

I am the living death the memorial day on wheels I am your Yankee Doodle Dandy your John Wayne come home your fourth of July firecracker

exploding in the grave

Kovic was the subject of Oliver Stone's 1989 movie Born on the Fourth of July(Media Resources Center DVD 769). [See NYT, 8/15/76; Kovic, 1976]

Photo of Ron Kovic at the Democratic convention (AP Photo)

August 7, 1976: David S. Fine, a confessed participant in the August 24, 1970 bombing of the Army Mathematics Research Center at the University of Wisconsin, is sentenced to seven years in prison. [NYT, 8/7/76]

December 20, 1976: Richard J. Daley, mayor of Chicago during the turbulent 1968 Democaratic Convention, dies at 74. [NYT, 12/20/76]

January 21, 1977: President Jimmy Carter issues a blanket pardon for Vietnam war draft evaders. Carter postpones a decision concerning the estimated 100,000 individuals who entered but subsequently deserted the military. [NYT, 1/22/77]

March 1977: Richard Nixon engages in a series of four television interviews with British journalist David Frost. The interviews focus largely on Nixon's involvement in the Watergate affair. A Gallup poll conducted after the interviews aired showes that 69% of the public thought that Nixon was still trying to cover up, 72% still thought he was guilty of obstruction of justice, and 75% thought he deserved no further role in public life. In 2008 a movie, Frost/Nixon, directed by Ron Howard is made about the interviews (with Frank Langella portraying Nixon and Michael Sheen as Frost)

Nixon/Frost Interviews Media Resource Center DVD 8266

September 14, 1977: Ex-SDS leader, ex-Weather Underground member Mark Rudd turns himself in to Federal authorities. Rudd had jumped bail in 1970 while under indictment for his participation in the Columbia University takeover of 1968 [See April 23, 1968], and the Weather Underground "Days of Rage" [See October 6-11, 1969] After plea bargaining, Rudd receives misdemeanor charges and a $2,000 fine and two years probation. [NYT, 9/14/77]

1978: Michael Cimino's film "The Deer Hunter" [MRC DVD 95]is released. The film is one of the first to reflect the trauma and the ambivilence concerning the Vietnam war. 1978 also saw the release of Karel Reisz's dark, post-Vietnam film "Who'll Stop the Rain" [MRC DVD 2817], and Hal Asby's story of a paralyzed Vietnam vet (said to be based on Ron Kovic), "Coming Home" [MRC Video/C 999: 1833]. The following year Francis Ford Coppola's controversal film Apocalypse Now! is released. [For a list of other Vietnam war films in the UCB Media Center, see MRC's War Film Videography]

April 11, 1978: Former FBI Head L. Patrick Gray is indicted with two retired FBI officials, W. Mark Felt and Edward S. Miller, are indicted for civil rights violations in ordering surreptitious break-ins in a hunt for fugitive Weather Underground members. Gray and the two others plead innocent. Richard Nixon testifies on Gray's behalf. (Four protestors in the audience yell, "War Criminal!" and "He's a liar!" and are removed from the court). In the following months, a number of FBI administrators and field agents are either fired or diciplined in connection with the break-ins.[LAT, 4/11/78]

In November 1980, Felt and Miller are found guilt on one count of civil rights violations and issued fines. In December 1980, charges are dropped against L. Patrick Gray. On April 15, 1981, President Ronald Reagan issues "full and unconditional" pardons to Felt and Miller. [LAT, 11/7/80; LAT, 4/15/81]

May 25, 1979: The FBI drops its persuit of six Weather Underground members still at large. Federal warrants were dropped for Bernadine Dohrn, Kathy Boudin, Jeffry Jones, Michael Speigel, John Jacobs, and Jeffrey Powell. [LAT, 10/20/79]

January 1980: The Berkeley student newspaper, The Daily Cal, conducts a survey of 400 students which indicates that the majority of those queried would willingly serve in the military if drafted, and feel that the US should become "involved militarily" if Iran is invaded by the Soviet Union. [LAT, 1/31/80]

July 9, 1980: Ex-Weather Underground member Cathy Wilkerson turns herself into Federal authorities. [LAT, 7/9/80]

