Q: What key figures or bodies appeared to be in control of war?
A: The average "Joe" didn't know. I would believe that the ignorant were quite convinced that it was another case of the military run amok. But personally I felt that it was the policy by administration.
Q: What was public opinion of the war?
A: The people knew that something was going on, but it was vague. They knew that there was a war, that people were dying, and thaw we didn't want to be there anymore. Many were involved but were not understanding it.
Q: What specific reasons were publicly accepted as justification of the war?
A: There are so many. They [the troops] were there [in Vietnam]. Many people looked at this thing objectively and accepted it as fact. They simply never got up to do anything about it. Predominately, the only ones against the war were the families of those in the Armed Forces. Nobody else really had anything at stake.
Q: How successful did the war appear at the time?
A: There were those sympathetic to the Vietamese- the students and professors, the quote "intellectual elite" of the time. Bearing concern for the Vietamese was the fad. I doubt that any of these people had any real interest in their welfare. It was the thing to do at the time. I don't mean to be cynical, but thats the way it appeared to me. But as for the average American who went to work everyday, he didn't care about it. Things like that don't hit home to a guy who works in a garage all day.
Q: If you had been asked, would you have joined the war?
A: If I had been sent I would have gone. But the reason I joined the Air Force out of High School was to avoid the war. Otherwise, I would have had a good chance of getting drafted.
Q: How were Vietnam Vets treated after returning home?
A: I think everyone has a pretty good sense of what happened. There was much ridicule. Men in uniform were yelled at by college students. Many obscenities.
Q: Would attitudes be different if we had won the war?
A: Since we lost Vietnam, it has been one of America's greatest mistakes. The psychological impact of victory and defeat is tremendous. I honestly believe that if we had won, it would have become the great war of all time. "By God we saved Vietnam for democracy."
Q: Do think America gained or learned something from the war?
A: Oh yeah, I think we learned. Never will we allow the President the power to entrench us in a long standing war. After the war powers act, the President will have to wait for Congressional approval. Reagan's invasion of Grenada was not contradictory to this, although as you say, he is definitely of the older generation of attitudes. Grenada was not about to last for months. But Vietnam has proved to be a bunch of old farts sitting in Washington out to prove that America is superior. The old "God and Country" routine. They say it was a war to destroy communism. Uhn, uhn, no way. I believe it was much more primitive than that.
Q: Was social injustice a frequent issue?
A: This was the liberation period. Changes were happening quite rapidly. Attitudes and morals were changing. Remarkably enough however, news of the Black struggles in the South did not reach up here [to Minnesota]. The North, especially the Midwest, is a sheltered community. As I recall, people were completely ignorant of what was happening down there. The Midwest was largely White, even Whiter than it is now. The issue just didn't reach the newspapers. It wasn't the only issue at the time, the war was raging. Strangely enough, the 1964 Civil Rights Act calling for desegretion of services seemed to go against popular opinion as too radical of a move.
Q: What were the major domestic issues of the era?
A: There were the Watergate Hearings in 1973. These were intriguing. Also, you may have heard of the Sierra Club. They were lobbying for the environment.
Q: What was the state of nuclear fall-out shelters?
A: They were the thing of the 1950's and 1960's. By 1970, most Americans had learned to live with the bomb. Of course there were the few survivalists out there digging holes in the back yard.
Q: What form and magnitude did criminal activity take?
A: There was nothing epidemic. No more chain murders than would be normally expected. I know nothing about the crime statistics, but nothing came to my attention through the media.
Q: How did abortion rate as an issue?
A: That's a good question. I believe the unrest began after Roe v. Wade. It was then that the bombings of Family Planning clinics began.
Q: How religious were people compared to today?
A: Religion was definitely on the wane. Attendence was dropping off. The young people were out except for maybe the Jewish. This drop is tied in with the rebellion against the war and the sexual revolution.
Q: What were the attitudes towards the lower and upper classes?
A: Class boundaries were not apparent up here in Minnesota where nearly everyone had a middle-class standard of living. The major lower class disputes were those that also included Blacks.
Q: How well was Nixon's twenty-sixth Ammendment accepted by the different age groups?
A: It was met by serious conservative opposition. It was thought that liberal communists would be elected by the leftist college students. Of course this fear was never realized. Nixon was re-elected in a landside. Those pot smoking long haired liberals must have stayed home and smoked pot.
Q: How strong were the forces of patriotism within the community?
A: Patriotism was a thing of the 1950's and 60's. Southeast Asia after 1968 was tenuous. The Tet Offensive went into all the way into Saigon and even reached the U.S. Embassy if you can visualize how tenuous the situation had been. After that, "God and Country" went out the door. But if only they [South Vietnam] had won the war, feelings would have been different.
Q: How was the space program popularly viewed? What were the arguments for and against it?
A: The politicians were naturally against it. They wanted the money spent on their programs. However, popular support was very strong even when there was no funding available. They made it very clear that space funding did not mean defense spending. Most people wanted the war escalation to stop. Unique among controversial issues, there was no popular anti-space movement.
Q: How much faith was placed in the United Nations and NATO?
A: The United Nations has never been effective. They have no power. Its just a forum to let off steam. The NATO alliance was seen as real and strong. It remained so even after 1967 when France pulled out and after nuclear weapons became an issue.
Q: In what ways did the Soviet Union and China appear to endanger the Western world?
A: Stalin was constantly inflammatory. Khrushev was much the same. His shoe pounding speech at the United Nations seriously irritated the West. First there was the Cuban Missile Crisis. Then in October 1973, in a crisis in the Middle East, nuclear exchange was close, most Americans don't even realize this.
Q: Did Americans believe in a Communist plot to destroy America?
A: People believed it, things were strange, there was McCarthyism, but no-one talked about it.
Q: Was there a strong will to save peoples from suppression through such organizations as Amnesty International?
A: Amnesty International was a good idea, but it had no creedence. It did not turn out to be the persuasive organization that had been expected.
Q: Was the SALT treaty seen as a serious effort to soothe East-West relations?
A: The media made it appear to be a ceremonial gesture and that it didn't do anything. It was an agreement to agree to talk.