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$2.00
October 1983
PEACE AND FREEDOM THROUGH.NONVIOIENT ACTION
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ANADA THE CRUIS . INT'I E}TO S
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Workshop ln Nonviolencer Octoberl9B3 o VOL 19, NO 17 &18
AFINALAPPEAL
Magazines have two historic moments. Their first issue, and their last. There is no cry
of wolf lingering in
as
read this-=WIN ceases publication with this issue. Thos" *h;h;;;;orked
llt:3it
Yo.l
together to make
WIN possiblq - we think here of War Resisters League and the present staff and editorial
board of WIN will explore what the nonviolent movement needs in-the way of magazines, what new steps
need to be taken.
But WIN is closing. Magazines, more than organization", ,""rn to require a special
åhemistry. They require groups of talented people who come together at certain flash pointi in time.
The result is lively, ihal'lenging, and historic. wIN has been those things. Magaziner ulro r"quì; ul;;ö;;;;;
ilrd;';d
manageable debt. And like too many progressive periodicals before uå lack ofiuld, for"","¡us to close. "
. We have always been honest, and hgnesty makes us say that while lu.l of ir.ãr-ir the main reason we
close,
-lately there has also been a lack of agreement among thoóe mosi Jir;;¡lv;;;olved with WIN about
what the magazine should be.
WIN has surprised itself by managing to'change so completely more than once-its staff, its location,
etc. -and still remain-alive. But just now this collection of
and memories and hopes *fi"n
þeoplá
*ä""i1
not working. We are not laying down the struggle-we are layinj ¡;;; o;¿ puUii"átion *hi.h;;
dtd an enormously importantiob, and which has rããched the end óf itã lin".
But to lay somethin.q!9|" means to lay it down with care, responsibly, and in such a way as to hurt
as few
people as possible. WIN has a total debt of $22,263,87. $300ö of tnat.debt is to movement printers
and
mailing h9y:gtpgtgtions - people who live on marginal incomes and who printed and mailed ãur
-ui"iiul
on trust. $6000 of the debt is back salaries to staff. This ¡s the hardest buiden on u.-tf,ãr" aremä;;d
women who trusted enormously aird borrowed from friends to do their work here. We have ro¡¡¡"
$SSSO i¡
loans to individuals and war tax resistance funds. Peopleand groups who, when repaid, wilf ienJ iÀut;;;
to other worthwhile causes. The rest is owed to companies- sãrallãnd large- variåus movement groups
wiÍl
need to do business with in the future. If not repaiá, these businesses *iIl b" reluctant to extend the credit
needed for future movement work.
There is no happy way out, no insurance company for radical publications that come to the end of the line.
And there is not a commerciâl magazine in the world which, as it went bankrupt, would dare ask itr
scribers for more' We do. W_e ask you t9 help us make sure that the closing of this magazine does not crush
"rUpeople who had trusted us. Responsibility to one another is what makes pãssible respînsibility i;;rd;h;
wholeof society. As you read this issue and file it aw.ay as being historic,'rem"-Uài1'Èor" of uã nãr" i*ini
the debts of closing down. Please help us share that búrden. añ¿ ir you éunnot r"n¿ å check, send a note oi
greeting" -!t may never be answered but it will be read. And those letters will serve alsá as some
sign
of what you feel is needed for the f uture.
As we close, we want to thank those who. made it possible for WIN to publish for lT years. Staff
members-working long hours for low, irregular puy-u'oluntàers and editoriál board membeís too numerous to list. Writers and artists, who donated time and talent. But especially you, our readers and
cont¡ibutors, who supported us with words of.encouragement and criticisi¡r. Wt'to- r"rponding to ort rniny
fund appeals - 9-aye more than you reasonably could aJford. And who brought WIN's rnerrugã and spirit oÍ
nonviolent social change to your daily lives and organizing. Thank you. --WIN Staff and Ëditoriafgoard
i:
WI\
thinþ
th
P.S. Th.ose of you with unexpired subscriptions will be notified soon about arrangements for completing
your subscriptions.
Euromissile Politics
The
m
issiles are on their way. Frank Brodhead analyzes th is challenge to the disarmament movement
on page 4.
An activists guidetoOctober-see pageT,acalendarof actions againstdeployment.
Women Resist
E
r¡rom issi les
Many Americans camped for peaJe'last summer. Kate Donnetly reports on what happened at the Seneca,
New York, women's encampment starting on page 8.
The of West German CD
The West Cerman peace movement takes off in the direction of nonviolent civil disobedience. Ed Hedemann
reports first-hand on page 14.
Circling for Peace
East Cermans are questioning and challeging East bloc militarism. Bruce Birchard tells how. Page 16.
Canadians Refuse the Cruise
SinceWorldWarll,Canadahasbeenaclientof theLlS, KenHancockshowshowchallengestocruise
missile tests are creating cracks in the relationship, page 19.
WIN: From the Beginning
Yellow submarines, Vietnam, drugs, rock music, gay and women's liberation were some of the early
concernsof WlN.MarkMorrisdãscr¡6esthefirstfiúãyéarsbeginningonpage23. ln1972,WlNsauntéred
backtotheland. MarisCakarstellswhathappened, page26. From nonukestonoWlN, Murray
Rosenblith chronicles WIN's lateryears starting on page 27: And beginning on page 25, WIN friends and
former staff reminisce and say goodbye
Have we really changed
How We've Changed: A Personal View
that little-or much-since WIN started publishing? Wendy Schwartz offers
her
opin ions about what we've been through these past 17 years. Page 31.
prison Notes
Larry Cara Says goodbye. page 36.
Cover design by Dan
Zedek
Cover photo by Harriet Hirshorn
Staff:Harriet Hirshorn and John Miller
Specialthanks to Pauline Carvin, Paul Johnson, Kate Donnelly, Murray Rosenblith, Lauri Lowell, Andrew
Donnelly Colt, .¡udyOrnstein, Clay Colt, Elizabeth Dworan, Dan Zedek, Lisa Lincoln, Suzanne Seay, Mary
J ane Sullivan, Vicki Rovere
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&ober1983W¡N2
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3
WIN October 1983
I
I
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Cruise&
of the Mutlangen,
Pershing
ïi
Germany,
TI
¡nning
weave
byEd
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I
rshingPolitics:
or e
military base. Cruise missiles are eipected
ñi,"ä".T:ïi'Xî"?1"'%,iil:';
"'*::"1!:
ifi JHIì:'lñ,i,',iJïi;"îîiåïf;
watch before an execution, we wait, protest, añA *uit
. some more as the countdown moves toward iero hour.
The missiles are the wonders of ourage. As its com_
puter reads a built-in map, the cruise hugs the con_
tours of the land to evade Soviet radar anã strike its
target precisely. The nuclear-tipped warhead of the
cruise can deliver up to 200 kilotons of explosive power,_and has a range of 1500 miles; 464 cruise missiles
will be installed beginning in December in Creat Britain, ltaly, Belgium, the Netherlands, and the Federal
Republicof Cermany. The Pershing ll has a 1000-mile
range and delivers its 10-20 kiloton warhead with pinpoint accuracy. The'l0B Pershing lls scheduled tó be
installed in West Cermany can reac h their targets in
Frank Brodhead is a frequent contributor to WtN and
is currently, with Ed Herman, working on a book on
US roles in elections in c/ientstates.
äf."iñ?i
Signs point to Mutlangen base and oppos¡t¡on to cruise and Pershing missiles
Plioto by Ed Hcdemenn.
blockade of thè
by Frank
the Soviet Union in four to six minutes. As the missiles will be under US control, the Soviets view them
as "forward-based strategic systems": for the Soviet
Union this is theirÇuban MissileCrisis.
It would be hard to imagine a more dangerous or
destabilizing move on the part of the NATO command. The accuracy of both missiles makes them
ideal weapons for a f irst strike against Soviet missile
fields or command and control installations. Their
proximity tothe Soviet Union increases the pressure
on the Soviets fo prepare to launch their missiles
before they are destroyed: to "launch on warning."
This will greatly increase the possibility of war by
accident, by computer failure. lt will also make q
Soviet first strike against US and NATO nuclear
installations more likely in periods of high tension between the two superpowers. lt puts the survival of
Europe-and, indeed, of our civilization-on a hair
trigger.
Brodhead
photos by Ed Hedemann
for the week of October 21-24 (see p.
). A large
demonstration is planned for Philadelphia on October'
6, when President Reagan hosts West Cermany,s
President Carstens to celebrate the 300th anniversary
of the arrival of (pacif ist!) Cermans to our shores. And
in Congress in the early fall an amendment to the
Department of Defense appropriations bill will be
introduced by Ron Dellums callingfor acut in f unding t
fortheçruiseand Pershing ll, which if it passes would
result in a one-year delay in deployment.
Lessons from Europe
Ihe
f
I
thfeat to deploy the cruise and pershing
llmissiles poses some serious problems for
l:å"i,:ì',ìilå inl,li:i^-l:'"1ïX:",1,,'ï3x
congressional lobbying, as opposed to mass derñonstrations and civil disobedience and our relationship
to the nominee of the Democratic Party in the ,84
EuropeontheMove
uropeans were quick to protest the new missiles; Peace movements throughout Europe
were reinvigorated and held massive dem-
election campaign. What can we gain frotn a
legislative or electoral strategy, and what must we
give up to gain it? Here the experiences of the Green
Party in West Cermany are particularly important to
us. Their program is genuinely exciting: Their suc-
Pea.ce
cesses are at the outer edge of our hopes for achieving
,
onstrations (see New European
Movements, WlN, 1/1/82). The European Nuclear
Disarmament (END) movement was founded to campaign for the transformation of Europe into a nuclear
f ree zone " Írom Poland to Portugal . " Clearly alarmed
by the breadth and intensity of the opposition to the
missiles, our NATOallies havecontinued to hope that
the original "dual track" strategy-negotiations between the United States and the Soviets to reduce
European-based nuclear forces, while preparations
continuted to deploy the cruise and Pershing ll on
schedule if the negotiations failed-would result iñ
some arms control agreement that would pacifry its
nuclear opposition. At this writing these negotiations
seem to have little chance of more than a cosmetic
'a
success, and'even
delay in deploying the new
missiles-now scheduled for December, 1983 and
early 1984- seems unlikely.
A new:round of demonstrations and political action
against the cruise and Pershing ll packs this fall's
agenla. Actions against the Euromissiles âre
scheduled in the United States, Canada, and Europe
measurable power quickly; and they are working ou-i
in a new context and around new issues the ancient
problem of balancing parliamentary power with the
mass, nonparliamentary movement that gives them
their real powgr (see "Politics of Realignment,',
WlN, 7/83). This latter issue already beãevils the
Freeze, as well as the social democratic parties of
northern Europe and the Communist parties of
France and southern Europe.
The campaign against the Euromissiles raises
ailother problem: conventfonal, non-nuclear weapons. As things stand now in Congress, it appears
lhat a maiority can be assembled evin.for a deiav ¡"
deploying the new missíies only by grving a green
light to a conventional weapons bujldup for NÃtO.
This position is in fact supported by an important
segmènt of the antinuclear movement, including the
Union
of
Concerned Scientists and leading
,proponeñts of "No First Use" of nuclear weapons.like
former Kennedy Vietnam strategists. Robêrt
MacNamaia and McCeorge Bundy. Presidential.
October 1983 WIN 4
5
WIN October 1903
å
.,Ì
Voídale and Clenn will probably campaign on some version of this theme. There are, of
course, greater or lesser levelS of conventional
buildup, and attempts will be made to distinguish
offensive from defensive weapons. Civen the
possibility'of putting some limits on the Euromissiles
in exchange for a conventional weapons buildup in
Europe, this issue is bound to divide the peace
movement. Yet a conventional buildup should be
opposed not only on pacifist grounds, but also
because it will actually make conflict between the
superpowers, and thus nuclear war, more likely (ser
"An Open Letter to the American Peace Movement,,
Candidates
wtN,11l82)
UnilateralPaths
related problem is unilateralism. The peace
movement must demand that the United
States take a unilateral step, that is, not deploy the new missiles, no matter what the
Soviet Union does. While not adding new weapons is
hardly "unilateral disarmament," this charge will
be made by political forces on the right and pondered
by forces in the center. As Cold War rhetoric reaches
new heights-foreshadowed by the Korean airline
incident-the mass media will probably renew its interest in KCB controlof the peace movement, and will
target uniláteralist tendencies. Because we (through
the Freeze and otherwise) have put a lot of emphalis
on bilateral steps to stop nuclear weapons, ther.e will
be genuine differences among us at the same time
that "unilateralism" is being used as a form of red
baiting. Once again the Europeans have some important lessons for us. The writings of E.P. Thompson,
Alva Myrdal and others in the European movement
have evolved a radical perspective on the failures of
arms'controland the greater practicality of unilateral
steps towards disarmament.
An important issue for the Europeans is the status
of the unofficial East European peace movements.
Before the conservative election victories in Britain,
West Cermany, and ltaly, and when Solidarity yet
lived, the emergence of strong peace factions within
the social demociatic parties of the West and the
simultaneous emergence of small, independent peace
movements in the East gave a tremendously exciting
meaning to the END slogan; "From poland tó
Portugal." The possibility that Europe could become
reunited,.neither "of the East" nor 'rof the West,,,
enhanced the significance of both Solidarity and the
small peace movements in East Cermany, Hungary,
and even the Soviet Union. For many Europeans this
raised severe doubtd about dealine ai all w¡ih the off icial peace movements of Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union. lt also raised the question of whether the
peacê movement in the West should support the human rights and workers'. movement, in the East,
where they are often linked with the peace movement.
A
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ftober1983WlN6
TheHot
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The principles underrlying the issues have a further
complexity for US citizens because the cause of
human rights in the East is chånlpioned so loudly by
the Reagans and Kirkpatricks who support dictatorships in the West. While the conservaiive reaction in
both the East and the West has moved these issues
further down the agenda for now- tf,ã' US peace
movement should demand that everyone have the
right to work for peace in organizations of their own
choosing, not only in T'urkey (where this right is
denied by our NATO ally; see "Turkey and theÞeace
Movement," WlN, 4/83), but in the Eastern bloc as
I¡nally,
?
I expect that the deployment of the
j,.î.:j,':äJ;;
Fil;:i'"'å'.i,i,i|:it",ff
r
they
duiing the Vietnam war. This, after
,1,"
had
all, is it. The enormous dangers posed by the
issiles and the anticipated Soviet response will drive
many people beyond nonviolent tactics if these fail to
stop the deployment. Moreover, if the arms buildup is
now based on a political economy of exterminism, as
E.P. Thompson would have it, those,benef itting from
the ceaseless production of armaments will not easily
Beat the Bomb, Bruise the Cruise. March from In'
diana War Memorial to Monument Circle for Peaçeful destruc'
tion of mock missile (10/22).Info: SANE, Box 1782, Indianapolis, IN 46206; (317)25I-2673.
IOWA: Statewide demo. Cedar Rapids. Info: Iowa Socialist
Party, Box 821 1, Des Moines 50306; (515)243
is better described as an off icially encouraged public
size, diversity, and the breadth of the issues covered
by Solidarity Day, J une 12 and August 27 demonstrations reflect the'beginnings of such an awareness in
this country, Let us make our October demonstrations
as broad and radical as possible, putting disarmament on everybody's political agenda, and solidarity
with the European peace movements at the center of
this newawareness.
O
-257
l.
LOUSIANA: Peace Sunday Walk, New Orleans (10/23). Info:
Peace Sunday Coalition, 5875 Canal Blvd., New Orleans70t24;
spectacle." Like it or not, if we are to achieve our
goals the peace movement is now engaged in
cultivating revolutionary awareness. I believe the
(s04)283-360r.
t
; (7 t6)243 - 4002.
