January 8. During the last week in December

W O REPORT FROM THE UNDERGROUND:

RLD

Che’s Name O U r LO O K _Resounds in Bolivia

a lab or press service Vol.5, No.41 December 15, 1967

The Massacre

at Dai-Lai

Testimony at the Hearings

on U.S. War Crimes

THE EVIDENCE

50¢

THE EVIDENCE

THE EVIDENCE

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THE DAI-LAI MASSACRE

Testimony at the Hearings on U.S. War Crimes

(The International War Crimes Tribunal, which met at Roskilde, near Copenhagen, from November 20 to December 1, found the U.S. government guilty of conmitting a series of war crimes, including genocide. The evidence on which the verdict was based was voluminous, the result of the work of a number of teams headed by competent investigators which visited the areas under American attack.

{A sample of the reports presented to the tribunal is provided by the following testimony offered by Gérard Chaliand, a well-known French intellectual. ]

* * *

I arrived in the province of Thai- Binh on the third of November 1967 in connection with an enquiry which I carried out on the peasantry of the Tonkinian Delta. The bombing of Dai-Lai had taken place on the day before, and at my request the local authorities conducted me to the locality, forty hours after the bombing, on the dawn of the fourth of November.

It must be pointed out that the province of Thai-Binh, in relation to the country as a whole, is a zone comparatively seldom bombed -- to the extent that the objectives which could be classified as strategic are extremely few. In fact the province is exclusively agricultural, and its geography, uniformly flat and fairly sparsely wooded, could not favour dispersion.

Nevertheless, the American air forces have attacked the province 230 times from 1965 to the end of 1966, and, again according to the local authorities, 491 times in 1967, up to the end of the month of October. Its capital, which was bombed in 1966, is almost totally destroyed, as I was able to confirm. The dikes, which are of vital importance in the Delta, to the extent that they are a protection against flooding and a safeguard against drought, have been attacked forty times, while one-third of all the bombing has, to a greater or lesser extent, affected the civilian population.

I was not given the figure for the total number of victims, this being classified under military secrets, but they quoted, among other things, the bombing of the hamlet Phong-Man in May 1966, which resulted in fifty deaths, and that of the secondary school of the village of Thuy-Dan in October 1966 which caused thirty deaths.

For my part, I will add that during the five weeks which I spent in North Vietnam, from the sixth of October to the tenth of November, and not to speak of the bombings over Hanoi, Dai-Lai is the third village bombing that I have been able personally to confirm. The first was at the village of Tuy-Hoy, Gia-Vien district, bombed on the eighth of October. I went there on the ninth of October, together with the French journalist Olivier Todd. The bombing, effected at night, at 0.30 hours, produced seven deaths and eight wounded. There was nothing in the vicinity of the village, not for several kilometers around, that could be taken for a strategic objective, not even an Anti-Aircraft Defence. The second was at the village of Kim-Dai, Thanh-Bai district, situated on route No. 22, where on the twenty-sixth of October, there came several waves of aircraft which destroyed about twenty concrete buildings including a pharmacy and a nursery. I arrived in the village on the twentyninth of October. The bombing had caused seventeen deaths and twenty-two injured.

I should like to point out that I have only traveled north of the twentieth parallel, mainly in the Red River Delta, which is by no means the most frequently bombed district.

Thus the case of Dai-Lai is not an isolated incident. There is no strategic objective of any kind near the village of Dai-Lai. It is situated between two arms of water, at about one kilometer from the provincial road, five kilometers from the nearest bridge, in a flat countryside of canals, rice fields and ponds. I did not see a single Anti-Aircraft Defence Unit in the area.

There were two American airplanes. It was very light. It could not be argued that there had been a technical fault, that the bombs had been dumped in order to lighten a damaged plane which was trying to avoid coming down in Vietnamese territory. We visited the village in the early hours of the morning. In some places the ashes were still hot. Men and women were busy clearing away the debris. The planes had released chains of incendiary and explosive bombs. The witnesses agreed that they had heard about fifteen explosions. That was at 13 hours on the second of November. There were fifty-one deaths and thirty-nine wounded. There were 255 inhabitants in the village of Dai-Lai. Out of a total of forty-one homes, thirtyfour families had their houses razed to the ground or destroyed. We could count on one hand the number of houses left standing.

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Men were weeping quietly. A young woman squatted, supported by two elderly women, and wailed loudly. Another woman was weeping as she swept debris from the floor of a house which was no longer there. She burst into sobs as we went past, saying: "He couldn't escape because of the heat, and I could see his arms reach out of the flames!"

Most of the peasants of the cooperative were already in the fields at 13 hours [1 p.m.] that day for the harvest of the tenth month. In the village some peasants were shelling the paddy on the threshing floor. When the planes were heard, everyone went down into the trenches or into individual hotes. From the first explosion the children went into the holes dug inside the buildings. Some buildings exploded under the bombs. Fire enveloped the thatched roofs of others. Fire spread throughout the village, making rescue difficult. However the militia was able to save some people. In the holes were found charred bodies, burst open by the heat. Some mangled bodies were beyond identification. Out of a total of fifty-one victims, thirty-nine were under the age of fifteen.

Bui Thi Tinh, 22 years, the vicepresident of the Administrative Committee of the Commune, who conducted the work of identification and placing the bodies in coffins, related to me:

"I was one kilometer away from the village. From the single hole I occupied, I saw two planes, one flying lower than the other. The one flying low dropped its bombs first. It was after the meal, there were already workers in the fields; others were preparing to leave. The old people and children were taking their siesta. I could count sixteen bombs exploding in a chain..Huge flames shot up to the tree tops. They dropped the bombs and left. It all happened very quickly. Then the militia rushed forward and the people came with buckets, ropes and shovels. They tried to put the fire out -- they fetched water from the pools and formed a chain. They made a passage right through the fire to get to the trenches. Some of them used shovels to dig people out of cavedin trenches. A blast of wind stirred up the flames. Some rescuers were burnt to death. A co-worker from a neighbouring village, called Them, came to the rescue and was able, by himself, to save seven injured victims: he ran to and fro carry~ ing them on his back. The family of a coworker called Roan had four children down in the trench of their house. Halfway there Roan was torn into four pieces by bomb explosions, as he ran to save his children.

"I ran forward with two other girls. I had some gauze bandages in my bag and some cotton wool which I passed out to friends, and on the way we saw a body buried under a pile of straw. We hastened to drag it out and then we realized that all there was of it was the two legs. The upper part of the body had been scattered about elsewhere. There was a lot of flame and very thick smoke. You could not see five yards in front of you. It was very hot. There were a great many of us, and we were falling over each other in the attempt to rescue people. There was blood and corpses on the threshing floor. Meanwhile they carried bodies on stretchers. I had lost my sandals and my feet were burning, so hot was the earth near the fire. As soon as the bombing was over, the families ran in from the fields; some of them were shouting and weeping as the flames rose high into the air, and they were there trying to put the fire out. Roan's wife tried to jump into the flames to save her children. She had just seen her husband blown to bits before her very eyes. When we tried to restrain her she tore her clothes like a madwoman; she fell upon me and cried, 'Take me into the fire.' I said to her: ‘If you love me then you must come with me.' Then she said: 'Why do you want me to come, and whom will I live with, they are all dead.' And she repeated: 'Who, who am I going to live with?' And she tried to jump into the fire again, and I said: 'You are going to live with us,' and they led her away.

"I saw the five children of the Ru family, all killed in the same trench along with their mother; they were among the first to be pulled out. The Nguu family: the husband and wife were in the field; they have one child left who was not in the village, the other four are dead: three in the trench and the eldest -- they only found his trunk and his left leg. Just beside there was a family of four -- the husband and wife were out in the field, the two children are dead. The entire family of the co-worker Khoi was killed -- he was out in the field alone; his two children, his wife who was eight months pregnant; his mother's corpse was flung up into the branches of a jacquier tree and the blood trickled down the trunk to the roots of the tree.

"When we got the fire out, I stayed to direct the work of putting the bodies in coffins. The state gave four metres of cloth per coffin. It was 2:30 when we began to collect the bodies. I saw sights which turned my stomach: there were burnt bodies which were nothing but skin stretched over bones and entrails running out of burst bellies. They no longer had a human shape. We collected parts of bodies, arms, legs; sometimes we could make out that it was a woman because there were tufts of hair. While I registered the names of the dead, others wrote their names or presumed age in chalk on little placards to be placed on the graves. There were bodies which could not be iden-

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tified, but they estimated the age by the size of the foot, and wrote ‘Child, five or ten years old, no name' on the coffin.

"I saw, among these shreds, a heap of flesh which they reckoned to be a 15year-old girl, because of the cluster of hair and her neck. It was horrible to see, in the midst of this mass of flesh, a thigh still plump and brown. There were bodies of children that looked like stunted dogs."

Here are some extracts:

Tran Thi Sai, peasant woman, 238 years old, relates:

"At that moment I was on my way to the field for the harvest. I was with some friends. When I heard the planes, I went down into a single hole to shelter, and right after the bombing ran towards my house to see what had happened. As I approached the village, I could see that the whole village was in flames. Then I threw off my bucket yoke to get there more quickly. My second child, a boy, was able to escape out of the fire. His little brother of five followed him but he could not run fast enough and was burnt in the yard. And my mother fled carrying my youngest child, twelve months, but they were burnt alive at the door. My 10-year-old daughter was out watching the cooperative's buffalo, and she I still have now. My husband was the head of a group of workers -- he was in the village at the threshing floor of the cooperative. He was pulling the stone roller to husk the rice. At the time of the bombing he stayed outside the shelter till the last minute, to get the others back in, and he was killed. The bomb explosions opened his head.

