Moratorium to End the War in Vietnam

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Moratorium to End the War in Vietnam was a large demonstration against United States involvement in the Vietnam War that took place across the United States on October 15, 1969. The Moratorium developed from Jerome Grossman's April 20, 1969 call for a general strike if the war had not concluded by October. David Hawk and Sam Brown, who had previously worked on the unsuccessful 1968 presidential campaign of Eugene McCarthy, changed the concept to a less radical moratorium and began to organize the event as the Vietnam Moratorium Committee.

By the standards of previous anti-war demonstrations, the event was a clear success, with millions participating throughout the world. Boston was the site of the largest turnout; about 100,000 attended a speech by anti-war Senator George McGovern. Bill Clinton, while a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford, organized and participated in the demonstration in England; this later became an issue in his Presidential campaign.

One insider's view: Marching Nowhere by Ken Hurwitz (ISBN 0-393-07462-5)

The first nationwide Moratorium was followed a month later, on November 15, 1969, by a massive Moratorium march on Washington, D.C. which attracted 500,000 demonstrators against the war, including many performers and activists on stage at a rally across from the White House.