Vietnam: A Television History; Interview with David T. Dellinger, 1982

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Transcript

Early years

Vietnam. Dellinger. Sound Roll 2510. Tape 2510.

Camera.

Take One: Clapsticks.

Interviewer:

Tell us a little bit about your uhm background and how your reaction to

the election of FDR reflected that.

Dellinger:

Well, I grew up in a solid, Republican home in Wakefield,

Massachusetts, at the time a suburb. My father was a lawyer -- actually

he was a friend of Calvin Coolidge, and one of my early memories was

having Calvin Coolidge, who at the time was Governor of Massachusetts,

coming out on the train and our meeting him at the station. In those

days he came without a body guard (chuckle) or anybody else -- just

Calvin coming out for Sunday dinner.

My father was actually Chairman of the Republican Town Committee, at

one point I guess, the County Committee. By the time I went to Yale, in

the fall of 1932, when Franklin Roosevelt was elected, I had a lot of

disagreements with the way things were. Particularly since in my town

well there weren't Jews or black people, but there were Italians and

Irish who were very much looked down on.

So I had begun a process of re-thinking my values and becoming critical

of the society but, aah, late one night when we learned that Franklin

Roosevelt had been elected, I thought the world was going to come to an

end, and I sort of prepared myself for the disaster. (Clears throat).

By leaving my room as a freshman at college and walking alone in the

streets of New Haven, just wondering how (chuckle) how the world would

hold together...

Interviewer:

You arrived aah at a very different political perspective from the one

you had on that night. Can you describe briefly what that perspective

was?

Dellinger:

Well, first I should say that that it went step by step, and one

difference I sometimes have to this day with my colleagues who I guess,

you know, on the left, aah, is that I've always been concerned with

individuals and not to say that everybody isn't, but I think there is a

danger in politics that aah we develop sweeping characterizations of

the system or things become abstract.

So at the very time that I was horrified by the election of Franklin

Roosevelt I was already in trouble at Yale for having joined the

struggle to improve the working conditions and to provide, to make

possible for the janitors and the maids to have a union.

And I guess that same, that's still my attitude. On the other hand I do

think that aah we are governed...ruled...our lives are dominated in

most cases by one of the most cynical, economic systems in the world

which says that the only way to aah to be fulfilled is to compete

against your fellows and to rise above them instead of cooperate with

them to work together for the common good and everybody rise or fall

together, hopefully rise.

So I am strongly opposed to the capitalist system although I don't

always run around using that word, but I mean any system which

emphasizes private profit over human welfare and what I think is a very

undemocratic system which gives tremendous economic power to a tiny

percentage of the population then gives them the sop of saying that

they can vote periodically.

And I think that aah democracy is aah is aah nonexistent in the United

States. Real democracy. Don't forget, I guess the other thing is that

aah I think the change has to come from the bottom up and that of

course is a fundamentally democratic concept, again, but what is

commonly called democracy in this country is that somehow you have the

right to choose who is going to rule over you or that if you oppose the

war in Vietnam or that you're dissatisfied with the treatment of women

or blacks or minorities or or the working class generally, that the

thing to do is to change the people at the top.

But I don't think that aah shuffling around the personnel up there is

nearly as fundamental as aah developing our own sense of solidarity

with other people, our ability to work together and in particular, our

ability to say no to the government. When in comes in with a draft, aah

conscription or comes in with money for El Salvador...

The 1964 Civil Rights Act

Interviewer:

Good. That's very good. We'll come back to some of those points but

let's let's just touch on the Civil Rights Act in 1964 that is a piece

of legislation which is often hailed in the landmark legislation passed

by progressive president committed to aah the welfare of black people.

Do you share that view of the Civil Rights Act in 1964?

Dellinger:

Actually, an example of what I was talking about is the passage of the

Civil Rights Act in 1964...

Interviewer:

Be-begin again because, be-begin again because we won't...

Dellinger:

Oh, it's a separate segment-- Oh, I was trying to make the link

(chuckle) yeah, ok.

The passage of the Civil Rights Act in 1964 under the administration of

Lyndon B. Johnson is an example of the power of the people at the

grassroots to force through change and politicians at the top who aah

as Charles Colson put it, "would walk over their grandmother if

necessary, in order to attain high office or in order to hold it." But

anyway, people of that kind to respond to the pressures and then claim

credit for them.

I was sitting in a bar with aah two or three of my black friends with

whom I'd been involved in activities in the South the night that Lyndon

B. Johnson said on television "we shall overcome" and I thought they

were gonna throw up. I thought I was, too.

Because we knew that that was a canny politician's way of responding to

the fact that -- I was gonna say young blacks because a lot, it didn't

even, I started to say it started there, but a lot of middle

aged...blacks of all ages -- a certain point had reached aah a time in

their lives and and a time in American history when they would no

longer accept the aah gross aah, segregation.

