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12/15/24, 12:13 AMHistory - Article - Third Parties and the Vietnam War

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Third Parties and the Vietnam War       

Vietnam was a country split in half. Between 1954 and 1975, the Communists of North Vietnam (supported by China and the Soviet Union) fought non-Communist South Vietnam (supported by the United States).

Determined to stop Communists from taking over Vietnam's southern half, the United States first sent military advisers to help the South Vietnamese fight the Communist Viet Cong. Starting at 900 in 1960,

A truckload of Vietnam War protestors joins an estimated 60,000 people for a rally protesting U.S. involvement in the war on April 15, 1967. That year, the Peace and Freedom Party was founded.

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the number of advisers soon increased to 11,000. By 1965, 170,000 American soldiers were in combat. Three years later, 500,000 troops occupied Vietnam.

The American armed forces were accustomed to winning. Politicians decided that this war would not be fought to win but to contain Communism. American soldiers were used to traditional warfare, using guns, bombs, and tanks, but the Viet Cong ambushed their enemy and then faded into the jungle. At home, President Johnson claimed that the United States was winning. When the Viet Cong attacked 36 cities in the 1968 Tet O!ensive, though, the public questioned the president's decisions and honesty. U.S. servicemen became depressed-they no longer believed that what they were fighting for was a just cause. In The Vietnam War, Roger Barr quoted a soldier: "I felt no sense of accomplishment other than my friends and I had helped each other to survive. We didn't act to help our country, but to save our buddies."

Peace and Freedom Party Third parties sprang up in protest. The Peace and Freedom Party organized in 1967 to give voice to those who were unhappy with the situation in Vietnam, labor unions, racism, and sexism. It called for U.S. military withdrawal and wanted a socialist economy in which industries, finances, and natural resources were owned and managed by the people. In 1968, Black Panther Eldridge Cleaver, at the time a convicted felon, was chosen over Dick Gregory as its presidential nominee. The party's candidates appeared in 19 states, tallied 136,385 popular votes, and received no electoral votes. The party ran presidential candidates until 2004 and today operates primarily in California. This party wants a guaranteed income, a 30-hour workweek for 40 hours' pay, and a required annual 4-week paid vacation. The Peace and Freedom Party wants both Spanish and English as o!icial languages of California and supports open borders and full political, social, and economic rights for resident noncitizens.

Freedom and Peace Party The Freedom and Peace Party broke o! from the Peace and Freedom Party in 1968 to support Dick Gregory's write-in candidacy. An African-American comedian, Gregory was popular with both black and white audiences for poking fun at racial issues. Gerald Nachman quoted one of Gregory's most famous jokes in his book, Seriously Funny: The Rebel Comedians of the 1950s and 1960s. Gregory said, "My daughter, she doesn't believe in Santa Claus. She knows doggone well no white man is coming into a colored neighborhood a"er midnight." Gregory's strong anti-Vietnam War beliefs inspired a 40- day fast in 1967. By drinking only distilled water, Gregory lost most of his bodyweight: He went from 288 pounds to 97.

12/15/24, 12:13 AMHistory - Article - Third Parties and the Vietnam War

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Gregory and the Freedom and Peace Party's primary causes were the Vietnam War and civil rights. They wanted an end to the war, provisions for families of soldiers killed in the war, expanded welfare and education, and a lowered voting age. They called for investigating conditions on Indian reservations and rural problems, and opposed the sale and manufacture of handguns. Gregory received 47,133 votes in the election. His party inaugurated him as "president in exile" on March 4, 1969.

Elsewhere, antiwar protests rocked university campuses and city streets. Demonstrators staged sit-ins, burned dra" cards, and broke into government o!ices. According to Barr's book, Columbia University students wrote to the North Vietnamese, "We are Americans who are deeply opposed to the U.S. bombing raids against the people of North Vietnam. We are doing all that we can to stop these barbarous attacks."

Senator Eugene McCarthy challenged President Johnson for the Democratic nomination. When McCarthy did well in the primaries, President Johnson announced that he would not seek reelection in 1968. Johnson's vice president, Hubert Humphrey, took the Democratic nomination, but he was plagued by Johnson's poor legacy in Vietnam, and lost to Republican Richard M. Nixon.

A"er having campaigned on a "secret" plan to end the war, Nixon supplied massive aid to the South Vietnamese, and, in 1970, ordered the bombing of neighboring Cambodia and Laos. Antiwar protests on college campuses became uncontrollable.

