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FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 14, 1969
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xtreme emotions color Washington march
By Rowland Evans and Robert Novak
Washington The tens of thousands of well-meaning
war protestors set to converge on Washington Saturday
wUl be joining a demonstration planned since summer
by advocates of violent revolution in the U.S. who openly
support Communist forces in Vietnam.
Accordingly, whatever happens here Saturday, the
Nov. 15 march on Washington will mark a postwar
high-water mark for the American for left. Responsible
liberals have been enlisted as foot soldiers in an operation
mapped out mainly by extremists testimony to the
present ineffectiveness of non-violent, liberal elements
in the peace movement. " ,
Moreover, heavy-handed Nixon administration reac
tion by Deputy Atty. Gen. Richard G. Kleindienst assures
that any violence on Saturday will be blamed by liberals
on the government and the avoidance of violence will
be credited by these same liberals to the self-restraint
of the far left.
Although liberals belatedly spent this week in frantic
eleventh-hour efforts to coopt Saturday's march, they
had plenty of advance warning. The New Mobilization
Committee to End the War in Vietnam (New Mobe),
sponsors of the march, was formed last July In Cleveland
with an executive committee dominated by supporters
of the Viet Cong.
The executive committee is moderate when com
pared with the 60-member steering committee, studied
with past and present Communist Party members
(including veteran party functionary Arnold Johnson).
Far more important than representation by the largely
moribund American Communist Party, however, is in
clusion on the steering committee of leaders in its newly
Invigorated Trotskyite movement.
The steering committee began eclipsing the executive
committee in recent weeks under the leadership of the
Trotskyite Socialist Workers Party and its fast-growing
youth arm, the Young Socialist Alliance. Fred Halstead
of the Socialist Workers Party took over planning for
a march calculated to end in violent confrontation.
Participating in planning sessions were elements
even more violence-prone than the Trotskyites: extreme
SDS factions calling themselves the Revolutionary
Brigade. Wild scenarios for storming the White House,
the Justice Department, and the South Vietnamese Em
bassy were prepared.
Furthermore, the New Mobe was in closer contact
with Communist Vietnamese official circles than is
generally realized. Ron Young, a member of the New
Mobe steering committee, journeyed to Stockholm Oct.
11-12 for a meeting attended by representatives of the
North Vietnam government and the Viet Cong. Reporting
on plans for Nov. 15, Young urged a worldwide pro
paganda campaign to boost the demonstration.
The link between Hanoi and elements of the New
Mobe was again demonstrated Oct. 14 when Prime
Minister Pham Van Dong of North Vietnam sent
greetings to American anti-war demonstrators. Halstead,
the Trotskyite leader, drafted a friendly reply to Hanoi
approved by a majority of the New Mobe's steering
committee. Its transmission was blocked only by the
intervention of Stewart Meachem of the American
Friends Service Committee, one of the New Mobe's
moderates.
Thus far-left orientation of the New Mobe for weeks
has worried liberal doves, including the youthful leaders
of the peaceful Oct. 15 Moratorium. Sen. Charles Goodell
of New York, emerging as a leading Congressional foe
of the war, attempted without success to reduce
extremist influence inside the New Mobe and argued
against including far leftists on the steering committee.
But the liberals, having forgotten the fate of popular
front movements a generation ago and unwilling to
repudiate any anti-war forces, would not actually break
with the New Mobe. Any chance of that was eliminated
by President Nixon's relatively hard-line speech Nov.
3 and government strategy laid down at the Justice
Department by Kleindienst.
Ignoring recommendations of some advisors, Klein
dienst harshly refused a parade permit for Nov. 15
and thereby gave the impression, wholly unjustified,
that the Nixon administration desired a violent con
frontation. In fact, Kleindienst has assured worried
liberal Republicans that he has no intention of becoming
the Richard J. Daley of Washington. But Kleindienst's
hard-nosed public posture has recruited marchers from
college campuses and suburbs.
Goodell and Sen. George McGovern of South Dakota,
after much deliberation, accepted Invitations to address
the demonstration in hopes of moderating it. Similarly,
Moratorium leaders this week have tried to insinuate
themselves into control of the march. But the march
remains essentially a project of the far left, constituting
a tragic failure of leadership by liberal foes of the
war.
IB ' . ( B
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w III I
Nebraskan editorials
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Editor's note: Yesterday the Daily Nebraskan 1
published an editorial discussing the difficulty of 1
assessing news events through the news media. The I
reader or hearer can work only with third-hand
information, relayed from original sources to him
1 through a second-hand observer. i
This problem is compounded by the fact that I
perceptions of the persons involved, of the
reporter, and of the receiver differ, and can
s affect interpretations drastically. For these reasons
we are printing three articles on the Saturday march
in Washington protesting the Vietnam war. Two were
1 written by two st-ts of columnists generally classed I
as liberals and one by a rightist group.
, Reading and comparing these articles has helped
us see more clearly some problems we had been I
thinking about; we hope they can be equally valuable 1
2 to Nebraskan readers. i .
I Holly Rosenberger I
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by the U.S. Anti-Communist Congress, Inc.
Major demonstrations will take place Nov. 13-15.
(a) Another nation-wide Moratorium sponsored by
the Vietnam Moratorium Committee, November 13 and
14;
(b) A national Student Strike against the war
sponsored by the Student Mobilization Committee to End
the War in Vietnam ("Student Mobe"), November 14;
(c) A March Against Death in Washington, D.C.,
November 14-15, and mass rallies in Washington and
San Francisco, November 15, all sponsored by the New
Mobilization Committee to End the War in Vietnam
("New Mobe").
t
It is important to understand that these are not
true peace demonstrations. Each one is a part of the
Fall Offensive Against the War in Vietnam agreed upon
by the three above-named groups and SDS last summer.
