Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-rdxmf Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-29T03:42:15.201Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Mobilizing a Majority: Nixon's “Silent Majority” Speech and the Domestic Debate over Vietnam

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 January 2017

SARAH THELEN
SARAH THELEN*
Affiliation:
Department of History, University College Cork. Email: [email protected].
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

President Richard M. Nixon and his staff intended his 3 November 1969 Address to the Nation on Vietnam to counteract the growing strength of the antiwar movement. Its appeal to a “Silent Majority” of Americans inspired an impressive outpouring of support, but this response owed as much to White House planning as to public opinion. Drawing on internal White House documents, this article traces administration efforts to secure this response and, then, to claim and promote this new Silent Majority. It demonstrates that White House public-opinion campaigns were designed to maximize control, and not necessarily to change attitudes.

Type
Articles
Information
Journal of American Studies , Volume 51 , Issue 3 , August 2017 , pp. 887 - 914
Check for updates
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press and British Association for American Studies 2017 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 “Vivian Uhlig to Richard Nixon,” 4 Nov. 1969, Alex Butterfield (Nov. 1969); Box 1, WHSF: SMOF Butterfield, NPLM, College Park, MD.

2 Schell, Jonathan, The Time of Illusion (New York: Knopf, 1976)Google Scholar.

3 Of particular interest is the connection between the J. Walker Thompson advertising agency's role in the Eisenhower-era promotion of civil religion and former J. Walker Thompson adman H. R. Haldeman's coordination of Nixon White House public-opinion campaigns. Kruse, Kevin M., One Nation under God: How Corporate America Invented Christian America (New York: Basic Books, 2015), 249 Google Scholar.

4 Schell, Jonathan, Observing the Nixon Years: “Notes and Comment” from the New Yorker on the Vietnam War and the Watergate Crisis, 1969–1975 (New York: Pantheon Books, 1989)Google Scholar; Schell, The Time of Illusion.

5 Reeves, Richard, President Nixon: Alone in the White House (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2001)Google Scholar; Perlstein, Rick, Nixonland: The Rise of a President and the Fracturing of America (London: Scribner, 2008)Google Scholar; Summers, Anthony and Swan, Robbyn, The Arrogance of Power: The Secret World of Richard Nixon (New York: Viking, 2000)Google Scholar.

6 Allen, Michael J., Until the Last Man Comes Home: POWs, MIAs, and the Unending Vietnam War (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2009)Google Scholar; Scanlon, Sandra, The Pro-war Movement: Domestic Support for the Vietnam War and the Making of Modern American Conservatism (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 2013)Google Scholar.

7 Johns, Andrew, Vietnam's Second Front: Domestic Politics, the Republican Party, and the War (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 2010), 268–76CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Kimball, Jeffrey P., Nixon's Vietnam War (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1998), 173–75Google Scholar; Perlstein, 432–39; Scanlon, 122–26, 188–96; Small, Melvin, Johnson, Nixon, and the Doves (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1988), 187–90Google Scholar; Small, The Presidency of Richard Nixon (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1999), 163, 191Google Scholar.

8 Druckman, James N. and Jacobs, Lawrence R., Who Governs? Presidents, Public Opinion, and Manipulation (Chicago: University Of Chicago Press, 2015)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Jacobs, Lawrence R. and Shapiro, Robert Y., “The Rise of Presidential Polling: The Nixon White House in Historical Perspective,” Public Opinion Quarterly, 59, 2 (1995), 163–95CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Jacobs and Shapiro, “Presidential Manipulation of Polls and Public Opinion: The Nixon Administration and the Pollsters,” Political Science Quarterly, 110, 4 (1995), 519–38CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Jacobs, Lawrence R. and Burns, Melanie, “The Second Face of the Public Presidency: Presidential Polling and the Shift from Policy to Personality Polling,” Presidential Studies Quarterly, 34, 3 (2004), 536–56CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

9 Greenberg, David, Republic of Spin: An Inside History of the American Presidency (New York: W. W. Norton, 2016)Google Scholar.

