Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class, a production
Speaker 1: of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2: Hello and Welcome to the podcast. I'm Tracy B. Wilson
Speaker 2: and I'm Holly Frye. Back in twenty twenty, we did
Speaker 2: a two part episode on co Intel pro, which was
Speaker 2: a series of FBI counterintelligence programs that started out ostensibly
Speaker 2: focused on communism, but they went on to target an
Speaker 2: array of primarily left wing organizations and movements in the
Speaker 2: United States. One of my really favorite parts of working
Speaker 2: on that was getting to how those programs came to
Speaker 2: an end. The FBI still does counterintelligence, but these formerly
Speaker 2: defined co intel pros ended after a group of regular
Speaker 2: people pulled off a heist at the FBI office in Media, Pennsylvania,
Speaker 2: and then they sent what they found to news agencies.
Speaker 2: This group of regular people called themselves the Citizens Commission
Speaker 2: to Investigate the FBI, and at the very end of
Speaker 2: those episodes we mentioned that some of them went on
Speaker 2: to become part of a group called the Camden twenty eight,
Speaker 2: who had raided a draft office in Camden, New Jersey
Speaker 2: in nineteen seventy one. So I have wanted to do
Speaker 2: a Camden twenty eight episode for the last five years,
Speaker 2: like it's been on the list for a long time.
Speaker 2: As I finally got into working on this, though, I
Speaker 2: realized that just focusing on the Camden twenty eight really
Speaker 2: wouldn't convey that this was not just one raid on
Speaker 2: one draft board office. It was part of a whole
Speaker 2: anti war movement that was largely grounded in Catholic religious convictions.
Speaker 2: And this movement spanned almost four years. So this turned
Speaker 2: into a two part episode. Today we are going to
Speaker 2: have some very basic context of the Vietnam War and
Speaker 2: why the US was involved in the first place. Due
Speaker 2: to the progression of time, we have reached a point
Speaker 2: where I think the majority of our listeners did not
Speaker 2: live through this or grow up in the immediate aftermath
Speaker 2: of it. So if you did and you're like, why
Speaker 2: are you explaining this to me? I think a lot
Speaker 2: of people are not as steeped in some of this
Speaker 2: as like Holly and I.
Speaker 1: Were in our youths.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So we're going to talk about why the US
Speaker 2: was involved in the first place, and we're going to
Speaker 2: talk about a couple of the earliest raids on draft
Speaker 2: boards in this part of the two parter. Then on
Speaker 2: Wednesday we will talk about the raids that happened later
Speaker 2: in this movement and the Camden twenty eight specifically.
Speaker 1: So, the Vietnam War was a long, complicated conflict that
Speaker 1: is known in vs. Vietnam as the American War or
Speaker 1: the Resistance War against America. It was part of a
Speaker 1: wider pattern of conflict and war in Southeast Asia, involving
Speaker 1: multiple other nations beyond just the US and Vietnam. It
Speaker 1: went on for nearly twenty years. So we're not going
Speaker 1: to try to give a detailed account of the entire thing,
Speaker 1: or even to try to cover all the most notable moments.
Speaker 1: As Tracy just said, we're giving this overview for context.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I kept being like, should I mention this too?
Speaker 2: Should I mention this too? And it was there are
Speaker 2: too many things, And then it was a twelve episode
Speaker 2: arc and then our whole podcast is just about Vietnam,
Speaker 2: which those already exist, those already exist, there's plenty available.
Speaker 2: Over the course of its history, Vietnam has been an
Speaker 2: independent nation at some points and it has been colonized
Speaker 2: at others. And the period that's most relevant to today's
Speaker 2: episode starts with France colonizing Va Vietnam and other parts
Speaker 2: of Southeast Asia during the nineteenth century. Then, during World
Speaker 2: War II, Japan negotiated with v Shi France to occupy Vietnam.
Speaker 2: Vietnam remained under French administration until almost the very end
Speaker 2: of the war, and then Japan took control, imprisoned the
Speaker 2: French officials, and then killed the ones who refused to comply.
Speaker 1: The events of World War II contributed to a growing
Speaker 1: independence movement in Vietnam. One part of this movement was
Speaker 1: the League for the Independence of Vietnam, also known as
Speaker 1: the Vietmen, founded by Ho Chi Minh. The Vietmen had
Speaker 1: been established in northern Vietnam, not far from the border
Speaker 1: with China, and it had a primarily Communist leadership. As
Speaker 1: World War.
Speaker 2: II came to an end, the Vietmen launched an uprising
Speaker 2: to try to secure independence for Vietnam. Ho Chi Minh
Speaker 2: declared Vietnam to be an independent republic with its capital
Speaker 2: at Hanoi in s September of nineteen forty five. Not
Speaker 2: long after that, Vietnamese Emperor Bao Dai abdicated and declared
Speaker 2: his allegiance to the newly established Democratic Republic of Vietnam.
Speaker 1: But with the end of World War II, France wanted
Speaker 1: to regain control of its colonial possession, and with the
Speaker 1: support of its allies, it tried to do just that.
Speaker 1: These allies included the US, although a lot wasn't publicly
Speaker 1: known about the US involvement until much later. This led
Speaker 1: to the First Indochina War, also called the French Indochina War,
Speaker 1: which stretched from nineteen forty six to nineteen fifty four.
