Over the coming days, much will be written about Jimmy Carter’s presidency. Sure to draw attention is one of his first acts as president: his issue of unconditional amnesty to men who refused military service during the Vietnam War.
On the day after his death, a former Carter staffer wrote that “that powerful and politically brave gesture was a step toward healing a country that was polarized in so many ways during the Johnson and Nixon years.” Others, surely, will disagree.
Credit: Handout
Credit: Handout
Debating the wisdom of this act requires understanding just how divided the nation was over the issue and how that debate was never only a legal question; at its core, it turned on questions about the legitimacy of the Vietnam War, the nature of patriotism, and the rights and obligations of citizens in a democracy. Understanding the debate’s contours helps us evaluate Carter’s decision and appreciate its lessons.
On Christmas Eve 1972, as U.S. involvement in Vietnam was approaching its end, the New York Times reported that “a sizeable number of citizens have fled their country or gone underground rather than fight in a war that they deemed to be unjust.” The article estimated that “there may be as many as 60,000 in Canada alone.” Draft resistance rendered these men federal fugitives. If they were indicted and convicted, they faced up to five years in a federal prison and a $10,000 fine. Who these men were, and what should be done with them preoccupied Americans. Did they deserve forgiveness? If so, what kind, and how should it be administered? What would forgiving them say about the Vietnam War and the nation that had fought it?
President Richard M. Nixon’s Vice President Spiro Agnew, for example, declared that he “wouldn’t trade one of the fine young men [he’d] met in Vietnam for a whole jailfull” of resisters. A Wisconsin voter viewed amnesty in simple terms: “The law is the law. It’s just like robbing banks.” In contrast, an activist in favor of amnesty “unilaterally reject[ed] the position that somehow these resisters are criminals. We see them as victims of the war. The question of criminality should turn on those who got us into the war.” A Gold Star mother argued that “If I am to believe that my son sacrificed his life for a higher ideal … then let me believe that he died so that some other mother’s son, somewhere, might now come home.” A disabled veteran asked “Why should they now be given another chance? Can I be given another chance? If amnesty is granted, every guy who fought in Vietnam will look like a goddamned idiot.”
Equally significant was the question of how the nation should respond to the problem. Should resisters live forever in exile, and, if so, did that represent the purging of insufficiently patriotic citizens or the loss of a generation of potentially talented men? Would the FBI and the military really keep cases open for years, raising the specter of “repeated prosecutions and jailings for offenses long past?” Could the United States ever fight another major war if potential soldiers could expect to be forgiven if they refused induction? Would an amnesty program amount to an admission that the war itself had been a mistake, “a gigantic war crime?” The superintendent of West Point feared that “whatever decision is made will have a significant effect on citizens and soldiers during any future wartime period.”
Small wonder, then, that earlier attempts to resolve the issue floundered. Legislators could never agree on what kind of legislation would meet the need, and what conditions, if any, should be attached to it. As president, Gerald Ford created a conditional clemency program, telling the nation that he was “throw[ing] the weight of my Presidency into the scales of justice on the side of leniency and mercy.” Unsurprisingly, many Americans disapproved. One homemaker wrote that she had been sleepless and that “the idea of you wanting to give amnesty to men … who cowardly could not face the reality of war positively makes me ill.” Another voter took the opposite view: “Now that you have pardoned Nixon … you must now pardon, unconditionally, those draft resisters who are living in exile.” Nor did the program work as he had hoped. Fewer than 1 in 6 draft resisters participated. Many were offended by the notion that they had anything to apologize for.
Carter’s willingness to grant an unconditional amnesty thus emerged as the only viable resolution. Candidate Carter told the Washington Post, “I think it’s time to get the Vietnamese War over with.... I’d just like to tell the young folks ... just come back home, the whole thing’s over.” Carter kept his promise, pardoning draft resisters on the first day of his presidency. Reaction to the act was mixed. The pro-amnesty group Project Safe Return argued that it was insufficient because it did not pardon men who deserted after joining the military. A World War I veteran and parent of two Vietnam veterans declared it “inconceivable that his first act would be to dishonor not only my sons but the many thousands of loyal Americans who fought.”
Controversial though it was, Carter’s decision was the best one available. Other efforts had failed, and doing nothing would only prolong this aspect of the war’s hardships. It resolved some questions: Parents would not die without ever seeing their children again, men could return to the United States or seek education and employment without fear of prosecution, and the country would not witness hundreds of trials. Of course, it left other questions open, and perhaps raised new ones. The debate over the Vietnam War’s history and legacy has hardly abated.
But Carter’s decision was, in the end, the right one. It is also a reminder that in divisive times, our nation has benefited from leaders whose signal traits were compassion and mercy. Those of us living in similarly divisive times would do well to reflect on that aspect of Jimmy Carter’s legacy, in the hope that it may help guide us forward.
David Kieran is the Colonel Richard R. Hallock Distinguished University Chair of Military History at Columbus State University and the author of Forever Vietnam: How a Divisive War Changed American Public Memory.
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