Читать книгу Vietnam: The Logic of Withdrawal - Howard Zinn - Страница 6

Preface

In early August 1964, I was in Mississippi. There was a memorial service in Neshoba County for the three civil rights workers murdered there, and Bob Moses, legendary organizer of the Mississippi movement, stood on the platform, and held up a newspaper with the headline “LBJ Says ‘Shoot To Kill’ In The Gulf Of Tonkin.” Moses said: “Our government wants us to go halfway around the world to fight a war for reasons no one can understand, but it refuses to protect black people in Mississippi from racist violence.” People in the Southern movement had reason to be deeply skeptical of our government’s claims to be fighting for freedom and democracy in Vietnam. I soon became deeply involved in the protests against the war. Even as more and more Americans were becoming aware and ashamed that our government was committing atrocities against the population of a tiny country, there was a reluctance on the part of important people—even those who were against the war—to say simply that the United States should bring its troops and planes home. I decided to write a short book explaining why this was exactly the thing to do, immediately. Vietnam: The Logic of Withdrawal went through eight printings very quickly and was used as a resource by the anti-war movement. The final chapter, a fictional speech by President Johnson withdrawing from the war, was reprinted in newspapers around the country.