Copyright holder: Tyndale University, 3377 Bayview Ave., Toronto, Ontario, Canada M2M 3S4 Att.: Library Director, J. William Horsey Library Copyright: This Work has been made available by the authority of the copyright owner solely for the purpose of private study and research and may not be copied or reproduced except as permitted by the copyright laws of Canada without the written authority from the copyright owner. Copyright license: Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License Citation: Crouse, Eric R. (ed.). Dear Senator Smith: Small-Town Maine Writes to Senator Margaret Chase Smith About the Vietnam War, 1967-1971. Lanham: Lexington Books, 2008. ***** Begin Content ****** TYNDALE UNIVERSITY 3377 Bayview Avenue Toronto, ON M2M 3S4 TEL: 416.226.6620 www.tyndale.ca Note: This Work has been made available by the authority of the copyright owner solely for the purpose of private study and research and may not be copied or reproduced except as permitted by the copyright laws of Canada without the written authority from the copyright owner. Crouse, Eric R. (ed.). Dear Senator Smith: Small-Town Maine Writes to Senator Margaret Chase Smith About the Vietnam War, 1967-1971. Lanham: Lexington Books, 2008. [ Citation Page ] Dear Senator Smith Small-Town Maine Writes to Senator Margaret Chase Smith about the Vietnam War, 1967-1971 Edited by Eric R. Crouse LEXINGTON BOOKS A division of ROWMAN & LITTLEFIELD PUBLISHERS, INC. Lanham • Boulder ● New York • Toronto • Plymouth, UK [ Title Page ] LEXINGTON BOOKS A division of Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc. A wholly owned subsidiary of The Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, Inc. 4501 Forbes Boulevard, Suite 200 Lanham, MD 20706 Estover Road Plymouth PL6 7PY United Kingdom Copyright © 2008 by Lexington Books All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Information Available Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Crouse, Eric Robert, 1960- Dear Senator Smith : small-town Maine writes to Senator Margaret Chase Smith about the Vietnam War, 1967-1971 / edited by Eric R Crouse. p. cm. pt. 1: The Johnson years, 1967-68. A growing war ; A worried nation ; Rising opposition — pt. 2. The Nixon years, 1969-71. Nothing new under the Sun ; Cambodia fireflash ; Winding down road. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN-13: 978-0-7391-2484-0 (cloth : alk. paper) ISBN-10: 0-7391-2484-6 (cloth : alk. paper) 1. Vietnam War, 1961-1975—Public opinion. 2. Public opinion—Maine. 3. Smith, Margaret Chase, 1897-1995—Correspondence. 4. United States—Politics and government—1945-1989—Public opinion. I. Title. DS559.62.U6C76 2008 959.704'31— dc22 Printed in the United States of America The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992. [ Title Page verso ] Contents Acknowledgments vii Introduction 1 A Note on Letter Methodology 15 Part I The Johnson Years, 1967-1968 17 1 A Growing War 21 2 A Worried Nation 49 3 Rising Opposition 83 Part II The Nixon Years, 1969-1971 117 4 Nothing New under the Sun 121 5 Cambodia Fireflash 151 6 Winding Down Road 173 Conclusion 211 Appendix: Letter Data 219 Select Bibliography 221 Index 225 About the Editor 231 [ Page ] V Introduction The Vietnam War evoked much debate among politicians, policymakers, intellectuals, professors, activists, journalists, and others whose views had a wide hearing.1 However, far less is known of the home-front views of ordi- nary Americans living in small towns distant from major cities and their pow- erful political, business, academic, and media operations. As a result of a me- dia that logically focused its attention on the provocative images and inflammatory words that were part of large antiwar protest gatherings in ma- jor cities and the counter rhetoric of the government and well-known war supporters, it is no surprise that the voices of small-town Americans have re- ceived little attention. Yet those living in small towns and rural areas did con- vey their views of the war in letters sent to politicians. Senator Margaret Chase Smith was the sole female senator from 1967 to 1972 and letters sent to her hint of a relationship that may have been warmer than was generally the case with male politicians, particularly those Washington politicians groomed by private schools and a charmed inner cir- cle of professional connections.2 For all of her political accomplishments, Smith did not fit in the category of “the best and the brightest.”3 Lacking a college education mainly because of her modest economic background, she shared common ground with many ordinary Americans living in rural loca- tions, villages, and towns. Having a people’s touch, she appeared to encourage a high level of honest, heartfelt commentary from Americans, even when they disagreed with her. Letters sent to Smith from small towns of Maine shed light on the far-reaching tensions and polarized environment that exploded on the scene during Lyndon Johnson’s government and continued into Richard Nixon’s administration. There were letters that suggest conservative, religious, and traditional sensibilities, but there were also many with a radical tone. [ Page ] 1 [ Page ] 2 Smith was a product of small-town New England, born in the little community of Skowhegan, Maine, in 1897. From an early age she embraced the Yankee characteristics of straightforwardness, hard work, self-discipline, moderation, and integrity. Smith had French-Canadian Roman Catholic roots on her mother’s side and puritan roots on her father’s side. Biographer