demonstrations in behalf
of peace always end nowadays with broken
heads, blood in the gutter and freedom's
banner a bit more fouled and tattered."
CHAIN OF ANTIWAR DEMONSTRATIONS AROUND THE WORLD
The international scope and character of the movement against U.S. intervention in Vietnam was underscored by the chain of demonstrations staged in cities around the world timed to coincide with the Washington protest rally. These interlinked actions in Europe and Asia were inspired by a common aim and slogan: "U.S., get out of Vietnam and let the Vietnamese settle their own affairs."
A meeting at Finsbury Town Hall, North London, was part of an international telephone hookup with the proceedings at Washington which also included Paris,
Stockholm, Copenhagen and Genoa. It was
addressed by Frank Allaun, Labour MP, and
Lord Brockway, chairman of the British
Council for Peace in Vietnam. It was fol-
lowed by a torchlight procession to the
Prime Minister's residence at Downing
Street.
The largest protests took place in
Japan where hundreds of thousands of
unionists and antiwar demonstrators held
rallies in the major cities under the
sponsorship of the General Council of
Trade Unions. The press reported 20,000
Tokyo protesters marched to the United
States Embassy with antiwar slogans.
(To minimize their importance, press and police estimates systematically underestimate the size of the demonstrations both in the U.S. and elsewhere. For example, the Washington police would acknowledge no more than 25,000 persons at a rally that obviously numbered seven or eight times that many.)
in West Berlin 10,000 demonstrators with a small group of young Americans at their head marched down the Kurfurstendamm, the main street of the city, bearing a fifty-foot-long banner demanding the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Vietnam. Members of the Association of German Socialist Students, which lead the radical student movement, carried portraits of Che Guevara and chanted "Ho Ho; Ho Chi Minh." It was the largest demonstration in Berlin since the end of the world war. Twenty-two persons were arrested as the police used water hoses against the demonstrators.
About 15,000 marched through the center of Amsterdam for two hours in a largely silent protest which was occasionally broken by shouts of “Johnson, murderer" from some young people.
In Copenhagen more than 15,000 went to the American Embassy where a straw ‘puppet depicting President Johnson was burned. It took 160 police to drive off the crowd. A mass meeting in Stockholm's park Vasaparken urged the Swedish government to restrict diplomatic, cultural and commercial relations with the U.S. until its forces get out of Vietnam. Similar demonstrations were organized by the Committee for Solidarity with Vietnam in most of Norway's major cities.
The largest single European demonstration occurred in Paris, where police admitted that at least 35,000 joined in a giant march that ended up with speeches in the Place de la Bastille. Other demonstrations were held in many other cities in France.
This round of antiwar protests was to be extended to a fourth continent on Sunday, October 22, with a big demonstration scheduled for Sydney, Australia.
THE SCARBOROUGH LABOUR PARTY CONFERENCE
By Ernest Tate
After the Labour government's defeats at the Trades Union Congress in Brighton, followed shortly by severe electoral setbacks in the Cambridge and Walthamstow by-elections [see World Outlook, October 6], left-wing delegates to the annual