rep from ap

action

report and comments the viewpoint of

practical organizer

CONTENTS

Dedication

Map

Chapter Page

1 The Negotiations for a Permit 1

2 An Oddly Matched Pair? 15

3 The Marshalls 17

4 The Sound Systems 23

5 What Happened to the Buses? 27

6 The March Against Death 30

7 Collecting the Money 33

8 The Toilets 37

9 Communications 40

10 Medical Aid 43

11 How Many Were There? 45

12 The Justice Department Demonstration 47

13 A General Practical Approach to Organizing Large Demonstrations 51

Appendix I Permit for the March Against Death 53

Printed 2/10/70

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么n explanatiofl of this picture 主s on:he back of the Dedication page.

This report is dedicated to those who worked on the November 13-15 anti-war demonstrations in Washington. There were hundreds of them. Some were on the New Mobilization's Executive Committee or staff, others were volun-teers. They were associated with dozens of groups and organizations, or just helped as individuals. All wanted peace now. They were a remarkable team and they built the March Against Death and the mass march and rally, one of the most impressive demonstrations, and the largest political rally in this country's history. The list below includes many I have worked clos-est with. Countless other made invaluable contributions.

Bonnie Aptekar Alice Arshack Beth Baker Barbara Bick Abe Bloom Lyn Bossone Randy Bregman Mike Brewer

Dave Brown Marion Brown Sam Brown Emily Bunting Ken Burke Nancy Carlson

'Jerry Coffin John D'Amecourt ave Dellinger Ralph DiGia Jim Dill Doug Dowd Gabrielle Edgecomb Dick Fernandez `Dave Finke John Gage John Green Don Gurewitz Helen Gurewitz

Fred Halstead Bill Hanley Carolyn Harrington Jack Harrington John Hartwell Dave Hawk Phil Hirschkop

Ted Johnson Peter Kiger Alex Knopp Kip Leight

Sid Lens

Bob Leve ring Jim Lieberman Carol Lipman Ken Love Christopher Lyttle • Howard Mandell John McIlvain Jim McLean

N Gelston McNeil David McReynolds

'Stewart Meacham Susan Miller • ave Mixner Sheila O'Donnell Peter Orris S̀id Peck Arlene Popkin Candy Putter

• Igal Roodenko L̀awrence Scott Lynne Shivers Marge Sklencar Celia Slattery Eric Small Leni Stern Phil Stern Beverly Sterner Chris Stevens ‘Marj Swann John Teeples Jane Trichter Mary Waller Cora Weiss George Willoughby Peter Yarrow 'Ron Young

Trudi Young . Carl Zietlow

PICTURE EXPLANATION

Official U.S. Air Force photo of the Nov. 15 rally released by the Departn of Defense, Washington. The following statement is on the back of the picture

"179418 USAF This photograph, taken by a U.S. Air Force RF-101 aircraft, the crowd at the Washington Monument at 3:30 p.m., November 15, 1969. Using n

people photo interpretation systems, this crowd was estimated at 119,000 persons. or minus 15 percent, or a range of 101,150 to 136,850 persons. The photograph taken from an altitude of approximately 20,000 feet by an aircraft from Shaw. Force Base, South Carolina. It is emphasized that this estimate covers only grounds of the Washington Monument and streets bordering that area."

Copies may be obtained by writing to Norman T. Hatch, Chief, Audio Visual sion, Directorate for Defense Information, Office of the Assistant Secretary fense, Washington, D.C. 20301.

The picture was obtained after this booklet had gone to press.

This is the New Mobe map was used in n€ tiations with government and marshalls' training ing sessions. is available the author in number of siz from 8 1/2-"x11" 60"x40".

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Chapter 1

THE NEGOTIATIONS FOR A PERMIT

Crucial to any large demonstration in Washington is a government permit. This is true regardless of whether or not the government has the right to issue demonstration permits. If you don't have a permit, most government agencies and many businesses will not cooperate. As soon as a permit is issued, doors open everywhere.

The law doesn't specify that just one comprehensive government permit is necessary. Rather, there are many regulations and laws having to do with permits for doing different things in different parts of Washington. Looked at from a strictly legal point of view, the District of Columbia is a night-mare for a demonstration organizer. Different parts of the District and surrounding areas are under different, seemingly autonomous jurisdictions. For instance, the authorities involved in the Nov. 13-15 activities includ-ed at least the D.C. Police, the Park Police, the Virginia State Police, the Arlington County Police, the D.C. Health Department, the Department of the Interior, the Federal Communications Division, and the Speaker of the House (who determines how the Capitol grounds are used).

But political realities overshadow the law, and in Washington the feder-al government, specifically the White House, is the reality. In large de-monstrations that bear on national policy, you don't negotiate with a myriad of agencies for a myriad of permits. The federal government appoints one or two representatives who meet with representatives of the demonstration to conduct the initial and most sensitive negotiations. These representa-tives consult a committee made up of people from those D.C. agencies whose jurisdictions are involved with the demonstrations. That committee, apparently consults directly with the White House.

After agreement has been reached on crucial points, a permit is drawn up which gives in some detail the agreements. The permit is signed by rep-resentatives of the government and of the demonstration.

Parts of the permit may have little practical bearing on the demonstra-tion, but are included to satisfy or placate Senators, Congressmen or other influential government figures. For instance, the permit for the March A-gainst Death has stipulations concerning the installation of tents at the Arlington Memorial Bridge starting point of the March (see Appendix I, Paragraph 3). These are in the permit because some Senators didn't want another semi-permanent Resurrection City on their hands. Most of the au-thorities actually concerned with setting up the site didn't care how many tents there were and where they were located.

After the government permit is issued, or, as soon as it appears that one will be issued and the government and the demonstration organizers won't be at complete loggerheads, you begin to talk directly with the represen-tatives of the groups that have legal jurisdiction over the different parts of Washington, and different aspects of public health, safety and welfare. These meetings are confined to discussions of practical matters.

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The Johnson Administration had appointed as its chief negotiator for demonstration permits Harry Van Cleve, Chief Counsel of the General Ser-vices Administration. Van Cleve was immortalized by Norman Mailer in Armies of the Night. Richard Nixon preferred to work through the Justice Department. John W. Dean,III, Associate Deputy Attorney General, headed their negotiating team. Ken Tapman, Attorney-Advisor, Office or the Soli-citor, Department of the Interior, served as his assistant. Later, they included Malcolm Hawk, at attorney in the Office of the Deputy Attorney General, as an advisor and observer. All three men were intelligent, well informed, young and pleasant. In early meetings, they seemed a little weighed down by the responsibility of negotiating the government's side of a demonstration that might involve half a million people. Later, they brightened up.

The New Mobe's negotiating team varied. Its steadiest participants were:

- Phil Hirschkop, a young Alexandria, virgins. attorney. Phil heads the northern Virginia American Civil Liberties Union chapter. He had been a legal counsel for anti-war demonstrators in Washington since 1967. He participated in the negotiations for the October 21, 1967 Lincoln Memorial-Pentagon demonstrations and headed the nego-tiating team for the Counter-Inaugural demonstrations in January of 1969. Phil is energetic, good looking, very sharp and well informed given to eccentricities in dress such as wearing a cowboy hat and a huge, silver ND (peace) symbol with a business suit, and exception-ally self-assured. As we shall see, some of his political notions are unusual for an attorney.

- Dick Fernandez, Executive Secretary of Clergy and Laymen Concerned about the War in Vietnam

- Ron Young, Co-Project Director for Washington Action, Youth Secretar for the Fellowship of Reconciliation

- Sidney Peck, Co-Chairman of the New Mobe, Associate Professor of So-cology, Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland

- Stewart Meacham, Co-Chairman of the New Mobe, Community Peace Educa-tion Director, American Friends Service Committee

- Lawrence Scott, Executive Secretary for A Quaker Action Group

- Fred Halstead, the Socialist Workers Party's 1968 Presidential can-didate

- Barbara Bick, Editor of the Women Strike for Peace's bulletin Memo

- Myself

Most of the negotiation meetings were held in John Dean's office on the fourth floor of the Justice Department.

Our talks began early in October. We asked that we be granted a perm-as soon as possible so that we could make adequate preparations for the demonstrations. John Dean and Ken Tapman wanted to know if we were plann peaceful demonstrations, for they had reports that some people were coming to Washington to cause disruptions. John Dean asked us to be sure to tel them if we received, any information about plans for disruption and violence

He asked also how many people we expected and accepted without argument the estimate of 70,000-250,000. Several meetings later, he spontaneously began to talk of half a million. Ken Tapman wanted to know if we expected the government to provide portable toilets. He and Mr. Dean were noncom-mittal when we replied that that service would be a great help. I mention the toilet question because it was raised at virtually every meeting from the first, and it remained one of the few important matters that we seemed never to negotiate through to a mutually satisfactory conclusion.

We were particularly interested in having the routes of our marches and the assembly and rally sites approved quickly so that we could publicize them. John Dean couldn't give any information about the government's posi-tion on these matters. He said he was having some difficulty bringing the members of his consultation committee together.

We went through two somewhat unproductive sessions chatting and asking each other questions. Then, suddenly, the government seemed to get a grip on itself and asked us to submit a memorandum outlining the project and stat-ing our needs. We responded with the following document:

Stccring Committee: (In Formation)

%/Norma Becker Irving Beinin Barbara Bick Abe Bloom Irwin Dock Allan Brick Katherine Camp Marjorie Colvin Bill Davidon

ennio Davis Dave Dellinger Douglas Dowd Gerhard Elston Al Evanoff Myrtle Feigenberg Richard Fernandez Gene Gladstone Jerry Gordon Bob Green Robert Greenblatt Dave Hawk Dave Herreshoff Fred Halstead Betty Johns Arnold Johnson Donald Kalish Gloria Karp Sylvia Kushner Sidney Lens Carol Lipman Brad Lyttle John McAuliff Stewart Meacham Joe Miles Joe Miller Allan Myers Otto Nathan Sidney Peck Ann Peery Max Primack

Carl Rogers Irving Sarnoff Lawrence Scott Larry Siegle Arthur Waskow

Cora Weiss John Wilson Ron Young

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New Mobilization Committee to End the War in Washington Action Office: 1029 Vermont Avenue, N.W., Washington, D. C. 20005

October 16, 1969

Description of the November 13-15 Washington Action Project Sponsored by the New Mobilization Committe to End the War in Vietnam

TO: Mr. John M. Dean, Associate Deputy Attorney General

In many respects, the following description is a projection and estimate. As organization of the project develops, aspects chz This description is up to date as of October 16.

Basic Structure of the Project

The Washington Action has three basic parts: 1. The March Against Death, November 13-15. 2. A mass march November 15. 3. A mass rally November 15.

Tone, Style and Discipline of the Project

All parts of the project are being carefully organized to be p orderly and dignified. A number of things are being done to a this character. Some of the most important are:

1. Promotional documents such as posters and fliers are dignified and appeal to reason. Documents with extensive text such as the publication the New Mobilizer and memoranda to marshalls are explicit to the effect that the demonstrations a to be peaceful.

