Jeff
Sharlet, my brother, died in June ’69 from complications of something that may
have begun earlier during his tour in Vietnam. He was only 27, but left behind
a notable legacy.* Jeff had founded Vietnam GI (VGI) in early ’68 as the first GI-edited underground antiwar
paper addressed to GIs. VGI quickly found its audience in
Vietnam and in stateside training camps and gave impetus to the emerging GI
protest against the war.
As
it turned out, June ’69 was a turning point in the war itself as well as in the
antiwar movement writ large. Recently elected President Nixon announced the
first withdrawal of troops and the beginning of the reduction in US force
levels in Vietnam during the week before Jeff’s death.
Then,
shortly after news of his premature death, what became the last national
conference of Students for a Democratic
Society (SDS) opened in Chicago
with a minute of silence in memory of Jeff. Over the next few days of
contentious debate, the largest youth organization in America and the backbone
of the civilian antiwar movement met its demise, splitting asunder into two
mutually hostile irreconcilable factions, one of which was the infamous
Weatherman.
Meanwhile,
in the wake of Jeff’s passing, Dave Komatsu, his deputy editor, did his best to
carry on, but money was tight, and his heart was no longer in it. As the US war
effort began to decline, Dave and his wife Kit, both long term left activists,
moved on and founded the underground paper Wildcat directed primarily toward
factory workers, the classic proletariat of Karl Marx.
Nevertheless,
out of loyalty to Jeff’s memory, Dave and staff managed to publish three more
posthumous issues. Most notable was the August issue of VGI, the cynosure of
which was Dave’s long, eloquent obituary for Jeff under the heading Jeff Sharlet Dies. The tribute
opened with writerly élan and inevitably closed on a sad end note:
Many good men never came back from Nam. Some
came back disabled in mind.
Jeff Sharlet came back a
pretty together cat….
At the end he said that he had many new
ideas for
our fight, but was just too
exhausted to talk about
them.
During
fall ’69, Dave tried to hand off editorial responsibility to other staff
members, but in the vacuum left by Jeff’s death, staffers had started drifting
away to various political projects and other GI papers. Also, absent Jeff who
had been the paper’s principal fundraiser, the cash box was empty, and the
reluctant decision was made to suspend publication of Vietnam GI.
That
was not to be the end of the story however. The tale of VGI’s decline, its subsequent
short-lived revival in ‘70, and its final demise can be seen in the following
excerpts from VGI’s office correspondence for the last year of the paper’s
existence.**
The
initial excerpts bear brief explanation – due to unusual circumstances at the
time, they are from consecutive letters two months apart. The first is from RESIST, a national organization in
Cambridge MA led by radical academics such as Noam Chomsky of MIT and Richard
Flacks of the University of Chicago; the prominent left public intellectuals
Paul Goodman, the writer, and Marcus Raskin of the Institute of Policy Studies,
a critical think-tank; and, among others, a Harvard College chaplain. The
group’s mission was to provide financial assistance to all parts of the broad
Vietnam antiwar movement.
Komatsu
had written to the Cambridge organization in the early fall to request funding
for a follow-on October issue of VGI. RESIST replied much later:
RESIST November
17, 1969
Dear David,
With the number and
amounts requested by
other groups this month, we
were unable to provide
the entire $650 your letter
specified. However, a
check for $400 is enclosed
here. …
I apologize for the
weeks delay in getting
this off to you.
Because
of government interference, Komatsu – unaware that VGI had been re-funded – replied belatedly two months later:
VIETNAM
GI January 19, 1970
Your letter (with the $400 check) of November 17,
1969 just arrived two days ago. …
We had no idea that RESIST had voted us that money
in November. … As we are now finding
out, the Post Office – or
the FBI – completely disrupted our
mail. We are just now
starting to get some November and
December mail. …
Publication of Vietnam GI was
suspended until
February-March [1970]…. Next month two
new Vietnam
vets (both with base newspaper
experience) are moving
here [to Chicago] to take over this
operation.
