40 YEARS AGO

Massive American Protest Against Vietnam Policy

IN response to the call of the American “Day of Vietnam Committee”, huge demonstrations were taking place inside the United States against the Johnson Administration’s Vietnam policies.

The Committee had called for marking October 15 and 16 as international days of protest against US military intervention in Vietnam. US participation in the war in Vietnam, the Committee said, reached beyond the limits of politics. The indiscriminate bombing of villages arouses indignation throughout the world… It is high time for the people of the world to say “step” to the United States.

According to a Reuter report, thousands of persons had protested on October 15 against the US involvement in Vietnam and more demonstrations were being planned for the 16th.

A 10,000-strong procession of US citizens began a march the Oakland army terminal, main embarkation point for US troops and military supplies bound for Vietnam. At Berkeley, this massive protest march was stopped by a human wall stopped by a human wall of steel-helmeted policemen.

Earlier thousands of people had poured into the California University Campus for a day-long rally and the seven-and-a-half mile torch-light march at night came as the highlight o the two-day national demonstrations planned for October 15 and 16. Millions of people watched the demonstration lining the streets as the torch-light procession marched holding aloft placards demanding “no more imperialist wars”, “USA get out of Vietnam”, etc.

In New York, a 22-year-old Catholic ceremonially burnt his military call-up papers during a demonstration outside an army recruiting centre, defying the recent legislation which has made burning of call-up papers a federal offence.

Over a hundred cities from Maine on the Atlantic to Hawaii witnessed these anti-war demonstrations taking the form of sit-ins, sleep-ins, teach-ins, torch-light demonstrations, etc.

On October 16, New York witnessed a huge protest demonstration, the strength of which was variously estimated as between 10,000 and 20,000 – a very large crowd by American standards. Eight-abreast they paraded down New York’s main artery of Fifth Avenue and later assembled in a rally addressed by pacifist David Dellinger.

In the parade were motor cars carrying posters of Uncle Sam Next to wounded children – a reminder of the US bombing of civilian population in Vietnam.”

In Madison, Wisconsin, the demonstration took a new form. Eleven demonstrators tried to make a citizens’ arrest of Col Lester Arrowsmith, Commander of the Truax Air Force base, “for being accessory to murder, violation of international law and crimes against humanity in relation to the war in Vietnam.

RUSSELL TEARS UP LABOUR MEMBERSHIP CARD

AT a rally organised by the Youth Campaign for Disarmament in London’s Mahatma Gandhi Hall on October 14, Lord Bertrand Russell tore up his Labour Party membership card in protest against the British Labour government’s complacency over the Vietnam atrocities.

The 93-year-old Nobel Prize Winner, tearing up the card, said, “I feel that I can no longer remain a member of this so called ‘Labour’ Party and I am resigning after 51 years.” Through its subservience to the US, he charged, the British government was helping to bring the world to complete disaster.

During its first year in office, the Labour government had carried out Britain’s old imperialist policy, which involved concurring with the deliberate bombing of schools, hospitals, orphanages, etc in Vietnam. Lord Russell declared: “I find myself confronted with the most shameful betrayal of modern times in this country. Hitler, at least, never professed humanity.”

He charged the Labour Party with having done “Everything in its power to prevent a knowledge to the atrocities which are taking place, let alone a knowledge of the reasons for the government’s complacency in face of them.”

--- People’s Democracy, October 24, 1965