2. The peaceful character of the demonstrations is menti and often emphasized in public statements such as those made a press conferences.

3. Trained marshalls (monitors) will .be present at all e One of their most important duties will be to prevent or stop that may develop. At the mass march and rally many hundreds c marshalls will be active. Marshalls will. be level-headed, re people recruited on a personal basis. They will have been to programs that will acquaint them with details of the project, duties, and actions that can be taken to prevent conflicts and disruptive incidents.

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4. Teams of lawyers and law students will work with the demonstrators and the authorities to prevent and 'stop possible conflicts.

5. Every effort is being made to eliminate places and situations in which demonstrators may be confused or vulnerable to provocation.

Description of the March Against Death,

Approximately 42,000 people will walk from Arlington Memorial Cemetery past the White House to the Capitol. Each person will carry a small placard bearing the name of an American serviceman killed in the war, or the name of a Vietnamese village destroyed in the war. As the people pass single file in front of the White House they will call out the name on their placard. At the Capitol, the placards will be placed in caskets.

Time and duration. The March Against Death will begin at about 6:00 p.m., Thursday, November 13 and end at about 10:00 a.m., Saturday, November 15. It will continue day and night for approximately 40 hours.

Route. The March will begin at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldiers, wind out of the Cemetery to Arlington Memorial Drive and cross Arlington Memorial Bridge. From there, it will follow this route: Henry Bacon Drive, Constitution Avenue, 17th Street, Pennsylvania Avenue in front of the White House, 15th Street, Pennsylvania Avenue, .Constitution Avenue, Delaware Avenue to the caskets on the east steps of the Capitol.

Configuration. In front of the White House where the names of the dead., are called out, the march will be single file. In other places, it may have to be two or three abreast to allow people to pass rapidly enough. The main impediments to their steady progress are traffic lights, 23 of which lie on the route.

Assembly and dispersal. To sustain a 40 hour march of 42,000 people, single file, it will be necessary to have 1200-1500 people stepping off from the Tomb of the Unknown Soldiers every hour. This will require organized and reliable transportation arrangements from the District, where most of the participants will arrive by train, bus and private car. There will also have to be transportation from Washington National Airport.

There will be prearranged pickup points in the District and D.C. Transit buses and private cabs will provide the transportation.

Efforts will be made to prevent an accumulation of people at the stepping off point, beyond the numbers needed to sustain the March.

At the caskets, east of the Capitol, there will be buses and cabs to take those who have finished the March to meeting and sleeping places. Efforts will be made to keep people from accumulating at this point, too.

Marshalls. There will be teams of trained marshalls at the Cemetery assembly point, along the route of the March and at the 'Capitol dispersal. point. These teams will function in shifts: They will keep the March on the right route and. orderly.

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Communications. Telephones will be installed by the Washington phone-company at the stepping off point, near the White House, at the Capitc and perhaps at a fourth point on the route of the March. These phones will provide interference-free communication between key points on the March. Each phone will be manned constantly by a team of two people. They will have walkie-talkies. One will remain with the phone, the of will range along the March, radioing reports to the telephones. In the way, the entire line of March can be monitored.

Public address equipment. Electric bullhorns may occasionally be used at the stepping off point, near the White House to establish the sing file line and at the dispersal point.

Sanitary equipment. There. will be portable toilets for up to 4,000 people at the stepping off point, near the White House (perhaps in Lafayette Park) and near the Capitol.

Medical aid. Teams of physicians and medical students will be on duty at the stepping off point, near the White House and at the Capitol. Several of these teams will rove along the line of march. They will equipped to deal with minor emergencies and to get people to hospital in case of serious Illnesses.

A medical headquarters will be set up at St. John's Church near Lafay Park. All marshals will know the headquarter's address and phone number

Food. There will be food concessions at the stepping off point, the White House, and the Capitol.

Additional information. The March route is about four miles long. I will take 2-3 hours for each marcher to traverse this distance.

Whether or not all the names of the Vietnam casualties have been car. the March Against Death will be ended early Saturday morning.

Mrs. Martin Luther King and other notables will lead off the March Ai Death.

Order of the March will be roughly by states, arranged alphabetically the extent to which it is possible, residents of a given state will the names of casualties from that state.

The March coordinator is New Mobilization staff member Susan Miller.

Assembly and pickup points in the District for marchers will be char

Disposition of the caskets. At about 8:00 a.m., Saturday, November the caskets will be transported unobtrusively from the east steps of Capitol to the mall west of the Capitol. Remaining placards will be placed in the caskets at that point..

Mass March

The mass march will precede and feed into the mass rally. It will begin Saturday morning, November 15, at the Mall, west of the Capitol near 3rd Street, procede past the White Souse and end in the Elipse. In the Mall area crosstreets east of 3rd between Madison and Jefferson will be

used for-lining up march contingents. Participants are expected to number

70,000-250,000.

Before the march begins, a selected contingent will carry the caskets containing the placards to the White House where they will be presented to the President.

Timing. The march will begin to assemble at 9:00, step off at 11:00 and continue throughout early stages of the rally.

Route. The march will assemble on the Mall, go up 4th Street to Pennsylvania Avenue, then: 15th Street, Pennsylvania Avenue in front -of the White Rouse, 17th Street to Me Elipse.

Configuration. The march will be organized in contingents. Order of the contingents will be:

Coffin Contingent G.I.'s Draft Resisters Clergy Trade Unionists Pacifist Groups Political Groups

Scientists

District of Columbia Self- government groups War Tax Resistance Groups Teachers, High School and Elementary College and University Teachers "Third World" Groups Women's Groups Nationality Groups (Greeks, Puerto Ricans, etc.) Area Groups: West Coast

Southwest New York City Middle Atlantic Middlewest New England Southeast

Marshalls. Several. hundred trained marshalls will help organize and then monitor the march. Special groups will greet people alighting from buses, help assemble contingents, and rove along the edges of the march, alert to possible tension points. Marsha will work in teams.

Medical aid. Medical teams of doctors and medical students will work at the march assembly point, along the line of march and at the elipse. They will coordinate their activities through their center at St. John's Church.

Legal aid. Teams of lavers and law students will work with the marshal to prevent and stop incidents. They will have a central office and communication's center at 1029 Vermont Avenue. Mr. Phil Hirschkop is it charge of the legal aid.

Sanitary facilities. Toilet facilities for 50,000 people will be available at the Mall, west of the Capitol.

Concessions. Food caterers will be at the Mall.

Bus unloading and parking. A large percentage of the participants in ti march will arrive by bus. There will be unloading and parking faciliti€ for 2,000 buses. The buses will be parked so that after the day's even-are over, people can readily find and leave in them. Marshalls will instruction sheets to bus passengers as they debark on where they can find their bus to go home.

Car parking. Parking for up to 10,000 private cars will be available. Parking areas will be readily accessible from the Mall and the Elipse.

Trains. Arrangements for special trains are being sought in several cities a number of cases, the railroads have said that technical difficulties make such trains impossible. Since train transportation is the easiest way to get large numbers of people in and out of Washington quickly, we hope that the railroads will eventually be able to make arrangements.

Public address. A truck mounted public address system will be at the Mall assembly point. Marshalls and other responsible people will have 15-20 electric bullhorns to use at the assembly and along the line of

march.

Communications. Some marshalls will have walkie-talkies. Several of t: telephones used in the March Against Death will be used during the mass march.

Additional information. Many participants will carry banners and placa and distribute leaflets. A large number of the placards will be abandc at the end of the march. There will be sanitary crews to collect and dispose of these and other rubbish.

Mass Rally

The mass rally will take place at the Elipse, the afternoon of Saturday November 15. 150-250,000 people will be at this rally, and can be accommodated by the Elipse and adjacent park areas that cover about 750,000 square feet. The rally program will have two parts. From 12:C

noon until 2:00 p.m., while the mass march is feeding in, there will be suitable musical entertainment. Fran 2:00 p.m. until 4:30 p.m. there will be speakers. The rally will disperse before dark and the people will return to their homes and means of transportation home.

Configuration. A speakers stand to hold 100 people will be erected at the north side of the Elipse. In front of the stand there will be an area for the news media. Marshalls will maintain passageways of ingress and egress through the mass of people at the rally.

Marshalling. Several hundred trained and carefully selected marshalls will surround the speakers' stand and insure that only authorized persons gain access to it.

Other hundreds of marshalls will work in and around the assembly to prevent and stop possible conflict and disorder.

Public address. A system will be installed by a D.C. area or East Coast firm. P.A. speakers may be hung from a crane near the speakers' stand.

Communication. Marshals will have walkie-talkies. There will be telephone communication with the speakers' stand and press area.

Sanitary facilities. Around the Elipse there will be toilet facilities for an assembly of 250,000 people.

Additional notes. The rally will disperse in an orderly manner before dark. The great majority of people will return to their home Saturday evening.

The New Mobilization

Formed in the summer of 1969, the New Mobilization Committee has the following people as its Co-chairmen:

David Dellinger Douglas Dowd Sidney Lens Stewart Meacham Sidney Peck Cora Weiss

Washington Action Project Co-Directors are:

Abe Bloom Ron Young

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About October 20, we met with the government to discuss this memorandum. The government didn't object to most of the plan for the March Against Death but believed it unlikely that we would be able to have the caskets on the east steps of the Capitol, the site we initially requested. In regard to the mass march and rally, they were deeply apprehensive.

Their main fear was for the military security of the White House and other government buildings in downtown Washington. They didn't want the mass march to "virtually surround" the White House, and they said we couldn' have the Elipse for a rally under any circumstances. There was only a weak iron picket fence around the south side of the White House grounds. It would be the only barrier separating a crowd at the Elipse from the White House, and could be pushed over easily. Also, they wanted people dispersing from the rally to move out of the city to the west, rather than to flow through the business area and around the government buildings east of the White House. Consequently, they proposed that we abandon the mass march entirely, hold a rally at the Lincoln Memorial and then disperse to buses parked on the drives along the Potomac River and in Pentagon parking lots.

Both we and the government moderated our positions almost as soon as we had presented them. We indicated that we could start the March Against Death outside Arlington National Cemetary rather than in it. (A newspaper story to the effect that the Pentagon had declared demonstrations on the Cemetary grounds to be illegal, left no doubt where the military drew its lines.) We also agreed to have the caskets on the west Capitol grounds. The government abandoned a proposal that the March Against Death walk on the north side of Pennsylvania Avenue, across the street from the White Hou. We would be able to walk on the south or White House side of the sidewalk. While details of the March Against Death were discussed up to the last meet-ings, the government said early in our talks that they could live with the basic plan for the March, and that there wouldn't be serious problems.

In regard to the mass march, the government shifted from no march at all to a march straight up the Mall to the rally. They still didn't want us in downtown Washington, and under no circumstances near the White House.

They departed from their proposal of the Lincoln Memorial as the place for the rally, and indicated that the Washington Monument grounds, which we had suggested as a compromise, probably would be acceptable to them. This meant that the only major point left to negotiate was the route of the mass march.