You know, in a southern town aah, the mother took her children downtown

and there was no place to go to the toilet because there were no

toilets for black people downtown. And then in the bigger cities there

were black and white toilets. All, all of that type of thing.

But when blacks went out and aah had hot coffee poured on over them

sitting in aah luncheon counter at Woolworth's or somewhere else, when

they began to say no to all of these things, then it became necessary

for politicians who had advanced as Johnson had by being anti-black to

swing as far as they thought was necessary in order...well, both to aah

gain or hold office, but also to keep the country from exploding.

WWII and colonialist roots of the Vietnam War

Interviewer:

Good, aah, let's go to the war itself. Uhm, why do you think that the

United States became involved in the war in Vietnam? Do you think it

was an aberration?

Dellinger:

To understand why the United States became involved in the war in

Vietnam one has to go back at least to World War II , I just take that

as the starting point. And not a lot of Americans realize that the

United States in the early stages -- and I mean Franklin Roosevelt and

certainly the big corporations backed both Hitler and Mussolini and

they backed dictators all over the world.

Now, at the same time because America is schizophrenic it has wonderful

ideals and many great promises and some of the people that I'm

criticizing, half believe in them but, with the other part of this

schizophrenic personalities they made alliances with dictators and and

aah in actually when aah Japan was defeated in aah August 1945 and the

Vietnamese people declared their independence their freedom from

colonialism which was one of the aims of World War II , the United

States provided arms to aah the Japanese fascist prisoners and...

Interviewer:

Let's cut for a second. Sorry to do that.

Dellinger:

Too long? Heh...

Take Two: Clapsticks.

Dellinger:

It's often been...

Interviewer:

Hold it, hold it--I'm not quite ready...Ok, ready.

Dellinger:

It's often been pointed out that the Vietnam War was the first war that

was visible in people's living rooms through television. And people

viewed with horror children being napalmed, grass huts being burned and

they thought this is a terrible mistake, it it really runs counter to

the American ideals which it does.

Gradually, step by step, people learned that it really wasn't an

aberration. That we were giving, first of all, the Vietnamese the same

treatment we'd given the Indians and then the same treatment we'd given

the Philippinos, and that so there was an element of racism about it

and that America, you know, with its high ideals, should dominate the

world.

And secondly, there were economic reasons, and it was often said that

aah, you know, we didn't have much to win or lose in Vietnam. But what

I believe was happening was that it was a war of example, at a certain

point, became a war of example to prove to undeveloped, third world

countries that they could not harbor ideas of being democratic

themselves, they could not have the decision making power over their

own lives. But they had to welcome the superior civilization that came

with its corporations and its science and technology, and allow the

Americans to run their lives.

Now at points, of course, the United States spoke about democracy

there, but they they placed into office and even assassinated aah in

the case of Diem, aah people they thought would uhm support them and

then finally, they said that aah they welcomed, coming there because

they'd been invited in by the Vietnamese to help straighten out their

country, but the invitation was written in Washington. And handed to

the Vietnamese to be given to us. Is that closer to what you want or is

that...

Escalation of the Anti-War Movement

Okay Kevin?

Yup.

Clapsticks.

Interviewer:

Ready?

Hold on just a second while I settle this... Yes... Okay.

Why did you march on the Pentagon?

Dellinger:

In April of '67, we surprised the country by getting maybe half a

million people out in New York City to protest the war in a march and

rally. Martin Luther King told me it was double the number of the

famous civil rights march.

And we began to realize that that this was wonderful but if we limited

ourselves to marches and rallies that it, you know, people after awhile

began...initially they'd get a sense of their power. Because I mean,

gee, I'm not crazy -- here's a hundred-thousand people or now it was

five hundred thousand people who came out to say the same things. Then

after awhile they begin to get a sense of their own impotence as they

come out and march and rally and nothing happens and they go home and

wait for the war to end.

So we coined a slogan from protest to resistance which was that you

keep marching and rallying but that we would step up the pace of

non-violent, civil disobedience. Now already there were young people

refusing to be drafted or burning their draft cards and that kind of

thing. We decided to have a mass organized activity which would include

civil disobedience.

We set it up in stages so that people could participate at whatever

level they felt was right so that they wouldn't be told well, you can't

come unless you're ready to burn your draft card (chuckle) or unless

you're ready to invade the Pentagon grounds to say the the Pentagon

must be shut down.

So, first we had a massive, aah, rally at the Lincoln Memorial and

people could come for that and leave if they wanted...then we had a

march from there to the Pentagon and if people wanted to take a little

chance of having red paint thrown on them or being teargassed or being

attacked by people, some of whom could have been sent in by the

government or others just sincerely and patriotically aroused against

us...that was a little further step.

And then to be sure that anybody who wanted to leave then and wouldn't

get caught up in the other activity aah could do so, we had a brief

rally in the parking lot of the Pentagon for which we had a permit. But

then perhaps five, ten thousand people moved on to the Pentagon grounds

aah saying to the soldiers who had been called out, saying you are our

allies, join us. You are victims too, lay down your arms.