Patricia L. Schmidt notes Smith’s moral center and “Yankee Protestantism” that directed her to identify right and wrong within herself and not be swayed by the passions of political banter. In the eyes of recent biographer Janann Sherman, Smith was a “simple, rural, and New England conservative” who trusted her Yankee values for courage, moral authority, and order.4 In her later years, she relied heavily on her Yankee regional identity when she faced the disorderly, emotional, and extremist forces rising from national politics. Raised in a poor working-class family, Smith had an early introduction to thrifty living and wage labor. A hard worker with ambition, she dreamed of attending college after high school, but instead pursued the more realistic path of employment. From a teenager to an adult, her employment ranged from dishwasher, textile mill employee, five-and-dime store clerk, office worker, schoolteacher, telephone switchboard operator, and reporter and busi- ness manager of a weekly newspaper. In 1930, at the age of thity-two, she married Republican politician Clyde Harold Smith, an older man by twenty- one years. The personable Clyde Smith had impressive success in business and politics. Beginning in 1915, he was first selectman of Skowhegan (com- parable to mayor) for more than fifteen years. His gifts of distinguished ora- tory, good judgement, and compassion for working people took him further; he served terms in the Maine House and the Maine Senate before going to Washington as a member of Congress in 1937 until his death in 1940. With- out any college education, Margaret Chase Smith began life as a politician when she assumed the work of her deceased husband. After a successful string of electoral victories as United States Representative for the Second Con- gressional District of Maine, she became a member of the Senate in January 1949, thus becoming the first woman in American history to be elected in both the House of Representatives and the Senate.5 In 1950, Smith, the only woman among ninety-five males in the Senate, was the first elected official to take any effective public action against fellow Republican Senator Joe McCarthy and his distasteful methods to root out communism in American life.6 A political gamble, her “Declaration of Con- science” generated nationwide attention with some newspapers printing the entire text accompanied by “florid prose.”7 The high praise found in editori- als continued in letters sent to Smith from ordinary Americans. Making ref- erence to Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg address, Sidney R. Sharpe of North Anson, Maine, declared that given the simplicity of Smiths words and the [ Page ] 3 force of the great truths uttered she should expect to learn that she “made one of the most eloquent speeches in history.”8 Rinardo Giovanella of Kezar Falls, Maine, wrote: “This may be premature, but I do hope that you may become President of the U.S. in the very near future.”9 That others disagreed with Smith is no surprise given the support that a mass of conservative American people gave McCarthy. Responding to her at- tack, one Californian wrote, in a telegram, that she was “a schoolmarm who used too much language.” McCarthy had no choice but to ram his way into the fight against communism since the government was only espousing “double-talk.” Making a reference to the masculinity of liberal politicians, this critic had little patience for “old-maidish senators from the New England states, as they never were two-fisted.”10 In the end, more pundits viewed her opposition to McCarthy as representative of a more appropriate anticommu- nist Americanism devoid of selfish political opportunism. She had her own strong endorsement from ordinary Americans, particularly her Maine con- stituents, who saw her as a non-elitist politician with a common sense under- standing of national security and individual freedoms. While Smith disap- proved of McCarthy’s method, she remained a stalwart foe of communism; she had presented bills, in 1953, to outlaw the Communist Party in the United States.11 Her bills puzzled some liberals, but many others took her an- ticommunist action in stride during this period when liberals such as Sena- tors Hubert Humphrey and Wayne Morse were introducing similar legisla- tion.12 Smith survived a McCarthy backlash including her demotion seven months later from the Permanent Investigations Subcommittee, replaced by the newly elected Junior Senator Richard Nixon. In the eyes of Smith, this relegation engineered by McCarthy was an act of revenge that violated Sen- ate custom and procedure.13 Although she also faced hostile reaction from McCarthyites within the Republican Party who were suspect of her loyalty, she made sure her anticommunist credentials were above reproach through- out her remaining years in politics. She won at the polls in 1954, 1960, and 1966. In 1964 she became the first woman of a major political party to run for president. She had no realistic chance of winning the Republican nomi- nation and the party selected Barry Goldwater, who lost badly to President Lyndon Johnson in November. Smith continued to serve her constituents be- fore losing her Senate seat in 1972 at the age of seventy-four. Serving in Washington for thirty-two years, she could be proud of her remarkable polit- ical career. In Smith’s day, a female politician seemed a contradiction-in-terms for many Americans, but in her unique way Smith was not adverse to seek- ing and claiming power. In an age when the