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Racial Prejudice. In letters and telephone calls to public officials, many people urged that little or no help be given to the refugees. Some opposition was clearly based on racial prejudice. Republican Representative Burt Talcott of California reported some feeling among his constituents "that, damn it, we have too many Orientals." Declared John Follmer, a St. Louis house painter: "They couldn't fight their own war, so the hell with them. Let them stay in their own country." Said David Collins, a veteran of the war who now teaches political science at Georgia State University: "Viet Nam seems a long way away to me now and I don't think we want to be reminded of it."
Much of the opposition was based on fears that the U.S. would have difficulty in absorbing all of the Vietnamese. The State Department tried to persuade other countries to accept some of the refugees but met with little success. To calm American apprehension, officials argued that about a quarter of the Vietnamese would be joining relatives already in the U.S., and that only about a third would eventually want jobs, adding infinitesimally to the country's present army of unemployed.
Immigration officials could not even estimate how many of the refugees spoke English, had marketable job skills and could be readily assimilated. As a result, many Americans were still convinced that the refugees might become a costly and unjustifiable burden on U.S. social services. Declared Ralph Siverson, a druggist in Hendricks, Minn.: "If they can pay their way, it's great. But we don't owe them an unemployment check." Asked Judith Chan, an accountant in Marin County, Calif: "What are these people going to do to our taxes and welfare rolls?"
Some opposition to the resettlement program came from liberals who might have been expected to back an open-door policy. Margery Swann, an employee of the American Friends Service Committee, felt U.S. aid might be better spent in Viet Nam. Said she: "What we hope is that the refugees here, when they see things calm down over there, will go home to rebuild their lives."
A few former opponents of the war worried about the political alignment of the refugees. Philip Weber, a member of Boston's Indochina Peace Campaign, feared that many refugees would become active in right-wing politics and that some would serve as "the next generation of CIA agents in Asia, just as the Cubans were in Latin America."
Softened Attitude. It seemed probable, however, that opposition would dwindle as Americans learned more about the refugees. That seemed to be happening in the communities near the refugee resettlement centers: Camp Pendleton, Calif.; Fort Chaffee, Ark.; and Eglin Air Force Base, Fla. All three areas have high unemployment rates (14% in Florida), and residents feared at first that the bulk of the refugees would be settled permanently in their communities.