September 9, 1980: Daniel Berrigan, his brother Philip, and six others (the "Plowshares Eight") began the Plowshares Movement when they entered the General Electric Nuclear Missile Re-entry Division in King of Prussia, PA where nose cones for the Mark 12A warheads were made. They hammered on two nose cones, poured blood on documents and offered prayers for peace. They were arrested and initially charged with over ten different felony and misdemeanor counts. On April 10, 1990, after nearly ten years of trials and appeals, the Plowshares Eight were re-sentenced and paroled for up to 23 and 1/2 months in consideration of time already served in prison. [wikipedia; NYT 9/10/80]

December 3, 1980: Bill Ayers and Bernadine Dohrn turn themselves in to Federal authorities in Chicago after more than a decade underground. On January 13, 1980, Dohrn receives three years probation and $1,500 fine for charges stemming from her participation in the 1969 Chicago "Days of Rage." [NYT, 12/4/80; NYT, 1/14/81]

Dohrn is currently an associate professor and director and founder of the Children and Family Justice Center at the Northwestern University School of Law. Since 2002, she has served as a Visiting Law Faculty at Vrieje University, Amsterdam.

October 20, 1981: Ex-Weather Underground and Black Liberation Army member Kathy Boudin is recruited by the radical Black Liberation Army to rob an armored car in Rockland County, New York. (Boudin, who along with Cathy Wilkerson had escaped the March 10, 1970 Greenwich Village townhouse bomb explosion that killed Diana Oughton, had been living underground since the incident). In the course of the aborted heist, a security guard is killed. Boudin is apprehended, pleads guilty to felony murder and robbery and is sentenced to 20 years to life. [NYT, 10/22/81; NYT 5/4/84]

October 31, 1981: Max Scherr, publisher of the influencial underground newspaper The Berkeley Barb, dies at age 70. The Barb was at the Center of the People's Park takeover in 1969, and consistently infuriated then-governor Ronald Reagan who accused it of "helping sabotage law and order." [NYT, 11/8/81]

1982 In 1982 Westmoreland sues CBS reporter Mike Wallace (Westmoreland v CBS) for libel. The suit concerns a CBS sepecial (The Uncounted Enemy: A Vietnam Deception) in which it is alleged that Westmoreland and others had deliberately underestimated Vietcong troop strength in order to maintain morale and popular support for the war. Westmoreland eventually settles for an apology from CBS. (See Brewin, 1987; Mascaro)

View video of press conferences at conclusion of Westmoreland trial

November 13, 1982: A memorial to America's 2.7 million veterans of the Vietnam war, and to the memory of the 57,939 US soldiers killed or missing in the war is dedicated in Washington, D.C. The memorial is designed by a young architectural student, Maya Ying Li (Maya Lin).

The memorial is criticized by some veterans for not bearing an inscription identifying the war. On November 11, 1984 a statue of three Army infantymen is dedicated at the site. [NYT, 11/12/82; LAT 11/12/82]

Maya Lin: A Strong Clear Vision. [videorecording] Media Resources Center DVD 1996

Bill Moyers Presents A Conversation with Maya Lin[videorecording] Media Resources Center Video/C 9722

The Wall web site

National Parks Service web site

December 24, 1982: A group of Vietnam vets begins a round-the-clock candlelight vigil at the site of Vietnam Veterans Memorial to call attention to the 1421 servicement still missing in action. [NYT, 12/25/82]

1982-2000: Tom Hayden serves in the California State Assembly (1982-1992)and the State Senate (1992-2000). He unsuccesfully runs for Mayor of Los Angeles in 1997, defeated by the incumbent Richard Riordan. He currently lives in Los Angeles, California and is married to actress Barbara Williams.

1982-1984: The US government commissions a $63 million study by The Center for Disease Control to determine the long-term harmmedical effects of exposure to Agent Orange. The study soon boggs down in a complex dispute over identifying which soldiers were likely to have been exposed to Agent Orange. Dr. Vernon Houk, the lead scientist in the study, comes under intense criticism for his methods. The study finds "no evidence" that Agent Orange injured soldiers in the field. In September 1987, the White House Science Panel and the Domestic Policy Council cancels the study.

