[News] Levitating the Pentagon
Anti-Imperialist News
news at freedomarchives.org
Fri Oct 27 10:48:59 EDT 2017
https://www.counterpunch.org/2017/10/27/levitating-the-pentagon/
Levitating the Pentagon
by Nancy Kurshan <https://www.counterpunch.org/author/crathewech3vefr/>
- October 27, 2017
------------------------------------------------------------------------
The summer of 1967 the Israeli military seized the West Bank and Gaza
from the Palestinians in what came to be known as the Six Day War. My
friend Doug. whom I had left in Israel in 1962, returned home
disillusioned. Whatever lingering hope I had for Israeli socialism was
forever shattered. How could there be socialism at the expense of the
Palestinians? Socialism was about sharing the wealth with all. It
couldn’t be built on the backs of another people.
That was once more a summer of serious urban rebellions in over a dozen
major U.S. cities, among them Detroit, Newark, Atlanta, Cleveland and
New York. On August 9th President Johnson approved sixteen additional
Rolling Thunder targets and an expansion of armed reconnaissance in
Vietnam. U.S. imperialism and its allies were moving on all fronts but
there was resistance everywhere from Black urban centers to Palestine
and, of course, to Vietnam.
The Berkeley anti-war leader Jerry Rubin, my boyfriend at the time, was
already in New York assuming his new job as Project Coordinator for the
October national demonstration against the war. The National
Mobilization Committee Against the War (affectionately known as “The
Mobe”) had agreed to hire a few of Jerry’s posse from the Bay Area.
While activists Stew Albert, Karen Wald and I got ready to leave
Berkeley, Jerry was already embroiled in internal debates about the
nature of the October plans. The Mobe was made up of much more moderate
elements in contrast with us West Coast radicals. Some of the main
players were Women Strike for Peace, the New York Parade Committee,
Chicago Peace Council, Student Mobilization, and the Ohio Peace Action
Committee.
Out west in California we all loved the idea of a huge national
mobilization that included civil disobedience and we felt it was
important for the Pentagon to be the focus. Our argument went something
like this. Demonstrations were always taking place at the Capitol. It
would be humdrum and we would never actually get in there. We felt that
the Pentagon was the best symbol of U.S. militarism, the real face of
U.S. policy, and that demonstrating there would channel the anger that
we all felt into a real political weapon. It wasn’t only a clash of
ideas. People were dying because of the war machine. We didn’t want to
target the civil government. We wanted to target the true center, the
war machine. We knew that our presence at the Pentagon would result in
a confrontation but we welcomed that confrontation in order to visibly
demonstrate the true nature of the U.S., to illustrate that it dominated
not through its moral power, not through its Peace Corps, but by force
and violence. We wanted the War Machine to be Shut Down! And we wanted
to be the agents of history. We wanted to actually shut it down. Shut
It Down! That was the slogan we proposed.
Two processes had developed immediately upon Jerry’s arrival in New
York. One was the interaction between Jerry and the Mobe. He had to
convince the Mobe that the targeting of the Pentagon was a good idea.
Among other things, we Californians were in the dark about logistics.
We didn’t know that the Pentagon wasn’t even in DC but was actually
across the bridge in Virginia. Legitimate practical problems were raised
and we were unsure how to respond. There was only one way to solve our
lack of knowledge and that was to scope out the Pentagon itself. Bob
Greenblatt, the coordinator of the Mobe and a Cornell Professor, Fred
Halsted of the Socialist Workers Party and Jerry went off together to
take a look. A discussion followed about the pros and cons. The
Pentagon won out and our plan was to shut it down.
On August 28, the Mobe held a press conference at the Overseas Press
Club in New York to announce its intention to shut down the Pentagon in
less than two months time. Participants ranged from Monsignor Rice of
Pittsburgh to H. Rap Brown of SNCC. Father Hayes of the Episcopal
Peace Fellowship announced:
…we will shut down the Pentagon. We will fill the hallways and
block the entrances. Thousands of people will disrupt the center of
the American war machine. In the name of humanity we will call the
warmakers to task.
Abbie quipped that “We’re going to raise the Pentagon three hundred feet
in the air,” while Rap Brown noted that “I would be unwise to say I’m
going there with a gun because you all took my gun last time. I may
bring a bomb, sucker.” Dellinger stated there would be no government
building left unattacked although it would all be done nonviolently.
Jerry warned that “We’re now in the business of wholesale disruption and
widespread resistance and dislocation of the American society.”