Speaker 1: This war formally ended with the Geneva Convention of nineteen
Speaker 1: fifty four, which also dealt with some ongoing issues from
Speaker 1: the Korean War that had ended with an armistice in
Speaker 1: nineteen fifty three.
Speaker 2: The accords that were signed at this convention created a
Speaker 2: ceasefire line at the Seventeenth Peril, with the Democratic Republic
Speaker 2: of Vietnam on one side and the State of Vietnam
Speaker 2: also called the Republic of Vietnam without the Democratic part
Speaker 2: on the other. These are more generally referred to as
Speaker 2: North and South Vietnam. The accords also called for the
Speaker 2: establishment of a demilitarized zone along that line and a
Speaker 2: three hundred day period for troops to be withdrawn to
Speaker 2: their respective sides of the line. This division of Vietnam
Speaker 2: was also supposed to be temporary, with the future of
Speaker 2: a unified Vietnam to be decided through a fair and
Speaker 2: free election.
Speaker 1: From the United States point of view, the idea that
Speaker 1: this election could result in a unified communist Vietnam was
Speaker 1: a major problem. This was during the Cold War between
Speaker 1: the United States and the USSR, which was also communist.
Speaker 1: In the US, there was a lot of anxiety around
Speaker 1: the idea of Vietnam unifying itself as a communist nation
Speaker 1: and forming an alliance with the USSR or with its
Speaker 1: neighbor China, which had become a communist nation in nineteen
Speaker 1: forty nine. This was also connected to the nuclear arms
Speaker 1: race between the US and the USSR, and worries around
Speaker 1: which nations would have access to nuclear weapons and where
Speaker 1: the USSR would be able to station them. And this
Speaker 1: wasn't just about Vietnam. A lot of US foreign policy
Speaker 1: at this point rested on the Domino theory, which is
Speaker 1: the idea that if one nation quote fell to communism,
Speaker 1: its neighbors would inevitably follow. The US was trying to
Speaker 1: stop communist governments from forming or existing in other parts
Speaker 1: of the world as well. This included the CIA, orchestrating
Speaker 1: a coup to overthrow the democratically elected government of Guatemala
Speaker 1: in nineteen fifty four. We covered that as a two
Speaker 1: parter in September twenty nineteen. We have talked about a
Speaker 1: number of times.
Speaker 2: That the United States is willing to prop up a
Speaker 2: dictator if that meant a nation not becoming communist. With
Speaker 2: all of this in mind, the United States did not
Speaker 2: pledge to follow the agreements that had been signed at
Speaker 2: the Geneva Convention, and neither did the State of Vietnam,
Speaker 2: which then also did not work with the North on
Speaker 2: holding that election that was supposed to happen. Initially, the
Speaker 2: VIETMM was not interested in trying to start another war
Speaker 2: over this, but that started to change in the second
Speaker 2: half of the nineteen fifties. Eventually, the National Liberation Front
Speaker 2: and its military arm, the viet Cong, started trying to
Speaker 2: take control of South Vietnam. It was getting support from
Speaker 2: Communists living in South Vietnam as well as from non communists.
Speaker 2: Some saw this as a chance to get rid of
Speaker 2: corruption in the South Vietnamese government. Others sought this so
Speaker 2: out Vietnamese government was out of touch with its own
Speaker 2: people and that the communist government would be better. The
Speaker 2: government of South Vietnam was also predominantly Catholic, and the
Speaker 2: largely Buddhist population was facing religious oppression and persecution. Yeah,
Speaker 2: there were definitely people who did not want the whole
Speaker 2: of Vietnam, like people living in Vietnam who did not
Speaker 2: want the whole of Vietnam to become Communist and wanted
Speaker 2: international support in this. But there's also a very growing
Speaker 2: amount of support for the Communist As all this was happening,
Speaker 2: the North Vietnamese also started building a supply route known
Speaker 2: as the Ho Chi Minh Trail to support its efforts
Speaker 2: in the South. Those efforts included a lot of guerrilla
Speaker 2: tactics that the South Vietnamese, who had largely been trained
Speaker 2: by Americans and other Westerners, weren't really quite prepared for.
Speaker 2: By the start of the nineteen sixties, it was obvious
Speaker 2: to the United States that South Vietnam could not win
Speaker 2: and this conflict without more help. At first, most people
Speaker 2: in the United States were generally supportive of US military
Speaker 2: action in Vietnam. The fear of communism in its expansion,
Speaker 2: the Cold War, and nuclear proliferation were all huge political issues.
