How easy is it to find justice in America? Now? During the Vietnam era?
From my own experience, it's very difficult. Even in routine mundane matters an ordinary citizen is up against an institution whose rules are largely unintelligable and whose integrity is often suspect. It's an institution concerned solely with the efficient and expeditious execution of its own procedures It has little or no regard for the spirit underlying it's own existence. The government agencies I dealt with considered the law little more than a convenience to be invoked if favorable or ignored otherwise. They had no respect whatsoever for it or any concept involving fairness and justice.
How is the neighborhood cop perceived? Now? During the Vietnam era?
That depends on where you live. In the suburbs they drove around in nice, new sedans and generally overlooked any rudeness from those they ticketed. In Roxbury (Boston's black ghetto) they drove around in vans and often rousted passersby - those who objected to their approach were booked and thrown into the back of the van. The only significant difference I can see between then and now is the level of violence. The police are a lot more afraid of and set apart from their fellow citizens than they used to be.
How did you feel about living in America as you approached draft age?
Being of `draft age' didn't have a lot of meaning to me. I expected to go to university after graduating from high school. I registered with Selective Service in much the same spirit that I got a drivers licence - it was a formality. Unfortunately I got trapped in one of those father-son conflict things and, at the last moment, my father refused to co-sign my student loan in an attempt to force me into the draft and military. Years later he apologized for doing that - he genuinely regret ted it. My dreams went up in smoke and now Vietnam was no longer a concept - it was a reality that would have to be dealt with. Being against the War suddenly involved a whole new set of consequences.
What made your perception of America change, if it did?
The Congressional Record. Aside from getting involved in Barry's campaign in '64 I also got a sub to the CR and took particular interest in Senators Wayne Morris (Oregon) and Ernest Gruenning (Alaska). At first, because they were Democrats with a signif icant gripe against Johnson. I think they were the only two members of Congress, perhaps just the Senate, who voted against the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution. They had many of the same virtues that I'd admired in Goldwater: honesty, a willingness to stick to their guns in the face of overwhelming opposition and a dogged adherence to the facts. There was none of that, "Just trust me" stuff that Johnson was always pulling. I started read ing their speeches and supplementaries as an opponent with grudging respect and gradually, uncomfortably and hesitantly had my mind slowly opened. The truth they revealed carried a terrible imperative for a kid who was of draft age. But it also opened a new universe of ideas to me.A job as courier for a big advertising company that required driving through Detroit's black ghetto every day. Having grown up in the lily-white suburbs I had heard in school that there were people living in abject poverty but had no real sense of what it meant until I saw it, smelled it and felt it. It was a major shock and inexplicable contradiction. Detroit was so thoroughly segregated that I never once had a black neighbor, teacher or schoolmate in all my years of grow ing up there. I never even met or spoke with a black person until I was in high school. Until then they were always at a distance. It seems incredible now.
I think I will find a pretty radical transformation in your answers. By the way, I supported Goldwater, too. I was a lawbreaker back then. I drove through my small town stuffing mailboxes (a federal offense, no less...) with AuH2O literature.
The end justified the means eh :). I think that was another one of Barry's sayings. What's the statute of limitations on felony mailbox stuffing?
You grew to oppose the war by reading from the Congressional Record. How long did the process take?
Gradually over about two years. In '64 Morris and Gruenning were practically traitors. By '65 I had suspending judgement. By '66 I was firmly anti-war. It was a gradual, reluctant process. There was no incentive aside from the truth to being anti-war. All the incentives were on the pro-war side. Right up until you got drafted anyways.
How did you finally reach your decision to emigrate?
After exhausting all appeals to the two draft notices I re ceived over the space of a year or so. My options were: - go to prison and have my life destroyed for an America that neither respected nor valued my principles;
- go underground for at least 15 years living in constant fear under an assumed name with no reliable support system and the real probability I'd end up in prison anyways;
- give in and allow myself to be drafted into a War that I felt to be illegal, immoral and fundamentally racist with a personal history of opposition that would likely target me not just for combat duty but `special treatment';
- emigrate to Canada losing my family, friends and life here but have a chance at a normal life there.I considered all the usual variations on the above: National Guard duty, enlisting in the Air Force or some other service that wouldn't likely involve combat. I even had a good shot at CO status and a doctor who was willing to get me a medical deferment. I probably could have wormed my way out. But, after considerable soul-searching, I knew I wasn't a pacificist nor could I honestly claim CO status on religious grounds. And there was the nagging problem that this War was wrong. I felt that I couldn't just avoid it - I had to do something about it. History was knocking on the door asking where I stood.