Throughout all the negotiations, the government remained fixed in its intense concern for the military security of the White House and other gov-ernment buildings, and showed little interest in political questions. The: couldn't abide the thought of the White House being surrounded, or a mass march being aimed at it, or a rally being held near it. This preoccupatior with military security came out in other ways. We asked for a helicopter 1E ing pad near the rally site so that we could fly rock bands, singers and o-ther participants in the program to and from Washington National Airport. Also, we pointed out that the helicopter could be used to airlift emergenc medical cases to the hospitals.

The eyes of the government negotiators fairly bugged at the notion of a helicopter, and our proposal was flatly turned down. We were assured that a highway route to the airport would be kept open for vehicles that could quickly carry our people to and from the rally. Only after the ne-gotiations, did it occur to me that the harmless rented Sikorsky helicop-ter that I had in mind was to them a gunship that would swoop down on the White House and blast it with rockets.

We also discussed which streets in the Mall area would be left open and which closed, and in talking about the Arlington Cemetary starting point for the March Against Death, touched often on which highways had to be kept open. Quite likely, their thinking about traffic control was heavi- ly weighted by military considerations.

The ultimate expression of the government's fear of the demonstrators and obsession with military security came during the March Against Death. At night, the White House floodlights were turned around to glare balefully at Pennsylvania Avenue, and a mercury vapor lamp about ten feet long was mounted across the front of the White House. The lamp dazzled anyone look-ing at the building. I suspect that these precautions were taken so that potential snipers would be blinded if they tried to fire at the White House, and so that attackers who might climb the fence and approach across the lawn could be easily seen. Those nights, the White House reminded me of the des-criptions I had read of Special Forces camps deep in VC territory. It .was easy to imagine machine gunners stationed in the building's windows ready to mow down the first wave of high school students who breached the fence. I could scarcely think of a grosser expression of the Nixon Administration's fear of the people than these security precautions at the White House.

Probably, I was more inclined than were the other members of the New Mobe's negotiating team to take the government's preoccupation with mili-tary security seriously. I remembered how, during negotiations for the Oc-tober 21, 1967 Pentagon demonstration, the government had refused absolute-ly to let the Pentagon be surrounded by demonstrators. In demonstrations I had been in during past years in Belgium, West Germany, East Germany, Poland and Russia, authorities in these countries had shown similar preoccupations. I believed that the U.S. government would rather see a riot in Washington than allow the White House to be surrounded by a mass march.

The other New Mobe negotiators, quite understandably, tended to feel that the government was trying to hide political motives behind their talk about military security. To them, it was absurd for the world's most pow-erful government, armed with every weapon and instrument of violence that ingenuity could produce, to fear a crowd of unarmed demonstrators made up largely of high school and college students and middle aged citizens.

The negotiations of the final two weeks centered around whether or not we would be allowed to march along Pennsylvania Avenue. The government stated and reiterated that a mass march there would jeopardize the White House. We replied that we had in mind only peaceful and orderly demonstrations, that the overwhelming majority of our people would be peaceful, and that

we would have thousands of marshalls who would work to prevent and end con-flicts that might escalate into a riot. The government seemed most inter-ested in how many marshalls we planned to have and what training we were giving them.

At a news conference about 12 days before Nov. 13, Richard G. Klein-dienst, Deputy Attorney General, stated that we wouldn't be given Pennsyl-vania Avenue for the march. This was interpreted to us by the government negotiators as their final position, and they offered Constitution Avenue for the parade, as a recompense for the loss of Pennsylvania Avenue.

The reaction of the New Mobe's Executive Committee was mixed. Several members wanted to accept the government's offer so that we could sign a permit, They argued that this was necessary to insure the greatest pos-sible turnout. It would assure the thousands from all over the country who were planning to come, that there would be a peaceful and orderly demonstra-tion, with no violent confrontation with the government.

The majority of the Committee wanted to hold out for Pennsylvania Avenue for an indefinite time. A number of considerations seemed to in-fluence their attitude.

Pennsylvania Avenue was the traditional parade route in the Capital. It had been given to the Klan and to other reactionary and conservative groups. It should be given to the anti-war movement, too.

Pennsylvania Avenue would take the demonstrators near the White House, where, by their presence, they could witness to Mr. Nixon and the Executive Department of the government, their opposition to the war.

Phil Hirschkop reported that the Mayor of Washington and Senators and Congressmen were insisting that we be given Pennsylvania Avenue.

The Washington Post was publishing eloquent editorials urging that we be granted the Avenue.

As we moved into the last week before the demonstrations, a peculiar nuance developed in the thinking of the Executive Committee. A number of members lost sight of the Pennsylvania Avenue issue. They came to feel tha the entire issue was walking in front of or near the White House. In their last offer to the government, they proposed a route that started with Con-stitution Avenue, avoided. Pennsylvania Avenue completely, and then at 15th Street looped up and around the White House.

My own view was influenced by the belief that the government was ser-

ious in its talk about military security. I thought that we might get Pennsylvania Avenue if we held out, but that under no circumstances would we be allowed to surround the White House on three sides. I thought that the proposal of a march route in front of the White House was unrealistic

I further believed it likely that the government would grant us Penn-sylvania Avenue ifwe held firm. My view was based on experience with lo

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distance walks through many countries and in the south. On these walks, I had often been in situations in which city governments had denied the walks desirable routes through cities. Usually, city officials- had backed up their stands with hard, public proclamations like Kleindienst's. We had won these contests when there were liberal voices in the communities that had supported our right to walk where we wished. We had lost the contests, and generally landed in jail, when there was little or no public support for us. These long walks had involved at most only a few dozen people, but it seemed to me that the conflicts with city governments we had had in them were similar to our argument now with the federal government and the White House. The main difference was the number of people. We were now negotiating for the right of half a million people to walk where they wished.

All of us wanted to win Pennsylvania Avenue because we thought it would be a victory for civil liberties and would give the crowd an optimistic and happy spirit, rather than a frustrated, sullen one.

Tuesday night, Nov. 11, the question of the route was discussed by the Executive Committee for the last time. The majority of the members spoke for holding out for a day or two longer. A large minority wanted to accept Constitution Avenue and get a permit at once. I proposed a third choice of holding out until the very end and then, if the government wouldn't give us Pennsylvania Avenue, have a brief and peaceful confrontation with the police and troops at the intersection of Pennsylvania and Constitution before, out of physical necessity, we accepted Constitution. It seemed to me that the way the government would have to meet such a tactic would be by having tens of thousands of police and troops massed at the Pennsylvania Avenue - Con-stitution Avenue intersection and along the north sidewalk of Constitution Avenue. The people of the world would then vividly see the realities of American politics, the government and military on one side, hundreds of thousands of peaceful citizens on the other.

The other participants in the Executive Committee meetings saw such a confrontation only as violent and probably the start of a massive riot. I think that by then I was so confident in our plans for marshalling that I believed we could keep the confrontation peaceful. The superb work done by thousands of marshalls Nov. 15 leads me to believe that my view at the Executive Committee meetings was realistic.

To me, the most surprising feature of these negotiations about Pennsyl-vania Avenue was the attitude of Phil Hirschkop. Phil was asked again and again if we shouldn't take the matter to court. He always replied empha-tically No, that to do so would be a major error. It would take the gov-ernment negotiators off the political hook and we would almost certainly lose in court. Furthermore, Phil recommended that we hold out for Penn-sylvania Avenue to almost the last moment. He was nearly as hard-nosed as I. Never in more than ten years of demonstrating had I known a lawyer to have such an attitude. Every attorney I had worked with before would have recommended, indeed insisted, that we go at once to court, and all would have urged that we give in to the government at an early stage. Again and again I shook myself in disbelief at the advice Phil was giving.

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Wednesday afternoon, Nov. 12, the government gave us Pennsylvania Ave-nue. Phil reported that Mayor Walter Washington had personally intervened with President Nixon. The government didn't let us near the White House, though. From Pennsylvania Avenue, the route dropped straight down 15th Street east of the Elipse to the Washington Monument grounds. To protect the White House, the government strengthened their iron fence with a ring of buses parked bumper to bumper all around the White House grounds.

On both sides, the negotiations were amiable. Despite our differences, friendships and mutural respect were generated. Once crucial agreements were reached, John Dean and Ken Tapman went to special lengths to speed the cooperation of government agencies.

A concluding word, however, about the bad habit of the government to procrastinate in granting permits. It would be far easier to organize large and peaceful demonstrations if we could obtain a permit a month or more in advance, and didn't have to wait until the last two or three days for cooperation from government agencies. The Pentagon may be able to airlift a division of riot troops to Washington in a few hours. It takes much longer for a largely volunteer group like the New Mobe to organize its legions of protestors and make adequate arrangements for them. The White House should change its policies and begin putting the comfort and safety of private citizens ahead of the wishes of the military.

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Chapter 2

AN ODDLY MATCHED PAIR?

Fred Halstead and I were in charge of Logistics Nov. 13-15. This means that we had overall responsibility for all the practical matters, including the marshalling. Reporters and others have commented that we seemed a strange combination. Fred is stout, a bit of a hedonist, and a Trotskyist. A am lean, reputed to be ascetic and am considered a pacifist and Gandhian. My political orientation at least is that of a nonviolent activist.

Fred and I cooperated easily for reasons that were far more important than our differences. Fred is intensely practical. He becomes impatient with rhetoric, generalities and pet theories. He wants to know how things work. He trusts analysis and reason. I seek to cultivate these attitudes, too.

Both of us have years of experience organizing demonstrations. Fred's specialty has been mass activities organized in cooperation with the labor movement and the Marxist left. Mine has been mainly with small projects in many parts of the world, primarily with pacifists. In the past few years, I have worked on large demonstrations, too. Fred's and my areas of experience complimented each other.

Fred is drawn to organizing people. He prefers to work on tasks like marshalling. I enjoy working with people too, but probably have a special-ty in dealing with things and machines. By nature, I am inclined toward physics and engineering. We planned the logistics together and frequent-ly consulted each other, but Fred tended to gravitate toward marshall train-ing sessions, I toward sound systems, communications and collections. Thus, our interests were complimentary.

Our political differences weren't a source of friction because we agreed on tactics for the Nov. 13-15 demonstrations. Both of us believed that peace-ful and orderly demonstrations were the best. I believed this because of my understanding of depth psychology, sociology, the history of nonviolence, and my experience in countless demonstrations. Fred seemed to believe it because his analysis of contemporary American society showed him that vio-lence would be an ineffective tactic for organizing the masses. It may seem odd, but it is true that today the Trotskyists are one of the most powerful forces working to give the anti-war movement a peaceful and order-ly character.

The differences in our political outlooks didn't have occasion to con-flict. Fred may have felt that he didn't have to argue because history would eventually prove the inevitability of violent revolution. I believed that the superiority of nonviolent tactics will always be intimated by sci-ence and demonstrated by experiment. We both were pragmatists toward po-litical theory, and didn't have the time or patience for a priori wrangles.

