Fry - The American South and the Vietnam War : belligerence, protest, and agony in Dixie

The American South
and the Vietnam War

Belligerence,
Protest,
and Agony
in Dixie

JOSEPH A. FRY

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Copyright 2015 by The University Press of Kentucky

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Fry, Joseph A., 1947

The American South and the Vietnam War : belligerence, protest, and agony in Dixie / Joseph A. Fry.

pages cm. (Studies in conflict, diplomacy, and peace)

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 978-0-8131-6104-4 (hardcover : alk. paper)

ISBN 978-0-8131-6109-9 (pdf) ISBN 978-0-8131-6108-2 (epub)

1. Vietnam War, 19611975Southern States. 2. Vietnam War, 19611975Political aspectsSouthern States. 3. Southern StatesPolitics and government20th century. 4. Public opinionSouthern StatesHistory20th century. 5. Southern StatesHistory, Military20th century. 6. Vietnam War, 19611975Influence. I. Title.

DS559.62.S68F79 2015

959.704'310975dc23 2014049411

This book is printed on acid-free paper meeting
the requirements of the American National Standard
for Permanence in Paper for Printed Library Materials.

Manufactured in the United States of America.

For Sandy

Place matters in how Americans have responded to and been affected by US foreign policy. Over the past twenty-five years, scholars have cited the benefits of examining the impact of domestic regionalism on the formation and implementation of US foreign policy. In 1987 Carl N. Degler urged that the American South be viewed as co-creator of the nations history rather than an outsider or an obstacle to national development; and, he declared, What is called American foreign policy has often been heavily influenced if not molded by the South. A decade later, in 1998, Peter Trubowitz asserted, In the final analysis, it is the realities of power inside a country, not the distribution of power in the international system, that determine the course of the nations foreign policy. He continued, When viewed over time and across a wide range of issues, sectional interests emerge as a powerful and consistent force shaping US foreign policy. More recently, Paul Boyer has contended that all diplomatic history is local: Just as other fields of history are taking into account the local and grassroots sources and consequences of the processes they study, so diplomatic historians are becoming more aware of how illuminating this perspective can be.

Nowhere has this dynamic of regional influence on US foreign relations been more apparent than in the American South. As residents of the most self-conscious and persistent US region from the nations founding through at least the mid-1970s, southerners have habitually viewed US foreign relations through a distinctly regional lens grounded in a variety of shared cultural values, historical assumptions, and perceived regional interests. Over the course of American history, regional foreign policy preferences have ultimately been expressed through the political process, and regions characterized by one-party dominance have had the greatest impact on US foreign relations. Here again, the South has been conspicuous.