What finally made me determined to leave America was the FBI harassment. They made it obvious that I would never be allowed to live anything like a normal life - ever.
I can guess what that 'special treatment' was, but for the sake of the record, will you elaborate upon it?
Glad you asked. At the time it was just a gut feeling. But many years later, well after the War was over, I accidently ran into a fella... He was a Viet vet and very active in Vets Against The War (he got hauled away by the cops at their demo at Nixon's convention in Florida). He went into the Army gung-ho and ready to `kill a Commie for Mommy'. About half way through his tour he had become anti-war. He didn't desert or go AWOL. He just bad-mouthed the Army, the government and anyone else responsible for it. He was given the `special treatment'. For the final 6 months or so of his tour he was constantly flown from fire-fight to fire-fight. He had no unit. The Army was trying to kill him off. You know a lot of guys had to be helping for him to survive an ordeal like that. As far as I know [he] is still living back in the boonies of Missouri walking into town once a week to pick up his mail.
What kind of concerns did you have as you started to seriously entertain the prospect of emigration?
Mainly practical things about which countries were the safest, what specifics I needed to immigrate, etc. The American Friends Service Committee people in Boston had a special group set up at the time (1966/67) to help people deal with these things. They put me in touch with the War Resistors League people in Montreal who `held my hand' through the process. I wouldn't have been able to successfully do it without their help.
I was wondering, could you help me get in touch with more emigres?
Most of my meetings these days are purely by chance. The first year I was in Canada I helped out at the War Resistors League in Montreal and other emigres made up most of my friends and acquaintances. About half returned within a couple years, home sick (to what fate, I don't know) and the other half dispersed to assume normal lives. I haven't heard from any of them lately nor have I run into anyone around Seattle. The closest thing I ever ran into that verged on being a formal organization was the infamous Edmonton Dodgers football team that used to play Saturdays on the Parliment grounds. You had to be a dodger to be on the team :). The only thing we shared was the one thing we had to put out of our minds in order to put together a new life.
Do you know of anyone I can speak to? I hope THOUSANDS of emigres will step forward to tell pretty much the same story.
I knew a few in Vancouver up until 1991. We were all over the freaking place. I suspect most are still there either satisfied with the lives they've put together or prevented from returning because of legal complications (AWOL, previous record for other offenses, etc.) to emigrate. Backgrounds were from across the spectrum: elected members of provincial governments to painters. The number of Americans who went north during the War exceeded anything admitted to by either govenment. But there will never be an accurate count.
Did you leave because of being classidied 1A?
Sort of. I was drafted twice and had my status changed a few times.The first time I was literally only moments away from being asked to take the symbolic `step forward' when a security formality - a blacklist of known/suspected Communist organizat- ions - had the name of a group I had inadvertedly joined when I made a donation at an anti-war meeting. I had never been active in the group (Trade Unionists for Peace), but didn't object to being a member and had no idea that they were on the blacklist. I ticked it off at the Induction Center just to be honest. It didn't occur to me that they'd let that get in the way. But it did. They sent me to the `rejects bench' to get my bus ticket home. I was all set to spend the night in a brig or prison some- where for refusing to take the step forward. Even brought along a book of anti-war quotes in some naieve belief that they'd let me keep it in my cell :).
The second time followed a bizarre series of events that, in chronological order, included:
* Being suddenly reclassified as `mentally unfit for the Armed Forces' (no psychiatrists, no history of mental illness, no nothing). It made it impossible to get a decent job.
