I'm sorry if the title isn't phrased very well. I searched the subreddit/FAQ and didn't find exactly what I was looking for. I've never been very good at history, and I am taking a US history 1945-present class. We have a project, and I chose my topic to be the antiwar movement in the US during the Vietnam War.
My original idea was to focus on how the movement influenced the US government and the decisions they made regarding the war (or more broadly, their decisions on how to handle the antiwar movement, or just how the movement effected the US government). I've been doing a lot of research, and I found a lot of articles mentioning "The protests worried Johnson", etc., but I'm not finding anything very concrete. Not knowing much about the topic, I was hoping the protests had a big impact and helped end our involvement, but that doesn't seem to be the case.
Did the antiwar movement in the US have any effect on the US government, specifically on decisions made by the government regarding the war/policy in Vietnam? What was the political influence of the antiwar movement? I guess this is more an opinion question, but did the movement change/accomplish anything? If you can, please provide sources so I can cite them and read further. Any suggestions of where to look would also be appreciated, thank you!
A historian named Melvin Small spent a great deal of his career researching this very topic. I recommend that you look at his books Antiwarriors and Johnson, Nixon and the Doves. Also check out The War Within by Tom Wells. The Deadly Bet by Walter LaFeber is good, as is America's Army by Beth Bailey. It would also be a good idea to examine the antiwar movement's effect on soldiers; start with Soldiers in Revolt by David Cortright and The Turning by Andrew Hunt.
Basically, the antiwar movement's effect on policymaking decisions is very subjective, with a few exceptions. Johnson hated that the protesters followed him to practically every speech he gave, and the movement was a big factor in his not running for re-election in 1968. Nixon decided not to escalate the war following failed peace talks in 1969 largely because of a massive wave of protests. His decision to abolish the draft was not really a political calculation based on defanging the antiwar movement, but rather an ideological one based on the recommendations of a commission opposed to the draft on more libertarian grounds. The sources I listed should give you a lot to work with.