10 Namikas, Lise, “The Committee to Defend America and the Debate between Internationalists and Interventionists, 1939–1941,” The Historian, 61, 4 (1999), 843–63CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Rosenberg, Emily S., Spreading the American Dream: American Economic and Cultural Expansion, 1890–1945 (New York: Hill and Wang, 1982), 79–81 Google Scholar; Rosenberg, “War and the Health of the State: The U. S. Government and the Communications Revolution during World War I,” in Osgood, Kenneth and Frank, Andrew, eds., Selling War in a Media Age: The Presidency and Public Opinion in the American Century (Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2010), 48–66 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

11 Maltese, John Anthony, Spin Control: The White House Office of Communications and the Management of Presidential News (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1994)Google Scholar; Small, Melvin, “Containing Domestic Enemies: Richard M. Nixon and the War at Home,” in Anderson, David L., ed., Shadow on the White House: Presidents and the Vietnam War, 1945–1975 (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1993), 130–51Google Scholar.

12 “Jeb Magruder to H. R. Haldeman,” 18 Aug. 1969, HRH May–Aug. 1970 Magruder, Box 63, WHSF: SMOF Haldeman, NPLM, College Park, MD.

13 “Richard Nixon to H. R. Haldeman,” 22 Sept. 1969, 3, P Memos 1969, Box 229, WHSF: SMOF Haldeman, NPLM, College Park, MD.

14 Wells, Tom, The War Within: America's Battle over Vietnam (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1994), 330 Google Scholar.

15 “Richard Nixon to H. R. Haldeman,” 22 Sept. 1969, 2.

16 “Alex Butterfield to Richard Nixon,” 17 Oct. 1969, President's Handwriting, October 16 thru 31, 1969, Box 3, POF, NPLM, College Park, MD.

17 Wells, 371.

18 Butterfield reported to Haldeman that advertisements would appear in the New York Times, Washington Post, Washington Star, Chicago Tribune, Boston Globe, Los Angeles Times, San Francisco Chronicle, San Francisco Examiner, Seattle Post-Intelligencer, Dallas Times, St. Louis Globe, and San Diego Union. As of this report, Butterfield still had not received confirmation that the Tell It to Hanoi Committee had also placed advertisements in the Miami Herald, Minneapolis Star, and Rochester Times-Union. “Alex Butterfield to H. R. Haldeman,” 15 Oct. 1969, Memos/Alex Butterfield (Oct. 1969), Box 53, WHSF: SMOF Haldeman, NPLM, College Park, MD.

19 “Charles West to Alex Butterfield,” 15 Oct. 1969, Memoranda Received Oct thru Dec 1969, Box 8, WHSF: SMOF Butterfield, NPLM, College Park, MD.

20 “William Casey to Richard Nixon,” 27 Oct. 1969, 1, VIETNAM: (General Files) – Sep 69–Nov 69 [one of two folders], Box 74; NSC: Vietnam Subject Files, NPLM, College Park, MD.

21 Rottinghaus, Brandon, “‘Dear Mr. President’: The Institutionalization and Politicization of Public Opinion Mail in the White House,” Political Science Quarterly, 121, 3 (2006), 451–76, 455CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

22 “Alex Butterfield to Richard Nixon,” 17 Oct. 1969.

23 “Charles West to Alex Butterfield,” n.d., 1, Memoranda Received Oct thru Dec 1969, Box 8, WHSF: SMOF Butterfield, NPLM, College Park, MD.

24 Ibid.

25 “William Casey to Richard Nixon,” 2.

26 “Alex Butterfield to Jeb Magruder [1],” 17 Oct. 1969, 5, Memos/Alex Butterfield (Oct. 1969), Box 53, WHSF: SMOF Haldeman, NPLM, College Park, MD. “Harry Dent to Richard Nixon,” 21 Oct. 1969, 2, President's Handwriting, October 16 thru 31, 1969, Box 3, POF, NPLM, College Park, MD.

27 “Marshall Green to Henry Kissinger,” 21 Oct. 1969, 1, VIETNAM: (General Files) – Sep 69–Nov 69 [one of two folders], Box 74, NSC, NPLM, College Park, MD.