* Being held by FBI and Military Intelligence agents for a week of daily interrogation without charges or the benefit of counsel (in the basement of the federal building in Pontiac, Michigan) where they attempted to badger, berate and intimidate me into dropping my anti-war/pacificist views and provide the names of the people I associated with. I had no idea how long this was going to go on or even if they were ever going to let me go. I was scared but I was also _very_ pissed off. [ On the way home on the final day, the FBI agent who was driving pulled out a `reefer'(marihuana), lit it and asked me if I wanted a toke! It was so bizarre and unexpected that I didn't know what to say at first and finally managed to blurt out a `no thanks'. He just smiled and said something about how I could do some real hard time if I ever got caught with one of those. I tore my bag apart when I got home but there was nothing in it. I did get the message though - loud and clear. ]
* Being subjected to a very thorough FBI harassment campaign that seemed to be intended to isolate me from my friends, family and any employers I managed to find. It worked in part. My father disowned me after being confronted by the FBI in front of all his friends at work. An uncle for whom I had been working fired me after the agents visited him. Most of my friends and ac- quaintances didn't want to see me again. Many employers changed their minds about hiring me after a visit from the FBI. I was under enormous pressure. I couldn't work, I couldn't talk to anyone and I had these guys following me around everywhere. Years later, watching a movie about Andrei Sakhorov when he was under house arrest in the Soviet Union, all I could think was - Been there; Done that. I knew exactly how he felt.
[ In the deepest, darkest part of this period when practically down to my last dime and effectively all alone, I received a letter of acceptance, a check and a plane ticket to Boston from a long forgotten job application I had filled out months before. I had just become an employee of the White House's Office of Economic Opportunity - a VISTA volunteer! Only in America would half the government be trying to kill you off while the other half wants to hire you :) It was while I was with VISTA in Boston that I was reclassified 1A. And I was just beginning to enjoy being young and insane.]
The second and final, draft notice came while I was half way through my contract with VISTA in Boston. A Democratic Party `ward-healer' in the neighborhood heard about it and asked if I'd mind if Senator Robert Kennedy (in New York no less) helped out with an appeal. Meanwhile, the `healer' circulated a petition in the neighborhood asking Selective Service to bug off at least until I'd finished my VISTA time. But the appeal was a sham. They wouldn't tell me when or where it would be heard nor allow any submission or represenative present for my side. They ignored the neighborhood's petition. I think Sen. Kennedy's people felt worse than I did.
You were a victim of FBI harrassment. I would like you to tell me as much as you can remember, if possible. Forgive me if I'm asking you to write a book, but it's all going to the public record.
After 30 years many of the specifics are gone. I remember applying for a job at American Cellulose(?) and coming back the next day for an interview. The first thing the personel manager told me was that he was an ex-FBI agent and had had me checked out by his old friends. He then proceeded to lay into me about how I was a traitor to my country, no good Commie bastard, etc. etc. I assumed I didn't get the job and left as he still ranted and raved behind me. I applied for another job at a Ford assembly plant. They told me I had a heart murmur. Apparently it was only a temporary condition as it hadn't shown up before or since ;). To work for Chrysler I needed a security clearance from the FBI so I knew that was a waste of time. Even for a lousy minimum-wage job I'd get hired just to get a phone call later telling me they'd changed their minds. The only guy who hung in there was the manager of a gas station who was so desperate for a graveyard pump-jockey who could do simple arithmetic that he hired me. He told me he had a visit from a couple FBI agents who tried to persuade him otherwise but...he _was_ desperate. The rest of the time it was `the strange car' parked across the street. The neigh bors pointed it out to me - the agents had been around knocking on doors asking about me.The FBI harassment didn't end with my move to Canada. Three incidents in particular stand out in my memory. The first involved one of my sister's who died of cancer while in her teens. My mother concealed the illness and death from me until after the funeral out of fear that I might try to show up. Guess who was at the funeral? Guess who followed the procession to the grave? Two FBI agents. The second involved my patriotic father who, while sleeping off a night shift one afternoon, was awoken by the sound of someone moving around in what should have been an empty house. It was an FBI agent who had broken into the house and was looking for letters from me. Pop threw him physically out the back door :). The final incident involved a lot of pressure a young FBI jerk put on my mother to contact me with an offer. He said that if I agreed to accept Consciencous Objector status they'd drop all the charges and I could come home no strings attached. The offer was so ludicrous I couldn't believe it. It broke Ma's heart when I dismissed the possibility. They just don't stop coming at you. It just re-enforced my confidence in the wisdom of moving to Canada.
The 'mentally unfit' classification constituted a flagrant abuse of power to me. Do you agree?
The `mentally unfit' classification demonstrated to me that they were willing to abuse their powers. How many others carried that classification and the stigma that goes with it? Is it any different from the old Soviet government branding dissidents as crazy? Did any of our crazies/dissidents end up in mental hospitals? Who knows? Who would even ask? Who would lend credence to the word of a crazy person?