During
the next couple of weeks, Dave and fellow staffers began answering long delayed
mail from late ’69 held up by the postal inspectors or more likely the FBI:
VIETNAM GI January 28,
1970
After Jeff died we staggered along for three issues,
then decided to suspend publication
temporarily. We had
no money….
Before he died … Jeff
recruited the core of what
would be a whole new staff. The first
of these cats gets
out [of the Army] next month.
VIETNAM GI January 29, 1970
The new editor … is Maury
Knutson and he was one
of the cats who started Little Giant (first underground paper
in Vietnam) and later RAP!, the GI paper at Fort Benning [GE].
The
much heralded Maury Knutson did indeed arrive in Chicago to take over where
Jeff left off. In Vietnam, in addition to working on the first GI paper in the
war zone, Maury had been part of Jeff’s extensive network of below the radar GI
distributors of VGI in-country.
However,
he got caught in the act and as punishment was ordered to ‘walk point’ (i.e.,
to lead), the most dangerous place on a combat patrol. The idea was to get him
killed or wounded. Maury survived unscathed, but the experience left him in
some disarray.
After
finishing his 12-month tour, Maury was sent back to his home unit at Fort
Benning to complete his military obligation. While there he continued his
antiwar work, launching the underground paper RAP!, especially
addressed to issues of concern to Black GIs.
Maury
also played a minor role in a feature film on the war – ironically a pro-war
movie – while waiting for his release at Benning. Gung-ho actor John Wayne was making
his film, The Green Berets, on post,
and the Pentagon ‘loaned’ him a number of troops to play extras. Maury ended up
playing a diminutive Viet Cong officer (he was 5’5”) in a scene opposite The
Duke, the iconic rightwing Hollywood star.
Maury Knutson (r)
pictured in VGI, April ‘68
In
Chicago during the spring of ’70 the much anticipated revival of Vietnam
GI under Maury’s aegis did not go smoothly. The re-launch was beset
with difficulties. Liberal antiwar money was drying up as US involvement in the
war continued to wind down. In addition, many hands were needed to get the
paper out, but the local VGI staff,
who had experience in production and distribution, had redirected their
energies to Wildcat, Dave Komatsu’s new paper.
The
final straw for Maury though was the arrival on the VGI staff of a group out
of the auto factories in Detroit who identified with Lutte Ouvrière (Workers’ Struggle), a tiny Trotskyist party
originating in France. The newcomers, according to Maury, were “old-time sectarian
leftists who wouldn’t give an inch”; hence, there was no coherent viewpoint in VGI.***
Nonetheless,
Maury hung in there and brought to press his first and, as it turned out, only
issue. The VGI May ’70 issue with its blurred focus reflected Maury’s concerns.
Aside from several pieces obviously drawn from his own experiences at Benning
as well as his tenure as editor of RAP! and an interview with a combat Marine buried in the back pages,
the rest of the May issue drifts away from VGI’s formerly exclusive emphasis on
GI issues.
The
front page leader is appropriately on President Nixon’s surprise invasion of
Cambodia in late April, but it spins off into a broad political critique of the
president, who is also blamed – instead of the governor of Ohio – for sending
state National Guard troops onto the Kent State campus.
The
second lead at least has a GI angle – Operation Graphic Hand dispatched
military personnel to New York City to man 17 post offices during the largest
wildcat strike in US history – but soon the piece wanders off into a discussion
of federal labor relations and collective bargaining issues specific to postal
workers.
However,
even more discursively for a front line GI paper, the rest of the issue is
devoted to pieces on the Woodstock pop festival and on working conditions for
women. Editorially frustrated and preoccupied with personal problems, Maury
Knutson resigned in despair and departed Chicago.
Although
Maury left town, he didn’t leave VGI in the lurch. He turned over the
editorship to his sidekick from Ft Benning, David Patterson, who had worked
with him on RAP! Patterson, who chose to operate under the nom de plume Joe
Harris, was in turn assisted by two ex-Vietnam veterans – Craig Walden, a
Marine; and John Alden, a sailor.
In
fund-raising circles from afar, the revival of Vietnam GI – albeit a
rocky process internally – was greeted with enthusiasm:
RESIST April 1, 1970
Dear Joe,
We
are all very cheered that Vietnam GI
is again
a reality.
