An American anti-Vietnam War poster produced in 1971 by artist Edward Sorel. President Nixon is depicted as a Napoleon-like figure. He is flanked by former Vice President and presidential candidate Hubert Humphrey, and United States National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger. The maniacal Napoleon-Nixon is placing symbols of bombs on the map. Image reproduced with permission of Edward Sorel.
At the end of the Vietnam War former members of the South Vietnamese regime, long seen as corrupt, self-serving and ultimately ineffectual, fled the country en masse and sought residence in the west. Shortly afterwards, these protesters in Melbourne’s City Square made plain their feelings about those who had served the South Vietnamese Government seeking asylum in Australia.
Most who protested against the Vietnam War were simply against Australia’s involvement in a conflict increasingly seen as immoral and unwinnable, others opposed the use of national servicemen in the war, and some were active supporters of communism and hoped that its North Vietnamese adherents would prevail. Just a few days after South Vietnam’s fall John Ellis, himself a strong supporter of anti-war causes, photographed this banner in Melbourne’s City Square celebrating the communist victories in Indo-China.