28 Wells, The War Within, 382.

29 Quoted in  Jacobs and Shapiro, “Presidential Manipulation,” 527.

30 Safire, William, Before the Fall: An Inside View of the Pre-Watergate White House (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 2005), 172 Google Scholar.

31 Klein, Herbert G., Making It Perfectly Clear (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1980)Google Scholar; Maltese, Spin Control.

32 “Richard Nixon to H. R. Haldeman,” 26 Oct. 1969, P Memos 1969, Box 229, WHSF: SMOF Haldeman, NPLM, College Park, MD.

33 Ibid.

34 Ibid.

35 Ibid.; “Game Plan for the President's November 3rd Speech on Vietnam, Master Copy,” n.d., 3–4, Silent Majority, Box 1, WHCF: SMOF Butterfield, NPLM, College Park, MD.

36 “Richard Nixon to H. R. Haldeman”; “Game Plan for the President's November 3rd Speech on Vietnam, Master Copy.”

37 Citizens Committee for Peace with Security, “Tell It To Hanoi advertisement,” New York Times, 15 Oct. 1969, 28.

38 “New York Organization of Private Groups,” n.d. [Briefing Memo to the President] Box 1, WHSF: SMOF Colson, NPLM, College Park, MD. Members of the American Friends of Vietnam coordinated the meeting which was attended by representatives of the Citizens Committee for Peace with Security, Citizens Committee for Peace with Freedom in Vietnam, Student Coordinating Committee for Freedom in Vietnam and Southeast Asia, and the Freedom Leadership Foundation.

39 “Game Plan for the President's November 3rd Speech on Vietnam – Game Plan in Four Phases,” n.d., 2, Memos/Alex Butterfield (Nov. 1969), Box 54, WHSF: SMOF Haldeman, NPLM, College Park, MD. “Game Plan, with notes,” n.d., 10, Notes of President's November 3, 1969 Speech, Box 79, NSC, NPLM, College Park, MD.

40 “Game Plan for the President's November 3rd Speech on Vietnam – Game Plan in Four Phases,” 2.

41 Ibid., 1–2.

42 “Game Plan for the President's November 3rd Speech on Vietnam, Master Copy,” 8–9.

43 “Game Plan for the President's November 3rd Speech on Vietnam – Game Plan in Four Phases,” 6.

44 “Game Plan for the President's November 3rd Speech on Vietnam, Master Copy,” 2.

45 “Dwight Chapin to Alex Butterfield,” 22 Oct. 1969, Memoranda Received Oct thru Dec 1969, Box 8, WHSF: SMOF Butterfield, NPLM, College Park, MD.

46 “‘Resume’ of the November 3rd Speech Game Plan,” n.d., 1, Silent Majority, Box 1, WHCF: SMOF Butterfield, NPLM, College Park, MD.

47 “Game Plan for the President's November 3rd Speech on Vietnam, Master Copy,” 7.

48 Ibid.

49 “Game Plan for the President's November 3rd Speech on Vietnam – Game Plan in Four Phases,” 3.

50 “Game Plan for the President's November 3rd Speech on Vietnam, Master Copy,” 10.

51 Scanlon's work, The Pro-war Movement, is an important corrective to the bulk of scholarship (cf. DeBenedetti, Charles, An American Ordeal: The Antiwar Movement of the Vietnam Era (Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 1990), 258–59Google Scholar; Kimball, Nixon's Vietnam War, 174–75; Wells, The War Within, 387) in which National Unity Week, if mentioned at all, is presented as purely a creation of the Nixon White House rather than as a true grassroots movement that the administration attempted to control and direct after plans for National Unity Week were already in motion.

52 Scanlon, 160.

53 Ibid., 190–91.

54 “Game Plan for the President's November 3rd Speech on Vietnam, Master Copy,” 10, underlining in original.

55 Richard Nixon, “Address to the Nation on the War in Vietnam,” 3 Nov. 1969, online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, the American Presidency Project, at www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=2303.