And saying to the public and to anybody who was in the Pentagon, we

have to get out of the war business. We have to stop manufacturing

instruments of massive destruction which are in the famous phrase of

our chickens coming home to roost, besides killing millions of these

Vietnamese in the end, we're sending two hundred GIs home in canvas

bags every week at that point. So we wanted to have room for everybody

but to legitimize uhm a more militant form of non-violent action.

Interviewer:

Good. (Cough). You described the negotiations with the government and

you you wrote in one of your essays, "we wanted we wanted something

with more teeth in it, we wanted a real confrontation instead of a

legitimized one." This is in context of the trial...

Dellinger:

Yes, that was fine, yeah.

Interviewer:

Uhm, what did you mean by that "a real confrontation?" A confrontation

with whom over what?

Dellinger:

There's a very strange attitude that the government took and a lot of

liberal people, namely, isn't it...

Interviewer:

Could we start again and could you not...

Dellinger:

Not lean forward... (chuckle)

We're so restricted (chuckle)...

Uhm...as the protest mounted, there was a danger that people would say,

"oh isn't this a wonderful country. It will allow a hundred thousand

people or three hundred thousand people to aah march against the war

even while it's going on. So that they were hearing that, that since we

were a democratic country that had civil liberties, then maybe it

wasn't so bad that we were burning little children with napalm or

killing off two hundred GIs every every week.

And and so when the government said to us, "well, we will provide

permits for you to come and march and we will arrange everything so

that, you know, it's a collaboration between us and you," aah, we said

no. Aah, because the one thing that they would not allow is to go on to

the Pentagon grounds saying "shut down the Pentagon! End the war!"

Uhm, and when we said this, then they said you will get no permits at

all, we will not even allow buses to bring demonstrators into

Washington, we will stop them all at the Maryland line. At that point,

some of the younger people who were not as convinced as we were of

non-violence and had sort of stayed away perhaps, or were not active

participants, they became enraged that we couldn't even bring buses in,

and it kind of actually, it boomeranged against the government.

And the people who had been wavering for one reason or

another--maybe--more people than I just referred to--people who would

say, "well, civil disobedience may be going too far. We don't want to

go to the Lincoln Memorial even if we can leave at that point. "When

they learned that the government was taking the line that it was, they

joined us and it became a huge demonstration which successfully

combined the three elements.

Changes brought on in Dellinger's community by the march on the Pentagon

Interviewer:

What was the result of the act?

Dellinger:

At the time of the Pentagon...

Interviewer:

I'm sorry...

Dellinger:

Oh, I keep doing it - forgive me.

Interviewer:

...I'm out of focus...

Dellinger:

I'm sorry... I I I just forgot... See, you make me get interested in

the subject matter and I'm no good...

Interviewer:

If you want to stay forward...

Dellinger:

No, that's alright (chuckle) ...that's alright...I be emphatic and

leaning back... ask me again what it was...

Interviewer:

What was the result of the action?

Dellinger:

After the Pentagon activity was over, there was some people who said it

was a waste of money and they totaled up how much money it must of cost

to bring a quarter of a million or how ever many people it was there

and to pay those who paid fines and all the rest, and they said that

the Pentagon wasn't shut down. It would have been inhibited as much if

we burned twelve cars, one in each approached to the Pentagon.

What they missed was that a message went out to the country, a message

that there were thousands and thousands of people of all categories who

would no longer tolerate business as usual, would no longer be put off

by the fact that they had the freedom to gather in certain assigned

places and to speak against the war.

The other thing about the Pentagon, the other result was that it was

the first time that the National Guard has been brought out to stand

between the aah protestors and aah the object of where they were trying

to go. And after considerable debate, we overwhelmingly decided to say

to the GIs, you are our brothers, join us, and there were some GIs who

actually threw down their guns on the line and were led away and aah

but we got in touch with them afterwards.

And the country gradually, beginning with the Pentagon, became aware

that the GIs themselves were not happy with the war. Not too long after

that they became the cutting edge of the Anti-Vietnam War movement.

Up until that time they had always said "you're stabbing our GIs in the

back," but to this day, I can pick up a hitchhiker or I can speak at a

college and somebody will come and say, "I was in Vietnam and I hated

the war. I was opposed to it, and the best news to me was the

demonstrations and the rallies against it" but that was not known.

I'd like to add the third factor, the government became so terrorized,

not just we were terrorists, but because they were showed that the

people were turning against the war and were going to take serious

action to stop it. And so they stepped up the policy of sending agents

provocateurs into our rank, who kept arguing that it was necessary for

us to be violent, and that was the beginning of a series of bombings

that actually were carried out by the FBI in order to say to the

country, "See, these are not non-violent people, these are not

peacelovers, they are terrorists."