NORTH CÄROLINA¡ Statewide rally and march, Raleigh
(10/22).Info: North Carolina Peace Network, 790 E. Maynard
Rd., Cary 275 lL; (919)467 -6A26.
\ry. 6 St.,
IIIIIIANA:
Berger: "Mass demonstrations," he wrote, '1are
rehearsals for revolutionary awareness. . . .Any
demonstration which lacks this element of rehearsal
2)673 - 1808
CÁI¡FORNIA: Rally, State Capitol, Srcnmonto. Info¡ Sacra'
mento Religious Community for Peace; 410 Santa Ynez \ilay,
Dearborn #370, Chicago, IL 60ó05; (312)427'2533.
am
1
fnXÀS: Peace Convocation (10/21), statewide march and rallv
Austin (10/22).Info: Texas March for Peace & Justice, 1O22
ILLINOIS¡ Bloonlngton: Street Theater (l)/iz). Chlcryo:
Euromissile game (10/22) Info: Illinois Freeze, S. State St.
#1330; Chicago ó0ó04; (312)922-2423. Nonviolent cd at one or
more sites (10/24). Info: Disarm Now Action Group, 497 S.
reminded of the observation of writer and critic J ohn
(2
natia nol p e ac e or g anizøtíons.
FLORIDA¡ Candlelight vigil, Martin Marietta Plant, Orlando
(10/2I). Regional march and rally in downtown Orlando
(10/22).Info: Central Florida Nuclear Freeze Cpn.,.PO Box
2422, \N inter P ark 327 90.
As we approach this f inal round of peace activities
NEW YORK¡ Regional rally Sampson State Parlc, nt. Seneca
,drmy Depot (10 / 22). Interreligious service Waterloo (10 / 23).
Nonviolent blockade of depot (10/24). Info: Seneca Army
Depot Action Coalition, 135 W. 4 St., New York, NY 10012;
SOUTH CAROLINA¡ Rally at Main Gate, Savannah River Nu-
NW, rff ashington 2000E ; (202)234 -20ffi '
peace if the spectacle goes on.
E7106; (505)268-9557.
wíll cøll for ø freeze ønd reuersøI of the atrrt s tace, cortr'
uersían of weøpons facílìties to peaceful use, ønd, on
end to rníIítøry interuentíon, ín addi¡íon to opposíng
deployment.
For information øbout euents not lísted conta,ct:
Euromíssíle Actíon Cleørìnghouse, 1õ01 Cherry St.,
Phìtadelphíø, PA 19 I 02 ; 12 I 51241' 7 I 77.
The cleoringhouse ønd cøll for demonstratìans ín
the [JS, October 21-24 were ínítíøted' by o coolítinn of
DISTRICT OF COI.UMBIA¡ Intetnational Solidaritv Da)
March from Washington Monument, noon, to Capitol for rally
(10/22). Info: \{ashington Peace Center, 2111 Florida Ave
abandon it. Again we meet our old frie-nds, reform
and revolution. Can the changes that wé must make
be made nonviolently? Willwe become divided when
we are violence-baited by the right, following the
inevitable individual or even collective actions in response to deployment? Advocates of nonviolence
must f ind a way not only to voice our objections, but to
achieve some real success in stopping and reversing
the arms race. lt will not be enough to witness foi
of the Euromissiles, I
#lzlc, Albuquerque
Sacramentõ95816; Sen Dteúo Woriren's Peace Camp, Generâl
Dynamics (10/2I-24).Info: San Diego WILPF. 1956 Sea View
Ave., Del Mar 92014; (619)755-4283' S¡n Íl¡nclcco: Rally,
Civic Center followed by a march and human chain past cruise
and Pershing contractors (10/22). Info: Coalition Against the
Cruise and Pershing II Missiles, 3126 Shattuck Ave', Berkeley
94705; (415)841-8359. Civil Disobedience (10/24\ Info: LAG.
3 126 Shattuck Ave., Berkeley 94705 (4 15)64 4'2028'
new
m
before the deployment
(10/22).
NEW MEXICO: Human chain around Kirtland ÃFB (10/22);
cd(10/24\. Info: Oct. Disarmament Coalition, 10ó Girard SE
Løter thìs month, hundreds of thousønds of people
around the world will be rnørchíng, sítting'ín, lqøflettíng, worshipping and engøgíng ín ø myríød of other
antians to oppose the deplnynent of cruíse ond
Pershíng míssíIes. Below ís a pørtíøl lístíng of euents
ínthe AS, Cønadø ønd' Europe. Møny of these actì'ons
well.
Revolution or Spectacle
quaders, Manchester and Kollsrhan Instruments, Merrimack
(tOtZt). Nonviolent cd at Peace Air Force Base, Portsmouth
MASSACEUSETTS: Boston: Legislative Actions (10/21).
Marchfrom Draper Labs to regional rally on Boston Commons
(lO/23). Nonviolìnt CD at AVCO Plant; Wilmington (10/24).
Info: N.E. Cpn. to Stop the Euromissiles, 2161 fVl¿ss'. Ave.,
Cambridge, M¡, OZ1¿O; (617)492-U46. Cape Codr Rally,'Otis
Air Force Base(10/22).
MII-{NESOTA: CD at Honeywell, Minneapolis. Info: Honey'
well Project, 3255 Hennepen Ave., Minneapolis, MN 55408.
clear Wpns. Plant (10/22). Blockade $A/24) Info: National
Guard, iS Stuff Rd., Coiumbia, SC 2920I; (803\254-9398.
Women's& mixed peace camps,-Savannah River (10/2I-24).
Info: Athens WILPF, Georgia University Station, Box 2358,
Athens, GA 30601.
TENNESSEE: March from Legislative Plaza to Centennial
Park, Nashville (10/22) Info: Freeze, Box 121333, Nashville
37212;(615)356-7386.
Austin
781703;
(512)474-2399; 441,4691.
WISCONSIN¡ Women's Peace Camp. ELF Project Clam Lake
(10/21-24). Info: WILPF, 731 State
St', Madison
53703:
(608)2s7-7s62.
NATIONWIDE¡ Columbus Day Observances in Solidarity with
Comiso (10/30). Info: Friends of Comiso, 198 Broadway, New
10038; (212)964-6730. Refuse the Cruise Canada'US
Solidarity Days(12/2-3). (see page2l this issue.)
Iork, NY
,.
INTERNATIONAI,
BELGIIJM: Demo. Brussel s (10 / 23). Info: VAKA, Kloosterstr.
1,2000 Antwerp. CANADA¡ Demos in 15 cities (10/22).'lnfot
CANDIS, l0Trinity Sq., Toronto MsG lB1 DEIYMARK: Con-
ferences (10/22-29). Demo, Copenhagen (10/29) Info:
Nej til Atomvaben, Dronningsgade 14, 1420 Copenhagen
FRIXCE: Rally, Paris (10/22\,hfo: Mouvementde la Paix, 35
rue de Clichy,-74009 Paris. Human chain from US to Soviet
Mission by way of Ministry of Defense, Paris (10/23 Info:
CODENE,23 rue Notre Dame de Lorette, 75009 Paris. GREAT
BRITAIN: Demo, London (10/22).Info: CND, 1l Goodwin St.'
London N4. Demos, Greenham Common (10/22).Info: Wom'
en's Peace.Camp, Outside Main Gate, USAF Greenham Com'
mon Newbury. ITALY¡ Demo, Rome (10/23),Info: Nat'l Coordination for Peace Movements, via Firenze 38, 00184 Rome.
TIIE NETIIERLAI{DS: Demo, The Hague (10 / 29). Info: Komitee Kruisraketten Nee, Prinsegracht 4, 2521 The Hague.
NORWAY¡ Action week (10/17-24). Torch march, Oslo
(10/24).Info: Nei til Atomvapen, Youngs_gl7, Oslo 1. SPAIN:
Madrid (10/22'). Decentralized demos (10/23). lntb: Comision
Antt-OTAN de Madrid, Atocha 55, 4. centro, Madrid 18'
SWEDEN¡ Demo, Stockholm (rc/n), Info: SPAAS, Pack'
hausgraand 6, 1120 Stockholm. SWITÆRL¿\ND: Rally,
Bern (11l5). Info: Schweizerischer Friedensrat, Postfach 6386,
8023 Zurich. WEST GERMANY: Action Week (10 / L5 -22) Each
day of week focuses on different group. Culminates (10/22)
with demos in Bonn, Hamburg and West Berlin. Info: Koordi'
nation Aktionwoche, Estermannstr. 179, 5300 Bonn 1.
Blockade, New-Ulm, Bavaria Pershing II base (10/22);
Blockade Neckars,ulm-Heilbronn, Baden lYurttenberg
rPershing II base (l0/29-ll/l\; Blockade, \Yuschheim Has'
setbach cruise base (ll/I3). Info: Stuttgarter Kotakstelle,
Senefelderstr. 37a, 7000 Stuttgart 1.
NEW HAMPSHIRE¡ bemo at Public Service Co. Head'
7
WtN October 1983
,+
,t
WomenResist
o
o
1
Women's Encampmentfor a Future of Peace and J ustice
'
tt
by Kate Donnelly
Sni.i*ffi'Ë*if}fl ,:}ll*r
ever imagined. lts main purpose was to focus public
attention on the Cruise and Pershing ll missiles due to
be deployed in Europethis winter.
The camp was envisioned as a place where women
could learn from each other and protest the Seneca
Army Depot, which is believed to be the transship-
ment point for the Euromissiles. Unf ike the
Greenham Commón 'peace'camp in England from
which this camp takes its inspiration, wonfen felt the
encampmen't must be open to women who did not
wani to risk arrest.'After-arì unsuccessful search for
land to rent, the organizers decided to buy a farm, one
and a half miles from the depot's main gate. This decision did not come easily, but once it was made sup:
porting organizations started fundraising. The
547 ,W for the land,. plus over $100,000 more raised
over the suinmer, came mostly f rom small donations.
The encampment opened on the 4th of J uly with
over 400 women participating in the ceremonies,
Some women returned to spend the whole summer;
óthers commuted back and forth as often as they
could. There was a kind of energy and excitement that
made women feel that real work toward disarmament
was happening. Something else vras growing : an alternative women's community,
The 52-acre farm needed a great deal of work to
make it a campground for hundreds of women.
Women worked long and hard to make it a suitable
campground acceptable to the overscrupulous Board
of Health. The work was overwhelming but women
took it on with determination, even when their skills
didnt match their tasks. Carpenters led crews to
build pavillions for workshops and the kitchen area. A
qt
water tank was instâlled and undergiound hose laid
to six outdoor sinks. Fire and cold pits were dug for
communal cooking facilities. The most impressive
task was a 900-foot boardwalk built to make the.workshop ancl kitchen areas accessible to women in wheelchai rs.
Actions at the depot's main gate began.J uly 4 and
continued throughout the summer. They included:
prayer meetings, silent vigils, satiric street theater,
altering depot signs, writing on depot land, climbing
fences, and shaking the gates so hard they almost fell
down. One night two women went over the fence,
¡limbed the water tower and altered the message
from "People First, Missions Always" to "People
Always." Throughout the summer over 350.women
were arrested.
'At times, maintenance work at the camp kept
women away from the depot and some felt that they
were losing touch with why they were there. But new
women brought determination to protest loud anü
clear. They came from all over the United States and
from. England, Australia, Canada, Cermany, ltaly
and J apan.
Townspeople's Concerns
rganizers always felt that respect for the
local community was important an.d that
nications were vital. The first staff
person hired was for local outreach. She ..
organized meetings with local officials and with the
public. The first public meeting was held at the local
fire department and over 100 people attended. Residents of Romulus expressed their fears about the encampment,.especially that they would be blockaded
from their jobs at the depot. Because of these fears
organizers decided that the action þlanned for August
1 would not be a blockade but would focus on conversion of the base. Things were goirlg well before the
Kate Donnelly is a member of the WtN Editoriat 4th of uly; the small group of wemen who lived in the
J
Board and was part of the planning committee tor the house were being visited b,y local people, sonie of
encampment.
whom brought homebaked goods.
ri
I
ll,
l1
il
:
I
Phyllis Rodin, 70, is arrested after climbingover the fence atthe Seneca Army Depot in upstate New York. The depot was the fotus of the Women's Encampnient for a
Future of Peace & J ustice last summer. And the site of a måior de¡nohstration on August 1. Photo bi Bob Mahoney/Syracuse Herald fournal/Peace Dèvelopment
Fund,
l
October 1983 WIN 8
'.
9wlN,Octobert983
T
,r,
*"
To some extent the Fourth of July w€ekend undid
realized it would. Every woman was asked to work
a
some of the communication thât had,ueen estãn- i#å;+";;;ñ,riluiirånyended
up.working a¡ day.
lished. Suddenly hundreds of women g"s*"JJ;
il';;, sometimes hard to get women who came to the
the town of Romulus. The localcommunity f".r;¿ã ;;
äiäårnprn"nt for a weekend to take on a security shift
two issues: the flag and lesbianitt.I ró.ar ñ;-;i;ìñ" middle of the night. tt was equa¡y difficutt to
fered the encampment a f lag to f ly. He made ¡f iieãr.
to.sign up for shifts while workshops or
that if the flag was not hung he would tell the presi äàt'*o¡1¡en
were happening. A day at the encampment
õi"tLrtr
about ít' women had strong feelings on both sides of ioãn
u".uru u"huriting experience.
-"örganirers
the issue. Some wanted to f ly it, bãieving tfrat:it wji
"n of the encampment took on
an
their f lag too. Others felt the camp was international
task and the result was overwhelmingly
and
could
not
be represented by the us flag, es- "nãi-o6
. pecially
srJ."rrrrt. gut iÀ*" *ere real problems along the
because it represents imperialism to milh of *åî
ae¿¡s¡ons-were-made by consensus, which
the world' After a long meeting where consensus was Ol¡
a positive process but left some decisions uncould not be reached, a process Íor a final decision
lt is still unclear how some of the decisions
' was agreed upon. Five women took the pro flag- ;;ä". f,¡r¡"i;;ñ;'öenditures
and camp policies
f lying side, f ive the anti and five women mediateã, "Uãrì
weË ma¿e. part of the problem was the nature of the
After six hours it was decided that women could make i.unr¡"nt
community, but equally important, comtheir own f lags the size of nillo¡v g1s9.s, sign them anJ åi,'nl.ut¡on,
were horrendous. There were women
hang them. some women made.us f lágslrhis didn'i *riå'*ort"¿
i" t¡'e r,áuse Joing off ice jobs and women
do much to appease the town folks who heard all sorts ;h;;;ìä;;ih"
#ñä¡ng buitding, garbage pickof-fállacious rumors about what women,were doint up,".¡,¡l¿.ure,
cooking
and security. tt,often seemed
with Old Clory, including urinaiinàon'ù. tn .urponr"]
ãiif,orgl-, one group did not know what the other wàs
were lined with us rlaäs anã äåiiË. ñe* *õmen
oiten d¡d noi rno*
*r:i:ff:r"lå"åï'Js
pat creeoi; îves three mires rrom the.encamp
ment with her husband, two daughters and two sons. üåiä"t
in.the ever_changing community, but there
The family was suppori¡ve of tf,ã
uuàï
*iJ"lr"
the þower_tripping and hierarchy problems
befo.re it opened. They went awa.y "n.urp.ån1
for a week around ir,ãi ótugr" u|T groìpr. -the fourth of J uly and were shoc[ed by the ne* hos;'" staff .was .rargery vorunteer; most who did get
tility arising in their neighbors when ihey returned. pui.i*ort"a
all day for half-day salaries. The division'
Pat and her husband started weekly meetiñgs in their
Ëä;;å"" paid and unpaid staff created problems as to
home, inviting friends and neighb'o.s gu"r1o talk tò ""h;;":
in charge of what. When everybody works all
women from the encampment. She said it took a lot of
il;;;ã
;"tt;"ï;
s;i'iä¡A, resentment buitds
talking about the f lag and the rumors rrt-rnãing ìi
iiä äonrt nt stress of being at the camp seven daysup.a
before they could get down to the real issue.,,,we ñaJ
ËÈ; 24 hours a da.y magnified problems out of pro_
to wade through the anger and fear before they could
some worÉ"., äid not take good care of
talk about the nuclear issue, but once you .o.å ão*ñ ñiti;".
i¡,"¡¡-r"fu"s.