"I began to scream and cry, while other members of the cooperative jumped into the fire to save their relatives. Then I wanted to jump into the fire too and save my mother and my children, but I was held back.

"They led me away to where I could not look on, and then they carried away the bodies of my relatives.

"I have lost my mother along with the baby she was carrying in her arms, my 5-year-old child and my husband. Now there are only three of us left, my two children and myself."

Bui Van Nguu, peasant, 46 years old, relates:

"At that moment I was at home making brooms for the cooperative. Over in my kitchen there was a grinding mortar. There my two daughters were pounding meal and their two little brothers were with them, having fun. My wife had left ny

little girl of eighteen months asleep in

the hammock at home and had gone to the

pound to wash clothes.

"When my wife saw the planes coming

she ran towards the house, but on the way

there she was knocked down by the blast

of a bomb. Meanwhile a bomb exploded in

the kitchen, burying our three children.

The house also collapsed and caught fire.

The roof fell on me, and the baby in the

hammock began to cry. I got up and went

and took her. Then I came through the

fire with my daughter. In the yard I saw

my wife stretched out on the ground, half-

buried by the ruins of the wall. She called

out to me. I placed the baby in the hole

to go and help her. When I came towards

her, she tried to get up. Her clothes were

all torn and her face was bleeding. I

handed the baby to her for her to carry

it away, and I ran to try and pull my

children out.

"I rummaged in the debris looking

for my children. I found mangled limbs,

shreds of flesh; I only found three bodies

by collecting fragments and a leg. I

couldn't find the body of my big girl. It

was only yesterday that I found her body

-- it had been thrown into a garden seven

yards away. Her body was buried under a

pile of ashes, and it is thanks to the

people who came to clear the debris that

I found her. At first I thought it was

someone else, but I looked and realised

that it was really her ear -- she was

thirteen years old."

Hoang Ban, peasant, 44 years old,

relates:

"I was on the way to the harvest

along with some other workers. I heard

planes and I looked but did not see any-

thing. And suddenly I heard explosions

and saw our village in flames. We were

one kilometer away from the village. We

ran and when we arrived the fire had

spread all around the village.

"I saw my sister-in-law also com-

ing from the fields carrying in her arms

her two-year-old child, its head burst

open. She called to me to come and help

her children. My house is 300 yards from

my brother's. I had not yet reached my

own home and I hastened to my brother's

house. The house had not been burnt, it

had exploded, and both the roof and the

walls had gone. I ran to the house's

trench, under the bed; and over the hole

was a cover. At the edge of the hole there

lay half of the body of a little girl of

two, my niece. I took the half of the

body and placed it out in the yard and

came back to search in the hole. I pulled

out one of my nieces, 10 years old, with

her head burst open by the fragments of

the cover. One of her arms was broken and

her whole body was blackened. And again I

carried the body out into the yard, and

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then I called for help. Then the militia and other people came and they brought out another little girl of eight, also with her head burst open because of the cover. This one had a broken leg. Afterwards, they dug out of this hole two more little girls both five years old, my nieces from next door who had come to play.

"They were not injured but suffocated. Six children are dead. As for my brother, only remains of him were found. In the kitchen they found his two arms; his two legs were caught on the bamboo wall; they also found his ribs, but not his head.

"Only his wife is left; it is as though she were insane. She is at my home at present. She screams and cries and no one can speak to her."

I would like to add that I was able to visit the five seriously wounded victims in the province hospital. The others received attention at the district or commune level. The Dai-Lai massacre -for how else can one describe this bombing -- was also recorded, on the fifth of November 1967, by Sven Oste, a Swedish journalist from Dagens Nyheter, a liberal daily newspaper of Stockholm, and by Antonello Trombadori, an Italian journalist, special representative of Unita.

I thank you for your attention.

THE BERKELEY STUDENT VOTE -- ANOTHER VICTORY FOR THE ANTIWAR MOVEMENT

Radicals swept the elections for student government at the University of California at Berkeley, held November 29- December 1. The radical candidates for the student senate were all participants in the massive antidraft protests in Oakland during October, who had been disciplined by the university administration.

The elections provided a measure of the depth of antiwar sentiment among students in the United States, who are disfranchised from regular elections because of their age.

"Voice," the radical political party on the Berkeley campus, put up eleven candidates for the ten openings on the student senate: nine of the slate had been placed on disciplinary probation; two others, Peter Camejo and Reese Erlich, headed the slate as the suspended students.

The Voice slate would have won all ten positions except for an electoral provision guaranteeing minority representation to candidates from other parties polling more than ten percent of the vote.

Six seats went to the Voice ticket. The voting was by weighted ballots, and it was urged that Camejo and Erlich be the first and second choices, since the harshest disciplinary action had been taken against then.

Camejo, a well-known Trotskyist and spokesman for the Socialist Workers party, came in first. An article from Berkeley in the December 11 Militant said that "members of the election committee unofficially reported [Camejo's vote] to be the highest vote total in the history of student elections here."

It is expected that the university administration will attempt to prevent the elected Voice student senators from taking office on the ground that they are under disciplinary action.

The 27,000 students at the Berkeley campus have long been pace setters in the American student radical movement. The results of this election indicate that a clear majority are consciously opposed to the war in Vietnam and are ready to cast their votes for candidates who are avowed revolutionary socialists if they articulate these antiwar sentiments or are victimized for participating in antiwar actions.

While Berkeley is in advance of many other campuses in the United States, the same process is taking place across the country. The students as a whole are only the most visible indicators of a radicalization, developing over the issue of the war in Vietnam, that reaches deep into the American masses.

Antiwar sentiment is deepest among students and black people, but it penetrates a considerable and increasing section of the white working class.

The overt signs of the process include the teach-ins, rallies and demonstrations; the massive outpourings on April 15 and October 21; the plunge in Johnson's popularity; and the recent election in San Francisco where the vote on a referendum on the war registered 30 percent for immediate withdrawal of U.S. troops from Vietnam, with 18 percent abstaining and 52 percent opposed to immediate withdrawal but not necessarily in favor of the war.

At each stage the student movement has appeared as a harbinger of deeper motion among the masses. The Berkeley student election is another straw in the wind.

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USLA JUSTICE COMMITTEE LAUNCHES "NEEDIEST" CAMPAIGN FOR POLITICAL PRISONERS

The United States Committee for Justice to Latin American Political Prisoners (USLA Justice Committee) has launched a drive to raise funds for "Christmas and after" for the political prisoners in Peru and Mexico.

Under the headline "The New York Times Neediest Appeal Won't Help Them for Christmas.....Will You?" a letter is going out this week in the New York area. At the same time, supporters of the conmmittee are arranging fund-raising parties for the holiday season and collections are being taken up at various meetings.

One such collection will be made at Horace Mann Hall, Teachers College, Columbia University, on the evening of December 11, where Columbia University Students for a Democratic Society, Columbia University Young Socialist Alliance, the North American Congress on Latin Anerica (NACLA), and the USLA Justice Committee are jointly sponsoring a meeting to hear Ralph Schoenman speak.

As a member of a board of enquiry set up by the Bertrand Russell Peace Foundation, Schoenman went to Bolivia to investigate the violations of civil liberties and human rights committed by the Barrientos regime in the case of Régis Debray. Schoenman will tell what happened and how he came to be arrested by agents of the regime and put on a plane bound for the U.S.

The letter asking for funds for the prisoners reads in part: "Somewhere in Peru two children are waiting for their father to come home....He was taken away to jail when they were very small -taken away because he tried to help people get land and enough to eat....His name is Hugo Blanco and...he is still revered....it is important for his morale, and the morale of those still struggling, that he not be forgotten...there are no CARE or Red Cross packages sent out to Hugo Blanco and his companions."

The letter continues with "Case 2," the Mexican political prisoners..."granted their 'Christmas present' by the authorities. They will be allowed to stay together in one section of the jail, separated from the rest of the prison population. This is a significant victory for Victor Rico Galan, Adolfo Gilly, Rail Ugalde, and the dozens of young students, workers, and professionals pulled into prison in the wave of hysteria that has swept Mexico for over two years. But it does not affect their material condition in the prison or improve the lot of many of their families. For this aid, for the holidays and after, they can turn only to the people...who are opposed to witch-hunts everywhere...."

The choice of the Mexican and Peruvian prisoners for this particular appeal was made because conditions are favorable for assuring that the money will reach then.

News of the Christmas appeal has already gotten out, and contributions are coming in. A young woman worker in Boston has pledged $25 a month for Hugo Blanco, and with her first payment she sent a note saying "...in order to support his family, Hugo Blanco must paint postcards. It is a shame that this man's knowledge of the guerrilla movement cannot be utilized -- that is, written down and published....You can expect my check on the 16th or 17th of every month."

Officers of the USLA Justice Conmmittee are Dave Dellinger and Paul Sweezy, cochairmen; and John Gerassi, vicechairman. Donations for the prisoners should be sent to the USLA Justice Committee, P.O.Box 2303, New York, N Y. 10001.

FORTHCOMING COLLECTION OF GUEVARA'S WRITINGS

Merit Publishers announced Decenber 6 that Che Guevara Speaks, a 159-page collection of speeches, statements, interviews and letters by the heroic revolutionary leader will be published in two weeks.

The collection begins with an interview granted to two journalists from China, shortly after the victory in Cuba, and ends with Guevara's famous message in which he called for "two, three, many Vietnams."

The topics include the Cuban revolution, problems of revolutionary ideology, guerrilla warfare, economic planning, imperialism, the colonial revolution, selection of revolutionary cadres, the "Alliance for Progress," trade and other relations between industrialized and underdeveloped nations, and the transformation of man under socialisn.

