“A New Kind of War”: The Vietnam War and The Nuremberg Principles, 1964-1968 by Luke J. Stewart A thesis presented to the University of Waterloo in fulfillment of the thesis requirement for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in History Waterloo, Ontario, Canada, 2014 © Luke J. Stewart 2014 AUTHOR'S DECLARATION I hereby declare that I am the sole author of this thesis. This is a true copy of the thesis, including any required final revisions, as accepted by my examiners. I understand that my thesis may be made electronically available to the public. ii Abstract This thesis explores what Telford Taylor called the “ethos of Nuremberg” and how it shaped antiwar resistance during the Vietnam War in the United States. The Vietnam War was a monumental event in the twentieth century and the conflict provided lawyers, academics, activists, and soldiers the ability to question the legality of the war through the prism of the Nuremberg Principles, the various international treaties and U.S. Constitutional law. As many legal scholars and historians have lamented, the Cold War destroyed hopes for the solidification of an international court empowered to preside over questions of war crimes, crimes against humanity and crimes against peace. In the absence of cooperation among the international community, the antiwar movements in the United States and around the world during the Vietnam War utilized these legal instruments to form what I call a war crimes movement from below. A significant component of this challenge was the notion that individual citizens – draft noncooperators, military resisters, tax resisters, and the like – had a responsibility under the Nuremberg Principles to resist an illegal war. In the numerous United States military interventions after World War II, none had been challenged as openly and aggressively as the war in Vietnam. As this thesis will demonstrate, the ideas that crystallized into action at Nuremberg played a major role in this resistance. iii Acknowledgements It is difficult to know when this thesis began. The task of acknowledging everyone who helped along the way has prompted me to remember these amazing people and the journey I’ve undertook. The past decade and more has been a rewarding, challenging, unsettling, and enlightening experience. While the writing process has been a solitary one, the process of researching the below thesis has taken me all over North America and, eventually, landing in France. First and foremost, I would like to thank my advisory committee: Dr. Andrew Hunt, Dr. Michael Foley, Dr. John Sbardellati, Dr. James Walker, and Dr. Jasmine Habib. Their support, encouragement, criticism and feedback challenged me and enabled this dissertation to move to the next level of intellectual inquiry. I wrote my first essay on the anti-Vietnam War movement back in grade 11 U.S. history class at Assumption College high school in Brantford, Ontario. It was here that I had a group of wonderful teachers who allowed me to pursue the subjects which interested me the most. Invariably, almost all of my essays in the humanities and social sciences explored some aspect of the Sixties in the United States. Thank you to Mr. Comiskey, Mrs. Fergus, Mr. Armstrong, Mr. O'Donoghue, and others. I continued researching and writing throughout my undergraduate and graduate studies at Wilfrid Laurier University in Waterloo between September 2003 and May 2009 where I obtained degrees in History and Global Studies. It was here where my interest and eventual decision to study history seriously was nurtured and thrived. Without the dedication and support of Dr. David Monod, Dr. Jeff Grischow, Dr. Len Friesen, Dr. Adam Davidson- Harden, and many others I would not have continued into graduate school. Most importantly, Dr. Monod’s years of patience, advice and support in my academic endeavors and the guidance I received was invaluable to my development as an historian. I started the doctoral program at the University of Waterloo in September 2009. Without the help and support of the faculty and staff in the Department of History, I would still be completing my PhD. The wonderful Donna Hayes was always available to help with any little or big problem I encountered (and there were many). Donna was usually the first person and often the last person I would see in the department on any given day and she always had a warm smile and always put the students’ needs first. We would all be so lucky to have such a helpful and knowledgeable graduate secretary. Dr. Andrew Hunt is my intrepid thesis supervisor. I heard about the legendary Dr. Hunt while I was still at WLU doing my undergraduate work. Somehow, I caught wind that Dr. Hunt iv was offering a senior seminar in the history of American rock ’n’ roll at UW in the winter of 2008. Although I had already completed my fourth year seminars at