Another left fund-raising outfit – this
one dedicated exclusively to funding GI antiwar initiatives – quickly came to
the rescue of the newly revived
VGI with a check for $400 to cover the cost
of mailing the paper hither and yon.
Like
RESIST, the United States Servicemen’s Fund (USSF) sported a distinguished board of directors designed to
attract money from wealthy individuals opposed to the war on its masthead.
Based in New York, USSF listed Fred
Gardner, creator of the GI antiwar coffee house network, as president, but he
later told me that his leadership of the endeavor was nominal. He had merely
lent his name with the understanding that Robert Zevin, listed as
Secretary/Treasurer, would run the show.
Zevin,
a PhD economist then teaching at Columbia University, was a masterful
fundraiser and manager of money. The two officers of USSF were joined on the board by Donald Duncan, the famous Green
Beret, a soldier’s soldier who resigned from the Army early on in protest of
the war; and Dr Howard Levy, the officer who served time in federal prison for
refusing to train Special Forces medics bound for Vietnam.
A
former naval officer, Susan Schnall, who had had the temerity to fly a small
private plane over West Coast Navy facilities, including an aircraft carrier in
port, and ‘bomb’ them with antiwar leaflets, was recruited for the USSF board. Reverend Richard Fernandez,
the executive director of Clergy and
Laymen Concerned about Vietnam (CALCAV),
an influential antiwar group, was also brought on board. The list was rounded
out with an array of nationally known public intellectuals, including Dr
Benjamin Spock, the distinguished antiwar baby doctor.
Unaware
of the shifting political complexion of Vietnam GI since Jeff’s time, Bob Zevin of USSF sent Joe Harris a warm welcome for the revived paper:
United
States Servicemen’s Fund April 6, 1970
I agree … that Vietnam GI
used to fill a need which is
still not being met by any other base
or national GI paper.
The unique asset of Vietnam GI was always that it told
the truth in the language of its
readers. … GI editors [now]
seem almost universally susceptible to
the temptation to
preach at their readers and to edit
the news to fit a political
dogma.
It was precisely because Vietnam GI told the truth that
it was such an invaluable organizing
tool.
Taking charge of VGI, Joe Harris attended
to its running correspondence with other antiwar editors, with groups seeking
multiple copies for local distribution, and most importantly, with the steady
flow of ‘letters to the editor’ from individual GIs.
In
one such letter, a Vietnam GI offered to distribute copies of VGI
within his unit. In ’68 and ’69 Jeff had had a phantom network of some 200
GI volunteers surreptitiously circulating the paper – considered subversive
material by the military authorities – to Vietnam GIs. However, with guys
completing their tours and rotating stateside and because of the long hiatus
between the September ’69 issue and the May ’70 revival, the sub rosa
distribution setup in Vietnam probably no longer existed, so Joe Harris
embraced the opportunity to rebuild as he wrote in reply:
As to your wanting to distribute papers we can help
you. Our papers are sent in a plain envelope and wrapped
inside in white paper with a phony [return] address on the
outside [to
avoid detection by military authorities].
The
June ’70 VGI was Joe Harris’s first issue as editor and reflected his
tighter editorial control over content. Compared to the May issue, nearly all
the articles were GI-relevant. By then, with GI protest rising in the ranks,
several pieces were on GI antiwar activity.
The
lead was a story on the Big Red One, the 1st Division. Other articles
covered a large antiwar demonstration at Ft Dix NJ on Armed Forces Day, an
account of a wounded Marine’s sad fate in a poorly run Veterans Administration
hospital, and a first-person piece by an ex-Vietnam GI who became an antiwar
activist on return to the States.
The
most dramatic item was a longish letter to the editor from a GI based at Chu
Lai describing a Viet Cong assault on the post.
In the course of an hour nearly 200 rockets and mortar rounds pummeled
the area to lethal effect – 11 dead, 10 wounded. It a grim reminder to readers
that, while the US may have been gradually pulling out, Vietnam still remained
a dangerous place for American troops.