And aah, aah, this, of course, eventually came out. But at the time, it

became a very demoralizing factor when when bombs were put off in an

anti-war message was accompanied with it, and it wasn't until later

that some FBI people became so disillusioned that they confessed that

this was happening and then under the Freedom of Information Act, we

found out how extensive that was. I was often offered bombs by FBI

agents, people who later turned out to testify against us and to say

that I was violent--not the government.

Interviewer:

Okay, cut please. I think we're almost out.

Dellinger:

Let me just sit up without throwing Kevin off...

Kev, can I... Ready ...

Protest at the 1968 Democratic National Convention

Clapsticks.

Interviewer:

Hold on just a second... Why did you go to the Democratic convention in

Chicago?

Dellinger:

Many people think that one of the best things about our political

system is that we can elect our president, but I think that one of our

problems is that it becomes a substitute for people acting themselves.

And, after the successful mass actions and also the resistance

activities that took place in the late '67 and early '68, there was a

tendency to say, "Ok, now we'll handle everything because we're going

to elect a president."

And, aah, some of us felt that the movement to stop the war would lose

its momentum if we followed Gene McCarthy's advise which was to get out

of the streets and into the quote "regular political arena." But we

would have gone at that point to any major national event of a

ritualistic nature to say that this becomes all poppycock when we are

trying to bomb the Vietnamese people back to the stone age and killing

off the finest flower of American youth.

So, it was a natural place the eyes of the world would be upon it and

aah, so after immediately after the siege of the Pentagon in October of

'67 we began--we first of all, the National Mobilization Committee,

which had by then become the new Mobilization Committee, made a

decision to conduct demonstrations at Chicago at the National

Democratic convention.

And I believe that was one of the reasons that Lyndon Johnson decided

that he would not run because he would have been so embarrassed and

humiliated to come to Chicago and be greeted as he would have been by

the demonstrators.

Interviewer:

Why did you organize a protest in the streets?

Dellinger:

Well, actually, we did not organize the protest in the streets. We

organized a festival of life and an alternate convention and we had

commissions that were that were drawing up preliminary papers and that

we were to meet and to discuss all of the issues that the national

parties such as the the Democratic party would discuss. We were going

to come up with an alternative program for the country.

But we were denied certain elementary rights, including the right of

aah of young people coming in, who wanted to sleep in Lincoln Park

which had previously been used as a place where the Boy Scouts could

sleep overnight and I think the masons or some group of that kind. We

were told no, and that became an issue of free speech and of people who

couldn't afford to stay in hotels and so forth.

And we were denied permits to get within six miles of the arena where

the democratic convention was taking place. And so it became in the

streets because the very first night when we were in Lincoln Park and

they announced a curfew and actually, to the best of my memory, most

people left, but when we got outside the park, in fact, even before we

got outside the park, the police charged us and began clubbing people

and beating them to the ground.

And, aah, that was really the history of of aah the convention week. It

became a question of trying to survive and still have a visible

presence to show that we were there, to show that we would gather in

the parks on the streets, wherever we could, we would march through the

streets condemning the war and whenever we did, or most of the times

when we did, we were brutally attacked by the police.

Mayor Daley was often blamed for that but there was a lot of evidence

that it was orchestrated in Washington. They also succeeded in keeping

away some of the people that would have been there because Mayor Daley,

after the riots that followed the assassination of Martin Luther King,

announced that next time the police should be prepared - in terms of

mass demonstrations - prepared to shoot to kill, and the head of the

National Guard announced that they would have live caliber ammunition

which was the kind that killed people.

So they did everything possible to keep people away, and we thought it

was terribly important that we not accept fascism by staying away, by

saying, "well, we'll wait and demonstrate some other time." If in this

historic occasion they wouldn't give us permits and they told us that

if we came we would be mowed down, which is what they said over and

over again, and they said the only way you can protest the war is by

voting for your favorite candidate or you lesser evil candidate. Then

we felt it was very important.

And while we were there, the Soviet Union invaded Prague, and over and

over again, we said, "Chicago is becoming the Prague of America," and

we condemn both the Soviet troops for invading Czechoslovakia and the

troops of Mayor Daley and the federal government for invading Chicago

and putting down our much vaunted civil liberties and freedoms.

Interviewer:

You have written that the Chicago police in a sense are really

fundamentally not accountable or responsible for the violence that took

place, that that violence was, so to speak, inherent in the system. I

mean, that it was, you know, that they were the agents almost, in a

sense, of the larger system. Can you describe that a little bit,

please?

Dellinger:

I'm not sure what you're referring to... I don't want to go off on some

long-winded thing that's not quite what you...

Interviewer:

We'll come back to it...

Dellinger:

'Cus I immediately think about when I was in the south, in Birmingham,

you know, and people said it was Bull Connor, and I said that when

there are people in the streets in cities of New York that are as

insistent...

Camera. Take Four.

Dellinger:

For close to a week in Chicago, the protestors endured the violence

without its getting on the t.v. or being known widely around the

country, but then because it went on for a week and because camera men

and other newspaper people were also brutally beaten, it began to reach

out into every living room, much as some of the horror of Vietnam War

had reached into people's living room.