In addition, it is easy to respect Fred. He is exceptionally talented in political affairs and has a shrewd sense of management. He is gentle and considerate toward others. He is dedicated to humanitarian goals and

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has made great personal sacrifices for them. He and his family live modest-ly. He augments his salary from the movement by sometimes cutting cloth in the garment district of New York. Fred could have been a success in con-ventional politics or business. Instead, he chose to identify with a small and generally outcaste revolutionary group. Even within the movement, he may never receive the recognition his abilities and accomplishments deserve.

In projects, Fred works hard and doesn't try to manipulate others into doing tedious jobs that are his responsibility. He gives movement demands priority over personal ones. And, he has integrity. Whether or not you agree with him, you know clearly where he stands politically. He speaks and writes for what he believes is the best for the movement, not primarily to put himself forward or to curry the favor of a constituency. He does not lie to his colleagues. It is a pleasure to work with such a man.

Chapter 3

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THE MARSHALLS

Largely because of the demonstrations at the Democratic National Conven-tion in Chicago the summer of 1968, and the Counter-Inaugural demonstration in Washington early in 1969, a number of leaders in the anti-war movement had come to believe that chaotic, angry street confrontations with the authorities were counter-productive, that is, worked to the disadvantage of the anti-war movement. Consequently, from the beginning, the New Mobe committed itself to having peaceful and orderly activities in Washington. The wisdom of this poli-cy was so widely accepted that the description "nonviolent" was used without being challenged in New Mobe literature and in statements by its Co-Chairmen.

Once the New Mobe had adopted a policy of peaceful and orderly demonstra-tions, the organizing of a large and effective force of marshalls became pos-sible. There was no question about what marshalls would be needed for. Their role would be to implement New Mobe policy concerning the character and tone of the demonstrations.

I Marshalls had essentially two jobs. One was to give information to people

who needed it, such as where they should go for certain activities, where the movement centers were, what telephone number should be called for legal and medical aid, etc. The other responsibility was to prevent, minimize and end conflicts that might develop.

In dealing with conflicts, the principle was recognized very early that the more marshalls there were the better. Violent incidents of all kinds could be minimized and ended quickly if the marshalls were much more numerous than those who sought violence. The truth of this principle was borne out striking-ly in the events of November 15.

Several kinds of conflicts were considered. There were those caused by right wingers. Marshalls were counselled to deal with heckling by telling demonstrators not to answer back and to keep cool. Groups of marshalls would try to get between hecklers and demonstrators.

In case of attacks on demonstrators, marshalls were instructed to distract the attackers and get between them and the demonstrators. Marshalls were coun-selled to use physical restraint if necessary to end conflicts. They were not to strike anyone. For physical restraint to be effective, it was necessary, again, for there to be large numbers of marshalls in relation to the number of attackers.

Conflicts with the police and other authorities were reduced by having the marshalls urge people not to vilify the police or get into arguments with them. Disputes were to be taken to the legal marshalls and advisors.

Provocateurs could not be absolutely distinguished from people who were genuinely angry, or thought angry confrontations benefitted the movement. Con-licts generated by them were to be dealt with in the same way as other conflicts: by separating antagonists, urging people not to become involved and by the re-straint of large numbers of marshalls.

The most serious threat to the demonstrations was seen to be from organized

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groups that represented themselves as left wing militants. In New York City, such groups had wrought havoc in the anti-war movement by turning demonstra-tions into partial brawls and by occupying the stage at rallies. Control of the stage was seen to be of first importance. Under no circumstances could a program for half a million people be interrupted or seriously disturbed by groups that believed it in their interest to disrupt or take over the program.

The problem of controlling the stage was approached by analysis. First, it was seen that marshalls had to physically occupy the platform area all the time. The stage could not be abandoned to possible "pre-emption" by another group.

Second, the marshalls had to constitute a physical barrier to any group attempting to occupy the stage.

Third, marshalls had to greatly outnumber possible attackers or invaders. Fourth, access to the stage area was to be strictly limited to those with

special passes.

In the planning, the crowd itself was seen to be an asset in controlling the stage. Since a number of rock musicians were to be on the program, we expected 20 to 30 thousand peaceful young people to be massed in front of the stage. They would be an obstacle to any group that attempted suddenly to force its way in.

On Nov. 15, the program was not interrupted. On and near the stage were several dozen picked labor union security men. Around it in front was a tri-ple row of snow fences. Between the fences and the rally were marshalls, hundreds of them, four to six deep. And then there was the multitude. A contingent of perhaps 200 people, who represented themselves as SDS students and New York City radicals, had threatened to attack Senator McGovern when he spoke. While the Senator spoke, the contingent was faced by a solid pha-lanx, several deep, of large and friendly marshalls. The Senator and the microphone were remote and inaccessible.

In order to determine the number of marshalls that would be needed during the three days of demonstrations, each phase of the program was analyzed. Thus, the March against Death was found to have about 58 separate marshalling responsibilities, including greeting people who got off the buses, keeping marchers on the route, helping people across intersections, manning informa-tion tables, etc. At any moment, the March would need about 129 marshalls. Since the March lasted 40 hours, we needed several teams of marshalls. We decided on four teams, each serving two five hour shifts, or a total of about 580 marshalls, Including backups and replacements, we calculated that we would need 700 marshalls for the March. About 250 of these would have special responsibilities, the others would work primarily at intersections along the March route.

We decided to recruit these 250 special marshalls from Washington and nearby cities, so that we could easily reach them in training programs, and we could depend upon them being available when they were needed. We brought

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150 from Philadelphia, 75 from Washington and 25 from Baltimore.

In considering the mass march and rally Nov. 15, we calculated that we would eventually need 3-4,000 marshalls, about four times more than at any previous demonstration. Several hundred of these would greet people coming from buses and trains. Others would man information tables. At the front of the march, we needed a wedge of 75 stalwart marshalls. More than 400 were needed to guard the stage and public address system. Twelve hundred would be stationed at intersections along the line of march.

Our analysis of the marshalling requirements of the activities brought us to several simple insights and plans that eventually helped greatly.

One was that we needed as many marshalls as we could find. We didn't ask different organizations to have only one marshall for every bus, we asked them to provide as many as they could.

Another principle was to use the March Against Death as a training ex-perience for marshalls for the mass march and rally. We realized that after the March, we would have about 700 people who had been through training pro-grams, had up to three days experience marshalling, who knew and had worked with each other, and who had experience with the terrain. These people could be the leadership nucleus for Saturday's massive activities. To guarantee that we would have 700 trained people, we urged marshalls to come to Wash-ington as soon as possible; to be there Wednesday night.

We saw also that we would have to decentralize our recruiting and train-ing programs. Our limited Washington staff couldn't possibly find and train 3-4,000 people. Most of this would have to be up to anti-war groups demon-strators were associated with at home.

We set up meetings in a number of cities with responsible people in or-ganizations that we believed could provide the most reliable marshalls. Such marshall recruiting and leadership training meetings were held in Wash-ington, Baltimore, Philadelphia, New York, Boston, Cleveland and Chicago. We recognized at once the invaluable asset of Quaker groups in Philadelphia and Chicago. Because of their belief that means are nearly or equally as important as ends, and their skill at organization, the Friends have devel-oped marshall training to a high art. They write analytical manuals, hold regular conflict resolution conferences and employ sociodramas, play acting and scenarios. Quaker groups were able to quickly provide marshalls for leadership positions and organize training programs.

In Philadelphia, A Quaker Action Group, the Friends Peace Committee and the American Friends Service Committee, wide marshall training program of about _Well before Nov. 13, they had more than rograms, and they had filled more than

signments. To a lesser degree but in a groups in which Quakers held leadership Chicago.

working in harmony, set up an area a dozen conferences and meetings. 500 people who had attended these 150 of the special marshalling as-similar way, Friends groups and positions, did the same thing in

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In New England, the New England Committee for Nonviolent Action, which has an emphasis similar to that of A Quaker Action Group, recruited marshalls widely and conducted training programs.

In assessing the effectiveness of the marshalling program Nov. 13-15, great credit should be given to the pacifist and nonviolently oriented groups, such as the Friends and New England CNVA.

Other organizations also provided blocks of marshalls with training and experience. Notable were the Student Mobilization and the Moratorium. There were several hundred law students who served as legal aid marshalls.

In order to work most efficiently with the 700 marshalls for the March Against Death, we decided to have a Marshalls Center. This would be a church or similar large building which would be a marshalls' command center, where there could be continuous marshall training sessions from Wednesday on, marshalls could get simple meals and many of them could sleep. We eventually obtained the Ebenezer Methodist Church at 4th and D Streets, S.E. It would be impossible to praise too highly the generosity and tolerance of Rev. Harris, the Church Board and the congregation.

In sum, the main elements of the marshalls' program, as planned before Nov. 13, were these:

- Seven hundred marshalls for the March Against Death

- Three to four thousand marshalls for the mass march and rally

- Priority to control of the stage area

- Recruit as many marshalls as possible

- Have marshalls come to Washington as soon as possible

- Decentralize recruiting and training

- Have a marshalls' headquarters and training center

These plans seemed to me sound before Nov. 13-15. I was surprised how well they worked. We opened the Marshalls Center Wednesday afternoon. Wednesday evening, I expected there would be about 50 people. There were 250 for the first orientation meeting that evening. The entire operation of the Center was turned over to volunteers from Philadelphia, Chicago and other places. Thursday, it was difficult to enter the church and training sessions were running day and night. Friday, a second church was found to accommodate the overflow for sleeping. Late Friday, organized training broke down; there were too many marshalls. Candy Putter, from A Quaker Action Group, who helped direct the Center and the training programs, esti-mates that 4000 people went through the training sessions.

After initial confusion establishing the shift rotation, the March Against Death was marshalled with precision. Most impressive was the spirit of the

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marshalls: gentleness, humor, fortitude, understanding. I heard not one complaint, though many marshalls had to stand long hours in the cold and go without sleep. John Hartwell, who helped direct March Against Death marshalls, deserves special credit.

In the mass march, the number and skill of the marshalls was astonish-ing. On either side of much of the Pennsylvania Avenue route they formed a hand-in-hand wall. In potential trouble areas, they were sometimes three deep. I wore a badge that said "Chief Marshall", but even with this and special passes, I often had difficulty getting through lines of marshalls, so great was their vigilance. One one occasion, in the middle of the march, I was caught up in a long argument with Co-Chief Marshall Fred Halstead (one of our very rare arguments) when I wanted to disperse a line of mar-shalls because they were preventing the coffins bearing the names of the dead from reaching the head of the march. Fred finally told me that the line couldn't be dispersed because it was providing security for Coretta King. Only by looking closely could I find Mrs. King. She was submerged and hidden by marshalls.

Elements of the anti-war movement have criticized the marshalls because they "worked for the police" or were excessively zealous. The criticisms must be appraised in perspective. Nov. 13-15 was designed to be a massive and peaceful outpouring. It was, and the thousands of devoted marshalls deserve much of the credit for making it so. It is poor logic to say that because most of the police wanted peaceful demonstrations, the marshalls worked for them. The marshalls worked for the New Mobe and for the interests of the movement. The thousands upon thousands of young people who marshalled agreed that peaceful and orderly demonstrations were the best. They believed that angry, violent confrontations harmed the movement.