In 1984, the American Legion collaborates with an independent Columbia University study conducted by Drs. Jeanne Mager Stellman and Steven Stellman which showed definite correlation between serious and often rare disorders and exposure to Agent Orange. In an April 17, 2003 article in the journal Nature, J. Stellman reports that the amount of highly toxic dioxin in Agent Orange was more than double the U.S. government's estimates.

July 1, 1983: Julius J. Hoffman, the judge presiding over the trial of the Chicago 8, dies.

May 7, 1984: Federal District court announces a $180 million out-of-court settlement brought against seven chemical companies (Dow Chemical Co., Monsanto Chemical Co., and others) in a class-action suite brought by 16,000 Vietnam vets against the manufactures of Agent Orange. In accordance with the distribution plan claimants were required to submit medical proof of exposure to the chemical sometime between 1961 and 1972. The manufacturers named in the suite had previously attempted to force the U.S. government to finance part of the fund. On May 9, 1985 Judge Jack Weinstein ruled that the government would not be required to contribute, based on a 1950 Supreme Court ruling exempting the government for liability for injuries to military personnel during their service. [See Also January 12, 1962] [LAT, 5/7/84; Schuck, 1986]

View various 1985 video clips concerning Agent Orange suites

June 17, 1988: Jane Fonda is interviewed by Barbara Walters on the television show 20/20 and apologizes for her actions during the War: "I would like to say something, not just to Vietnam veterans in New England, but to men who were in Vietnam, who I hurt, or whose pain I caused to deepen because of things that I said or did," she began. "I was trying to help end the killing and the war, but there were times when I was thoughtless and careless about it and I'm . . . very sorry that I hurt them. And I want to apologize to them and their families."

In April 1999, Jane Fonda is honored by ABC News and Ladies Home Journal as one of the "100 Most Important Women of the 20th Century," which uniformly infuriates veterans groups. [See Burke, 2004]

April 12, 1989: Abbie Hoffman is found dead, an apparent suicide from drug overdose. Hoffman had secretly been suffering from depression for years before his death. In August 1973 Hoffman and three others had been arrested and convicted for selling cocaine to an undercover policeman in New York. In April of the following year, Hoffman failed to appear at the hearing for the case. In the next several years, Hoffman went underground, including changing his name, undergoing plastic surgery, and remarrying. [NYT, 8/29/73; NYT, 8/29/73;NYT, 4/13/89]

1990: Jane Fonda and Tom Hayden divorce. Fonda subsequently marries media mogul Ted Turner in December 1991.

April 1993: Harvard scholar Stephen Morris discoveres a document in a Soviet archive indicating that Vietnam may have misled Americans about the numbers of P.O.W.s it held at the war's end. The document, a translation of writings allegedly prepared by North Vietnamese general Tran Van Quang, states that North Vietnam held 1,205 American P.O.W.s as of September 1972, just a few months before the release of the 591 P.O.W.s in Operation Homecoming. U.S. government officials suggest that the discrepancy in numbers might have been an exaggeration on the part of Tran Van Quang, or that a confusion of statistics between American soldiers and South Vietnamese commandos caused by an error in translation. Several independent analysts, however, including former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger and former National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski, said that the document appeared authentic. [PBS: Vietnam Online: The MIA Issue]

1994: After his loss to Richard Nixon in the 1972 presidential election, George McGovern returns to South Dakota, where he was re-elected to the Senate in 1974. In 1980, he is defeated for re-election by U.S. Rep. James Abdnor amidst that year's Republican sweep, which became known as the "Reagan Revolution." In 1984, he seeks his party's presidential nomination once again. Although he finished in third place in the Iowa caucus amidst a crowded field, his campaign eventually floundered and he withdrew soon after the New Hampshire primary. [wikipedia]

January 6, 1994: Weather Underground member Jeffrey David Powell, on the run since jumping bail in 1970, surrenders to police. In a prepared statement, Powell says, "I am proud to have fought for my country against the criminal government of Richard Nixon. ...And I am very happy not to be at war with my government now." He is released with a $500 fine and 18 months probation.