The Pentagon demonstration was off to a roaring start.
The other parallel process was Jerry’s developing relationship with
Abbie Hoffman and various counterculture figures in the New York area.
Haight-Ashbury was known as the center of the hippie explosion, but the
East Village in New York was also an extremely vibrant nexus where
artists, musicians, poets, journalists and activists were forging a
counter-cultural community. Abbie was right in the middle of that mix.
With a long, bushy mane of curly dark hair, more energy than a spark
plug, and a distinctively Boston accent, Abbie was an unforgettable
character. It wasn’t just his physical appearance that was remarkable
but he was also as funny and clever as any standup comedian. A divorced
father of two, he had just married Anita Kushner in a public hippie
wedding in Central Park that was splashed across the media. At first,
Anita was not an activist, but she was alienated from middle class
society and madly in love with Abbie.
Jerry had been known in California as the PT Barnum of the political
left. What began as a derogatory characterization coming from the
“straight left” would now become a proud emblem for Jerry. Through
Abbie, Jerry was introduced to a whole community of people who would
resonate to his theatricality and lead him to embrace thoroughly the PT
Barnum designation.
One evening Jerry telephoned me back in California to share his
excitement. Abbie Hoffman, Jim Fourat and about a dozen others had gone
to the third-floor gallery at the Stock Exchange and rained down a
thousand single dollar bills onto the floor below. Jerry reported that
the stockbrokers stopped trading, got down on their hands and knees, and
fought over the money while one young woman shouted, “This is a paradise
on earth. There’s enough for all.” Then Jerry and Abbie set a handful
of money on fire, to the outrage of all around, and for all the media to
photograph. They hadn’t forgotten to notify the press and images of the
event spread like wildfire.
From that moment on, life changed. Back in Berkeley, we had been
trying to figure out ways to meld radical politics with the hippie
counterculture. But now here were these people actually doing it.
What’s more Jerry and Abbie seemed to be soul mates. Both wanted to
unite radical politics with the counter culture. Both understood the
power of the media and wanted to figure out creative ways to reach people.
Abbie was surely a hippie, but he had also been deeply influenced by the
civil rights movement. Most recently he had founded Liberty House, an
outlet for goods produced in the south by various poor people’s
cooperatives.
By the time I arrived in New York, talks were proceeding with a whole
range of people in the counter-cultural scene about participating in the
Pentagon action and there was great enthusiasm. Instead of behaving
like the usual “Project Director” he was hired to be, Jerry was spending
his time with his new friends, planning a Levitation of the Pentagon.
It had been discovered that the five-sided polygon known as the
“pentagon” was a baroque symbol of evil and oppression. So what better
than an exorcism? A group of “Holy Men” would encircle the Pentagon and
conduct a ritual of drum beating, chanting, incantations and incense
that would raise the Pentagon a hundred feet in the air and exorcise the
evil spirits. When we applied for a permit to exorcise the Pentagon, it
was reported in the mainstream media that the government said okay, but
no more than three feet off the ground.
Jerry, Stew Albert, Karen Wald and I – the crazies from California–
published the first issue of /The Mobilizer,/ a newsletter we would mail
to peace groups across the country. The editorial stated:
We live in a society which trains its sons to be killers and which
channels its immense wealth into the business of suppressing courageous
men from Vietnam to Detroit who struggle for the simple human right to
control their own lives and destinies. We Americans have no right to
call ourselves human beings unless, personally and collectively, we
stand up and say NO to the death and destruction perpetrated in our name.
We also included a piece by Keith Lampe. Lampe was a committed pacifist
and anti-war activist who possessed a lively and creative imagination.
Keith’s article “On Making A Perfect Mess” suggested that, “A thousand
children stage Loot-ins at department stores to strike at the property
fetish that underlies genocidal war.” When /The Mobilizer/ came out
there was a wave of indignation from the Mobe regulars and all hell
broke loose. They confiscated the 5,000 copies of /The Mobilizer/ and
put out a new, respectable version featuring, “Sid Peck Answers the
Questions of Housewives About the October 21 Demonstration.” (Sid Peck
was the leader of the Ohio Peace Action Council.)
Dave Dellinger, who had invited us to come east, was out of the country
when the conflict erupted. Dave was a very respected long-time peace
activist and editor of /Liberation/ magazine. He was the people’s
ambassador for peace with a gentle, friendly demeanor, very much the
consensus maker. He was the perfect coordinator but also as hard as
nails in his own way. Dave very much wanted to see the anti-war
movement advance “from protest to resistance.” He had no problem
personally with going to jail. In fact, he had been imprisoned for
close to two years for being a conscientious objector in World War II.