Did your friends tell you that they couldn't see you because of explicit FBI threats and warnings?
Not that they couldn't but that they thought it best that they didn't. I understood. I was as afraid of involving anyone else in that mess. It was the kind of situation that people had to voluntarily involve themselves in. Few did.
You said agents followed you everywhere.Are you sure?
Everywhere I turned people told of visits by the FBI. I felt surrounded.All your comments remind me of the paranoia the antiwar movement felt back then.
No problem. They used the paranoia - it was just another tool.Your comments validated feelings I've carried around with me for years and years. The FBI (especially the FBI under J. Edgar Hoover) was no better than the KGB.
It's a lot like being an electrician - no matter where you go electricity is the same and the techniques for dealing with it are very similar. We're the juice they've got to try channeling. In the 60's we were lightning and they didn't have a chance. We blew all their breakers and melted the lines. No wonder they were so mad :).I know you compared yourself to Sakharov for good reason, but your week long interrogation reminded me of K from Kafka's "The Trial."
We shared a similar experience. What has always puzzled me is the obvious fact that I'm not even vaguely of Academician Sakharov's stature but it didn't buy me any slack whatsoever. The government expends the same time, energy and expense on the insignificant as it does on the significant. If they'd just given me the money and said "Take a hike kid.", it might have saved us all a lot of trouble :). Kafka's always been a favorite.I want to talk a whole lot about your week's "holiday" with the FBI and military intelligence (now there's an oxymoron). First of all, I have questions:
How were you detained? Did they present you with an arrest warrant, or were you persuaded to go with them?
No arrest warrant. Just one morning they appeared at the front door, flashed their badges and said come along. I'd never seen an FBI agent before and was the good kid from the suburbs. I doubt if their intention was to "brainwash" me. Certainly there wasn't any physical abuse. We sat on opposite sides of a table dominated by one of those big reel-to-reel tape recorders. Usually there were two to four agents on their side of the table. I only knew them by their affiliation: Army Intelligence, Naval Intelligence, Air Force Intelligence, etc...Each morning I was given a transcript of the previous day and instructed to read it then sign off on it. It was cool at best and outrightly hostile at worst. The only term that adequately describes it is: mind-fucking. Closer to what a hostile attorney does in a courtroom. Except of course I had no right to cross-examination be sure. That's one of the residuals of an experience like this - I've carried a fear that the jerks found a couple other lives to screw up.
What kinds of questions would they ask, things would they say or threats would they make to "badger, berate and intimidate [you] into dropping [your] anti-war/pacificist views?"
I remember a lot of questions about pacificism. I wasn't sure if I was in the groups I was involved in. The first time through I men- tioned a bookstore operated by a retired ex-Merchant Mariner and his wife figuring it was far too innocent to be of any use to them. Whoa! They jumped on it like a dog on a bone. I'd like to believe that that was as close as I came to involving anyone else but I can't be sure. That's one of the residuals of an experience like this - I've carried a fear that the jerks found a couple.The first session very naieve, willing to try a straight answer at all their questions certain that in an hour or two it would all be over. But as matters wound on it became apparent to me that I wasn't chatting with friends or even friendly strangers. These guys didn't give a damn if I lived or died and a couple of them made it obvious that the latter would probably make their day. I didn't scare them but my ideas sure did. They let me know whether or not I was a communist, if I was too questionable to put in the military, etc. That's what was so puzzling about the week - they didn't seem interested in clarifying any of that stuff. The War and how far I'd go in opposing it were what was on their mind. They just assumed I was a communist and a danger to the government. In fact, I was just a snot- nosed kid trying desperately to sort out the shit from the shinola.
An FBI agent let me know that they could get me in other ways. It was a show of power. An attempt to intimidate. Along with all the other events of the week, it left me with a lifetime pathalogical fear of bureaucrats. I'm nervous around Social Security clerks for crissakes.
When the FBI agent lit the joint, did he inhale?
I'm not sure. He was definetly happy about something.What point in the war did you emigrate?
