Tag Archives: Vietnam War

New York’s Finest: Busting Out All Over (May 2, 1968)

“WASHINGTON SQUARE — While the good John Lindsay praised the peace parade in Central Park, the bad John Lindsay had the peace parade busted in Washington Square Park. While the good Sanford Garelik passed out flyers of ‘principles to guide … Continue reading

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The Quiet American – Graham Greene: Directed by Phillip Noyce (2002)

“The mood of wry disillusion that seeps through the screen adaptation of Graham Greene’s novel ‘The Quiet American’ is sounded in the movie’s opening moments by the voice of Michael Caine musing dreamily on the mystique of Saigon in the … Continue reading

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Teach-Ins Helped Galvanize Student Activism in the 1960s. They Can Do So Again Today.

Hans Morgenthau leads a debate on Vietnam that was broadcast to teach-ins across the nation on May 15, 1965. “When the teach-ins protesting the Vietnam War erupted on many campuses across the country in 1965, academic administrators complained that the … Continue reading

Posted in CIA, Lyn. Johnson, MLKJr., Pacifist, R. McNamara, Vietnam War | Tagged , , , , , | 1 Comment

The Trials of Muhammad Ali – Bill Siegel (2013)

“Muhammad Ali, born Cassius Clay, was not the only American to refuse to serve during the Vietnam War, but he was, by some measures, the most famous, the loudest and the baddest. Tracing the road to Mr. Ali’s act of … Continue reading

Posted in Documentary, Draft board, Malcolm X, Movie, Pacifist, Religion, Sports, Vietnam War, Weather Underground | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Mary McCarthy – Battle of Grosvenor Square (October 27, 1968)

“It was very English to call it ‘the Demo,’ and no wonder the pet name stuck, conjuring up a specter of ‘demos,’ the people (sometimes pejorative), but on the other hand ‘democracy’ (good), which withstood the test of the demonstration. … Continue reading

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Flashback: Good Humor delighted generations with its curbside delivery of ice cream bars — and not even the mob could stop it

Al Cooney loads ice cream into his Good Humor truck at the start of the season at the Good Humor offices at 4825 W. Arthington St. on April 1, 1965, in Chicago. “For Chicagoans of a certain age, the sound … Continue reading

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Ingmar Bergman – Persona (1966)

“Persona is a 1966 Swedish psychological drama film, written and directed by Ingmar Bergman and starring Bibi Andersson and Liv Ullmann. The story revolves around a young nurse named Alma (Andersson) and her patient, well-known stage actress Elisabet Vogler (Ullmann), … Continue reading

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What Was J. Edgar Hoover Biggest Secret that Could Have Destroyed Him?

“John Edgar Hoover (January 1, 1895 – May 2, 1972) was an American law enforcement administrator who served as the first Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) of the United States. He was appointed director of the Bureau of … Continue reading

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‘We’re Going to Publish’ An Oral History of the Pentagon Papers

“On Oct. 1, 1969, Daniel Ellsberg walked out of the RAND Corporation offices, where he worked as a Defense Department consultant, into the temperate evening air of Santa Monica, Calif. In his briefcase was part of a classified government study … Continue reading

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Styles of Radical Will – Susan Sontag (1966)

“I’m not sure whether America can be radically changed, and it scares me. I want to save my soul as a subject of the American Empire 1969, but it isn’t an easy fight and the outcome is in doubt. ‘Salvation … Continue reading

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Nixon’s Vietnam Treachery

United States President Richard M. Nixon with President Thieu in Saigon on his first visit to South Vietnam, August 1969. “Richard M. Nixon always denied it: to David Frost, to historians and to Lyndon B. Johnson, who had the strongest … Continue reading

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What’s Going On – Marvin Gaye (1971)

“What’s Going On is the eleventh studio album by American soul singer, songwriter, and producer Marvin Gaye. It was released on May 21, 1971, by the Motown Records subsidiary label Tamla. Recorded between 1970 and 1971 in sessions at Hitsville … Continue reading

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Blowin’ in the Wind: A Folk-Music Revolt – Jack Newfield (Jan. 14, 1965)

“On the frontier of every art form guerilla bands of prophets and crackpots are nourishing the orthodoxies and fashions of tomorrow. A decade ago the frontier outlaws were men like Miles Davis, Paul Goodman, and Norman Mailer. Bereft of followers, … Continue reading

