FIGHTERS FOR PEACE WHOM I MET IN A WASHINGTON JAIL
[The rise inside the United States of political opposition to Johnson's escalation of U.S. intervention in the civil war in Vietnam has aroused the greatest interest throughout the world as one of the most hopeful developments in the recent period, This antiwar movement has centered up to now around the campuses, with repercussions in the civil-rights struggle of the Negro people and their allies. However, this developing opposition movement obviously has wide appeal among. . other sectors of the population in the United States. This is well : illustrated in the following extract from an article in the October :
issue of Liberation entitled “Escalation in the Peace Movement," a report on the “Washington Assembly of Unrepresented People" held last August in Washington, D.C. The author, Dave Dellinger, is a well= known figure in the civil-rights and pacifist movements, ]
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‘The heterogeneous composition of the participants in Washington gives some idea of the potential vitality of the movement, as evidenced by its ability to attract a wide variety of persons from different backgrounds, classes, and temperaments. This heterogeneity was evident all week end, but was particularly driven home to me when I was in jail. On the fourth day of our imprisonment, after most of the persons arrested had paid their fines, been bailed. out, or com~ pleted three-day sentences, I found myself in a prison dormitory with fifteen other demonstrators, most of whom I had never met. before, Here is a relevant summary of who they were: - -
A young Texan, who served a hitch in the navy and is now a staff member of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. He told me that he first began to have his eyes opened to the hypocrisy of American foreign policy when he was stationed at Guantanamo Naval - Base in Cuba, at the time of the Bay of Pigs invasion. Among: other things, he saw wounded Cubans, in G.I. coveralls, being unloaded from American planes at a time when the United States” was denying all knowledge of what was going.on. His commanding officer told the men to turn their backs, so that they would not: see what was happening -a purely technical cover-up, since there was no mistaking what was going on. (Incidentally, this reminded me of a man I met the last time I was in jail in Washington, who argued, rather. convincingly, that he was a disillusioned former C.I.A. agent, who had killed, for the government, on assignments abroad, with everything from piano wire, poison, and his bare hands to the most modern weapons, )
Another navy veteran, who was one of 30 enlisted men quietly mustered out of the navy last February, for having held a brief. pro-. test meeting at Pearl Harbor against continued American participation in the Vietnamese war. He told me that one of the things that had upset. these enlisted men was first-hand knowledge that the "retaliatory" bombing and shelling of North Vietnam, in August, 1964, had been planned and prepared at least three weeks in advance of the alleged incident that was supposed to have provoked it. He said that they had known what was up when they had taken part in loading extra bombs and shells. onto an aircraft carrier, at Pearl Harbor, three weeks before the claimed provocation by North Vietnamese PT boats in the Gulf of Tonkin.
A college junior, with a hundred-dollar-~a-week personal spending allowance, who had never taken part in a demonstration before. He read about the Assembly in a newspaper, the day beforehand, and was so fed up with American actions in Vietnam that he decided to travel several hundred miles to take part, even though he knew no one
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involved. He said that when he took part in Monday's venture onto the Capitol grounds, he expected to be arrested, but was shocked at the police brutality. (Incidently, when my lawyer visited me in prison, he said that there were numerous television shots of police clubbing and kicking demonstrators, but that the F.B.I. had issued word that they were not to be shown but should be surrendered to the F.B.I.)
Another college student, who likewise had never taken part in a demonstration or been associated with any peace group. His father is a career army officer, who was either in Vietnam or on his way there, at the time of the demonstration. The student had spent most of his childhood in American military enclaves abroad.
A 49-year-old, third-generation owner of a factory, who is an active member of the National Association of. Manufacturers, owns a private yacht, and vigorously defended the American system of "free enterprise," in jail-house arguments. He believes that American foreign policy is suicidal and contrary to the best ideals and traditions of the country.
A native, white southerner, 22 or 23 years old, who has lived in Mississippi Since he was fifteen, and has only recently come to believe in integration and disbelieve in America's role in world politics, ; ,
Another native-born white Southerner, a man from Louisiana who still has relatives living in Leander Perez! notorious Plaquemine Parish.
A black S.N.Cc.c. [Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee] worker from Washington, D.C., from an extremely limited economic and educational background,
Two northern white Catholics, formerly active in Young Catholics of America, and presently associated with a Catholic hospice in Detroit. Like many of the others, this was their first arrest,
A student at Duke University, in North Carolina, who recently left collegé to work in one of S.D.S.s!s [Students for a Democratic Society] community projects in a city slum,
Three northern white college students (one of them from a poor, fundamentalist Baptist background and another from a wealthy and . sophisticated Jewish home), all of whom are doing volunteer civil~ rights work in Mississippi.
A lawyer's son, from Chicago, who had always been scornful of nonviolence, but felt that its use at the Assembly had been remark~ ably successful,
WALLOON WORKERS