A strat must be developed b an n the consequences of differ

•

actions. It is foolish to • eve op a strategy by the simple u a of adopt- ing the reverse of what a foot patrolman wants.

It may be that in isolated, individual instances marshalls acted unwise-ly or even provocatively. These were overwhelmingly counteracted by the untold numbers of peacemaking acts that the marshalls performed. In addi-tion, it is grotesque to make a big issue of a lone marshall being provoca-tive when one ignores and refuses to criticize the provocative words and actions of some spokesmen for the movement.

There is also the argument that crowds of people don't need marshalls; they can marshall themselves. This argument neglects the psychology of crowds. Masses of people in demonstrations, even when angry, tend to be peaceful in action. But they can be led in one direction or another. Remove peaceful influences and the demonstrators will be at the mercy of provocateurs and others who seek violence. In the Nov. 13-15 demonstrations, the marshalls were the ubiquitous agents of the New Mobe's wise policy that the activities should be peaceful and orderly. They served the people and worked for their interest. To have had demonstrations without marshalls would have played into the hands of government agents, whose aim is to cause violence, discredit the movement and make its leaders vulnerable to perse-cution.

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Marshalls not only maintained the character and tone of the demonstra-tions, they did much of the work in setting up the facilities and equip-ment. Up to LW marshalls volunteered at all hours of the day and night to help erect the public address system at the Monument Grounds. They worked with heavy equipment in cold and darkness and sometimes in danger.

The thousands of marshalls deserve the highest praise for their work Nov. 13-15. They showed that the anti-war movement can crucially influence the spirit, tone and activity of even the largest demonstrations.

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We finally met Bill Hanley Sunday, Nov. 9. He had come to Washington from a concert in Charlottesville, Va., and was lodged in a hotel. It didn't take long before I was glad we had waited for him.

Bill Hanley is probably the most capable "sound reinforcement" specialist in the country, and therefore quite likely the best in the world. ("Sound reinforcement", by the way, is the term public address system professionals apply to their trade.) He is a self-made entrepreneur and businessman who started about ten years ago in a garage across from his home at Dedham. His father is a police officer. Bill was raised a Catholic, and I received the impression that reinforcing sound was a religious vocation with him. In high school, he had attended a meeting at which the sound equipment was utterly inadequate. This had disgusted him and he resolved to "let people hear" by providing reliable and high fidelity sound. Gifted in mechanics and electronics, he had gone about redesigning sound equipment from the bottom up. Going had been hard at first. "People don't want to pay for sound," he said. Then rock music came and he got his break. Rock music was played to large audiences and required high fidelity amplification. That was Bill's specialty. By the time I met Bill in Washington, his empire had expanded to impressive proportions. He had offices in NYC and Medford, Mass. Seven crews toured with rock bands and other musical groups. His major system roamed the country in the two 40 foot semi-trailer vans. He was hoping to set up sound reinforcement schools in New York and on the West Coast. No cold blooded technician, Bill fitted into the hippy and rock music scene. He enjoys the good life and dances superbly. His main crew of 12 that worked with the two vans shared his outlook. They combined technical com-petence with the new life style.

Two people met Bill with me. One was Eric Small, the other John Gage, a former champion swimmer who was working with the Moratorium. John's specialty was managing stage areas. He is one of those rare people who talks softly by habit and talks more softly as pressure builds up. Bill, Eric, John and Bill's engineers were the core of the team who did such a splen-did job with the sound Nov. 13-15.

That Saturday, the four of us looked over the Washington Monument area and Bill decided that his sound equipment would be most effective in the southwest corner, near the intersection of 17th and Independence. That lo-cation enabled him to focus his sound over a 90 degree arc. An alternate area, that would have allowed more people to see the stage, required at

least a 135 degree dispersion. The best place would have been in the north-west corner of the grounds, but Ladybird Johnson had planted a grove of cherry trees that made that site impossible. We spent a good deal of time talking about how we wished the cherry trees weren't there, how they might mysteriously disappear, and how they could be protected from the crowd. We speculated that after the rally, the government might plant cherry trees in every area large enough for a protest gathering.

Monday, Bill's crew and equipment began to arrive in Washington from all over the country. We had reserved hotel rooms for them and they generally called soon after they checked in. I put them in touch with each other and with John Gage. The first van, which could be converted into the heart of the stage, arrived, I think, about midnight Tuesday. Parking a van in Washington was a major problem, but the government, most cooperatively, arranged for it to stay in the Armory Parking lot. Negotiations for the

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parking lot went through a General Woodward. At least for one night, part of our sound system shared the Armory grounds with troops being brought in to quell "riots".

Wednesday morning, the van was taken to the Monument grounds' southwest corner, and construction of the stage area began. This was done before we had the government's permit for the rally, another example of unusual coopera-tion.

Setting up a sound reinforcement system the size of Bill's is complicated. There are at least four major kinds of equipment. First, there is steel scaffolding that supports on towers the stage and the speakers. Most of this must be contracted for locally and erected like a giant tinker toy.

Then, there is the stage itself, and this must have separate areas and closed sections. There is a broad area for bands, performing groups and singers, a jutting prominence for the podium and speeches, and ante-rooms for people who are arriving, leaving and waiting. Bill's stage van can be virtually metamorphosized. It carries built in jacks that raise it four feet off the ground. Then, one side swings out to become a roof, and floor-ing is moved forward. Inside the van are waiting rooms. A sturdy stairway drops down behind.

The speakers and amplifiers are carried in the second van. They are nothing less than a 5000 watt high fidelity system. Mysterious looking black plywood boxes, that protect the equipment from rain, house batteries of low and medium frequency speakers. Tweeter horns are separate. A rented crane positions the black boxes on the top of the towers and plants the tweeters on top of them. In Washington, placing of the speakers occurred Friday night. It was cold and the crane operator was drunk. That was when John Gage learned to operate a hydraulic crane.

The speakers work independently of each other. Often, at high sound levels, or if they get wet, they will disintegrate. This doesn't mean that the sound is lost, however, the system's volume and efficiency are just reduced. The complexity of the system insures its reliability. Bill hopes soon to install equipment that will visually show him the condition of each speaker while it is in operation.

Inside the second van are 12 McIntosh amplifiers and scores of cables that feed the speakers. All the cables are color coded so that the right cable will go to the right speaker. Other cables feed the amplifiers from a microphone console.

Power for the sound system can come from untility mains or a generator. We had both, the generator for emergencies. For the sound system, tele-vision cameras and lights and other equipment, 400 amps at 110 volts is required.

Bill Hanley's sound reinforcement system was impressive to me not only because of its complexity and effectiveness but because I sensed that every part was the result of experiment and experience. Bill's formula for being the best sound reinforcement engineer in the world is simple, "You can't do

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the large jobs unless you do the small ones. It's on the small ones that you learn what the large ones need. I try to do them all - large and small - well." "Bill's never blown a job" was the admiring comment of one engin-eer.

At different times Thursday and Friday nights, we enlisted about 40 marshalls to help erect the equipment. Additional help came from a bus-load of Hog Farmers, from the Hog Farm Community in New Mexico. What with the cold, darkness, drunken crane operator, 30 foot, open scaffolding, and an absolute deadline, erecting the sound system required confidence, com-petence, imagination, nerve, strength and courage. Everyone involved had these qualities, and humor, too.

Eric Small handled the Parade Committee's system, which was used at the Arlington Bridge March Against Death stepoff point, then later for Senator McCarthy at the Mall assembly area, Using a borrowed van, and volunteer help, he provided powerful and clear sound on both occasions.

And we should not forget the two Amplivox bullhorns and eleven Geloso power megaphones used by the marshalls Saturday. These rounded out our sound equipment.

I

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Chapter 5

WHAT HAPPENED TO THE BUSES?

"What happened to the buses?" If the thousands of people who came to Washington Nov. 15 were tempted to abandon their stoicism over anything, it the parking of the buses. After the rally was over and it became dark

older, countless people didn't know where their buses were or how to 'them.

The bus parking problem in Washington is almost insoluble. It has never a handled adequately. In planning for the Nov. 13-15 demonstrations, we

pan with some simple calculations. If 500,000 people came, at least ),000 would arrive by bus. If each bus carried 50 people, that meant we

would need parking for 4000 buses. The largest number of buses ever to me to Washington before was 2000 for the 1963 civil rights March on Washing-

on. Our parking needs were twice as great as ever before. f

The best way to park large numbers of buses that come for a rally is to put them in one, huge area. For the April 15, 1967 rally in NYC, the buses were all parked in the Shea Stadium parking lot. After the rally, people took the subway to the Stadium and had little trouble finding the buses.

Washington doesn't have the combination of a giant parking lot and a mass public transit system. In the summer of 1963, buses had been parked along Independence Avenue and on the drives in East and West Potomac Park. October 21, 1967, they had been parked in these places and also in the Pentagon's North Parking Area. The confusion in 1967 was awe inspiring. The plan was that the buses would be numbered as they came in, the people on them told what the number was and where the bus would be parked, and then the buses would be parked systematically, Unfortunately, numbering the buses and informing the people was left to the police. The demonstrators tended to become hostile as soon as they saw the police, and wouldn't listen to the information they were being given. The system therefore broke down. The police became bitter. The numbering was abandoned and the buses were parked haphazardly. Chaos.

We tried - and mostly failed - to avoid chaos Nov. 15.

Our first thought was to take a radically new approach. We hoped to park all the buses in the D.C. Stadium parking lot, which is some miles east of the Capitol. The difficulty with that idea was that we would have had to rent shuttle buses to carry people between the lot and the demonstra-tion areas. This would have cost many thousands of dollars - cash in advance - which we didn't have. Also, shortly before Nov. 15, we were told that the lot wouldn't be available.

Another idea was to park the buses in a lot or field out by the Washing-ton Beltway, about ten miles from the center of the city. The difficulties and expense of shuttling people to the demonstration area made us abandon that new approach.

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In the end, we decided to go with the bus parking proposal of the Washington police, if it was at all reasonable, and then work out a way for helping people find their buses.

The crucial meeting with the Park Police, D.C. Police and Pentagon apresentatives took place in John Dean's office about Nov. 12. We agreed n four parking areas. On the east side of the Potomac River, these

included the driveways in East and West Potomac Parks. On the west side of the River they were the Columbia Island driveways and the Pentagon's North Parking area.

The authorities were reluctant about the Pentagon's parking area until we assured them that our people weren't planning to storm the Pentagon again.

The plan for the parking was this: Buses bringing people Thursday and Friday for the March Against Death would be parked at Haines Point, the south-ern tip of the promontory-island that is West Potomac Park. On Saturday, buses would be parked in the areas in this order, each area being filled be-fore the next one was used: East Potomac Park, West Potomac Park, Columbia Island, the Pentagon's north parking area.