I think for the first time the people of the country got a sense, on

the one hand, of the brutality of the establishment and on the other

hand of the determination of thousands and thousands of people to risk

their lives, if necessary, to end the war. So, in a sense, Chicago was

a victory in that it became impossible - and it was known in Washington

- that it would be impossible to continue the war at its current pace

and to maintain peace and civil liberties and and aah, well, they can't

get any support from the American people.

They just decided that even those who were not particularly opposed to

the war, if there are such, that aah it was just getting to be too much

of a mess and that aah, you know, the country just better start ending

the war.

On the other hand, the terrible thing that happened within the movement

aah, although mostly with a minority, was that aah people who had been

brutally beaten while being non-violent came to the sad and tragic

conclusion that non-violence didn't work. And, from that time on, and

particularly with the infiltrator sent in by the government who kept

over and over again saying that to us - and I was told how many times

by FBI, people who later turned out to be FBI agents - either to accept

a bomb or that I should pick up the gun, that was the only way we'd get

peace and justice in the country.

But from then on it became much more confused, the complete, the

overwhelmingly non-violent nature of the movement was no longer

transparent. And, aah, so at the same time the country turned against

the war there was a tendency to, in a lot of circles, to turn against

the anti-war movement. To think that it was, as the government had been

saying for years, a bunch of spoiled kids who who would resort to

trashing or or violence.

Even though the government had created that situation, it was our

greatest enemy when we tried to keep the movement non-violent. They

knew they could deal with a non-violent movement that -- I mean a

violent movement - that they could discredit. So I would say that it

was a two edged sword or a two edged victory.

It was partly a victory for us because it really alerted and aroused

the American people and turned them against the war. But it weakened

the anti-war movement around the edges, at least, and that became, the

edges became what Richard Nixon played on.

I mean, he would...when he was making an appearance in the electoral

campaign aah he would say something or have somebody do something to

taunt the protestors, and then if they all yelled at him, he would say,

"see, that's that kind of people they are."

And of course, they're yelling, or even those who trashed or did things

that the leadership always opposed and that most people never did--but

even those who did that--it was nothing compared to dropping B-52 bombs

(chuckle) you know, cluster bombs on the people.

But somehow or another, Nixon and others succeeded in at least fooling

some people into thinking that the anti-war movement was untrue to its

words, and untrue to its ideals and actually violent.

Interviewer:

Would you have had the same outcome from Chicago...

Dellinger:

(cough) I'm sorry, I coughed and I couldn't hear you.

Interviewer:

We have less than a minute.

Okay.

Evolving opinions on the anti-war movement

Dellinger:

In the early days of the anti-Vietnam War movement we were described by

Lyndon Johnson as a few nervous nellies. And the press systematically

cut down the numbers saying, like when I heard the daily news reporter

call in from New York that there were 200,00 people there that day

protesting, the headlines said 100,000.

But then we got to be so large, as many as a million people

demonstrated on the same day at two or three places, I mean a total of

a million in two or three places in the country, and it was just such a

ferment of activity that this could no longer be said. But then they

came up with the phrase, "the silent majority" and we're just the

"noisy people" that the vast majority of the country which is aah who

are keeping silent that they still favor the war.

Now I knew from my travels into small, out of the way places that that

was not true. But it's a little bit like the moral majority today --

there was the same kind of arrogance of saying, you know, the people

that you don't hear from are the ones that, you know, that aah think

differently. But after Chicago, I think it became impossible after

that.

And in particular, when the moratorium took place, October 15, 1969,

and then the massive mobilization in Washington on November 15, which

is one of the times there were over a million people, it just no longer

became possible to claim that. But still, that was a way of trying to

rally people and to undermine the anti-Vietnam war movement.

The Moratorium and Mobilization activities of 1969

Interviewer:

Let's talk about the MOBE of November, 1969. Was the MOBE a

continuation of the moratorium in October or was it different?

Dellinger:

One of the ways in which the myth of the silent majority was demolished

was by the October, 1969 moratorium. When in thousands, probably, many

hundreds, probably thousands of towns across the country aah people

came out to observe a moratorium against the war.

Now these included a lot of the people who had been protesting all the

time, but it clearly reached out into new segments of the population

who hadn't liked the war, many of them for a long time, but had been

kind of pacified in terms of taking action by the theory that they

would be stabbing our boys in the back if they protested or that you

don't protest in the middle of a war.

But when they came out, that changed a lot. And we were already

planning uhm November 15th march, a month later, in Washington, and

some of the new organizers who had succeeded in reaching out to new

people with this aah with basically a new organization with overlaps,

came in and joined us in planning the November 15th march.

As always, there were people who wanted to keep them separate and

again, this was a role of an agents provocateur often, to say to the

moratorium people, "look it, this includes notorious radicals like

Abbie Hoffman or Dave Dellinger" or whoever it was.

