What were the core values that inspired
various Vietnam conflict protests?

The student movement arose to demand free speech on college campuses, but as the US involvement in the Vietnam war expanded, the war became the main target of student-led protests.

News coverage of the war, which included graphic visual testimonies of the death and destruction in Vietnam, turned US public opinion increasingly against the war.

Revelations that the Johnson and Nixon administrations had lied to the American people about the war undermined the public’s trust in government.

Additional Info

Origins of the student movement

The student movement arose at the University of California at Berkeley in 1964, when students involved in civil rights activism chafed at the university’s sudden attempt to prevent them from organizing politically on campus. The Free Speech Movement arose to challenge the university’s restrictions on political speech and assembly.^1  

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Soon, other student groups were springing up across the nation with similar demands. Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) formed at the University of Michigan and issued the Port Huron Statement, which criticized US foreign policy and attacked the Cold War assumptions underlying it.

[Read an excerpt from the Port Huron Statement]

Some of these student groups became a major part of the New Left, a broad-based political movement that challenged existing forms of authority, while others embraced a counterculture that promoted sexual liberation and unabashed drug use.^2  

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Black and white photograph, taken from the stage, showing Swami Satchidananda addressing a crowd of thousands at Woodstock.  

Black and white photograph, taken from the stage, showing Swami Satchidananda addressing a crowd of thousands at Woodstock.

Swami Satchidananda giving the invocation at the opening ceremony of Woodstock, a three-day-long music festival held in August 1969 on a farm in upstate New York. 400,000 people attended the festival, which featured popular performing artists like Joan Baez, Jimi Hendrix, and The Who. Image courtesy Mark Goff.

Vietnam and the rise of the antiwar movement

As the US involvement in the Vietnam War intensified, so did antiwar sentiment. Especially after 1965, when President Lyndon Johnson dramatically escalated the US troop presence and bombing campaigns in Vietnam, the war became the focal point for student political activism.

Black and white photograph showing a group of young men and women marching and carrying signs protesting the Vietnam War.  

Black and white photograph showing a group of young men and women marching and carrying signs protesting the Vietnam War.

Students protesting the Vietnam War in 1965. Image courtesy Wikimedia Commons.

Student groups held protests and demonstrations, burned draft cards, and chanted slogans like “Hey, hey LBJ, how many kids did you kill today?” Massive US spending on the war effort contributed to skyrocketing deficits and deteriorating economic conditions at home, which turned more segments of the American public, including religious groups, civil rights organizations, and eventually even some Vietnam veterans, against the war.

Although antiwar activism constrained the president’s ability to further escalate the war effort after 1965, it also lent credence to the conservative portrayal of a chaotic society desperately in need of “law and order.”

false, the two are unrelated

your answer is

relations between the soviet union and the united states were driven by a complex interplay of ideological, political, and economic factors, which led to shifts between cautious cooperation and often bitter superpower rivalry over the years. the distinct differences in the political systems of the two countries often prevented them from reaching a mutual understanding on key policy issues and even, as in the case of the cuban missile crisis, brought them to the brink of war.

the united states government was initially hostile to the soviet leaders for taking russia out of world war i and was opposed to a state ideologically based on communism. although the united states embarked on a famine relief program in the soviet union in the early 1920s and american businessmen established commercial ties there during the period of the new economic policy (1921–29), the two countries did not establish diplomatic relations until 1933. by that time, the totalitarian nature of joseph stalin's regime presented an insurmountable obstacle to friendly relations with the west. although world war ii brought the two countries into alliance, based on the common aim of defeating nazi germany, the soviet union's aggressive, antidemocratic policy toward eastern europe had created tensions even before the war ended.