Directly quoted from Jessica Mitford's book, "The Trial of Dr. Spock: The Reverend William Sloane Coffin, Jr., Michael Ferber, Mitchell Goodman, and Marcus Raskin", this is a small sample of Dr. Benjamin Spock's political beliefs in the late 60's. This material is located on pages 170-172.
On the Tonkin Gulf Resolution: “I believed that our government was wrong in stating that the Tonkin Gulf Resolution was a substitute for a declaration of war. “I also believed that the Tonkin Gulf Resolution was achieved by the Administration, was secured from Congress on the basis of misleading information. “I believed that we had provoked the retaliation from North Vietnam, that our government knew we had provoked that attack and deliberately misled Congress in getting the Tonkin Gulf Resolution.”
On violation of international rules of law: “The United States, I believed, has been deliberately destroying crops and foliage, which is forbidden by the Geneva Conventions.” “I believe that we have forcibly dislocated and put into what was essentially concentration camps between two million and three million South Vietnamese people, which is forbidden, that dislocation is forbidden, by the Geneva Conventions. “I believed that we were destroying a country that had never intended us any harm. We have killed hundreds of thousands not only of fighting men of the Vietnamese forces, but we have killed hundreds of thousands of civilians, women and children. There are tens of thousands of orphans who will grow up to be delinquents because of lack of parental care. "I believe that the United States has been carrying on a war that had no shred of legality and I think will blacken the reputation of my country for decades, if not centuries to come. In other words, my own belief is that this was a totally outrageous and abominable thing that the United States had been carrying on.”
On loss of U.S. Prestige: “I felt strongly that the U.S. had lost its leadership of the free world, and I believed from reading the foreign press that the United States is now despised by hundreds of millions of people who used to believe in the United States around the world.”
On a pediatrician’s view of the war: “Especially in relation to those twenty-three thousand young American dead, I have a strong feeling – what is the use of physicians like myself trying to help parents to bring children, healthy and happy, to have them killed in such numbers for a cause that is ignoble?”
On the Nuremburg judgment: “I believed that it justified me and other Americans in opposing orders of any kind from its government which we believed would constitute crimes against humanity.”
On the obligations of a citizen and husband: “I believe that a citizen was compelled to work against the war if he believed it was contrary to international law, and this gave me the belief that I was not subjecting myself to conviction on this basis. But I did have a belief that I ought at least to discuss it with my wife!”
On the Tonkin Gulf Resolution: “I believed that our government was wrong in stating that the Tonkin Gulf Resolution was a substitute for a declaration of war. “I also believed that the Tonkin Gulf Resolution was achieved by the Administration, was secured from Congress on the basis of misleading information. “I believed that we had provoked the retaliation from North Vietnam, that our government knew we had provoked that attack and deliberately misled Congress in getting the Tonkin Gulf Resolution.”
On violation of international rules of law: “The United States, I believed, has been deliberately destroying crops and foliage, which is forbidden by the Geneva Conventions.” “I believe that we have forcibly dislocated and put into what was essentially concentration camps between two million and three million South Vietnamese people, which is forbidden, that dislocation is forbidden, by the Geneva Conventions. “I believed that we were destroying a country that had never intended us any harm. We have killed hundreds of thousands not only of fighting men of the Vietnamese forces, but we have killed hundreds of thousands of civilians, women and children. There are tens of thousands of orphans who will grow up to be delinquents because of lack of parental care. "I believe that the United States has been carrying on a war that had no shred of legality and I think will blacken the reputation of my country for decades, if not centuries to come. In other words, my own belief is that this was a totally outrageous and abominable thing that the United States had been carrying on.”
On loss of U.S. Prestige: “I felt strongly that the U.S. had lost its leadership of the free world, and I believed from reading the foreign press that the United States is now despised by hundreds of millions of people who used to believe in the United States around the world.”
On a pediatrician’s view of the war: “Especially in relation to those twenty-three thousand young American dead, I have a strong feeling – what is the use of physicians like myself trying to help parents to bring children, healthy and happy, to have them killed in such numbers for a cause that is ignoble?”
On the Nuremburg judgment: “I believed that it justified me and other Americans in opposing orders of any kind from its government which we believed would constitute crimes against humanity.”
On the obligations of a citizen and husband: “I believe that a citizen was compelled to work against the war if he believed it was contrary to international law, and this gave me the belief that I was not subjecting myself to conviction on this basis. But I did have a belief that I ought at least to discuss it with my wife!”
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