The book costs $4.50 in cloth and $1.95 paperback. The address is Merit Publishers, 873 Broadway, New York 10003.

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ANOTHER WITCH-HUNT CASE IN MEXICO

By Ricardo Ochoa Mexico City The daily newspapers published contradictory versions December 2 of the declarations made by the "conspirators" in the new case of fourteen political opponents of the regime, who were secretly arrested, tortured to wring "confessions" from them, and then presented to the public by the police November 29 as "criminals."

Not even El Dia, which ordinarily publishes the declarations made by those arrested under similar circumstances, reported the text of their statements. Since they have been denied counsel up to this point, in accordance with the practice of the regime in repressing political opponents, it is necessary to go by what the newspapers claim the defendants said when they stood up for arraignment.

The declarations were made before the third district judge handli criminal matters, Attorney Jaime Martinez Montes de Oca. "All the arrested," said El Dia, "except the lawyer, Juan Ortega Arenas, denied their previous declarations made before the juridical adviser of the Secret Service and the agent of the Public Ministry of the Attorney General's Office, contending that these were forced by physical and mental coercion. Nevertheless, some of them -- Gerardo Pelaez, Antonio Gershenson, Salvador Lozano Garcia, and Yolanda Ortiz Sanchez -- ratified part of their declarations before the third district judge."

"As for Ortega Arenas, who was named as the intellectual sponsor in creating the Partido Mexicano de Trabajadores [Mexican Workers party]," continued El Dia, "he reaffirmed his previous declarations in the sense that he never organized any political party, nor did he belong to any grouping of this kind."

Antonio Gershenson, a nuclear physicist, denied the charge of robbery, but admitted, according to El Dia, that he was the "intellectual and material" sponsor of the bomb placed in the Bolivian embassy last October 13, which exploded later in police headquarters.

He admitted being a leader of the Partido Mexicano de Trabajadores, the objective of which, according to El Dia's account, is "to heighten the economic and political potential of the workers."

He denied having gone to Campeche and Guerrero "to organize political groups."

He stated that he had been beaten and coerced while being "questioned." A pistol was aimed at him by his inquisitors.

La Prensa reported that Gershenson made the following declaration on "the bomb" placed in the Bolivian embassy: "The explosives put together were simple firecrackers that had no destructive power and could only let off smoke and noise." They were placed in the embassy as a symbol of protest over the murder of Ernesto Che Guevara. He told how he met Ortega Arenas and how relations were broken off between them a year ago; and he denied that Ortega had anything to do with the Partido Mexicano de Trabajadores.

Salvador Lozano Garcia said that the "confessions" he made were wrung from hin by "physical and mental coercion." He repudiated part of what he had said but "admitted having participated in meetings protesting the death of Ernesto Guevara and of having spoken at them, although he claimed that he did not remember what he had said there."

He denied the charges of robbery, making bombs, participating in the assault against Aleman's statue at the university or the one against the Bolivian embassy, etc. He admitted the "crime" of studying under Gershenson about the construction of home-made bombs but said he had never made one. As for the Partido Mexicano de Trabajadores, he admitted being a leader of it and of having proselytized for it.

Yolanda Ortiz Sanchez admitted menbership in the same party and of havin proselytized for it. According to El Dia she denies stating that Juan Ortega Arenas was a member. (La Prensa claims the opposite, declaring she admitted saying he was a member.) In the confrontation with Ortega Arenas she said that she had never met him although she knew about hin.

The other defendants made similar declarations, according to El Dia, certifying some of the declarations wrung from them by the police (such as being members of the PMT) and denying other accusations. "They were unanimous in affirming that the police used physical and mental coercion in wringing statements from them."

La Prensa reported some details that were omitted from the account offered by El Dia. It said this about Fabio Erazo Barbosa: "This fellow [the reference is to the victim] claimed that at police headquarters they stripped him naked and applied shocks to his genitals

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with an electrical device. According to him, they wanted him to declare that he was guilty of holding up two bank cars and the Longoria bank. [Three sensational holdups which the Mexican police, so efficient in cooking up cases of "subversion and plots," have not been able to solve in the year since they occurred. ] Fabio Erazo denounced a secretary of the court, not wanting the declarations imputed to him read, and said:

"'For the first time I am being informed of things I did not do. It is true that I organized the demonstration of last July 26; that I participated in the university demonstration and strike last year; that I joined the Organizacién Civica Guerrerense [Guerrero Civic Organization]; that I was a member of the Liga Comunista Espartaco [Communist Spartacist League]; that I participated in the movement of Othén Salazar [leader of the schoolteachers of the Federal District in 1958-60], in the Movimiento Independiente Revolucionario Estudiantil [in reality the Movimiento de Izquierda Revolucionaria Estudiantil -- Left Revolutionary Student Movement]; that I received magazines and pamphlets from Conmunist China; that Juan Ortega Arenas is one of our leaders; that I made a trip to Cuba to attend the meeting of OLAS [Organization of Latin-American Solidarity], but none of this is a crime.

"'The same procedures as the police used are being followed here,' exclaimed the defendant. 'The whole thing is a farce. The police came to my home and took the little I had, including ny books and magazines. In my declaration the names of persons that had nothing to do with this appear.

"'T ask,' he continued, 'if belonging to a student group and supporting sectors suffering misery and political oppression is a crime. It is the police who are committing crimes, the police who arbitrarily kidnap a person. I don't believe I am jailed; it is the whole people who are jailed in the most frightful misery. un

The press quoted Vicente Cruz Ortiz as denying that he placed a bomb in the automobile of an agent of the Public Ministry.

Miguel Alberto Reyna was reported to have declared that he had nothing whatever to do with any aspect of the case.

Francisco Luna Leal reportedly said he had a bad headache which prevented him from speaking.

Seven of the defendants, said La Prensa, “said nothing important." Despite La Prensa's way of dismissing what they said, they may spend years in prison -even before the courts finally bring in a verdict.

As can be judged from this résumé, the new case could scarcely be more grotesque. It is another link in the chain of repression being wound around the revolutionary groups. People are accused of making "trips with political aims," with "proselytizing" for their groups and their ideas. In short they are accused of what are considered to be "crimes" only by the most reactionary dictatorships.

Does this mean that the Mexican government has lost its sense of balance? On the contrary. The very same day that these new victims of his government were brought before the judge, President Gustavo Diaz Ordaz addressed the nation from the city of Puebla as part of the observances of his third year in office. (The presidential term in Mexico is for six years.)

The highest spokesman of the Mexican government could not have been more gloomy in delivering his message. All the journalists described the president as very worried, speaking in a grave tone that hid nothing of his concern.

The closing words of his speech bore out the impression of the journalists: "I am in the deepest need of help from all Mexicans in order to be able to continue serving the country with some possibility of success in the very difficult and anguished years we are undergoing.

As the head of government, he knows better than anyone the grave problems facing the Mexican exploiters on a national scale. He understands how deepgoing is the tendency among the masses to bring forward movements against the economic and political privileges which the Mexican state guarantees to the bourgeosie, and therefore how dangerous even the smallest consciously revolutionary force is in such an explosive atmosphere.

U.S. PROWESS IN NORTH VIETNAM

At the hearings in Copenhagen on U.S. war crimes in Vietnam, it was reported that one village of 500 inhabitants had in recent months received an average of 8 bombs for each person and 4 artillery shells for every square meter. In 19 months in this region, 27,000 homes were burned, 3,360,000 iters of grain were destroyed, and 25,500 hectares of crops were levelled by the U.S. forces.

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MEXICAN DEFENSE COMMITTEE APPEALS FOR PROTEST ACTIONS

Mexico City

[The Committee for the Defense of the Political Prisoners in Mexico issued the followi statement to the press November 30. xk *

Yesterday, scarcely four months after a similar case, the press announced that the police had arrested a group of fourteen "terrorists." These included ten students, three workers end a lawyer.

The federal attorney general's office filed the following charges against them before the third district judge of the Federal District:

(1) The dynamiting and destruction of the statue of the former president of the republic, Miguel Aleman, at the University City in June, 1966.

(2) Damaging a truck belonging to the Mexican army by use of explosives on July 3 of this year at a place near La Union, Guerrero.

(3) Setting a bomb in the Bolivian embassy in Mexico City last October 13 which exploded while it was being examined at police headquarters, causing serious injuries to the bomb experts handling it.

(4) Various robberies of commercial and educational establishments.

(5) Damaging an automobile belonging to an agent of the public ministry of the delegation of Azcapotzalco through the use of an explosive device.

(6) "...numerous other assaults and robberies which will be the object of subsequent investigation."

In addition to all this, the political character of the new case of fourteen defendants is indicated in the faqllowing: "The activities of the fourteen persons...were designed to achieve certain aims against the [government] institutions through various organizations, among others those denominated the Partido Mexicano de Trabajadores [Mexican Workers Party] and the Movimiento de Izquierda Revolucionaria Estudiantil [Revolutionary Left Student Movement]."

The Committee for the Defense of the Political Prisoners in Mexico demands that the basis for these charges be genuinely examined. In view of the experience in the previous case of fourteen, arrested last July, it is to be feared that the "confessions," which the police

claim the defendants made, were wrung

from them through the worst torture.

The committee demands respect for

the constitutional rights of all the vic-

tims of such methods and stresses the

political nature of the new case.

The defendants are: the lawyer,

Juan Ortega Arenas; the students, Mario

Rechi Montiel, Luis Enrique Gerardo del

Toro y Najera, Francisco Luna Leal, En-

rique Condes Lara, Max Arturo Lopez Her-

nandez, Antonio Gershenson Tafelov (al-

ready kmown as a nuclear physicist),

Fabio Erazo Barbosa Cano, Gerardo Pelaez

Ramos, Salvador Lozano Garcia, and Gloria

Yolanda Ortiz Sanchez; and the workers

Alberto Reyna de la Cruz, Vicente Ortiz

Cruz, and Justino Juarez "Martinez.

