so my topic is related, though not specific to, the vietnam war itself, and i'm going to talk a little bit about the nixon administration's response to dissent, more specifically about the works that have been written about the nixon administration's response to dissent. and then i'm going to spend about half -- the last half of my talk describing what i think are some of the directions that i think we need to go, some of the holes that are still left in the literature. to what degree was president richard nixon personally responsible for his administration's anti-dissent policies? that has been the question structuring the scholarly debate about nixon and dissent for decades. now, for the purpose of the essay that i wrote and the talk i'm giving today, i'm defining anti-dissent policies as the use of institutional capacities such as wiretapping, surveillance,

black bag jobs, all in an effort to weaken and discredit the anti-war movement first and then later president nixon's own quote, unquote, enemies. this body of literature has been largely shaped by historian and washington -- one-time washington insider arthur schlessinger's book "the imperial presidency" published in 1973. shaf lessen injury made the case that since world war ii, the executive branch had amassed unprecedented and unchecked powers in order to manage the nation's security. though its publication predated the revelations that would come out during the senate watergate investigation, his workplaced the nixon administration's use of state power within the longer history of the growth of the na state. later historian theo harris'

work "spying on americans, political surveil frens hoover to the houston plan" published in 1978 which was a work based in large part on theo harris' work as a consultant to the church senate investigation into intelligence abuses reinforced schlessinger's thesis. these first scholarly treatments placed nixon's extra constitutional activities within the broad historical context of the growth of the executive branch in the 20th century. now, of course, richard nixon addressed dissent in his 1978 memoir defending the administration's practice of wiretapping as a legitimate response to, in his words, unprecedented levels of domestic terrorism. the administration's dissent policies, the president insisted, quote, did not involve the use of any measures not previously employed by federal

law enforcement and intelligence agencies. indeed, the president expressed no concern, no remorse rather, excuse me, no remorse, and revealed no inner conflict over his administration's reliance on questionable methods to achieve desired results. in the 1990s as scholars gained access to more white house materials such as presidential recordings, important presidential recordings and documents, their work began to emphasize the personal role that president nixon played in shaping, encouraging, and in some cases demanding that his aides go after first dissidents and later political enemies. these more recent works have held nixon personally accountable for the political culture of the era. and while recent scholarship has introduced new and exciting

lines of inquiry, which i can discuss in the question and answer period, i think it leaves some important questions unanswered. first, i argue scholars have focused far too closely on the executive branch's efforts to combat dissent in this era. imagine if we pulled the lens back from the executive branch and examined instead the larger american government structure itself. for example, in what ways were american political institutions, specifically those outside of the executive branch, responsible for the american state's response to dissent during the cold war era? in a constitutional government based on the rule of law, and intentionally designed as a system of checks and balances, certainly the legislative and

judicial branches both bear some responsibility for the nixon administration's anti-dissent policies and practices. congress and the courts not only legitimized nixon's anti-dissent activities, but demanded that the state aggressively combat civil disorder and urban unrest. for example, in 1968 congress passed the omnibus crime control and safe streets act. conservative congressional democrats who were furious over the johnson administration's in their minds' failure to respond forcefully to urban riots and civil unrest inserted title three into the bill over the white house's objections. title three vastly expanded the executive branch's power to use warrantless wiretaps and electronic surveillance in the name of protecting national

security by imposing law and order. similarly the judicial branch routinely privileged national security interests over constitutionally protected individual rights in the late 1960s and the early 1970s. in 1968 supreme court justice hugo black, who was a franklin roosevelt appointee, explained in a televised interview that the right to free speech was not without limits. the first amendment did not grant americans the right to conduct themselves as they wished, he argued. he explained in this interview, i have never said that freedom of speech gives people the right to tramp up and down the streets by the thousands either saying things that threaten others with real literal language or that threaten them because of the circumstances under which they do it. it wasn't until 1972 with the landmark supreme court decision issued in u.s. v. united states district court which was the

