Fred Halstead: Speaks about His Candidacy for President of the United States for the Socialist Workers Party [1968]

This is your community lectures you. Tonight we present a speech given by the Socialist Workers Party candidate for president. Read hall stood at Antioch College on October 17. I was asked at a news conference a couple days ago in Indianapolis. Yeah. Is it true that I am the only candidate that doesn't get heckled. Well I don't know if it's true or not but it's true that I haven't been heckled yet. So there's anybody here that wants to break the ice. Be my guest. Nixon and Humphrey and Wallace all have two slogan about the two major issues in this campaign. They call for peace with honor in Viet Nam and Law and Order. Now peace and honor that means a piece of Viet Nam for the American military

and law and order. That means put the black people down. And maybe the students in the anti-war movement too. When they talk about. About wanting to end the war in Viet Nam and this could also be said of of all the other capitalist politicians as well even MacArthur. They would like to see the war in Viet Nam and they really would. But only on certain conditions. And unless they get those conditions the dominant section of the ruling class is still insisting on hanging on to the situation and those conditions are exactly that a piece of Viet Nam for the American military. And a situation where they can hang on. To the general exploitative colonial relationship in that part of the world not only South Vietnam but all of

Southeast Asia. That's still their basic policy and they haven't changed. All the rest as is gain. I was recently in South Viet Nam. You know August. Where I went in order to talk to G.I. is against the war in Viet Nam. I went there frankly because I wanted to demonstrate to the American anti-war movement that it's possible to do that. Because I think that it's necessary that the American antiwar movement largely student based as it is must move up not off the campuses it still has a lot of work to do on the campuses to deepen the radicalization and deepen the activity and to spread that from the campuses to other sectors of the population. That have the raw power. To really effect changes that unfortunately students don't have. And one such section of the

population is very sensitive about the war the young men who are being drafted or who have joined the Army for this or that reason. And then after they're in realized they made a mistake. And they're stuck with it. And so I went to Viet Nam and I talked to the GI. I didn't talk to any officials and I didn't talk to higher officers and I didn't talk to Vietnamese. I talked only to American GI eyes except for those with the means that. I had talked to like the desk clerk or Taxi Driver something like that. The reason I avoided talking to Vietnamese was because I was warned by the newsmen when I got in that they didn't think they'd let me in. I thought the South Sudanese government would try to keep me and my friend out. And probably the only reason they'd let me in was because they don't know what's going on even if you send them a letter. That's what they said about that government is very it's in great chaos. But I talk to ordinary Americans so as not to attract the attention of the

South in these guys. And to my surprise I got absolutely no hostility whatsoever from energy guys I talk to none whatsoever. I did meet some GI eyes who favored the war and who did and who didn't agree with me. But even they were not hostile or violent anyway they were quite polite and willing to talk. They were a small minority of those I talked to. I had a larger of minority who. Were outright opposed to the war. And the great block. The majority. Hadn't made up their mind. They were confused and they admitted it. They said that they knew that what they had been told in the newspapers here and by their orientation officers and so on was not true because they could see in front of their face. That it wasn't true. They knew that the South Vietnamese government was had nothing to do with freedom and of their presence there had obviously nothing to do with it.

But they really didn't know what to think they had no information to replace what they had been told by and they were kind of in a general state of malaise and some of them were quite angry but willing to listen are wide open to the ideas of the anti-war movement. Another thing even those who said they were for the war. Did not give me the arguments that one usually gets in this country. Arguments like fighting for freedom or stopping communism or something like that. The arguments were either of a personal nature or a racist nature. That is they'd say well my body's been killed in the war and that can't have been in vain. Or these people can't do anything to themselves you have to do it for him. Those are the kinds of arguments you got from the pro-war people who said they were in favor of the war. Those who are against the war. Were very strong about it. I also found out to the race question.

We had been told and we have been told very often in this country that that's sort of alleviated in Vietnam. That it's much less harsh there and in some places has been eliminated that this is no racial discrimination and there's no racial tension between black and white. I asked about this. Many white you guys when asked about said that's true. None of the black Shiites I talked to said it was true. Not. One of them articulated he said Well it's true that when you're actually in under fire. And your lives depend upon one another Everybody is very buddy buddy. But as soon as you're out of that direct situation it's just like back in the States maybe a little worse. Because there's all kinds of corruption and all kinds of angling over here in which prejudice and connections play a part. And we always get the

short end of that stick. And of course most of us are enlisted men and the officers are lording it over the enlisted men over here constantly. And to be black an enlisted man in Vietnam is just that much worse than being black in the state. That was the story told by the blacks. In general. It was a little difficult to get the GI eyes to start talking about the war first. They're like a piece of America set down over there in a political military trap. You can't see. Introspective worrying about the United States and thinking about it more than they're thinking about what's going on over there. This is partly. I suppose because it's different it's painful to think about that war over there and there. And it's partly also because that's what they are they are people from this country who are worried about what's going on over here. And as that's reflected in human relationships over there this was