But I found aah that I was sought out by moratorium leaders and aah as

I sought them out and we sat down, most of them and most of us, we sat

down in rooms and very quickly worked out a joint program so that there

was joint activity, and I think that's why as a follow up to the

moratorium, the mobilization was the largest single demonstration in

one place up until aah up until that time.

And there's a fact of history that's not often known, and that is that

Kissinger and Nixon had told the Vietnamese that they would use nuclear

bombs on November 1st if the North Vietnamese had not withdrawn their

troops from South Vietnam and if the NLF had not surrendered. But they

revised that after the turnout on October 15 and after the indications

it was going to be so massive on November 15. They knew that they could

not control the country if they used the atom bomb or the nuclear bombs

that they had threatened to use.

Interviewer:

The coalition of organizations who were involved in planning the MOBE

was rather broader than that involved in the moratorium. Was there a

danger of diluting your effectiveness by including this odd compassing

sets of groups and issues?

Give me just a second. Ok, go ahead.

Dellinger:

Hold it, please.

Interviewer:

Stop. Cut it.

Dellinger:

Yeah, I have to think about...

Take Five. Clapsticks.

Dellinger:

When people become aroused about any particular injustice, there is a

problem that always comes with it. When you begin to see its links with

other injustices, do you start talking about them, too, or do you

dilute your message? And one of the dilemmas in that respect was aah

seen in in the existence of the Civil Rights Movement and the existence

of the anti-Vietnam War Movement.

And one of the things that I was heavily involved in along with a lot

of other people was trying to persuade Martin Luther King, an eminently

moral non-violent man, to come out against the war in Vietnam when a

lot of people were saying to him that if he did, he would appear

unpatriotic he would antagonize people who had come along and were

supporting him on civil rights.

In the anti-Vietnam War Movement, we had the same problem. Aah, one

time the treasurer of the National Mobilization Committee on the war in

Vietnam, a marvelous man, resigned because he said we were talking too

much about civil rights and black rights, and later it came up in

connection with women's rights. People say why do you intrude that

here?

And it's it's a real dilemma. I think that one can sometimes emphasize

one thing but should not keep quiet about the other. And the approach

the MOBE took was to try always, to have an emphasis on the war but to

constantly have foremost spokespeople for the black rights speak, and

aah we always had women speaking, but the history of the movement of

the country in regard to women was such and the women's movement at the

time wasn't that active so that very often they did not speak in the

early years in favor of women's rights.

But I would say that after Chicago where we had really set up

commissions to deal with every major social problem after that uhm

there was much more unity in the MOBE on the necessity for being sure

that all of these issues were represented.

It's the same problem that the disarmament movement faces today. But I

always think about something a friend of mine, the poet Kenneth Patchen

once said about the anti-war movement of an earlier period, when he

said "the trouble is they want to get rid of war without getting rid of

the causes of war." So, if you do not somehow make the linkages aah you

can develop mass movements that are easily led astray.

The anti-bomb movement of the 50s was largely single issue, and then

when they passed the limited test band treaty, John F. Kennedy was able

to turn right around and double the involvement in Vietnam because

people were palliated because they had not been educated beyond the

bomb into interventions.

Interviewer:

Dave, try to keep looking at me, okay.

Yeah, that would help.

Yeah, look at me, don't look at...

Dellinger:

I was looking at Barbara and John...

Interviewer:

Right, I know...

Dellinger:

Can't look at Elizabeth...

Campaign funding in relation to the anti-war movement

Interviewer:

Look at me...Why did politicians...I mean you were saying you were

reaching out embracing and so forth...why was it that politicians that

were opposed to the war I mean people like Lowenstein or Kennedy, Ted

Kennedy or Eugene McCarthy...why were reluctant in some cases, just

decided not to participate in the activity in the MOBE?

Dellinger:

In the MOBE?

Interviewer:

Yes.

Dellinger:

I want to get into this but...we were wooed by the Kennedys a few

times, but in the early days, to come and speak, but with this...I

believe the same kind of wishy washiness, I mean to take it over rather

than to keep it honest. That's not, I'm just making it too brief. Oh

yeah, are you filming this?

Interviewer:

Yes, we're filming this. Go ahead.

Dellinger:

(Chuckle) I was just talking. Sorry, turn it off.

Interviewer:

Cut. Cut.

Dellinger:

I beg your pardon...

Camera. Take Six. Clapsticks.

Dellinger:

One of the problems with American democracy, so-called, is that it

takes a lot of money to run for high office. The problem is we try to

have political democracy without having economic democracy. So, if

people with the best of intentions want to run for Senate or some high

office, they really require millions and millions of dollars to run a

successful campaign. The higher the office, usually the more the money.

And therefore, they're very nervous about associating with movements

like the anti-Vietnam war movement until they're well over the hill of

winning public acceptance. Then they come in and still try to hold it

back. For instance, to limit it from talking equally about black rights

or women's rights or any other issue that might offend their sponsors.