so-called keith decision, that the supreme court began to restrict the state's power to wiretap without limits. secondly, i think that we need to find a way to assess the american public's attitudes about dissent in the late 1960s and early '70s. it's always difficult to assess public sentiment about issues at any given time. americans, of course, did not generally know about the nixon administration's secret anti-dissent policies until the senate investigation of the watergate break-in. but a 1970 public opinion poll conducted by cbs news tells us something about how americans felt about civil disorder and especially street heat. weary of civil unrest, urban revolts, and protests an overwhelming majority of americans polled in 1970, 76%,

said they did not support the first amendment right to assemble and protest government policies. blaming the press for sensationalizing protests and fomenting this disorder, a majority of those polled did not support the freedom of the press. nixon's anti-dissent rhetoric did not seem to offend the americans who re-elected him by a landslide in 1972 when he earned an even greater margin of the popular vote than he had four years before. now, to explore these questions is not to absolve richard nixon of his role in promoting anti-dissent policies. but we do need to acknowledge that the nixon white house formulated these policies in the context of a political climate that had grown increasingly intolerant of public protests and disorder. his programs were tacitly

supported by public officials who, like him, saw limits to constitutional protections during times of upheaval. his policies cannot adequately be explained as a natural evolution of the imperial presidency, as schlessinger tried to do, although that does tell an important part of the story. they did reflect, i think, a deep ambivalence among americans for the first amendment and an underlying intolerance for dissent, which has been a current theme in american history. during times of disorder and perceived threats to national security, the line between legal eagle and legal state activities has often been hard to distinguish, and obviously we continue to grapple with these questions even today in order to better understand our own times since september 11th, but those are some of the things i think we need to continue to look for in the future. thank you. [ applause ]

>> i want to remind everybody we've got two very helpful people holding microphones. please have the microphone in your hand before you ask a question. yes, sir? >> a doctor retired, whittier college. to professor scott, this may be a bit personal, have you considered, as we are both fellow alumni of temple, a k couple years ago in the alumni magazine there was the article by the president about opening their law school in the china. would you consider being a guest lecturer there on richard nixon as i did but was turned down? you may have more luck. thank you. >> are you offering? >> thank you.

>> thanks. >> i'm anthony, i'm a senior at harvard university and i'm writing my thesis relating to the vietnam war. aid question for you. if you have written -- read the article regarding empire light and his entire writings about imperialism as well as professor ferguson's writings about american empire in general he calls the vietnam war an imperial project. how do you individually feel about the idea of having the lens of imperialism put over the vietnam war as historians? >> start with john. >> you're saying that -- your question -- let me see if i understand this correctly, is how do we feel as historians about whether vietnam was an

imperialist project? >> is it possible to -- [ inaudible ]. >> yes, i think it's very possible to call vietnam an imperialist project. i mean, certain segments of the american left built their entire opposition to the vietnam war on opposition to american imperialism, and that was a factor and a theme in the american political conversation about what the meaning of vietnam was. i worked with political groups who used those kinds of arguments. i was not entirely convinced that vietnam was an imperialist enterprise, but i definitely could see how that kind of analysis applied to the situation that we were protesting from the standpoint of vietnamese who were seeing these foreigners come into their

country and first one set of them and then another set of them and the wars just go on. it certainly must have looked -- certainly must have had an imperialistic aspect from their point of view, so i could see how that argument weighed. now, as how i employ that as a historian, that's a different kind of an issue because as a historian i'm outside of that context of personal activity, and so i try and analyze the motives of states and state power, and from that perspective vietnam looks and feels different. perhaps it's because suddenly you're looking and feeling it from the standpoint of washington as opposed to the vietnamese village. so you see american concerns about security in the western pacific, our ideas about cold war challenges, and our fears

that an anti-communist ally might fall in south vietnam. so a whole different set of factors applies from that kind of a standpoint. >> jeff, you wanted to say something? >> yeah, i'd like to address that. i think it's an important question. the problem is that the word imperial has been politicized too much. if you -- so you have to define it. it seems to me if you look at the sweep of history from 59,000 years ago, the earliest civilizations, imperial simply means that one entity dominates another in some way and that other entity is not entirely happy with it. certainly this is the case with the united states vis-a-vis vietnam. i try not to use the term too much because it is a word that gets in the way of analysis, but if you think about why the u.s. entered the war, and i think there's much documentation about this. it's not terribly contentious.