We counted on Dave to absorb and deflect the anger of the Mobe regulars,
but unfortunately he was not around for this skirmish. When he returned
even Dave could not bridge that gulf.
We were upset. We knew that if we had a confrontational demonstration
at the Pentagon, it would be young people who would be the troops. Yet
here were these over-40 type people who were censoring us and holding us
back. It was more than a controversy over obscene language, although it
was that too; it was a controversy about the nature of the action
itself. They didn’t like our writings. They didn’t like our art. They
didn’t like our looks. They didn’t like our levitation. They didn’t
like our militancy. They didn’t like our resistance to U.S. society.
They increasingly stressed the safe, legal and I felt humdrum side of
the demonstration and things were looking bad.
As for me personally, that fall I was having my own hard time with The
Mobe. I was 23-years-old and supposed to be the staff person in charge
of “The Midwest.” I didn’t have a clue about how to be “in charge of
the Midwest.” I tried to carry out by rote some tasks that I was given
but it was too far outside my realm of experience and familiarity. I
was used to talking to people, door to door, one on one. I was used to
being part of small groups working together on a collective vision on
activities in a familiar and close-at-hand area. I was used to working
in situations where people helped each other. I was not experienced at
being part of an administrative staff.
In addition, I was moving away from the “Straight Left”. I feel a need
to explain that further since many books on the period, often written by
academics who are cut out of the same mold as the “Straight Left”,
underestimate what people like us were trying to do and what we were
able to accomplish. I am often asked: Were you really a yippie? What
would be the draw of sex, dope and rock ‘n roll for a person like you?
How could you make the mistake of elevating the hippie phenomenon beyond
that? But I looked at it this way. For the first time, the opportunity
seemed to exist to really connect with masses of people in our society.
There were thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands, of people who were
alienated from America. And it wasn’t an opportunist connection, we
really were a part of them and they of us.
We had shared values, values that appeared to be very different from the
dominant society, from the older generation. A large number of young
people had dropped out of society, rejecting the roles that had been
assigned to them, just as we were. In some ways they were more
communistic than we were. They lived communally, sharing food and
material goods. They spoke of peace and love, not war. They believed in
living for the moment and exploring with their senses and valued joy,
laughter and the human imagination. They unapologetically preferred
smoking marijuana above guzzling alcohol. They hated the police and the
authorities as much as we did and were not afraid to commit illegal
acts. We had a lot in common.
Hippies were developing counter-cultural institutions. In New York there
was a Free Clinic and a Free Store. There were alternative newspapers
like the /East Village Other/ (EVO) and /The Rat./ Major rock bands
identified with this counter culture. Country Joe and the Fish’s
“/Vietnam Rag/” was played everywhere and The Jefferson Airplane’s
“/Gotta Revolution/” became an anthem. All these people identified with
the counterculture. It was a much broader cross-section of America than
those involved in “straight” politics. It was a force bigger than the
Socialist Club, bigger than the Socialist Workers Party or the Communist
Party. And it was way more fun. Hippies seemed to be in it with the
whole of their hearts, minds and bodies. They were not going to school
or work in the daytime and then having an occasional meeting or
demonstration. They were talking about changing their entire lives.
For me this resonated with what Paul Potter and SDS (Students for a
Democratic Society) had been saying about turning our lives over to
building a movement. It made sense in terms of what Stokely Carmichael
of SNCC (Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee) had encouraged us to
do, to go into the white community and influence consciousness and
behavior. We thought that as part of the political element of this
counter-culture, we could influence it towards a politically
revolutionary direction. If there could be a melding of the New Left
and the hippies, it would be social and political dynamite. We were not
totally wrong.
I had dropped out of graduate school and now I dropped out of the Mobe.
I spent time with Abbie, getting to know the “Free” community on the
lower east side and talking up the Pentagon action wherever we went.
Abbie knew everybody! Many of his friends were cultural icons,
opinion-setters who influenced thousands of other people, particularly
youth: poet Alan Ginsburg, satirist Paul Krassner, radio MC Bob Fass of
WBAI and folksinger Phil Ochs.
