The Vietnam War was among the most controversial wars in American history. It divided the country politically and split one generation from another. One of the war’s foremost critics was Dr. Benjamin Spock, who was famous in the 1940s and 1950s for writing the child-rearing guidebook, The Common Sense Book of Baby and Child Care, used by so many parents to raise their baby-boomer children. Spock received thousands of letters in the 1960s in response to his antiwar activism. Here are two.

May 10, 1967
Dear Dr. Spock,

I have read with great interest your efforts to tell people the truth about our involvement in Vietnam. I certainly approve of everything you said on the Merv Griffin show and was glad that he gave you the time to present it on TV.

I’m sure that many people in the United States feel the same way, but other than write to our Congressman and the President, we don’t know what to do about it. I certainly know how my Congressmen feel about the war and president Johnson tells us he’s for peace, when he’s continually escalating the war. I am a Democrat, but would never again vote for Mr. Johnson or Mr. Humphrey. … What have we to vote for? Is any candidate going to come out AGAINST the war or some settlement for peace? Is there anyone who really wants peace?

I have a son, who is 17 and will soon be 18. (By the way, your little paperback is still in my cupboard, with loose pages, rather worn from use because I brought up two babies using it as my “Bible.”) I don’t want my son to fight in Vietnam for a cause that I don’t believe in. I didn’t work so hard to keep him good, bring him up to do right, keep him healthy and well – to have him go the jungles of Asia in the pretense of keeping democracy there.

M. C. [female]

January 28, 1968
Dr. Spock,

My name is [name deleted], a junior in high school, and the daughter of an Air Force sgt. I watched your interview today on Meet the Press. It aroused me somewhat. My father is in Vietnam on the U.S.S. Ranger working for the navy and our country. … My boyfriend is also in Vietnam, on the U.S.S. Canberra. Certainly I don’t like the draft, as most Americans dislike sending their fathers, husbands, boyfriends, brothers, and friends off to war and perhaps to die. But … they are dying for their country and for what they love and believe in. …

Every week I get letters from my boyfriend telling me how good it makes them all feel to be fighting for us, yes us, you and me. But he says that the moral[e] needs lifting over there. I can certainly see why. There they are fighting and many of them dying while alot of punks are protesting the war and the draft. It makes some of them wonder if the fighting is worth it. …

You are older and perhaps wiser than I, but it could be that you can’t see things as clearly from your point of view as I can from mine.

Cordially yours,
L. D. [female]

SOURCE : Michael S. Foley, ed., Dear Dr. Spock: Letters About the Vietnam War to America’s Favorite Baby Doctor (New York: New York University Press, 2005), 87, 137.