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Article: The Vietnam War and American society: aftermyths of the antiwar movement.
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- Article date:
- March 1, 1996
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CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 1996 Heldref Publications. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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Despite the bow that nearly everyone makes to the need for historical perspective, contending interpretations of the Vietnam War and the antiwar movement that began to emerge even before the war ended still define the debate today. The hawks' version holds that the war was both nobly motivated and winnable, but that antiwar hippies, the press, and micro-managing civilian game-theorists in the Pentagon lost it. Had military professionals been given free rein, the hawks contend, they would have been able to prevail in the field before an antiwar movement spread sufficiently to complicate politics on the home front. The doves' version, by contrast, holds that the war was unwise ...