Speaker 2: This was true even though the US military had already
Speaker 2: been through a three year war in Korea, which had
Speaker 2: some similarities to what was happening in Vietnam, and at first,
Speaker 2: US support to Vietnam was mostly through things like equipment
Speaker 2: and training, without a lot of US personnel station there,
Speaker 2: so most people didn't really have a personal or family
Speaker 2: connection to what was happening. But that changed in the
Speaker 2: nineteen sixties. The US started ramping up as support of
Speaker 2: South Vietnam by deploying helicopters and Green berets, and by
Speaker 2: nineteen sixty two, about nine thousand American troops had been
Speaker 2: sent overseas. The US also started using napalm and Dell
Speaker 2: like agent orange to destroy the vegetation that the North
Speaker 2: Vietnamese were using for cover, and to also deprive them
Speaker 2: of food. In January of nineteen sixty five, there was
Speaker 2: an incident in the Gulf of Tonkin. The exact details
Speaker 2: of this incident still are not clear today, but two
Speaker 2: US destroyers reported that they had been fired upon by
Speaker 2: North Vietnamese patrol boats. Not long after this incident, Congress
Speaker 2: passed a joint resolution known as the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution,
Speaker 2: which set in part quote that the Congress approves and
Speaker 2: supports the determination of the President, as Commander in Chief,
Speaker 2: to take all necessary measures to repel any armed attack
Speaker 2: against the forces of the United States and to prevent
Speaker 2: further aggression. The president at this point was Lyndon B. Johnson,
Speaker 2: and this basically allowed him to essentially wage war in
Speaker 2: Vietnam without a formal declaration of war on Vietnam Congress.
Speaker 2: Bombing campaigns and larger troop deployments started not long after this.
Speaker 2: Every time the United States has been involved in a war,
Speaker 2: there have been people opposed to it, whether that opposition
Speaker 2: was on political or ideological grounds relating to that specific conflict,
Speaker 2: or was rooted in an opposition to war more generally.
Speaker 2: But as the United States military involvement in Vietnam grew,
Speaker 2: the anti war movement did as well, becoming the largest
Speaker 2: movement against a foreign war in US history, and this
Speaker 2: became an incredibly divisive, deeply polarizing social and political issue.
Speaker 2: We'll talk more about it after a sponsor break. As
Speaker 2: we said before the break, in general, most Americans supported
Speaker 2: the United States military efforts in Vietnam at the start
Speaker 2: of its involvement in this conflict. At least what was
Speaker 2: publicly known as the involvement in the conflict, largely because
Speaker 2: of things like opposition to communism and the fact that
Speaker 2: at first this support did not involve large scale troop deployments,
Speaker 2: but support for the war started to wane as that changed.
Speaker 2: Part of this was connected to the news coverage. As
Speaker 2: the US military presence grew in Vietnam, so did the
Speaker 2: number of journalists there. There were roughly six hundred accredited
Speaker 2: journalists in Vietnam at the height of the war in
Speaker 2: nineteen sixty eight, and some of them were reporting from
Speaker 2: combat zones. This was also really the first war that
Speaker 2: the US had fought during the television era. Televisions did
Speaker 2: exist before this, long before this, and there had been
Speaker 2: newsreels and other visual news sources during earlier wars as well,
Speaker 2: but it was only after the Korean War that there
Speaker 2: were televisions in more than half of American homes, and
Speaker 2: some of the images and stories that were coming out
Speaker 2: of Vietnam and being broadcast on the news in people's
Speaker 2: living rooms were truly horrifying. On top of all that,
Speaker 2: during his nineteen sixty four presidential campaign, Lyndon B. Johnson
Speaker 2: had said he wouldn't be expanding the US presence in Vietnam,
Speaker 2: but after an attack on a US air base not
Speaker 2: long after his second inauguration, Johnson ordered a bombing campaign
Speaker 2: known as Operation Rolling Thunder, followed by the deployment of
Speaker 2: more ground troops. By the end of the year, there
Speaker 2: were roughly one hundred eighty thousand US military personnel in Vietnam,
Speaker 2: and by nineteen sixty eight that number had risen to
Speaker 2: well over half a million. As the number of personnel increased,
Speaker 2: sowed tod the number of casualties, and soon about three
Speaker 2: hundred Americans were dying in Vietnam every week. This was
Speaker 2: a fraction of the number of TI civilian deaths in Vietnam,
Speaker 2: which people in the US were also seeing on the news.
Speaker 2: Opposition to the war grew in parallel with this increase
Speaker 2: in troop deployments. We talked about the teachings that were
Speaker 2: part of this movement in our Saturday Classic from this
Speaker 2: past February twenty second. There were also marches and sit
Speaker 2: ins and demonstrations against companies like Dow Chemical, which was
Speaker 2: the primary producer of Nepal. Some of the public opposition
Speaker 2: to the war was tied to the growing hippie movement
Speaker 2: and counterculture movements, and it was associated with things like music,
Speaker 2: drug use, and free love. Other demonstrations against the war
Speaker 2: were visceral and intentionally disturbing, including multiple people who set
Speaker 2: themselves on fire, mirroring the acts of Buddhist monks in
Speaker 2: Vietnam who had emilated themselves in protest in nineteen sixty seven.
Speaker 2: Some of the anti war marches and demonstrations in the
Speaker 2: US were enormous. One of the organizations that formed to
Speaker 2: resist the war effort was the National Mobilization Committee to
Speaker 2: End the War in Vietnam aka the MOB, which organized
Speaker 2: demonstrations and marches in multiple US cities. On April fifteenth
Speaker 2: of that year, hundreds of thousands of people marched in
Speaker 2: New York City, San Francisco, and other major cities. On
Speaker 2: October twenty first, nineteen sixty seven, about one hundred thousand
Speaker 2: people rallied near the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, d C.
