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Bruce Beyer, 70, prominent Buffalo Nine anti-war activist

This obituary originally appeared at the BuffaloNews.com By Mark Sommer Bruce Beyer Aug. 21, 1948 – April 15, 2019 The story in August 1968 spoke to the times and to Bruce Beyer’s convictions. The headline,

April 16, 2019 • Featured, Presente! • Views: 783

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David Cline, Vietnam War veteran who became a leader in peace movement

Click to view/ print Obituary from the Buffalo News / Thursday, September 20, 2007

February 1, 2019 • Draft Resistance, Presente! • Views: 245

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William Blum, Renowned U.S. Foreign Policy Critic, Dead at 85

This post originally appeared at covertactionmagazine.com by Chris Agee and Louis Wolf William Blum died in Virginia early this morning on December 9, 2018. He was surrounded by friends and family after falling in his

December 11, 2018 • Featured, Presente! • Views: 447

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In Memoriam: David McReynolds, the Gay Socialist Pacifist Who Twice Ran for President, Dies at 88

This post originally appeared at democracynow.org Longtime pacifist and socialist David McReynolds died Friday at the age of 88. Known to historian Howard Zinn and many others as a “hero of the antiwar movement,” McReynolds

August 22, 2018 • Connections to Today, Featured, Presente! • Views: 620

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Ron Dellums, 82, Dies; Unrelenting in Congress, He Upheld Left’s Ideals

Photo: Rep. Ronald V. Dellums of California campaigned in 1972 for a fellow Democrat, Allard K. Lowenstein, in the Fort Greene section of Brooklyn. “If being an advocate of peace, justice and humanity toward all human beings is

July 31, 2018 • Featured, Presente! • Views: 1511

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Dr. Jon Bjornson, 85, psychiatrist and Vietnam War veteran who helped other vets

Photo: COURTESY OF THE FAMILY / Jon Bjornson This post originally appeared at philly.com by Bonnie L. Cook, Staff Writer @cookb | bcook@phillynews.com Dr. Jon Bjornson, 85, of Philadelphia, a Vietnam War veteran and

July 29, 2018 • Featured, Presente! • Views: 589

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Ron Dellums (1935-2018): Organizing for Peace Forces Us to Challenge All Forms of Injustice

This post originally appeared at DemocracyNow.org Ron Dellums, the legendary politician and anti-war activist who fought against U.S. intervention around the globe, apartheid in South Africa and the Vietnam War, has died at the

July 29, 2018 • Featured, Presente! • Views: 586

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Remembering Đinh Tôn: 50 years later

This reflection first appeared at Viet Nam News on June 16, 2018. By Thomas Eugene Wilber It began in Thọ Xuân District, Thanh Hóa Province, Việt Nam At about 4pm local time on Sunday, the sixteenth day of June 1968, air

June 18, 2018 • Blast From The Past, Presente!, Vietnamese Voices • Views: 948

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Ernest Medina, Army Captain at My Lai

Photo caption: Capt. Ernest L. Medina on a visit to his hometown, Montrose, Colo., in 1970 after he had been charged in the massacre of Vietnamese in 1968. Photo Credit: Gary Settle/The New York Times This obituary originally

May 16, 2018 • My Lai, Presente! • Views: 1087

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Joel Kovel, Presente!

Reported on Democracy Now! headline news, on May 1, 2018: In New York City, antiwar activist, author and professor Joel Kovel has died at the age of 81. In the 1960s and 1970s, Kovel was a well-known psychiatrist who left the

May 5, 2018 • Presente! • Views: 773

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Sam Hamill, Poet, Publisher and War Protester, Dies at 74

This obituary of Sam Hamill, “former Marine-turned-pacifist,” was published at nytimes.com on April 26, 2018. PHOTO: heraldnet.com By Daniel E. Slotnik Sam Hamill, who gave up a wayward life to become an accomplished

May 2, 2018 • Poet's Corner, Presente! • Views: 733

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Nicholas von Hoffman, Provocative Journalist and Author, Dies at 88

Image: Nicholas von Hoffman in 1972. “I sincerely believe in what I write, and I get a kick out of getting those Washington mossbacks angry,” he said. Credit George Tames/The New York Times. This post originally appeared at

January 28, 2018 • Featured, Presente! • Views: 950

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Hiep Thi Le, ‘Heaven & Earth’ Actress, Dies at 46

This article originally appeared at variety.com. By Kirsten Chuba. Hiep Thi Le, an actress whose career included roles in “Heaven & Earth,” “Cruel Intentions” and “Green Dragon,” died due to complications from

January 27, 2018 • Featured, Presente! • Views: 896

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Remembering Hugh Masekela, Anti-apartheid activist & opponent of Vietnam war