These four groups cooperated to build the Oct. 15
Moratorium Day observances which were also a part
of the Offensive, and have been working togtther on
the upcoming demonstrations.
The so-called "March Against Death" is actually
a March for Death because it is sponsored by a basically
Communist organization to serve a Communist purpose
in Vietnam that would bring death to untold thousands.
Each marcher is to carry a sign with the name of
an American who died for freedom in Vietnam and
call out the name of the deceased as he marches.
These marchers should tell the full story of each man
killed by adding to their signs and to their chant these
words: "Killed by Communists."
If they were really protesting death in Vietnam,
the marchers would also carry signs bearing the names
of each of the 3,000 civilians killed in Hue last year,
and the 50,000 killed in North Vietnam fifteen years
The November 14 Student Strike is actually a strike
for revolution and communism. J. Edgar Hoover testified
on April 17 of this year that the sponsor of the strike,
the Student Mobilization Committee, "is controlled by
members of the Young Socialist Alliance, the youth
group of the Socialist Workers Party." The Socialist
Workers Party (SWP) is the party of the Trotskylst
Communists in this country and has been cited as
subversive by the Attorney General.
What does the Young Socialist Alliance (YSA) stand
for? Read what one of its own members, Jose Rudder,
says:
"I was a Marxist, a communist, and I believed
in the revolution , . . the only organization that I
could see that was concerned about . . . seeing the
revolution take place in this country was the YSA.
So I decided to join." (Young Socialist, official YSA
magazine, April, 1969, pages 10 and 11).
Vietnam is Communism's War not Nixon's war.
The revolution that Jose Rudder wants in the U.S.A.
is the revolution the Viet Cong have launched and are
fighting in South Vietnam with the help of North'
Vietnam, Peking and Moscow.
3
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by Frank Mankiewicz and Tom Braden
Washington Respect for law and order would
begin, so Richard Nixon told his audience during the
campaign, at approximately the time the nation elected
him President. The test of that thesis will come this
weekend during the November demonstrations against
the war in Vietnam.
The Nixon attitude toward law and order will lx
judged on two counts. The first is whether or not he
will permit violence. The second is whether or not he
will permit dissent.
So far, the Nixon Justice Department has stressed
its fear of violence. The result is that the leaders of
the demonstration from whom violence was feared have
promised that they intend an orderly march.
But in emphasizing Its fears the Justice Department
may bring about a result altogether different from what
Mr. Nixon would like to see. It may turn the event
Into a powerful instrument of American dissatisfaction.
The first indication of this outcome was the switch
of moderate moratorium leaders from a position of
hands-off the Mobe to full co-operation.
Rep. Allard Lowenstein (D-N.Y.) led the pack. Within
moments after the President's speech on Vietnam.
Lowenstein decided that, risk of violence or not, he
had to protest against what he characterized as the.
President's "inching" posture.
Sens. George McGovern (D-S.D.) and Charles Goodell
(R-N.Y.) moved next.
McGovern long ago decided that he could not speak
before a crowd of war protesters, many of whom did
not share his belief in this country and its capacity
to right its own wrongs. But after the Justice Depart
ment, in the person of Deputy Richard Kleindienst, broke
off negotiations with leaders of the Mobe, McGovern,
too, took counsel of what he conceived as his duty
rather than his fears.
Goodell's decision to speak at the final rally was
based on similar reasoning. Other senators and con
gressmen will also be present who might not have been
had the Administration challenge not been so direct.
There are rules for handling antiwar demonstrations.
They are derived from hard experience during the
Johnson Administration, but Kleindienst did not consult
his predecessor, Warren M. Christopher, who handled
among other events the march on the Pentagon
in 1967 and the "counter-inaugural" in January. In each
case, willful acts of violence were isolated and the
full range of constitutional dissent was permitted. .
"Rule One is not to talk about 'intelligence,' " one
former high 'Justice official put it. "The first thing
I learned about 'intelligence' on violence is that there's
plenty of it.
"We could have called off the march on the Pentagon
put the blame on 'intelligence' and faced the conse
quences, which might have been worse.
"Rule Two is to keep talking, don't tell them what
you won't permit such as a mass march past the
White House. The Secret Service won't permit that and
for good reason. But you have to keep negotiating,
keep feeling, until they suggest something you can agree
to.
"Rule Three is to prevent negotiations from breaking
down. If you permit this, you are faced with the Chicago
consequence; you have forbidden something the other
side feels is a constitutional right. The result may be
another Chicago."
Kleindienst broke all three rules. He talked about
"intelligence on violence;" he insisted from the start
that he would never yield on a march down Pennsylvania
Avenue, and he broke off negotiations. He finally had
to reverse himself completely.
The result, even though a mutually satisfactory route
has been agreed to, Is a lurking belief by many otherwise
well-disposed toward the Administration that the Justice
Department may look upon a confrontation as not entire
ly unwelcome.
That old Tory, John Adams, gave the best expression
to what is now, one supposes, called the "soft line:"
"The mildness of our government," Adams wrote hli
beloved Abigail, "is a pleasing and delightful charac
teristic, and though probably it will give encouragement
to some disorder even to daring crime it Is too
precious to be relinquished without absolute necessity."
DAILY NEBRASKAN
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