public perceived women as [ Page ] 4 above and beyond “politics as usual,” Smith masterly maintained her cred- ibility in the eyes of many voters, who championed her individualism and self-confidence. Her political success was no easy feat when the expecta- tion was for women to remain within the domestic sphere and keep the home in order and take care of the family. Her story is one of a small-town girl making her way successfully in the corridors of political power. Much of her success was a result of her firm support for defense and national se- curity issues. When the Soviets labeled her an “Amazon warmonger,” she embraced this epithet proudly.14 Smith did well in the Cold War America of the 1950s and into the 1960s, but after 1965 American anticommunist idealism and moralism went awry in the jungles and rice fields of South- east Asia. When President Lyndon Johnson escalated American involve- ment in Vietnam, Smith held a powerful position in America’s foreign pol- icy hierarchy. As the minority leader on the Armed Services Committee and a loyal supporter of Johnson’s defense program, her brand of Cold War assertiveness on the issue of American involvement in Southeast Asia gar- nered respect. Still, a significant number of Americans sought to persuade her to take a more liberal path in the confusing and pessimistic climate of the late 1960s and early 1970s. Concerning the interaction of women and American foreign policy, there are scholars who argue that because war glamorizes male roles, females lose social power. The best possibility for women, who have a more mother- ing, caring, and peaceful nature than men, was to promote peace in order to avoid further subjugation. Other scholars downplay the idea of nurturant motherhood, dismiss any real differences between men and women, and praise female aggression. In his study of women and American foreign policy, Rhodi Jeffreys-Jones sees Smith as a “peace-seeking stateswoman,” though in a number of ways she upheld a masculine Cold War stereotype. For example, in the spring of 1970, when there was a revitalization of antiwar protest due to Nixon’s Cambodia “incursion” and the killing of four Kent State University students by the National Guard, a growing number of people perceived her as being too warlike.15 It may have been a balancing act on Smith's part in order to gam the nec- essary power to promote her own agenda in a political environment that fa- vored manliness, but the sense of ambiguity of whether Smith favored peace or war meant that she likely offered something for both antiwar protesters and administration supporters. There are clear indications of antiwar corre- spondents focusing on the potential action of her stateswoman qualities and influence, in contrast to more hawkish correspondents finding reassurance in her assertive Cold Warrior manner. Each group appeared to believe they had a reasonable chance to persuade her to their way of thinking. Many Ameri- [ Page ] 5 cans perceived her as an approachable politician with no shortage of integrity, and, more important, her individualism gave letter-writers hope that their words could influence foreign policy. Measuring the impact of the letters on changing her mind and influenc- ing foreign policy is another matter. Because there are methodological barri- ers for comprehending the role that public opinion plays in foreign policy- making, scholars argue that the evidence for the public’s impact on foreign policy is “often impressionistic.”16 There are two items to consider here. First, many small-town writers likely had an exaggerated notion of the possibility of influencing Smith. For example, college students reacted in shock when they learned in May 1970 that although letters to Smith were running 6 to 1 against Nixon’s policy of widening the war with the “incursion” into Cambo- dia, she continued to support Nixon. As reported in the New York Times, “for those who had been told to write to their congresswoman rather than demon- strate, her response was hardly encouraging.”17 Second, unaware that the in- fluence of Smith and others outside the small circle of the president and the White House was negligible, many writers overestimated her ability to help shape foreign policy decisions. The war experience in both the Johnson and Nixon years reveals the frequent powerlessness of Congress, notably when major decisions went into operation without public knowledge. If one cannot accurately assess the impact of public opinion on foreign policy, one can at least uncover the varied concerns weighing on the con- science of ordinary people. Michael Foley’s valuable collection of letters about the Vietnam War sent to Dr. Benjamin Spock confirms the importance of hearing the voices of ordinary Americans. It is essential to search beyond pro- fessional activists and political gadflies in order to better understand the com- plex relationship of the American people and war.18 Although most were mis- taken, ordinary Americans who sent letters to Smith believed their words could make a difference. Letters demonstrated commitment on the part of the writers; the letter-writing process for most represented a considerable in- vestment in time and energy, far greater than sending e-mails in the later computer age. The whole letter-writing course of action confirmed dedication and passion, and letters to Senator Smith reveal much about the dynamics and emotions of small-town thinking as the war unfolded. All in all, Smith was critical of aspects of the Vietnam conflict and