particularly true as I say of the blacks. Many of whom were very angry at being over there while in this country the black uprisings are being put down with military force. We didn't have anything spectacular happen to us in Vietnam. But we did have one close call and it was connected with this question. We went into a bar. In Saigon on the border of the area which is frequented almost entirely by blacks. This was a mixed bag. We started talking to you. I started talking to a couple of black eyes and my friend Barry Sheppard the other to the militants started talking to a white sailor on the barstool next to me. And at one point our attention was called to that conversation. And the sailor said to my friend you know one thing we don't have over here is any of that black power nonsense. Everybody gets along just fine. We're all friends

here. He says Why just the other day and he grew on my ship and told me he didn't know what was wrong with those niggers back home. You no sooner got that phrase out of his mouth than that of. One of the GI eyes I was talking to knocking off the bar stool. And the fight started a rather severe fight. And these were men some of whom were armed with loaded in 14 automatic rifles. And all of whom were drinking rather heavily. So we decided that we would leave. And unfortunately that was the end of what for me had been a very interesting conversation. I wanted to continue that conversation and I went back to that bar the next day. But it had been occupied by whites soldiers.

And standing up in front of it there were half a dozen of them waving the Confederate flag. Once again we decided that discretion would be the better part of valor. And we declined to enter and inquire as to the whereabouts of our two black friends. But I can imagine you should be able to imagine what the feelings would be of a black G.I. walking down that street with those in 14 of those back and seeing that. And what his reaction might be. And that just one sums up an aspect of the tense situation among the American forces in Viet Nam. It is in many ways a disintegrative situation. You see the American military is in very solid position in one sense. We have so much hardware. It's one thing to talk about 30 billion dollars and another thing to see it in front of your face in the form of concrete asphalt

airplanes and barbed wire and guns it's really overwhelming overwhelming. And it was supposed to be overwhelming to those poor little peasants out there in the red man. But it isn't it doesn't throw me in they don't get overwhelmed by. And the result is that while the American military can hold any piece of territory it's not too extensive in size that it chooses to hoe. You can do so only under certain conditions. If it puts barbed wire around it and fortifications around and keeps all Vietnamese out of it. Then it's reasonably secure. But any place else where the Vietnamese population comes and goes is not secure and that includes downtime Saigon. Which is not secure and which is covered barbed wire. Go ahead finish.

It. And pill box gun posts and 50 gallon drums filled with concrete outside of doorways in the St.. Kind of to sum up the political military trap. It's summed up in this situation. The American officers club on one street there. Has its bar on the top floor. Well out of a hand grenade range as do all the other bars. There are hotels and buildings like that frequented by Americans. With one exception it's the Authors Club for example has these 50 gallon drums out in front of the doorway armed guards barbed wire sandbags all that stuff in the first floor. And many buildings like that do including the US saw for example. One gets the general impression that the population does not appreciate one. A.

However there's a hotel there called the Hotel Continental which is an old colonial French building. It has like a sidewalk cafe arrangement. There are no windows on the first floor of the restaurant. The bar opened to the side. People sit there and sort of elaborate old colonial style drinking their gin and tonics. And anybody could pass wine tours and hang it in and get away with it just without even hardly trying. And yet we were told that this was the safest place in town. If you want to eat and that's the place to do it we were told. So we asked somebody in there why this was a place is wide open it's the safest place and time wise and they said well this is where the Polish ambassador to the International Control Commission stays. He's a communist. So you know they're not going to hit this building. And that kind of sums it up. As far as the American position is concerned.

Now we went to a place called long been an army base there. It's not far from Goodman's on the only open road out Saigon That's why we went there. We walked in and talked to gee I found out I'm against the war. We found some who worked in the stockade there and we asked him what the conditions were I'm stuck here you can see the stockade or they wouldn't let us visit it inside. It's just a big open barbed wire place with a canvas across the wire so you can't see in but no shade or anything just sitting out in the middle of the hot sun in the middle of this army base. And these men told us who people who worked in the stockade they told us the conditions there were terrible. They said so many words that torture was used against the Americans you guys who were held there.