Jerry and I became good friends with Anita and Abbie in a couples sort
of a way. By that I mean that Anita and I never spent much time
together alone, just the two of us. However, the four of us spent a
good deal of time together, often with others such as Paul Krassner,
Phil Ochs and many others. Frequently we would just hang out in the
small living room in their ground floor apartment on St. Marks Place.
The room had very little furniture, mostly pillows along the walls and
various people would come and go, hang out, smoke some weed and talk,
talk, talk.
I don’t think we ever talked about the past—our families, relationships,
past academic or career paths. We were single-mindedly focused on the
present. I was aware that all four of us– Jerry, Abbie, Anita and I
were raised in Jewish families. If I didn’t know it then, I later found
out that all three of us—Abbie, Anita and I were dropouts of psychology
graduation school. But these were not things we ever dwelled upon as we
were so busy living in the present and trying to prepare for the near
future.
Being in the eye of the generation gap maelstrom had some personal
implications for me. Returning to New York had accentuated the
situation. It meant closer proximity of Jerry and my parents. My
mother and father had always been extremely supportive of me, no matter
what I did. Anyone that I brought home, they would try to love. This
had always been the case and there was no reason to expect it to be
different. But I hadn’t considered Jerry and the baggage that he
brought along.
I believed in the Generation Gap (“Don’t trust anyone over 30!”) but I
didn’t intend to apply the maxim to my own parents. Jerry on the other
hand, once described living in his home as an education in psychological
warfare. He was also orphaned at a relatively young age, had never
really dealt with his childhood issues and could not accept my closeness
with my parents. Perhaps the relationship was threatening to him in
some way or another. It’s hard to second-guess what was going through
his mind and I don’t recall us having adult, serious discussions about
this. But I do remember that I brought him home to my parents’ house on
Long Island and he insisted on smoking marijuana in their house. They
let it be known very clearly that they had difficulty tolerating that.
He and I were unwilling to gracefully compromise with them. We
disregarded their feelings and responded with a disrespectful act–
smoking in the bathroom. My parents were disappointed but they created
no scene and life went on. In retrospect, it’s hard to imagine that I
would treat my parents so disrespectfully. I believe this was an
instance of Jerry’s bad influence me. I don’t blame him for almost
anything else. Everything else we did was consensual; I was in there
heart and soul, and take responsibility for all decisions. But I
allowed him to influence my relationship with my parents and to treat
them shabbily and that I do regret.
While I went off to hang out with Abbie, Anita and others, Jerry kept
working for the Mobe although their mutual dissatisfaction was
increasing. The Mobe had been meeting with Harry Van Cleve, a
government lawyer from the General Services Administration, selected to
do their negotiating. He said that if The Mobe planned to “close down
the Pentagon,” the government would not issue permits for any rally or
march, not even a legal rally or march. In fact, our buses would not
even be allowed to unload people in Washington at all. Well, that was
the worst thing he could have done for his team! Suddenly, people who
had been luke-warm or opposed to the demonstration were calling in their
endorsements. We heard from Martin Luther King, Benjamin Spock and SDS
among others.
As this momentum developed the government was thrown into a quandary.
Van Cleve then telephoned, requesting another meeting, and in the next
two weeks there were six meetings. They had a new strategy to defuse
the impact in a myriad of different ways: can’t use the preferred
bridge, no sound at the Pentagon, can’t arrive at the Pentagon until
4:30 (buses were returning to NY at 5:00). Jerry was concerned that our
whole vision was being compromised and wanted to break off the
negotiations. He also felt that it was somewhat ironic to be planning
civil disobedience, an illegal activity, while negotiating with those
who would do the arresting. On a more profound level, he understood
that the government really had to negotiate with the protest. If we
stood firm, he felt the government would have to back down and grant us
some of our vision. Ultimately, Dellinger signed what my friends and I
believed was a less-than-perfect agreement. The unfolding of the day
seemed to render the agreement fairly irrelevant but we had no way of
knowing that in advance.
On Saturday October 20, 1967 more than 100,000 (some say 200,000) people
streamed into Washington for the legal rally at the Lincoln Memorial.
The usual speeches went on for hours. I don’t remember any of them. My
friends and I were eager to get on with the action. Eventually a mass of
people, perhaps 50,000 began the two-hour march across the Arlington
Memorial Bridge with helicopters buzzing menacingly overhead.
I remember feeling that day that we were in some kind of a funnel, where
the numbers of people kept narrowing. At the outset there were possibly
a hundred thousand people at the Lincoln Memorial with perhaps 50,000
people continuing the march across the bridge. The majority of the
demonstrators left Washington on the 5:00 o’clock buses after leaving us
much of the food they had brought along, their final donation to our
well-being. The crowd got younger as we headed out towards the bridge.
