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Political movements seek influence in policymaking, but are typically marked by intra-movement conflict that analysts indicate reduces the achievement of social change. We examine the effects of conflict within the Gulf War illness movement on the execution of movement tasks critical to policy influence. Using in-depth interviews, participant-observation, and document analyses, we assess the movement's policy outcome, examine the substance of conflict, and analyze the ways in which conflict hampered the execution of policy-relevant movement tasks. We found that intra-movement conflict over activists' divergent views of the government's intentionality in veterans' hazardous exposures impaired execution of movement tasks most critical to policymaking influence. As a consequence, public pressure was insufficient to precipitate a legitimation crisis for the state, permitting government officials to evade movement demands and liability while imparting the image of responsiveness through weak policy formulations and implementations. The outcome was policy palliatives rather than curatives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]