As much as we're heard about the Protest Movement to the Vietnam War in the 1960's there was that just-as-vocal contingent who not only believed the war was justified, but that we were also in the process of winning it. And many of those people were on Capitol Hill.

For example, Sen. Thomas J. Dodd (D-Conn) who served on the Senate Armed Services Committee was a staunch believer in the Vietnam War and was convinced we were winning it. One of the true Hawks in the Senate. But in all honesty, early in 1965 there was a much larger segment of the population who believed the war could be won and believed we were absolutely justified in being in Southeast Asia than who weren't. The Anti-War Movement was just getting started at this point and the sales pitch for the War was much more organized.

Dodd was convinced we were winning, that we had "turned the corner" so to speak. And in this installment of NBC's Meet The Press, he is asked why he is so adamant in that assessment.

Sen. Thomas Dodd: “We’re winning more battles every day. The latest figure I heard was, on an engagement just recently, it was in the ratio of about four to one. They suffered something in excess of 400 losses. Our side had something in excess of 100.The morale of the South Vietnamese is very high. There are more defectors coming over to our side every day. About a year ago, my information is, we were getting about ten a month. We’re now getting over a hundred a month. We’ve got a thousand pilots, about a thousand pilots now in the South Vietnamese Air Force. They’re good pilots, I’m told by our Air Force people, they’re good fighters. As a matter of fact, I was told they do a better job at maintenance than our people do. So there are all these reasons I say we’ve begun to win.”

Hearing the casualty reports, I am reminded of what was later revealed to be grossly inflated enemy body counts, and how early on the war was being manipulated to be portrayed as another cakewalk. What was being conveyed and what was actually happening were two wildly different stories. And unfortunately we had to find out the hard way.

So here is Meet The Press featuring Sen. Thomas J. Dodd as originally broadcast on May 2, 1965.

For those of you who remember, Sen. George McGovern was one of the most outspoken critics of the Vietnam War and what had become our failed Foreign Policy in Southeast Asia.

With the Nixon Administration in place, and dissent and opposition to the war increasing on a daily basis, along with the disclosure of the My Lai Massacre which had taken place almost two years earlier, pressure on the White House to put an end to the long national nightmare was at its highest ever.

Here is a panel interview from CBS News' Face The Nation on November 30, 1969 where, among other questions, McGovern is asked about the "silent majority" as characterized by Richard Nixon.

Sen. George McGovern: “Frankly, in our kind of a free society, I worry about this new emphasis on the part of the Administration on the virtues of silence. There has never been a time that I know of in the history of this country when the highest officials in our government have made such a virtue of those people who remain silent. Now perhaps we ought to be doing more talking, more soul searching, more questioning about American policy. I think if the recent atrocities indicate anything it’s that we’ve had too much silence. Here is a terrible crime, if it’s true, that was committed almost two years ago that we’re only now learning about. Where were those who knew about this incident a year and a half ago? Where was the so-called Silent Majority in the face of the awful reports we’ve had of the loss of civilian life in Vietnam that have been coming in to us for many-many years? So it does seem to me that great emphasis on silence, the effort on the part of high administration officials to intimidate outspoken members of the Press, candid television commentators, the effort to isolate those who are involved in the protest against Vietnam, all of those things have had perhaps something to do with the slowing down of real debate over this policy.”

The MyLai incident would soon take center stage. And by the Spring of 1970 a whole new and deadly wave of protest would erupt over the country. And McGovern would make his bid for the Presidency in 1972.

Fascinating batch of years, to be sure.

As the Occupy Wall Street movement spread throughout the country this weekend, I was reminded of how much the nature of protest has stayed the same, but the methodology of Protest has changed in a lot of different ways the last 40+ years.

On the one hand, demonstrations and marches in the 1960's were routinely covered by mainstream media outlets most likely because they made for interesting viewing; those exploding teargas canisters and sounds of screaming made for riveting viewing. But also because, like the Vietnam War, the protest movement of the 1960's was the first of its kind to be televised.

Times have changed in that regard - mainstream media have lost the sense of curiosity to ask why certain things happen, have given up trying to get factual or even relevant information and have come under the influence of those powers who have become the very object of this protest. Rather, they appear to have followed the lead of the Egyptian government in the early days of their Protest and simply blocked it out of regular channels hoping it will go away. Only when the rest of the world and outside media sources took notice was it deemed too embarrassing to ignore that the government-run media in Egypt finally broke down and showed what was going on in Tahrir Square. By then of course, it was too late.

Although some areas of International Media are quick to assess what's going on with our current Occupy Wall Street Movement as something of an American Autumn - it sounds nice and makes for colorful word images, I'm afraid we're a whole ways away from that.

However the nature of Protest, at least this one, has evolved immeasurably since those heady days of 1968. For one thing, there is a conscious effort not to provoke violent confrontation. If you noticed (or could notice, owing to the msm "black out"), the violent confrontations and provocations going on during the protests this past week have been largely brought about by the Police (contrary to the shading and trivialization some outlets have given it). In 1968, protests and marches were marked with the distinct presence of malcontents and chaos merchants bent on forcing a violent outcome and overreaction. And the exploding teargas canisters and screaming made for good ratings. The end result, I think, is that a lot was learned from the mass protest movement in the 60's as to how not to discourage support.

This past week protest organizers have gone out of their way to stress that malcontents and chaos merchants go somewhere else and not join them, as evidenced by a flyer for the Occupy L.A. rally this past weekend ("no alcohol, no weapons, no fireworks"). How long it stays that way is a matter of just how successful this new method of protest will be over the long run. Will there eventually be a tipping point, or will this really become the truly mass protest so many say it will be. Hard to predict. We Americans are a funny bunch in that respect - our motivations and priorities are completely unpredictable.

So in contrast to what's been going the past two weeks is a documentary produced by NBC Radio as part of their Second Sunday series, originally broadcast in October of 1968. Titled "The Young Rebels" it focuses on many aspects of what was happening with society at that time. This was what mainstream media were doing about it.

At least they were trying to some degree, no matter how maladroit they went about doing it.