BOOKS
MERICA’S DEFEAT IN Viet-
nam produced a surge of
men who felt betrayed by
the federal government
and who feared commu-
nism’s spread to the United
States. Further incensed
by government scandals,
economic struggles, and
a changing cultural land-
scape in the wake of the
civil rights movement’s successes, some of these men sought to
regain control through white power organizations.
So argues Kathleen Belew, a historian at the University of
Chicago, in Bring the War Home, an engaging account of how
and why the modern white power movement emerged from
1975 to 1995. By Belew’s account, the movement encompasses
the Klan, white separatists, neo-Nazis, and even radical
tax resisters. Her research is thorough: She compares news
reports, government records, and materials from the groups
she studies to cross-check her analysis. Her argument falters,
though, when it treats the militia movement of the 1990s as an
“outgrowth” of this racist milieu rather than a separate move-
ment with its own origins and concerns.
BELEW IS NOT the first writer to argue that the defeat in Viet-
nam helped fuel the growth of a new kind of reactionary poli-
tics. But she offers an unprecedented level of detail, engaging
deeply with developments that other authors typically gloss
over. Take her analysis of how white power activists sought
out mercenary experiences in Latin America. (Klan leader
Don Black, for example, was part of a failed effort to initi-
ate a coup in Dominica. The aim was both to protect the U.S.
from allegedly encroaching communism and to filter money
to white power groups at home.) She links these members’
decision to become mercenaries to tactics (such as booby
traps), weaponry (such as AK-47s), and ideas (such as anti-
communism) they associated with the Vietnam War. Through
such shared concepts, Vietnam stayed relevant in white power
circles long after the conflict ended.
A few other authors have mentioned white power figures’
mercenary work and their lack of legal accountability for pos-
sible crimes committed along the way, from violations of the
Neutrality Act to involvement in civilian massacres. But Belew
alone shows these men’s impact on the movement, as opposed
to merely demonstrating their violent dedication to it. The
mercenaries wanted to physically enact a redemption from
the loss in Vietnam—in Belew’s words, to “redeem the defeat.”
More radically, some prepared themselves to use these same
techniques of war on home soil against a federal government
they saw as increasingly hostile to their interests. Examples
include a foiled plot to bomb an embassy and several groups’
paramilitary activities at the U.S.-Mexico border.
Belew’s analysis unfortunately outsteps its supporting
data when the book reaches the 1990s. The author argues that
militias—groups of mostly white, mostly male Americans
who feel a civic duty to be prepared to defend the country from
any threat—represent the “peak” of the white power move-
ment because of their size.
As a sociologist who studies the contemporary militia
movement, I think Belew overstates the connection to white
power groups. My research and the work of several other
scholars indicate that the racist right and the militias had
separate aims and identities.
Some white power organizations did overlap somewhat,
both in membership and in ideas, with some early militia
groups. But as Belew herself notes, militia recruits “could, the-
oretically, participate in a local militia without deliberately
participating in the white power movement.” This is because,
unlike white power organizations, most militia groups’ aims
were not racially oriented. Instead, they focused on gun rights
and the federal government’s size and power.
Belew rightly rejects the idea that a social movement needs
a single leader or unified message. But distinct movements
that share select interests or pool their resources under the
right circumstances can maintain separate identities. This
framework can be envisioned as a Venn diagram, where
groups with different core characteristics have some, but not
all, ideas, members, or other resources in common. For exam-
ple: Black Lives Matter, Occupy Wall Street, the Sierra Club,
and other movements on the left have recently coordinated
with the Women’s March against the current presidential
administration.
In the case of white power groups and militias, the shared
“field” of common interest was a perception of government
overreach and abuse, particularly following the standoffs with
Randy Weaver’s family at Ruby Ridge in 1992 and with the
Branch Davidian sect in Waco in 1993. Needless to say, this62 OCTOBER 2018
Vietnam and the Rise of White Power
A new book ties racist reactionary politics to the war, but overreaches when it comes to militias.
AMY COOTER