With these additions, the politi-

cal prisoners in Lecumberri penitentiary

now number fifty-six. There are eight

political prisoners in the women's jail.

Outside the Federal District,

where it is more difficult to determine

the exact number, hundreds of political

prisoners are suffering the interminable

delays with which all cases of revolu-

tionary political opponents of the regime

are handled.

As in the case of the repressions

that occurred last year (Adolfo Gilly,

the Argentine journalist and his four

comrades belonging to the Partido Obrero

Revolucionario, and Victor Rico Galan,

Rail Ugalde, Rolf Meiners, Isaias Rojas,

Gilberto Balam and other members and

leaders of the Movimiento Revolucionario

del Pueblo [Revolutionary Movement of the

People]) and the repressions last July

(Adan Nieto, José Luis Calva Téllez,

Daniel Camejo and others), international

protests are important to help throw the

light of publicity on the repressive

course being followed by the Mexican gov-

ernment, which is so little known abroad.

The importance of such protests is

all the greater in view of Mexico's repu-

tation for being an "exception" in Latin

America, of being a country where demo-

cratic rights are really respected and

democracy rules.

Let them guarantee the new prison-

ers the right to a fair trial. Let the

authorities release at once all those who

have been imprisoned in retaliation for

their political opposition to the regime.

In Europe, and especially in the

United States, such actions can prove to

be of considerable efficacy because of

the repercussions they can have in Mexico.

-1,026-

The committee asks all groups, individuals and prominent figures to lodge protests with the executive and judicial authorities of Mexico in whatever form they deem most suitable.

Freedom for the political prison-

ers in Mexico!

Respect for the democratic rights

provided for in the constitution!

Stop the repression!

WYCLIFFE TSOTSI WINS CONTINUED POLITICAL ASYLUM IN ZAMBIA

New York

The Alexander Defense Committee was informed December 1 that Wycliffe Tsotsi, vice-president of the Unity Movement of South Africa, has been granted permission to remain in Zambia until he can find refuge elsewhere. The Zambian government rescinded its deportation proceedings against Mr. and Mrs. Tsotsi following an international campaign protesting the deportation order.

Mr. and Mrs. Tsotsi have lived in Zambia since their escape from the South African police in January, 1967. On October 30 the Zambian government informed them that their residence permits would not be renewed and that they would be deported from Zambia on November 14 if they had not left the country by then. No reasons were given for the deportation proceedings. The action appeared completely arbitrary, especially since Zambia has long been a haven for political refugees from the apartheid tyranny; indeed, all the anti-apartheid organizations, including the Unity Movement of South Africa, maintain offices-—in~exile in Lusaka.

While efforts to find a country to accept the Tsotsis continued, the Unity Movement appealed to foes of the South African police state to send messages to President Kaunda urging the rescinding of the deportation order. As messages poured in from organizations and individuals throughout the world, the Zambian government first extended the Tsotsis' residence permit to November 21 and finally granted an indefinite stay of the deportation order.

The messages to President Kaunda stressed the importance of Zambia as a haven for political exiles from South Africa, and pointed out that the deportation of the Tsotsis could only weaken the whole movement for African independence and strengthen the racist and reactionary forces on the continent.

Wycliffe Tsotsihas fought against apartheid in the ranks of the Unity Movement since 1935. He was a leading organizer among the peasants and nonwhite teachers until the South African government forced him to resign his post as principal of a high school in 1945. He

then devoted himself to the study of law,

and, as an attorney, represented hun-

dreds of people who fell victim to the

increasingly repressive laws of the South

African police state.

Growing demands by political op-

ponents of the state for Mr. Tsotsi's

legal services and his organizing work

among the peasants drew increasingly

hostile attention from the government.

Threatened with imminent arrest by the

South African police for attending a

forbidden meeting, Mr. Tsotsi fled to

the British protectorate of Basutoland

in 1960. From Basutoland Mr. Tsotsi made

frequent secret trips to South Africa

where he continued his organizing work

among the peasants. On one such occasion

he was arrested and detained in solitary

confinement for eighty-two days. In

Basutoland, Mr. Tsotsi also acted as

attorney in practically all the cases

involving Pan Africanist Congress men-

bers and other political refugees whom

the South African government sought to

have returned to South Africa or who

were victimized by the Basutoland govern-

ment.

In 1966 Basutoland became the

formally independent state of Lesotho

and immediately came under South African

domination. As a consequence, Mr. Tsotsi

met with increasing difficulty in his

political work, and in December 1966 he

was ordered deported from Lesotho on the

ground that his presence was “inimical

to the peace, order and good government"

of that country. Mr. and Mrs. Tsotsi were

seized by the Lesotho police who turned

them over to the South African police at

the border post.

At this point, Mr. and Mrs. Tsotsi

made their escape. With the South African

police in pursuit, they finally made their

way to Zambia.

Among the many prominent Americans

who responded to the campaign launched by

the Alexander Defense Committee of the

United States and sent messages to Presi-

dent Kaunda asking that he intervene to

prevent the expulsion of the Tsotsis,

were: John Henrik Clarke, associate edi-

tor of Freedomways; Michigan Congressman

John Conyers, Jr.; Ossie Davis; Dave

Dellinger, chairman of the National Mobi-

-1 ,027-

lization Committee to End the War in Vietnam; Professor John Gerassi; Charles P. Howard, president of the Howard News Service; Carl Haessler, managing editor, Federated Press; Professor B.E.Garskof; Dr. Edgar Keemer; Floyd McKissick, national director of CORE; Carl Oglesby, past president of Students for a Democratic Society and cochairman of the Alexander Defense Committee; Fabu Sabura;

Report from the Underground

Paul Sweezy, coeditor of Monthly Review;

Richard B. Tussey, president, Local 285,

Agricultural and Allied Workers; G. Men-

nen Williams, past assistant secretary

of state for African affairs; William

Worthy, foreign correspondent for the

Baltimore Afro-American; and civil-

liberties and civil-rights attorneys

Max Dean, Bernard Feiger, Ernest Goodman

and Conrad lynn.

CHE'S NAME RESOUNDS IN BOLIVIA

[The following interview was granted by a member of the Partido Obrero Revolucionario (Revolutionary Workers party) to a journalist on a visit to Bolivia early in November. It was made public in Montevideo on November 22.

(The translation is by World Outlook. ]

* * *

Question: Have any actions been carried out in Bolivia in tribute to Che since his death?

Answer: Actions have occurred in almost all the universities -- La Paz, Oruro, Santa Cruz, Cochabamba, Potosi... symbolic acts, demonstrations, etc. A very interesting tribute was paid to Che in Tarija where he was listed among the Liberators of the Americas.

The students of the School of Medicine in La Paz took over the Nueva América radio station, one of the most popular in the country, for ten minutes, and shouted "Long live Che" and "Long live the National Liberation Army." The international press tried to discount this by presenting it as a student "prank."

In the mines, meetings have been held where solidarity with the guerrillas was voted for; but, as can be understood, the military occupation of the mines pre- Gents public demonstrations in tribute to ne.

Q: Have the guerrillas been defeated in Bolivia?

A: No. Naturally the death of Che and many of his comrades constitutes a stiff blow, but it does not mean annihilation as Barrientos claims. A few days ago, when it was being publicly proclaimed that the guerrillas had been reduced to six persons and were on the point of being liquidated, having been surrounded, Inti Peredo's group fought a battle in which they managed to break out

of the encirclement. The other day, at

a place more than 200 kilometers away,

another group of twenty-three guerrillas

took a town, seized supplies and provi-

sions, and then retreated. This happen-

ing alone proves that there is more than

one group carrying on, and more than six

guerrillas.

Q: Has the repression been very

hard in La Paz since the death of Che?

A: Brutal. There are more than 200

new prisoners, in addition to the 300 min-

ers who have been held in Panéptico for

some time accused of conspiring with or

having ties with the guerrillas.

In Santa Cruz, for example, a 65-

year-old woman, the mother of one of our

comrades, who was already living under

very difficult circumstances, was taken

by the police as a hostage to try to get

her to denounce her son.

Every trade-union activist faces

dismissal if he is so much as accused of

being "linked" with the guerrillas, and

often it means imprisonment.

In the mines, this means, in ad-

dition, that he is dispossessed from his

miserable lodgings and expelled from the

town.

In the mining districts, the army

has invaded homes and claimed that the

things they found there were bought with

money provided by the guerrillas, thus

entitling them to pilfer utensils and

household goods.

Recently the police detained a

miner in Huanuni, a mining district, and

treated him so brutally that he was left

almost dead. The people stormed the head-

quarters to rescue him, and severely pun-

ished the police. To avoid any bigger com-

plications, the army did not intervene,

staying in the hills outside the town,

where they usually maintain their camp.

Q: What_is the attitude of the sol-

-1,028~-

diers, taking into account that they are also part of the people, toward the guerrilla question?

A: You have to take into account that they are constantly shifted from place to place; and, in addition, are subjected to ferocious repression. Recently a case was reported of a machine gunner who was ordered to fire on people and he refused because they were his own people. When he refused to obey the order a second time, an officer killed him in front of his comrades, without the least compunction.

Cases have been reported, such as during the massacre at San Juan, where soldiers, stiff with cold in the morning, had not fired a single shot; and others who fired into the ground. On that occa~ sion, the miners did not kill soldiers, but various soldiers were shot in the back by their own officers. There are barracks in which at least one soldier is shot every week by the officers. Recently at the railway center of Huyuni, a lieutenant killed a soldier who refused to fire on some workers who had been drinking a little. The lieutenant was promoted for his "bravery."

