Embattled Ecumenism: The National Council of Churches, the Vietnam War, and the Trials of the Protestant Left

Epilogue—Forty Years in the Wilderness

E p i l o g u e Forty years in the Wilderness Embattled Ecumenism, Vietnam’s Legacy, and Hard Times for the NCC Denouements and Transitions In early 1973, American combat troops came home from Vietnam. However, the United States kept funding Thieu’s government and an air war over Cambodia. In an article titled “The Depth of Militarism,” Bilheimer once again attacked his country’s dependence on military means for creating “security.” For years ecumenists had insisted that genuine security depended upon peace with justice, not brinkmanship or arms superiority. Bilheimer was no pacifist. Rather, he wanted more emphasis placed on international relationship-building than on arms posturing. To him, this was biblical and realistically smart. “When a people believes its security to be provided by military force, it denies that security is to be found in relations with others.”1 Bilheimer’s warning was timely. So too was his prescription, for despite the NCC’s failure to communicate this message persuasively regarding Vietnam , it soon tasted success when it helped avert massive bloodshed during a domestic crisis. on February 27, 1973, about two hundred Indians from the E P I L o G U E / Forty Years in the Wilderness 357 oglala Nation and the American Indian Movement (AIM) began a seventyone -day armed occupation of the historic Wounded Knee battle site in South Dakota. The occupiers hoped to draw attention to Indians’ economic plights, the repercussions of broken treaties, and political oppression from the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) and its complicitous friends in the oglala Tribal Council.2 Indian veterans from Vietnam used their skills to establish a defensible perimeter. The U.S. government responded with an unprecedented display of martial might. Whereas the Indians were armed largely with rifles, shotguns, revolvers, and little ammunition, the government’s daunting array included army units from the Eighty-Second Airborne, two F4 Phantom jets, several National Guard helicopters, seventeen armored personnel carriers, machine guns, flares, about 150 FBI agents, over 200 U.S. marshals, at least 100 BIA police, several Justice Department officials, CIA investigators, and Secret Service agents.3 To many, this assemblage looked as if the Vietnam War had come home. The NCC’s Governing Board took quick action. Working through a small leadership team comprised largely of Methodists, the Council served an intermediary role in the crisis. It helped broker cease-fires, facilitate dialogues, and convince both parties that negotiations could best secure mutually desired ends. It also ensured that the occupiers’ basic needs for food, blankets, and medical supplies were met for as long as its representatives were allowed on the scene. This involved perilous acts of shuttle diplomacy amid gunfire, deft negotiation, long hours, and a willingness to take risks at a time when the NCC and the United Methodist Church were themselves experiencing institutional hardships.4 Even though the Nixon administration had dismissed ecumenists as impotent foes on Vietnam and AIM’s leaders had condemned the churches’ complicity in past government land grabs and attempts to eradicate their culture, both deemed the NCC useful to mediate this particular situation . Many hardliners within Nixon’s administration preferred to subdue protesters using strong-arm, militaristic, “law-and-order” tactics. Nevertheless , the negative fallout from doing so earlier at Kent State and Attica prison, not to mention American failures in Vietnam, inspired others in the administration to seek alternatives at Wounded Knee. So too did polls, which suggested that a government assault would be unpopular, even though white ranchers, the tribal council, and certain military personnel appeared eager for one.5 In this instance, therefore, ecumenical leaders ’ relationship-building methods seemed valuable. AIM, meanwhile, 358 E m b a t t l e d E c u m e n i s m recognized that mainline Protestants were gaining a new understanding of Indian issues and their own participation in past wrongs. From a practical perspective, AIM also sought a prominent institutional ally with money and moral clout in its fight against the government, and despite the NCC’s present difficulties, it still fit that bill.6 To ecumenists, they were able to do at Wounded Knee what they had failed to accomplish in eight years of thwarted efforts on Vietnam. They demonstrated the church’s relevance as an institution engaged in society for peace with justice, and positive results finally validated their methods and motivations. Given the swirl of declining budgets...