A war felt at home
By the end of 1967 the United States had nearly half a million troops in Vietnam, and the effects of the war were visible far from the battlefield. They appeared in the draft, in the federal budget, in the news and in family conversations. This article looks at that home front in 1967, the last full year before the Tet Offensive of January 1968 changed the mood. The story is not simply one of a nation turning against the war. It is a story of strain, unevenness and division.
Who served
The draft fell unevenly. Conscription under the Selective Service System relied on local boards, which had wide discretion, and on a set of deferments. College students could generally postpone service, as could men in some occupations or with certain family circumstances. Men who could not use these routes, including many working-class and rural men, were more likely to be drafted. Black Americans were a significant share of early combat casualties in 1965 and 1966, a pattern that drew criticism from civil rights leaders and led the military to adjust assignments.
A programme introduced in October 1966, known as Project 100,000, lowered entry standards so that more men with limited education or test scores could serve. Supporters said it offered opportunities. Critics said it sent poorer men to the front. The fairness of the system became a central issue and helped drive the later switch to a lottery in 1969. In 1967 Congress extended the draft with some changes, and graduate-school deferments were narrowed from 1968.
Volunteers and draftees together fought the war, but in the public mind the draft symbolised its inequality. This is a big reason why draft resistance became a feature of the protest movement.
Guns and butter
President Johnson hoped to wage the war while expanding domestic programmes, an approach often summarised as “guns and butter.” In 1967 this became harder. Spending on the war rose sharply, and so did the federal deficit. Johnson asked Congress in January 1967 for a surtax on income, and later in the year proposed a higher one, but Congress delayed, partly because it wanted cuts in domestic spending first; a tax surcharge only passed in 1968.
Prices were creeping up. Inflation was modest by later standards, roughly 3 per cent a year in 1967, but it was higher than in the early 1960s and made officials nervous. Economists often point to war spending, together with strong growth, as one of the factors behind the pressures that built over the following years. The long-term consequences of this mix of policies are still debated.
For the Great Society and the War on Poverty, the trade-off was painful. Programmes created in 1964 and 1965 were running, but many advocates felt that money and political attention were being drawn toward Vietnam. Martin Luther King made this argument in his Riverside Church speech, saying the war was undermining the effort at home. Others, including some in the administration, argued that the country could afford both, and that cutting domestic programmes would hurt the poor without winning the war.
The credibility gap
Another effect was a loss of trust. The phrase “credibility gap” had been used since 1965 and 1966 by journalists and critics to describe the distance between official statements and what reporters found. In 1967 it grew. The administration gave optimistic accounts of progress, while correspondents in the field described a stalemate. Body counts and statements about enemy losses were met with growing scepticism.
The Defense Secretary, Robert McNamara, was himself becoming doubtful about the bombing and the strategy, though his reservations were largely private until later. In November 1967 General Westmoreland told audiences in Washington that the end was beginning to come into view. Some Americans took the claim at face value, and many did not, and the shock of Tet in early 1968 made the earlier optimism look misleading.
A divided public
The public mood in 1967 was uneasy rather than uniformly hostile. Polls found rising doubt about whether the war had been a mistake, yet many of the doubters were not antiwar in the sense of wanting an immediate withdrawal. Some wanted a tougher approach. Many disliked the protesters even as they became less sure about the war.
The division also ran through generations, families and institutions. Churches, universities, unions and political parties all faced internal arguments. A city might hold a patriotic parade and an antiwar vigil on the same weekend. The word “hawk” and the word “dove” became part of everyday vocabulary.
A further division concerned race and class. Working-class communities that supplied many soldiers were often supportive of the military, but also bore the costs. Students and professionals who could avoid the draft often led the protest. This created resentment on both sides, and it shaped the politics of the late 1960s.
Lasting effects
The war’s home-front effects reached beyond 1967. Distrust of government statements, the shift in attitudes toward military service, and the strain on spending priorities all continued. At the time, the immediate result was a country less confident and more polarised than it had been two years earlier, and one that was heading into a very difficult election year.