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Vietnam Moratorium for Peace 1969-1970

Update: 2023

The Peace Movement Acted to Prevent the Use of Nuclear Weapons

The Movement and the Madman - PBS - March 2023

Re: National Security Council (NSC) advisors who objected to Nixon-Kissinger Vietnam secret action - Halperin, Lake, Morris

• https://www.greenpolicy360.net/w/Roger_Morris_Bio

* https://www.greenpolicy360.net/w/File:Moratorium_October_15_1969.jpg

The Movement and the 'Madman'

THE DOCUMENTARY PREMIERED MARCH 28, 2023 ON PBS "AMERICAN EXPERIENCE"

The Vietnam Moratorium mobilization of October-November 1969 is revealed to have politically influenced and stopped US President Nixon from using nuclear weapons

The documentary film tells the story of a dramatic showdown between a protest movement and a president

• https://www.movementandthemadman.com/home
• https://www.movementandthemadman.com/history
• https://www.movementandthemadman.com/preview
• https://www.movementandthemadman.com/interviewees
• https://www.movementandthemadman.com/filmmakers

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A Call Out of the Blue and a War Remembrance

Steven Schmidt/GreenPolicy360 Founder/Siterunner:

Some fifty years after being an organizer of the Vietnam Moratorium in 1969, I received a call from a Vietnam war documentary production. They wanted remembrance comments of what it was like, up close, organizing a national peace movement. My response was "it was overwhelming" and... have you talked to Roger Morris? They said they intended to, they knew about Roger and did I have have his contact number. My next statement, which I repeated strongly over a period of months, filling in details, came from Dan Ellsberg, who was a friend and, in former times, a nuclear war planner. I spoke of Roger and the NSC, and nuclear weapons, and Dan's book, the Doomsday Machine, and suggested the documentary producers look into the Vietnam story of Nixon-Kissinger and "the Bomb".

Those who objected to secret plans back then by Nixon-Kissinger to expand the war beyond Vietnam, bombing Cambodia, Laos and planning, as it turned out, to 'send a message' to Hanoi via nuclear weapon use. These NSC staffers left government, with personal and professional consequences, and their experiences were not revealed until many years later. The Movement and the Madman PBS - American Experience film now tells the tale, and it is a shocking story. We should listen carefully, as the story of the Bomb and Vietnam comes to light, how nations of the world came close to experiencing nuclear disaster, a Cold War that would have instantly and forever become a Hot War with reverberations continuing until the present day.

Our peace organizing, it turned out, had profound impacts then and now as revealed by PBS's Movement and Madman.

Back in the day --

Steven Schmidt, 1969

University of Southern California

Looking Back: @USC organizing the California anti-war movement/a USC Cinema Dept. film of the Moratorium

Steve Schmidt, Moratorium Coordinator, and Rep. George Brown

The Vietnam Moratorium Committee - Organizing 'Peace Movement' Action

• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9wLCWEU-6qA&t=32s

Vietnam Moratorium for Peace

Moratorium to End the War in Vietnam

1969-1970 | Millions across the U.S. Demonstrate, March, Organize, Teach-in and Rally for Peace

Watch a documentary film, directed by Robert Carroll, about the Vietnam Moratorium.

USC was the organizing hub for colleges and universities in California... On October 15, 1969, and in November, tens of thousands in Los Angeles, hundreds of thousands in California, and millions more across the U.S. rallied with historic demonstrations.

Read More @GreenPolicy360 about the Vietnam Moratorium peace movement

Steve Schmidt, GreenPolicy360 Founder and Strategic Demands Editor: The peace movement actions in October/November 1969 grew from our student-led start into the largest anti-war protests in the nation's history. As with the history of the Vietnam war, compiled by Daniel Ellsberg under order by Robert McNamara, and later to be revealed and called "The Pentagon Papers", the Moratorium actions were impactful in ways not realized immediately. Dan Ellsberg, a nuclear war planner, wrote in his 2017 book, "The Doomsday Machine" that use of nuclear weapons was prevented by these historic peace movement actions.

Although many know of Dan Ellsberg from his role in releasing the history of the Vietnam War, the story that became known as the "Pentagon Papers", his role as a U.S. nuclear war planner is much less known. I knew Dan and I've worked with Roger Morris, formerly of the National Security Council and an aide to Henry Kissinger. The story of how close we came to nuclear war needs to be told again, and remembered. It is a warning of how a president, any U.S. president, sane or not, can order 'first use' of nuclear weapons.

Stop and think, with a light now focused on a room in the White House in 1969. One of the singular figures is the US president, Richard Nixon, the other is the president's foreign policy adviser, Henry Kissinger. They are considering giving an executive order, a commander-in-chief is close to ordering the launch of nuclear war.

The president then, as is the case now, has "Singular Authority" to 'pull the trigger' and go nuclear.

Rational humanity came much too near the brink of nuclear cataclysm in those moments in 1969 as Nixon-Kissinger threatened the "4th rate power" of North Vietnam The world was spared though as outside the White House a people's movement rose -- and dissuaded the president and his aide. The Vietnam Moratorium turned out to be more powerful, much more powerful than was realized back then.

Today, as we review what has been revealed in subsequent years by insiders -- men with names like Morris, Lake, Halperin, Ellsberg -- we must realize it is time to exert further controls on out-of-control nuclear launch power. The 'singular authority' of the US president to launch nuclear Armageddon needs to be seen for what it is and re-thought. A new vision of nuclear sanity needs to be delivered by today's generation to protect future life. The potential for nuclear weapons accident, miscalculation, mistake, or purposeful intentional use has been a recurring threat, a threat that needs to be ended.

The Nixon nuclear episode reported here, of a president sending a "signal", a "savage, brutal blow" came too close to reality. God-like good fortune and anti-war Moratorium events, marches, and opposition by the American people prevented the nuclear fire resulting from a singular decision by an American president. Another time looking ahead, a politically powerful peace movement may not be organized in time.

How do we know a future president will not order nukes to be launched?

Read the series of pieces via Strategic Demands:

• https://strategicdemands.com/?s=singular+authority

Read more at GreenPolicy360's associate, Strategic Demands

• https://www.strategicdemands.com

• https://www.strategicdemands.com/doomsday-machine/

• https://www.strategicdemands.com/nuclear-issues-cold-war-2-0/