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Show WINTER 2013 UHQ pp 4-90_UHQ Stories/pp.4-68 12/5/12 9:38 AM Page 76 uTAH HISTORICAL QuARTERLy Wilkinson’s support of ROTC was matched by his distrust of the Peace Corps. Both the Peace Corps and its domestic counterpart, VISTA (Volunteers In Service To America), were repeatedly refused permission to recruit on campus.63 Although LDS businessman J. Willard Marriott and LDS official Hugh B. Brown opposed Wilkinson’s policy, Wilkinson argued that the programs were welfare subsidies to third world countries and attracted students away from military and LDS missionary service.64 The irony of sponsoring an ROTC unit while denying the Peace Corps access to campus did not go unnoticed.65 Because of increasing criticism of BYU’s policy, Peace Corps representatives were eventually allowed, in late 1970, to interview interested students “on the same basis as any other company interviewing students”: through appointments initiated by students in response to announcements on campus bulletin boards.66 In many ways, the initial response of BYU students to the Vietnam war differed from their reaction to the first three American wars of the twentieth century. Where Mormons had previously remained suspicious of the intentions of U.S. leaders at the onset of American mobilization, U.S. Cold War rhetoric had by the early 1950s made considerable headway among c church members. Nearly 60 percent of BYU students in one survey believed that war with Russia was “inevitable.” Many based their belief on LDS scripture.67 A 1952 survey revealed that more than three-fourths of BYU men favored compulsory military service, but that a majority also felt a person should not be “forced to go to war if he considers it to be morally wrong.”68 Within fifteen years, support of military involvement in Vietnam had become a measure of patriotism, and following Congress’s passage of the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution in 1964, 84 percent of BYU men expressed a willingness to fight. 69 The next month, while a growing number of American college students protested United States intervention in Vietnam, eighty BYU students marched through Provo’s streets to mail a letter carrying sixty-five hundred signatures to President Lyndon Johnson in support of the war.70 “In these days of student protests,” commented one student, “it is good to know that some colleges like BYU are not joining in.”71 63 Board of Trustees, Minutes, May 3, 1961; Deans’ Council, Minutes, January 5, 1965, Perry Special Collections; Board of Trustees, Minutes, September 1, November 3, December 1, 1965. 64 Milan D. Smith and J. Willard Marriott, Letter to Thorpe B. Isaacson, November 29, 1965, Perry Special Collections; Board of Trustees, Minutes, January 10, 1952, June 3, 1970; “Church Continues Ban on Peace Corps Recruiting on ‘Y’ Campus,” Daily Herald, June 10, 1970. 65 Scott Hinckley, Letter, Daily Universe, November 2, 1970. 66 Ben E. Lewis, Minutes of a Meeting, November 20, 1970, Perry Special Collections; Board of Trustees, Minutes, December 2, 1970. 67 “BYU Students Present Views in Poll on Important Issues,” Daily Universe, February 5, 1952. 68 “Wars and Rumors of Wars,” Daily Universe, February 5, 1952. 69 “Men Prefer War, Women Marriage,” Daily Universe, October 19, 1965. 70 “Y Students March Through Provo,” Daily Universe, November 1, 1965; “Draft Card Burning No Joke,” Daily Universe, November 3, 1965. Wilkinson was one of the letter’s signers (“Viet Nam Letter Receives Praise,” Daily Universe, October 29, 1965). 71 “Viet Protestors, Blight on America,” Daily Universe, October 20, 1965. 76 |
