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1974: The People United Will Never Be DefeatedBy VVAWVVAW/WSO was in the middle of many of the peoples' struggles during 1974. Whether walking picket lines with Harley-Davidson workers in Milwaukee; or setting up discharge upgrading projects in prison in Santa Barbara; or leafleting for the Attica Brothers in Buffalo; or passing out GI News at Rickenbacker Air Force Base in Columbus; most of the work of VVAW/WSO was day-to-day, grassroots work. It was not newsworthy, and got no headlines. It was the work needed to move the struggle against US imperialism forward. Throughout the year VVAW/WSO was guided by a national program, built around five (and later four) demands:
The success of this program in leading up to and building the July 1-4 national Demonstration in Washington, led the organization to adopt a similar program for the next nine months at our August National Steering Committee meeting. Amnesty A campaign of VVAW/WSO for well over a year, Universal Unconditional Amnesty for All War Resisters drew growing support around the country. VVAW/WSO constantly raised the issue of the Indochina War; a war fought in the interests of US business by showing that the resisters were right to resist war of aggression and exploitation. The way in which the sons and daughters of third-world, working and poor people were sent to fight and die in Indochina was brought out in the campaign for a single-type discharge, a part of the overall amnesty struggle. VVAW/WSO helped to build the amnesty movement, not by writing letters to Congress but by working to gain the support of, and mobilize the people. We fought to make sure that the 580,000 vets with less-than-honorable discharges would be seen as a major part of the amnesty movement, and through discharge upgrading projects, enlisted many of the vets in the struggle for amnesty. In the face of the growing demand for amnesty, the US government under Gerald Ford reacted with the "earned re-entry" program, a bankrupt attempt to co-opt the amnesty movement. VVAW/WSO chapters around the country challenged the program and, a few days later, challenged the pardon of Richard Nixon. Often confronting representatives of reactionary veterans organizations such as the VDW or American Legion, VVAW/WSO members supported the boycott of "earned re-entry" called by exile groups in Canada, and continued the fight for a single-type discharge for all vets. Indochina VVAW/WSO in all its actions through 1974 pointed out the nature of the war in Indochina, and the fact that the war has not stopped; US support for the dictatorship of Thieu allows him and his forces to continue to violate the Paris Peace Accords, and repress the struggle for liberation of the Vietnamese people. Recent demonstrations in Saigon and the consistent battlefield victories of the Provisional Revolutionary Government (PRG) show that Thieu's days are numbered. 1974 began with VVAW/WSO demonstrations around the country on the anniversary of the signing of the agreements on January 27th; in Washington, DC, VVAW/WSO members seized the Saigon Embassy there. In late October, a similar action took place at the Cambodian Mission to the UN (see story on page 2). Throughout the year there was a growing awareness on the part of VVAW/WSO that the US war of imperialism--the search for profits at the expense of the people of Indochina using third-world, working, and poor people to pursue those profits--was not the only issue. More emphasis was placed on the way in which the PRG and the United Front in Cambodia were rebuilding the liberated areas of their countries, and were in fact meeting the immediate needs of their people. Meanwhile, the US-supported governments of Thieu and Lon Nol were operating in the interests of no one but themselves and their US corporate masters. Veterans 1974 saw a consolidation of the organizational work around veteran's issue, and a growing understanding of the need to do anti-imperialist work around the demand of Decent Benefits for All Vets. As the US economy worsened, adequate vet's benefits assumed a growing importance to millions of Vietnam-era veterans--they were often the only way to survive. Anger at the VA and the US government for their broken promises and inability to provide adequate benefits related a spontaneous movement of veterans, their friends and families, which led to the resignation of the VA head. The brief appearance of the reformist American Veterans Movement demonstrated the attempts of the government to sap the strength form the growing vet's movement, and was thoroughly exposed. Around the country many VVAW/WSO chapters began to confront the VA with demonstrations, picket lines, and takeovers of VA facilities. Veteran's representative programs on college campuses were attacked, and contact began with the hundreds of thousands of unemployed vets for whom the economic crisis is an immediate, vital problem. Bad discharges--which means no VA benefits--were another target of veteran work. Kick Nixon Out The campaign to get rid of Nixon was a success. VVAW/WSO, often working with the many organizations with similar campaigns, built and participated in demos and actions around the country, until mass pressure from the people led to Nixon's resignation. With the pardon by Ford, the demonstrations continued when Ford appeared outside Washington, he was guaranteed to be met by a militant demonstration, and VVAW/WSO was sure to be part of it. Again and again we said that it was good