There are cases in the mining districts in which soldiers have gone to the workers to suggest attacking the barracks in an organized way, because they are ready to collaborate. Of course, these are only isolated cases. It should be mentioned, too, that families have demonstrated in various areas to prevent their youth from being taken into military service, as happened some months ago in Pando and Beni.

: What_is the situation like in the miners' movement since the massacres?

A: The miners' movement has been completely disorganized, its leaders arrested and imprisoned, dismissed and persecuted. But in line with their tradition of struggle, the miners have been resort-— ing to new forms of organization, as well as developing new leaders. Underground committees have appeared, in which the most genuine leaders, the most experienced, are active. Likewise in the legal trade unions, minimum demands are being raised. This is happening in Catavi, Siglo XX and Huanuni, where the unions are opening up new fronts. And the student movement, it is to be noted, has taken up the task of contributing to rebuilding the trade-union movement.

The pnderground committees are serving as the axis for this reorganization, since that is where the best militants among the miners are to be found. The problem of armed struggle is constantly posed there. It was from this source that almost all the miners came who fought in Nancahuazi.

I would like to add something more. The daily topic of conversation in the mines is how to handle the problem of the army. Every miner has his ideas on this and they are continually debating it. The work of these committees also explains why men in the army get "lost," the army command claiming that they are deserters.

: What is the attitude of the peasants?

A: I would like to point to the attitude of the peasants in Ucurefia, in the Cochabamba valley. After Che's death, they staged demonstrations in tribute to him, painting slogans on the walls in the town and shouting, "Long live Che!" It should be noted that the demonstrations were carried out by groups, who went through the town on foot or in trucks despite the repression in force there. The army was sent in the next day.

Moreover, the attitude of these peasants is outright repudiation of the bureaucracy controlled by the government, the bureaucracy being the only "force" which Barrientos can rely on in the countryside. The attitude of the peasants in Ucurefia is shared by the peasants in other regions; in some areas it can be said that they don't know about the guerrilla question, but nowhere in Bolivia have the peasant masses displayed hostility toward the guerrillas.

Q: Anything else?

A: Yes. I would like the situation in Bolivia to be known everywhere, especially in Latin America, where the struggle includes the one going on in my country.

I am sure that the revolution will go forward, despite all the obstacles, even despite such unhappy events as the murder of Comandante Ernesto Che Guevara.

FRITZ TEUFEL FREED

Fritz Teufel, the 24-year-old student tried for "sedition" because he allegedly threw a stone at a cop during a demonstration against the shah of Iran last June, was freed by a West Berlin court December 1. More than 1,000 students staged a demonstration against the trial on November 24. The judge gave as his reason for freeing Teufel that he had already been held in prison for longer than he would have been sentenced if found guilty.

-1,029-

COPS MOBILIZED AGAINST DRAFT PROTEST IN NEW YORK

By Les Evans

Thousands of New Yorkers participated in the militant and effective "Stop the Draft Week" here December 4-8. Similar actions took place throughout the country, but we do not have full reports yet on those outside of New York.

The tone for the week was set here by the police who moved in in massive numbers, determined to split up and fragment the demonstrations. The focus of the antiwar protest was the Whitehall draft induction center in lower Manhattan island.

On December 5, 5,000 protesters gathered at Battery Park, near the induction center, at 5:30 a.m. The objective of the group, largely under pacifist leadership was to march to Whitehall where peaceful picketing would take place while a token number would stage a sit-in.

The police mobilized 5,000 cops with another 24,000 on standby. They set up wooden barricades surrounding the induction center. When demonstrators arrived they were herded into wooden "pens," allowing only a few hundred to remain in front of the Whitehall center, in violation of police agreements to permit a single unified demonstration.

At one point cops on horseback rode into the crowd, using clubs to drive demonstrators participating in the sit-in out of the street and onto the sidewalk.

The demonstration the following day was organized by the Stop the Draft Week Committee, a coalition of 50 student, antiwar and political groups.

Five thousand demonstrators, mostly students, were met by an equal number of cops. The committee had been promised by liberal Mayor Lindsay that they would be permitted to march in three groups from Battery Park to the induction center. The police, in violation of the agreement, set up mazes of barricades, cutting off the march and preventing it from getting near the building. One group of about a thousand was cut off by police, who forced it to march uptown, away from the induction center. Blocked at every turn by police, they marched for almost three hours trying to rejoin the main demonstration.

On Thursday and Friday demonstrators abandoned Whitehall, marching uptown.

Cops followed them on foot and horseback, mounting occasional brutal at-— tacks on groups which they succeeded in splitting from the main march. Almost 600 were arrested by the end of the week.

Large numbers of police provoca-

teurs were infiltrated into the demonstra-

tion. Many of these agents revealed them-

selves when arrests were made by helping

to arrest other demonstrators.

The effect of these agents -- and

small ultraleft groups, that advocate vio-

lent actions out of political conviction

-- was nullified by a large contingent of

volunteer marshals who maintained order

and prevented the cops from having an ex-

cuse for attacking the demonstration.

Thus, when the attacks and arrests

were made, it was clear to any fair-minded

observer that the police were wholly re-

sponsible. Even an army geologist who

witnessed a vicious police attack on sev-

eral hundred demonstrators in front of a

midtown army installation was driven to

say to the New York Times that "kids were

knocked over and stepped on....What the

police did was un-American, unchivalrous

and disgusting."

The aim of the police and of the

government, from New York's Mayor Lind-

say to Lyndon Johnson, is to isolate the

students from the massive sections of the

population who also oppose the war. Their

tactic is twofold: to make people afraid

to participate in antiwar demonstrations,

but even more important, to make the stu-

dents appear responsible for the violence

of the police.

It is extremely important that the

antiwar movement weigh very carefully the

demands it raises from the standpoint of

whether or not they can be accomplished

with the forces at hand, and whether or

not they lend themselves to distortion or

misrepresentation by the press and the

government.

One of the slogans this week was

"close Whitehall." Everybody in the demon-

stration recognized when they saw the .

cops that the police had the sheer mili-

tary force to keep Whitehall open. But

the cops used this "threat" as their ex-

cuse to break up the demonstration and

trample on the right of people to protest

a foul, undeclared, illegal war. The

press also took advantage of the demand

to "prove" that the demonstration had

been a "failure" because it had not suc-

ceeded in closing the draft headquarters.

There is a danger of substituting

radical talk for radical action. The

thing the capitalist rulers of America

fear most is the student movement forg-

ing links with the massive numbers in the

black ghettos and among white workers.

Then and only then will the antiwar move-

ment have the power to close down the war

against the people of Vietnan.

~1 ,030-

DEFIANT CZECH WRITERS PROVOKE A NATIONAL AND INTERNATIONAL DEBATE

By George Novack

In the early stages of the struggle for democracy in East Europe and the Soviet Union, writers, artists and scientists have taken the lead in voicing the discontents of the people and mobilizing progressive opinion against the worst abuses of the bureaucratic regimes. This initiative of the intellectuals has been evidenced in Soviet life over the past thirteen years, from the first signs of the cultural thaw in 1954, which preceded the demolition of the Stalin cult two years later, to the latest tug of war between the liberalizers and the diehards determined to uphold strict party supervision over all forms of creative activity.

Dissident writers and intellectuals were stimulators and heralds of the 1956 revolts in Poland and Hungary. The recurrent warnings in the Maoist press since the launching of the Cultural Revolution against dangerous "revisionist" critics in the, Communist party who might constitute Petofi clubs shows how deeply the lessons of these experiences with the intellectuals have been etched upon the minds of the monopolists of political power from Peking to East Berlin.

After the showdown a year ago between the Gomulka government and its critics at the University of Warsaw, which resulted in the expulsion of the philosopher Leszek Kolakowski from the party and strong protests from the faculty and students against this action (see "Report of a Participant on the Kolakowski Case," World Outlook November 10, 1967), the center of the continuing conflict between the intellectuals and the bureaucrats has shifted to Czechoslovakia.

The present grievances of the Czech writers against the arbitrariness of the authorities go back to the ayppression of Tvar in the fall of 1965. monthly was one of the most sophisticated

literary publications. After a violent campaign against its "unabashed liberalism," the party Ideological Department demanded that the Writers Union name a new editor-in-chief and reorganize its editorial board. With some resistance and reluctance, the Union Presidium complied.

Then a group of young writers held a, public meeting reminiscent of the Petofi Club gatherings which adopted a resolution condemning the fact that administrative measures "once again replaced literary discussion." More than three hundred writers and artists endorsed this resolution.

Nevertheless, the Writers Union Central Committee, under pressure from the party higher ups, went ahead and upheld the decision and Ivar ceased publishing.

The Tvar affair deepened discontent with the cultural climate and, in the two years since, all the burning issues relating to creative freedom have been subject to ardent debate in intellectual and political circles.

Four tendencies have emerged among the writers and intellectuals of Czecheslovakia. To the right stand the sentinels of the Old Guard who want to maintain the system of strict state and party control over all intellectual, scientific and artistic activities with a minimum of concessions to the insistent urge for relaxation. Beside them are the more sensitive and flexible official liberals who are willing and even eager to institute and support reforms, provided the primacy of the party in intellectual matters is unchallenged and unchanged.

The most rebellious elements are divided into the "unbelievers" and the "believers." The former are scornful of politics, inclined toward individualism and skepticism, and disillusioned with the hypocrisies of the "Communism" they see around them. They expect nothing from the regime and are not disposed to engage in any effort to clean up the mess. Such attitudes are not uncommon among the youth in all East European countries today.