February 3, 1994: President Clinton drops the 19-year embargo on US trade with Vietnam. In doing so, Clinton acknowledges the cooperation Vietnam has shown in the search for US military personnel still listed as missing in action. Within an hour of Clinton's announcement, both Coca-Cola and Pepsi-Cola begin production in Saigon. [NYT, 2/4/94; NYT 2/7/94]

April 22, 1994: Richard Nixon dies. In his eulogy at Nixon's funeral, Henry Kissinger, Nixon's National Security Advisor and Secretary of State, commented:

"When I learned the final news, by then so expected yet so hard to accept, I felt a profound void. In the words of Shakespeare, "He was a man, take him for all in all. I shall not look upon his like again."

In the conduct of foreign policy, Richard Nixon was one of the seminal presidents. He came into office when the forces of history were moving America from a position of dominance to one of leadership. Dominance reflects strength; leadership must be earned. And Richard Nixon earned that leadership role for his country with courage, dedication, and skill.

When Richard Nixon took his oath of office, 550,000 Americans were engaged in combat in a place as far away from the United States as it was possible to be. America had no contact with China, the world's most populous nation, and no negotiations with the Soviet Union, the other nuclear superpower. Most Muslim countries had broken diplomatic relations with the United States; Middle East diplomacy was stalemated. All of this in the midst of the most anguishing domestic crisis since the Civil War."

When Richard Nixon left office, an agreement to end the war in Vietnam had been concluded, and the main lines of all subsequent policy were established: permanent dialogue with China; readiness without illusion to ease tensions with the Soviet Union; a peace process in the Middle East; the beginning, via the European Security Conference, of establishing human rights as an international issue; weakening Soviet hold on Eastern Europe. Richard Nixon's foreign policy goals were long range, and he pursued them without regard to domestic political consequences." [Speaking Tips]

Journalist and all-around rabble-rouser Hunter S. Thompson offered his own "eulogy": "I have had my own bloody relationship with Nixon for many years, but I am not worried about it landing me in hell with him. I have already been there with that bastard, and I am a better person for it. Nixon had the unique ability to make his enemies seem honorable, and we developed a keen sense of fraternity. Some of my best friends have hated Nixon all their lives. My mother hates Nixon, my son hates Nixon, I hate Nixon, and this hatred has brought us together." [The Atlantic online]

November 28, 1994: Jerry Rubin is hit by a car in Los Angeles and killed while jaywalking on Wilshire Blvd. After the end of the war, Rubin radically changed his political and cultural views--a lifestyle change that included persuing a career as an capitalist and entrepreneur. Rubin invested in the health food industry and attempted to capitalize on the stock market. He became involved with the new age human consciousness movement of the 70's that included Rolfing, primal scream therapy, est, Reichian therapies, gestalt, and bioenergetics.

For a look at post-60s life of Rubin and other counterculture heroes, see the documentary "Growing Up in America" [UCB Media Resource Center Video/C 4972]

December 20,1994: Dean Rusk,Secretary of State from 1961 to 1969 under presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson dies.

1995: Robert S. McNamara, Secretary of Defense under both John F. Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson, publishes his memoir, In Retrospect: The Tragedy and Lessons of Vietnam (New York: Times Books, c1995. MAIN: DS558 .M44 1995; MOFFITT: DS558 .M44 1995). In the preface, he says: "We of the Kennedy and Johnson administrations who participated in the decisions on Vietnam acted according to what we thought were the principles and traditions of this nation. We made our decisions in light of those values. Yet we were wrong, terribly wrong. We owe it to future generations to explain why."

November 6, 1996: Mario Savio, driving force behind the Berkeley Free Speech Movement, dies of a heart attack. [NYT, 11/08/1996]

April 5, 1997: Allen Ginsberg, poet laureate of the Beat Generation and zen muse to several generations of poets, hipsters and peaceniks, dies of liver cancer. [NYT, 11/08/1996]

September 16, 1997 President Clinton signs Proclamation 7023 declaring Sept 19, 1997 as National POW/MIA Recognition Day.

March 15, 1998: Dr. Benjamin Spock dies at 94. After the Vietnam War Spock continued to join protest around issues like nuclear weapons and cuts in social welfare programs. In 1972, he ran in the US presidential election as People's Party candidate. His platform called for free medical care, the legalization of abortion and marijuana, a guaranteed minimum income for families and the immediate withdrawal of all American troops from foreign countries.