Speaker 2: With roughly fifty thousand of them marching to the Pentagon
Speaker 2: across the Potomac River in Arlington, Virginia. One of the
Speaker 2: famous images of the anti war movement was taken at
Speaker 2: this protest. It was of George Harris, later known as Hibiscus,
Speaker 2: placing carnations in the barrels of the rifles that were
Speaker 2: being wielded by military police. Photographer Bernie Boston titled this
Speaker 2: photo flower power. Beat. Poet Alan Ginsberg had popularized that
Speaker 2: term in a nineteen six essay that called for demonstrators
Speaker 2: to carry flowers and give them to soldiers, police, spectators,
Speaker 2: and other people. This photo was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize.
Speaker 2: While opposition to the Vietnam War was really growing in
Speaker 2: the mid to late nineteen sixties, it wasn't really one
Speaker 2: cohesive movement. There were a lot of different.
Speaker 1: People and groups who opposed the war.
Speaker 2: For different reasons, and they all had their own priorities
Speaker 2: and their own methods. There were people who thought the
Speaker 2: US shouldn't be in Vietnam at all, or that the
Speaker 2: war had become unwinnable and the US should withdraw. Some
Speaker 2: who opposed the war connected what was happening in Vietnam
Speaker 2: to US foreign policy in other parts of the world,
Speaker 2: including the coup in Guatemala that we mentioned earlier, or
Speaker 2: they drew connections between foreign wars and issues of poverty, racism,
Speaker 2: and discrimination.
Speaker 1: At home, but.
Speaker 2: One specific issue that a lot of people objected to
Speaker 2: was the draft. This draft took place via the Selective
Speaker 2: Service System, which was first established in nineteen forty. The
Speaker 2: war on the horizon at that point was, of course,
Speaker 2: World War II, which was already underway in other parts
Speaker 2: of the world, but that the US was not actively
Speaker 2: part of yet.
Speaker 1: With very few.
Speaker 2: Exceptions, men in the United States, regardless of whether they
Speaker 2: were citizens, were required to register with the local Selective
Speaker 2: Service Board also called the Draft board when they turned eighteen.
Speaker 2: Through the Selective Service system, men had previously been drafted
Speaker 2: to serve in World War Two and the Korean War.
Speaker 1: Just like there has been an anti war movement alongside
Speaker 1: every war, there have been objections to conscription every time
Speaker 1: the United.
Speaker 2: States has used it, but opposition to the draft during
Speaker 2: the Vietnam War became massive. The US had a large
Speaker 2: population of men of draftable age thanks to the post
Speaker 2: World War two baby boom, so especially at first, there
Speaker 2: were a lot of lawful ways for people to defer
Speaker 2: their service or to be made exempt without keeping the
Speaker 2: military from meeting its enlistment goals. Like college students were
Speaker 2: eligible for deferment, and the longer person stayed in school,
Speaker 2: the longer they could differ. Married men with children were
Speaker 2: eligible for hardship deferment, and people could also be exempted
Speaker 2: for a number of medical conditions. As many as half
Speaker 2: of the people who were eligible for the draft during
Speaker 2: the Vietnam War got some kind of deferral or exemption.
Speaker 2: People who met the criteria could also register as conscientious
Speaker 2: objectors and be assigned an alternative service. Yes, some of
Speaker 2: this was narrowed down as the war progressed, but at
Speaker 2: first there were a lot of different ways that people
Speaker 2: could be deferred for a long time. People did also
Speaker 2: evade the draft by fleeing to Canada or another country,
Speaker 2: or by just refusing to report for induction. It's that
Speaker 2: more than half a million people evaded the draft during
Speaker 2: the Vietnam War. People objected to the draft for a
Speaker 2: lot of reasons. To some, it was unconscionable for anyone
Speaker 2: to be forced to serve in the military. Others sought
Speaker 2: there were circumstances in which a draft was called for
Speaker 2: and just, but that the war in Vietnam was not
Speaker 2: one of them. Although all men were required to register
Speaker 2: for the draft, there were racial and economic disparities in
Speaker 2: who was actually called to serve, which led to criticisms
Speaker 2: from civil rights activists and people who advocated for the
Speaker 2: rights of the poor. Changes were made to the draft
Speaker 2: system midway through the war to try to mitigate some
Speaker 2: of these issues. Once someone registered with the Draft Board,
Speaker 2: they were issued a card containing their identifying information and
Speaker 2: their draft status. By law, these draft cards had to
Speaker 2: be carried at all times. People who opposed the war
Speaker 2: or specifically posed the draft started burning their draft cards
Speaker 2: as a symbolic act of protest. This didn't erase their
Speaker 2: registration or stop them from being drafted, but it more
Speaker 2: made a statement. In nineteen sixty five, Congress passed the
Speaker 2: Draft Card Mutilation Act, which established fines of up to
Speaker 2: ten thousand dollars or five years in prison for knowingly
Speaker 2: destroying or mutilating a draft card. Since the law required
Speaker 2: cards to be carried at all times, it already implied
Speaker 2: that it was illegal to destroy them, but this made
Speaker 2: that explicit.