Thirty-three year old Vaclav Havel is a typical spokesman for the sentiments of this current. His best-known play, The Memorandum, points its criticism at the regime within the framework of the theater of the absurd. Its theme is a transparent parody of the tragedy of Stalinism and the farce of de-Stalinization.

A group of employees seize control of a company -- obviously a symbol for the takeover of Czechoslovakia -- and introduce a nonsensical new language called "Ptydepe" which they imply is sanctioned by the mysterious mighty ones above. Scores of people learn the new lingo, interpret and analyze it, write books about it, make and break careers, organize scientific seminars and ideological structures around it. The manager who resists feebly against it is pushed aside.

Then one day it turns out, through equally obscure channels, that "Ptydepe"

~-1 ,031-

had never been officially favored, that it had to be extirpated, and those responsible for introducing it punished. Meanwhile, another equally incomprehensible language called "Chorukor" is put in its stead. And so the comedy goes on.

There are not a few such novels, plays, films and poems which are thinly disguised polemics against one or another repressive or depressive feature of official society and an argument in favor of greater freedon.

The hopelessness, cynicism, frustration and sense of isolation that mark this tendency can make some of its exponents veer off in reactionary directions. One of its members, for example, deplored the role of de Gaulle as tending to disrupt the ability of the West to balance its power against that of the Soviet Union. And there is the wellpublicized case of Ladislav Mnacko, whose novel The Taste of Power is a vitriolic portrayal of a conscienceless bureaucrat supposedly modeled after Premier Novotny. The book is banned in Prague. Mnacko broke with the regime over the Arab- Israeli war, accusing it of anti-Semitism because of its opposition to Zionist expansionism, and sought exile in Israel.

There are a few other disoriented intellectuals who identify the intolerable practices of bureaucratism with Marxism and socialism and are disposed to "choose freedom" in the West on the model of Stalin's daughter, Svetlana Alliluyeva.

The "believers" are of a different sort. While also in open revolt against the regimentation of the Communist party, which they regard as worn out and discredited, they are willing to undertake political and ideological struggle against its evil influence and look forward to a replacement for it. Their most vigorous voice belongs to the highly respected 41-year-old Ludwik Vaculik, editor, critic and author of two novels attacking Stalinism, and a long-standing party member.

A confrontation between these tendencies occurred at the Fourth Congress of Czechoslovak Writers which was held in Prague on June 27-29, 1967. The sharp tone of the debates at its tumultuous sessions can be judged by the bitter indictment of the party's political and cultural policies made by Vaculik. Here are some excerpts from his speech.

"I am speaking as the citizen of a state which I shall never renounce, but in which I cannot be content...The first law of Power is that it will try to perpetuate itself...Since it can legally block all future challenges to its rule, Power evolves into a dynasty...

"The selection of people also occurs on the basis of their usefulness to Power. The men who are given responsibility are the ones who cause no trouble and ask no questions. The most commonplace people fare best while the more complex individuals disappear from the stage...

"Art cannot renounce the subject of government because to govern means to make direct or indirect decisions through administrative acts which affect the lives of men, their hopes and disappointments, and, what is more, their thoughts. Ideas are outside the province of administrative acts and yet decisions are made about them; this is where the activity of power affects the activity of art. And this is why art cannot renounce criticism of government...

"I see a persistent trend and an unmistakable danger that the old, bad days will return...I don't feel safe in the cultural situation because the ruling power can throw it into turmoil. Equally, I don't feel safe outside the walls of this hall, that is, this 'playground.' I am not being harmed and I have not been harmed. Things like that don't happen anymore. Should I be grateful? I get no joy out of it because I'm afraid. I have no firm guarantees...

"It must be admitted that not one human problem has been solved in the last twenty years -- neither such elementary needs as housing, schools, economic prosperity nor spiritual needs which the undemocratic systems of the world cannot provide for, such as the creation of a feeling that politics are subordinate to ethics, a belief in the meaning of humble work, the need for mutual confidence among people, education of the people as a whole.

"In conclusion, I would like to state explicitly what is surely implicit in my entire speech: I do not pin ny criticism of Power in this state on the brow of Socialism because I am not convinced that these developments were necessary in our country, and because I do not identify this Power with Socialism although that is just what the Power would like me to do. Not even their destinies need be identical. And if the people who exercise this power...were to come here and pose the question as to whether the dream of a government at one with the citizen can be achieved, they would have to accept the following answer as an expression of my good will and highest civic loyalty: 'I don't know.'"

Vaculik's question mark over the possibilities of reforming the regime is pregnant with revolutionary implications. He has reportedly given the following advice to party people who think like him-

-1 ,032-

self. "They should end this isolation from each other and begin to develop relationships among themselves. They must get to know each other, to count on each other, so that some day they can be ready - " This is the formula for a Petofi lub.

After a two-month delay the Communist party cracked down on the rebels. On September 27 the Central Committee ousted Jan Prochazka, one of the country's best-— known writers, as a candidate member of the committee, expelled Vaculik and two other writers, Ivan Klima and R.S.Riehn, and curbed the leading Czechoslovak literary magazine, Literarni Noviny. Although the actions came as no surprise, they were harsher than anticipated.

Prochazka belonged to the liberal wing of the party and, although not associated with the attacks on the party's monopoly of power at the Writers' Congress, he was probably punished because he worked to intercede for the dissidents.

Literarni Noviny, the most popular and outspokenly liberal publication in the country, was placed under the control of the Ministry of Education and Culture which effectively eliminates its independence. The Central Committee communiqué said that the magazine had "become an organ of opposition political views." The three critics expelled from the party were all on its editorial board and the communiqué charged that they had fallen under "narrow, sectarian and even foreign influences."

In the wake of the furor provoked by the party's disciplinary measures and the reinforcement of its censorship, the London Sunday Times printed a "manifesto" allegedly signed by 329 Czech intellectuals, whose names were not given, which appealed for help "to rescue the spiritual freedom and fundamental rights of every independent artist threatened by the terror of the state powers." [See World Outlook September 22, page 790.] This document was branded as spurious by the Prague government and is said to have emanated from a small group of emigrés in West Germany.

Despite its dubious character, the "manifesto" set off a series of declarations which have elevated the struggle of the Czechoslovak writers into an international issue. It specifically called upon three noted German writers, among other leftist intellectuals, to raise, their voices in protest, These were Gunter Grass, Heinrich Boll and Peter Weiss.

Grass addressed an "open letter" to Czech President Novotny supporting the demand of the Czechoslovakian artists for freedom of expression and an end to censorship. "In just a few years the Czech artists have won worldwide esteem for your country," he reminded the head of state. “And it is not in the uniform opinions of your party meetings where you sullenly deliver your dictums that we hear your message, but in the Czech poetry, the Czech film, the new Czech theater which has reached, moved, and changed us. And you want to give up this wealth?"

Grass went on to say: "I also write in a country that has known terror. The damage that remains after every political terror has not been undone here either. It continues, whether it is in the creeping censorship called ‘voluntary self-control' or in the recently uncovered criminal measures of Springer's spies. [Springer is the West German press lord. ] So we have no ground to harp on the freedom of the West. There is no room for arrogance and for that reason I refuse to write this letter from the popular podium of anti-Communism. The crisis of democracy is worldwide. If the Communist states petrify under the dictatorship of Party bureaucracy the Western democracies stagnate because their parliaments are corrupted by the bonds of interest groups."

His plea was seconded by Heinrich Boll who pointed out that “our position here is also very difficult and ambiguous. A number of Western writers issued reports against both the arrest of Daniel and Sinyavsky and the Vietnam War. All the several hundred West German newspapers published our protest against the arrest of the two Soviet writers, but only a few printed our protest against the Vietnam War. You can see how easily the freedom which every newspaper here enjoys is transformed into self-censorship, by using this freedom to report only the news items that are convenient..."

Grass's letter elicited a reply from the rebel playwright Pavel Kohout who explained that he was "one of the four participants at the Fourth Congress of the Czechoslovak Union of Writers whose names were stricken from the list of candidates for the new Central Committee of the Union." He repudiated the "manifesto" and declared it to be a fraud on its very face because it resorted "to the terminology of frayed anti-Communist propaganda."

Kohout stated that "the frank revelations of the 20th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, and the simultaneous recognition that the revolutionary power in our own country had also become despotic, was a hard psychic blow to Communist artists in particular. Yet, the team-generation was already too mature to scatter in all directions like a gang of young kids in front of a smashed window pane. With few exceptions, they understood there was only one possibility

-1 3033-

for them: continuance of the revolutionary process... "The struggle for genuine Socialism pervades my entire party and all strata of our society. People are joining together in the struggle not by virtue of their occupation but on the basis of how mature their thinking is. You will find more than one intellectual amongst us who rejects this forward movement because it would bring an end to the conformist period in which his meager talent found recognition. On the other hand, you will find 'functionaries' who for years have consciously been clearing the way for this movement...

"IT have no intention of saying, dear Gunter Grass, that your rush onto our battlefield was useless," he continued. "It is never useless to raise one's voice in defense even when it is the result of an error. An error of this kind is a hundred times more honorable and useful than indifference to the fate of others which can lead to overlooking crimes. I am writing to you because I recognize this. It is good to know that none of us lives on a desert island, that the awareness of a common human fate also exists in our insane, divided world and that it is growing..."

Upon his return from a two-month stay in Cuba, the internationally known dramatist, Peter Weiss, the author of Marat Sade, entered the controversy in connection with an invitation from the Czechoslovak Union of Writers to attend an international writers' conference scheduled for Prague on November 29, 1967. He, too, doubted the authenticity of the document for valid reasons.

