The De Mau Mau Conspiracy: The Specter of Black Vietnam Veterans in the Exercise of Police Power, 1968-1976

A forgotten and bizarre event encapsulates the violent decay that characterized the pivotal years the United States endured in the wake of the Vietnam War. Black veterans—guerrilla combat-trained, politically awakened by war, and disillusioned with the entrenched racial order at home—emerged as totems in a fearful, cynical political culture wracked by violence. Men overrepresented in the projection of American power abroad now stood as symbols of its fragility within, potential vessels of retribution for centuries of domestic and global oppression. This anxiety, merging with widespread protests and political upheaval, intensified the belief that American cities stood on the brink of insurrection. This dissertation deploys microhistory to sit-uate the De Mau Mau Conspiracy (1972-1976)—when black Vietnam veterans and their associates were accused of wantonly murdering whites—and its contexts, as representative of the post-1968 unraveling in American society before the consolidation of the War on Drugs regime. In this moment of fracture, a multifaceted specter of the re-turning black veteran was central to several discourses on the racial and civil order of the United States. Structured as a layered political, intellectual, and policing history, the dissertation moves from an examination of media hysteria and electoral manipulation to microhistorical treatment of the forensics of the murder cases at the center of the conspiracy, concluding with a close reading of the accused men’s writings. Through a detailed analysis of police records, court documents, print and television media coverage, and an array of periodicals, including GI journals, the study explores two parallel developments: how law enforcement and public officials weaponized fear of black veterans to consolidate carceral power; and how the profound demonization, alienation, and neglect of these young men effectively radicalized a small segment of the population. It concludes that the De Mau Mau Conspiracy functions as both a cautionary tale and a political instrument—illuminating broader strategies of racial containment and the enduring consequences of war, both for those conscripted into imperial folly and for the nation that disavowed them upon their return.