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Vietnam Moratorium to End the War in Vietnam

Revelations of how the Vietnam Moratorium may have prevented the use of nuclear weapons

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

How Vietnam Moratorium organizing led to the first "Earth Day"

• https://www.greenpolicy360.net/w/File:Earth_Day_50_years_on.jpg

• https://www.greenpolicy360.net/w/Category:Earth_Day

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Steve Schmidt, StratDem Editor:

Moratorium Memories

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

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

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

As one of the initial organizers of the Vietnam Moratorium Committee in Washington DC, and as an old friend of Daniel Ellsberg from those days, his story has special relevance to me.

Dan Ellsberg's 2017 book, Doomsday Machine, came to me with a personal inscription and note from Dan and reminder of the role of the Moratorium ...

Excerpts from Doomsday Machine:

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

Daniel Ellsberg: Nixon Almost Took Vietnam War Nuclear In November 1969

“Nuclear targets were picked.”

Ellsberg speculated that the plans would have gone ahead in November 1969.

Instead, a huge demonstration on Oct. 15, 1969, the Moratorium to End the War in Vietnam, combined a general strike with nationwide protests and teach-ins.

About 2 million people came out to protest across the country, even “little towns that had never protested before,” Ellsberg recalled.

“Without the Moratorium, there would have been an escalation, possibly the use of nuclear weapons in November 1969.”

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Steve Schmidt, Strategic Demands and GreenPolicy360 Founder: The peace movement actions in October/November 1969 that grew from our student-led start into the largest anti-war protests in the nation's history were further revealed as impactful in Dan Ellsberg's 2017 book, "The Doomsday Machine".

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

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/

Watch the 2023 PBS "American Experience" documentary film ...

The Peace Movement vs.Nixon, Kissinger

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Steve Schmidt, Moratorium Coordinator, and Rep. George Brown

Attempting to Turn from War to Peace, 1969 to 1970 and the First "Earth Day"

A Counterculture and Environmental Movement in the Making

Memories of the Vietnam Moratorium and How Anti-war Peace Demonstrations in 1969 led to the First Earth Day

• On the 50th Anniversary of the First Earth Day

• Earth Day Before & After at the Univ. of Southern California

• Congressman George E. Brown, Environmental Agenda Mover & Shaker

• Modern Environmental Movement, Start Up of an Era

Senator Nelson, an eco-voyager who watched, met with, and listened to us:

"I am convinced that the same concern the youth of this nation took in changing this nation's priorities on the war in Vietnam and on civil rights can be shown for the problems of the environment. Successful teach-ins on all campuses on the same day will have a dramatic impact on the environmental conscience of the nation. They will be immensely effective as an educational effort in arousing public opinion..."

"If we could tap into the environmental concerns of the general public and infuse student energy into the environmental cause, we could generate a demonstration that would force the issue onto the national political agenda," Senator Bill Nelson (D-WI) said after one of his 1969 trips to California.

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Doomsday Machine: Daniel Ellsberg Recalling the Vietnam Moratorium Oct-Nov 1969

* https://www.greenpolicy360.net/w/File:Doomsday_Machine-Daniel_Ellsberg-Recalling_the_Vietnam_Moratorium_Oct-Nov_1969.jpg

• https://www.greenpolicy360.net/w/File:Dan_Ellsberg_-_2017.png

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

• https://www.greenpolicy360.net/w/File:Dan_Ellsberg_-_March_2023.png

• https://www.greenpolicy360.net/w/File:Surviving_Victory.png

• https://www.greenpolicy360.net/w/File:Strategic_Demands_of_the_21st_Century_A_New_Vision_for_a_New_World.png

• https://www.greenpolicy360.net/w/File:Doomsday_Machine.jpg

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

• https://www.greenpolicy360.net/w/File:Moratorium_memory,_Dan-Steve,_Doomsday_Machine_inscription.jpg

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