Nevertheless, he stated that "I consider it extremely necessary to discuss the issue of freedom of speech and opinion publicly, of creative freedom and the abandonment of political censorship. I am, therefore, requesting the Czechoslovak Union of Writers to take up again the theme of the writer's position in a Socialist society..

"We Socialist writers who are mainly active in the West are just as much affected by the cultural restrictions in the Socialist countries as our colleagues in the East...We believe the Socialist countries are strong enough today...to have the courage to accommodate openly a major cultural conflict, deal with all inflammable questions and refrain from suppressing any of their aspects. Socialist and other progressive international writers can no longer accept having the conflict pushed aside by partisan party decisions.

"It is extremely important to me to have my works discussed not only in the Western world but in the Socialist countries as well. My own evolution to Marxism passed through many stages, from surrealistic experiments...to a radical political position. Isee no reason why artists in a Socialist state should be hanpered in their own natural development... Let us not forget that this society is incomplete in many respects and full of contradictions and that criticism and opposition are signs of vitality which can contribute to the progress of humanistic Marxism.

"We must examine how far the required freedom of expression can be extended before it can be exploited by reactionary and counterrevolutionary tendencies...We must discuss what we mean by progressive art.

"Is Socialist realism progressive in relation to modern, socially critical works of art that have their origins in the bourgeois world, or does this realism live on forms which stem from a lower middle-class view of reality? The ques-— tion must be asked whether it is the task of cultural institutions in Socialist countries to encourage statements that are historically and socially truthful about the complex structure of society, or whether they should engage in nurturing a conformist and idealistic picture of the present situation.

Weiss asked for an answer from the Union of Writers before he would consent to participate in its international synposium. We do not know whether he received one or what he decided to do.

The questions concerning artistic and intellectual freedom posed by Peter Weiss do transcend national boundaries and even opposing social systems today; they are of common concern to writers of both East and West. The students and writers of West Germany, faced with the reac-— tionary Springer press combine and the restrictions of the Bonn Republic, and the dissenting American intellectuals demonstrating against the Vietnam war, who are beaten by cops and accused by Johnson and his echoers of aiding "the enemy," are engaged in the same battle for freedom of expression as the Czechoslovak and Soviet writers. As Grass and others indicate, it is not easy to conduct this struggle in a principled way and avoid entanglement in the webs of imperialist propaganda and intrigue against the countries with a socialist economic base and the colonial revolution. Yet it is unwarranted to remain silent and shirk solidarity with the persecuted intellectuals on either side.

The ferment among the Communist intellectuals in Czechoslovakia testifies to the irrepressible thrust of the de- Stalinization processes which were long delayed in that country. They began only

-1,034-

in 1963 but have moved quite fast since then. They are bound to go further.

Novotny's repressive measures against the unorthodox writers should do more to stimulate than to stop the demands for reform in many spheres which reflect deep dissatisfactions within Czech society and reach into the upper

JOHNSON STARS IN ROLE

Admirers of Lyndon B. Johnson were greatly heartened by a sudden reversal in the steep decline of their hero's popularity. After dropping to a low of 23% in a Louis Harris poll of confidence in the president's handling of the war in Vietnam, a poll released December 4 by the same source showed a remarkable recovery of 11 points. Johnson now stands at 34%.

The leap upward from the bottom of the barrel came between the first and last weeks of November. Connoisseurs of political images were quick to point out that this was precisely when the "old" Johnson died and the "new" Johnson was born. November 17 was the historic day when Johnson appeared in public for the first time "wired for sound"; i.e., with a microphone hidden under his coat so that he became free to pace the stage and rise to the height of his unusual talents as an elocutionist.

Among the most elated of the president's admirers was Johnson himself. On the day the latest poll figures were released, he felt in such fine fettle that he even tried his hand at humor.

He started his day, reported Max Frankel of The New York Times, with "innocent merry-making." Before signing legislation, in a show of the president at work, "he played the role of stand-up comic, deftly tossing off a dozen gags that he and unknown writers had assembled for the occasion."

These went over so great, that the president put on another performance in the evening, again resorting "to the use of gags."

"This group of jokes was built around Secretary of State Dean Rusk, who, he said, had asked for offices and entertainment rooms on the seventh and eighth floors of the building because that was ‘too far to jump and too high for the pickets to climb.' circles of the party itself.

"The writers' protest," observed Richard Eder in the November 12 New York Times, “is the most dramatic event that has taken place" in Czechoslovakia since the Communist conquest of power. It may be taken as the precursor of bolder acts of opposition to come.

OF "STAND-UP COMIC"

"'But Dean forgot all about the birds,' he said, noting that Mrs. Rusk gave the Secretary a bag of crumbs each day for which sparrows and other birds were grateful. But he discovered that there was ‘just no pleasing the appetites of these damn doves,' Mr. Johnson said.

However, on coming into New York December 7 to attend the rites for the late Cardinal Spellman, Johnson apparently decided that the crowds there, many of whom were in the streets demonstrating against the war in Vietnam, might not have a sufficient sense of humor to appreciate his jokes.

And so he slunk into town unheralded and unannounced, arriving in the greatest secrecy at St. Patrick's Cathedral. Although he braved entering by the front door, he decided it the better part of valor to leave in a less conspicuous way, slipping out under heavy guard by the rear door.

"This was a profound disappointment to the waiting crowds on Fifth Avenue who had applauded his arrival at the main entrance," said The New York Times, which is highly skilled at reading the minds of an assemblage of people in the street and totting up the consensus.

Five pickets, displaying placards, were hustled off in an unmarked car by the police. Their signs read: "Napaln: Johnson's Baby Powder" [a play on the trade name of a well-known talcum powder in the U.S.]; "Vietnamese Should Die So Good"; "LBJ, LBJ, How Many Kids Did You Kill Today?"

Evidently these five, like many other Americans, had not yet been turned on by Johnson's new image and his skill as a jokester.

Nevertheless, that eleven point rise on the popularity dial was a gratifying turn for a performer who had expected only a new hail of wilted vegetables and poorly preserved eggs from the audience.

-1 3035—-

A NEW VERSION OF THE EXECUTION OF ERNESTO CHE GUEVARA

A new version of the execution of Ernesto Che Guevara was published in The New York Times of October 4. The previous version, emanating from Bolivian army circles and passed on by journalists to the world press, was that the revolutionary hero had been executed by a bullet fired from a pistol through his heart. The new version is that he was machinegunned. The two versions are, of course, not contradictory. Guevara may have been machine-gunned and then given a coup de grace by a Bolivian army officer.

The latest details were supplied by Juan de Onis, special correspondent of the Times, in a December 2 dispatch from Pucara, Bolivia.

"Mr. Guevara was captured near La Higuera by the Bolivian Army on Oct. 8," writes de Onis. "Two days later, the army's high command announced that he had been killed in a clash between Government troops and the guerrilla band he was leading. An army spokesman said that Mr. Guevara had admitted his identity before dying of his wounds. On Oct. 17, the army said an autopsy report showed that loss of blood from nine bullet wounds had caused death."

The Times correspondent then reports his own findings after investigation in the area:

"It was learned in this remote mountain region thut Mr. Guevara had been held as prisoner in the La Higuera schoolhouse for a night after he was captured, slightly wounded. On the following day he was machine-gunned by a Bolivian nonconmmissioned officer."

Juan de Onis provides the following additional information:

"On Oct. 8 Mr. Guevara, a hero of the Cuban revolution who tried unsuccessfully to recreate in Bolivia the exploits of Fidel Castro's guerrilla insurrection, was captured in a gorge a mile from La Higuera during a battle with Bolivian troops.

"Mr. Guevara was taken to La Higuera with wounds in one leg and a flesh wound in the back. He was held overnight in the schoolhouse, questioned by Bolivian officers, and executed the morning of Oct. 9 on orders received by radio fron armed forces headquarters in La Paz, the Bolivian capital. .

"In La Higuera, a hamlet with about 20 houses, the circumstances of Mr. Guevara's death are common knowledge. Many people in Pucara have relatives in La Higuera and have been there recently."

According to de Onis, the death

and subsequent disposition of Che Gue-

vara's body remains a touchy subject

with the Bolivian military.

"Capt. Gary Prado, the infantry

officer who led the troops that captured

Mr. Guevara, has submitted a battle re-

port dissociating himself from the execu-

tion. He said he turned over his prisoner,

along with papers, including a campaign

diary found in Mr. Guevara's knapsack, to

Lieut. Col. Andres Selich on the after-

noon of Oct. 8.

"Colonel Joaquin Zenteno, comman-

der of the Eighth Division, arrived by

helicopter in La Higuera on the morning

of Oct. 9. About 11 A.M. bursts of gun-

fire in the schoolhouse were heard. A

noncommissioned officer with a machine

gun was in the schoolroom at the time.

"Shortly after the shots were

heard, the body of Mr. Guevara was

brought out, with bullet wounds in the

chest and neck. The wounds had not been

there when Captain Prado turned over Mr.

Guevara, who had been able to walk with

assistance at that time.

"The body of another guerrilla,

identified as Aniceto, who had been

brought to the schoolhouse as a wounded

prisoner, was also brought out. Mr. Gue-

vara's body was lashed to the landing

sled of a helicopter and flown to Valle

Grande."

Barrientos, it appears, would now

like to wipe out even the scene of the

crime:

"La Higuera, 10 miles from here,"

Juan de Onis reports from Pucara, "has

been placed out of bounds for all visi-

tors. According to villagers, the school-

house is being torn down and a new one

will be built."

The Times correspondent also re~

ports that the top officials in the dic-

tatorship continue to give contradictory

versions about what they did with the

body.

