276 a short history of the united states
By this time opposition to the war had begun to mount. Students in
colleges and universities, starting with the University of California at
Berkeley, staged demonstrations and sit-ins protesting the war. They
burned their draft cards. At the same time the Pentagon informed
President Johnson that success in Vietnam was possible only if the
troop level was raised from 120 , 000 to a “minimum essential force” of
500 , 000.
War spending began to heat up the economy and send infl ation
soaring. Rioting over civil rights continued in Atlanta, Chicago, Cleve-
land, and New York. College campuses produced disruptive demon-
strations. Worst of all were the increased numbers of Americans killed
and wounded in Vietnam that were reported daily. “That broke the
back of the Great Society right there,” said Speaker Carl Albert. The
money necessary to implement the Great Society now went for fi ghting
an unpopular war.
And because the fi ghting intensified, the cost of the war spiraled
upward, to $ 2 billion a month. Aid was promised to the North Viet-
namese by the People’s Republic of China in August 1967 , and at the
same time China shot down American fighter planes that violated its
airspace. Johnson increased the forces in Vietnam to 535 , 000 , and each
month hundreds of thousands of tons of explosives were dropped on
North Vietnam. Higher taxes were demanded as infl ation skyrock-
eted.
The continuing Cold War and the Vietnam War dramatically al-
tered American life and culture. And they divided the nation regard-
ing its goals and aspirations.