And some women were into the macho
to the bottom line they realize the issue is survival.
;äil;e
that
;ñ"*. ;;;led the longest and stayed
Localpeoplewerealsodisturbedbythepresenceof
;;';;."
nights
was most committed. Few women
lesbians' This led some at the encámp;ìñt t" tõõJ
;äii;r"
off
and
consequentry
individuars and the enout against public displays of affection (pDA,s). .ãi.,iruntsuffered.
Thä;;was
no process for dealing ..
There was asreeme.n.! a! one meeting that
ø,i"¡;iäipáî;;;iilåì"î,s,
and
criques kept many
should keep their public displays to a m"inimu;;hil;
*i';:
contributing their ideas and skills.
in the presence of oassersby. tztany women thoughì *o.uniro,n
hr¡.ng process was as bad as the decision_
the distaste for pDA's was'homòjhob¡a w¡th¡n-ihã
,njilj;,
one. Women were often complaining about
camp/ both b-y straíght and lesbian women.
y.o.k- lüäìäif ot u..orniãUilìiv,ï"rpite efforrs to improve
shop was held where women shared tlef iieJincs
;i;'l,Jiì" changed. rt becäme crear after a whire that
with each other. lt was apparent that some women pá¡a
,tuti polî.tl¡";;ö¡äbs traditionaily varued by
cametotheencampmentfeeling uncomfortablebeing ãJr"å.i"ty. ,,Wo*ãnj,
*Ork,,_ruch as childcare,
around lesbians. Many of theJe women left with ; f,ã"1¡"L,and
kitchen-àrti"r_*us
unpaid. The work
positive feeling about their: first contact with out,rffËrã¿ t"i ;i;;ö;äiiy cfritdcare, which forced
front lesbians' Also,. lesbians who had not workãd ;;;; mothers
to eiiher .eîrrn without their children
wíth straightwomen inyearswereexpressinga posi_ orrpunarãr;;iËö;:i't
tr,"r.
tive feeling about the experience'
Early 9n in the organizing meetings a commitment
Lirearthe
'ît
îe
¿
IL
;di;;y;;;
Hü*:ïS",;î,":jî*.f"":åjåXiåli,ty":ïi:
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lr
i"r."l
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i
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:1
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Encampmenr
;[i.T,ii: i?:l'å*"å:l',Í'ff;li:å,1#":[*",:,ï".;
fr rå[i-**sm**i[rí***s*
T-ul *¡ütrT:iiiifrii:'*i*anyonå
*o.L¡ng .iur;;;;
kind. Maintaining the land took longer than
October 1983 WIN 10
and
participated. Free trans-
t
August
1
demo. Photo O1983 by Dorolhy Marder
by organizers, never
materializeid, yet money always seemed to be there
for other needs. Little publicity was done in neighborhoods or organizations of women of color. Most of
the early organizing efforts focused on fundraising,
consequently the groups who ended up knowing
about the encampment were ones with áccess to money. Once the encampment began, women spent most
of their time on the land, so little outreach to communities, other than the surrounding ones, was done.
There were daily workshops on racism which were
sometimes successful, but not always well-attended.
One weekend was organized by the third world task
force of the women's encampment. The f irst day was
a tribute to Harriet Tubman and other women of color.
portation, agreed upon
It began with a program at Tubman's house in
Auburn and continued all day, There was singing of
slave songs, a walk to the church where Tubman worshipped, a graveside ceremony, and a program about
Native Americans at a nearby museum. Queen
Mother Moore, an 85-year-old African American
woman who was on the original reparations committee for blacks, spoke at the gravesite. The work of
Tubman was an inspiration to all those attending, but
few women of color besides those who came as invited
guests or as organizers were present.
Vinnie Burrows, an African-American actress,
performed two poems about Tubman and Sojourner
Truth. She spoke later about how the encampment
was "too wh¡te" and would not be successful without
more women of color. "This is a human struggle and
we have to unify and if we.don'twe'll lose."
A
Waterloo 54
ugust 1 was the date of the only large preplanned action of the sufnmer. ln conjunction with this, the New York City Women's
Pentagon Action organized a walk from
("birthplace of women's rights") to ihe
encampment on Saturday, J uly 30. The purpose of the
walk was "to honor the def iant women f rom our past
who have resisted oppression and to bring their spirit
to the encampment. " Around 150 women started out
that morning carrying beautiful banners 6nd'puppets.
After walking a few miles they came into the town of
Waterloo ("birthplace of Memorial Day"). They were
confronted on a bridge by several hundred townspeople with US f lags who refused to let them continue
their walk. The women, many newly arrivèd to the
area, were not prepared for this extremely hostile
reaction.
Some women sat down to help diff use the threat of ''
violence and to discuss what to do. Others began
talking to the people in the crowd. At times single
women were surrounded by a. dozen or so angryl
yelling people. At all times the marchers renhained
calm in their interactions. One woman said she never
talked so well because she honestly felt she.was
talking for her life. A man from the town said,"'lf
more people here understood what you're saying to
me, this wouldn't be happening. There is a lot of
misinformation. "
The people on the bridge were disgusted with the
encampment. They detested women who were doing
Seneca Falls
11 WIN October.1983
,1.
civil disobedience and property damage and were
being released without punish-ent. Tñev shouted.
"Kill theJews," "Commies go home,,, ,,Throwthem
off the bridge, let's see some blood,,., ,,Nuke the
lezzies." At one point the women sitting down began
'to sirtg "The Star Spangled Banner," 'rAmerica the
Beautiful" and other patriotic songs. This greatly
confused the flag-waving protesters. Some beean tò
sing along, others booed their own national anthem.
The sheriff had been notified in advance about the
th
walk and it was legal. He had prior knowledge that
something was being planned by the local Veteians of
Foreign Wars (VFW) members and some Vietnam
vets, but he was still unprepared. He was visibly
tense and nervous about what to do. He chose the
easy way out and arrested the women after a few
-.hours of .confrontation and unsuccessful attempts at
getting them to leave. A total of 54 were arrested, including Millie, a local resident who is married to the
bank president. She joined in after her son went home
and told herwhatwas going on. She wanteiJ people to
know that everyone in town did not support the conf rontation.
The 54 women who were taken to jail made demands to the court which included: that they all be arr:aigned together, that all charges be dropped, and
that prints and photos be returned. The iirst two
women arraigned refused to talk and were given trial
dates. Women in the courtroom quickly mõbilized in
their aff inity groups and refused to let them be taken
away. The room was cleared äs women sang. After
much delay the arraignments continued one at a time.
After li.stening to 11 woments statements, the judge
decided to arraign everyone together. A group statement was read and individual women spoke. The
judge dismissed all charges and gave the women back
their fingerprints and photos, meeting all their
demands.
l;" fir:î::iJJî: v,:n:i
if
?t3 ::","
::î::å,:
greatdealofworryattheencampment.
SunfI
day night, J uly 31, women at the main gate
of the depot were punched and poked at by peõple
with US flags. Others vigiling where the 54 were
I
:,
being held were attacked by people in a crowd of over
100, while deputies watched. They made it to their
cars and managed to escape without serious injuries.
Rumors that military police from the depot and VFW
members were going to break up the camp abounded.
The sheriff made it clear that he had no jurisdiction
over the area where Monday,s action would take place
and that if there was a riot there was nothing he ðould
doaboirt it.
Women
'were understandably panicking
and
security was increased. Bella Abzug was on the phone
to the governor's office trying ,to guarantee
state
police protection. CovernorMario Cuomo delayed his
trip to' the governors' conference to monit'or
August
ftober
verything looked better by the light of day
and women started streaming into Sampson
State Park at around Bam. After dancing and
singing 3000 women marched to the depot.
The march was beautiful and the rainy day turned into
a very sunny one. The sheriff stopped the walk four
times trying to buy time to diffuse the counter-protesters gathering at the depot gate. Some men from
Ceneva dispersed themselved into the crowd trying to
dispel some of the negative rumors about the encamprnent._ Men also provided childcare for 30 kids, directed traff ic, sold resources, and prçvided gallons of
cold herbal tea, fruit and 800 sandwiches to the
marching womerì. Their help showed that men can be
supportive i n a women-only action.
The women finally reached the depot gate while
counter-protesters stayed behind an imaginary line
shouting "go home" and many of the epithets heard
at Waterloo. Women proceeded to put belongings on
the fence as a personal testimony to why thäy îerã
there. The fences were soon transformed with beautiful banners, and many photos of children, family and
friends attached with yarn. Some women sat in'front
of the gate while others scaled the fences. ln all,240
women were arrested and all but the 1 1 second-offenders were released that night. Some affinity groups
blocked the gates all night and through the next däy
until they were arrested the following evening.
Positive Changes Occurring
he local m¡dia coverage was expansive and
f
reports
of the action appeared in newsT
I
1
1983
demonstration.
WIN
the
:åffi';:3
ï,ï.:l!"x;'*îîïiiì,;
t;
August 4, papers reported that Covernor Cuomo
asked Congressional officials to find out whether he
has a right to know what kind of weapons are stored at
the Seneca Army Depot. He said, ,,The state has a
moral obligation to find out what weapons are stored
Fear at the Camp
rlr
i
E
Stop Deployment/Start Conversion
atthesite."
Another accomplishment was the growing support
by some of the local people. Pat Cregoire felt that
"the Waterloo incidentwas the main tuining point for
the local people. They felt that 'we've got to help
these women,'.many of them started bringing food.t,
She had planned to stay at the encampmqnt on
August '1, but after Waterloo, " l felt I should be there
and I brought my sign and it was a beautiful example
to the cou n try
.
"
After August 1, work at the encampment turned to
cleaning úp and talking to local folks. Weekly
meetings were arranged at the local family restaurant, Nicastro's, whose owners were always sup-,
portive of the encampment. Pat Cregoire's meetings
became the "porch peace talks" and they are
planning to show disarmament films each week at
N
icastro's.
Pat Cregoire felt the flag and lifestyle issues
brought up so often were a smokescreen. "lt's easier
to be af raid of women; lesbians, witches and whatever
March from Harriet Tubman's house to the church she worshipped in, Auburn,
NY. The march was organized by the Third World W'omen's Task Force of the
Peace Encampment. Signs are photos of Tubman; a Native Americân woman and
Sojourner Truth. Photo by Kate Donnelly/WlN.
than addressing the nuclear issue." She's seen a real
türn around in local opinion. Her own church, St.
Peters in Seneca Falls, endorsed the encampment.
Neighbors started calling her and asking when she
peace efforts, 35-40 people were on call to provide
DESERT PEACE CAMP
t'åïito.,,,es
Scorching 1000 temperatures and 80 mph winds
didn't stop residents of the Tucson Peace Camp
from squatting outside the gates of Davis Monthan
Air Force Base J une20 to September 10. lnside the
base is the only place in the world where operators
of the Cround Launched Cruise Missiles (CLCM)
are being trained. Each of the 464 CLCMs scheduled for deployment in Europethis fall requires 69
crewmembers. ln Tucson, 450 people each year
learn to start a núclear war.
The nine peace,campers educated others to
prevent war. Each morning they leafletted basebound traffic. Each week, a "Children's Night"
was held to share songs and fears, and teach peace
crane folding. Friday Peace Raps connected the
immediate issue with broader ones: lnterventionist
policies and nuclearwar, pêace movements abroad
and the Central America f lashpoint for war.
,Launched
by four Cathôlic Worker
House
members, the camp inspired many who are new to
P
was next going to the encampment and could they
come along. Pat saw the camp as an amazing educational experience. She often attended workshops
and films and was impressed by their scope. She said,
"The model of the cruise missile on the front lawn wai
a wonderful idea which implanted a seed of curiosity
and education. I haven't found anyone yet who had
said it's a great idea to be deploying the cruise and
Pershing I L "
It is ãebatable whether the encampmertt'would
have received the same amount of criticism if it were
mixed. Patfelt that "if it were a group of men they
couldn't have done anything wrong. People kept
asking why aren't they home taking care of husbands
and family and doing what a good woman does? lt hit
me how far we haven't come." A Seneca Falls man
who owns a pump repair shop said, "You know why
people are so upset is because they are women and
culturally we don't see women as protesters. "
Some people fear the upcoming October action at
the depot, believing that women can be nonviolent
but that men may cause trouble.
By no' means are people of Seneca County
convinced about the need for disarmament and social
justice, or that lesbians have a right to live alongside
them, or that women should be protesting. But they
have been exposed to these ideas . Some m inds wi ll remain closed, but many have been opened.
O
TCE
first ignored the camp, denying
jurisdiction over the site. Around August 6-9
harassment began and thê camp was forced to
move to a less visible spot, 20 feet from a noisy
road. Soldiers were prohibited from visiting while
on duty, but some people of all persuasions,
stopped by after hours.,
On September 10 peace campers were forced to
leave county land because of construction. Three
campers moved onto Federal land and were
arrested.
Campers decided to close the camp but are
meeting to decide on f uture plans. They continue to
protest at the base by standing like human billboards along the side of the road.
Contact: Casa Maria Catholic Worker House,
401 East 26 St., Tucson, A285713. For info on the
Cruise Personnel Training program, contact:
Cruise Conversion Alert, 1145 8.6 St., Tucson,
4285719.
- Nina Mohit
Thanks, WIN
the future.
-always "vaguely reminiscent" of
Upcoming artists at Peoples' Voice include J udy,
Corman.J.acobs, Blackberií, Fred Small, Bread &
Roses . For prbgram info call : (212)426-2183 . .,
12
13
WIN 9ctober 1983
,1,
I
i
The Movement Steps Forward
oth blockades were an important step forward for the Cerman movement. Mutlangen
one of the first blockades without any
I
police reaction. More people may now be encouraged to join blockades in the future. Bitburg gave
a hint of what thefuture has in store as blockades become more threatening to the authorities, and where
prominent people are not obviously present. Bitburg
also showed that demonstrators could withstand
extreme police provocation without an incident of
violence.
Although the Cerman movement has a good deal of
experience with mass rallies fnd marches, the
experience with mass civil disobedience is more
limited than in the United States. The cohcept of
crossing fences is far more controversial and little
used, raising the spectre in many minds of
the Autonomous Croups of the Autonomous Peace
.$",
Demonstiators protect them se lves from
the road to the base entrance Photo by Ed Hedemann.
with plastic sheets
he beginning of fall actions in Cermany
I -I--against
the cruise and Pershing
I
ll
missiles
i,iï:'.:ii':iil'#;Hfi;ì'Ëå"iäîLï:
bei 1-3 in Mutlangen (near Stuttgart), and another at
a cruise missile site September 2-3 in Bitburg (near
the Luxembourg border).
Last June Petra Kelly of the Cerman Creen party
(Die Crunen) contacted the War Resisters League
(WRL) to ask for the participation of about 10
Americans in the blockades and other activities.
Basically, this was to dispel the image that the
Cerman peace movement was anti-American, and to
symbolize the linking of the American and Cerman
peace movements in a joint struggle against these
weapons of mass destruction. The WRL sent five
people (Mandy Carter from the WRL/SE office in
Durham, Bob Henschen from Houston, Susan Smith
from San Francisco, Michael Mongeau from philadelphia and the WRL National Committee, and me).
We,were joined by Sister Anne Montgomery of New
York's Kairos Community, Dan Ellsberg, Maureen
Roach of the Mobilization for Survival's Religious
Tâsk Force, Phil Berrigan, and Robert Alpern of the
Unitarian-Universalist off ice in Washington, DC.