So, we had a lot of problems. Sometimes with people who would say to me

privately, "I agree with you, Dave, and I agree with what the MOBE is

doing, but I've got to run a campaign." Now, in the country that is

interpreted often as that the people are more conservative than the

anti-Vietnam War Movement was, or the Civil Rights Movement, or the

Women's Movement, whatever it is, but I think that it aah is more that

that people who can finance the campaigns and get people into office

are the ones who are more afraid of popular movements.

It probably wasn't as good the second time, but...same idea, anyway...

Interviewer:

Great, you're great.

Horror at the U.S. military's weapons and methods in Vietnam

TVP #00402. SR #2512. Picture 523. Continuation of interview with

Dellinger

Room Tone. Camera Rolling. Take Seven. Clapsticks. Okay, ready.

Dellinger:

In 1966 I realized that I and a lot of other people were very active in

the anti-Vietnam war movement, and rightly so. But there was an awful

lot that we really didn't know about what was really going on over

there.

And on the one hand Lyndon Johnson said over and over again, and it was

commonplace and believed by all Americans that the United States was

only bombing steel and concrete and was being very careful about

civilians. On the other hand the uh Chinese had announced that uh Hanoi

had been utterly destroyed.

And I decided to go to Vietnam to try to go there and find out what the

real story was. First I went to Saigon, because in cases of that kind I

always want to go to both sides, if I can. I also wanted to see what

was going on in Saigon, although there had...of course there were

Americans there.

So the first interesting thing about that was that my trip was, has to

this day, has been uh emphasized in terms of going to Hanoi, as if, you

know, I went to the enemy. Uh, which I believed in doing anyway because

I believe in reconciliation and getting to know each other and so

forth. But uh, the Saigon part of it, going to our ally and being

equally conscientious there is dropped out.

But the horrifying thing was that I found out that the United States

Air Force was, by intention, bombing schools, hospitals, uh churches,

temples, uh just an utterly devastating bombing. I also found out that

they were using cluster bombs, that uh were anti-personnel weapons.

Bombs that would not penetrate any kinds of barrier, but would only

penetrate human flesh. And uhm, through the years, by the way, these

things became more and more sophisticated in, in ways so that uh if

they struck somebody's leg, they would travel up to the heart and the

doctors would not be able to operate, and that kind of thing. They were

really a brutal anti-personnel weapon.

So I came back and I talked about these things, and for approximately a

year and one half, almost two years, the Pentagon denied that they

manufactured such weapons or were using them. But uh, then after a

certain period of time, actually I think it was closer to two years,

they not only admitted that they were using 'em but there was public

bidding for the opportunity to uh manage them.

I also then, in supplement to what I had observed, I got a hold of an

Air Force manual - which uh was supposed to probably be classified, I'm

not sure - but uh which uh pointed out that uh in a modern warfare you

had to bomb the heart of the civilian population because that was the

way to destroy morale.

While I was there, they also, one day they would drop candy or radios

or, you know, various consumer items along with leaflets telling people

to surrender, that they would uh you know come and join America in the

good life. And then the next day they would come in the middle of the

night with their flares and they would machine gun strafe, men, women

and children, uh uh or do blockbuster saturation bombing.

And somehow or other it never seemed to occur to them that uh the

goodies that they distributed one day, if they had any appeal at all,

were destroyed, the effect of them was destroyed by the bombs that

would come actually sometimes just a few hours later.

Legacy of the civil rights and anti-war movements

Interviewer:

I'd like to move on to the next...

Change batteries. Okay.

Clapsticks.

Interviewer:

Wait just a second.

Ready.

Dellinger:

To understand whether the anti-Vietnam War made a difference to the

country and not to the war one has to think about two things. First of

all...

Interviewer:

Begin again, and say the anti-war movement.

Dellinger:

What did I say?

Interviewer:

The war itself. Just start over again.

Dellinger:

I don't remember, but where do you, you want me to say?

Interviewer:

You left out the word "movement" by mistake.

Dellinger:

Oh, I see. Thank you.

Interviewer:

Do you think you made a concrete difference in the conduct of the war?

Dellinger:

I don't think one can really appraise the question of the effectiveness

of the anti-war movement without taking into consideration two factors.

First, where the country was in the very early 60's when the United

States became heavily involved and where it is now. And secondly, one

has to consider the fact that the anti-war movement is made up of

people. And, therefore, they have been conditioned into the society

they - we -- are erratic and confused at many points and, you know, we

work unevenly toward our goals.

But when the war began it was considered impossible, and it was

considered unpatriotic for Americans to object to a war in which

American troops were involved. And many people wrote off the

anti-Vietnam War movement after there was a massive influx of US troops

in Vietnam.

But by the time the last years of the war came it became so unpopular

to have American troops over there that they had to, in Nixon's phrase,

change the color of the corpses by having Vietnamization, having the

South Vietnamese being the ones slaughtered for American and US goals

in Indochina.