People's Party In 1971, at the height of the Vietnam War, pediatrician Dr. Benjamin Spock and author Gore Vidal formed the People's Party for socialists, pacifists, and antiwar protesters. According to Kruschke's Encyclopedia of Third Parties in the United States, the party's platform declared, "Since we believe that the present political parties of the United States neither represent nor reflect the political, economic, and social hopes of a large segment of people in this country, we shall unite into a new party for positive change."

The party wanted to halve military spending, eliminate sales and property taxes, and set incomes between $6,500 and $50,000. It called for withdrawal of all American troops from foreign countries and legalizing abortion, marijuana, and homosexuality.

Spock received only 78,751 votes, 55,000 of them from California. In 1972, the People's Party was just too radical for the general public. It survived only through the 1976 election.

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A"er more bloody fighting, the Communists took over South Vietnam on April 30, 1975. Four million Vietnamese civilians and one million Vietnamese soldiers lost their lives; 58,226 U.S. soldiers either died or went missing in action. Humiliated, America realized that it had lost the longest war in its history. Its politicians lost the public's trust.

The Libertarian Party A significant third party that survives today was established in 1971. The Libertarian Party believes that the less government-both federal and state-the better. The Libertarian Party home page says in its platform: "We hold that all individuals have the right to exercise sole dominion over their own lives, and have the right to live in whatever manner they choose, so long as they do not forcibly interfere with the equal right of others to live in whatever manner they choose."

Libertarians agree with conservatives on certain economic matters-lowering taxes and reducing bureaucratic regulation of business. They want a gradual elimination of the social security and welfare programs, military withdrawal from other countries, and an end to U.S. membership in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and the United Nations. Libertarians agree with liberals, though, that people have the right to choose their own lifestyles.

Libertarians oppose the Republican-backed USA PATRIOT Act, which was passed a"er the terrorist

Comedian Dick Gregory speaks to students at the University of South Florida in 1971. Gregory's write-in candidacy was supported by the Freedom and Peace Party in 1968.

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attacks of September 11, 2001. This act permits government or police access to phone, Internet, medical, library, and school records for the purpose of terrorism investigations and can allow authorities to enter a suspect's home without his or her knowledge or a search warrant.

The party has had some success. In 1972, Libertarians qualified for two states' ballots. An elector liked them so much that he voted for the Libertarian candidate instead of Richard Nixon, his party's choice. Four years later, the Libertarians nominated the elector for president. By 1980, Libertarians were on all 50 states' ballots, the first time a third party accomplished that since the Socialist Party in 1916. The Libertarian Party has a fast-growing membership and currently claims over 500,000 registered voters across the country, making it the third largest national political party in the country. Politifact.com reported that the party had about 326,000 registered voters nationally, as of 2013. This was less, though, than some third parties that were only constituted in certain states, such as the Independence Party in New York. Currently, the Libertarian Party has 158 members in elected o!ice nationwide, according to its website-lp.org. It also touts a spike in fundraising and paid membership around the 2016 election.

A"er a disappointing showing by Bob Barr in 2008, the Libertarian Party nominated Gary Johnson, the former two-term governor of New Mexico, to run in 2012. Johnson had initially sought the Republican nomination but accepted a place atop the Libertarian ticket at the party's national convention. Although only on the ballot in 48 states-having been denied in Michigan and Oklahoma-Johnson won the most votes of any minor-party candidate with about 1.2 percent of the popular vote, according to United Press International's article "Libertarian Party buoyant: Greens hopeful". This result also bested the Libertarian Party's previous high-water mark of percentage of total votes cast set by its 1980 candidate, Ed Clark.

A"er the election, the Party expressed regret that Johnson did not have access to the same media coverage as the major-party candidates and was excluded, along with the other third-party candidates, from the televised debates with President Obama and Governor Romney. The third-party candidates did participate in three debates of their own: two were hosted by the non-profit Free and Equal Elections Foundation advocacy group and the third was sponsored by perennial third-party Presidential candidate Ralph Nader, although none were televised live by major U.S. networks.

In 2016, Gary Johnson was again the nominee of the Libertarian Party, with former Massachusetts governor William Weld as his running mate. Despite higher-than-usual levels of dissatisfaction with the two major-party candidates-Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump-Johnson and Weld found it di!icult to gain traction and refute the o"-asked question of whether they would simply be spoilers in the race.