56 Bill Gavin to H. R. Haldeman, quoted in Wells, 380.

57 Nixon, “Address to the Nation on the War in Vietnam.”

58 “Harry Dent to Richard Nixon,” 13 Oct. 1969, President's Handwriting, October 1 thru 15, 1969, Box 3, POF, NPLM, College Park, MD; Safire, Before the Fall, 175.

59 Sorley, Lewis, A Better War: The Unexamined Victories and Final Tragedy of America's Last Years in Vietnam (New York: Harcourt Brace & Co., 1999)Google Scholar.

60 Special to the New York Times, “Gallup Reports 77% Back Nixon: Telephone Survey Taken after Vietnam Speech,” New York Times, 5 Nov. 1969, 24.

61 Haldeman, H. R., The Haldeman Diaries: Inside the Nixon White House (New York: G. P. Putnam's, 1994), 104 Google Scholar.

62 Finney, John W., “House Leaders Push for Vote Next Week on Pro-Nixon Vietnam Resolution; Senate War Hearing Delayed,” New York Times, 6 Nov. 1969, 11 Google Scholar; Finney, John W., “House Unit Backs Nixon: Resolution on Peace Efforts Adopted without Hearings – Senate Move Blocked,” New York Times, 7 Nov. 1969, 1 Google Scholar; Finney, “Congress Doves Unhappy; Supporters Applaud Policy,” New York Times, 4 Nov. 1969, 1.

63 “Lyn Nofziger to Jeb Magruder,” 4 Nov. 1969, 1, Memoranda (general) (Nov. 1969), Box 54, WHSF: SMOF Haldeman, NPLM, College Park, MD.

64 Ibid.

65 Nixon, Richard M., RN: The Memoirs of Richard Nixon (London: Sidgwick and Jackson, 1978), 410 Google Scholar.

66 “William Hopkins to Larry Higby,” 4 Dec. 1969, Mail Tallies from Melencamp, Box 129, WHSF: SMOF Haldeman, NPLM, College Park, MD.

67 Rottinghaus, “Dear Mr. President.”

68 Rottinghaus, Brandon, “Opening the President's Mailbag: The Nixon Administration's Rhetorical Use of Public Opinion Mail,” Presidential Studies Quarterly, 38, 1 (March 2008), 61–77, 63CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

69 “Larry Doyle to Richard Nixon,” 4 Nov. 1969, 2, Alex Butterfield (Nov. 1969), Box 1, WHSF: SMOF Butterfield, NPLM, College Park, MD.

70 “David Emerson to Richard Nixon,” 4 Nov. 1969, Alex Butterfield (Nov. 1969), Box 1, WHSF: SMOF Butterfield, NPLM, College Park, MD.

71 “Alex Butterfield to Richard Nixon,” 4 Nov. 1969, 2, Alex Butterfield (Nov. 1969), Box 1, WHSF: SMOF Butterfield, NPLM, College Park, MD.

72 “Charles Colson to Mr. and Mrs. William Rowland,” 24 Nov. 1969, Vietnam – Miscellaneous, Box 122, WHSF: SMOF Colson, NPLM, College Park, MD.

73 Scanlon, The Pro-war Movement.

74 “Love It or … Leave It,” Newsweek, 24 Nov. 1969, 34.

75 Ibid.

76 Ibid.

77 Ibid.

78 “Alex Butterfield to H. R. Haldeman,” 11 Nov. 1969, 2, Memos/Alex Butterfield (Nov. 1969), Box 54, WHSF: SMOF Haldeman, NPLM, College Park, MD.

79 Haldeman, The Haldeman Diaries, 102.

80 Wells, The War Within, 386, original emphasis.

81 Ibid.

82 Ibid.

83 Safire, Before the Fall, 175.

84 “Dick Garbett to Alex Butterfield,” 27 Oct. 1969, Memoranda Received Oct thru Dec 1969, Box 8, WHSF: SMOF Butterfield, NPLM, College Park, MD. “H. R. Haldeman to William Safire, Lyn Nofziger, Jeb Magruder, Dwight Chapin, Ron Zeigler, Herb Klein, Harry Dent, Kenneth Cole, Alex Butterfield, Margita White, John R. Brown, Charles Colson, Connie Stuart, Jim Keogh,” 6 Nov. 1969, 6, Memos/Jeb Magruder (Nov. 1969), Box 54, WHSF: SMOF Haldeman, NPLM, College Park, MD.

