Seen from Another Side

I was certainly opposed to the war, because I knew it was a mistake, and I didn't want to be sent to fight it. At the same time, I believed that if push came to shove, and I did get drafted, I could avoid combat, maybe even stay out of Vietnam entirely. But that does remind me that much of the anti-war activity and sentiment was really anti-draft. When the draft was ended, anti-war activity dropped off markedly...

What influenced your affiliation with the antiwar movement?

As I said above, I just sort of drifted into the organizing stuff, and I didn't stay long. I knew the war was wrong, that it was unwinnable without turning South Vietnam into a parking lot. I had read Bernard Fall's _Street Without Joy_, as well as Jules Roy's _Dienbienphu_, and I knew why the French had failed. There was *nothing* to show that the U.S. could do any better.

I also sympathized with the people drafted into the war. I knew, from reading about resistance to Hitler, that it was difficult for people to go against their own government, particularly when it didn't seem evil or obviously, totally wrong about the war...

And the demonstrations... did they seem more innocent and peaceful in the beginning?

I remember a local demonstration in Ann Arbor that wound up with the police tossing tear gas, this would have been in 1968-69. Mike Davis and I both went, but later I found out that my girl friend was very upset, because she thought I would get hurt. The thought was very far from my mind.

Can you tell me any more about that antiwar rally?

My general recollection on this one was that the police panicked. While there was always a sense of tension between the Ann Arbor police and the students, I think the overall impression I had was something akin to Arlo Guthrie's attitude toward "officer Obie" in "Alice's Restaurant". Kind of bumbling bureaucrats. The expectation was that they were more interested in busting people for dope possession (although marijuana possession was only a misdemeanor in Ann Arbor for a while), so the use of tear gas was a surprise. As I recall, some of the students participating in the demonstration pushed things to the limit, and the police got a little desperate about clearing the streets.

The university administration was paranoid as well. During the 60's they built a new administration building that might charitably be described as a fortress. It was this enormous cube of brick, with very few windows, set in the middle of a large plaza. The belief was that this was so they could see the mobs coming, and "pull up the drawbridge", as it were (actually, block the doors).

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