The Mutlangen blockade received worldwide pub-
Ed Hedeman is on the stafl of the WRL National
off ice, and former WtN Editorial Board member.
is to resume September
Movement (Autonome Friedensbewegungl; Only a
few hundred people, they participate in movement
events, or organize events of their own. They have no
commitment to nonviolence, and have gained
notoriety in their rock-throwing incidents. Many
dropped out of the general peace movement from
frustration-things were moving too slow and were
too boring for them. One problem, however, is that
government agents can and have infiltrated them.
Some'in the movement disavow them, others support
them, while others say the German movement must
do more radical nonviolent actions to pull the autonomous people back ihto the fold and minimize their
violence.
The focal point of the Cerman movement is the
Creen Party. Though the roots of the Creens go back
over 10 years, they were formed off icially after the announcementín1979of Pershing ll and cruise missiles
deployment for ,Europe. The Creen Party gained
to tne
licity, largely because of the presence of what thé
Cermans called the "Prominenten," or well-known
people. Out of the approximately 1000 blockaders for.
this three-day action, 150 were notables like Nobel
Prize winner Heinrich Boll, author Cunter Crass,
Ellsberg, Berrigan, and a number of lesser-known
Cerman lawyers, members of the Social f)emocratic
Party, et al-and, of course, members of the Creen
Party, such as Petra Kelly and ex-NATO general Gert
prominence by winning some seats in the European
Parliament in 1980, but were really catapulted into international fame last March by winning two million
votes, gaining 2B seats in the national Cerman
parliament (Bundestag). The Creens combine anti-
nuclear issues with feminism, nonviolence, intermediate technologies, ecology, all with an antiauthoritarian f lavor. They like to mix electoral
politics with street actions, However, this 25,000
member party is only one part of a veì'y broad peace
movement.
One of the reasons the Cerman peace movement
was so galvanized by the 1979 deployment decision of
the Pershing ll and cruise missiles was the cóntinuing
resentment-of milítary occupation. Althéugh many
Americans may be aware that there are 300,000
American soldiers in Germany, it is hard to fully comprehend until you travel around this country, with a
land area the size of Oregon. ln the,American sectorof
West Cermany (there are still British and French sectors) bases are everywhere. lt was commonplace to
see signs at bridges with not only an image of a truck
and its weight limit, but the image of a tank with its
weight limit-on main thoroughfares and small roads
alike! Our Cerman hosts told stories of tanks on
maneuvers running through private farm lands, with
little care about crops and fences they ran down.
During our stay, we got a report of 400 local citizens
in a small town so fed up with the noise of American
tanks that they sat down in front of a tank f'orcing it to
turn around.
How readily and creatively the Cerman movement
is able to develop militant nonviolent tactics may be
the linchpin to stopping these first strike weapons,
but ultimate success will depend on a strong inter-.
national movement.
O
Crossroads in the town of Mutlangen. The uS Pershing base is one kilometer to the right; the Peace Camp (Friedenscamp) is
a couple of kilometers to the
left. Photo by Ed Hedcm¡nn.
Bastian.
Because of the publicity and famous people, the
to react against the
Mutlangen blockade. A couple days before the action,
Cls and equipment (apparently, including Pershing
l's) were evacuated from the base. The blockade
proceeded around the clock with 60 well-trained
affinity groups takinþ six or seven hour shifts; 20
groups at a time. About 6000 people showed up for the
f inalday.
However, in Bitburg the smaller numbers (about
900 demonstrators, at peak), the absence of many
prominent people, the lack of significant pre-publicity, and the fáct that Bitburg is a much more conservative area resulted in an extreme reaction:
blockaders were watel:-cannoned, 300 arrested, 20
police dogs deployed (two people were bitten),
and generally rough handling by the police.
authorities decided not
,
October 1983 WIN 14
15
I
WIN
&ober
1983
.
t
o
o
I\ro Peace Movements
o
o
I
ing. I felt conscious of myself as a Christian, but I was
not living it actively. Then my mother died, and this
led me to think deeply aboutwhat it really means to be
a Christian. The question of the meaning of life became important to me. I came to the opinion that I
must speak out, even if this made diff iculties for me.
This is my cross to carry as a Christian.
."As I looked for ways to express my beliefs, I realized that I did not want my son to practice throwing
mock hand-grenades in school. Now he does not participate in the military training there. We have had no
trouble'about this yet. The teachers have not said anything, and the other students think it is great that he
refuses to go along with the authorities. But I know
that he probably will not be allowed to go to the
university.
"This issue of military training in our schools had a
lot to do with our first presentation at our church. I
have learned so much in this work now. I have become
more sensitive to,hunger and the suffering of others. I
know thatothers ào m"uch more anà suffãimuch more
than I do. But I know now that things are not so
bad-we just have to come out of our shells.,,
The speaker was a woman in her mid-30s. She and
six others from a church-related Friedenskreis, or
"Circle of Peace," were sharing about their livei as
peacemakers with me and two other Americans in a
small, flower-filled back yard in East Berlin.
I had come to East Berlin for two days of meetings
with peace activists, both "off icial" and ',unoÍf icíal-i,
ai part of a trip to learn more about the European
"
peace movements and the opposition to the deployment of the cruise and Pershing ll missiles. I understi:Òd that in East Cermany there was no ,,peace
movement'/ in the Western sense , i.e., a movement
of ind
t organizations committed to
forPeace
by Bruce Birchard
Photos by Harriet Hirshorn
,
Fnåffi[-."diüä*i¡itr*îì:
which publishes information and ideas, holds public
meetings and organizes conferences, demonstrations, and other actions. There are indeed large conferences and demonstrations, organized by the government-supported "Peace Committee of the Cerman Democratic Republic," and I am sure that the
hur Jreds of thousands of East Cermans who take part
in these events are most sincere in their wish for
peace. And then there are the peace circles.
PeaceCircles
lut
ost of the peace circles
are
based within local churches. The few
which are not, we were told, experience
much more difficulty with the state. lnCeed, while we were there, several peace activists
from J ena were apparently forced to leave the CDR.
We were told by our peace circle friends that
the exiles were not associated with a church.
Even the peace circles are not organizations with
off icers, dues, publications and so on. As one member
explained, "Each individual brings and does what
she or he can. There are no group decisions about
what individuals are to do, and no one takes responsibility for the group. Members of the group try to help
each other if one gets in trouble, for example, by refusing military service. But participation in any aspect of the group's efforts is purely voluntary. "
The church in East Cermany is a very important institution. lt is estimated that eight out of 17 million
people are at least nominally Christians. The Federa.
tion of Protestant Churches, and the smaller Catholic
and Jewish federations are the only organizations in
the CDR not under direct government or party
control
.
on
sta
'Committeq in Philadelphia, PA
&ober
1983
WIN 16
,
"There is no problem in going to church to pray,
.IdUJ{GËR
Peace Committee of the Cerman Democratic Republic billboard in East Berlin subway station. Photo by Harr¡et
sing or preach," said an official of the Federation of
Protestant Churches. "What we constantly have to
negotiate with the government over is the right to live
as a Christian in our everyday life. "
The people of the peace circle told us more about
what it means to them to live as Christians. Opposition to military indoctrination and training in the
schools is a core issue. Though the Constitution also
forbids 'aivarmongering," the government in recent
years has instituted a program which begins with a
visit from a soldier in the People's Army to each f irst
grade class, encourages the use of war toys (banned
in 1945 but now reintroduced as "patriotic toys")
and, for older children, involves actual trâining with
mock weapons. One key aspect of this indoctrination
is what people call "enemy stereotyping" (Feindbild)-the inculcation of the "imageof the enemy."
One of the four "task forces" of the peace circle
with whom we met concent¡ates on this issue. They
noted that "our army is always presented as the defenders of peace and our freedom [sound familiar?],
while the West is presented as a land of capitalist imperialist warmongers who would overwhelm the
peace-loving peoples of the socialist countries were it
not for the People's Army." To counteract these efforts, members of the peace circle exhibit pictures of
life in other countries, present stories, plays, songs
and puppet shows, talk with children about incidents
of conflict in their own lives, and teach non-competitive games. Their intention is that parents understand
what is being done in school and, since efforts by the
church to get tþe government to abandon this program have failed, they try to see to it that the enemy
views 1'don't stick." ln doing so, they'have come to
conceive of their children not as subjects for instruction, but, in their words, "as partners" from whom
they as adults can learn as well.
Hirshorn/WlN
Resistin g Mil itary Conscription
Ai*'iq'iIiäi*ii,r-'*i['ii,¡tr
began in West Germany. Young men were required to
give 18 months service. Since East Cermany is
officially committed to the cause of peace and its
forces are purely "fordefense," no provision for total
conscientious objection is deemed necessary. However, in 1964, under considerable pressure from tlre
church and roughly 3000 young men who refused
conscription in the f irst year, the government
amended the conscription law to provide for the establishment of units of /'construction soldiers"
(Bausoldaten) who, while still under military
command,.would build and repair military installations rather than carry weapons.
ln our meeting with officials of the Federation of
Protestant Churches, the point was carefully made
that they recognize that many young Christians who
enter the armed forces do so out of a genuine belief
that this is the best way to defend peace. However,
they noted, "refusal of military training is the more
significant witness for peace." Those who join the
military service as Bausoldaten areþursuing a middle
track, in their view. lt should be noted that those who
resist conscription, either totally or as Bausoldaten,
are likely to suffer significant discrimination in later
life if they seek advanced education or positions of
major responsibility.
ln order to promote the possibility of total conscíentious objection, a group of Christians in Dresden prepared a proposal for a "Community Peace Service"
(Sozialer Friedensdienstor SoFd) in 1981. Within six
months,i all eight of the regions of East Cermany's
Protestant Church had adopted this proposal, which
17 W¡N October 1983
:t,
of the Western countries, and více versa. This view, of
course/ is rejected at least as strongly by the NATO
governments aS by those of the Warsaw pact.
.
-!
Spec¡al eualities of the
East German peace Movement
n their efforts to present atternatiúes to the off i_
cial views of the West and the arms race, inde_
l i"""1tïli.'""','-iï[ii ir:î:: ïr,ru'i*ãïf; "il
-
Ooorway in East Berlin. (Crun means green.) photo by Harriet
Hirshorn/WlN
would provide for two years of community service (six
months longer than the standard military service, to
discourage mere shirkers) for total conscientious ob_
jectors. This has become a major item on the
agenda
of the church-based peace movement,
.
tú;gï; i;
date, government response has been negative.
lrI
CANADIANSNEFUSE
TTIE C,RI.IISE
which distinguish them from othei faiteri bloc coun_
tries.. First of.all, the church has been'able to provide
the "political space" within which concerneà mem_
bers can actively pursue their work for peace-within
serious limits, of couise. The Federation of protestant
Churches plays a major role in creating and maintaining this space through its ongoing dialogue wíth the
government. lts staff and related agencies, such as
the "Study Croup on Peace Affairs,,-(St udiensreferat
by Ken Hancock
Friedensfragen) have also prepared- proposals and
materials for peace education to be uied in the
churches.
w
Secondly, some seven million visits per year are
made to the CDR by West Cermans, most óf whom
Opposing the Arms Race
i:;:.: [i"",''"î5",i:'"ïåm:;li,:i:
å:iH3
":iñ:î"::iËå,,ffï,"I.#ãT;",'Ji
pg?." petition.drive
by its 22,æO local comm¡tieei
"
wnrcn
secured the signatures of 960/o of the popula_
tion within one monthi. ir'ã ããt'¡tíãr är ,.,ã ári¡;i"ìi;sanctioned peace committees, ho*euãr, are directed
only against the arms build-ufs of thå iVestern
coun_
tries since the socialist governments are all lìeld
ù b;
committed.!o peace. They see the Warsaw pact,s
mltttary build-up as a defensiye reaction to NATO
in_
creases and insist that the pact wants to negotiate gn
end to the arms race.
With-in the peace circle, however, opposition to the
arms of L..,th sides is.strongly
While thãy
"rpróssea.
cannot organize petition drives
or demonstrations,
they can obtain and disseminate information on thé
arms increases of both sides. They do spread this in_
formation amongst themselves thiough'sm;ll Jir;";_
sion groups and, to some extent, through wall postðrs
in their church (whic.h. is open t'o the p-ublic t*"áãVI
eac.h, week).and. public discussions' and progra;i
wntcn are ottered there on occasional evenings to any_
one who wishes to come.
The view that the arms race must be stopped and
nqc.lear weapons eljm inated f rom the world is'noi l¡m_
ited to the small peace circles of the East-Cerman
church. One church leader stressed to us that the
church, after several years of study, has come to thã
conviction that th'e military concept ãf deterrence with
an_y weapons is wrong and counterproductive,
in that
it leads. to.feelings of greater inseðurity on tÉe othàr
s.ide, which then contribute to the f urther àscalation
ãf
the arms race. We must rathe, purruu-a pol¡cy ãi
, "co1nm9n secu.rity,,, she stressed, in which'it iií""ã_
ognized that the true security of the Eastern bloc
countries is only improved by.énhancing-the;";;r;i;
are fríends or relatives of East Cärman citizens.
These visits, plus so-me 40,000 visits per V"ar, ¡V Èási
Cermans to West Cermany, make ior much tloser
personal ties to the West than can be maintained by
citizens.of anyother Eastern bloc country.
Finally, while the East Cerman government tries to
,keep
Western print publications out (w¡th limited suc_
cess), they make no effort to prevent their citizens
from tuning in to West German radio and televis¡ón.
This ready access to Western news and views ln their
own language is extremely important for the autono_
mous peace movement in the CDR. lt also provides a
quick means of communicating major ¿euälopmãnts
within East.Cermany to other Èast Cerman peace ac_
tivists, for their activities and statements are immediately reported on West Cerman television and radio
and heard in East Cermany.
ln conclusion it seems that East Cermans who ex_
perienced the horrors of World War ll have a speci;l
reason to fear a nuclear war between the s'upéi_
powers. While the majority expresses their conåern
through off icial channets, sornehaue come togethei in
independent-peace circles where they express their
criticisms of their own, as . well ' as' Western,
governments.
One peace circle member, noted that as a Cerman
he feels burdened by guitt for the Holoiaust. ,,li I
don't work for peace, I remain guilty.,, Added
another, "We are all guilty until there are no more
'
weapons and. . hunger.,,
O
For more information END has published an excellent booklet, fhe Sword and the Ploughshare: Autônomous Peace l,nitiatives in East Cerman y, London
Merlin Press/Eu ropean Nuclear D isarmament, 1983
It is one of a series of reports issu ed by END. $s.00
from END/Merlin pres s, 3 Manchester Road; London
E14, England
.\i
f-
_.,..'"
\-
N¡iIHI
/,1
,-/>
æ4
rt( 1r/y' /
ROTIICO
Cartoon by David Rosen/ROTHCO,
-There
is an
enormously hospitable American
audience for Canada's views. But the reception
depends upon Canada retaining a relationship ol
f
riend and ally instead of the Protectorate.
-Eugene Rostow
anada is a client state government of the
nited States. That fact is both undeniable
d essential to any real understanding of
the present situation in my country. That
fact requires, to paraphrase Eugene Rostow, a
hospitable American audience which does not base its
listening abilities upon our containment within US
global military interests and strategies.