2003: Filmmaker Errol Morris's documentary Fog of War: Eleven Lessons from the Life of Robert S. McNamara is released. Morris interviewed McNamara for twenty-four hours over three sessions in 2001 and 2002 when McNamara was age eighty-five.

Watch Fog of War (Conversation with Robert McNamara and Errol Morris) Berkeley on 05 February 2004.

June 9, 2003: The Supreme Court announces its decision in Dow Chemical Co., et al. vs. Stephenson, et al., which involved two Vietnam veterans whose current illnesses did not manifest until after all of the money that had been set aside under a legal settlement had been depleted. Once the settlement funds had been exhausted, the Federal judge who presided over the original lawsuit refused to allow Vietnam veterans whose diseases were diagnosed thereafter to sue the chemical companies, ruling that such actions were barred by the earlier settlement. Two of these veterans appealed their cases to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, which held that their lawsuits could proceed because their interests were not adequately represented in the settled class action. [See also May 4, 1984] [Newswire, June 2003]

May 25, 2004: Dave Dellinger dies at 88. He had been suffering from Alzheimer's Disease for several years. [See also: Democracy Now: Remembering Dave Dellinger. Audio segments and transcripts] [NYT, 5/27/04]

September 17, 2004: Kathy Boudin ex-Weather Underground member imprisoned in 1984 for a 1981 robbery that resulted in the death of a police officer, is freed from prison after two previously unsuccessful bids for parole. [NYT, 9/18/05]

November 2004: Winter Soldier respondant (See April 22, 1971) and U.S. Senators from Massachusetts John Kerry runs for Democartic Party Candidate for President of the United States. He is marginally defeated by president George W. Bush.

March 10, 2005: A federal judge in Brooklyn dismisses a damage suit filed in 2004 by The Vietnam Association for Victims of Agent Orange on behalf of millions of Vietnamese that claimed American chemical companies committed war crimes by supplying the military with the defoliant Agent Orange. In the presiding judge Jack B. Weinstein's opininon: "No treaty or agreement, express or implied, of the United States operated to make use of herbicides in Vietnam a violation of the laws of war or any other form of international law until at the earliest April of 1975." [NYT, 3/11/05]

April 28, 2005: The Pentagon identifies four more missing-in-action servicemen, thought to have been lost in 1967. This brings the number of identified, long-missing American troops in Vietnam to 748. A total of 1,835 US military personnel are still listed as missing.

July 18, 2005: General William Westmoreland dies at 91. [NYT, 7/20/05]

2006: Declassified army documents reveal that confirmed atrocities by U.S. forces in Vietnam were more extensive than was previously known. The documents detail 320 alleged incidents that were substantiated by Army investigators -- not including the most notorious U.S. atrocity, the 1968 My Lai massacre. [LAT, 8/06/06]

April 26, 2009: 40th Anniversary celebration for People's Park

Poster for People's Park 40th anniversary

July 6, 2009: Robert S. McNamara, "the forceful and cerebral defense secretary who helped lead the nation into the maelstrom of Vietnam and spent the rest of his life wrestling with the war's moral consequences," dies at 93." [NYT, 7/07/09]

April 25, 2011 Madame Nhu (Tran Le Xuân), considered the first lady of South Vietnam from 1955 to 1963, dies at 86 in Rome. Madame Nhu was wife of Ngo Dinh Nhu, brother and chief adviser to President Ngo Dinh Diêm. During her life, Madame Nhu accumulated vast wealth and power, but was reviled for her puritanical social campaigns and her callous dismissal of Buddhist monks who burned themselves to death to protest against the brutal rule of Diem and her husband Ngo Dinh Nhu. "I would clap hands at seeing another monk barbecue show, for one cannot be responsible for the madness of others," she wrote in a letter to the New York Times. [NYT, 4/27/11; The Gardian, 4/26/11]

April 28, 2011 Stanford University's Faculty Senate votes to invite the Reserve Officer Training Corps (ROTC) back to the campus for the first time since the Vietnam War era, a turnaround prompted by the end of the "don't ask, don't tell" policy against gays serving openly in the military. [LAT, 4/29/11]

July 2011: TV shopping network QVC cancels a scheduled appearance by Jane Fonda after viewers complain about Fonda's political statements during the Vietnam War. [LAT, 7/19/11]