that Nixon was gone, but the system remained, and it was that system that is not responsive to the real needs of the American people. Demonstrations against Rockefeller, when he was nominated for vice-president, carried the same message, and pointed to people like him as the corporate masters pulling the strings of the country. GIs A growing understating of the uses of the military as a potent weapon of the US government for exploiting people abroad and here at home led VVAW/WSO to increase its concentration on GI organizing. The VVAW/WSO chapter in Yokosuka, Japan, played an important role in support of Black sailors who left the USS MIDWAY in protest to the racism aboard the ship. In Iwakuni, Okinawa, VVAW/WSO worked with sailors arrested while pointing out the nature of the repressive regime in South Korea. And the end-point military "justice"--the USDB at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas--remains a target of work, particularly around the cases of Melvin X Smith and Gregory Jackson. Local chapters distribute GI News (a newspaper version first appeared in August) on bases and to GIs in their areas. Political Prisoners Support for Gary Lawton and Zurebu Gardner grew throughout the country, despite the consistent postponements and delays in their third frame-up murder trial in Riverside, California. In October, charges against Gardner were dismissed, but the racist and repressive attack on Gary Lawton goes on. VVAW/WSO chapters sponsored several speaking tours for Gary, giving him the chance to take his case--and all that it represents--to the people, to build support for his struggle, and for local struggles against racism and repression. 1974 also saw police attacks on the organization in an attempt to intimidate VVAW/WSO members. In Oakland, Bob Hood was singled out for a brutal police attack, and charged with assault--his trial has also gone through numerous delays, and like other cases, has been used to expose the nature of police repression. During the DC Demo, in New York City, in Cincinnati, police assaulted members of the organizations, vividly showing us the nature of repression in this country, and teaching us that our strength lies in unified action of the masses of people. National work around the trials of the Leavenworth Brothers has helped to point out the nature and uses of the American prison system (see page 10). In Buffalo, New York, the beginning of the trials of the Attica Brothers brought out 2000 people to a rally in early September, including VVAW/WSO chapters from the east and Middle West. The case of Ruchell Magee has been a focus of prison support work in Northern California, and many local chapters have been active in support of community and political prisoners and local cases of police repression and brutality. Support Work Local chapters and regions of VVAW/WSO have worked on a long list of local, national, and international struggles during the year, from tenants' rights to the boycott of South African chrome. On a regional basis, VVAW/WSO concentrated on support for the truckers strike early in the year, not only working directly with the truckers but also talking with and leafleting members of the National Guard (acting as strikebreakers) and consumers (who were being told to blame high prices on the truckers). Support for the Independence of Puerto Rice focused on the Puerto Rican Solidarity Rally in late October. Chapters in the Midwest worked with strikers at a Borden's subsidiary in Columbus, Ohio, and helped spread the word about a national boycott of Borden's products, until the strike was resolved. Support for the miners in Harlan Country grew to support for striking coal miners around the country (see page 12). DC Demonstrations The high point of VVAW/WSO activity for the year was a national demonstration in Washington DC, on the 1st through the 4th of July. At first, hundreds, and by the final day, thousands of people fought sleeplessness, the weather, police harassment and finally outright attacks, in order to bring the five demands of the demonstration to the American people. Demonstrations, marches, rallies filled the four days. While VVAW/WSO planned organized, and led the demonstrations, members of other anti-imperialist and progressive organizations, seeing the importance of the struggle around our five demands, joined in and helped to build the successful action. As with all VVAW/WSO's activities, there were important lessons which flowed from the demo: that leadership can never tail behind the miltance of the people; and, more important, that the strength of our organization, and the peoples' movement in general, comes from real unity of purpose and action. Building for the demonstration was the work of chapters for months before the demo took place. There were support and building actions around the country in mid-May, and day-to-day work constantly talked about the demo and its demands. Learning through our past practice, however the organization did not see the demo as an end in itself--it was a tactic by which to continue to grow. New members and chapters did join the organization as a result of the demonstration; the lessons learned from the demo have been an important factor in seeing how we can continue to build, both in numbers and effectiveness. And work did not stop once and the demo was over, but continued to grow and build toward 1975 and beyond, in the expanding struggle against imperialism. UNITY-STRUGGLE-VICTORY
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