"At one point, Gen. Alfredo Ovando

Candia, commander of the armed forces,

informed the Argentine Embassy that Mr.

Guevara, who was born in Argentina, had

been cremated. Last week, during a visit

to Rio de Janeiro, General Ovando was

quoted as having said that there had been

no cremation of the body, rather a secret

burial.

"Yesterday, armed forces headquar-

ters said in a statement that the gener-

al's words had been misinterpreted and

~1 ,036-

that the body had been burned. The location of the ashes is a military secret, according to the statement."

In a December 4 dispatch from La Paz, Reuter identified the "armed forces headquarters" statement as having been issued by the interim commander in chief of the armed forces, General Juan José Torrez, and said that he had explained that the misinterpretation of Ovando Candia's statement in Rio de Janeiro was due

NORWEGIAN STUDENTS REGRET SOVIET

[The following message, issued by the SUF (Sosialistisk Ungdomsforbund -- Young Socialist League -- a youth group of the left-socialist Norwegian People's Socialist party), was published in the November 11 issue of the Oslo weekly, Orientering.

[It was signed by the national leaders of the SUF, the national leaders of the Sosialistisk Studentforbund (Socialist Student League) and the following individuals: Hartvig Saetra, Asbjgrn Smevik, Bjgrn Furre, Odd Dalen, Kjell Bygstad, Svein Johansen, Magne Skrindo, Oddvar Groder, Arne Byhre, Bjgrn Flakken, Leif Nilsen, Ragnhild Smevik, Rune Skarstein, Einar Jetne, Bernt M. Fgrre and Ole Kapreitan.

[The translation is by World Outlook. ]

*x* * *

Fifty years ago, the October revolution was a source of great inspiration to revolutionists in all countries. At a time marked by imperialist war and the darkest reaction, the founding of the Soviet Union gave new hope to the oppressed throughout the entire world -hope for a world delivered from oppressors. The Soviet Union's subsequent industrial development and rapid economic to his superior's "poor understanding of Portuguese."

In Rio de Janeiro, however, Gen. Ovando brushed aside the explanation made by his subordinate. "I don't know what the intentions of my government are concerning the future disposal of the mortal remains of Guevara. So far as I am concerned, I suppose that they will be turned over to his family, as they should be.

COLLABORATION WITH WASHINGTON

growth made it clear that poverty and economic underdevelopment can be eliminated when the people take their fate in their own hands and go to work.

Freedom-loving people in all countries gratefully remember the resolute struggle of the Soviet people against fascism. And this is true especially for the people of Norway, who will always owe a debt of gratitude to the Soviet Union for the liberation of Finnmark [the northernmost province of Norway, which was liberated by Soviet troops from the Nazi occupation forces at the end of World War II]. The Soviet Union's respect for Norway's territorial integrity can stand as an example of the very best sort of relationship between a great power and a small country.

It is therefore with the greatest regret that we at present witness a policy of collaboration between the Soviet Union and the USA. This collaboration is an insult to the revolutionary movements which are engaged in a life and death struggle against American imperialisn.

As true friends of the Soviet Union and its fifty-year-old revolution, we express our hope that the Soviet Union will again find its place on the side of the revolutionary movements. Such would be in keeping with the spirit of its revolution.

AMERICAN INTELLECTUALS DEBATE "CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE"

By Arthur Maglin

The deepening antiwar mood among the American people is evident from a whole series of signs, including polls, letters to congressmen, the voting in certain areas and on certain issues like antiwar referendums, and rallies and denonstrations. One of the important indicators is the division occurring among the intellectuals and the tendency of the liberal wing to talk in a more radical language than has been heard since the thirties in the U.S.

A sampling of opinion in these circles was offered by the November 26 New York Times Magazine under the title, "Civil Disobedience, 1967." Those selected for quotation range from prowar "hawks"

-1,037-

to a figure like Paul Goodman, who has actively participated in demonstrations.

The editors, as dependable guardians of the bourgeois order, carefully excluded spokesmen of the revolutionary socialist movement in their round table. They did not include a single one of the key figures active in organizing the mass demonstrations that have begun to have such a strong effect on calculations among all tendencies in the American political scene.

The political purpose of excluding such figures from the symposium is quite obvious. The Times itself has been critical of the course followed by the Johnson administration in Vietnam, but on purely tactical grounds. The editors fear that Johnson has overextended the U.S. and provoked unnecessary dangers both abroad and at home. They are in favor of less belligerency and halting the bombing. They are not in favor of the U.S. withdrawing from Vietnam; in fact, they are in favor of keeping U.S. troops there, maintaining "enclaves."

Their attitude toward the domestic opposition corresponds with this view. They are against any kind of opposition that tends to put in question the capitalist system itself. They condone only an opposition that confines itself to tactical differences with the White House or Pentagon. They insist that even this opposition make clear, both in its declarations and in its deportment, that it accepts the basic premises of capitalism. Anyone who goes beyond polite "civil disobedience" is thus beyond the pale, so far as the editors of the Times are concerned. They are particularly exercised over the young militants of draft, if not voting, age who have engaged in organizing street demonstrations against the war in Vietnan.

The contributors to the symposiun, insofar as they stand in opposition to the war in Vietnam, all come within this frame, at least in the judgment of those who sponsored the discussion.

These limitations deprive the sanpling of opinion of any claim to being genuinely broad or an accurate reflection of the range of current opinion on the question of the U.S. role in Vietnan. Nonetheless it is of sufficient scope to show how the popular opposition to the war is affecting the intellectuals and tending to divide them into opposing camps.

Here are some typical statements included in this long article:

Professor John Dollard of Yale University argues that the Vietnam war is necessary: "For the next times I am in

favor of keeping the world peace as much

as possible -- which means, in practical

terms, not changing the power balance

between developed democracies, Communist

nations and less technically advanced cul-

tures and peoples. To this end, the Viet-

nam conflict seems to me a necessary

measure in checking Communist China's

second aggressive thrust in Asia within

20 years."

Professor Noam Chomsky of Massa-

chusetts Institute of Technology speaks

out against the war: "Those who defend

American policy speak vaguely of Commu-

nist '‘aggression.' Just when did this

‘aggression' take place? Was it in 1959,

when Hanoi radio was urging that the

leaders of the insurrection desist, when

Diem spoke of having an Algerian war on

his hands in the South while his agents

were being parachuted into North Vietnam?

Or was it perhaps in April, 1965, when

North Vietnamese troops were first dis-

covered in the South, two months after

the bombing of North Vietnam began --

400 in a guerrilla force of 140,000, at

a time when more than 30,000 American

troops were helping protect the Saigon

Government from its own population? Or

is it now, when a vast American army of

occupation has taken over the conduct of

the war, with about as many South Korean

mercenaries as there are North Vietnamese

troops in the South? Or does Hanoi's

‘aggression' consist in the sending of

supplies and trained South Vietnamese

cadres to the South? By these standards

our aggression in the South has always

been incomparably greater in scale, and

we are engaged in such aggression in

half the countries of the world."

William F. Buckley Jr., editor-

in-chief of the right-wing magazine,

National Review, supports the war with

the following argument: "If the head of

the American Bar Association were to de-

cline to support the Vietnam war on the

grounds of its shaky constitutional gene-

alogy, that is one thing. But when the

Constitution is suddenly discovered by

Dwight Macdonald, one puts that down (or

at least I put that down) to opportunism."

This argument is countered by Paul

Goodman, the author of Growing Up Absurd

and People or Personnel, who strongly

opposes the war: "The great majority of

resisters do not consider themselves as

lawless, whether they impede the draft,

refuse war taxes, or try to bar recruit-—

ers and war contracts from the campuses.

We hold that it is the Vietnam policy

that is illegitimate. It has been created

by a hidden government of military-

industrial lobbyists and the C.I.A.; the

Executive has gone beyond his mandate;

there has been no genuine debate and

voting in Congress; the public has been

lied to and brainwashed."

-1 ,038-

Professor Herbert C. Kelman of the University of Michigan also takes up the question of who is "legitimate": "The war in Vietnam is inconsistent with certain fundamental values of American society and is, in fact, abhorrent to wide segments of the population. Many of us see it as a violation of international law and morality, as an act of aggression against a small and weak people, as arrogant suppression of the forces of social change in the developing world, and as a resort to brutal means in the pursuit of questionable ends. The Administration's actions in Vietnam are illegitimate, then, because they violate the values that we feel this nation has stood for and ought to stand for."

The well-known novelist, James T. Farrell, who once considered himself a revolutionary socialist, complains: "Have we reached the point in history where civil disobedience is writing dirty words on a fence about the President of the country? Or calling members of his Administration names? I support the policy of the United States in its present commitment. And for my political views, I have been insulted by mail and by students during lectures."

Lewis S. Feuer, a prominent sociologist, gives vehement backing to Lyndon Johnson: “An American departure, as Southeast Asians themselves generally recognize, would probably uproot such fragile growths of democracy as now exist. Draft evaders in World War II used much the same arguments as the draft-card burners today. The New Left is using all the worn arguments that the Old Left used against American involvement during 1939 to 1941. The draft-card burners and the New Left have just as little moral justification."

Irving Kristol, a noted essayist, lines up behind LBJ: "Even were I opposed to the Administration's policy in Vietnan, which I am not, I would not regard this case as one in which civil disobedience is justified. The opportunities for dissent are obviously abundant, and even Ho Chi Minh seems to think they can be effectual."

Professor Sidney Hook of New York University gives his Social Democratic view of the U.S. Vietnam policy: "I do not believe that civil disobedience with respect to American Vietnam policy, if one is opposed to it, is justified. The