it was because american leaders through all these administrations from truman to ford were interested in preserving the credibility of america's will and ability to control or put down revolutions against an international system that the u.s. favored, sometimes called capitalist system or it goes by other names. there were perhaps some security concerns, but i think few of us would argue that there were real security concerns about communists coming to power in vietnam unless you bought into the domino theory, bha with cre. i could go on with this. but, again, it has to do with the definition of the term, but, look, let's put ourselves in the sweep of history. here is a big power intervening in a little country and what

else is this but that? so it was tied up with the cold war, yes, but it's a complicated topic, but i don't think the cold war can explain american intervention in vietnam. >> next? yes, sir. >> there was a phrase used by henry kissinger repeated ad nauseam. the phrase was peace with honor. did that have any -- can you put it in context? did it have an effective effect? what was the desired effect, and was it successful? jishs. >> well, that was nixon's term during the '68 election. am i correct? and from what i know it was at deliberate slogan to capture the vote of those who wanted an end to the war, whether they were on

the right or the left. honor was an appeal i think especially to those right of center who either wanted to get out by using more military force or just wanted to get out if you weren't going to use more military force, but i think it was his way of running that middle line, walking the tightrope during the election. if you look at, for example, "new york times" headlines during this period covering nixon's campaign, it appears that nixon is for peace, and so that made lots of people who wanted peace happy. dofs, sparrows, as well as hawks. owls, owls is the other name, right? owls. and on the other hand, honor, if you interpreted it in a particular way, it meant that we're not going to give up on the saigon government. now, if you were really savvy about this, you knew that's what the war was all about. it was about preserving the

saigon government in connection with that issue of creditability and so forth. and as long as nixon said that, if you were savvy, uyou could project it wasn't going to be easy to get out of this war. but it was a good way of approaching the war, and i think nixon himself perhaps believed he could pull it off. >> katherine, john? okay. yes, ma'am. >> by name is gail kates and i wanted you to speak a little bit more about nixon's response to the leak of the pentagon papers being the downfall rather than the fact that if he'd just -- you indicated if he'd just let it go, maybe it would have not been so important. would you talk about that a little more? >> certainly. the pentagon papers as a study, as a military analysis, as a

strategic study, were about decisions that had all happened in or before 1968, so they implicated presidents johnson, kennedy, eisenhower actually, who was a republican, but mostly democrats, right? fdr and truman. there was no content in the pentagon papers that called into question mr. nixon's leadership or his own kind of decisions, all right? he could have let this go by as an enormous leak, certainly, but a leak and treated it in a standard perspective. but he drew attention to the issue first with the attempt to suppress the document which invoked first amendment disputes

and freedom of the press issues that were guaranteed to be explosive in american society and moved the conversation up to the level of the united states supreme court where, in fact, it was found against him, and, second, when he could not achieve what he wanted on the surface, he resorted to subterranean techniques, most particularly starting a plumbers unit within the white house which was actually the first how should i say, active move in the creation of the colossus of subterranean forces that acted throughout the watergate period and undermined his own leadership and presidency, ultimately forcing him to resign. so in a very real sense you can trace the downfall of richard

nixon to the actions he did or did not take in the context of the leak of the pentagon papers, and because of the importance of those issues, the pentagon papers loom as an american political document, not simply as an examination of the prosecution of the vietnam war. >> john may have mentioned this, but nixon's concern wasn't about the papers after a while. aside from the emotional response he had to it was that it would undermine his effort. >> that was alexander haig's argume argument. >> which nixon accepted. >> yes, nixon, in fact, at this june 17th meeting that i quoted to you here, nixon adopts all three of the things that al haig tells him on the telephone the day the pentagon papers leak.

