2. Full list... 3. Illustrative of our information packets was a three piece mailing put out a month later which included a double-sided flyer headed Safe Return for all Self Retired Vets and Resisters, with a news photo of John Herndon cuffed to two MP’s. Included were a set of demands cast in the rhetoric of leftwing political lines then in fashion, An End to Racism and Freedom for All Political Prisoners. On the reverse we identified ourselves organizationally, and defined the amnesty issue. We rooted the necessity for solidarity between draft and military resisters in the context of Congressional proposals for amnesty then being floated which favored the former, even if with humiliating conditions, while leaving deserters to their fate with the military. Across the bottom of the flyer ran the slogan, Free the Camp McCoy 3, a trio of GIs implicated in a bombing at Camp McCoy, Wisconsin; the second sheet was the reprint of a column from The Boston Globe, by David Deitch (April 28, 1972), “What amnesty should be all about;” and on the third, a reprint of an article by Tod and I in Boston After Dark, “‘Self-retired ‘vets - bring all the boys home” (May 9, 1972). The Boston Globe’s David Deitch, their pro-movement regular columnist, was the rare voice of class consciousness in the mainstream media. 4. Note for Abbie Hoffman and title... 5. From Paris, Joe Heflin wrote, “We are all a bit stunned by the news of JH’s BCD and release. We congratulate you on your work, your publicity, your pressure and the hope this precedent will provide others in the exile community.” And from Maria Jolas, came a note. “We are watching your efforts on amnesty with great interest. Bravo. Warm greetings.” 6. Reston. The author provides a bio sketch on the man he calls “the mysterious Max Watts (pp.32-3; 59-65). No index. 7. There are several accounts of the VVAW/CCI “split” in the literature, to include my Vietnam Awakening. We had hope, initially, that the amnesty issue would offer the conditions for a rapprochement with the national entity of VVAW, but 8. Cite Jan. 2010 email using virtually the same language. 9. ‘Self-retired’ vets - bring all the boys home now,’ by Michael Uhl and Tod Ensign, Boston After Dark, May 9, 1972. 10. Difference between conscript and all volunteer forces. Don’t have to show your discharge to get a job today, since 11. See Reston, ob. cit. 12. Cornell. 13. Reston. 14. Tod Ensign recalls that NBC network news, for reasons no longer clear, planned to air a report on John’s death and his significance to the amnesty debate. The report, scheduled to appear on April 25, 1986 was preempted by the news of the Chernobyl catastrophe, but finally did air two weeks later. 15. Letter July 5, 1972 from me notifying Noam Chomsky, “we will be in Miami next week;” letter July 6, 1972 from Tod to Aerial Sign Company. 16. Much made of the fact during the presidential primaries in 2008 that Hillary Clinton while still in law school had once interned for Mal Bernstein. Bizarre juxtaposition in which history often expresses its wry humor. 17. Quote from Wikipedia entry for Carol Bernstein Ferry. Winter Soldier meeting in the office of CCI in 1970 the evening a call came for Dick Fernandez of Clergy and Laity Concerned that Daniel Bernstein had died. In a letter dated August 18, 1972, Ping Ferry enclose a check signed by Carol Bernstein for $3,000, noting that we were to “consider it a termination grant as explained on the phone.” 18. Movement forces had gathered in Miami to protest the Vietnam War during the Democratic Convention, but VVAW’s big moment would come a month later when wheelchair bound Ron Kovic, author of Born on the Forth of July, would address the delegates of the Republican convention, also held in Miami that year. 19. It was media pass no. 6899, and is still in my possession. 20. Letters to Knoll and Obst July 18. 21. “Up From Underground: How a deserter fought for amnesty in Miami,” Amex-Canada, Sept. 1, 1972. Vol. 3, No. 5. 22. Ibid. 23. “Marine Deserter Seized Trying to Turn Himself In on Convention Floor,” Bill Kovach, The New York Times, July 14, 1972; “Deserter’s Surrender a Way of Opposing War: Michaud Waits in Broward Jail For Transfer to Marine Base,” Sheila Payton, The Miami Herald, July 15, 1972; “‘I Joined Up... to Do M Part,’ But Didn’t Know What it Was,” Peggy Cunningham, The Miami Herald, July 15, 1972 24. “Bella Aids a Marine Deserter,” Milton Adams. New York Post, July 20, 1972 25. Cornell collection. 26. Letter from Daniel Berrigan to me, August 25, 1972. Personal papers. 27. Cornell collection. 28. “Families of Resisters for Amnesty: A strategy for building a mass movement for a just amnesty,” Tod Ensign and Mike Uhl, Amex-Canada, [probably Vol. 3, No. 6 or Vol. 4, No. 1 TK]. The spirit, while hardly the world significance, of what Wilhelm Liebknecht said about Marx and Engel’s collaboration on the Manifesto applied to the partnership, including the jointly signed writings, Tod and I sustained for a decade: “What was supplied by one, what by the other? An idle question. [They] are of one soul... inseparable... in all their working and planning.” 29. Cornell collection. 30. Ibid. 31. The six were Bella Abzug, Ronald Dellums, Parren Mitchell, Donald Edwards, Shirley Chisholm and John Conyers; as this is written in 2010, Conyers is still in Congress and chairs the House Judiciary Committee. 32. See my Vietnam Awakening for a brief account of COM and its activities. 33. Email from Paul Cox to me, July 2, 2009. 34. Cornell collection. 35. Amex [TK] |
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