Like all colonial relationships, US control over
Canadian experience has not been simply restricted
to economic affairs. Although it is true that US
'Ken
a Toronto activist working with tlie
Proiect and the Alliance
Convgrsion
Missi/e
Cruise
for Non-Violent Action. Both at 730 Bathurst St.,
T or o
Hancock is
nto, ON, M5-R 25 4
Ca n
ad a.
economic power controls approximately two-thirds of
ð;ä;;
üi'iÃpã,i"ì¡i'-r,ii àlio exténded itself to
oolitica[. militaiv and cultural fields. This is why so
i¡ttle ¡s'known about Canada in the US, even in
progressive circles. We receive a daily barrage of
Américan mass-consumer based culture. Americans
receive almost nothing about our experience. And
while this relationship assures us as a "reliable"
market for US eoodi (Canada has a remarkably '
undendeveloped manufacturing sector. We are a
parts manufacturer; a branch plant economy which
relies mostly on exporting natural resources.) it also
.
means that Canadians on the whole have digested the
Cold War ideological system as a part of their national
self-identitY.
'
Êlo*"u"r, ln the last two years a few cracks havô
appeared in the Cold War fortress. Canadians have
taken to the streets in the tens of thousands to protest
the constructi'on and'testing of cruise missiles in their
country. On one day alone, April 23, 1983, over one
hundred thousand Canadians demonstrated against
the increasing integration of Canada into the
October 1983 WIN 18
19WlN October
I,
'
1983
'
,f
American government's nuclear weapons policies.
ln the United States, on a percapita poþulation basii.
that would be over one million'peoþld. fh¡s k¡nã'õi
political response prompted prime Minister Trudeau
'(an arrogant, hypocritical politician if there
ever was
o.ne- much to the opposite of his internàtional reputa_
tlon) to write an open letter to Canadians condemn ing
West Cerman nuclear-capable fighter aircraft here,
the government has condemned tñe peace movement
for being hypocritical
Some anti-cruise organizers, by rightly citing the
fact that the testirig of cruise missilei here doel not
necessarily indicate NATO involvement, (the testing
agreement-in which cruise is the first weapon re_
quested- is-only between two administrations) forget
the peace forces in Canada.
This fall, plans are underway for massive rallies on
October 22 all across the country to voicê our broad_
based support for the nuclear resistance movement in
Europe. Several nonvir¡lent civil disobedience (CD)
actions are also being organized.
For the past several years, actions have focused on
Litton Systems of Canada, a subsidiary of Litton ln_
dustries of Beverly Hills, California. Known as one of
the most notorious union-busting transnationals in
the United States (see Changes, WlN, A/A¡), there is
world. Consensus ahout US foreign policy
in
these'developed countriès can either legitimize or undermine US intervention in El Salvador, South Korea
or the Pacific lslands. NATO was the military
organization created after World War ll as the ñilitary arm of US economic intervention ín western capitalist countries.
For Canada, that meant a "contlnentalization" of
our economy culture and foreign military policy.
Briefly, after World War ll there was a hint of an independent path for Canada,lbut government studies
reveal what autonomy would have meant for Canada.
One such study states "the pressure which would be
brought to bear on Canada by the tinjted States in the
event of Canada seeming reluctant ór:-refusing to cooperate with the United States in continental defense
would be very substantial and might be difficult to
the US's dominant role in NATO. Testing aîd
building cruise is symptomatic of our broader-client
state relationship with the US. The hypocrisy Trudeau
points at is real. How indeed can we continue to enjoy
this "privileged" position in relation to the Uniíeá
States; to live"off the fruits of its imperial economy;
but complain when we are asked to pull ,,our,, share
in NATO defense poiicies.
Trudeau
is
offering the Canadian people
a
Canadian version of the Cold War. He knows that wã
no union at Litton's Toronto factory. Litton has a $1.4 have been too scared of the ,,Russiunr,,
io b" ,;"A, i;
bjllion contract to make the guidance,vlte. fðitf," remove ourselves from NATO. He has
even offereã a
sea-launched cruise missile.
referendum linking cruise testing to a vote on NATO
A November 11,,1g82 blockade of Litton by 175 membership. Knowing that the Canadian
peopts stii
people was met by the Metropolitan police *¡th a o.perate, on the whole,
within a Cotd Wur'r"ntãl¡iV,
show of force which included horses and clubbinls. this proposal is a safe one, indeed.
Nearly40O uniformed "soldiers,, guarded l*ition irãm
lf the basic ecenomic, political, cultural and miti_
Canadians who do not want their cou-ntry,s foreign tary relationships
between Canaãa anã-the Unii"¿
policy to mindlessly imitate the United States,. lt goäs
Sjalgs are at stake, then let,s examinà Trudeau,s
Q long way in understanding our client-state ,eãlity
chattenge by looking back overthe last40years.
when an American transnational can easily call ouî
police forces here and squash Canadians protesting
'Canadiañ
ColonialCanada
companies who profit from non-union
labor.
Plans are now underway to organize a week-long
CD action at Litton this fall (November 11-18). OtheT
CD actions are being. planned for Vancouver,
Montreal, Ottawa and Kingston. Nonviolencé
training is. planned for Winnipeg this fall. There, in
the capital of Manitoba, Boeing-is making parts for
the MX missile. For a country with a re[uïation of
being a wasteland of snow and cold this place is certainly heating up.
&.
Çanad.a's involuement began at the very beginning.
ÍFor the Manhattan Proiectl Canada provided ,rani-
um from Port Radium in the Northwest Territories.
The dust had scarcely settled over Hiroshima and
Nagasaki when on September S, 1945, the f irst Canadian reactor began producing plutonium for the continuing American bomb program.,
-Cordon Edward,
"Canada and the NuclearMachine."
canadiancordwarriors aFlfllåiå ffä.llt:l:jn! i"fiiliil;.?åïi:
canadais that country in the wortd whererls rnye¡1- Iyåii::,r"J¿t#1,"t:#:::ffi"Ìïi:î?ji"îîi:
rnents have met a rnost profitable and reliable to thè.united.state;;lotal
system, although it was
climate. -Annual Pentagon Report to congress, ;;"b;bryjñi;;;ìöy?;äfter
war thar rruty ce_
1981 mented that change 'ourìng tt¡¡ithe
timð
un
i',i{'É¿i:5fi
standíng of the issues involved in the popular
,
"ìî¡i"
gro-
r'*fi*ç*ff,xg*Jfi,m
slogan, óitfrir ea.tf,;s r"rouråã, uî¿ l"Uor.
'lRefuse the Cruise." ln fact, for reasons very For importa"t h;;;;;i"iän"ä"rons,
progressive
different from mv own,'Prime Minister Trudeau forceshüi;;;;J,ïäiiärthe¡r-utt"niíofi'Jioît¡,ut
recently raised the levelof "discussion" by exposing empire's eff;üö;;håïäopl",
of the Third World.
Some of the real issues the peace movement needs to Bui morethougtrinã"ar
iä-uã g¡ven nãw-in t'nä ue"
explore'
of Euromissilei anJãrui;t";fi;;-õi'h" Us'ir'.onTrudeau's cabinet recently began. publicly chal- sotidàtion or iti ãóminãiîon
or first wortd, advanced
lenging the peace
movement io forãe thäe_oveinment capitaiiii.ãr"iriËit"t,tà""¿"
and western Europe)
to get out of NATO. Citing the testing of British and as'an essential ractòilh
us inrervention in the Third
resist.
"
Typical Canadian understatement. But a truth
which Pierre Trudeau realizes, when he faces the
,
possibility of saying no to the US government.
He inherits a tradition which his own Liberal Party
created during the 1940s. lnfluential political figures,
such as Lester Pearson (later to be Liberal Prime
Minister), were instrumental in integrating Canada
into US domination
It is, of course, impossible to construct a truly detailed picture of that legacy, but here are a few
essential dates and events that may clarify the
situation.
,
o 1949: NATO is formed. Canada and Western
Europe's participation insures their reliability in an
alliance whose members only unifying thread is an
adherence to a capitalist mode of production under US
control. Although dedicated to reserving a free West,
the inclusion of such anti-democratic states as
Portugal and Creece seems to go "unnoticed. "
o 1958; Canada and the United States announce a formal agreement in the creation of NORAD, an advanced radar warning system. A perfect integration
of the Cold War ideology (the Russians are coming)
with technologicaldomination. A cynic might believe
it means we in Canada will get it first in a nuclear exchange.
o During the Vietnam War, Canada plays the role of
the diplomatic "middle," while raking in the money
by selling hundreds of millions of dollars of napalm
and other'murderous equipment to the Pentagon.
Canadian members of the lnternational Commission
are also "used" to carry threats about US bombing
escalations to the North Vietnamese
o 1966: The US Army sponsors a series of studies undertaken by the Special Operations Research Off ice at
American University in Washington, DC. The studies
focus upon possible revolutions in the Western hemisphere and the counteriÀsurgency required to stop
them. One of the areas focused upon is Quebec.
o 1976: US forces are stationed at Platt'sburg Air
Force Base the night Rene Levesque's Parti Qubecois
won the provincial vote in Quebec. Any politically independent government in Quebec would be
REFUSE THE CRUISE!
ln an emergency response to Canada's'agreement
permitting the Pentagon to test cruise missiles in
western Canada, protesters gathered in more than
20 states as part of simultaneous continent-wide
demonstrations to "Refuse the Cruise." All 14
Canadian consulates in the United States were
sites of protests, while vigils and rallies took place
in at least 10 other locations around the-US on J uly
23.
Meanwhile, there were demonstrations in
virtually every major city in Canada. Associated
Press estimated that 3500 protesters marched in
downtown Toronto, where a model of a cruise missile was burned in effigy outside the US consulate,
A peace rally in Vancouver drew 2000 people.
All of these protests occurred in response to the
Canádian government's annouftcement, made one
week earlier, that it will allow the US military to
flight test air-launched cruise missiles in Canada.
(The tests are scheduled to begin this coming
winter in northern Alberta, where snowy terrain is
very slmilar to the wintry landscape of the central
Soviet Union.) ln the United States emergency
protests-initiated and coordinated nationwide
by the People's Test Ban National Clearinghouse-
were implemented by numerous local
peace
Sroups.
"Canadians are tremendously encouraged by
the solidarity expressed by US citizens in our joint
struggle to refuse the cruise," said Beth Richards
of the Canadian Disarmament lnformation Service
(CANDIS). "We look forward to a further deepening of an international peace alliance in the coming
months.
"
CANDIS, the End the Arms Race coalition in
British Columbia, and other Canadian peace
groups have begun nationwide distribution of " A
Call for 'Refuse the Cruise' Canada-US Solidarity
Days."
Decentralized protests- including marches,
rallies and nonviolent civil disobedience-are
being urged for December 2-3. lnitiating US
groups are suggesting that organizers incorporate
opposition to US military intervention in the Third
World, challenge the attacks on "human needs"
budgets and focus on issues of corporate power.
The emergency protests coincided with a prescheduled )ulv 23 border crossing and "lnternational Peace Picnic" demonstration against
cruise testing plans, which included nonviolent
civil disobedience at Criffiss Air Force Base, latér
in the week. The test missiles will be launcheid f rom
planes based at Criffiss.
Contact: People's Test Ban, National Clearinghouse, PO Box 42430, Portland, Oregon 97242;
(503)227-5102. CANDIS, 10 Trinity Sq. Toronto,
ON M5C 181; or End the Arms Race, 1708 W. 16th
Avq., Vancouver, BCV6) 2M1. -People's Test
&ober1983WtN20
21W¡N O€tober 1983
l
I
greeted by Washington as another Cuba.
o py the early 1980s economic interests
in Wall Street
WlNfromthe
are leasing the Canadian economy back to Canadiani.
o,December, 1982. The Canadian Forum,
a left_
lrberal magazine, cites overtures by Reagan to Wall
Street to "punish" the Canaclian economy if we pur_
sue any f urther the strange notion that we ihould ãwn
our own oil.
Beginning:
The First Five
Alternatives
For example, Canada is very stab/e. There are not
going to be revolutions.
-William Colby, Ny ¡LT¿;;
8/7/83
Years
by Mark
1'goes"
mou.s: lf Canada
-and ref using cruise testing
would be a first step-the
blow to Ulforeien oolici
would be formidable. Ceorge Schultz has alrãady saiá
there is concern Canada sãems to be iLipping óriof
control. For once, I hope, the State Department is
rig,ht.
o
and
Cards
From
WIN Magazine
An assortment of 12 disarmingly beautif ul
cards-4 original designs by taleñtád progres_
sive artists. Produced in the spirit of ,ihe-hol¡_
days, they are also suitable for use as note cards
year-round. Matching envelopes included. No
inside message; we've left that part toyoul
lgt of 12, assorted
designs and colors, for just
postage
.00
& handting). 4-9 s;ets,
QQ@lus
$4...00 each; 10 or more, $3.00 each (postpaid).
Al I ow 4 weeks for del i v ery
$^A.
$1
To order, or for
further description, write:
WlNMagazine, Dept. W
326 Livingston St., Brooklyn, Ny
.
9t IL
fs flE
usÍ aF
DF/v'A$06
RoìJl!
Morris
\
a^¡¡
1980 to 1983 was on ly.$6.S million while $58 million
,
has gone to El Sal vador, C uatemala and Honduras
\Y
ST
MONÍH 's ?À0 NC
Drawings by Peg Averill
ts in Canada have put us there. tt would
wrong of course, to see Canada,s mili_
tarization as stm ply a sign of our de pendency. This is
stilla powerful capitalist country. T oronto is the sixth
largest investm ent center in the world. We peddle our
nuclear reactors around the world to any government
who will buy them. Canadian banks rangtng among
,
the largest i n the world, invest in
South Africa
Mining in terests invest in third world oppression in
countries like Chile. Our relief aid to Nicaragua from
*
L)(KI.
r tsÑf A
.f
anada has not si mply fallen under the
control of the Uni ted States. Business in-
over the same peri od. ln London Ontario, Ceneral
,
Motors makes hundreds of milli onS of dollars worth of
US military tanks, earmarked for the Rapid Deployment Force. The Canadian governme nt has also ordered them
But T ,ru deau is right. You cannot look at th ts
country wt thout confronting our ne ighbor to the
south. lt is very difficult to imagine this country
f reein g itself from US domi nation. A non-aligned
social ist government and eco nomy is what it will take
It will be possible as the E uropea ns are saying, in a
"de-blocked" world. W ithin the present situation
there will be strict limits put on di ssent. ln 1970, thi s
country operated under martial I aw as the government suspended all political right s to smash the front
de Liberation du Quebec.
But, cracks in the structure as I said earlier , have
beg un to appear. We will need the support of progressive forces in the United States to make these cracks
f issure
passivity as Colby has stated, is hoped
. Cana.da's
for,
but never, I believe, totally assumed. The im_
portance of maintaining control over Canada is enor_
'Kr /Ñ
WZ
lt2lZ
i
n:a sunny Saturday afternoon in November
1966, a joyful procession crossed lower
Manhattan carrying a yellow submarine.
This 12-foot-long boatwas f illed, as our leafl'et said, with "BREAD BALLOONS FLOWERS
WINE & MESSAGES OF LOVE, DESPERATION,
PEACE & HOPE TO ALL THE PEOPLE IN THE
WORLD." The submarine was set afloat (briefly) in'
the Hudson River. I believe this event more than anything defined WlN, both to ourselves and to the
world. We brought the Beatles' song to life. ln a'small
but concrete way we created a vision of the world we
were working toward. (Later it came full circle when
the Beatles appeared at'a press conference wearing
our yellow submarine button.)
The first issue of WIN had appeared nearly a year
earlier, January 15, 1966. lt was a mimeographed,
2O-page magazine, produced entirely by volunteers
and published twice a month by the Workshop in Nonviolence, New York City local of the Committee for
ht¿
þMþtk þlms
t'tt
r¿
nonviolence. Theirenthusiasm was contagious.
WIN writers took part in the demonstrations they
wrote about, but that was only the beginning. Often
they organized the demonstration themselves. They
also did all the work of putting out the magazine, f rom
typing stencils to maintaining the mailing list, to collating and mailing each issue.