There was some discussion of where the buses would unload their passen-gers Saturday. The police suggested that they unload where they parked, which was a good idea in one way, since it would allow people to know exactly where their buses were, and to become familiar with the route for reaching them.

We recognized this practical advantage to the suggestion but saw a poli-tical difficulty. People whose buses parked at East Potomac Park, Columbia Island or the Pentagon would have to walk a mile or several miles to get to the Washington Monument area, and another mile and a half to reach the mass march assembly area on the Mall west of the Capitol. We thought that many of them might stop at the Monument and not continue to the Mall and the mass march. I was suspicious that the police were trying to use the parking of the buses and unloading of the people as a way to decrease participation in the march down Pennsylvania Avenue.

We therefore insisted that people be unloaded near the Mall and the Washington Monument. The police agreed to unload everyone on Independence Avenue and no further away than East Potomac Park. It was the solution of that issue that guaranteed people would have trouble finding their buses. In order to unload them near the demonstration areas, we sacrificed giving them sure knowledge of where their buses were. This may have been a mistake.

From that point on, the police seemed to take the attitude that confusion was inevitable. Experience gave them little confidence in plans to get people back to their buses, and they remembered, with some degree of hurt, the hostile reception of October 21.

We didn't share the police's fatalism - then, at least - and proceeded to work out with them a plan for people finding their buses. Each bus would be met by a team of New Mobe marshalls. The marshalls would stick a number on the bus and inform its occupants what their bus number was and in what

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general area the bus would be parked. When a parking area was full, the police would notify the reception marshalls and they, in turn, would begin to announce the next parking area. After the buses were parked, teams of marshalls would make maps of their locations and the maps would be posted at information tables at the entrances to the parking areas.

I don't know to what extent our plan worked, but suspect that it hardly worked at all. In the first place, many of the numbered stickers for the buses got lost. Secondly, marshalls, who are numerous and tremendous when it comes to preventing trouble where the action is, seem to become scarce and lethargic when asked to make maps of bus locations two miles from where Peter Seeger and the caste of Hair are singing.

At any rate, when the rally was over, tens of thousands of people had little idea of where their transportation home was. We were able to make some helpful announcements over the sound system, and the Park and State Police were very cooperative I'm told, but by and large people had to specu-late and ask questions of their neighbors, and hunt. I must have 'been asked ten times where Haines Point was, and I felt foolish pointing into the dusk and answering "Two miles south". I find it amazing that by midnight, all but a few hundred of the buses had been found by their passengers and were on their way home.

I still don't know a good way for people to find their buses after a mass demonstration in Washington. Perhaps the police are right, that the simplest way is the only way. Have people get off the buses where they are parked. Suggestions are welcome. If readers of this report would like to organize getting people back to their buses in future demonstrations, they should start making plans and enlisting helpers now.

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Chapter 6

THE MARCH AGAINST DEATH

Sometime in the spring of 1969, perhaps it was about May, Stewart Meacham, Community Peace Education Secretary of the American Friends Service Committee, talked with people in the anti-war movement about hav-ing a mass project in which each person represented a Vietnam war casualty. At that time, we thought that the 40,000 people might be a contingent in a parade. Stewart was intrigued with idea partly because of 'his experience reading the names of the dead in a Federal Building sit-in, during the April 15 anti-war project April Action. The notion apparently perculated with him and at a Cleveland meeting of the New Mobilization in August, he proposed having a single file "Death March" in Washington in November, that would take about 36 hours. Later, the name of the project was changed to the "March Against Death, the time extended to 42 hours, and the March became one of the main parts of the Nov. 13-15 Washington action.

The New Mobe appointed Susan Miller, Executive Assistant of the Episco-pal Peace Fellowship, to head the team organizing the March, and later Trudy Young, wife of Co-Project Director Ron Young, joined to work closely with her. Alex Knopp, Lynn Bossone, Emily Bunting, Howard Evans and

Edgecomb were several of the others who did yoeman work on the 3am.

Everything about organizing the March Against Death started at one place with a few simple figures and calculations.

The place was in front of the White House, where the people called out the names that were on their placards. If three seconds were given for each person to call the name he carried, 1200 people would pass the White House in an hour. This meant it would take about 39 hours for 45,000 to pass. We planned 42 hours just to be safe.

To maintain the flow, we had to have 1200 people arriving at the Arling-ton Bridge step-off point every hour. If 1000 of them came by bus, this meant that there would be 20 buses arriving every hour, or one on the aver-age of every three minutes. If it took ten minutes to unload one bus, we would have to have room for at least four buses to be unloading at any given moment.

We had several options in regard to bringing the buses to the Arlington Bridge site once they had reached Washington. One was to have them go di-rectly to the site. The problem with that was that many people who were staying in Washington one or two nights would have luggage with them, and they would have to leave the luggage in the buses, to recover it later at an unfamiliar luggage repository or reception center. We saw a nightmare in 20-30,000 people being separated precipitously from their luggage.

Another approach was to have the buses go first to the reception centers, where the luggage would be unloaded, and people could go to the bathroom and get something to eat and drink. The buses would then take the people to the

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Arlington site

We also considered having the buses go directly to the places of mass accommodation (mainly churches and schools), where the luggage would be un-loaded and people could refresh themselves before starting the March.

We finally chose the first approach because *it seemed the best way to get the buses to the starting point on schedule; the best way, as Fred Halstead put it, to "maintain the flow". All the other possibilities con-jured the nightmare of hundreds of lost buses wandering about the labyrinth of Washington. Discussions of these alternatives, and many variations of them, took place for several weeks and were often heated. I didn't like the decision because it seemed to me that it completely sacrificed the com-fort of the people to the mechanics of the March. After the final debate, it struck me powerfully that the organizational problems of the March Against Death were in some ways similar to those of a Nazi extermination center like Treblinka. In retrospect, however, I think that probably the eisest choice was made. People didn't seem put out about getting off the buses after sometimes very long rides, to face a two-and-a-half hour march in the cold. And the luggage problem seemed to have worked out without a great deal of confusion.

What happened to 20-40,000 people and their luggage after they had ar-rived and the people had marched the March, was a problem in the province of Mass Accommodations. We in Logistics looked at Mass Accommodations with awe. Our problems were child's play compared with theirs.

In considering the equipment we needed at the step-off site, we began with the 1200 people who would be arriving there every hour. We needed shelter for at least 1000 people therefore, and a separate area where they could be given placards and candles. There would have to be at least two lines for handing out the placards and candles. We also needed room for an office, communications and supplies. All this required at least four large tents. In addition, the site had to have space for medical aid ve-hicles and equipment trucks.

Fred and I were consulted early in October about the starting site and visited the area near Arlington Memorial Drive and the east gates of the Cemetary several times to find the best place. Our first choice was near the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, but we realized it was unlikely that the government would give us that. The next best place seemed to be a field of about ten acres just beyond a hedge on the south side of Memorial Drive. Part of the field was being bulldozed into a parking lot when we first looked at it, but the rest. was grassy and shaded by spreading oaks. Fred was delighted by the fat squirrels that played about and dismayed by poi-son ivy that grew thickly around one tree. In our negotiations, John Dean objected to this area because it would interfere with funerals at the Cemetary. He offered two other places, one just beside the Potomac River at the west end of Arlington Memorial Bridge, the other about 1500 feet west, near Boundary Channel Road. Finally, he recommended the Bridge site because highway traffic control there was easier. Ken Tapman, Police Chief Inspector Bye and I drove in a squad car to look over the site. It had

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parking for buses but there didn't seem to be any place to put the tents. It then occurred to someone that the tents might be pitched directly on a roadway. This would give us not only a level place but a durable floor for the tents. All saw the advantages of this approach.

The 45,000 people who would march were coming from all over the country. Recruiting and organizing their arrival was a formidable task. As far as possible, we wanted each state to provide the people who would carry the names of those killed from that state. State contingents would walk in roughly alphabetical order. This meant scheduling buses from different parts of the country to arrive at particular times. For each area it meant a specific period of two to four hours, sometime within the 42 hours. We recognized that it would be unlikely that states like California, which had many hundreds of casualties and were remote, would be able to fill their contingents. We planned to recruit people to fill out these contingents from Washington, Baltimore, Philadelphia and New York.

In the last week, organization of the March Against Death was greatly aided by people from the Moratorium, who pitched in and took hold of every detail, that seemed neglected, no matter how grubby. Jane Trichter should be specially cited for her industry.

Once a plan for recruiting and scheduling the March had been agreed on, a site had been selected, and equipment discussed and chosen, Logistics largely retired from the picture and watched with interest. It was amazing to see the little tent city on the west bank of the Potomac materialize in the way planned, and even more amazing to find how quickly and smoothly the seemingly endless number of marshalls worked with the March organizing team to put the project in motion and sustain it day and night, in fair weather and foul, for more than 40 hours. Some confusion at the beginning was pre-dictable, but soon was worked out. I was particularly impressed by the in-genuity of those who set up the Arlington site. Since tent pegs couldn't be driven into the roads on which the tents were pitched, we had planned to attach the tents' guy lines to cars parked across the road. The cars didn't show up, and someone had the idea of using instead 55 gallon drums filled with sand. These worked very well.

In every respect, the March Against Death was an example of the effect-iveness of careful thinking by groups of people, and of teamwork. All who played a part in it should be at least a little proud.

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Chapter 7

COLLECTING THE MONEY

The responsibility for collecting the money at the Nov. 13-15 demonstra-tions was in the hands of two staff members, Beverly Sterner, Director, and Randy Bregman. At the end, they received faithful support from Linda Cusamono and many tireless volunteers. They worked with a Finance Committee, who's members helped in a number of practical ways. The impor-tance of the finance team's work was overlooked in the days before Nov. 13-15, -and they had no office of their own or regular secretarial assistance. Despite these obstacles, they achieved a success that paid for the demon-stration, all the debts of the old Mobilization, and a substantial part of the debts of the West Coast Mobilization.

Experience has shown that the key to financing mass demonstrations is raising money at the great rallies. Before Nov. 15, the $35,000 collected during the Oct. 21 Lincoln Memorial-Pentagon demonstrations was the largest amount collected at a Mobilization event. This collection was organized on the spur of the moment. Several ladies, armed with 40 watt public ad-dress systems, stationed themselves at the east end of the Arlington Memor-ial Bridge and made continuous financial appeals as the crowd marched past. Other ladies ducked in and out of the march, wielding collection containers.

In studying the finances of the Nov. 13-15 mobilization, it soon became clear that we would have to collect several times $35,000 if we were to pay our expenses and avoid a financial disaster. We anticipated a debt of $100,000 going into Nov. 13-15.

While the amount we needed to collect was large, the opportunities for collecting it were unprecedented. A simple appeal and collection at the rally promised the largest return. In addition, buttons and posters could be sold in huge numbers. Simple calculations showed that if the crowd was 250,000 we could collect more than $100,000, and if it turned out to be 500,000 we would not be unrealistic in hoping for a quarter of a million dollars! A collection of this magnitude was interesting for several rea-sons. Not only would it pay all the debts of the demonstration but it could easily cover as well all the old Mobilization's $18,000 debt, and the debts of many other anti-war groups besides. In addition, there could be a large amount left over to initiate new projects. Clearly, it was worth a great deal of planning and work to make the collection a success.