Posted in Black Power, Bob Dylan, Burroughs, Civil Rights Mov., CORE, Jazz, Music, Phil Ochs, Poverty, SNCC, The Fugs, Vietnam War | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Debunking ’60s Myths and Catchphrases

Crossing street at Masonic and Haight, 1967. “… The system not only referred to capitalism or to economics. The system represented the constellation of forces that dominated and controlled all aspects of social life from sexual mores to the oppression … Continue reading

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Muhammad Ali Explains Why He Refused to Fight in Vietnam: “My Conscience Won’t Let Me Go Shoot My Brother… for Big Powerful America” (1970)

“In April of 1967, Muhammad Ali arrived at the U.S. Armed Forces Examining and Entrance Station in Houston, Texas. ‘Standing beside twenty-five other nerve-racked young men called to the draft,’ writes David Remnick at The New Yorker, Ali ‘refused to … Continue reading

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Vietnam: The Logic of Withdrawal – Howard Zinn (1967)

Howard Zinn (January 1, 2004) – “[A note of explanation: In the spring of 1967, my book Vietnam: The Logic of Withdrawal was published by Beacon Press. It was the first book on the war to call for immediate withdrawal, … Continue reading

Posted in Books, Lyn. Johnson, Philip Berrigan, Religion, Vietnam War | Tagged , , , , | 1 Comment

Direct Action: Protest and the Reinvention of American – L. A. Kauffman

“In 1971, the People Didn’t Just March on Washington — They Shut It Down. The largest and most audacious direct action in US history is also among the least remembered, a protest that has slipped into deep historical obscurity. It was … Continue reading

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My Time as a Vietnam War-era Conscientious Objector

Conscientious objector William White being dragged from his home in Sydney after being arrested, 1966 “When I chose to apply for conscientious objector status in 1969 during the height of the Vietnam War, I was a teenager and in a … Continue reading

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The U.S. vs. John Lennon (2006)

“The U.S. vs. John Lennon is a 2006 documentary film about English musician John Lennon‘s transformation from a member of the Beatles to a rallying anti-war activist striving for world peace during the late 1960s and early 1970s. The film … Continue reading

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Newsweek Sold!

“It was early March 1961.  A young John F. Kennedy was just months into his new presidency, ‘Blue Moon’ by The Marcels was the No. 1 hit on the radio, and The Great Impostor with Tony Curtis had just opened … Continue reading

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The Rag

“The Rag was an underground newspaper published in Austin, Texas from 1966–1977. The weekly paper covered political and cultural topics that the conventional press ignored, such as the growing antiwar movement, the sexual revolution, gay liberation, and the drug culture. … Continue reading

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It ain’t over till it’s over – Michael Herr

“Sitting on a garden bench – the sun, dappled by trees, streaming onto the lawn – it all seems impossibly far away. It is impossibly far away. The corpse was the worst thing we’d ever seen, utterly blackened by now, … Continue reading

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John Sinclair: ‘We wanted to kick ass – and raise consciousness’

“I meet John Sinclair in a canalside coffeeshop in Amsterdam, where the vibes are mellow, the air perfumed, and the soundtrack a stream of vintage rock songs of the more laidback kind. Compared to slightly self-conscious young pot tourists skinning … Continue reading

Posted in Black Power, Bobby Seale, CIA, Ed Sanders, Hippie, Huey P. Newton, Jazz, LSD, Marijuana, Music, Phil Ochs, Poetry, The Beatles, The Fugs, Vietnam War | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Seattle Liberation Front

The Seattle Seven and two of their attorneys in summer 1970, photographer unknown “The Seattle Liberation Front, or SLF, was a radical anti-Vietnam War movement, based in Seattle, Washington, in the United States. The group, founded by the University of … Continue reading

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What Kurt Vonnegut’s “Slaughterhouse-Five” Tells Us Now

“I first read ‘Slaughterhouse-Five‘ in 1972, three years after it was published and three years before I published my own first novel. I was twenty-five years old. 1972 was the year of inching slowly toward the Paris Peace Accords, which … Continue reading

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Andrew Kopkind – The Thirty Years’ Wars: Dispatches and Diversions of a Radical Journalist 1965–1994

“In Boston in the 1970s he wrote articles and movie reviews for a range of publications and did regular political commentary for WBCN radio.  … He’d been a contributor to Grand Street, New Left Review, Esquire, Vogue and Il Mani­festo, … Continue reading

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Vietnam War Photos That Made a Difference

