The National Peace Action Coalition was an umbrella organization composed of many local and national groups and coalitions that opposed U.S. involvement in the war in Vietnam. Combined with the Student Mobilization Committee to End the War in Vietnam, its student arm, the National Peace Action Coalition represented the largest, best organized, and most generously funded of the anti-war groups. More important than its size and success in mustering supporters for large demonstrations, the formation of NPAC at the National Emergency Conference in Cleveland on June 19-20, 1970, acknowledged the growing split between various anti-war groups. These differences, which continued in varying degrees throughout NPAC's existence, focused on its affirmation of non-exclusion, the principle by which all opponents of the war were welcomed regardless of political ideology, and on its unwillingness to dilute the movement to encompass other social and political issues. In addition, NPAC's strategic commitment to peaceful mass actions set it apart from those groups that condoned confrontation tactics. Finally, the National Peace Action Coalition differed from still other groups in its insistence that policy and tactics be democratically determined by biannual conventions.
Between its conventions, NPAC was governed by a national steering committee made up of elected representatives of all the member organizations and by five national coordinators: Jerry Gordon, who also headed the national staff, Ruth Gage-Colby, Don Gurewitz, James Lafferty, and John T. Williams. Later coordinators were Stephanie Coontz, Fred Lovgren, and Katherine Sojourner.
Among the major actions which NPAC built were the demonstrations of October 31, 1970; April 24, 1971; November 6, 1971; and April 22, 1972. In addition to its sponsorship of these and other mass actions, NPAC made national news when it was charged during hearings before the House Internal Security Committee that the coalition was controlled by the Socialist Workers Party. Although the degree to which NPAC served as a front for the SWP is uncertain, socialists were unquestionably important in its structure and influential in its policy-making. Fred Halstead, SWP presidential candidate, was closely involved in the coalition, and his Out Now! A Participants Account of the American Movement Against the Vietnam War should be consulted for an informative and detailed history of the organization.