Mychief memories of WIN during these early days
areof Marty Jezer. (l was working across the hall at 5
Beekman Street for CNVA.) lssue after issue Marty
wrote a major article, whatever was needed, always at
the last minute, banging it out on an old office typewriter. He's the fastest and loudest two-f inger typist I
ever saw. He gave the WIN office a stop the presses
excitement.
Looking over early issues of WIN after all these
years, one thing that surprises me is the extent to
Nonviolen! Action (CNVA) and the War Resisters which its identity was established from the first. No
League (WRL).
awkward adolescence for WIN! For example, in adThe f irst issue included reports on demonstrations dition to detailed reports on demonstrations, the f irst
by Marty Jezer, Don Newlove, Bradford Lyttle; re- few issues included the Spring Book Poll (May) and a.
views by Paul Johnson, Martin Mitchell, and Bonnie literary issue (August) with short stories by Spencer '
Stretch; plus a crossword puzzle by Henry Bass (one Holstand Paul Johnson; a film script by Donald New.
across was "peacenik"). Other regulars soon in- love, and Jackson Mac Low's performance poem,
cluded Dorothy Lane, Maris Cakars, Don Newton, ' ' ) ail Break.' '
RebeCca Johnson, Dan Hemenway, Jim Peck, Cwen
AnotherWlN hallmark is a senseof humor. One exReyes, and Nancy )ezer.
ample is the "Peace Creep of the Month" ,award,-f irst
Participatory J ournalism
given in June 1966. The recipient was Henry
rom the first WIN's specialty was front line Felisone, a meek office volunteer at CNVA. When
reRorts on street demonstrations. The Henry's name appeared in an ad about war tax resisf-f I articles
-lf I
were written by demonstrators. tance, his parents' home in Queens was bombed
these people could write. For (broken windows, npbody hurt, case never solved).
What's
more,
+
I don't mean to imply that everything about WIN
the most part they wóré new tó demonstrations and to
stayed the same, of course. There was a great deal of
Mark Morris /ives in San Francisco, where he has re- change. As the movement to stop the ¡var grew, WIN
vived Peace & C/adness Press and is p,ublishing pam- grew along with it. The sheer number'of demonphlets about nonviolence, the tirst being Mary strations that took place during those years is stag'
Crane's Rape Avoidence and Resistance, A Non- gering. Their variety is even more impressive. They
ranged from draft card burnings, to tiny silent vigils
violent Approach.
October'1983 WIN 22
23 WIN October 1983
ir out of the.way praces, to ântiwar mobirizations invotvtng hundreds of thousands of people.
Excitement & Anguish
rF i."ini,å,i[iîñ;xf li: TillJ"if
j?
fli;
strurggle
against
the war in Vietnãm. We
I
a
knew we were doing something that had
never been done before: prote.sting a war
with street
demonstrations while the war was ù?ìngJorsl",t,
*t,¡i"
American soldiers were dying. lt was a time of
óxc¡te_
ntent and anguish.
As the magazine grew, its sponsorship charnged
tr,vice. lrr Septernber 19(¡6, rjNVA
¡oinãd'the WJ.l_
shop asco-publisher. This made Wlñ a national
ma!_
azine. Bi¡ Or:tober 1967, CNVA was in financial
\r&
tlre creation of the nrc¡veineltt to stop the war in
Vietnam. What's rnort,, lre alrvays ¿äfen¿ed Wlñ
against the pacifist fucl,Jy r.ludclre.s, [-le was sorely
17-l4À,k
1sTffi,
m i ssecl.
ye
Up from [Jnderground fo Respectability
Â
¿I
4
s the antiwar ilìovelìlent became nation_
wide, less of the rnagazine was written by
n
i ftïi,T' iï""1",1 ;J, Å:'il;,;"J;
.r ïå "::-receive
ertensive coverage. So did
\
ð
draft resistancie in a wide variety of f,:rmi, f ronl Stevã
Suffet's eating his draft carcl itt, rnake'¡t easier to
lgr.ply with the. regLrlation th;{ hc alw"rys h¿rve ¡t w¡ih
ë
t
hinr) to mass.clraft r_arcl brir.rrirrg¡:.;
By the middle of 1969 the strãins of producing WIN
\t
ü
a
were beginning to show l-he luly iisue inclrides a
memo about W.lN by Marty Jezer ancl responses by
two correspondenls, paul Fncirner in [-os Angeles
ancl Steve Pelletiere in San F rancist:ti. Was WIN a vic_
tim of its own success? Did it start ¡¡etting ,,respectable" after WRL took overl W.r:; rt i:lraning främ a
magazirre writtc'n lry activrsts to ir rlagazine written
by writers? I suppose the answer to aìl these ques_
tions is a qiralif ied yes, but at the same time, WIN was
continuing to be very rnuch the sanle. Marty,s memo
said more about chariges in him than changes in the
magazine or in the world the original WIN writers
were getting burned out and/or going on to other
things. We were feeling rhe f irst ¡tðhesäf the urgã iá
trouble and WRL became the new co_publisher.
though they were putting up ,ireablà chunksAl_
of
nìoney, neither CNVA nor WRL exercised any
edi_
torial control over WlN.
After a few íssues, WIN evolvecJ from mimeograph
to offset printing, which was done by CrincJston"
shop in Connect¡cut, run by
l:.":r,r::^l:ygmenj,or.int
anctMary Christiansen and Neil Hawórth; acl
lorlon
tive CNVAers, they became highly ínvolved
in ediiing
and writing WlN.
The WIN staff changed perpetually, though many
gj !hos9 who put out the iirri f"* ;;;;, remained
I joined the sraff as managing editor
TIN'*:.:\bone.
when (_NVA became co_publisher. t was thã f iist paid
staff person. A few months later, Cwen Reyes re_ move ba<:k to the land
.,.WlN always had a sliglrtly psyche
Without the existence of marijrraria, it wouldn,t have
graphics) and in anothei few moàths. þãrl
been the,same magazine. At f irst this was Åore or
Johnsoñ
less
replaced Cwen. Eric Weinberge, beäaÃe bus¡nesi
ll:.þJgd,but by 1968 argunrenrs aboLrr Nevr Englanã
manager in early 1967 and was replaced bV Susan
poliiy wern ¡rrinterJ, as well as
ÇNVn'¡- marijuana,,Acid,
Kent Cakars late that year. paul left in mid_1gOg ancl
Peter Stafford's
-Ror k ancj Revolution,l
Maris Cakars assumed editorial responsibility
(6/15/68). The follon,ing yc¿ìr Mayer Vishner
did a
., Foi. the f irst year or so, WIN was produced w¡th l¡t_ series c,llled "Rock ancJ Revolution.,,
tle eclitorial wrangling We were too busy putting
By January 1969 the move Ir_¡ the courrtry had
out
a nragazine to argue much about it.
Some old line"pai_
beg un. WIN dici a spec-ial issue ()n Alternatives
rfrsts were appalled by our non_doctrinaire approach
(1/ 1/69). Paul J ohnson rjest ri bes his
frrst visit to
to nonr¡iolence and by what they termed coarse
rural New Mexico , where hr. ¿rrrJ his farnily later
lan_
guage. Each time we printed the word ,,fuck,,;
a fãw
subscripti.orìs were cancelled. We figureJ the.e
t1E r't"4 N6l' rAwN,, (;ïNtjFtA[,
*ls
no use trying to please all the people ãnd
continued to
i'M "faÅ:tVz
try to produce a magazine we beiieved was vital and
l/\/|AW
f?
CO NTrAl4,I',t ,t...rÑ,
honest-and maybe a little outrageous. By 1920 when
þu t4L
Dave Dellinger said ,,bullshit,,, we put ¡í ¡n bold
let_
ters in a headline.
The year 1967 started with a great loss. On Feb_
ruary 1 1 , A. ) . Muste died unexpeltedly at the age
ãf
82. WIN had provided much couuruge'of n.;.,s f inal
year: his trip to Saigon.for CNVA,g iõõr[_""í; f-rl,
ii,p
to Hanoi to meet with Ho Ch.i Minh; h¡s last arrest,
in
the company of 66 others including ,uny Wf N puo'pl"
at the Wh¡tehall Street tnductioñ Ceníer at öhrist_
mastime. WIN's memorial issue (2/24/62) was elo_
quent, featuring a biography by Marty
Jezer, renr_
iniscences by WIN regulars and other i.¡ends oi
e-.i .,
RAô15/ú
telegrams from politicians, plus Z: photograpÉs,
.>,
rnostly of A.J. at demonstrations throuäh tf,JvËiri1
',,Íoxy
J ackson Mac Low remembered hiri
as
granpa," and that he was. A.l. hã¿ beån central
in
tt
{
Ë
I
ù
rnovecl, as cJid Cwerr Reyes and her family. Marty
Jezerwriters ¿rhrout his new life on the communal farm
in Vernlont later known as'[otal Loss Farm.
I-ooking through these issues of WIN for signs of
the ernergi¡tg fe.rrrini
others, but it's not until January 197O that a special
issue was donet aboLlt what was termed "women's lib-
eration." A variety of viewpoirrts is expressed, with
writing by Marilyn Salzman Webb, Karen Durbin,
Sandra Adickes, Rebecca Johnson, and Alice Lynd,
among others, and a poem by iVlary E. Mayo.
Gay Liberation
\AI*üîîrih',tlifçr*ügå*'
Scrawled across the cover is the title of the lead essay
by Paul Coodman, "my hornosexual neecls have madó
me a nigger." The issue also contair.ls a long coming
out piece hry t)avirJ McReynolds and poems by John
Weiners.
By this tinre WIN was beginning to show some
llW
October 1983 WIN 24
YtJ
changes. lt was getting more magazine-like. Articles
were longer and tlre issues were thicker. There were
excellent graphics by Burt Levitsky, Julie Maas,
Peter Merlin and others Special issues were frequent and devoted to such topics as ecology, antiwar
Cls, prisons, Biaf ra.
During its f irst f ive years, WIN ref lectecl the growth
and changes in the rlovernent to stop the war in Viet-
nam. A constant'commitment to nonviolence was
maintained. I believe WIN was an effective tool for
bringing new people into the movement and introducing them to nonviolence. WIN also served to
broaden traditional pacifist concerns by including
positive infor¡nation about psychedelic drugs,
ecology, rock ¡nt¡sic, women's liberation and gay
liberation. DLrrirrg these years the antiwar movement
as a whole movecl very much in the same direction as
WlN. lt's hard to determine how much WIN was
leading and how rnlrch following along. I imagine a
little of both.
É
was continually willing to pres€nt ideas interwoven
with experiences, without seeking gloss or superf icial
hype. All who have made this magazine so alive havc
enlivened the possibilities for us all. I suspect that
WIN as a magazine was n€ver reaily an end in itself :
its spirit will endure. There's a voice inside us
singing. Carryiton.
Norman Solomon
Oh, dear, what a checkered relationship we have hacl
Somuch encourägementfrom PaulJohnson. rr,\r f irst
beloved editor; the hot, but mutually r€spe( rf rr! clispules with Maris Cakars. who nevertheless alnrost
always published what I wrote as I wrote it, and who.
with Susan Cakars, hosted the wildest and best
weekend country parties I've ever been to; the
arguments ov€r "correct line" with lovingly cantankerous David McReynolds and gentle Marty Jezer;
my continuing affection for Karin and Ralph DiGia.
Igal Roodenko, Wendy Schwartz, and Mayer
Vishner; the publication of my first book, Thinking
Lllre a Woman, by Nancy and Fred Rosen, and my
friendship with them; meeting and.¡oining forces an d
becoming lifelong friends with feminists Éarbara
Deming, Andrea Dworkin, and Karla Jay. . . WIN is
closing? I feel hke crying. . . The 60s ará irrevocably
over.
I
-Leah Fritz
WIN is folding. Ten years ago WIN was folding,
folding in another sense of the word. It was folding
new readers like me into the larger progressive community and it was folding writers without any place to
publish, once again like me, into print. I like to bake
bread. I can't bring myself to think of WIN folding as
in folding a tent. I'd rather imagine WIN now being
folded into the great sponge of the progressive universe. WIN will riseagain and we may not even know
it.
-Doug Magee
So
There's not much to say at a time like this except it
was wonderful to csunt on you as I have all your life
and my
youth.
,
-Jan
Solet
25WlN October
1983
Back to the Land:
The Next Five Years
by Maris Cakars
Tn.¡t tl t
vv
e start 1971with a special issue; Love in
1921.-l-he lead article ,,Women,s Libera_
lËiåîJ:i:îä:iliËl;f,,"*;"?,lffili
have to f ight on many mental and physcial fronts, we
will need each other with increasing urgency. lt will
not be simple or easy." Looking back, I must admit
that she knew something that wa! not obvious to all of
at the time.
'us The
time is a heady one as you can
.s¡€
tell from the
theme of the next issue; Acid,'Taxes , Sex (2/1/71).
That's the issue in which we publish Leah Frìtz,; f¡r;t
blast at sex of the past in an article (widely reprinted)
called, "Out of the Test-Tube Endlessly Fúcking.,,
While the war in Víetnam and all of its ramif icãtions
is o¡"¡r meat and potatoes, the question of male chauv_
inisrn--even then-ref uses to go away. The )une 71
issue which devotes pages andpages of coverage to
the Mayday actions in Washington makes r"oornlol. a
book review by Jen Elodie in which she makes the
point.that she would recommend the book ,,especially
for all those fatheads who make it impossible tö eet aÁ
abortion and who value an unborn ioetus morðthan
my lif e or emotional welf are, ''
71is a good year for WlN. Articles, people, ideas
come in at a terrif ic rate. Yet there ai-e storm clouds on
the horizon. Abbie Hoffman ,,quits,, the movement in
the pages of WtN (9/1/71), cailing the moveme,nt ,,a
líttle group of vultures. "
Partly as a reponse to such hyperbole, WIN moves
to the country soon after to get into a more ,,laid-
back" style of politics. The commune is formed in
December and it only takes til May of 72 tor it to run
into its f irst split.
Media papers
on the property into an office and living space. We
make good progress on both until we aré cänfronted
with the necessity to publish the fattest issue ever:
The Complete Collection of potitical DocumeÃts
Ripped-Off from the F.B.t. Office in Media, pA
(3/72).
To our surprise we are not arrested. lnstead the
garden grows bountifully and a baby is born. We arã
at peace while America is at war.
April 1973 we shift gears from twice=monthly pub_
lication to weekly. lt is an audacious step since the
finances are as precarious as ever. The announce_
ment of weekly publication is coupled with yet an_
other.dre.ary appeal for funds. (ln retrospect it is
amazing how much space in each issue is taken up
with_begging). And, since we are momentarily strili
ing from the narrative, it,s amazing how rotien the
proofreading is. I plead only partial responsibility.
Clenching Teeth
Ã
tl
nother big change in
23 is the shift to staff
titles such as ,,editor,,, ,,editorial assis_
',i:"îiilì,:1"'"l",iiîi'"i[:
-cLåilil:'ïilIìf
ment-and the magazine-get grimmer and grimmer
as Craig Karpel and Tom Forcade go toe-to-toe over
"Steal This Book," Dan Berrigan is trounced for anti_
Semitism,
and-in general-the
letters to the editor
get feistier. One gets the sense of teeth clenching.
October 1983WlN 26
a hometown parade.
And in April the war ends. For those who struggled
so long and hard to See the day the Americans ,tCET
OUT NOW!" the images are unforgettable, WIN
swings into action. Fifteen of the most articulate
people in the antiwar movefnent are invited to comment and they all do (5/1/75). Two quotes: ,,We live
in times when the occasions for rejoicing are short
lived; the need for struggle endless" (Pat Swinton);
and "There is hope for the world, and for America,
too. There is no place to run to. Take it easy but take
v;
it" (Pete Seeger).
At the same time guerrilla warfare breaks out
within WIN: feminism vs. the left establishment.
Meetings, memos, resignations.
