5/23/2011:
The Vietnam War began in 1965, and that seems like so long ago, 46 years. The war was controversial from the start.
President Lyndon B. Johnson sent the first regular combat troops into South Vietnam on March 10th 1965 when he ordered three thousand Marines into Da Nang to protect U.S. aircraft there. Many people wanted to know why the United States was getting involved in a faraway war in Southeast Asia, and faculty at the University of Michigan organized the first “Teach-In,” on March 24, just two weeks after the Marines arrived in Vietnam. It was a debate with two points of view presented – both ‘pros’ and ‘cons.’
The idea of a Vietnam War Teach-In spread to other campuses that spring, culminating with the ‘National Teach-In’ at 122 colleges on May 15. On this date in 1965, the Grand Forks Herald published an article about the first North Dakota “Teach In,” held at North Dakota State University two days earlier at Festival Hall.
The organizer was Thomas McGrath, NDSU professor of English. McGrath said the purpose of the teach-in was to provide “an open informed debate on U.S. foreign policy in Vietnam, and to make available information on the real situation there.” An audience of about 200 heard two speakers, one in favor of U.S. intervention and one opposed.
Speaking in favor of the Johnson Administration policies was Dr. Werner Feld, chair of the Political Science Department at Moorhead State College. Dr. Feld defended U.S. policies in Vietnam saying the Communists needed to be stopped. He said the U.S. was right to bomb targets in North Vietnam in order to convince the enemy to end the war. Feld argued that “Russia and Red China would like the fruits of war without being in war themselves” – using North Vietnam to do the fighting for them.
Speaking against the war was Dr. Toyomasa Fuse of the Sociology Department at Carleton College of Northfield, Minnesota. Fuse, who had participated in the National Teach-In, stated flatly that Johnson’s policies in Vietnam were wrong. The anti-war professor stated that the U.S. bombing and intervention violated the Geneva Agreement and the United Nations Charter by not seeking a peaceful settlement. Professor Thomas McGrath stated his antiwar views, telling the audience that he strongly opposed the bombing of North Vietnam.
And so the first Teach-In for the state of North Dakota took place in May of 1965. Who won? Well, it was just “like the war in Vietnam,” according to the Grand Forks Herald, “there was no immediate winner.”
Dakota Datebook written by Dr. Steve Hoffbeck, History Department, MSU Moorhead.
Sources: “U.S. Policy Argued At State’s First ‘Teach-In’,” Grand Forks Herald, May 23, 1965, p. 22.
“Majority at Viet Nam ‘Teach-in’ Appear to Oppose U.S. Policy,” Fargo Forum, May 22, 1965, p. 7.
“Viet Nam ‘Teach-In’ Set at SU,” Fargo Forum, May 18, 1965, p. 9.
National Teach-In described in “Confident in His Course,” Time Magazine, May 21, 1965, http://www.time.com/printout/0,8816,901680,00.html, accessed on March 2, 2007.
Stanley I. Kutler, Encyclopedia of the Vietnam War (New York: Macmillan Reference USA, 1996), p. 34-35, 535.