Beatings and so on. This is not. It doesn't particularly shock me although I detest it because that's the way it is in many military prisons during the time of the shooting war because terrors often involved in keeping soldiers as they say in line. Under those kinds of conditions. But after we left a week after we left the uprising took place in that. Jail. Probably heard about it in papers. It got a little bit of coverage in the paper it was a second uprising in the military prison in Vietnam to occur that month the first was among Marines at then. But the Newsweek published a fuller report than anything else. And it's very interesting. Late last month it says U.S. military spokesman dutifully revealed to the press that there had been what they

called a fight among inmates of the army stockade had long been 18 miles north of Saigon at the time the incident seemed easily enough to understood and affectionately known as LBJ for want to be in jail. Army officers carefully explain. The stockade was built. To accommodate a maximum of 400 prisoners and last month it was bulging with some 700 GI eyes who'd been convicted of everything from a wall to murder. I'll tell you a damn few and they're been convicted of murder most of it is is. Stuff like a wall or. Or the refusal to for some kind of duty. But overcrowding as it turned out had little to do at least directly with the trouble at Long Binh instead cabled Newsweek's Robert stocks last week it has gradually emerged that the worst prison riot in modern history in the US Army had profoundly racial overtones. Stokes report the August 29 thrive at Long Binh began with a ruckus between

a relatively small number of blacks and whites in the medium security section of the prison. Several employees armed with nightsticks immediately rushed to him to separate the combat only to be overpowered and stripped of their keys. Moments later the troublemakers emboldened by this initial success and lock the gates of the medium security area and streamed into the stockade central courtyard. They're led by a group of blacks they first disposed of the 25 guards on duty leaving many of them beaten and bloody on the ground then the black rebels proceeded to unlock the maximum security cellblock and to set fire to the number of buildings several of which including the administration building which holds the men's records rapidly burned to the ground. After MP reinforcements came in when order was restored the MP sort of the prisoners into cooperatives and uncooperative the two hundred and twenty uncooperative All Blacks save for three Puerto Ricans were locked into an enclosed part of stockade know not the figures tells you something about the situation in Viet Nam as well as American society.

And don't misquote me on this now. I'm just talking about the general alone being as far as figures I can say. But here they say that there were it was bulging with some 700 years. And here they say that among the uncooperative rebels were two hundred and twenty All Blacks a three Puerto Rican I presume where there were other blacks among cooperatives or people that were not involved in the rebellion. But even if there were none at all. Two hundred and twenty out of seven hundred is how much percentage is 31 percent. At the minimum 31 percent of the population of that prison is black but only about 12 percent of the G.I. is in Vietnam are black. You see it tells us something about racial discrimination. It also tells us something about the bombs that are being carried around in the stomachs of the Black Sea eyes in Viet Nam because that's one reason more of them get into jail and other people are angry and they

explode on occasion. I met one who told me he had been in Viet Nam for 11 months in the infantry and then been sent back to. United States. His time was up in the Invid there. He'd been stationed at Maryland and when the uprising occurred in Washington DC at the time of Dr. King's death. They ordered his unit into Washington. He refused to go. Because his wife and child live there. It's his home town and he said he didn't want to be put in the position of having to shoot his own people possibly for that he said. He had been taken back to Viet Nam for temporary duty stay of another hundred a day. That was his story. I heard it more than once from black she was there. And as you can well imagine they were fit to be tied.

Well let me go on with this story about the rioting long being keenly aware of it says here. They thought that this and they thought that separated the prisoners that moved to the scene the rebellion was over. But this is it turned out was a highly premature conclusion secure in the knowledge their records had been destroyed with the administration building the black militants gave false names and serial numbers even more provocatively many of them proceeded to shed their uniforms into don white kerchiefs an African style robes which they made out of army blankets. Keenly aware of the sensitivity of the civil rights issue back home. The men are commanded long been decided not to crack down on the militants but rather to wait them out each day cases or see regimes were tossed over the fence to the area in which the ancor operatives were confined. Scores of Army psychologists and stockade officials were sent in to question the insurgency.

And this is what the psychologist said. Most of them. Just wanted out of the army and out of Viet Nam and quote where you don't have to be a psychologist to find that out. Then it says by military standards the Army's handling of the holdouts was incredibly permissive and to a degree the policy of restraint did work out. It is ordinary that it just beat the hell out maybe shot a few dozen but under the political conditions in the country and the growth of the Black Power movement they know that that would be dynamite if the outside world find out about it and the outside world would find out about it and they knew that too. Nonetheless the riot of LBJ would seem to have ominous import both for the Army and for US society as a whole.

Yes it would seem to have that. Now. Note that they say that 21 days after the riot only 13 rebels are still defying prison discipline. Can you imagine in a military prison 13 guys holding out that war. That's guts that's guts. On the same page it was this article appears another article obviously designed to counteract its effect. It's a picture of General Davidson receiving his general stars from General Abrams And General Davidson has just made a general. He's a negro. One of the few negroes in American history ever to make general. And the caption says General Abrams and Davidson a routine Army affair.