WLU, I nonetheless registered and developed a relationship with Dr. Hunt which has blossomed over the years. I eventually was able to teach HIST 105 with Dr. Hunt as part of the Tri-University mentored teaching program in the winter of 2013. It was a hit. Without the dedication, support, and, most importantly, belief in me and my work, this thesis never would have been completed. While I pushed Dr. Hunt in the last year of the PhD, he pushed back and with his keen eye and critical engagement with the task at hand, our collaboration has produced the best result possible. Researching my thesis, the core of my work, would not have been possible without the support of many friends and knowledgeable archivists. While the research for this project began while I was still in high school, my first major research trip was to the Lyndon Baines Johnson Presidential Library in Austin, Texas. I would like to thank the Lyndon Baines Johnson Foundation for their generous financial support through the Moody Grant which gave me the privilege of researching at the LBJ Library in February 2009. I have also incurred a debt of gratitude to John Wilson, the Vietnam archivist at the LBJ Library for his correspondence and consultation at the Library as well as to the Reading Room staff: Will Clements, Liza Banks, Caitlin Bumford, Laura Eggert, and Eric Cuellar who were extremely kind, knowledgeable and courteous. While I traveled to the LBJ Library during my Master’s work, I also ordered documents from two archives. I would like to thank Cara Gilgenbach, the Head of Special Collections and Archives at Kent State University for sending all of the relevant materials from the Staughton Lynd papers as well as Elspeth Olson and Mattie Taormina from the Department of Special Collections at Stanford University for sending the relevant materials from the Herbert Aptheker Papers. After completing my Masters in History, I was able to spend three amazing weeks in Washington, D.C., at the National Archives I and II in downtown Washington and College Park, Maryland, in August 2009. Without the support and accommodation of my friend and comrade Jesse Freeston, I would not have had the opportunity to conduct a central part of the research for this study. I also wish to thank the staff and archivists at the National Archives for their advice and help during my three week stay there. I have been extremely lucky to travel at least three times in 2008, 2010, and 2013 to the Bertrand Russell Archives at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario. The staff and archivists were always extremely courteous and helpful in finding material related to the Bertrand Russell Peace Foundation and the International War Crimes Tribunal. v In June 2011, I spent a beautiful week in Ithaca, New York, at Cornell University. Here I was able to explore material related to the International War Crimes Tribunal as well as the papers of the Citizens Commission of Inquiry into U.S. War Crimes in Vietnam. Thanks to colleagues Jonathan Crossen for helping me find accommodations through a family member who worked at Cornell and to Geoff Keelan for letting me borrow his car for the trip. In late-May and early-June 2012, I spent an unforgettable week at the Swarthmore College Peace Collection exploring the Staughton and Alice Lynd papers, the Clergy and Laymen Concerned About Vietnam papers, the Fellowship of Reconciliation Papers, and many others. Before traveling to Swarthmore, Pennsylvania, I spent a weekend in Niles, Ohio, with Staughton and Alice Lynd. I first met Staughton at the Organization of American Historians (OAH) in Washington, D.C., in April 2010 where he was speaking at the Historians Against the War (HAW) sponsored memoriam for Howard Zinn. Zinn had passed away in January and I embarked to Washington, D.C., a young historian in search of a purpose. I had prearranged meeting up with Lynd and we had breakfast together. At that time, after our conversation, he said I was welcome to visit Alice and him anytime. Traveling to the Lynds’ house just outside of Youngstown, Ohio, in 2012 was a life changing experience. At the Lynds, I spent the weekend discussing everything from contemporary politics to their activism during the Vietnam War. I decided not to interview them because I was more interested in having a dialogue and developing a relationship as we both are members of the Historians Against the War steering committee. In 2013 and 2014, during three separate trips, I was able to explore New York City. Here, I traveled to the Tamiment Library at New York University in April 2013, August 2013, and April 2014, and the Butler Library at Columbia University in August 2013 and April 2014. With the help of amazing staff and archivists at the Tamiment, I was able to explore the papers of radical historian Howard Zinn and End The Draft’s newsletter downdraft.