Couple walks the gauntlet at Agnew reception: 1969

A couple walks a gauntlet of anti-Vietnam War protesters on both sides of a walkway toward the Museum of History & Technology where Vice President-elect Spiro Agnew’s reception was being held January 19, 1969.

The protesters had just completed a Counter-Inaugural march from their circus tent near the Washington Monument, down Pennsylvania Avenue to the U.S. Capitol.

Those who finished the march then began walking down the national Mall to return to the tent when they paused at the museum where Agnew’s guests began arriving.

U.S. Park police used horses for the first time to control demonstrators and before long the horses were providing ammunition that was used as missiles thrown at the guests walking the gauntlet. The manure hurlers used those protesters that lined the walkway as cover while they launched their projectiles toward their targets from the rear of the crowd.

The thought of Agnew’s guests going into the reception with horse manure on their finery delighted the protesters, but enraged the police.

Police, who were also pelted, at times charged wildly into the crowd. In one instance an officer swinging a billy club was tackled and stripped of his helmet, badge, gun and other belongings before being rescued by other police officers.

After several hours of back-and-forth with the police, the protesters dispersed. Agnew arrived through a side entrance and did not become a target.

Impact of Counter-Inaugural activities:

Overall, the counter-Inaugural activities marked a re-grouping of the antiwar movement following a Presidential election where pro-war Lyndon Johnson dropped out, but antiwar candidate Eugene McCarthy could not secure enough delegates and Robert F. Kennedy was assassinated.

The nominees—Republican Richard Nixon and Democrat Hubert Humphrey had similar positions on the war—both essentially taking a “peace through strength” approach to ending it.
However, the counter-Inaugural activities--a feminist march confronting Tricia Nixon’s guests, a march of 15,000 loudly denouncing the war, horse excrement thrown at Vice President-elect Spiro Agnew’s guests at a reception the day before he was installed, and a crowd of several thousand lining the parade route with banners against the war and pelting Nixon’s limousine with fruit, rocks and other debris as it passed by—served to re-galvanize the antiwar movement.

The anti-Vietnam War movement would see its largest demonstrations during the Vietnam Moratoriums in October and November 1969, the nation-wide college student strikes in May 1970 and the largest antiwar demonstration in Washington, DC April 24 1971, along with Vietnam veterans throwing their medals and ribbons onto the U.S. Capitol grounds prior to the 1971 march and antiwar demonstrators staging mass civil disobedience against the war over three days in May 1971 that resulted in over 12,000 arrests.

The public opinion die had been cast on the war and Nixon slowly withdrew combat troops while dragging out peace negotiations in Paris. He would see a repeat of antiwar activities at his 1973 Inauguration, including the pelting of his limousine as it drove in the Inaugural parade.

A peace accord was reached shortly afterward in 1973 and in 1975 Vietnamese regular and irregular troops toppled the U.S. backed regime and re-united the country.

For more information and related images for the 1969 Counter Inaugural, see flic.kr/s/aHsjDuSPyF

For a blog post on the 1969 Counter Inaugural activities, see washingtonareaspark.com/2013/01/09/the-1969-nixon-inaugur...

For the 1973 Inaugural activities, see flic.kr/s/aHsjDuVNcT

Photo by Patrick Frazier. Original held at the American University Library -- Special Collections. Local Identifier SC_Frazier_N_0142

Taken on: January 19, 1969

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Sets appears in: • Counter-Inaugural: 1969

Groups appears in: • Loud and noisy, NO MORE TRAINS, PLEASE! NO MORE Waves! NO MORE C

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