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Their ticket was also hurt by di!erences of opinion between the running mates and several notable ga!es by Johnson, where he was unable to answer questions about foreign policy and other subjects. While the candidates did get exposure through interviews and appearances on cable news, they were denied participation in the presidential debates due to a threshold of 15% support in five polls set by the Commission on Presidential Debates. The Johnson-Weld ticket still managed to garner a record of over 3% of the popular vote, or nearly four and a half million ballots, again the most of any third party candidate. Without a majority in any state, though, they couldn't capture any Electoral College votes.

Ultimately, the success of the Libertarian Party is not measured as much in its electoral victories but in how it influences the national political debate. Libertarian ideas have exerted a significant pull on the Republican Party and influenced the 2010 Tea Party movement that helped Republicans regain a majority in the House of Representatives. Former Representative Ron Paul and his son, Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky, have been libertarian stalwarts on the rightward fringe of the Republican Party for decades, reminding their colleagues of their desire for balanced budgets and less military intervention abroad.

National Unity Party In 1980, a congressman from Illinois emerged from the election-year clamor. Once a conservative Republican, John Anderson changed in the 1960s and 1970s. In The Encyclopedia of Third Parties in America, Immanuel Ness and James Ciment wrote that Anderson described the Vietnam War as "the most tragic error in diplomacy and military policy in our nation's history" and was the first Republican to call for Nixon's resignation a"er the Watergate scandal. According to Ness and Ciment, a fellow congressman told Anderson, "You're in the wrong party, John." In 1980, Anderson challenged Ronald Reagan in Republican primaries. Badly beaten, Anderson reappeared as a National Unity Party candidate. Anderson billed himself as the "man in the middle," more liberal than Reagan and more conservative than incumbent President Jimmy Carter. He appealed to young people, women, and gun-control advocates.

Anderson supported a 50-cent per gallon tax on gas for social security funding and tax cuts for businesses, and he opposed defense spending for the M-X missile and the B-1 bomber. These ideas were considered radical, but, like other third-party ideas, they later became accepted. Reagan gave tax cuts to businesses, which helped the economy, and the M-X missile and B-1 bomber proved to be budget disasters. Two decades later, politicians have become alarmed at rapidly diminishing social security funds, which Anderson's gas tax might have prevented.

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The National Unity Party faced typical third-party obstacles. One was getting on the ballots. Another was finding money. As a representative of a startup organization, Anderson could not receive any federal funding until a"er the election-and then only if he got 5 percent of the vote. Carter's funds totaled $54 million, and Reagan topped at $64 million. Reagan's media purchases exceeded Anderson's entire budget.

In September, Anderson's candidacy received a boost when the League of Women Voters asked him to participate in the presidential debates. He was the first third-party candidate invited. Ronald Reagan debated him once, but President Carter refused, and Anderson was excluded from two October debates. "It was absolutely crushing," he told a television interviewer on the PBS Newshour program. "I am absolutely convinced that I would have gotten more than double the vote that I did get."

For a third-party candidate, getting to the debate podium with the major candidates is important. As many as 70 million people watch. It also makes a third-party candidate credible. Anderson told the PBS interviewer, "It gives him a legitimacy that makes it possible for him to be a real contender."

Ronald Reagan won the election with 43 million votes; Jimmy Carter received 35 million. Spread evenly across the country, 5.7 million people voted for Anderson.

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Record Information

From: The History of Third Parties, Updated Edition

Series: The U.S. Government: How It Works

By: Vicki Cox

Published: 2016 [Last updated: 2018]

Record Type: Book Chapter

Table of Contents

Ch. 1: George Wallace, Third Party Candidate

12/15/24, 12:13 AMHistory - Article - Third Parties and the Vietnam War

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Ch. 2: Political Parties in the United States Ch. 3: Abolition and Third Parties Ch. 4: Third Parties at the Turn of the Century Ch. 5: Third Parties During the Great Depression Ch. 6: Communism and Third Parties Ch. 7: Civil Rights and Third Parties Ch. 8: Third Parties and the Vietnam War Ch. 9: Third Parties in Recent History

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Counterculture of the 1960s Ed Clark Gary Johnson Libertarian Party Libertarianism

Opposition to United States involvement in the Vietnam War Political parties in the United States Republican Party

Third party United States Vietnam War

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