Speaker 1: With the passage of that law, burning a draft card
Speaker 1: could take on another layer of protest. A person could
Speaker 1: do it publicly with the intention of being arrested. One
Speaker 1: person who did this was David Paul O'Brien, He and
Speaker 1: three others burned their draft cards in front of a
Speaker 1: crowd outside the South Boston Courthouse on March thirty first,
Speaker 1: nineteen sixty six. O'Brien told FBI agents who were on
Speaker 1: the scene that he knew what he had done was illegal,
Speaker 1: but that he had done it because of his beliefs.
Speaker 1: He was indicted, tried, and convicted, and at trial he
Speaker 1: told the jury that he hoped his action would inspire
Speaker 1: others to adopt those same beliefs. O'Brien was by far
Speaker 1: not the only person to do this, but his case
Speaker 1: was the one that went all the way to the
Speaker 1: Supreme Court, which issued a seven to one decision that
Speaker 1: this law did not violate First Amendment protections on free speech.
Speaker 1: Like the Flower Power imagery that we mentioned earlier, burning
Speaker 1: draft cards became emblematic of opposition to the Vietnam War.
Speaker 1: While burning a draft card didn't stop someone from being drafted,
Speaker 1: there were also anti war activists who were trying to
Speaker 1: destroy draft records in a way that would stop the draft,
Speaker 1: and that was by going to the draft boards to
Speaker 1: do it.
Speaker 2: We're going to talk more about that. After we paused
Speaker 2: for a sponsor break. In September of nineteen sixty five,
Speaker 2: nineteen year old Barry Bondis received his draft notice. He
Speaker 2: went to Minneapolis for his physical and his psychological tests,
Speaker 2: and on his paperwork he listed his birthplace as Earth
Speaker 2: and his race as human. He and his father Tom
Speaker 2: started trying to get him exempted from service on religious grounds.
Speaker 2: That led to a meeting at the draft board office
Speaker 2: in Elk River, Minnesota. Tom said that he was worried
Speaker 2: about the draft because he had twelve sons, and a
Speaker 2: member of the draft board asked where the rest of
Speaker 2: them were. Tom was outraged by this question and stormed out,
Speaker 2: and later the family came up with a plan to
Speaker 2: deliver the rest of Barry's brothers to the draft board.
Speaker 2: They had come up with an interpretation in which the
Speaker 2: rest meant residue and residue meant waste, So they put
Speaker 2: a couple of pails in the bathroom and they collected
Speaker 2: their waste in them, And then on February twenty third,
Speaker 2: nineteen sixty six, Barry took buckets of waste to the
Speaker 2: draft board. His initial plan seems to have been to
Speaker 2: basically leave them on the secretary's desk and say here's
Speaker 2: the rest of my brothers. But once he was in
Speaker 2: the office, he had another idea, which was to dump
Speaker 2: the waste into the file cabinet containing the draft records.
Speaker 2: That December, Barry Bondas was convicted of damaging government property
Speaker 2: and interfering with the Selective Service. This seems like kind
Speaker 2: of a spur of the moment decision on Bondas's part
Speaker 2: to actually dump the human waste into the file cabinet,
Speaker 2: but according to news reports from the time, he was
Speaker 2: heavily influenced both by his father and by the family's
Speaker 2: religious beliefs. Bondas isn't usual described as being part of
Speaker 2: the movement that evolved to target draft boards, but this
Speaker 2: is probably the earliest incident of draft board vandalism during
Speaker 2: the Vietnam War.
Speaker 1: A religious movement to target draft boards started a little
Speaker 1: later in nineteen sixty seven. On October twenty seventh of
Speaker 1: that year, four people entered a draft board office in Baltimore, Maryland,
Speaker 1: located in the United States Customs House. Philip Berrigan was
Speaker 1: a Catholic priest. Thomas Lewis was an artist and an
Speaker 1: organizer with artists concerned about Vietnam. David Eberhardt was secretary
Speaker 1: of the Baltimore Interfaith Peace Mission. These three presented themselves
Speaker 1: as having some reason to be at the Draft office,
Speaker 1: like needing to change their address or to check their
Speaker 1: draft status. Once they were in the office.
Speaker 2: They poured a bottles of blood, reportedly it was their
Speaker 2: own blood onto the draft records. A fourth man, James Mangle,
Speaker 2: was a minister in the United Church of Christ, and
Speaker 2: he acted as a lookout and tried to get in
Speaker 2: the way of anybody who might come in and try
Speaker 2: to stop them. But this was not so the four
Speaker 2: men could make their escape. Once they were done. Getting
Speaker 2: arrested was part of the point, and they were just
Speaker 2: waiting for that to happen. Once they had poured the
Speaker 2: blood on the draft files, they issued a statement to
Speaker 2: the press that said, in part quote, we shed our
Speaker 2: blood willingly and gratefully. We pour it upon these files
Speaker 2: to illustrate that with them, and with these offices, begins
Speaker 2: the pitiful waste of American and Vietnamese blood ten thousand
Speaker 2: miles away.
Speaker 1: They were charged with conspiracy and an attempt to mutilate
Speaker 1: selective service records. They reportedly turned down offers of leniency
Speaker 1: instead remaining in jail as an act of political protest,
Speaker 1: and fasted and prayed while there.