did not trust Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara, but ultimately she main- tained that the war was morally defensible.19 Having a good relationship with President Johnson since 1945 when they served together on the House Naval Affairs Committee, Smith identified and respected his Texas hill country pragmatism over the urbanity and intellectualism of other powerful figures in Washington. Speaking in Maine in December 1965, she stated: “I support [ Page ] 6 President Johnson’s policy in Viet Nam and will continue to do so.”20 While she had disliked the “old” Nixon, she supported President Nixon’s policy even in the face of wide opposition, as was the case in early May 1970 when col- lege students confronted her at Colby College.21 Whether agreeing with her position or not, many of her Maine con- stituents and other Americans recognized and applauded her integrity, inde- pendent thinking, and sense of fair play that she had demonstrated through- out her political career. In one example, a female constituent stated: “I have chosen to write you, because I consider you a person of great integrity; and, one who is interested in serving the people whom you represent.” Another wrote, “I appreciate that you are the kind of person to whom I feel free to write my thoughts.” Often there was evidence of a sense of familiarity and, thus, one lady shared: “I can’t seem to write out Maggie, and just Margaret doesn’t seem enough.... We’re so proud of you” while another correspondent from Eastport, Maine, wrote: “Let me also say the criticisms I have to make are in no way personal either, as I feel confident, though I may not have al- ways agreed with your decisions, in my opinion you have always acted in the way you felt best for our country. We in Maine, irregardless of party affilia- tions love and respect you.” An educator from Bath, Maine, offered a similar assessment: “Many of us in Maine greatly admire the tremendous work you have done not only for our state, but for the nation. You reflect an honesty which is gratifying to see in a public servant. I personally feel that you exem- plify the qualities of statesmanship that we so desperately need. I don’t always agree with you, but I never question your sincerity.”22 Smith heard from many who appeared comfortable sharing their Vietnam War concerns and ideas with a no-nonsense and reassuring female politician. They poured their emo- tions out to her and her care was obvious in that she responded to her mail, with characteristically impressive discipline.23 Her typed letters varied in length from a short paragraph to several pages, but most remarkable was the typical swiftness of her replies to every letter sent. This book consists of letters of ordinary folk who lived in smaller com- munities with a population less than 10,000.24 All the letters are from Maine people and yet this collection does represent small-town New England sensi- bilities as a whole. Press reports expressed the commonality of New Englan- ders. For example, the Portland Press Herald wrote that Senator George D. Aiken of Vermont and Smith “shared qualities of common sense, wit, frugal- ity, and iron principle.” Aiken, the editorial proclaimed, “could have been a Mainer.”25 In size, geography, and history, the small communities of Maine had similar counterparts in other coastal villages, inland rural communities, or small thriving historical towns throughout New England. Whether it was the shoreline communities of Westbrook, Connecticut (3,820), Narragansett, [ Page ] 7 Rhode Island (7,138), and Chatham, Massachusetts (4,654), or the interior communities of White River Junction, Vermont (2,379), and Effingham, New Hampshire (360), there was considerable likeness of small-town New En-gland values and characteristics. Until 1820, the District of Maine was part of Massachusetts and in the decades that followed Maine did not lose the idea of citizen engagement in politics that had roots in the “New England town meeting.” In the tier of northern New England states in particular, a “moralistic political culture” dominated the landscape that set small-town New Englanders apart from large urban dwellers and Americans living in other regions. These New En- glanders shared the idea that all citizens had a stake in the well being of the community and, thus, there was a moral obligation that ordinary folk partic- ipate in civic life.26 Given the New England identification with civic engage- ment, it is not surprising that Smith received letters from over 110 small towns and rural communities on the Vietnam War issue alone. The state of Maine consisted of many isolated small towns, with only three cities with a population over 25,000. A number of letter-writers did live in communities near larger centers, but the largest of these was Portland, with a modest population of 65,116.27 Other cities near the homes of people who sent letters to Smith were significantly smaller than Portland. The influence of large metropolitan centers was not a major issue in Maine communities that upheld small-town values. The isolation of some communities was strik- ing. For example, letter writers from Limestone, Rangeley, or Calais, to name just a few, were one to three hours of driving time from a major city in that period. Smith did receive letters from Americans coast to coast. While having a collection of Vietnam letters from all parts of the nation has merit, a regional approach has one advantage in providing a better sense of the representation of people’s views on the