Download PDF of this full issue: v7n2.pdf (8 MB)

Coast to Coast Support for Free Ashby Leach Campaign: National Building Action

By VVAW

When VVAW took up the campaign to Free Ashby Leach, there was a problem of publicity--although some people, particularly around the Cleveland area--remembered Ashby's takeover of the Terminal tower, most people did not.

To change this situation and to get out to as many people as possible, a national speaking tour was planned. In a month, Ashby Leach and a spokesman for VVAW went from the East Coast to the West Coast, speaking to thousands of individuals at colleges, workers' centers, community organizations; and speaking to millions more through the media.

In Boston a Black radio stations carried a half-hour program/interview with Ashby. In New York City, Pete Hamil, a columnist for the New York Daily News devoted a column to the case. In Chicago there was a press conference when Leach came to town; at the start, there were a couple of radio reporters talking to Ashby. Suddenly, five TV stations with cameras, lights, interviewers appeared, a crowd gathered, and the campaign to Free Ashby Leach was taken out to millions more people in that city. And so it went from city to city across the nation.

But media exposure was only one part of the tour and other activities designed to build support for Ashby and to publicize the situation that vets face today.

VVAW chapters took a series of steps to turn the campaign into a real battle, one pointed straight at the enemy, the Chessie System and the corporate power structures that lines up with Chessie. Demonstrations at Chessie offices went on around the country as vets talked with Chessie workers about what Ashby did and why he did it. In several cities, VVAW members and other supporters of the campaign went into the Chessie offices to serve a subpoena/indictment on Cyrus Eaton (President of the Board Emeritus) and Hays T Watkins (President), charging them with a series of crimes including robbery, extortion and conspiracy, and demanding their appearance at the Peoples' Tribunal in Cleveland (they didn't show up).

In Milwaukee vets seized the office of the Regional VA Director on the same day that Max Cleland was being sworn in as new VA head in Washington; not only was the Milwaukee action aimed at saying a new VA head wasn't going to make a damn bit of difference to our struggle, but also to expose the VA as part of the same system trying to crush Ashby Leach and millions of other veterans.

Along with these actions went days of talking to people, getting out leaflets and bringing vets and others to hear Ashby speak in person so that they could ask the questions they wanted to ask. And the result was, that in many places, among many people, the question is no longer "Who Is Ashby Leach," but "What Can We Do to Help Free Him?"

ASHBY LEACH SONG

Prairie Fire, a singing group from the Bay Area, has been on several nationwide tours singing their songs about the struggle of workers. They were also in Cleveland on the 12th through the 14th of March where they sang a new song they had written about Ashby Leach and the struggle of veterans. The words of that song are reprinted below.

1. What do you think would make a man,
Do what Ashby's done?
Takin' over the Terminal tower.
At the point of a gun.
What do you think would make a man
Know he must stand up? What do you think would make somebody
Say they've had enough?

2. Go down to the VA
See the vets on line
Cuttin' through the red tape jungle
Hassled all the time.
You ask any veteran
of the rich man's wars
Damn near every one would say
He spoke for us all.

(Chorus)

Ashby Leach seized the Tower
Made our demands loud and clear
Seized the day! Seized the hour!
Made the rich man tremble in fear.
Millions of us hate the system,
Every outrage, every lie.
Got to rally vets and everybody
Free Ashby Leach is our battle cry!

3. Five long years he struggled for
The veteran's rights he earned
Played their game, went thru channels
Only to be burned.
Wrote to Congress, went to see'em
With his just demands.
They all left him with no choice
He had to take a stand!

4. Went to Chessie with is shotgun
Barrel loaded full
With his letters all unanswered
Then he made his move.
Took the tower, went on TV
Millions heard him say
All the benefits they owe veterans
Chessie's got to pay!

(Chorus)

5. Every veterans knows the story
How we all been used
Fight abroad for the rich man
Here at home abused.
Goin' in it sounded good
All that sweet-talking jive.
Their only problem seems to be
We made it home alive!

6. The rich know well that we are many
That they are only few
If one man could do so much
What could our millions do?
Got to build VVAW
Veterans hear the call
Build a fighting veterans movement
Veterans one and all!

(Chorus)