“A group of people are huddled together in a jungle clearing, some with arms reaching toward a light from above. At first glance, perhaps an allegorical painting from the age of da Vinci. But on closer examination, it’s a black … Continue reading

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Echoes of 1969 – Harvard University and the Vietnam War

Shortly before noon on April 9, student demonstrators convened in front of Memorial Church before heading to University Hall to read their demands. … “In the late 1960s, American society seemed in crisis. The Tet Offensive that began in January … Continue reading

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The Campaign Against The Underground Press*

Kaleidoscope, April 26-May 9, 1969 “In the 1960s, investigative journalists, poets, novelists, political activists, community organizers, and artists formed an unprecedented alliance for change in the vigorous underground press movement that flourished in the United States. This network of counterculture, … Continue reading

Posted in Allen Ginsberg, Black Power, Burroughs, Chicano/Puerto Rican, CIA, LSD, Lyn. Johnson, Marijuana, Newspaper, Nixon, Poetry, SDS, Vietnam War, Weather Underground | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

John Lennon and the Politics of the New Left

“When John Lennon was murdered forty years ago, on December 8, 1980, we believed Richard Nixon had been the worst president ever — because of the war in Vietnam, because of the repression that he called ‘law and order’ and … Continue reading

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Burning Draft Cards (November 19, 1965)

“Seldom does there occur a liturgical ceremony more impressive than the draft-card burning which took place in Manhattan’s Union Square November 6. Through the opening poems chanted by the only bearded speaker of the day, through the homilies delivered by … Continue reading

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The Secret War That Transformed the CIA

American helicopters land at Khe Sanh base, on the Laos border on February 1, 1971. “If you work at it, you can make a case that Americans fought on the right side in Vietnam. There is an argument — not … Continue reading

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Thinking About the ’60s: Thawing the Souls on Ice

“GOOD RIDDANCE, Viet­nam! — a likely sentiment for the groundpounders whose war experiences have been regurgitated on film. Enter the most recent of this set, Good Morning, Vietnam, a movie that wants to be comically thera­peutic about our dark affair … Continue reading

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Diane di Prima

“Diane di Prima (August 6, 1934 – October 25, 2020) was an American poet, known for her association with the Beat movement. She was also an artist, prose writer, and teacher. Di Prima authored nearly four dozen books. … She edited … Continue reading

Posted in Allen Ginsberg, Books, Burroughs, Feminist, Hippie, Jack Kerouac, LSD, Marijuana, Pacifist, Poetry, Timothy Leary, Vietnam War | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

The Democrats Need a New Eugene McCarthy

“The awakening Democratic presidential primary, with 14 declared candidates and at least nine possible more, amounts to a stark choice over the party’s future: left or center, identity-issue minded or pluralist, radical or incrementalist. In fact, we haven’t seen Left … Continue reading

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Cleveland Summit

Fight in Vietnam. Those present are: (front row) Bill Russell, Muhammad Ali, Jim Brown, Lew Alcindor; (back row) Carl Stokes, Walter Beach, Bobby Mitchell, Sid Williams, Curtis McClinton, Willie Davis, Jim Shorter, and John Wooten. “It was a sunny Sunday … Continue reading

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Pushing Buttons: In Our Divided America, Political Pinbacks Give Anyone a Voice

Top: A group of Americana pinbacks from Aisthorpe’s collection. Above: Several of Aisthorpe’s antiwar buttons, circa 1967-1971. “In this modern age of political polarization, we Americans increasingly surround ourselves with friends, neighbors, and news sources that reinforce our worldviews rather … Continue reading

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‘Prairie Fire’ Memories

“I could wallow in nostalgia about my days with the Weather Underground in the early 1970s: at Coney Island with Bernardine Dohrn, eating Bill Ayers’ soufflés and Jeff Jones’ homemade breads and the thrill of having my left earlobe pieced … Continue reading

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Ho Chi Minh’s Time in Rio de Janeiro Helped Make Him a Revolutionary

In 1911, Ho Chi Minh was forced out of his homeland. Between then and his stay in Paris in revolutionary 1917, he lived countless adventures around the world — including in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. “Ho Chi Minh, hero of … Continue reading

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“The death of SDS” by Mark Rudd

“It’s probably not a great idea to pursue an hallucination all the way to the end. Most likely the results will not be what you thought they would be, but 35 years ago we weren’t playing the probabilities. There was … Continue reading

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