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Boston Five Trial

Draft Resisters

Jessica Mitford

SANE (National Committee for a Sane Nuclear Policy)

The 1960s in America

Benjamin Spock

by Ronald K. Huch

The pediatrician whose book on child rearing continues to reassure millions of parents. Spock’s prominent antiwar and antidraft activities in the 1960’s helped to galvanize older and younger generations in opposition to the U.S. government’s Vietnam War policies.

Early Life

Benjamin McLane Spock’s Dutch parents were very strict and expected him to achieve academic and professional success. In 1921, after two years at Phillips Academy in Andover, Massachusetts, Spock was sent to Yale to study architecture. He soon switched to a premedical curriculum, and after earning his baccalaureate degree in 1925, he proceeded to Columbia University Medical School where he was awarded a degree in 1929. Following several years of postgraduate study in psychiatry, he began private practice in New York City. Between 1944 and 1946, Spock served as a navy psychiatrist, and it was during this time that he wrote The Common Sense Book of Baby and Child Care (later retitled Baby and Child Care), which when published in 1946 made him a household name in the United States. The book’s staggering success led to academic posts in the University of Minnesota (1947-1951), the University of Pittsburgh (1951-1955), and Case Western Reserve University (1955-1967).

Benjamin Spock.

ph_0111206222-Spock.jpg

(Library of Congress)

The 1960’s

By the late 1950’s, Spock, who was originally a Republican, began to describe himself as a New Deal Democrat and became a supporter of progressive social legislation. He was especially interested in health care initiatives, including Medicare. In 1962, he became a spokesperson for SANE (National Committee for a Sane Nuclear Policy). Spock strongly backed Lyndon B. Johnson in the 1964 presidential campaign, but he turned against Johnson in 1965 when he realized that the president had no intention of withdrawing from Vietnam. From that moment, Spock put his reputation and fame on the line by becoming one of the most recognizable opponents of the United States’ participation in the Vietnam conflict. In 1967, he resigned his university post to devote as much time as possible to his antiwar and antidraft activities. In 1968, the U.S. Justice Department succeeded in gaining an indictment against Spock and four others, including Yale chaplain William Sloane Coffin, for aiding and abetting violation of the Selective Service Act. A sensational trial resulted in convictions for four of the men, including Spock, in July, 1968. Spock was sentenced to two years in jail. However, a year later a U.S. Court of Appeals overturned the verdict, citing erroneous instructions by the trial judge.

Later Life

During the early 1970’s, Spock persisted in his vocal opposition to the war in Vietnam. He participated in every major antiwar demonstration and continued to urge young American males to avoid conscription by whatever means possible. When the Vietnam War ended, Spock shifted his interest to a variety of other social causes while producing frequent new editions of his best-selling book. In the 1980’s and 1990’s, he gradually receded, although never completely, from the national consciousness and spent more and more time in his Virgin Islands residence. In 1998, the ninety-four-year-old doctor, who had been suffering from heart and kidney ailments, died in San Diego.

Impact

Spock’s impact in the 1960’s directly related to the fame and cachet he had earned as the nation’s most prominent “baby doctor.” After publication of his book in the late 1940’s, millions of American children were raised according to the doctor’s advice. It was this generation of young people who seemed most threatened by the country’s involvement in Vietnam.

Members of the older generation were shocked by the sight of this conservatively dressed, grandfatherly doctor demonstrating side by side with long-haired, strident young radicals. Many blamed him and his book for creating a generation of what they regarded as rebellious, sexually permissive, antipatriotic hooligans. However, the long-term effect of his behavior was to awaken parents, particularly mothers, and grandparents to the dangers the Vietnam War, or any war, posed for their children. General outrage erupted over his trial in Boston. That this compassionate and peace-loving doctor could be brought to trial at all, much less be convicted, appeared to millions of Americans to be a misuse of government power.

How much influence Spock or the antiwar campaign as a whole had in forcing changes in U.S. policy is debatable, but his contribution toward making the antiwar demonstrations acceptable to “respectable” Americans can scarcely be overestimated. In a more general sense, he aroused suspicion among middle-and upper-class citizens about whether their government could be trusted to act in the nation’s best interests.

Additional Information

In 1969, Jessica Mitford published The Trial of Dr. Spock, which deals with the sensational trial in 1968.

Citation Types

Type
Format
MLA 9th
Huch, Ronald K. "Benjamin Spock." The 1960s in America, edited by Carl Singleton, Salem Press, 1999. Salem Online, online.salempress.com/articleDetails.do?articleName=1960_4030046311.
APA 7th
Huch, R. K. (1999). Benjamin Spock. In C. Singleton (Ed.), The 1960s in America. Salem Press. online.salempress.com.
CMOS 17th
Huch, Ronald K. "Benjamin Spock." Edited by Carl Singleton. The 1960s in America. Hackensack: Salem Press, 1999. Accessed December 14, 2025. online.salempress.com.