File:Oct 15, 1969, Vietnam Moratorium Day in memory.jpg

Exposition Park, Los Angeles, Moratorium for Peace, October 15, 1969. Photo by Harvey Smythe.

University of Southern California student activism in 1969-1970 held a key role in starting up the first Earth Day ...

* https://www.greenpolicy360.net/w/Earth_Day_Memories_on_the_50th_Anniversary

Senator Gaylord Nelson, who proposed the first 'Earth Day' Teach-in, credited the nationwide student-led Vietnam Moratorium peace movement for inspiring him to believe in the potential of a nationwide student-led environmental movement.

GreenPolicy360 Founder/Siterunner: Our student activists lobbied the good Senator often, with Congressman George Brown, from 1968 through April 1970 and first Earth Day to build on our Moratorium work.

"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.

Senator Nelson at USC, Earth Day 1970

The foundation of the "Decade of the Environment" came about as a result of students proposing, planning and organizing the Moratorium teach-ins, peace marches, then Earth Day. USC students were out in front in this history-making era. A 16 mm USC film school documentary by Robert Carroll follows students who organized the Moratorium, beginning with the committee's DC founding in the summer of '69...

Back in the day --

Steven Schmidt, 1969

University of Southern California

Steve Schmidt, Moratorium Coordinator, and Rep. George Brown

Vietnam Moratorium Committee - Organizing California 'Peace Movement'

• 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

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

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

“Nuclear targets were picked.”

The Moratorium stops use of Nukes

Ellsberg and National Security staff speculate 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.”

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, 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.

Excerpts from Doomsday Machine / Published 2017:

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

PBS

The Movement and the 'Madman'

PBS PREMIERE MARCH 28, 2023 ON AMERICAN EXPERIENCE

The documentary film tells the little-known 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