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Amnesty For Karl!

By VVAW

On September 28, Karl Armstrong pleaded guilty to second degree murder and four counts of arson, in connection with the bombing of the Army Math Research Center. This bombing on August 24, 1970 was the result of a series of demonstrations and anti-war activities on the University of Wisconsin campus. One researcher was killed by the blast, after the campus police had been warned beforehand that the explosion would occur. The Math Center was responsible for developing, among others, 'people sniffers' used in Vietnam.

Karl's plea of guilty comes one and a half years after he was arrested in Canada and six months after he was extradicted to the United States and charged with these crimes. The purpose of the guilty plea was to insure that the reasons for Karl's resistance to the War in Indochina would not be hampered with at the sentencing hearings which began on October 15th.

At these hearings, with no prosecution objections, the war in Indochina and the resistance to the war were put on trial. It was Armstrong's contention that the destruction of the Math Center was justified as research work being done there led directly to the continuation of the death and destruction in Indochina.

The hearings, in addition to making the point that the war justified resistance to it, in whatever manner was deemed necessary, also brought to public attention the fact that thousands of Americans, including 580,000 veterans with less than honorable discharges are, as in Karl, being unjustly penalized for their resistance to the Indochina War.

The probable result of the hearings will be that Karl will be sentenced to 25 years for his resistance to the war and being blamed for the death of one researcher.

But the hearings have shown that the bombing of the Math Center was part of an overall movement in the United States in opposition to the Indochina War and that the crimes committed by the American government were resisted by millions of Americans. The focus of the hearings then revolved around these two points: the illegal war in Indochina, and the necessity for granting amnesty for all war resisters in opposition to it.

Karl Armstrong would rather face 25 years in jail than to have these facts ignored in a courtroom circus atmosphere if he had pleaded 'not guilty'. This act of Karl's for the anti-war, pro-amnesty forces in the United States deserves the attention of all the American people who were opposed to the criminal policies of the U.S. government in Indochina, and the attention of all those who favor a universal, unconditional amnesty for all U.S. war resisters.

When Karl pleaded guilt he made the following remarks; "The acts with which I have been credited were undertaken with the purpose of crippling the efforts of the American government to wage an illegal criminal and aggressive war against the Indochinese peoples, to prevent the further loss of life, devastation, and suffering. I have acted out of a feeling of moral responsibility and felt for me, not to have taken concrete action against this war would have been criminally irresponsible. These actions were intended as an affirmation of life."