We saw that the crux of the matter lay in the physical action, the lo-gistics, of collecting the money after the appeal. If, when the financial appeal was made, we could reach all of the 500,000 people with a container of some kind, the collection would be a success. If we couldn't reach them, we would fail. Furthermore - and this we realized later - the question of who made the financial appeal wasn't nearly as important as the organizing of the collection. With a bad collection system, the most eloquent appeals would be snuffed out. With a good collection system, the mere mention of a need for money could realize a rich harvest.

In our initial analysis, we assumed that the time we would have to make the collection would be short, 10-20 minutes after the financial appeal.

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To reach 500,000 in that short time required many containers and many collect ors. Furthermore, in a densely packed crowd, collectors wouldn't be able to move about quickly. We estimated that we needed at least one collector for every 100 people, and this gave us the startling figure of 5000 for the number of collectors we needed. Believing that the ratio of one to 100 was perhaps too large, we set our goal at having 6000 collectors.

Where were all these people to come from? Recruiting them wasn't easy. We believed that we had to have reliable people, for collectors in demonstra-tions have been known to make off with their receipts themselves. Eventually we planned to recruit in several places, at training meetings for marshalls before Nov. 13-15, at the end of the March Against Death (where we would have 42,000 people to choose from) and at the reception centers.

The collectors had to have containers and we gave a good deal of thought to the size and shape of the container. Would boxes be the best? Aprons? Shopping bags? We decided eventually, on paper cans about eight inches tall and three-and-a-half inches in diameter. These were small enough to be com-fortable to hold in one hand, yet large enough to accommodate a good number of bills and coins.

The size and shape of the hole in the top of the can, through which the money would be stuffed, received a great deal of attention and passionate discussion. We realized that if the hole was the wrong shape or size, we might lose tens of thousands of dollars because people wouldn't be able to stuff in the money quickly.

We dismissed the conventional slot about two inches long and a quarter of an inch wide as offering too much resistance to the money. The Finance Committee debated a large, rectangular slot vs. the imaginative innovation of a round hole. Despite my conservative inclination to the large slot, the hole won. After more discussion of the size of the hole, and experiment stuffing dollar bills into holes of different sizes, we settled on a hole 1 1/2 inches in diameter.

We then examined the problem of making the hole. We needed 1 1/2 inch holes in the stiff cardboard covers of 6000 cans. This was no small order. No firm in Washington could cut the holes. Finally, the job was tackled in the machine shop of a factory of which Co-Project Director Abe Bloom is part owner. A special punch and die were made and the holes were neatly punched out. An alternate approach which we didn't use was to drill out the holes with a circular cutter. A hole cutter manufactured by Black and Decke would have worked nicely.

In addition to having holes punched in their covers, the cans all needed New Mobe stickers and to have their covers glued or taped on. Glue wouldn't hold on the glazed cardboard surface and wide tape was used instead. Grey tape was used but white adhesive tape would have been more attractive.

Preparing the cans took several days' work by a team of more than five people. Finally, we had the collection hardware, 60 cartons of prepared cans.

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Our final fundraising plan had at least four parts:

1. Posters and buttons were to be sold at the Arlington Bridge site of the March Against Death (only buttons there), at the reception cen-ters and on the Mall and Washington Monument grounds.

2. Teams of ladies with bullhorns would make continuous appeals at places along the mass march route Saturday morning.

3. Other teams with bullhorns and collection boxes would circulate among the people at the mass march assembly point on the Mall and at the Washington Monument grounds.

4. The 6000 collectors would be evenly dispersed in the giant rally.

One of the greatest problems was what to do with the money collected in the paper cans. The Finance Committee devoted several meetings to this subject alone, and in the end developed a plan that satisfied no one but lea us feeling it was the best we could develops The last meeting ended at 2:30 A.M. Saturday morning. I left the hotel room to implement it and found myself at once in an elevator with Robert Lowell and Norman Mailer. They were going up, I down, but it seemed to me a good omen that this chance meeting had occurred.

In the interests of security,I will not describe our plan for disposing of the collected money, or the details of how it worked out. In general, it was a wild affair combining features of the Keystone Cops and, as Co-Chairman Sidney Peck relates, the Lavendar Hill Mobe. Dark streets, padlocks with lost keys, vehicles that wouldn't start or stalled in downtown Washing-ton and had to be abandoned, riot police with gas masks, tear gas, and ten boxes were involved. In the end, the money was safely stored away in a vault.

A number of causes, such as too little time to plan, limited staff and office facilities, and too few collectors, caused about three quarters of our collection plan to collapse. We did sell buttons and posters and made some outright collections. Only 1800 of the 6,000 cans were used and these by probably no more than 1000 collectors. We missed the central mass of the rally almost entirely, working only the rally's edges. In spite of these breakdowns, and because of the spirit and tireless work of the staff, the Finance Committee and volunteers, about 3100,000 was collected. Count-ing the money - ten boxes filled with bills and about 1000 pounds of coins -was a three day job employing up to ten people. I now understand what "filthy lucre" means. Paper money is dirty and in large amounts it stinks.

Our experience with collecting money Nov. 13-15 convinced me that:

1. Mass demonstrations can not only pay for themselves but finance future programs and relieve the debts of other peace groups.

2. They key to successful collections is having enough collectors and the right kind of containers.

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3. Collectors are difficult to recruit. For every ten people willing to be marshalls there is only one who will wield a paper can to collect money.

4. The best collectors are probably high school students. They should be recruited systematically, well in advance of the demonstration. In recruiting, one should point out that every collector should be able to collect about $200. That is, for a few hours' work he can make a $200 contribution to the movement.

5. Safely disposing of collected money should be worked out in detail as far in advance of the demonstration as possible.

6. At rallies, frequent appeals are probably more important than single, eloquent appeals by well known people.

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Chapter 8

THE TOILETS

Toilets for half a million people. How do you provide them? That seems to be the first question people think about when the topic of ligistics for a mass demonstration is raised. It was, at any rate, the first question asked by Ken Tapman in our first meeting with the government negotiators in the Justice Department. "Do you 'expect to provide the toilets or do you want us to?" was the way he phrased it. We said we hoped the government would and Mr. Tapman made a note of our reply.

That exchange left uncertain who would provide the toilets up until the very last days. We wanted the government to provide them. They seemed to be waiting for us to take hold of the matter.

From the New Mobe's point of view, the toilets were an almost insur-mountable logistical problem. Strict health regulations state that portable public toilets must be constructed in a certain way. A number of companies provide such toilets under names like "Jiffy Johns" or "Johnny-on-the-Spot". Some are single units, others are multiple units with five toilets for men on one side, five for women on another and a urinal at one end. All have a tank below filled with a septic liquid. The companies that rent portable toilets service them, too, bringing them in trucks, putting them in place and then periodically draining the tanks and cleaning the seats and urinals.

Portable toilets are expensive. A typical daily rental including in-stallation, servicing and removal is $28 per seat. Health regulations re-quire at least one seat for every 500 people, which meant that we needed 1000 seats. $28,000 for toilets alone! That was more than half the initial projected budget of the New Mobe. We didn't have the money. On Nov. 12, our cash box had four dollars in it and we were almost a hundred thousand dollars in debt.

In addition, there weren't 1000 units, or 200 for that matter, for rent in the Washington area. If we wanted 1000 units we would have to import them, eventually, to fly them in, from Baltimore and NYC - an additional heavy expense.

On the other hand, we knew that the government did have portable toi-lets. The Army has mobile toilet vans. It seemed to us that the Army could easily roll in and set up a number of its vans.

I'm afraid we didn't express our point of view tactfully during the ne-gotiations. One of us said that he thought a good role for the Army during the demonstrations weould be to provide the toilets. John Dean said at first that he doubted that they would. Eventually, at a meeting with public health officials that took place Nov.12, an official who was somewhat hostile to the New Mobe,said he was damn sure the Army wouldn't give us toilets.

When the Moratorium joined the New Mobe and began to work with us on the demonstrations, they brought with them Arlene Popkin, a self-denying and persistent young lady who made it her reponsibility to keep after the

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toilets, I'm afraid that she felt that her efforts were frustrated.

As Nov. 15 drew closer and closer, we raised the question of toilets more and more often, pointing out that is seemed to us the government's responsibility to provide citizens with elementary sanitary facilities. Mr. Dean replied at last that while the Army did have toilet vans, it need-ed all of these at the D.C. Armory for the riot control troops they had brought in. He further reported that in a government committee meeting, an Army representative had suggested that trenches be dug for our toilets.

In our meeting with federal and D.C. Health Department officials about Nov. 11, toilets were discussed at length. One official said that they didn't want the mess at the Pentagon Mall the night of October 21, 1967 repeated at the Washington Monument. At least one official said he thought the government could do something about the toilets. I said I thought the New Mobe could provide toilets for the Arlington Memorial Bridge March Against Death site.

However, because of the New Mobe's lack of money, and some confusion concerning responsibility, there were no toilets Thursday night at the Arlington Bridge site. Furthermore, we had no sure prospects for toilets at the mass rally area Saturday. The only solution to the toilet problem that I could see lay through the government. If they could spend 30 bil-lion a year to fight a war in Vietnam, they could spend 30 thousand for toilets for their citizens in Washington. It was a matter of proper allo-cation of national priorities. I explained to Ken Tapman that it seemed to me that quite a few people would be curious about why there had been no toilets Nov. 15, and that the Administration would be in political trouble if it came out that they had had the power to provide toilets and had failed to do so.

Thursday night at the Arlington Bridge March site a radio station in-terviewer asked me why there weren't toilets and asked how the people were making out without them. I explained our difficulties and pointed out that at night there didn't seem to be a problem. It was dark. The Potomac was nearby. Certainly, a little more pollution wouldn't hurt the Potomac. Very likely,the interview was broadcast. At any rate, by early monring, the D.C. Health Department had delivered a unit of ten toilets. By Friday night, they had installed perhaps 100 toilets in the mass march assembly area and the Washington Monument rally area.

I didn't know, however, that D.C. Health would act, and finally Fri-day morning hit on a desperation idea. It seemed to me that some toilet facilities were better than none and that toilets could be improvised. The Army's ditch had given me an idea.

I spent several hours Friday morning driving around the suburbs of Washington buying garbage cans, plastic buckets, chlorinated lime and about a hundred yards of opaque black plastic. The plastic was for the walls of toilet stalls or rooms. I was sure that at least at the March Against Death site toilets could be improvised.

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If the police prevented us from installing and using the toilets, planned to start assemblying them with full TV coverage. That way, the public would at least know we had tried to provide toilets. Fortunately, D.C. Health took action and the bucket toilets were never set up.

