One of the more prominent groups was the Young Americans for Freedom (YAF). This was an organization heavily affiliated with William F. Buckley and became involved in Goldwater's 1964 campaign. They would periodically hold rallies in favor of the war, such as a "Captive Nations Rally" in May 1964 expressing solidarity for the alleged global struggle against communism. YAF chapters would hold rallies, sign petitions, and counter SDS and the New Left's criticism of Vietnam in the various YAF newsletters. As the antiwar protests became more acutely critical of the war, so to did YAF's strident anticommunism (there was a degree of overlap with the John Birch Society in its membership). after Goldwater's defeat, YAF launched the International Youth Crusade for Freedom in Vietnam to counter the SDS and the Democrats purported unwillingness to expand the war. Generally speaking, YAF wanted a broader expansion of the war to include taking the war into North Vietnam. Its Student Committee for Victory in Vietnam (formed in 1968) called for mining North Vietnam, creating a nationalist coalition of South Vietnamese patriots, and held "Tell it to Hanoi" rallies to combat the increasing visibility of the New Left.

Counter-intuitively, YAF shared a common cause with SDS: opposition to conscription. This reflected the increasing libertarian and anti-government attitudes within YAF. There was also little love lost between YAF and Nixon, especially his Vietnamization policy. One YAF mouthpiece summed up the 1973 Peace Accords thus:

Regardless of that, the argument that conservatives have been making since 1965 has been proved correct. That America’s aim in the war should have been to win [emphasis original], with maximum use of force in minimum amount of time. Instead, we followed a no win course that coupled piecemeal escalation with retreat. We have reaped at best something slightly worse than a stalemate in war, and more likely an ultimate defeat, at a high price in blood, treasure, domestic discontent and radicalization, and a weakening of anti-Communist sentiment. It was a high price for a bankrupt policy, and conservatives might want to as themselves if they made the distinction as clear as they should have between that policy and the one of victory they preferred.

Implicit in this idea is the notion that Vietnam was winnable provided the right level of escalation had been implemented, which would become a staple of right-wing discourse in the 1970s through the Reagan era.

Sources

Andrew, John A. The Other Side of the Sixties: Young Americans for Freedom and the Rise of Conservative Politics. New Brunswick, NJ [u.a.]: Rutgers Univ. Press, 1997.

Gilbert, Marc Jason. The Vietnam War on Campus: Other Voices, More Distant Drums. Westport, Conn: Praeger, 2000.