But also if one considers interventions now, such as in El Salvador and

other places, one discovers that much quicker there are mass protests,

there are activities that force Reagan to cry "halt" from some of his

things, or to make excuses and to be much more uhm undercover about

them than uh was possible or necessary in the early days of the Vietnam

War.

But also one can look at something like the women's movement and say

that the anti-Vietnam War movement failed because it did not adequately

recognize the oppression of women and do the things that were really

required. And yet what happened was that in the civil rights movement

and the anti-Vietnam war movement, step by step people began to

discover that nobody should be left out of the human family, nobody

should be stereotyped, treated as an object, made a second class

citizen.

And so what began, in a certain sense, with the civil rights movement,

spread to include Vietnamese and to include GIs who were being killed

and told that it was for glorious purposes, and then it extended to, to

women, American Indians, gay and lesbians, young children, old people,

this whole wealth of movements that uh began to uh develop, again

erratically and unevenly.

But in the 70's was in many ways a product both of the successes and

the failures of the anti-Vietnam war movement, because people's

consciences were aroused and stimulated. Their consciousness arose and

uh I think we're at the threshold of possible uh revisions in the

American society, which are necessary for all of its people.

Take nine. Clapsticks.

The idea of non-violence in relation to protest movements

Dellinger:

There are always some people who think that a violent confrontation

stirs up people, educates them and uh provides for better things. But I

never have bought that.

I believe that when it comes down to violence it does anger people, but

that's not necessarily their best selves that are stimulated. It may

radicalized them in uh one sense, but I believe that movements uh to

succeed have to be non-violent because...it's as I said about the

anti-Vietnam, of the uh nuclear, anti-nuclear movement today, we who

are in favor of nuclear disarmament have to realize that some people

favor nuclear armaments because they have the same fear that we do of a

nuclear holocaust, and they think that deterrents will do it.

And there is a way in which human beings are much more alike than their

differing and opposing politics will often bring out. And so, once the

confrontation becomes a violent one, then...all of those similarities

and affinities and the possibility of reaching across the differences

and coming to some understanding is lost.

Martin Luther King once said to me that he never entered a non-violent

action where people didn't oppose it, because they said that it will

arouse people and confuse the issues. But he said that it does raise

the level of the issues and the level of the debate, but as long as

it's non-violent, then it also opens up the possibility of each side

understanding the other.

When it comes down to fighting and violence and trashing and all that

kind of thing, it does just the opposite. It makes each side feel

self-righteous and to focus on the wrong things on the other side and

not on what they're striving, struggling for.

The 1968 Republican National Convention

Take Ten. Clapsticks.

Ready.

Dellinger:

One of the inaccurate attempts to discredit the movement at the time of

Chicago was to say, "Why are you partisan, why didn't you go with the

Republican Convention, too?" Well, first of all we did. The National

Mobilization Committee actually organized the protests at both places.

But Chicago was where the party and power was. And, therefore, that was

the main place to be.

Also, it's wrong to think that people can just flit around the country

and go every week or every few weeks, you know, to a new place to

demonstrate. So we mostly had, we decided to focus on Chicago. And we

mostly had people who were in or near the south plus a few from outside

go to the Republican Convention. Is that any help?

Interviewer:

Yes.

This is going to be room tone for the Dellinger interview.

END OF SR #2512. END OF SIDE OF TAPE.

Transcript

Transcript

Series: Vietnam: A Television History

Raw Footage: Interview with David T. Dellinger, 1982

Contributing Organization: WGBH (Boston, Massachusetts)

AAPB ID: cpb-aacip/15-v69862br4g

If you have more information about this item than what is given here, or if you have concerns about this record, we want to know! Contact us, indicating the AAPB ID (cpb-aacip/15-v69862br4g).

Description

Credits: Publisher: WGBH Educational Foundation
Writer: Dellinger, David T.

AAPB Contributor Holdings: WGBH
Identifier: 16cbc320789fb3172a87adf19727b286336cba85 (ArtesiaDAM UOI_ID)
Format: video/quicktime
Color: Color
Duration: 00:52:44:03

Citations: Chicago: “Vietnam: A Television History; Interview with David T. Dellinger, 1982,” 1982-08-31, WGBH, American Archive of Public Broadcasting (GBH and the Library of Congress), Boston, MA and Washington, DC, accessed September 16, 2024, http://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip-15-v69862br4g.; MLA: “Vietnam: A Television History; Interview with David T. Dellinger, 1982.” 1982-08-31. WGBH, American Archive of Public Broadcasting (GBH and the Library of Congress), Boston, MA and Washington, DC. Web. September 16, 2024. <http://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip-15-v69862br4g>.; APA: Vietnam: A Television History; Interview with David T. Dellinger, 1982. Boston, MA: WGBH, American Archive of Public Broadcasting (GBH and the Library of Congress), Boston, MA and Washington, DC. Retrieved from http://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip-15-v69862br4g