war. It is more difficult to make concluding state- ments from a compilation of two hundred or so unscientifically selected let- ters from across the nation. What are the standards for selecting letters of an antiwar or pro-administration theme from a particular city in the Deep South, a certain town in the Midwest, or a community in any other region? The correspondence at the Margaret Chase Smith Library consists of ap- proximately eight hundred letters and telegrams filed under “Vietnam War.” There is no knowledge of the exact total number of Vietnam letters that Sen- ator Smith received over the years and the criterion for those retained by the library is unknown. Whether by accident or by conscious decision years ago, only a small number of letters for the years 1965, 1966, and 1972 are part of the library collection.28 In order to provide greater consistency, this collection of letters does not include correspondence from these years. The letters in this [ Page ] 8 book do not represent an unsystematic selection. Virtually every “Vietnam War” letter written by an individual or couple (but no form or group letters) regardless of position or theme is included providing it met three clear con- ditions: a minimum length of 100 words that covered Vietnam material, a complete mailing address, and origin in communities with a population less than 10,000. The few letters not included that met these three conditions contained too much personal information about the writer, their family, or close associates. In total, the balance of Johnson and Nixon letters is remark- ably close, 101 letters for the Johnson years and 91 for the Nixon years. Maine people living in small towns had their own understanding of the war that was no less important than others receiving greater media attention in larger cities. But who were these people living in communities with a pop- ulation under 10,000? How does one define or characterize a small town? Earlier in the twentieth century, small towns came under attack by a number of writers, the best known being Sinclair Lewis. In his novel, Main Street, published in 1920, Lewis offered a scathing assessment of small-town Amer- ican society.29 A more recent study of small-towns states that they have “vir- tually disappeared from the cultural radar.”30 In comparison to rural and small communities, the urban experience of New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, Boston, and numerous other big cities was more cosmopolitan, modern, and secular. One case in point is the religiosity among Boston draft resisters and supporters during the Vietnam War. Michael Foley’s study of draft resistance indicates that almost half of his sample of resisters and supporters were either agnostic (25 percent) or atheist (23 percent). The occupation of the fathers of this group was almost 60 percent professional and the percentage of farmers was 1.7 and semi-skilled workers 4.3.31 Of course, Boston draft resisters were hardly representative of the city's view of American involvement in Southeast Asia, but the point is that certain organizations and characteristics common in large cities were virtually nonexistent in most small towns and communi- ties. In the second half of the twentieth century, the construction of interstate highways lessened the importance of main streets and caused a “cultural edu- cation deficit” in understanding American history and geography.32 But sim- plified notions of small-town life are wide of the mark. What is interesting is the variety and often sophistication of the Vietnam letters in this collection, demonstrating that the letter-writers shared little with the conformist, re- pressive, and unwholesome Main Street that Sinclair Lewis created in his novel and what popular culture often assumes to be the case.33 There are care- fully crafted letters that indicate conservative, religious, and traditional sensi- bilities often associated with small communities, but there are also passionate letters that have similar arguments to those voiced by better-known antiwar [ Page ] 9 activists, including those of a more radical nature. If many young radicals left their small towns for large cities, the intimacy of small towns still encouraged the sharing of contentious ideas that promoted opposition to the war.34 Any debate or protest probably was not threatening to the community because ab- sent were the type and size of confrontation that occurred in the large cities between the government and organized radical groups. Moreover, scholars point out that with Maine politics a “moderate tendency” was more the rule than the exception. An equally important Maine characteristic is its indepen- dent streak; extreme ideological views were rare, but Maine citizens could be contrary in their political engagement.35 In small towns, there were cantankerous types for and against the war who debated heatedly, but they were less likely to be strangers to each other or of a different economic class. The letters suggest that most correspondents were ordinary working people with a high school education (there were many typed letters and others were on personal letterhead, though often of a plain style). Even the typed letters that were of poor quality hint of a satisfactory education. The Vietnam War was mainly a working-class war and one might expect that more families in small-town Maine came closer to this class alignment than affluent professionals living in the suburbs of large cities.36 The per capita personal income of Mainers for the years 