Although WIN seems as vital in 1976 as ever, I am
not and resign. ln May the typesetting machine, the
files, the furniture, the people all leave the barn for
the move to Brooklyn. Cood work has been done and
more is to come. The proofreading has improved immeasurably and so have the politics. Why, we did
what Superpacif ist couldn't. We survived.
P.S. On May 29,1983 the barn burned t'o the ground
due to a dumb accident. The end of an era.
O
A C9o{year,.1974 starts out with yet anothei pur_
,
loined
FBI document-on how
to
interrogate
people-(1/17/74) and ends with a blast directeä at
the KCB (12/19/74). tn between staff memburr, ãi
usual, come and go and the proof reading does not'im_
prove nor is work on the.barn complete although by
now it is a functional and cozy-when the weather is
not too cold-home for the magazine and three
people. (Everybody else lives in thé farmhouse.¡ tit_
les such as "editor" are abolished, but the enáless
stream of fund appeals continues.
We pat ourselves on our collective backs when we
publish our 200th issue (5/16/74) and lay plans to ex_
pand "the WIN publishing empire,, by getting into
book publishing: first a collection of essãys Uif_"añ
Fritz, then an original manuscript by Marty )ezer.
With some difficulty we.manage to gót the firít out,
but the second proves to be too much for us. The term
"Unindicted Co-conspirators,, is introduced to de_
scribe those who are not on staff but without whom
WIN would cease to be.
A hassle over sexual politics breaks into the open in
November when Andrea Dworkin pens ,,An Open
Letter to'Leah Fritz,, (j1/21/74) about sex, the oppression of women and patriarchy.
hroughout 1972, people come, people go.
Some of us get deeply involved with the loãal
fire department and forge (as far as I
know) a unique alliance between
hippie-anarcho-pacifist freaks and Republicans. lt
The War ls Over
works. We put out fires together and we have fun
he Vietnam war grinds on into 1925 although
together. One f iref ighter takes out a subscription and
IfFfI I the United States finds itself ¡n more añd
a f iref ighter irr the next town does artwork for us.
' We work steadily on getting the magazine
I more of a defensive position. When we
out and
started WIN we foolishly thought that it
at the same time we labor mightily to co-nvert the barn
-. only take a year
would
or so for America to see reason
Maris Çakars argued against startingWtN Magazine. and make peace, thereby putting
us out of business.
He lostthe argument.
Now, nine years later, the war continues as does WlN.
T
The pressures of all those years have shoved us in
many directions to the point that even if the war were
to end, the other concerns that have now become very
much part of WIN would make the Crusades look like
WIN'S
Last llears
n, ôn occasion, tdid notagr€e with what
or like the way it was written, I always beWTN connected rne to important isslles
I shall miss it* a¡d WII'l conspirators
n*
-San'dra
am€ acq,uanted with WIN in the late 1
me when my new-found opposition to the on
¡ar wl
coming out
SDS were clawing each other's eyes out like a bunch
ofm edieval theolog ians dispuiin-<¡ obscure dogma, it
was refreshing to f ind a journal of the left t hat avoided
rhetoric and spoke in plain Ënglish. just as it o pposed
the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia for the very
sam€ reasons that it opposed our wär against South
east Asia
Kyper
-John
WIN. All the way f rom 5 Beekman Street to 389
Lafayette, the f loor just above my desk, out to the
farm, back to Brooklyn, and then Brooklyn once mor€
in a final mor/e. Now the doors close, the lights goout.
The magazine, which both recorded history and
helped to make it. becomes part of it.
Some things need to end so they can begin again. I
think af two things now at this time of a final issue.
One is debt - both the literal debt of dollars and the
by Murray Rosenbfith
A mong other.things, WIN celebrated its 1Oth
t t anniversary in1976. Writing in the commemissue in May, Mark Morris wrote:
tqt orative
"...the magazine never became established,
-...at least in a f inancial sense..,.WlN faced this by learning
tr.r
chaos.
function in the throes of perpetual financial
"
-David McReynolds
SaSronara,
WIN. Memorable issues stand out for
Several years later, in 1979, I passed my f ifth anni- me- the papers reprinted from the lvledia draft board
versary as a WIN staff member. Of course, we in 1971, the special Seabrook issues, a poem written
decided I should write a fund appeal message on the afte,r Three Mile island. I remember being moved by
proof that Hiroshima-Nagasaki demonoccasion. "Think of what a loss it would be,,, I wrote annual
strations were indeed all over the country. The annual
in November, "if someone can't sit down and ref lect
book review issues wdre especially irnpoitant poron WIN f ive years f rom now. "
traits of movement thinh¡ng. (Sorry WIN won't be
That was four years ago. I mention both statements
around to review my forthcoming book on Northern
because they ref lect the sense that always existed that
WIN would somehow magically transcend its financi- Ireland. . . i Cantankerousandarticulate, informative and rebellious, WIN almost always ref lected
al and logistical problems and go on forever. lt is no
mov€mentconcernsr values, issues and debates,
small miracle (no miracle really, the result of years of
WIN's
spirit will rise again !
hard work by many people and the generosity óf many
-Lynne Shivers
I
remember
as the most beautiful issue c¡f WIN
more) that WIN existed 17 years.
- the
one describing the Sheep's Meadow demo on April
Murray Rosenblith was on theWtN staff for a tad over 15, 1967, which had an article by Marty Jezer called
'
seyen years and still can't meet a deadline"
"The Bread Is Rtsing. t¡
-Alice Lynd
l-'¿yl\ OCoher
1983
,?.
Nineteen-seventy-six was the last time
I feet
we
came closest'to folding. lt was the spring when we left
fulfillment.
. .T,h" year sta.rted out with news from Jamaica, the
trials of the Wilmington Ten, reconciliation with V¡et.
nam-a controversy that kept WlN,s letters page
the farm in Rifton, Nãw york, anå whãn Maris and
Susan Cakars left, to be followed several mo_nths later
by Mary Mayo. l've always felt the move bàck to the snapping for most of the yearWe also witnesseà tñe
city was the right thing to do, but it was severely dis- return of c^apital punishment, the founding
of Mobiti_
locating at the time. Maris, Susan and Mary had'been zation for Survival, the start of the
Nestle bãVcott (itiil
togeth'er at WIN for a long time (by WIN åtandards)
vexing that multinational todayl) and actions at the
and formed the magazinef s ,,vital center.,, They ali Trident base in Bangor, Washington,
and the opeiu_
had good reasons to leave (most staff have), but it óook tin_g Trojan nuclear plantoutside
Þortiand, Oregón.
those of us left more than six months to get our equiPeg and Ruthann both departed the staff. Lauri
librium.
, Pat Lacefield and Susan Beadte all signeã on.
Nineteen-seventy-six was not all doom and gloom. lo1velf
Vicki Rovere did a valuable six-month stint. I was
We . got our truSty Compuwriter J r. typesetting supposed to leave but, procrastinatorthat
I am, didn,t
machine, which ís still spitting out the cópy yor,rõ get around to it for
years
four
(Do
another
I'regret
pfesently reading. Ruthann Evanoff and peg Averill that? Well.....NO!)
joined the staff, while Mary and Dwighi Ernest
ln December WIN published the first map of the
departed.
."ñ1ílitary-lndustrialAtlas of the United Staiãs.;, beginning a regular relationshlp with NARMIó that
S-l and the Continental Walk
would extend for. years. The WIN/NARMIC partnei_
produced the October 1977 peace Conversion
! January, Charlie Scheiner wrote an article ship
and
uly 1981 Conve rsion Organizing issues.
J
describing
political
the
of new om- I , nibus crime legislation,drawbacks
known
as Senate
The Re-Birth of Disarmament
4¡| One (S-1). Though defeated, S-1 continuesbill
to
reappear in slightly rnodified form and Charlie has
he First UN Special Session on Disarmament
continued to chart.its dangerous course; each suc_ FFf
I I I took place in 1978 and with it, demonstrations
ceeding generation has beãn labeled in WIN as the
aroundthecountry that foreshadowed the re_
"son," "grandsonl' and, most recently in 19g2,
{¡I birth of the nuclear disarmament movement.
"great-grandson" of S-1 .
WIN was at Rocky Flats, Barnweil, Bangor, and back
The Continental Walk for peace and Social J ustice at Seabrook where a planned
occupation went awry
left San Francisco and WIN followed its piogress (and we wrote about why it did).
ih" C"ilo Uoy.oti
across thecountry to its final climax in Washington, ended; the
Stevens boycott started. Nát¡ve
J.P.
DC in Qctober. Over 50,000 people rallied ¡n ph¡lãdel_ Americans marched across the
country for justice.
phia,.brought by a coalition that'fused peace, labor The- Camp David accords
were signed, amiá great
and third world groups together for the iirst tíme, to fanfare. WIN correspondents
Joe óersón and Allan
provide a "peoples' alternative,, to the off icial Bicãn- 5olomonow contributed
essays on why this ,,separate
tennial obs.ervance. tn a small new Hampshire town, peace" would not spread over
the vi¿dle easi. ffre
Seabrook, localcitizens began a series of'small sit-iné new "witch hun!" against gay people
*ur ãiþio."à.
at a nuclear plant site that would spark the antinuke A special issue: Profits, privilege
and peoples,'Uealth
movement in a way no one could even guess.
examined the state of health cáre and aliernatives to
The pages of WIN were full of the kïnd of news and
analysis that, even today, still sounds familiar: àm_
nesty for Vietnam draft resisters, crises in Lebanon,
the Philippines, CentralAmerica, lran. Major articles
discussed developments in the women,s, gay and ies_
bian, peace and international movementil
e..
qn ?
ll tl
IVI
,
.
The Antinuke Movement Arrives
ost.people remember 1977 as the year of
Seabrook and the vigorous ,,coming-out,, of
*i iliH'J;ï
&obêr19b3wlN28
E)",
å""î"":"î"wil,î i^ J I Håii
of the.staff (Susan pínes, peg Averill and me) found
ourselves plopped (literally) down in the m¡ã¿le ot
1400 people arrested for occupying the Seabrook nuke
in May. Our inside view and exteñsive contacts made
it possíble for WIN to produce what many peoplã
hailed as the best coverage of Seabroot a,iy*tãie.
What always struck me wãs not our subsequent arti_
cles, but that many of the people I talked'iõ in'jilt
credited
.cision WIN with providing the impetus for the¡r äã_
to.go to Seabrook,-To me'tñãl *a, Wlñt
traditional medicine. A series of essavs on m'ovementbuilding strategy and style graced the fall months of
WIN as aders engaged in a national dialogue. Another special issue on Karen Silkwood, published to
coincide with a national organizing effort, sold out in
two weeks and had to be reprinted.
Susan Pines rested herfingers after five years and
was replaced by Mike Lardner at the typesetter.
Mike, unfortunately, only made it to Decembe¡, when
Cathy Carson joined the staff .
The civil war in Nicaragua escalated as the Sandinistas continued their opposition to the US-backed
rule of Anastasio Somoza.While the level of bloodshed
rose, American activists tackled ways to ct¡t US aid
and military supplies to Somoza's puppet regime.
Staughton Lynd published a manifê3to for rescuing
American índustry through worker ownership; J aney
Meyerding mused on the relationships between feminism, pacifism and anarchism; an essay by Mary
Crane opened a special issue devoted to rape resistance. Earlier in the year, WIN devoted an issue to
raising children. The return of the draft hovered near
and the launching of the first Trident submarine once
again drew the staff personally to the front lines of
protest.
After several robust years, the nuclear power
protests seemed to be settling down-until March 27,
when Three Mile lsland brought many of our worst
fears to reality. Cranking out several special issues,
even while under the cloud of the not-too-distant
crippled reactor, we strived to keep protesters across
the country in close touch with one another. Our
special Nuclear Madness issue was handed out f ree at
the May 6 rally that brought 100,000 people to
Washington.
The summer brought another special, Madness,
Mental Health and the Movement, an in-depth look at
the politics of psychiatric care in the US. The issue
was dedicated to Larry Friedman, a former mental
patient and mental patients' rights activist who had
taken io hanging around the WIN office when we
moved to Brooklyn. Larry helped out and dropped by,
sometimes every day, with tidbits of information
gleaned from the numerous meetings he attended.
He was consumed with struggling for the dignity and
justice of mental patients after experiencing first
hand the injustice of the system. He drowned in a
swimming accident two months before the issue was
published.
Í
Lacerierd
'iffii:ïay;
Mark Zuss came
on in J une. Whilecirculation had risen sliþhtly
during the year, money was in short supply.
^After spending numerous editorial board meetings
and several staff retreats grappling with a demoralizing situation, we decide to publish bi-weekly
þ
fiq
a
starting in 1980.
Theyearwentouton rising notesof gay and lesbian
activism, marked by massive rallies across the
country. And while MUSE brought thousands of new
dollars (and, perhaps, some new activists) to the antinuke cause, the struggle at Seabrook took a sour turn
when protesters attempted to move their struggle to
"direct action" in a way that allowed the Státe to
bring its true force to bear.
Mary J ane Sullivan joined the staff and Dan Zedek
took over WIN's design in November. Cathy Car_cs¡
left, followed shortly by Susan Beadle. We cÍosei ihá
year with special issues on poetry and community organizing (Loisaida). Optimistically, WIN entered
1980 with its most st¡ccessf ul gift subscription drive in
many years.
The Eighties
'I
rganizing in the BOs went in many clifferent
directions and WIN took off in earnest pursuit
of most of them. While peace and nonviolence
have al ways remained the core of WIN's content, the rang e of coverage a ppear rng tn our pages
over the years is astoundin c.Th e new birveekly issues, glossy cover and all, become rlore thematic
Often the major articles supplementecJ some current
organizing effort arouild the country: op¡losition to
the Olympic.prison, eiectoral politics (pio ancl con),
lnternational Womens þ¿r¡ ancl May Day, the new
rise of the Klan, Big Business Day, the new antidraft
movement.
WIN's letters page had been burrring with correspondence on abortion for nearly two years. Nonviolent activists come down on rnany sicJes of the
question. As a staff member, I always thought we
were getting a bum rap f rom both sides. While steadfastly maintaining a pro-choice position, we cjidn,t
censor those opposing abortion. For some pro-choice
people this made us "soft" on abortion rights; for
anti-abortion folks, our stand made. us unfair and,
possibly, not "truly" nonviolent. We could never
make everyone happy, but we could get things more
out in the open, so the August 'l issue was clevoted to
a roundtable discussion of abortion. I don't think it
changed anyone's mind, but it gave everyone a
chance to be heard.
WIN was forced out of its off ice that year. So from
the dark, but spacious, Atlantic Avenue loft we
to bright, but cramped,
Livingston Street. Lauri Lowell resigned in May,
Mark Zuss in J uly. Lynn J ohnson stepped in in February,. Sharon Bray in October, An emergency fund appeal in July boosted the cash flow enough to get us
scooted around the corner
through the year.
198'l opens with departures by fvlary J ane and Dan.
After some searching, Lisa Lincoln and John Miller
join the staff . Activism around the countrv ancl the
world continues unabated and WIN is crarnmed with
hopeful news.
The Plowshares Eight are triecJ and convictecl;
WIN's correspondent is arrested during the trial. A
demonstration in Washington on May 3 against US intervention in El Salvador cJraws a surprising 100,000
people. But the coalition behind it is an uneasy one
and, in a flash of an earlier style, WIN dissects it.
Women and gay people see earlier gains being eroded
through direct physical violence and the rise of the
New Right. WIN runs major features on the f:amily
Protection Act, feminist health networks, r,queeroctober
1983
WtN 30
bashing" and enters the debate on pornography. lnternational coverage highlights events in Central
America (more and more), the Middle East (as usual),
lrelànd (the IRA hunger strikers), Europe (the rebirth
of the nuclear disarmament movement) and Africa
(war in the Sahara).