As we walked, we talked about what had happened the week before in
California. /Stop the Draft Week/ had erupted in Oakland with 3000
demonstrators converging on the Oakland induction center. Some of the
demonstrators were wearing helmets and carrying shields to ward off
police attacks but the cops had used Mace on the demonstrators and
attacked them with a vengeance, injuring about 20 and arresting 25. By
Friday morning there were 10,000 demonstrators around the induction
center, many of them using what came to be known as “mobile tactics.”
When the police began to attack, they blockaded intersections with
whatever they could lay their hands on and then took off running. The
stories of that confrontation rippled through the march and it was
rumored that some veterans of that battle had driven across country to
join us. These were our people and I wondered which of our old friends
from Berkeley had been involved and who was in the crowd with us.
We crossed the bridge with great anticipation. At some point, the
police blocked us from marching toward our preferred route. In response
we sat down on the bridge, tens of thousands of us as far as you could
see, forcing the government to yield.
The government had brought in more than 6,000 Army troops. Twenty
thousand were on alert around the country. Two thousand National Guard
troops and 2,000 Washington police were on hand. Eight hundred cops
were stationed at the capitol and secret service helicopters hovered
over the White House. Their central command post was inside the Pentagon.
The levitation of the Pentagon was one of the first successful aspects
of the day, providing creative imagery of the fusing of politicos and
acid heads into an activist community. Ed Sanders and Tuli Kupferberg
of the The Fugs, decked out in multi-colored capes, provided the music.
Alan Ginsberg opened the ceremony with what would become his hallmark
“Ommmmmmmmm.” Others led incantations of “Out, demons, out!” Truthfully
I think the actual nuts and bolts of a levitation were not that high on
my interest list, since my mind is foggy on the facts. Or perhaps the
levitation has just been overshadowed in my mind by the following events.
As we left the bridge area, there was a rush on the Pentagon by a
militant contingent made up of SDS and a group calling themselves the
Revolutionary Contingent. They broke down a fence and got right up to
the Pentagon. In fact, a few people actually made it inside for a brief
moment until they were swiftly arrested. As more protestors came across
the bridge, this group that had rushed to the Pentagon began to swell
into the largest contingent, putting ourselves in a direct confrontation
with the troops who were lined up at the top of the stairs at the main
entrance to the War Machine.
SDS and the Revolutionary Contingent were joined by hundreds of other
protestors who were willing to risk arrest, but at the same time a legal
rally was going on over at another area of the Pentagon. As evening
came on, many of the people from that legal rally left as well and we
were down to a couple of thousand people.
Though SDS was not a sponsor, because of disagreements with the
conception, they had joined the mobilization in the final hours and
their contribution to the actual confrontation was significant. They
were a group of people who were able to coordinate their activities and
move as one. I remember feeling how we were just separate individuals,
Jerry, Abbie, Anita, our friend Stew Albert and me. You might think
that we had some kind of tactical leadership role to play, or at least
Jerry would have. But that was not the case, as far as I can remember.
As would happen many times in the future, we had helped to create the
stage, had set up the situation as best we could, but had no clue as to
how to physically influence the actual event. Inevitably there were
others who would move in to fill that vacuum.
As the sun went down, it became cooler and cooler. The crowd was
getting younger and younger. We were on our own. The protection of the
older generation was disappearing. Even Uncle Dave was gone. We heard
that Dellinger, Norman Mailer and several others had been arrested early
on in a choreographed civil disobedience action, crossing over a
forbidden line and being taken into custody. I had never been arrested
before and I remember feeling apprehensive about what was going to
happen. It was a volatile and unpredictable situation. We had no idea
what was going to transpire. Would we be there for an hour? Would they
mace us as in Oakland?
Maybe they would even shoot us? This was not a situation for anyone who
needed to be in control, who needed to know for sure what was going to
happen next. You had to go with the flow and some of the possibilities
were really frightening.