1945 to 1967 averaged 84 percent of the nation’s average and many people faced economic hardship. Having a small, scattered population over a large territory (relative to other New England states), Maine experienced a lagging economy that resulted in much of its working force receiving low wages.37 Chronic underfunding meant that nationally Maine was close to the bottom in statistics relating to education. For example, in 1957, Maine ranked thirty-ninth in the nation for the number of young people completing at least four years of college, and thus many of the adults of the Vietnam War years had fewer opportunities to pur- sue career choices that required higher education. It was especially bad in the small rural towns. The one statistic that Maine did not rank near the bottom nationally was the number of draftees rejected “for mental and educational deficiencies!”38 The number of inductees from the small communities and towns of Maine who had lawyers, doctors, or politicians to assist them with deferments likely represented a small number compared to the number living in the wealthier neighborhoods of cities and suburbs who evaded the draft. There were letters from young people, but most authors provided evi- dence of maturity (some were ex-soldiers), marriage, or having children or grandchildren. Only a few letters came from businessmen, lawyers, physi- cians, and other identifiable professionals living in small centers. Professors writing from private colleges such as Bates College (Lewiston), Bowdoin [ Page ] 10 College (Brunswick), and Colby College (Waterville) did not make the col- lection because of their location in cities larger than 10,000. Overall, the se- lection of letters allows for a confident conclusion that these people repre- sented the common folk of small-town Maine. These letters are not from high-profile activists, politicians, or other “stars,” but it is important to note that even in a region that encourages civic engagement in politics most “ordinary people” would never consider writing a letter to a politician. In any study of public opinion, it is impos- sible to have a perfect match between letter writers and societal views. Set apart from the norm, a significant number of those who wrote to Smith were likely to have a particular leaning or special interest toward things po- litical. The unknown political views of countless small-town people are frozen in time and not recorded because in many cases people were either less political than the average letter writer or were far too busy with em- ployment, families, church life, sports, clubs, or cultural activities. Scores of people simply had little taste for letter writing. Of course, many of these busy people and others did share similar views of the war as those writing letters to politicians. Another important point relates to the norms of human nature in that people are more likely to voice protest than praise. Smith saw this clearly in the configuration of her mail. In a response to a constituent, she acknowl- edged that correspondence for withdrawal from Southeast Asia dominated, but she stated that this was not necessarily an accurate reading because “the mail pattern over the years has been clearly mail from protester rather than mail supporting a particular policy.” To make her point, she gave the follow- ing example: “my mail was heavily against [Harold] Carswell [for Supreme Court] before the Senate vote—but my mail was heavily critical of me after the vote and against me for voting as I did. Thus, before and after the Car- swell vote it was anti—first anti-Carswell and then anti-Smith for being anti- Carswell.”39 In the final tally, the letters in this book are representative of small-town Maine with some necessary qualifications that any study con- cerning public opinion must face. The following letters are arranged in six chapters, three in part 1, the Johnson Years, and three in part II, the Nixon Years. Each chapter has be- tween three and five sections that correlate with a specific theme or focus. There are introductions before part I, part II, and the chapter sections, and brief editor’s notes throughout, but center stage are the letters and the mes- sages of those rarely heard in a larger national forum. Of this Smith collection, the majority of the writers lived in communi- ties smaller than five thousand people in a time when small-town America was shrinking and suburbanization of cities across the nation was growing [ Page ] 11 and reshaping community life. If they lived in centers that were becoming in- creasingly overlooked, many people themselves kept abreast of the burning war issues of the day that reached beyond the boundaries of metropolitan life. Some letters identify specific reports from television, newspapers, magazines, and books. During the war, 51 million Americans in an evening watched war coverage on ABC, CBS, and NBC, and another 38 million readers referred to the weekly news magazines Newsweek, Time, and US. News & World Report, the former the most liberal and the latter the most conservative.40 Those who wrote to Senator Smith saw her as an approachable and re- spected figure and many shared their emotional ideas for and against Ameri- can involvement in Southeast Asia. The letters covered numerous themes such as the threat of communism, the counterculture movement, the moral- ity of the war, and whether dissent was patriotic. Not all letters, however, stated a clear case of support or opposition for the war. Some voiced their concerns or inquiries