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One of the biggest Veterans Day expressions of support for the Administration occurred at the Washington Monument. Started by the George Washington University faculty adviser to the Young Americans for Freedom, Professor Charles Moser, and assisted by an assortment of conservatives, the Rally for Freedom attracted nearly 15,000 people. The speakers, including Senator John Tower of Texas and House Armed Services Chairman Mendel Rivers, were all far more hawkish than the President. Rivers inveighed against the "Hanoicrats" in the U.S.—his description of war critics—and called on the country to support not only their President and their servicemen but also Spiro Agnew. The crowd roared its approval as Rivers said: "You back up Spiro and he'll continue to throw it on."
Clean-Cut Victory. Many who proclaim fealty to the Administration are unreconstructed hawks who either do not realize or choose to ignore the fact that Nixon is determined to disengage from Viet Nam. In New Orleans, Randolph Dennis, chairman of Operation Speak Out, sponsored by the Veterans of Foreign Wars, exhorted listeners to "move on to some positive, two-fisted, basic patriotic Americanism" and to work for "a conclusive, clean-cut victory against the sworn enemies of freedom." Others desperately want out of Viet Nam but cannot abide the notion of admitting defeat.
Two unifying factors bind Nixon's constituency on this issue: traditional loyalty to flag and President and evergrowing disgust with dissent. In Medford, Mass., Fred Wehage, 75, a World War I veteran, said: "The war in Viet Nam was all wrong to begin with, but there is no way we can get out. I didn't vote for Nixon, but we've got to support him now." Bob Steffenauer, 46, owns a restaurant in Pleasanton, Calif., and recently welcomed his son back from Viet Nam. He counts himself a Kennedy Democrat but says that some protest leaders "want to subvert Government policy and sink this country. I know Nixon is right in what he's doing." The antiwar protesters are, of course, just as convinced that Nixon is wrong. In the middle are perhaps most Americans—the true silent majority —who are simply on the side of an end to the war in a fashion that will not dishonor or embitter the U.S.