Many issues have dramatically divided the United States throughout history; slavery, the Revolutionary War, and the First World War, just to name a few.  One of the most notable issues that tore the American public apart and resulted in vehement clashes of opinions was the Vietnam War.  Since the war was technically an undeclared war, the real start of the Vietnam War for the U.S. can be debated, especially since U.S. involvement escalated over time.  However, if one considers what was arguably the start of major military efforts against North Vietnam and the rebels in South Vietnam, the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, as the "start" of the war, then the war lasted from August 1964 until the withdraw of American forces from Vietnam in January 1973 (Rotter).  Considering how long this conflict lasted, ranking alongside or even longer than the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan depending on one's opinion on when the war started, it is no surprise that this war strongly divided public opinion, and that is putting it lightly.  Some people fiercely supported the war and aiding South Vietnam while others opposed it with just as much vehemence.  It is possible to see how divided the country was over the issue, and even see where the groups generally agreed by simply looking at the differences and similarities between two speeches from the time period; "Address to the Nation on the War in Vietnam" by then-President Richard Nixon and "Beyond Vietnam" by Martin Luther King Jr.

While both speeches address the same topic of the Vietnam War and even express the same hope that the war will end sometime in their near future through peaceful means, they different in drastic ways.  In King's speech, King focuses on simply the concept to ending the war itself and even suggests a series of steps to encourage the negotiation to end it.  Additionally, King heavily emphasizes the idea that the United States is largely to blame for the conflict.  King even goes as far to say, that the U.S. is on the "wrong side of a world revolution" and repeatedly states that the aggressive actions of the U.S. drove the Vietnamese to violence.  King repeatedly refers to how the U.S. is supporting a politically corrupt government in South Vietnam that we even helped put in power.  There is also a reoccurring theme of morality and the importance of religious leaders in ending the war, as well as teaching the next generation how to avoid combat.  As a whole, King's speech demonstrates the popular concept at the time that the U.S. was encouraging war, including the Vietnam War, and needed to take the first steps to encourage a peaceful end to the conflict.

On the other hand, Nixon's speech illustrates a very different stance on the concept found in the general population at the time.  Nixon, unlike King, places most of the blame on the North Vietnamese for the lack of a peaceful resolution.  He even claims that the US has put forward numerous proposals for peace treaties and ceasefires, as well as withdrawing all of the U.S. troops South Vietnam within a year if South Vietnam is allowed to determine its own future.  Nixon goes on to claim that these proposals were not even acknowledged by the North Vietnamese.  Also unlike King's speech, Nixon highlights the consequences, or at least what he believed would be the consequences of ending the war without achieving the goal of providing the democratic and capitalist South Vietnam protection against the communist North Vietnam.  Nixon's concerns, which were shared with a fairly large portion of the nation, were based on the concept of so-called containment theory, even though it is not directly stated in the speech.  The Vietnam War took place during the Cold War, a series of wars fought indirectly between the superpowers of the U.S., the Soviet Union, and China using allied nations to fight against the allies of another power in so-called proxy wars, intelligence gathering operations, and classified special forces operations.  Since both the Soviet Union and China were communist dictatorships and the threat of an apocalyptic war with these vastly different countries was hanging over the head of the U.S., the fear of communism was constantly growing.  Alongside this fear came the concept that communism was akin to a disease.  The deadly results of communist revolutions and the resulting countries with such revolutions meant that strategists and civilians alike began to believe that, like any disease, communism needed to be quarantined away from the rest of the world or else all of the countries near it will also turn to communism like dominos, hence the name "domino theory" (Rotter).  Therefore, any attempt communism makes to spread would be met with a forceful "quarantine" by the U.S. and its allies using military force.  Such quarantines were not new by the time the Vietnam War took place.  The whole point of assigning different sections of West Germany to several capitalist nations to act as military guardians of the nation was to prevent the spread of communism from Eastern Europe into Western Europe and the Korean War was also fought for similar reasons.  Nixon states in his speech that just going straight for peace would allow the communist, Soviet Union-backed North Vietnam to take the much weaker South Vietnam.  This, in turn would serve as a strong, reinforced, foothold for communism in the region, threating numerous resources deemed important to our national security and threaten neighboring countries, including Australia, a major ally.  It was then determined that the communist movement in North Vietnam must not be allowed to "infect" the South in order to not only protect South Vietnam as a U.S. ally, but also protect other allies and the national security of the U.S. as a whole.  Nixon made it clear in his address that he believed that any terms of a peace treaty with the North must meet the official goal of the war of allowing the people of South Vietnam to determine their own futures without interference from the North.  In his speech, Nixon called peacefully achieving these goals "winning the peace."

In addition to these major differences, the speeches also disagreed on the role of morality in the conflict and the effects of the war on the oppressed citizens of U.S.  When it came to morality, King appealed to Christian values, appropriate given how he is speaking at a meeting of the Clergy and Laymen Concerned About Vietnam, and outlined how it was the moral and Christian duty of Christian U.S. citizens to seek peace.  Nixon used morality for a different effect by outlining how communism is an oppressive force and how the North Vietnam already had a history of demonstrating this by terrorizing supporters of capitalism in the North; basically, he explained how withdrawing from Vietnam would be immoral because it would be leaving the South Vietnamese to suffer horribly under the oppressive communist rule of the North.  The other major difference lies in how King addresses the effects of the war on the poor and blacks, which is not even addressed in Nixon's speech.  King, on the other hand, brought up how the war was not only draining federal money that could be used to help the poor, it was also taking away many young poor men away from their families through the draft.  King criticizes this as yet further abuse and exploitation of disadvantage and poor people.

All of these points illustrate a larger overall message delivered by each speaker.  Nixon's speech is in support of the war and, although it mentions how the ultimate goal is peace, it still insists violence was necessary in the situation at the time.  It defends the actions taken the U.S. by painting North Vietnam as an uncooperative tyranny uninterested in peaceful negotiations despite American attempts.  King's speech is effectively the reverse of this.  King insists that the U.S. is being the uncooperative party and that the war is completely unnecessary.  King insists in his speech that the U.S. take the lead in reestablishing peace because, in his eyes, the U.S. is largely responsible for causing the North Vietnamese and Viet Cong to turn to violence.  The differences between these two messages are abundantly clear.

Comparing and contrasting these speeches not only shows their similarities and differences, but also allows the reader to see differences between the speeches.  Considering Nixon was elected president by the majority of the vote, indicating majority the population mostly agrees with him.  King was also an influential and popular political leader in his own right, eventually becoming the central figure of the civil rights movement.  Considering the popularity of both leaders, most people would agree with one of the leaders or the other.  The differences between the speeches highlight a larger problem in U.S. society at the times, the protests and controversy surrounding of the Vietnam War.  The dramatic difference in beliefs illustrated in these two speeches shows how divided the U.S. was during the war.