to Smith on specific issues that seem inconsequential compared to larger questions of what America stood for or whether the war was a noble cause. But even the mundane is revealing. By going beyond the circle of political and antiwar elites, this collection allows each letter to build a better picture of how ordinary letter-writing Americans upheld or protested Cold War ideology, offered new paradigms, or generally experienced the new challenges that correlated with the battles that were being lost more than won both in Southeast Asia and on the home front. NOTES 1. In Dictators, Democracy, and American Public Culture: Envisioning the Totalitar- ian Enemy, 1920s~1950s (Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 2003), Benjamin L. Apers applies the term “cultural producers” to include “profes- sors, policymakers, speechwriters, presidents, filmmakers, novelists, and business leaders” whose impact on society was hegemonic (8). The quantity of literature on the Vietnam War is gigantic, but a good starting point that offers a variety of per- spectives on policymakers, well-known activists, or other “elites” include the fol- lowing: Charles DeBenedetti and Charles Chatfield, assisting author, An American Ordeal: The Antiwar Movement of the Vietnam War (Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 1990); Larry Berman, No Peace, No Honor: Nixon, Kissinger, and Betrayal in Vietnam (New York: The Free Press, 2001); Gerard J. DeGroot, A Noble Cause? America and the Vietnam War (Essex: Longman, 2000); Michael S. Foley, Con- fronting the War Machine: Draft Resistance During the Vietnam War (Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 2003); Adam Garfinkle, Telltale Hearts: The Origins and Impact of the Vietnam Antiwar Movements (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1995); David Halberstam, The Best and the Brightest (New York: Fawcett [ Page ] 12 Crest, 1972); Kenneth J. Heineman, Campus Wars: The Peace Movement at American State Universities in the Vietnam Era (New York: New York University Press, 1993); George C. Herring, America’s Longest War: The United States and Vietnam, 1950-1975 Second Edition (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1986); Jeffrey Kimball, Nixon’s Vietnam War (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1998); David W. Levy, The Debate Over Vietnam, Second Edition (Baltimore: The John Hopkins Univer- sity Press, 1995); Robert Mann, A Grand Delusion: America’s Descent into Vietnam (New York: Basic Books, 2001); Melvin Small, Johnson, Nixon, and the Doves (New Brunswick, New Jersey: Rutgers University Press, 1988); Small, Covering Dissent. The Media and the Anti-Vietnam War Movement (New Brunswick, New Jersey: Rut- gers University Press, 1994); Tom Wells, The War Within: America’s Battle over Viet- nam (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1994); Randall B. Woods, ed., Viet- nam and the American Political Tradition (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003). For an analysis of key figures in the pre-1966 period, see Frederik Logevall, Choosing War: The Lost Chance for Peace and the Escalation of War in Vietnam (Berke- ley: University of California Press, 1999) and David Kaiser, American Tragedy: Kennedy, Johnson, and the Origins of the Vietnam War (Cambridge: Harvard Univer- sity Press, 2000). Two notable books of the many personal accounts written are Robert S. McNamara, In Retrospect: The Tragedy and Lessons of Vietnam (New York: Vintage Books, 1995) and Daniel Ellsberg, Secrets: A Memoir of Vietnam and the Pentagon Papers (New York: Viking, 2002). A study of liberal religious figures op- posing the war is Mitchell K. Hall, Because of Their Faith: CALCAV and Religious Opposition to the Vietnam War (New York: Columbia University Press, 1990). 2. One example of warmth toward Smith, albeit subtle, are two letters sent by the same person to her and Senator Edmund Muskie; the writer uses a slightly softer tone in the Smith letter: “I wish you would send this where you think it might do more good. With kind regards, I am Sincerely... .’’The writer’s letter to Muskie ends: “I have written Margaret Chase Smith and ask that you send this letter to her when you get time to do so. Very truly yours. . .[italics mine] 3. Halberstam, The Best and the Brightest. 4. Patricia L. Schmidt, Margaret Chase Smith: Beyond Convention (Orono, Maine: University of Maine Press, 1996), xxi; Janann Sherman, No Place for a Woman: A Life of Senator Margaret Chase Smith (New Brunswick, New Jersey: Rutgers University Press, 2001), 5. 5. In addition to Sherman, No Place for a Woman and Schmidt, Margaret Chase Smith there is Patricia Ward Wallace, Politics of Conscience: A Biography of Margaret Chase Smith (Westport, CT: Praeger Publishers, 1995). 6. Studies that survey American anticommunism throughout the twentieth cen- tury include: Ted Morgan, Reds: McCarthyism in Twentieth-Century America (New York: Random House, 2003); Joel Kovel, Red Hun ting in the Promised Land: Anticom- munism and the Making of America (London: Cassell, 1997); Richard Gid Powers, Not Without Honor: The History of American Anticommunism (New York: The Free Press, 1995); and MJ. Heale, American Anticommunism: Combating the Enemy Within, 1830-1970 (Baltimore: The John Hopkins University Press, 1990). 7. Sherman, No Place for a Woman, 112. [ Page ] 13 8. Sidney R. Sharpe to MCS, 6 June 1950, Declaration of Conscience Speech, Maine Reactions, Margaret Chase Smith Library (MCSL). 