Speaker 2: Well.
Speaker 1: They made no secret of what they had done. They
Speaker 1: pleaded not guilty so their case would go to court,
Speaker 1: and continued to keep the issue in the spotlight.
Speaker 2: One of the people who watched their trial from the
Speaker 2: gallery was US Army veteran George Misha, who had worked
Speaker 2: with the Catholic Organization Mary Nol missionaries in Mexico and
Speaker 2: connected US policy in Vietnam to its policies in Latin America.
Speaker 2: When the question was raised at trial of whether the
Speaker 2: Selective Service Board couldn't just use their duplicate copies to
Speaker 2: keep the draft functioning, it was revealed that there were
Speaker 2: no duplicates. When he heard this, Misha turned to his
Speaker 2: wife and said they should burn the cards.
Speaker 1: The four men on trial became known as the Baltimore Four,
Speaker 1: and their demonstration was the first of what sometimes described
Speaker 1: as the Catholic number group actions. The Catholic led protests
Speaker 1: and some that were arranged by people who were not Catholic,
Speaker 1: were often described using the numb number of people involved
Speaker 1: and the city where the action took place.
Speaker 2: A few months after the Baltimore four was the Catonsville Nine.
Speaker 2: One of those nine people was George Misha. Tom Lewis
Speaker 2: and Philip Berrigan were involved as well. They had been
Speaker 2: convicted of pouring blood on the draft records in Baltimore,
Speaker 2: but they had not yet been sentenced, at least I
Speaker 2: think there's some kind of contradictory reporting here of why
Speaker 2: they were not incarcerated at this point in the timeline.
Speaker 2: Another person who was part of this was Philip Beregan's
Speaker 2: brother Daniel, who was also a priest.
Speaker 1: The Catonsville nine break in happened on May seventeenth, nineteen
Speaker 1: sixty eight, a little more than a month after the
Speaker 1: assassination of Martin Luther King Junior and the widespread civil
Speaker 1: unrest that had followed it. The North Vietnamese had also
Speaker 1: launched a coordinated surprise attack known as the Tet Offensive
Speaker 1: at the end of January on the Lunar New Year
Speaker 1: Holiday Tet. Although both sides claimed victory in the Tet Offensive,
Speaker 1: this did not bring a decisive end to the war,
Speaker 1: as the North Vietnamese had hoped when planning the operation,
Speaker 1: but American casualties did spike during this part of the conflict.
Speaker 1: Which was one of the reasons support for the war
Speaker 1: continued to wane in the United States. The House of
Speaker 1: Representatives had called for a congressional review of US policy
Speaker 1: in Vietnam, and the US had replaced the commander in
Speaker 1: charge of its military forces there. So when seven men
Speaker 1: and two women went into the draft board in Catonsville, Maryland,
Speaker 1: removed three hundred and seventy eight draft files, covered them
Speaker 1: with homemade napalm in the parking lot, and set them
Speaker 1: on fire. In the wake of all this, it was
Speaker 1: a major national news story. Pouring blood on the draft
Speaker 1: records had been evocative, and so was burning them with napalm.
Speaker 1: They had made it from a recipe they adapted from
Speaker 1: a Special Forces handbook. As had happened in Baltimore, getting
Speaker 1: arrested and facing trial was part of the point, and
Speaker 1: so was the news coverage they had tipped off the
Speaker 1: media ahead of time. None of the Catonsville nine were
Speaker 1: eligible for the draft. They were exempt because of their age,
Speaker 1: their sex, or some other reason. They spoke of being
Speaker 1: motivated by their religious convictions, including the fact that only
Speaker 1: five of the roughly four hundred Catholic bishops in the
Speaker 1: US had spoken out in opposition to the war. Thomas Melville,
Speaker 1: one of the participants, told reporters that since their church
Speaker 1: had failed to act officially, they felt it was up
Speaker 1: to them to act as individuals to speak out in
Speaker 1: the name of Catholicism and Christianity.
Speaker 2: Some of the participants also spoke out on what they
Speaker 2: saw as parallels between US involvement in Vietnam and its
Speaker 2: actions in other parts of the world. We mentioned George
Speaker 2: Misha's time in Mexico earlier. John Hogan had served as
Speaker 2: a mission buil business manager in Guatemala, and Marjorie and
Speaker 2: Thomas Melville had both been in Guatemala in connection with
Speaker 2: the Marinol Catholic Mission movement. They had all seen the
Speaker 2: impact of things like the CIA orchestrated coup that we
Speaker 2: mentioned earlier. These activists saw patterns of oppression, inequality, and poverty,
Speaker 2: including within the United States, as interconnected with what was
Speaker 2: happening in Vietnam.
Speaker 1: After setting the draft records on fire, the Catonsville Nine
Speaker 1: prayed for peace while waiting to be arrested. They refused bail,
Speaker 1: and they fasted while waiting in jail. Their trial began
Speaker 1: in federal court on October fifth, nineteen sixty eight, and
Speaker 1: it lasted for five days. There was an anti war
Speaker 1: protest on the first day of the trial, which happened
Speaker 1: at the same time as a George Wallace campaign rally,
Speaker 1: which made it a tense day. Anti war protests continued
Speaker 1: on in the later days of the trial as well.
