It started off small – although by 1964 standards, 2000 people gathered outside the American Consulate in Prahran, Victoria probably seemed like a lot more. There’d been anti-war and anti-nuclear protests before now, but this was the first one that was specifically about the Vietnam War. Mounted in response to U.S. aerial attacks on North Vietnam in the wake of the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, it called less for an end to the war than for a re-convening of the Geneva Conference.
In the years that followed, the Vietnam War would become less and less popular with the Australian public. The numbers at protests would grow, especially after the introduction of conscription in November of that year. And more than eight years later, a newly elected government would announce the withdrawal of the last Australian troops in Vietnam.
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