More evidence that the anti-Americanism of the anti-war movement may actually have prolonged the Vietnam War, from the Chronicle Review:
Musing on DeGroot’s description of the practical effects of student protests against the war, I had not quite realized how much the escalation of protests in the late 60s had turned the older generation harshly to the right. “Support for the right of students to protest (even peacefully) steadily declined, to less than 40 percent in 1969,” DeGroot writes. “A Gallup poll in March 1969 found 82 percent in favor of withdrawing their federal student loans.” Such facts certainly call into question any blithe assumptions about the political achievements of the protest movement.
It is, perhaps, possible that the nature of those protests actually lengthened the war, as DeGroot suggests: “In fact, with a bit less egotism on the part of some protesters, and a bit more political finesse, success might have come sooner.”
(h/t the Washington Times’ “Culture, et cetera” column, a sort of dead-tree blog.)