Speaker 2: At trial, the defendants admitted to what they had done,
Speaker 2: but without describing themselves as guilty. They talked about burning
Speaker 2: the draft records as an act of conscience, one connected
Speaker 2: to a desire to end suffering around the world, including
Speaker 2: within the United States. David Darst, who is a Christian brother,
Speaker 2: said quote, I wanted to do a tiny bit to
Speaker 2: stop the machine of death I saw moving.
Speaker 1: The Catonsville nine were found guilty on all charges. They
Speaker 1: were fined and given sentences of between twenty four and
Speaker 1: forty two months each. Tom Lewis and Philip Brigan were
Speaker 1: given the longest sentences, in part because of their earlier
Speaker 1: conviction for pouring blood on the draft records in Baltimore.
Speaker 2: David Darst died in a car accident before his sentence began,
Speaker 2: and Mary Moylan, the Berrigan brothers, and George Misha all
Speaker 2: went into hiding rather than reporting for their incarceration. The
Speaker 2: four of them were all eventually captured or turned themselves in,
Speaker 2: but that took years. The last of them, Mary Moylan,
Speaker 2: turned herself in ten years after the trial. Dan Berrigan
Speaker 2: also seemed to kind of taunt authorities. He would regularly
Speaker 2: appear in public to speak or to participate in some
Speaker 2: kind of protest or demonstration, and then he would disappear again.
Speaker 2: The Canonsville Nine became the inspiration for a whole movement
Speaker 2: of direct actions at draft board offices. At least thirty
Speaker 2: of them were connected to the Catholic Left movement, which
Speaker 2: was focused on nonviolent resistance against the Vietnam War and
Speaker 2: against warmore generally, especially among the people who were motivated
Speaker 2: by their religious convictions, these were public demonstrations not just
Speaker 2: with the possibility of being arrested and charged with a crime,
Speaker 2: but with the intent of that happening, because that was
Speaker 2: part of the sacrifice and part of the impact of
Speaker 2: what they were doing. The effects these draft board raids
Speaker 2: had on the actual was often temporary. Although testimony in
Speaker 2: the Baltimore four case had suggested that there were no
Speaker 2: backup records, there weren't registers and other paperwork. Draft files
Speaker 2: were often damaged but not completely destroyed in this process,
Speaker 2: so a lot of the time it was possible to
Speaker 2: reconstruct most or all of them later, so it sort
Speaker 2: of put a pause on drafts happening from a particular office,
Speaker 2: rather than a total stop to them. We're going to
Speaker 2: talk about more of the nearly three hundred draft board
Speaker 2: raids carried out between nineteen sixty eight and nineteen seventy
Speaker 2: two next time. In the meantime, I have lister mail. Marvelous.
Speaker 2: This is from Brandon, Brandon wrote after our episode on
Speaker 2: doctor Daniel Hale Williams, and Brandon wrote, Hi, there, Sym,
Speaker 2: I see. I wanted to say thank you for highlighting
Speaker 2: such an interesting figure in history whom I'd only heard
Speaker 2: simple anecdotes about previously. The comprehensive dive into his past
Speaker 2: makes for an exceptional story. Mister Williams reminds me of
Speaker 2: one of my great ancestors who made huge advances in
Speaker 2: the black community during the late eighteen and early nineteen hundreds.
Speaker 2: His name was doctor Aaron McDuffie Moore, and his great
Speaker 2: great granddaughter is the CEO of the Durham Colored Library,
Speaker 2: founded by doctor Moore in nineteen fifteen, who has written
Speaker 2: a very comprehensive official biography of his life. I and
Speaker 2: the rest of the family would love for you to
Speaker 2: tell his story and highlight him as well. You ladies
Speaker 2: are so good at it. You can order his biography here. Also,
Speaker 2: would you mind suggesting how I might go about getting
Speaker 2: a similar podcast started so that I can monetize telling great,
Speaker 2: historically relevant stories to a wide audience. I'm sitting on
Speaker 2: a treasure trove and currently spinning my wheels getting started.
Speaker 2: Much appreciate all you do. Keep up the great work.
Speaker 2: Cheers Brandon. Thank you so much, Brandon. I had not
Speaker 2: actually heard of the Durham Colored Library before. This is
Speaker 2: new information to me. This biography of Aaron McDuffie Moore
Speaker 2: is called Aaron McDuffie Moore, an African American physician, educator
Speaker 2: and founder of Durham's Black Wall Street. If you go
Speaker 2: to durhamcl dot org standing for Durham d U r
Speaker 2: h A M. Colored Library dot org, you can learn
Speaker 2: more about this biography and how to get a copy
Speaker 2: of it. So thank you so much to write for
Speaker 2: writing and asking or letting us know about that In
Speaker 2: terms of the question about starting a podcast, that's a
Speaker 2: very big question.
Speaker 1: There are lots of.