This article originally appeared at Portside.org. Hugh Masekela – trumpeter and singer-songwriter was a pioneer of jazz in South Africa and a campaigner against apartheid in exile. The “Father of South African

January 26, 2018 • Featured, Presente! • Views: 947

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Julius Lester

Julius Lester performs at Mt. Zion Baptist Church in Hattiesburg, Mississippi, 1964, Herbert Randall Freedom Summer Photographs, USM This obituary originally appeared at snccdigital.org. January 27, 1939 – January 18, 2018

January 20, 2018 • Featured, Presente! • Views: 1010

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Obituary: Julius Lester

This obituary originally appeared at publishersweekly.com. By Shannon Maughan Award-winning author, educator, activist, and musician Julius Lester, known for a body of work focused on African-American culture, history, and

January 20, 2018 • Featured, Presente! • Views: 1143

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Paul Booth, Antiwar Organizer and Union Stalwart, Dies at 74

Paul Booth speaking on the first day of the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia in 2016.Credit Paul Sancya/Associated Press This obituary originally appeared at thenewyorktimes.com Paul Booth, a leading architect of

January 20, 2018 • Featured, Presente! • Views: 839

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Author, Activist and Policy Advocate Marcus Raskin Dies at 83

This post originally appeared at democracynow.org. And in Washington, D.C., author, activist and policy advocate Marcus Raskin has died at the age of 83. Raskin was the co-founder of the Institute for Policy Studies, one of

December 28, 2017 • Featured, Presente! • Views: 1366

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THE DEATH OF SGT. VAN DALE TODD

This article originally appeared at http://danielborgstrom.blogspot.com/ By Daniel Borgstrom. Back in 1972, near the end of the Vietnam War, I was living in San Francisco, and my friend ex-Sgt. Van Dale Todd, a combat veteran

October 7, 2017 • Connections to Today, Featured, Presente! • Views: 1349

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“His Laughter was a Battle Cry”: Thousands Celebrate Comedian & Human Rights Legend Dick Gregory

This article originally appeared at DemocracyNow.org. Thousands gathered Saturday to celebrate the life of legendary comedian and civil rights activist Dick Gregory, who passed away last month at the age of 84. We

September 23, 2017 • Featured, Presente! • Views: 950

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Mission statement

The Full Disclosure campaign is a Veterans For Peace effort to speak truth to power and keep alive the antiwar perspective on the American war in Viet Nam — which is being commemorated during this decade with a series of 50th anniversary events. Full Disclosure represents a clear alternative to the Pentagon’s current efforts to sanitize and mythologize that war, and to thereby legitimize further unnecessary and destructive wars.

This Month in History: 1969

October

An opinion poll indicates 71 percent of Americans approve of President Nixon’s Vietnam policy.

Nixon asserts: “I’m not going to be the first American president to lose a war.”

At the same time, 58% of Gallup respondents say U.S. entry into the war was a mistake.

CIA-trained secret army under Vang Pao seizes the Plain of Jars and Communist-controlled Xieng Khoang.

After a series of reports in The New York Times, a subcommittee of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee chaired by Stuart Symington holds closed hearings on the United States’ “secret” war in Laos.

Oct 1 – Meade County Judge rules that Fort Knox coffee house landlord had right to evict coffeehouse for non-payment of rent, in spite of the fact that the coffee house staff had attempted to pay the rent.

Oct 9 – Fort Knox Coffeehouse is firebombed.

Oct 9 – Bad Kreuznach Base, West Germany, locked down to stop on-base demonstration.

Oct 11 – 100 soldiers from Fort Bragg, North Carolina (mostly returned combat veterans) march in a Moratorium against the War demonstration Fayetteville, North Carolina.

Oct 12 – Led by 100 women, close to 10,000 demonstrators march from the GI coffeehouse in Fort Dix in solidarity with the Fort Dix 38. See entry for June 5.

Oct 12 – 500 active-duty GIs march against the war in San Francisco.

Oct 13 – A group of GIs based around the Shelter Half use its facilities to produce the first issue of a new paper, Fed Up, followed a week later by a meeting on base to form a local chapter of the American Servicemen’s Union (ASU). When military police break up the meeting, the soldiers continue talking in the brig, and the ASU is born. The army eventually dropped all charges, and the newly formed ASU local, strengthened by its victory, grew to upwards of 75 members. The ASU and Fed Up organized not just around the war, but around radical issues that antiwar soldiers and the antiwar movement were drawn to: the ASU worked with the United Farm Workers to boycott non-union grapes and lettuce on base, and Fed Up featured articles on racism, imperialism, and capitalism.

Oct 15 – The “Moratorium” peace demonstration is held in Washington and several U.S. cities. The Moratorium developed from Jerome Grossman‘s April 20, 1969, call for a general strike if the war has not concluded by October. David Hawk and Sam Brown, who previously worked on the unsuccessful 1968 presidential campaign of Eugene McCarthy, assisted by the New Mobilization Committee to End the War in Vietnam, changed the concept to a moratorium and began to organize as the Vietnam Moratorium Committee with David Mixner, Marge Sklenkar, John Gage, and others.

