ABSTRACT Title of Dissertation: A DISSIDENT BLUE BLOOD: REVEREND WILLIAM SLOANE COFFIN AND THE VIETNAM ANTIWAR MOVEMENT Benjamin Charles Krueger, Doctor of Philosophy, 2014 Dissertation Directed By: Professor Robert N. Gaines Department of Communication A long and bloody conflict, United States military action in Vietnam tore the fabric of American political and social life during the 1960s and 1970s. A wide coalition of activists opposed the war on political and religious grounds, arguing the American military campaign and the conscription of soldiers to be immoral. The Reverend William Sloane Coffin Jr., an ordained Presbyterian minister and chaplain at Yale University, emerged as a leader of religious antiwar activists. This project explores the evolution of Coffin’s antiwar rhetoric between the years 1962 and 1973. I argue that Coffin relied on three modes of rhetoric to justify his opposition to the war. In the prophetic mode, which dominated Coffin’s discourse in 1966, Coffin relied on the tradition of Hebraic prophecy to warn that the United States was straying from its values and that undesirable consequences would occur as a result. After seeing little change to the direction of U.S. foreign policy, Coffin shifted to an existential mode of rhetoric in early 1967. The existential mode urged draft-age men to not cooperate with the Federal Selective Service System, and to accept any consequences that occurred as a result. Federal prosecutors indicted Coffin and four other antiwar activists in January 1968 for conspiracy aid and abet draft resister in violation of the Selective Service Act. Chastened by his prosecution and subsequent conviction, Coffin adopted a reconciling mode of discourse that sought to reintegrate antiwar protesters into American society by advocating for amnesty. A DISSIDENT BLUE BLOOD: REVEREND WILLIAM SLOANE COFFIN AND THE VIETNAM ANTIWAR MOVEMENT by Benjamin Charles Krueger Dissertation submitted to the Faculty of the Graduate School of the University of Maryland, College Park in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy 2014 Advisory Committee: Professor Robert N. Gaines, Chair Professor Kristy Maddux Professor Joseph L. McCaleb Professor Shawn J. Parry-Giles Professor Nancy L. Struna © Copyright by Benjamin Charles Krueger 2014 ii Acknowledgements This dissertation would not have been possible without the encouragement of my academic mentors. To my advisor, Robert N. Gaines, I extend my profound thanks for his steadfast guidance. Gaines has been patient with this project even when I was not. I wish to thank my committee members—Kristy Maddux, Joseph McCaleb, Shawn Parry- Giles, and Nancy Struna—for their careful reading and helpful suggestions. I am also grateful to Dale Hample for his support. My classmates at the University of Maryland offered much inspiration. I thank Abbe Depretis, Alyssa Samek, Belinda Stillion Southard, Bjørn Stillion Southard, Elizabeth Gardner, Erica Lamm, Heather Adams, Ioana Cionea, Jill Cornelius Underhill, Karen Walker, Stephen Underhill, Terri Donofrio, and Tim Barney for their encouragement. Many people at other universities offered assistance in other ways. My colleagues at Winona State University graciously allowed me to have a flexible teaching schedule to facilitate completion of this project. The staff of Yale University’s Manuscripts and Archives and the Swarthmore College Peace Collection provided helpful assistance with accessing primary source material. Thanks also go to Brant Short, Dayle Hardy- Short, Lisa Poirier, Liz Throop, and Sharon Paradiso for their wisdom. Finally, I wish to thank my parents, Larry and Jody Krueger, for always encouraging my intellectual curiosity. iii TABLE OF CONTENTS CHAPTER ONE: William Sloane Coffin as a Religious Dissident .............. 1 Historical Research in Perspective ...................................................... 6 Vietnam Antiwar Movement Scholarship .......................................... 6 Historical Studies of Coffin ............................................................ 16 Rhetorical Research in Perspective .................................................... 17 Rhetorical Studies of the Antiwar Movement .................................. 17 Rhetorical Studies of Coffin ........................................................... 20 Research Procedure .......................................................................... 21 Object of Investigation ................................................................... 21 Modes of Analysis .......................................................................... 24 Organization of the Project ................................................................ 25 CHAPTER TWO: Coffin and the Prophetic Mode, 1962-1966................. 29 Prophetic Rhetoric: A Review of the Literature ................................... 32 Prophecy and the Judeo-Christian Tradition .................................. 33 Studies of Coffin and Prophetic Rhetoric ........................................ 38 Coffin, Prophetic Rhetoric, and the Civil Rights Movement ................ 40 “The Church and Civil Rights”: A Rationale for Activism in the Prophetic Mode.............................................................................. 42 Coffin and the Early Antiwar Movement ............................................ 48 “The Spirit of Lamech” ................................................................... 48 “Plea to the President” ................................................................... 51 “Why Are the Clergy Concerned About Vietnam?” .......................... 57 Conclusion ....................................................................................... 65 CHAPTER THREE: The Existential Mode, 1966-1967 ........................... 66 Existentialism: A Brief Survey ........................................................... 70 Defining Existentialism.................................................................. 70 Existentialism in the 1960s United States ..................................... 75 Laying the Groundwork for Draft Resistance ..................................... 77 Personal Correspondence .............................................................. 78 “On Civil Disobedience” ................................................................. 80 Reactions to “On Civil Disobedience” ............................................. 86 Implementing Draft Resistance ......................................................... 90 iv The Boston Resistance Protests ..................................................... 93 Coffin’s Arlington Street Church Speech ........................................ 94 The Justice Department Speech .................................................... 98 The Resistance Aftermath ............................................................... 101 “On Martin Luther” ...................................................................... 105 Conclusion ..................................................................................... 108 CHAPTER FOUR: The Trial and the Reconciling Mode, 1968-1975 ..... 110 After the Indictment ....................................................................... 115 Meet the Press ............................................................................. 118 The Battell Chapel Sermon of February 4, 1968 ........................... 121 The National Resistance Day Rally ............................................... 127 The Trial of the Boston 5 ................................................................ 129 Coffin’s Testimony ....................................................................... 132 The Verdict .................................................................................. 137 After the Trial .............................................................................. 138 Implications of the Trial ............................................................... 139 Remnants of the Existential Mode ............................................... 142 The Emergence of the Reconciling Mode.......................................... 143 The Bryant Park Speech .............................................................. 143 1970-1971 .................................................................................. 147 Amnesty: Reintegrating the Antiwar Movement ............................ 148 The Battell Chapel Sermon of April 16, 1972 ............................... 149 Remarks to the National Conference on Amnesty, May 5, 1973 .... 153 Conclusion ..................................................................................... 155 AFTERWORD ..................................................................................... 157 References ...................................................................................... 166 1 CHAPTER ONE WILLIAM SLOANE COFFIN AS A RELIGIOUS DISSIDENT The 1960s were a time of social and political turmoil in the United States. The civil rights movement, urban race riots, and women’s liberation shook domestic politics. In foreign affairs, millions of draft-age men found themselves faced with the possibility of serving in a jungle war thousands of miles away. As one commentator later argued, the sheer number of Americans affected by the Vietnam War was staggering: “30 million women and 30 million men reached draft age during the war; ten million of the men wore the uniform, three million of them went to Vietnam. About 300,000 were wounded and nearly 60,000 died” (Wheeler