15 Years
n the midst of financial crisis, we celebrate the
1sth
anniversary. lt seems fitting that the grand
I retrospective
essay falls through (blame Marty
rII "Mudd" Jezer) and we end up throwing together old articles, but we sell lots of ads and everyone says such nice things about WlN, we can,t heíp
but feel good. ln the middle of the good vibes, we
ç
launch our $50,000'fundraising campaign. We suc-
ceed and feel safe in a way that l've never experienced
in seven years on staff. But by the next summer,
we're in trouble again. After having raised all that
money, most of us start to realize that keeping WIN
going m.ay be beyond any of our means. Meanwhile,
Lynn Johnson leaves in November. Mike Fleshman is
hired to replace her and Judy Ornstein joins to take
over my chores after I resign at the end of 1981 .
WIN opens 1982 with a comprehensive guide to
European Nuclear Disarmament, the shoot-out/robbery in Nyack and the suppression of Solidarity in
Poland.The late winter and spring are largely taken
r"rp with preparations for "disarmament summer,, but
articles in WIN range over events in El Salvador, tax
resistance, the legacy of Martin Luther King, wife
abqsq, investing for peace, pornography, housing
and the first indictment for resisting the new draft
law. On the heels of J une-12, WIN publishes a Nuclear
Free Pacific issue and, in November, Directions for
Disarmament, exploring a multitude of strategies in
the midst of a"FteezeFrenzy."
After the success of 1981, f und appeals do poorly in
1982. WIN is forced (for the f irst time) to skip an issue
in November. Sharon Bray leaves in the spring,
Harriet Hirshorn arrives (she and J ohn will constitute
the final staff). Mike Fleshman returns to Southern
Africa magazine (which will fold faster than WIN);
Elizabeth Dworan joins the staff. Rick Bickhart replaces Lisa Lincoln. WIN markets a set of holiday gift
cards which sellt¡¡ell and bring in some badly needed
money.
We started 1983 feeling optimistic. The magazine
looked good, the articles were lively, controversy
spilled out on the letters page. The peace camps
spread in England, churches in the US were giving
sanctuary to refugees from El Salvador, the J obs With
Peace campaign was active in cities across the
country. But, fairly quickly, there just isn't any
money. We decide.to go monthly and regroup. Most
issues became a special focus: lnternational Womens
Day (a tradition by this time), lnternational Workers,
Day (May Day), Candhi, the media, King's Vision (to
coincide with August 27). Sandwichecl in with the
thematic articles are the usual potpourri of coverage:
the peace movement in Turkey, incest, pornography
and fascism, Cuba, dealing with nuclear psychosii
and direct actions all over the p1ace. lronically, the
last issues receive continuing high praise. Though
WiN's circulation limps around 3000, issues are still
touted around the movement as valuable organizing
aids.
One by one, the staff moves on; despite their dedication, they must make a living. Harriet and J ohn persevere with admittedly spotty help f rom the editorial
board and volunteers. The board, reluctantly, but also
with some relief, decides WIN's time is done. This is
the last issue.
left wh ich still evoke strong passiorl
B, DuBois ' NAACP journal, The Crisls, a nd
Randolph's Messenger were the
which ignited the Black Freedom M
century. The Ly.rical Left of th€ 1910s
and The Libsrator. Raclicals of
the Partiean Rsview. WIN is one af
born in the 1960s which willbe
I could be melancholy, but you can read Wendy
I see ¡t, WIN magazine succeeded beyond anyone's wildest dreams. For 17
Schwartz for that. As
years, WIN has served as the national bulletin board
for a movement that stubbornly refuses to surrender
its vision of a world without exploitåtton lt continued
consistent to its original vision that lasting change can
come f rom nonviolent direct action. We have seen th is
to be true in ways that people would've never thought
possible in 1966. WIN was part of what made that
happen. I know l'm glad to have been around it.
WIN's impact on the lives of thousands
thousands of people from 1966 on
years to come. That's reason to
and
will continue for
celebrate.
O
How We'veChanged:
'its
lpublication for me an
loss,
once published a play of minc as a w,hole
got it out in 2 weeks
Now. I ask you
. would have done an
fectionate goodbye from
-Eric
e, emerging from the timid, red-baiting
of the 50s into the increasing¡ly vocal60s, W
volce* a refusal
ing things. I
of nonviolence and
grassÍoots actions. I stiTl value that spirit and
it will be carried on in f¡-rture publications
APersonalView
-Ruth
by Wendy Schwartz
lllustrations by Tom Keough
It is a cold February evening ìn 1966. John Hawkins
and Mary Bradley, graduate students in social
science who are studying to make the world a better
place to
live in, are freezing f rom leaÍletting all after-
at the Times Square Recruiting Station. They
shake icicles outoÍ their hair-his newly grown long,
hers newly Írizzing naturally-and pulloff their snownoon
caked bellbottoms. Then they dive under the blankets
that cover the mattress on the floor of their East
Village apartment. "Thank Cod for flat feet," says
John, who got his 4-F deferment in the mail only yes-
terday. "We'll do that later," answers Mary, grabbing John in a place that will demonstrate to him how
successfu//y she had sexually liberated herself
"Later we should also read WlN, that new pacifist
magazine," John adds just beÍore he stops breathing
.
normallY'
* *
*
It is now late in 1983. Abraham Minh Braotey-Hawkins, born because his parents put off thinking about
Wendy Schwartz, executlve director of the A.J.
Muste Memorial lnstitute, is in the f inal stages of labor on a novel about the'1960s. Såe has been involved
in WIN since 1968 and was on staff for six months ¡n
1969.
if they're not trying to put me in jaìl, I
something wrong. All those calendar
't get to, and fundraising appeals for
ir, where we
p the wagons
the national guard. Blessed are the
they go now that WIN can' t owe
pay anymore? Thank you, WIN
ing mak e us who we ar€.
A:.
,t
t".
birth controltheway'they put off reading WlN, is gett¡ng ready for a Police concert. "your mother and I
ran'pway Írom the police," Abe's aging father says,
shaking his sti//-shaggy head, "and òur son pays
money fo see thern sing." Abe smi/es indulgently and
keeps shavìng, hls sca/p in-between the twin orang,e
Mohawks that shoot out above each of his eyes. Concentrating on fils appearance keeps fris mind off registration for the draft. Tomorrow he'll thumb through
sorne issues ol W lN-th e radical rag his parents have
heen subscribing to since the Stoñe Age.-and see
what it says about the return of the draft, he decides.
'Then,
satisÍied that he has Íound something constructive to do abouf his prediçament, Abe puts a saÍety pin
in his lef t'ear and heads out the door.
A h,1966, I remember it well. lt was the year
thattheNewYorkWorkshop in Nonviolence
tl
begat WIN Magazine, which named the
.¡.trt .¡¡f lower power movement and became one of
its most important blooms. lt was when the peace
movementwas stillbathed in theafterglow of the civil
rights movement's successes, and a hand holding a
single sun-yellow daffodil was believed to have the
strength tr: disarm nations. lt was when going to jail
instead of war was an act of greát liberation, and when
sleeping with a draft resister was an act blessed by
lt was when we made love for peace,
,Joan'Baez.
'smoked dope for peace, grew our hair long for
þeacej
ancl sometimes even worked for peace. lt was a simple
time, when everyone was young and our banners had
but one slogan.
Rut soon, one by one, then two by two, the petals
fell off the f lower power movement like so many flowing tears, The horror of cluster bombs eclipsed the
horror of napalm, The war in V ietnam became the war
in lndochina, and the good vibes turned an gry as protesters realized that no bouquet, no matter how bright
and beautiful on a clear s pring day, could transform
AND
NIA
t1-b
the ugliness of the escalating war. The kaleidoscope
dreams of the f lower children became drug-drenched
nightmares whose lingering darkness obscurecl their
way home.
It was the late sixties, early seventies, by now. Nonviolent action, which had worked well, if not quickly,
in the South, was not working for the antiwar movement. People were tired of protesting, tired of losing,
tired of living the life that was supposed to be proteètion from father's ulcers and mother's migraines. By
the timethe draft finally ended, many people thought
they were ready to declare a victory and go home.
But they couldn't. Scenes of yellow people dyi¡g
blood-red deaths kept spotting the nightly news. They
stuck in the mind the way white phosphorus clung to
the skin. We were cornpelled to continue protesting.
WIN restored spirits up as article after article reported the myriad creative ways people were opposing the war, and photographs leapt off the pages:
resisters, in the clutches of police, their faces alive
with the truth that going to jailwas making them f ree.
Who'sWho
round
this
also started mobilizing
A against the-time, weproblems'in
othôr
our countryl
tt
Minorities had won a seat on the bus, but a
¡|rl|
{¡ ¡l¡lot of them still had rìo money for the fare;
women were in the bedroom on our backs or in the
kitchen'on our feet much too much of the time; the
closet door was held shut against gays trying to get
out; handicapped people couldn't even reach the
doors. Like a thousand shooting stars, liberation
movements cast lights into the many dark corners of
American life.
it turned out that the peace movernent itself was
one of those dark corners. With a mixture of incredulity and shame we rushed to offer reparations and support. As the agenda of the movement grew, the
speakers' list at demonstrations began reading iike a
Who's Who of Oppressed People.
ln spite of its attempts at broadening the peace
agenda, the movement failed to make a persuasive
case for linking government decisions with corporate
inf luence; the issue of capitalism became the domain
of only a few groups whose alienating style and conf rontational tactics made a mockery of their concerns
Postwar organizing was severely hampered by the
widespread belief that a good many of America's
problems wou ld disappear automatically with the restoration of peace.
Now, back to the early seventies: once the movement realized that it had paralleled establishment
America in its disenfranchisement of the oppressed,
it struggled to find ways of running itself that would
more fully express the needs of all its constituency.
The pacif ist wing was particularly concerned with applying the rules of nonviolence to interpersonal relationships, and a wing of the wing developed a new
method of human interaction to institutionalize
mutual decency. lt advocated touching and feeling,
but not, usually, pressing someone else's buttons. lt
particularly encouraged hugging, which, since the
sexual revolution, had become nearly passe, but
which was still a damned pleasant pick-me-up dirring
.
ó
D
o
h
October 1983 WlN.32
Ð
a long hard day of revcìlutionizing. Creat emphasii
was also plaòed on the sharing of feelings, a concept
welcomed'by some as an overdue attempt to human-
ize political organizing. Others, however, were no
more able to share what they felt than they were able
to consider their toothbrush communal pr:operty. Af-
ter considerable debate, the movement,
Ï
I
through
consensus, decided that people could do "whatevãr
spread their toes,"
' Although many groups had for a long time operated
as a collective, it now became the basic movement
unit; this ensured that each staff member had equal
work and responsibility whether that was wanted or
not. Consensus to a large extent replaced voting, thus
increasing meeting time by half . (This in turn ied to
the introduction of breaks in the mid/le of meetings
during which people were compelled tci'relax in a way
determined by consensus.) Some thought consensus
was the greatest step toward equality since the oneperson-óne-vote concept; others thought it was simply, a way for the more forceful to wear down the
opposition instead of being outvoted bv it.
WIN published articles on how to relate to one another, both personally and while organizing, a process subsequently called "process," putting its
readers in touch with the New Anti-Authoritarianism.
Author after author directed, in a non-directorial
manner, how to stop directing and start being directed by the consensus, which because of its unartimity was not at all directorial.
Political organizing within the pacifist movement
began to be institutionalized along the lines of the
New Anti-Authorianism. There appeared a-manageragerial class of organizers-whose fervor to disarm
America was matched only by the zeal with which
they denied they were, indeed, managers. They ele-
vated the act of committing nonviolent civil disobedience to an exercise with the precision of a military
marching band, all the while successfully convincing
the participants that what seemed like Marine manl
euvers were really logical extensions of anarchist
theory.
I tl f
-l?lN
U
The NewCD
reported on the New Civil Disobedience (NCD) and promoted Nonviolence
V llflliås: il,"rryÉdii"ii';;,': i:! ffiTiiå
be spiritually moved to participate in CD, NCD required a course in role-playing; memorization of a
printed sheet of peace songs, which were to be sung
spontaneously at a predetermined time; membership
in an affinity group, and the acceptance of groùp responsibilities such as carrying first-aid supplies and
water even though the demonstration site may be
across the street f rom a hospital; and a promise to get
arrested on11, in the area designated for that purpose
by the police. WIN hailed the organized spontaneity
of NCD, and certainly the increaSed number of participants in actions attested to its effêctiveness. But on
WIN's pages, at least one old-fashioned civil disobedient waxed nostalgic about the days when no prior
certif ication was needed to resist illegitimate
authority.
,
,¡
t.
ll
tl
.l
T
Despite all these changes, it became increasingly
At no time was the tension greater than during the
difficult to wait for peace so our lives could begin. planning for the )une 12, 1982 antinuclear rally in
Some risked getting married anyway, went back to New York, and f requently it seemed that the antiwarschool, or took jobs that would not be too humiliating
to talk about when they riret old comrades on the appetizi ng I ine at Zabar's on Satu rday morn i ngs .
1-hen f inally, the war in lndochina ended. The dying
stopped, the prisoners of war came home. Americã
was supposed to forget the last decade and get on with
the business of peace.
It didn't quite'work that way. The economy began
declining precipitously and people who previously
thought poverty existed only on the other side of town
found it had crept through their own doorways.
lnstead of focusing on the poor, people in the movement .resumed concentration on personaf liberation,
ref ining the "process" process until the means not
only equalled the ends but replaced them. The guilt
threshold in the movement was raised as
peõple
became embarrassed by their lack of oppressedness
and their continued preoccupation with peace.
WIN expanded its coverage of personal liberation
issues, presenting as many sides as it could find
writers to present. Women and gays, however, still
felt WtN's allocation of space to their concerns was
woefully inadequate, while people vyho believed that
the peace movement should only be concerned with
peace were concerned thatWlN had lost its calling.
Movement Mergers
.?
Miiü*frffüiåii'*frï*iir
port from the liberal establishment, which had been
trying to clear the environment of noxious carbons
and oily sludge, only to be faced with the ultimate polluter: nuclear fallout. A tentative merger of the peace
and environmental movements, and the radicals and
liberals, was forged.
riors were at war with each other. But, also, at no time
was the unity of the peace movement more evident
than at the rally itself , when a million people, largely
ignorant of the political battles that nearly sabotaged
their day of protest, came together to express their
yearning for peace. They demonstrated what the
peace movement used to predict would one day happen: the people would rise up above the macho machi-
nations and petty politics of their leadership and
demand peace themselves.
WlN, unsure whether coverage of the infighting
would exacerbate or reduce it, opted for silence prioi
to the rally.. lt was, in retrospect, a decìsion
out-of-step with the irreverence and honesty of the
WlNs of years gone by, and a signal to people close to
WIN that its energy and relevance were dwindling.
After a year of discussion, prayer, and running
numbers through a calculator, it became clear that
WIN's tenure as the "liveliest publication on the left,,
had to come to an end. Though there are people with a
f resh commitment to peace who could learn and take
sustenance from WlN, they won't be able to do that.
This is WIN's f inal voyage in the Yellow Submarine.
The constituency that WIN has served for 1Z years
seems larger and stronger today. While this is heartening, it is true also that great divisions wrench it
apart, since the definitions of peace vary so widely
among individuals and member groups. For our
dreams to be realized, the pluralism we so value in our
world must be equally cherished in our movement. To
do less is.to violate the memory of those whose number has comprised the daily death toll of every war to r
date.
I alss felt W
anti-Se
in the autonomrus feminist
move-
movement
-
as much as or more than
â pro-
O
i
rl
,t
'm sur€. Three years were al-
I
October-1983 WIN 34
lllustration by Tom Kcough/Wli,,
1
feli frustration over a lack of commitment his
militant feminism. Perhaps it is the
Win Magazine Volume 19 Number 17-18
1983-10