>> this fits into nixon's anti-dissent papers because nobody leaks documents unless they disagree with the way things are going. i think he reacted so strongly to it because in his mind this was sort of another case of a dissenter speaking out and sort of disrupting the way e8d have liked to have pursue things. >> i absolutely agree. >> most of the discussion about vietnam is focused on roles of kissinger and mr. nixon. perhaps less well-known is the role of melvin laird. at least with kissinger we have telephone tapes, we have the white house tapes. what about mel laird? have any of you looked at the mel laird papers? there are surprises in there? are we learning more about his ro role? certainly on capitol hill he was

a very astute politician and turned out to be i think a fairly good bureaucratic in-fighter. what insights have you learned? >> yes, i am now with bill looking at mel laird's papers concerning the early period of the war during 1969. let's remember that laird and his biographebiographer, sort o official biographer, argue that secretary laird played an important role in bringing the bar to an end by insisting on the deamericanization which is confused with vietnamization, build up of the south vietnamese and that was his plan and it worked in the end. i'm simplifying the argument, and that was an important role, but at the same time nixon and

kissinger bypassed him. they saw vietnamization as part of the solution as i tried to explain. that is, if you're going to withdraw and if you haven't won an agreement that is necessary to preserve south vietnam, then there's the danger of south vietnam falling and, therefore, you need to build up the south vietnamese to deal with the other side. so vietnamization was an important part of this, but nixon didn't emphasize it until the end of 1969 and into '70. and even then they withdrew more slowly than laird wanted them to. the other part of their strategy was force, which i think -- if i want to judge in the short time i have here, i think it failed their main purpose, which was to force the other side, to withdraw north vietnamese troops

from south vietnam, and to give up on their insistence of a unified vietnam. that did not happen. but the point is that vietnamization took a long time to come into play and by the time it came into play, most american troops had been withdrawn. well -- >> okay. >> this is complicated. >> i have actually a slightly different interpretation of laird's role. and, by the way, the nixon library has quite an excellent laird oral history they did. in any case, i think that nixon's view of melvin laird, nixon and kissinger's i should say view of melvin laird was somewhat similar to what john kennedy thought about avril harriman, that he was the crocodile on the side of the creek who could bite your head off if you did it wrong. so laird's positions and what laird did and how he related to

the president's enterprises was of huge importance to the white house, and that's why certain things happened the way they did during that period of the vietnam war. and i think jeff is right about laird's commitment to de-americanizing the war, but the way that the nixon administration went about doing that had a lot to do with the character of melvin laird, who, by the way, played a very important role in watergate, not only with nixon in convincing him to finally yield the tapes in 1973-'74, but also with gerald ford. >> time for one, maybe two questions. yes? >> my name is mark gellar, i'm with the program at cal state fuller ton. we've been asking similar questions. i'll try it again a different way. could we actually have won the

vietnam war? how and what would it look like? >> okay. start with jeff. >> that's an impossible question to answer. my answer would be no, and i could list some reasons. i think though one way of approaching this is to ask, did nixon, kissinger, and laird and others believe the war could be won? we'd have to define what that meant. do you mean militarily? do you mean militarily? >> whatever -- >> well, they did not believe it could be won militarily. and this is an important point to remember when blame is thrown at others for losing the war. they did not believe it by 196 and '69. they wanted what we're suggesting they wanted, this either decent chance or end at a decent interval. >> i would also agree the war was not winnable. >> katherine, do you want to join in? i'm the moderator so i won't answer the question. please join me in thanking this

accident panel for sharing their insights with us. and thank all of you for your questions. jeffrey sim ball, katherine scott, and john prados. >> thank you very much. you're watching american history tv. 48 hours of people and events that help document the american story. all weekend every weekend on c-span3. c-span's 2012 local content vehicle cities tour takes our book tv and american history tv programming on the road. the first weekend of each month. march featured shreveport, louisiana, with book tv at the knoll memorial library. >> mr. knoll was a local man who was born here and lived here most of his life, and he started accumulating books when he was a teenager and continued until he was in his 80s. over his lifetime, he accumulated over 200,000 volumes. if we have a gem in the

collection it is probably going to be this one. it's one of the books we're most proud of. it's in the original binding from 1699, and it was once owned by a very famous scientist. you can see he's written his name, i. newton, and we're not pulling it out so much anymore because it is starting to flake away on the title page. >> and american history tv looked at civil war era medical practices at the pioneer heritage museum. >> pioneer medicine is a long stretch from what it is today. you consider that the things that we take for granted today when we go to the doctor, things like the instruments being as germ-free as possible or the doctor has washed his hands before he decides to work on us. we use the term loosely for doctors when we're talking early medicine. a lot of these doctors in our region were self-taught or they had worked under somebody else who had been s