Some lessons are worth remembering

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Out Now! A participant's account of the American movement against the war in Vietman, by Fred Halstead. Monad Press, New York, $9.95.

"Hey, hey, Uncle Sam! We remember Vietnam!" This chant is heard often on demonstrations against U.S. intervention in Central America.

During the course of the long Vietnam war, the great majority of people in this country came to favor U.S. withdrawal, and millions actively opposed the war by demonstrating in the streets. The opposition got so massive that it included active-duty soldiers who organized antiwar protests on their bases and participated with civilians in conferences and street demonstrations.

Comparing U.S. policy today to U.S. policy in Vietnam is an effective way to remind people that our government is carrying out a policy of aggression against small, poor countries trying to determine their own destinies. It also can serve as a reminder that the people of the United States intervened to help stop their government from carrying out its aggression in Vietnam.

Fred Halstead's "Out Now!" is an invaluable source for today's antiwar activists. Halstead describes the major events in the protest movement from 1963 through 1975, when the last American troops were finally withdrawn.

Woven through the chronological description of the various actions, ...White (continued from page 7: “Leslie Cagan: «We must be more public and assertive"”) something between 55 and 70 percent voted yes for Jobs with Peace. It also included lots of grass-roots organizing on the part of community people who are not traditionally involved in the progressive movement.

This successful initiative also helps combat the misconception that Reagan has a mandate in this country. That is not true. He has created a climate of fear in the United States. And, unfortunately, some people voted on one issue alone-their fear over economic issues—their pocketbooks. The fact that inflation was reduced somewhat was enough to mislead some people into thinking that their interests were best served by Reagan.

S.A.: The initiative won in the same electoral districts where Reagan won. This means that a large number of voters who voted for Reagan also voted for peace...

White: That's right. When you have a president like Reagan who is a master of media, it is scary to think that often it's simply a personality—a father figure-who can seduce people with a false sense of "I'm in control-don't think."

So there are many elements that led to his reelection which do not invalidate the growing support of the movements against apartheid in South Africa, against the nuclear arms race, and particularly against his attempts to militarize space-star wars—which many Americans are becoming extraordinarily nervous about.

There is an enormous reservoir of opposition to the Reagan administration. The Jobs with Peace Initiative showed that. We think that April 20 will also show that.

S.A.: Could you describe some of the activities that are being carried out to build the April 20 action?

White: At the present time, 24 activists in Los Angeles have signed an inviteach-ins, demonstrations, conferences, and the groups that sponsored them are brief summaries of what was happening in Vietnam itself, portraits of the main national leaders, and brief sketches of many of the rank-and-file activists.

Included are extensive quotes from minutes, conference proceedings, calls to action, and leaflets-which give a real flavor of the events described and show the sides in the debates which arose. Halstead is more than fair with those who held opposing views to his but makes no pretense at being a detached observer.

Halstead was an active participant and a leader in the antiwar movement and also a leader in the Socialist Workers Party. His book is frankly partisan to the socialist perspective that the SWP brought into the movement.

A mass action approach The Socialist Workers Party and the Young Socialist Alliance were consistent advocates of peaceful, legal, mass demonstrations focused around the single idea of bringing our troops home from Vietnam-Out Now! In retrospect it seems obvious that this was a correct orientation. The demonstrations grew to over 1 million people and obviously could not be ignored. (Later "The Pentagon Papers" showed that the demonstrations were very much a factor that determined the moves of the government.)

Advocates of mass, peaceful demonstrations argued at the time that this tation to an initial meeting to be held Jan. 31. They include representatives of' the Los Angeles New Jewish Agenda, the Office of the Americas, Amalgamated Transit Union Local 1222, Service Employees International Union Local 535, Jobs with Peace, International Longshoremen's and Warehousemen's Union Local 26, SANE, Women's International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF), CISPES, and others.

The coalition is going to be very broad here. Even the 24 signers indicate a broad outreach and include some groups that have not been involved until leaderships for the most part supported the war) and, later, to soldiers. Broad coalitions were built in order that the broadest constituencies of antiwar people could come together in common action, despite differences they might have on other political issues.

Many groups who had extensive political programs on all kinds of issues were able to understand that the urgency of the Vietnam war required the broadest possible unity in action and they were able to agree to disagree on the rest of their issues in order to forge "Peaceful, mass action drew the ordinary person into action."

unity around opposition to the war. But at several points during the course of the Vietnam war, one or another key group of the movement opposed the call for mass mobilizations.

Over the course of the movement the main discussions and debates counterposed the strategies of mass, peaceful, street demonstrations to electoral politics and civil disobedience or "confrontation."

Sometimes the issue was debated in a straightforward way and other times the issue was obscured by organizational squabbles-such as whether a national conference should set the date of a mobilization or leave it to some future time.

Same questions reappear today In many ways, today's struggles against U.S. intervention in Central it What we do want is jobs, programs that meet human needs, not war. We want a life with dignity here in the United States, and we want that same kind of life for people in other countries. We think that this can help build a strong movement in the United States that will force the U.S. administration to change its role in the world.

I would urge your readers to participate in the coalition for April 20 in their cities. If we can mobilize five or six major demonstrations on a single day, of the earlier movement have been absorbed, but some of the same questions are reappearing today.

For example, almost all of the antiwar, antinuclear, and solidarity groups decided to support Mondale and other Democratic Party candidates instead of building mass demonstrations to answer the invasion of Grenada and the increased U.S. moves against Nicaragua and El Salvador. While the movement was thus demobilized, the United States was able to carry out extensive war games in Honduras and the Caribbean and move new nuclear weaponry into Europe.

This is why the escalation of the U.S. war drive today demands a unified response from the opposition. The call for the April 20 spring peace mobilization should elicit the broadest support from the entire antiwar movement-no matter what other projects groups are working on. The need is pressing for activists to put aside their differences over politics and tactics and to unite in mass actions for peace.

A great difference between the peace forces of the 1980s and those of the 60s and 70s is that the labor unions are becoming involved in the current movement. The U.S. working class has suffered several economic setbacks in the past 20 years, and union leaderships that actively engage in protest are reflecting the discontent of their ranks.

More unions are actively opposed to the government's Central America policies than opposed the Vietnam war at the height of the antiwar movement. This alone-and all it can mean in terms of mobilizing masses of people in this country-affords the current movement a real chance of stopping U.S. intervention before the government commits U.S. troops.

there will be a tremendous impact on the media and on the Reagan administration. And suffering people in other parts of the world will then know that there is concern here for these issues and that people are working to change the role of the United States.

People in the Los Angeles area who are interested in finding out more about our coalition can get in touch with: Women's International League for Peace and Freedom, 4603 Prospect Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90027.