VLVL "the Movement"

[jbor]

> After '68, when SDS began to implode (and certainly
> after the 1970 march on Washington following the
> murders at Kent State)

"Four Dead in O-hio-O": The Kent State Massacre

[...]
Almost immediately, questions arose about why shots were fired and who was
responsible. Over 100,000 demonstrators gathered in Washington and students
at hundreds of campuses went "on strike."
[...]

http://www.virginiawestern.edu/vwhansd/HIS122/KentState.html

[...]
At his televised press conference on the eve of the Washington
demonstration, the President looked understandably weary and nervous.
Outside the White House gates, students were already gathering. They filled
the warm evening with the refrain of the John Lennon mantra: "All we are
saying is give peace a chance." Inside, the President told the press and the
nation: "Those who protest want peace. I know that what I have done will
accomplish the goals that they want. I agree with everything they are trying
to accomplish."

Nixon was trying his best to reconstruct consensus, to show that if he was
not embittered by the protest movement, neither was he cowed. He also
attempted to display flexibility. He was not about to muzzle anyone, he
said, but he counseled his subordinates that "when the action is hot, keep
the rhetoric cool." He defended the Cambodia decision anew, but he also
added that the troops would be coming out faster than anticipated. While not
withdrawing from his tactical rationale for the Cambodian venture, Nixon
gave an impression that was very different from the belligerent patriotism
with which he announced the foray.

Singular Odyssey. Before dawn the next morning, Nixon impulsively wakened
his valet and set off with a clutch of Secret Service men for the Lincoln
Memorial, where he talked for an hour with a group of drowsy but astonished
demonstrators. His discussion rambled over the sights of the world that he
had seen -- Mexico City, the Moscow ballet, the cities of India. When the
conversation turned to the war, Nixon told the students: "I know you think
we are a bunch of so and so's." He said to them, the President recalled
Chamberlain was the greatest man living and that Winston Churchill was a
madman. It was not until years later that I realized that Churchill was
right." He confessed afterwards: "I doubt if that got over."

Before he left, Nixon said: "I know you want to get the war over. Sure you
came here to demonstrate and shout your slogans on the ellipse. That's all
right. Just keep it peaceful. Have a good time in Washington, and don't go
away bitter."

The singular odyssey went on. Nixon and his small contingent wandered
through the capital, then drove to the Mayflower Hotel for a breakfast of
corned beef hash and eggs -- his first restaurant meal in Washington since
he assumed power. Then he withdrew to his study in the Executive Office
Building to sit out the day of protest.

Considering the potential for disorder, the assembly could have been a
disaster. Instead, the main rally was something of a letdown. So much
passion had been expended during the preceding week, so much of the verbiage
was repetitive, so much of the canned rally routine was familiar, that
boredom and the hot sun (90 degrees by midafternoon) were able to distract
from the main business at hand. Some of the less inhibited youngsters
stripped and went wading in the nearby Reflecting Pool.

Coretta King, David Dellinger, Benjamin Spock and other matriarchs and
patriarchs of the movement were there, along with newer personalities like
Jane Fonda. Their audience was made up primarily of the instant army of the
young, the mobile children who received basic protest training in the late
'60s, who can travel light and fast for the peace movement and for their own
enjoyment. Some 100,000 of them were there on the Ellipse just south of the
White House.
[...]

http://cgi.cnn.com/ALLPOLITICS/1996/analysis/back.time/9605/20/

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