A response to The Militant

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tial. To make your with the truth.

Instead of reporting the fact that the conference had over 150 labor sponsors and endorsers, you reduced the number to "several" who "initially endorsed" it. (Since the complete list of labor sponsors and endorsers was distributed in the registration kits, your figure cannot be attributed to journalistic sloppiness or ignorance.)

Instead of reporting that 650 people registered for the conference-articles in both the Akron Beacon Journal and The Guardian, written by reporters who attended the conference, said there were over 600 people present-The Militant told its readers that only "some 300" attended.

Instead of reporting that hundreds of anti-intervention activists came to Cleveland from the ranks of labor, solidarity networks, peace groups, religious organizations, the women's rights movement, senior citizens, the campuses, and other constituencies to conduct a serious discussion on a program to combat U.S. war actions in Central America and the Caribbean, The Militant article ignored this and instead carped about supposed busloads of people which you say the organizers "promised" and which did not materialize. You also claim that "support for the gathering faded as it drew closer."

These statements are false to the core.

The fact of the matter is that the closer we got to the conference, the more rapidly it built. Some of the most significant endorsements-especially from the labor movement-came shortly before the conference began; the speakers' list broadened perceptibly; and the number of pre-conference registrations climbed substantially. Conference organizers, The Militant not withstanding, never "promised busloads, or a specific attendance, or anything else. We did our best to bring people together to plan united actions at a time of acute crisis and that was what we succeeded in doing.

Tragic baiting attacks The most reprehensible part of The Militant's article on the conference is the roll call you took of particular radical groups present which you say played "the major role."

We became accustomed to this kind of journalism during the wwwwww.

SOCIALIST ACTION only was this first national conference against U.S. military intervention in Central America and the Caribbean several times larger than the first national conference against the Vietnam War, but it is clear that we are light-years ahead in involving trade unionists.

To be sure, some major anti-interventionist forces both within and without the labor movement were not represented at the Cleveland conference. For that reason, the conference did not issue a call for nationwide demonstrations (as The Militant article also mistakenly reported) but adopted a proposal for action to be brought to the rest of the anti-intervention movement in an attempt to get united agreement.

The Oct. 23 meeting in Washington, D.C., confirmed the correctness of this approach. Together with national groups such as CISPES, CALC, SANE, MOBE, WILPF, Nuclear Freeze, and a host of others who were pursuing a parallel course, a unification of the movement has occurred in support of the April 13 demonstrations. Certainly this will be welcomed by the people who have the most at stake: those under the gun in Central America and the Caribbean.

Unity around April 13 Yet The Militant, almost alone, has up to this point remained outside the unification process, not even reporting its development in your Oct. 12 issue, though it was discussed and agreed to at the Cleveland conference.

It is of course your right to select what you report. But it is also the right of others to object to the irresponsible distortions, misrepresentations, and baiting attacks you print in your paper. You ought to get your facts straight and quit conducting yourselves in a blindly factional and sectarian manner.

The Militant should have learned something from its disas- mananana trous 1981 experience when it shamelessly violence-baited the anti-intervention demonstration held in May of that year, also attacked it as being too narrowly sponsored, and in effect urged people not to build it or attend it. In spite of your dire warnings, 100,000 people turned out in a peaceful demonstration, the largest anti-intervention mobilization on Central America to date.

April 13 is a date that everyone in the anti-intervention movement should unite around. Experience proves that once movement activists unite and agree-and put the negativism and factionalism aside-it becomes possible to galvanize into action ever broader sections of the population. The potential for a big turnout on April 13 is certainly there. We hope The Militant will join in building it. But if you choose to do no more than report on the event, let us hope you will at least do so with journalistic integrity.

Jerry Gordon, Coordinator Jim Lafferty, Conference Organizer and Member, Continuations Committee DECEMBER 1984

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By TINA BEACOCK and ANTONIO DE LEON FOR A an undocumented worker, the cannery demanded that all workers produce proof of citizenship. TDU and the Can-