However,
the June issue still contained a few instances of windy political rhetoric – a
political analysis of CIA machinations in Cambodia’s capital and a broadside
editorial on American ‘imperialism’ in the Third World that concluded with a message
reminiscent of the British Empire in the 19th century:
Throughout the world, US troops are protecting American
business and political
investment. The government and
big business come in with the
money and gain a new colony,
and the troops are brought in
to ensure that the colonists
don’t get restless [emphasis in
original].
The
first indications of impending problems for the editorial collective appear in
the June ’70 correspondence file. Joe Harris writes to USSF that VGI has lost the use of its
typesetting machine, which means that all typesetting will have to be done
commercially at increased cost. In another letter concerning the delay of the
July VGI,
he explains that in the midst of final production he learned that his sister
had fallen seriously ill and had to fly back east immediately.
As
a result of the rushed catch-up on the July issue, it was only half the length
of previous issues at just four pages. Nevertheless, in the tradition of VGI
on Jeff’s watch, the leader was a front-page combat interview, “If it’s Tuesday, this must be Laos.”
The
long piece, which takes up nearly half the issue, describes in dramatic terms
Marine Force Recon infiltrating small teams of commandos into Laos, Cambodia,
and North Vietnam as early as 1965. Although the interviewee was unnamed, it
was Craig Walden who had returned from the war grievously wounded and in the
summer of ’70 was an associate editor of the paper.****
Cpl. Craig
Walden in Vietnam
In
July a bombshell letter arrived at the VGI office. In retrospect it
foreshadowed the end of Jeff’s project. It was a long missive from USSF sent to all the GI groups being
supported by the fund. The threat to VGI’s future was self-evident:
United
States Servicemen’s Fund July 1970
Dear Friends,
The United States Servicemen’s Fund received a
letter from the Manhattan District
Director of the Internal
Revenue Service [IRS] stating that
‘this office will
recommend to the Commissioner of
Internal Revenue that
the exemption from federal income
taxes granted to you
… be revoked since inception’.
The stated reasons are that
the USSF is a political
action organization whose primary
purposes are ‘ending
the war in Vietnam and abolishing the
draft’.
The IRS maintains that the
Fund has supported ‘that
segment of the military establishment
who are opposed to
the Vietnam War and the use of
conscription to wage
that war’.
In
spite of the foreboding news, both RESIST
and USSF managed to
send
small checks to Vietnam GI during July to help fund production costs for the
August issue. But then in early August ’70 the situation darkened considerably.
News
of the IRS recommendation had gotten around, and with the likely loss of the
fund’s tax-free status, donations had begun to dry up.
As
a consequence, USSF was forced to
send out another ‘Dear Friends’ letter:
United
States Servicemen’s Fund August 4, 1970
We cannot send out your monthly checks for August
right away. There just isn’t any
money. It seems the [donation]
drought is beginning even sooner than
we thought.
The
end was not far off. Funds from donors slowed to a trickle as USSF predictably lost it tax-exempt
status, and without a funding source Vietnam GI met its final demise as a
voice of GI protest. David Patterson, aka Joe Harris, got out one last abbreviated
issue for August before resigning and flew home to be with his dying sister.
As
Maury Knutson mused many years later, perhaps “Vietnam GI [had] died
with Jeff’s passing [in ‘69]” which meant the revival efforts of 1970 were
essentially denouement.*****
____________________________________________________________
*See
his Wiki for a brief account of Jeff’s life and posthumous recognition: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeff_Sharlet_(activist)
**
Many thanks to Craig Walden of Chicago, who for nearly 40 years, saved the
invaluable Vietnam GI office files until I finally located him as part of
the memoir project on my brother Jeff.
***
Maury Knutson, via email October, 2010
****
For accounts of Craig Walden’s commando and combat experiences in Vietnam, see http://jeffsharletandvietnamgi.blogspot.com/2011/08/bad-intelligence-sorry-bout-that.html
and http://jeffsharletandvietnamgi.blogspot.com/2012/01/if-its-tuesday-this-must-be-laos.html
*****
Maury Knutson, via email October, 2010