Speaker 2: Resources around about how to get started in podcasting. One
Speaker 2: place that I point people to a lot when they
Speaker 2: are getting started is called Transom dot org. Just Transom,
Speaker 2: but transom dot org is their website and they have
Speaker 2: a ton of resources about podcasting, about storytelling, all of
Speaker 2: that kind of stuff. It can be a place to
Speaker 2: really get started and learn new ideas and strategies. In
Speaker 2: terms of monetizing a podcast, that's a complicated question. There
Speaker 2: are lots of different ways to try to monetize a podcast,
Speaker 2: and there are a lot of different services now that
Speaker 2: allow podcast hosts and creators to have or have advertisements. Dynamically,
Speaker 2: it'serted into their show, which is how ours work. We
Speaker 2: have some ads that we Holly and I record, but
Speaker 2: then we have other ads that come in through a
Speaker 2: sort of network. I don't think we can really offer
Speaker 2: advice on any particular one, but that is a way
Speaker 2: to get ads into a podcast. Asked if you are
Speaker 2: just starting out and building an audience, Yeah, we're in
Speaker 2: that unique position where we're part of a bigger network
Speaker 2: that has been you know, the show has been part
Speaker 2: of for like close to fifteen more now, So in
Speaker 2: that regard, we don't really deal with a lot of
Speaker 2: the monetization part we had. There's literally a whole sales
Speaker 2: team within our company that does that. Yeah, I will
Speaker 2: say this just as a matter of expectations management. A
Speaker 2: lot of podcasts don't make any money, right, right, the
Speaker 2: vast majority don't make any money. So I would I
Speaker 2: always encourage people, even if we bring them into our network,
Speaker 2: to not anticipate that this will be a significant driver
Speaker 2: of income or revenue, right, just as a reality scenario, Like,
Speaker 2: I don't want anybody to think, like, you know, the
Speaker 2: chart of like record publish money and it doesn't like
Speaker 2: a situation. Yeah, my spouse and I were in a
Speaker 2: meeting and we were doing the sort of the introductory
Speaker 2: talking about who we are. It was a personal meeting
Speaker 2: that not important in the context, but he said something like,
Speaker 2: I have learned that the way to have a really
Speaker 2: financially successful podcast is to have started it way in
Speaker 2: the past, which we are extraordinarily lucky to have stepped
Speaker 2: into a podcast that was already established and also at
Speaker 2: this point to have been on it for more than
Speaker 2: twelve years. Because the process of building an audience and
Speaker 2: getting your work more widely heard can be a long road.
Speaker 2: I mean, some shows are incredibly lucky and kind of
Speaker 2: hit that viral moment, but the viral moment doesn't happen
Speaker 2: for a lot of shows. And for people that are
Speaker 2: doing something that is a labor of love that they're
Speaker 2: just really dedicated to and passionate about, that can carry
Speaker 2: people through a lot. But there are also people who
Speaker 2: eventually decide, hey, like, I'm spending so much time on
Speaker 2: this and so much effort on this, and I cannot
Speaker 2: continue to do it for indefinitely and definitely without being
Speaker 2: able to make it a profitable thing. So yeah, I
Speaker 2: don't know if I have. I used to have a
Speaker 2: whole list of other resources besides Transom to direct people to,
Speaker 2: but that's a good starting point. I will also say
Speaker 2: this because it has come up a number of times
Speaker 2: where I will be out in the world, especially if
Speaker 2: I'm at like an event or something, and someone comes
Speaker 2: up and wants to, like, pitch me a show. You
Speaker 2: don't have to be part of a big network to
Speaker 2: make a podcast. You don't have to wait for permission
Speaker 2: to make the thing that is in your heart, and
Speaker 2: like we said, even if you are, the odds of
Speaker 2: actually making money at it are not amazing. So like
Speaker 2: I always encourage people to just make it. Never assume
Speaker 2: there's one great idea that you have and you will
Speaker 2: never have another good one. Make the great idea and
Speaker 2: then see what happens. And as he said, you might
Speaker 2: decide this is too much time and effort for me
Speaker 2: to do if I'm not getting compensated in some way,
Speaker 2: which is totally fine and in no way of failure
Speaker 2: because you have made something and that is amazing. But yeah,
Speaker 2: I always don't. You don't have to wait for permission
Speaker 2: from a network or a sponsor or anything. You can
Speaker 2: just make it as it. Yeah. Yeah, I'm kind of
Speaker 2: reminded of the number of pretty successful authors I know
Speaker 2: who've published a lot of books and also have day jobs. Yeah,
Speaker 2: which is one of those things where if I had
Speaker 2: a magical wand a magical wand a magic wand to
Speaker 2: change things about society would include you know, artists and
Speaker 2: writers and crafts people earning a living wage on the
Speaker 2: things that they love to make. Ed We'll say, you know,
Speaker 2: try what you want to try. Do not feel tied
Speaker 2: to how other shows that are doing podcasts are doing
Speaker 2: it so important. They're like, it's a wide open field
Speaker 2: to feel free to take risks, do interesting things, not
Speaker 2: try to sound like other shows already sound. Hopefully any
Speaker 2: of that was helpful if you'd like to send us
Speaker 2: a note about this or any other podcasts. Where at
Speaker 2: history podcasts at iHeartRadio dot com and you can't subscribe
Speaker 2: to our show on the iHeartRadio app and anywhere else
Speaker 2: you like to get your podcasts. Stuff you missed in
Speaker 2: History Class is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts
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