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4. Christian America Responds to Nixon’s Vietnam Policies
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| 127 4 Christian America Responds to Nixon’s Vietnam Policies Introduction Elected in 1968 partially because he pledged to seek peace in Vietnam, Richard M. Nixon became a lightning rod for Christian debates about the Vietnam War during the 1970s. Establishing a policy that came to be known as “Vietnamization,” Nixon insisted that he would not abandon the U.S. ally in South Vietnam until it could prosecute the war on its own and thereby protect itself. This stance and a desire to maintain U.S. credibility and prestige in the Cold War led to Nixon’s assertion that he sought “peace with honor,” not peace at any price. History has demonstrated that, in reality, Nixon wanted Vietnamization and the striving for peace with honor merely to delay the collapse of South Vietnam so that it would not appear as if the United States had lost a war under his watch.1 For conservative Christians, Richard Nixon became a trusted ally in the White House in their bid to protect the world from communism. They supported many of his policies, including those in the areas of race relations, law and order, and diplomacy, thus becoming a key Republican constituency and already foreshadowing the rise of the Religious Right under Ronald Reagan. In contrast, liberal Christians fought this rightward trend within American Christianity, joining liberals throughout America in denouncing Nixon and calling his integrity into question. They were a part of the American movement opposed to all things Nixon, starting with his foreign policy and moving eventually into his role in Watergate. Understanding these Christian voices from the 1970s alters our knowledge about that decade in fundamental ways. First, we see that conservative Christians had already moved toward Republican politics by 1969 because of their support for Nixon, beginning with his stance on law and order, gravitating to his position on race relations and other domestic concerns, but also including his foreign policy. Second, we see a liberal Christianity that fought in vain 128 | Christian America Responds to Nixon’s Vietnam Policies against this move to the right, and in doing so helped to keep the antiwar movement alive at a time when many historians suggest that it had begun to fade. Nixon inspired this activism on their part. And in seeing the movement of some previously conservative Christians toward this antiwar platform, we gain a better sense for how and why Americans came to oppose the Vietnam War on the basis of religious sensibilities. All of these Christian voices contributed an important voice regarding the cultural battle over the Vietnam War. Two particularly volatile weeks in 1970 prompted Christians of all stripes to weigh in with their opinions about the war. Nixon announced on 30 April that he had authorized the bombing of Cambodia, an illegal expansion of the war, according to his critics. Conservatives, however, understood the military reasoning. North Vietnam, the National Liberation Front, and their allies used what became known as the Ho Chi Minh Trail through Cambodia to supply forces in South Vietnam without risk of a confrontation with the U.S. military. The effectiveness of the threat of the Ho Chi Minh Trail led military leaders to push for eliminating this supply line with force, which Nixon condoned . Liberals, moderates, and conservatives, including those in Christian America, erupted into debate about whether or not Nixon was justified in this action or had violated the law. A protest led to violence against student demonstrators on 4 May 1970 at Kent State University in Ohio. The demonstration led to tension between student activists and the National Guard, which, under circumstances still not entirely understood, fired into the crowd, killing four unarmed people, two of whom were merely passing between classes. Prowar Americans decried the student protesters as un-American and out of control, while antiwar critics blasted the government and unjustified killings. A few weeks later more students were killed at Jackson State University in Mississippi, leading to more anger, disagreement, and angst within popular responses to these violent confrontations on the home front.2 As for Vietnam itself, the civil war raged on, with the South Vietnamese , United States, National Liberation Front, and North Vietnamese fighting amid various factions and divisions. Things became worse and worse for the South Vietnamese, however, as Nguyen Van Thieu desperately clung to his fading power. If not for U.S. military and economic support, his corrupt and dictatorial regime would have fallen long before. Thieu ruled with an iron fist...