In April of 1967. I had to enter Canada as a visitor, then bus to New York City a couple weeks later to catch a flight into Montreal's Dorval Airport. The reasoning was that it looked a lot better to Immigration if you flew in and it also put you physically too far from the border to allow an easy hand-back if things didn't go well. In my case, it also involved a dangerous re-crossing 2 weeks after my draft call-up date.The War Resistor's League people prepped me and ran me through some practice interrogation sessions before the flight. They were well experienced and organized. Nonetheless, it took a month's time and enormous effort before I finally was granted Landed Immigrant status. Canadian Immigration officials com- pletely disregarded their own Prime Minister's directive that an American's draft status was irrelevant. They routinely work- ed with US officials to hand over anyone they suspected of evading the draft. It was very dangerous if for no other reason than that you had a potential 10 years or so for International Flight added to any charges brought in a US court. I was good for 6-30 years.
I think you got radicalized about Vietnam at an early time -- earlier than most (who didn't get concerned until after Tet).
There certainly weren't many of us back then. Perhaps because the only organization I was more-or-less active in (the Detroit Committee To End the War in Vietnam) was university-based (Wayne State U.) most of that activity was rhetorical. Sort of a one-sided debating society loaded with little political cliques who loved battling one another. Not the sort of people who'd put the fear of God in anyone but I liked them. The right-wing React group probably did more to unite the organization than anything else. They maintained a battle-front atmosphere by constantly picketing the place and busting out the windows. I think they eventually fire-bombed it but I'm not sure. I was long gone by then.I assume you came home after Carter's Amnesty. Is this true?
Not for 12 years. I visited home each year during my vacations a year with my family. That apparently required a clarification of my US citizenship status and a very vague, tenuous possibility that I'd end up with a passport instead of a visa. It would take six months max, the lady at the consulate said. Two and a half years later(!?) I got a phone call out of the blue from the consulate saying my passport was waiting for me - I was an American after all. A few months later I was back at home. Now I'm a een stolen from me and I would never get them back within my lifetime. But, on the other hand I felt an enormous sense of relief that I was finally free of FBI and military intimidation and harassment. I had escaped from America.Was it difficult to leave your old world behind?
Emotionally - yes. I felt like my native land, my family, my friends, my whole world had been stolen from me and I would never get them back within my lifetime. But, on the other hand I felt an enormous sense of relief that I was finally free of FBI and military intimidation and harassment. I had escaped from America.[ I had a recurring dream that lasted right up until I returned. It would be night and I would always find myself walking towards a well-lit border crossing. I felt terrified but couldn't stop. I'd walk right ueeing governments run amuck. They maintained their culture in the face of centuries of abuse by first the British and then the English Canadian successors of the British. They were to no strangers to dodging drafts either. Ultimately as well, growing up in Detroit and being a major hockey freak, Canada was no stranger to me. Montreal is still my favorite city.]
Was it difficult to establish an entirely new identity?
No. I was a legal landed immigrant and Canada is very similiar to America culturally. Though I did settle in s of governments run amuck. Quebecois were no strangers to dodging drafts. Ultimately as well, growing up in Detroit and being a major hockey freak, Canada was no stranger to me.The FBI stuff should be in my file (must look like a family bible by now). The wierd week-long interrogation is a bit of a mystery since it involved everybody. I've often wondered if it was part of the CIA's illegal COINTELPRO program that Sen. Frank Church exposed in the 70's. In another time, on another planet I might have been able to sue the government's butt off for what they did to me, but escaping was compensation enough.
I would love to get a look at your FBI family bible, but I don't know if I can look at your personal stuff.
I've been to look at it. If this account is buried in a data pile somewhere maybe someone will be interested enough to co-relate the two nodes someday. It's certainly a unique opportunity mater place.I think reading it would turn my stomach, though. Where was justice back then? Has it come home in the '90s? Is America a better place now?
America is the same goofy, spoiled, dangerous and immature brat that it's always been. Vietnam made it a little bit wiser but it's a long process with many chapters and numerous plot twists. The story of this particular chapter is hindered a bit by the _real_ draft dodgers, those who supported the War but hid from it: Dan Quayle, Phil Graham, Dick Cheney, etc. They seem to find the memory inconvenient.Last of all, do you think all the pain youÕve gone through was worthwhile opposing the war?
We ended their little death party. Even so, what we did was nothing compared to what the Vietnamese did. They kicked butt on the most technically advanced killing machine in human history and lived to tell the tale. All but about a million of them who unfortunately got in the way. It was an astounding feat.