The event is a clear success, with millions participating throughout the world. Boston is the site of the largest turnout; about 100,000 attend a speech by anti-war Senator George McGovern. An Oxford Rhodes Scholar named Bill Clinton organizes and participates in the demonstration in England (this will be an issue in his future presidential campaign). See video.

Demonstration organizers receive support from North Vietnam Prime Minister Phạm Văn Đồng, who wrote to them: “…may your fall offensive succeed splendidly,” the first public acknowledgement of the American anti-war movement to come from Hanoi. Dong’s comments infuriate American conservatives including Vice President Spiro Agnew who lambastes the protesters as Communist “dupes” comprised of “an effete corps of impudent snobs who characterize themselves as intellectuals.”

Oct 27-30 – Called Giant Lance, the operation launches 18 B-52 bombers, each armed with nuclear weapons, toward the eastern border of the Soviet Union. The bombers even required mid-air refueling – a procedure that posed the risk of the aircraft colliding and dropping their nuclear bombs at the border, something hardly advisable in such tense times, even if they weren’t armed. Halting at the edge of Soviet airspace, the nuclear-laden bombers prowl the skies for three days, taunting Soviet aircraft that had been launched in response. On the diplomatic side, Soviet General Secretary Leonid Brezhnev sends the Soviet ambassador to the U.S., Anatoly Dobrynin, to meet with Kissinger and Nixon. At this meeting, Nixon continues with his “madman” ploy – lashing out at and even threatening the ambassador, who reported to Moscow: “Nixon is unable to control himself even in a conversation with a foreign ambassador.” Believing they have achieved their goals, on October 30, 1969, Nixon recalls the bombers and ends Giant Lance.

Oct 30 – Fort Knox coffeehouse is firebombed again.

Organizers of Fort Knox coffeehouse are indicted by Grand Jury of “criminal activity” at the coffeehouse.

Rep. Bob Wilson, Republican of California and a member of the House Armed Services Committee, issues a press release saying that the Defense Department is warning military personnel “against associating themselves with the so-called ‘March Against Death’” (meaning the upcoming anti-war Moratorium demonstration on Nov 15.

Vietnam Full Disclosure

Presente!
Category

Bruce Beyer, 70, prominent Buffalo Nine anti-war activist

David Cline, Vietnam War veteran who became a leader in peace movement

William Blum, Renowned U.S. Foreign Policy Critic, Dead at 85

In Memoriam: David McReynolds, the Gay Socialist Pacifist Who Twice Ran for President, Dies at 88

Ron Dellums, 82, Dies; Unrelenting in Congress, He Upheld Left’s Ideals

Dr. Jon Bjornson, 85, psychiatrist and Vietnam War veteran who helped other vets

Ron Dellums (1935-2018): Organizing for Peace Forces Us to Challenge All Forms of Injustice

Remembering Đinh Tôn: 50 years later

Ernest Medina, Army Captain at My Lai

Joel Kovel, Presente!

Sam Hamill, Poet, Publisher and War Protester, Dies at 74

Nicholas von Hoffman, Provocative Journalist and Author, Dies at 88

Hiep Thi Le, ‘Heaven & Earth’ Actress, Dies at 46

Remembering Hugh Masekela, Anti-apartheid activist & opponent of Vietnam war

Julius Lester

Obituary: Julius Lester

Paul Booth, Antiwar Organizer and Union Stalwart, Dies at 74

Author, Activist and Policy Advocate Marcus Raskin Dies at 83

THE DEATH OF SGT. VAN DALE TODD

“His Laughter was a Battle Cry”: Thousands Celebrate Comedian & Human Rights Legend Dick Gregory

Mission statement

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50 Years of Resistance In & Out Of Uniform

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Waging Peace in Vietnam Exhibit in NYC

Book talk: Last Days of the Mighty Mekong

Commemorating Violent Conflicts and Building Sustainable Peace

Book talk: Last Days of the Mighty Mekong

Book talk: Last Days of the Mighty Mekong

On Burns/Novick PBS Documentary

Philip Jones Griffiths’ Viet Nam

This Month in History: 1969

2016 National Book Award Finalist, Viet Thanh Nguyen:

Agent Orange Awareness

Presente! Category

Mission statement

Sign Up for Updates

50 Years of Resistance In & Out Of Uniform

Like Us on Facebook

Upcoming Events

On Burns/Novick PBS Documentary

Philip Jones Griffiths’ Viet Nam

This Month in History: 1969

2016 National Book Award Finalist, Viet Thanh Nguyen:

Agent Orange Awareness

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Category