85 “H. R. Haldeman to Jeb Magruder [2],” 21 Nov. 1969, Memos/Jeb Magruder (Nov. 1969), Box 54, WHSF: SMOF Haldeman, NPLM, College Park, MD.

86 “William Safire to H. R. Haldeman,” 22 Oct. 1969, Memoranda Received Oct thru Dec 1969, Box 8, WHSF: SMOF Butterfield, NPLM, College Park, MD.

87 “H. R. Haldeman to Alex Butterfield,” 20 Nov. 1969; Memos/Alex Butterfield (Nov. 1969), Box 54, WHSF: SMOF Haldeman, NPLM, College Park, MD.

88 “Alex Butterfield to H. R. Haldeman [2],” 21 Nov. 1969, Memos/Alex Butterfield (Nov. 1969), Box 54, WHSF: SMOF Haldeman, NPLM, College Park, MD.

89 “Alex Butterfield to Richard Nixon,” Nov. 12, 1969, 1, Memoranda for the President's File (Nov. 1969), Box 138, WHSF: SMOF Haldeman, NPLM, College Park, MD; “Game Plan for the President's Pursuit for Peace speech, second post-speech update … Covers Period Nov 10–Dec 31,” n.d., 31, Alex Butterfield (Dec. 1969), Box 1, WHSF: SMOF Butterfield, NPLM, College Park, MD; and “H. R. Haldeman to Jeb Magruder,” 21 Nov. 1969, Memos/Jeb Magruder (Nov. 1969), Box 54, WHSF: SMOF Haldeman, NPLM, College Park, MD.

90 “H. R. Haldeman to Jeb Magruder.”

91 “H. R. Haldeman to Jeb Magruder [2],” 21 Nov. 1969.

92 Nixon, RN, 410.

93 Nixon, Richard M., No More Vietnams (New York: Arbor House, 1985), 116 Google Scholar.

94 “Alex Butterfield to Richard Nixon,” 24 Nov. 1969, Alex Butterfield (Nov. 1969), Box 1, WHSF: SMOF Butterfield, NPLM, College Park, MD.

95 Wells, The War Within, 6.

96 “John Brown to H. R. Haldeman,” 20 Feb. 1970, H. R. Haldeman A–G Memo Feb 1970, Box 57, WHSF: SMOF Haldeman, NPLM, College Park, MD.

97 Cowie, Jefferson, Stayin’ Alive: The 1970s and the Last Days of the Working Class (New York: New Press, 2010), 128 Google Scholar.

98 “Pat Buchanan to H. R. Haldeman,” 14 Nov. 1969, Memos/Pat Buchanan (Nov. 1969), Box 54, WHSF: SMOF Haldeman, NPLM, College Park, MD.

99 “H. R. Haldeman to Pat Buchanan,” 17 Nov. 1969, Memos/Pat Buchanan (Nov. 1969), Box 54, WHSF: SMOF Haldeman, NPLM, College Park, MD.

100 “H. R. Haldeman to Charles Colson,” 22 Sept. 1970, Silent Majority Organization, Box 112, WHSF: SMOF Colson, NPLM, College Park, MD.

101 “George Bell to H. R. Haldeman,” 13 Oct. 1970, Silent Majority Organization, Box 112, WHSF: SMOF Colson, NPLM, College Park, MD.

102 “Man and Woman of the Year: The Middle Americans,” Time, 5 Jan. 1970.

103 “H. R. Haldeman to Jeb Magruder,” 13 Jan. 1970, Memos/Jeb Magruder (Jan. 1970), Box 56, WHSF: SMOF Haldeman, NPLM, College Park, MD.

104 “John Brown to Jeb Magruder,” 20 Jan. 1970, Memos/Jeb Magruder (Jan. 1970), Box 56, WHSF: SMOF Haldeman, NPLM, College Park, MD.