9. Rinardo Giovanella to MCS, 4 June 1950, Declaration of Conscience Speech, Maine Reactions, MCSL. 10. W.M.J. to MCS, 5 June 1950, Declaration of Conscience Speech, Out of State Reaction, MCSL. Helpful studies on gendered discourse include Robert D. Dean, “Masculinity as Ideology: John F. Kennedy and the Domestic Politics of Foreign Pol- icy,” Diplomatic History, Vol. 22, No. 1 (Winter 1998): 29-62 and K.A. Cuordileone, ‘“Politics in an Age of Anxiety’”: Cold War Political Culture and the Crisis of Amer- ican Masculinity, 1949-1960,” The Journal of American History, Vol 87, No 2 (Sep- tember 2000): 515-545. 11. Sherman, No Place for a Woman, 130-32. 12. See Mary S. McAuliffe, “Liberals and the Communist Control Act of 1954,” The Journal of American History, Vol. 63, No. 2 (September 1976): 351-67. 13. Margaret Chase Smith, Declaration of Conscience, ed. William C. Lewis, Jr. (Garden City, New York: Doubleday & Company, Inc. 1972), 21. 14. Sherman, No Place for a Woman, 145. 15. Rhodri Jeffreys-Jones, Changing Differences: Women and the Shaping of Ameri- can Foreign Policy, 1917-1994 (New Brunswick, New Jersey: Rutgers University Press, 1997), 5-6, 106, 127. 16. Melvin Small, Public Opinion in Explaining the History of American Foreign Relations, Michael J. Hogan and Thomas Patterson, eds. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991), 165-76. Richard Sobel, The Impact of Public Opinion on U.S. Foreign Policy Since Vietnam: Constraining the Colossus (New York: Oxford University Press, 2001), x. 17. Schmidt, Margaret Chase Smith, 311. 18. Michael S. Foley, ed. Dear Dr. Spock: Letters about the Vietnam War to America's Favorite Baby Doctor (New York: New York University Press, 2005). The television, film, and literature material on the experiences of American troops in Southeast Asia is vast. Another impressive collection of letters is Bernard Edelman, ed. Dear Amer- ica: Letters Home From Vietnam (New York: Pocket Books, 1986). 19. Jeffreys-Jones, Changing Differences, 125. 20. Schmidt, Margaret Chase Smith, 304-5. 21. Ibid, 308-9. 22. See letters # 97, #40, #76 (Johnson years) and #23 and #68 (Nixon years). In part because of her profile as arguably the most powerful female politician in Wash- ington, many Americans from the largest cites of New York, Chicago, and Los An- geles and from centers in every corner of the nation also wrote to her about Ameri- can involvement in Vietnam. 23. Sherman, No Place Like a Woman, 2. 24. Population figures are from: U.S. Bureau of the Census, Census of Population: 1970, Vol. 1, CHARACTERISTICS OF THE POPULATION (U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, D.C., 1973). One exception is the university town of Orono (population 9,989). It was not included in the sample because its population likely exceeded 10,000 due to student numbers. [ Page ] 14 25. One letter from a Mainer is sent from Falmouth, MA (see #85, Nixon years). On Senator Aiken, see Press Reports, Aiken-Smith Correspondence, MCSL. 26. Matthew C. Moen, Kenneth T. Palmer, and Richard J. Powell, Changing Mem- bers: The Maine Legislature in the Era of Term Limits (Lanham, Maryland: Lexington Books, 2005), 14-16. 27. According to the 1970 Census the populations were: Portland 65,116, Lewis- ton 41,779, Bangor 33,168 and Auburn 24,151. 28. For this figure, I am thankful for the assistance of Angie Stockwell of the Mar- garet Chase Smith Library. Since January 1973 the letters have been re-filed in a dif- ferent manner at least once. There are also letters that have some Vietnam War con- tent, but are filed in other folders because of possessing a more dominating theme than the war itself. 29. Sinclair Lewis, Main Street (New York: First Caroll & Graf Publishers, 1996). 30. Richard O. Davies, Main Street Blues: The Decline of Small-Town America (Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 1998), 7. 31. Foley, Confronting the War Machine, 351-52, 355-56. The sample size for reli- gious affiliation was 183. In his larger study, Foley corrects a number of misunder- standings, notably the distinction between draft resistance and draft evasion. 32. Chester H. Liebs, Main Street to Miracle Mile: American Roadside Architecture (Boston: Little Brown, 1985), viii. 33. H.L. Mencken was another who ridiculed small-town America as narrow- minded. See Amy D. Greenberg, “Babbit Who? The Decline of Small-Town Amer- ica,” Reviews in American History, 27, 2 (1999), 268. In countless biographies, novels and Hollywood films, a common message, subtle or not, is that urban life is far more culturally superior then the small-town “backwater” experience. 34. David J. Russo, American Towns: An Interpretive History (Chicago: Ivan R. Dee, 2001). 35. Moen et al., Changing Members, 17. For example, Mainers voted a political in- dependent for governor twice in recent decades. 36. Christian G. Appy, Working-Class War: American Combat Soldiers and Vietnam (Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 1993.) 37. Richard H. Condon, “Maine Out of the Mainstream, 1945-1965” in Maine: The Pine Tree State from Prehistory to the Present, Richard W. Judd, Edwin A. Churchill, and Joel W. Eastman, eds. (Orono: University of Maine Press, 1995), 531, 540. 38. Ibid, 542-44. 39. MCS to A.T., 27 May 1970, Vietnam War Correspondence File, MCSL. 40. James Landers, The Weekly War: Newsmagazines and Vietnam (Columbia: Uni- versity of Missouri Press, 2004), 2, 199-224. ***** This is the end of the e-text. This e-text was brought to you by Tyndale University, J. William Horsey Library - Tyndale Digital Collections *****