But the truth is of course as anybody with his head screwed on right knows that the reason Gen. Davidson was given that stock. At that time. Was because of those guys who were holding out in the LBJ. In on it. And he ought to be grateful to them. And give credit where credit is due. Now if you want to take it from me and take it from a major negro major that now we just want tobe or 14th in Saigon passed out a press release on his own which he said the following. Read the story from the Cleveland Plain Dealer. A 40 year old negro major professing to be fed up after 20 years of service charges yesterday the US Army is a racist organization that denies equality and

justice to its negro personnel in an eight page statement handed to newsmen major Levitt Merrill of Chicago and said other negro officers should recognize that they have been denied the opportunities available to whites and begin acting like men. The black military officer group is the largest collection of identifiable accommodationist he said. Defining that term is a synonym for Uncle Tom. He said those who fit the category know who and what they are. His blast came four weeks after another high ranking negro officer Brigadier General Frederick Ellis Davis in this vote. Declared the Army has made unbelievable progress towards eliminating segregation. And so on merit the Major said in my opinion the American military services are the strongest sort of tells of race and racism on the face of the earth due consideration of course being given to certain white dominated South African

nations and a few scraggly organizations such as the White Citizens Councils and the Ku Klux Klan. But outside of that the army takes the prize. The American people have for years been told of the military leads the nation in breaking down and eliminating all vestiges of segregation and discriminatory treatment of minority groups. General Davidson repeated this who will answer him. I will. It is a blatant lie. He signed his name to this paper and passed it out in the streets of Saigon to the newsman. Just in case you think that there's nothing going on. Among the American forces stationed over there except. Killing. I use that term advisedly because I want to tell you something about a. Lot of people in the anti-war movement. Less now than before but before there was someone who had kind of a holier than thou attitude towards people in the armed services and say well there's

some kind of moral degenerates to be in there. But that isn't the case. It's just a slice of ordinary Americans like you and I are heavily weighted to the black and working class side. But sprinkled also with student types and even people who have been in the anti-war movement. But there are people who just decided that they were going to go to jail they were going to try to try to work this thing out. I wise decision in my opinion editor at The advocate that people go to jail or they can avoid it. But anyway that was their their kind of decision. Most of the people there are not in favor of the war it's well it's good to understand that. And even people who are not drafted but who join and join for all kinds of strange reasons some of the rational and some of them not like wanting a job or being in trouble with a girlfriend or to get away from home or because they want to learn to fly don't know other any other way to do it. All kinds of reasons. Ordinary human reason.

And then of course after they end they realize that maybe they made a mistake but it's too late it's too late and these young people that's another thing we found out these young people are not immune to the general youth rebellion which is sweeping the world. They are becoming a part of it. And they're becoming political allies even even becoming political. Guys like this Major. He's a rare exception of course among officers but you find him more on the lower levels and not too unusual. And you're going to see more of that happening much more. And there's a great big area for the anti-war movement to go to work on because it's absolutely unnecessary that those GEOS in Viet Nam should not have plenty of information from the anti-war movement about the any one or fifteen hundred GI eyes every day that are sent to Vietnam from this country on an average fifteen hundred. That's what it takes to rotate a half a million troops

once a year. And there's no reason why they can't have literature in their pocket they'll receive it with open open minds and it'll be received even in Viet Nam with open mind. And open mind. We met for example. I talked to Jais not only in Viet Nam but also in Germany and other places where they were stationed and we were in Japan and England as well. We went to the German STF convention. That's the German social students as d s means German social students but it's a similar organisation to ours to us here except it's socialist and a big convention there in Frankfurt Germany. And we were going to talk to GISS and some of the bases there and we did the one place we certainly didn't expect to see and was at the SD s convention but that's where we saw him just the same and we didn't bring him there.

They came by themselves. American G.I. stationed in Germany attending the German history s convention just because they're young people part caught up in the general student and youth rebellion and curious about it. Went to see what was going on. They had already on their own been engaged in certain anti-war activities putting of anti-war posters on the posts over there in Germany. In one place the German SDF kids in Mannheim had cooperated with them and had a demonstration against the war. They went into an all American village called Benjamin Franklin village. Which is 20000 people who live in a suburb of Mannheim Germany. All Americans Now speak English and all American stores American schools and all that kind of thing. The little island of the United States. And. The German students announced they were going to leave for that place of the anti war literature and have a demonstration there so that the German police cordoned it off. And the NPC American

employees went inside and stood in front of the doorways and told people that they have to close their doors and windows and stay away from these German Reds. But the German Reds got in anyway through a. Meadow back to the cops and forgot about. Then they ran through the streets passing out leaflets and yelling anti-war slogans and waving red flag and something that nobody expected to happen. The people in the houses opened their doors and their windows and came pouring out to join them. Not not not so much that they understood what the demonstration was about but that they were angry with having been told by employees that they didn't even have the right to read what they wanted to read. And they got in the conversations and the German kids found some of them very sympathetic. I saw only some of the things that are going on in this respect.