As it played out, there were moments of exhilaration and community. And
there were moments of outright fear. As we jockeyed for space there was
physical, literally face-to-face, confrontation with the army. The scene
became very tense and we finally, at the suggestion of SDS, all sat
down. When we started out that day we had no idea how many people would
stay. Maybe it would just be a handful in the end. However, the actual
numbers lifted our spirits; there were well over a thousand of us. But
what’s more, the group that remained seemed to beat with one heart and
that gave everyone strength. We were on a mission and we knew we were
right. We looked to the right and we looked to the left and we knew
that all of us would remain up until the point of arrest. For hours
there was an impromptu teach-in to the troops. People climbed up on a
ledge and, using a bullhorn, spoke to the troops. There was an open
mike (well, actually a bullhorn) for anyone who wanted to speak. I did
not have the confidence to speak, but I was very proud of what people said.
It has been said that our movement was disrespectful of the troops, but
I don’t think so at all. We were speaking the truth to them. Those
truths had the potential to save their lives, as well as the lives of
millions of Vietnamese.
That evening at the Pentagon, Berkeley non-student activist and future
yippie Stew Albert addressed the troops:
I went to PS 206 in Brooklyn, and when I was in school nobody liked
the monitors. They were kids like us, but they worked for the
strict teachers. We didn’t like them when we were kids, so why
should we like them now? We always considered the monitors to be
finks. And now you guys are acting like monitors. Join us!
In unison, the crowd spontaneously chanted “Join us! Join us!”
We were right up against the troops. When Super Joel, one of the
earlier levitators, stepped forward and placed a flower in the bayoneted
gun barrel of one of the soldiers, it became an iconic image. Other
protestors followed suit. (Paul Krassner later pointed out that Super
Joel’s grandfather was the mafia boss Sam Giancana and that Super Joel
had dropped out of the family business.) The confrontation between
demonstrators and troops lasted thirty-three hours, all through the
first night and until midnight of the second night. Especially during
the night, the soldiers would every now and then make forays into the
front of the crowd, clubbing a few people and dragging a few others away
to be arrested. We sat, arms locked as tight as possible, to impede
them as much as possible and to protect one another. In the end they
dragged away everyone who remained. Well over a thousand people were
arrested, with 780 of us held and several hundred released. Some people
were beaten or gassed.
I was arrested alongside Anita Hoffman. It was the first time either of
us had been under arrest. I would later learn that it was a very
atypical arrest experience. They took hundreds of us, all women, to
what seemed to be a huge dormitory. There were scores and scores of
cots lined up next to each other, like being in a huge summer camp.
Anita and I were able to stay together and were on cots right alongside
each other. The camaraderie was palpable and exciting. After spending
the night on our cots, we were herded to court and as counseled by our
movement lawyers, we pleaded /nolo contendre/, meaning we don’t say
we’re guilty, we don’t say we’re not guilty, we just don’t contest it.
This was worked out between the government and our lawyers. We did what
we were advised, paid a small fine and went home.
Later, we learned that several paratroopers had left the line, saying
they wouldn’t be part of the military any more, and they were now held
in the stockade. Dave Dellinger reported that over the years he kept
meeting veterans who said they were on duty that day and had been
affected by the teach-in. Much later we learned that Secretary of
Defense Robert McNamara had watched the entire battle from his fifth
floor office, accompanied by his young assistant Daniel Ellsberg who
later released the famous Pentagon Papers.
Years later, when asked about Jerry and the hippie entry into the peace
movement, Dave Dellinger offered this: “What I remember is just being
thrilled and excited that this whole new element of humor and creativity
and youthful zest was coming into things”
Were we right or wrong in our conflict with The Mobe? The final outcome
of the Pentagon demonstration was awesome. It was one of the most
successful activities I have ever been involved with. I believe the
character was greatly affected by our continuously agitating for a
militant, theatrical, unpredictable scenario. It was that projection
that attracted thousands of young people and forced the government to
dig in its heels, threatening to deny our basic civil liberties. That
denial then brought thousands of additional people into the protest. In
our estimation of the final negotiations with the government lawyer Van
Cleve, perhaps we were too pessimistic about what we had already won,
but that’s much easier to say in hindsight. We wanted no rock left
unturned in our effort to make this a successful political
confrontation. In the end, the victory was really a result of the
energy and the numbers of the people that participated. Even the
children of officials in the Johnson Administration were joining us. In
a political sense the country was now really at war with itself. This
realization seemed to hold within itself the possibility that we could
end the war with Vietnam.
--
Freedom Archives 522 Valencia Street San Francisco, CA 94110 415
863.9977 https://freedomarchives.org/
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://freedomarchives.org/pipermail/news_freedomarchives.org/attachments/20171027/727abf23/attachment.htm>
More information about the News
mailing list