In future mass demonstrations, I plan to have a $1000 budget item for buckets and the other makings for crude toilets. With a modest investment, it would be possible to have usable, sanitary facilities. Buckets are better than nothing.

I must add to this story, however, that the responsibility for pro-viding toilets is hard to pin down. On our side and on the government's side there seemed to be a subconscious lack of will to make sure that toi-lets would be there. Money wasn't available for them, but it seemed to be for other things. People would become deeply concerned about the toilets and then lose interest. Everybody seemed to be waiting for someone else to take responsibility.

The hero of this story about the toilets is the D.C. Health Depart-ment. The federal government and the New Mobe are co-villians. One more argument, perhaps, for home rule in the District. The hundreds of thou-sands of demonstrators, who were the victims, deserve praise and credit. They endured the lack of toilets and too few toilets with hardly a com-plaint.

J

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Chapter 9

COMMUNICATIONS

It is axiomatic in the anti-war movement that walkie-talkies are never reliable in mass demonstrations. You spend hundreds of dollars for ela-borate walkie-talkie communications systems and then they aren't powerful enough, break, are jammed, or are just simply lost or stolen. One of the surprises of Nov. 13-15 was that a communications system with dozens of stations was set up, and it worked.

Since the first part of the project was the March Against Death, we stu-died first its communications needs. The March was about four miles long, its west and starting end across the Potomac River, its middle near the White House, its conclusion near the Capitol. At least, we wanted to be able to communicate quickly between these main points on the March route.

Our first plan was to set up telephone communication. This would be free from jamming or other outside disturbance. We would have at least three telephones, one at the west end of the Arlington Memorial Bridge, one near the White House, one near the Capitol. The phones would be on a closed circuit that could be broken into at the White House phone by the main of-fice at 1029 Vermont Avenue. Each phone would have a marshall assigned to it and with him there would be another marshall with a walkie-talkie. O-ther marshalls with walkie-talkies would range up and down the segments of the route between the phones. Finally, we hoped to have marshalls driving the route with cars equipped with walkie-talkies. The walkie-talkies and the phones would enable us to monitor the entire route, day and night. On the basis of this plan, we ordered six three watt and two five watt walkie-talkies.

Walkie-talkies generally operate on the citizens band. They are called "CB units". A CB unit of less than 1/10 watt (100 milliwatts) transmitting power doesn't need a license. Any unit more powerful does. Experience in past demonstrations had taught us that 100 milliwatt units just aren't powerful enough. We planned to apply for licenses for our three and five watt units and we hoped that the FCC would grant us emergency permits for the demonstrations. They had done so for previous events.

In the last week, we found that the telephone company wouldn't provide equipment where we needed it. We therefore had to rely entirely on our walkie-talkies.

When the Moratorium joined the project, they brought with them experts in communications. John Mcllvain and John D'Amecourt had provided communi-cations networks for the McCarthy Campaign activities. Mcllvain had set up a network in Chicago during the Democratic Convention that used a base station on an upper floor of the Hilton Hotel. He seemed confident that a useful network could be devised for Nov. 13-15. I was astonished by his elaborate plans. Among other-things, he wanted a base station in the top of the Washington Monument. We didn't get that, but eventually most of John's other plans were realized.

D'Amecourt lived in Washington and had skills in electronics. .In

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addition, we had help from the beginning from Peter Orris, New Haven, and Eric Small, who later switched to the Parade Committee's public address system.

About Monday, Nov. 10, the Moratorium produced four five watt base stations and ten three watt walkie-talkies. That gave us 18 walkie-talkies. On Wednesday, we learned that the FCC had granted a special per-mit.

It was apparent that we needed more help. What we lacked was an elec-tronics engineer. I telephoned John Green, a friend in Boulder, Colorado who runs a business designing and manufacturing specialized electronic e-quipment. On the spur of the moment, John agreed to come. He arrived Tuesday afternoon, bringing with him tools, including an occilloscope. We then had John McIlvain, John D'Amecourt, Peter Orris and John Green. They were the heart of our Communications team.

They established their headquarters in the belfry of the Marshalls Center, the Ebenezer Methodist Church. The bare little room was packed with base sets, walkie-talkies, power megaphones, bullhorns, batteries and tools. John Green climbed a rickety ladder to install an antenna. A search went out for more crystals to make all the sets compatible on three channel.

What the communications team wanted was base sets and walkie-talkies all over Washington. What I wanted was a way to talk with the Marshalls Center from the west end of the Arlington Memorial Bridge. The team realized both my simple-minded, practical need and their elaborate ideal.

Thursday evening there was a base set in a tent at the Arlington site. With it, I could talk clearly with the Marshalls Center. It was better than a telephone. By Friday, there was a central base in a room on the tenth floor of the abandoned Willard Hotel at 15th and Pennsylvania. An antenna was installed on the roof.

Sometimes, the bases used call letters, other times they used simple code names like "Willard Base" or "Marshalls Center". The Arlington site was "Mobile Base One". Communication could be carried on on any of three channels. Messages were relayed back and forth.

Most of the walkie-talkies were in use along the March route. Two walkie-talkies were down at the 1029 Vermont headquarters, where they were being used to provide quick communication between the lobby and the ninth floor. We believed we needed such a warning system after several American Nazis had entered the building and caused a tense confrontation.

This communications network worked beautifully all Thursday night, Friday and Friday night. The sets were powerful enough. The great problem was from jamming and interference from hostile people. Right wingers, most in Virginia, systematically interrupted our conversations with hostile re-marks, "All right you communist pinkoes, we'll be with you all night. Don't do no good to go to another channel. We've got a channel scanner and'll pick you up right off." This jamming was, of course, illegal.

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Teams of communications and electronics experts operated the base sta-tions. In the Willard Hotel room were two base stations and four to six people. Two people operated the stations, one a telephone to the 1029 Vermont Avenue New Mobe headquarters. Another brought food, did other er-rands and rested. Off shift people slept. The repair center and labora-tory was in the Marshalls Center belfry. There, John Green, an amateur radio operator from Haverford, and other experts held forth. I received the impression that several of these people didn't sleep from Thursday night on.

An attempt to install yet a fourth base station at the church that was the medical center was rebuffed. I guess the doctors didn't want so much technology around them.

Saturday, the government provided another communications network: ten five watt walkie-talkies on a special channel and a base at the White House called "Tranquility Base." This gift was at once an asset and a problem. Using it obviously gave the government a direct "tap" into our communications.

The "Tranquility Base" network combined with ours gave us four base stations and 38 walkie-talkies during Saturday.

By Sunday morning, the miraculous communications system had vanished. I visited the Marshalls Center belfry and found it as bare and deserted as when we'd first climbed the tower stairs. All the equipment had been collected and stored.

Usually, the majority of the electronic equipment disappears during a mass demonstration. This time, we recovered eight of our ten walkie-talk-ies. I think the Moratorium got back most of their equipment, too.

This communications system illustrated certain general principles about organizing the logistics for mass demonstrations. What is needed before the demonstration are: 1. A realistic plan, 2. A small team of ex-perts, 3. The hardware, 4. Emergency cash. When the demonstration occurs, hundreds of skilled volunteers are available to do almost anything.

John Green believes that at least two devices are needed to improve communications networks in future projects. They are a directional an-tenna for base units, to reduce the effects of hostile interference, and a mass battery charger. Three and five watt walkie-talkies exhaust batter-ies quickly. He is working on the development of both devices.

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Chapter 10

MEDICAL AID

The Washington chapter of the Medical Committee on Human Rights had offered to be responsible for providing first aid teams, an emergency me-dical center and other medical assistance during the Nov. 13-15 demonstra-tions. Early in October, Fred and I met with about a dozen Washington area doctors and medical students to discuss details.

Somewhat to my surprise, the doctor heading the Committee seemed to want to use the meeting to promote a political viewpoint. Whenever he spoke of the police he called them "pigs". When Fred questioned the wisdom of this, he replied that that was the mood and trend of the movement and that it had been the accepted style during the Counter-Inaugural demonstrations in January. It was his view that those providing medical aid during the de-monstrations should be demonstrators too, and that they should have a par-ticular style and approach.

Neither Fred nor I felt easy with that style. We thought it ineffective and believed it conflicted with the New Mobe policy of having peaceful and orderly demonstrations. However, before a crisis developed between the New Mobe and the Washington Medical Committee, the Committee itself split over the issue.

It seemed that the man who chaired the meeting Fred and I attended had also conducted a street demonstration medical aid training course. The course hadn't been organized under the sponsorship of the Washington Medi-cal Committee, but several members of the Committee had attended it. The Chairman had used the course as a political education session, speaking at length on American imperialism, and the class nature of society, and on many occasions calling the police "pigs". This offended several attenders and they protested. They objected to the course being used for political indoctrination and introducing the angry political style into the Medical Committee's plans to help the New Mobilization.

The matter was talked out in the Medical Committee and eventually the original chairman resigned. The Committee reorganized itself on the basis of not entering the demonstrations with an angry style. Fred and I then felt comfortable working with it.

Although the conflict was resolved to our satisfaction, I think the way the doctors tended to discuss the central issue was not always the most helpful. On both sides, the issue was put in this way: Should or should not the Washington Medical Committee become involved in a politically par-tisan way with a demonstration for which it was providing aid? The doctor who called the police "pigs" argued that those providing aid should become involved, in fact, they were involved simply by being there to help the demonstrators. He recommended that there be a doctors' contingent in the mass march, and that if trouble broke out, and there were injuries, that the doctors put down their banners and leaflets and minister to the wounded.

The others argued that those who were organized to give assistance shouldn't be part of the demonstrations. They should be neutral. Only

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by being so could they work with the authorities and have full use of hos-pital facilities.

It did not seem to me that the issue was whether or not the Medical Committee should be politically involved or neutral. I agreed with the first position that the Committee was politically involved simply by be-ing there to help - they were sympathetic with the New Mobe. Further, it seemed to me that this political involvement might go so far as carrying banners in a parade or distributing leaflets. The key question was what was the character and tone of the political involvement. If the Committee's attitude toward the authorities was bitter and provocative, they might cause more wounds than they could bind up. Almost certainly, they would influence the authorities to deny them the use of hospital facilities. On the other hand, if they were friendly to the police and others, while at the same time expressing firm opposition to the war policies of the gov-ernment, they probably wouldn't create angry confrontations and they would be able to use hospital facilities.

To me, it was entirely a question of the kind of political involvement.

It should be added that all parties on both sides of the controversy within the Washington Committee were dedicated and capable people.

The reorganized Committee got to work with a will and developed a comprehensive plan for providing a medical center and first aid teams dur-ing the demonstrations. About November 10th, several of the Committee's representatives, together with New Mobe staff members, met with District of Columbia and federal medical personnel to discuss health and medical problems associated with the demonstrations. This meeting was friendly, and so constructive that eventually the D.C. Health Department offered un-precedented assistance. They provided four completely equipped and staffed public health semi-trailer vans and several ambulances. One of the vans was parked at the Arlington Bridge step-off site from Thursday morning un-til Saturday afternoon. The other three were parked on and near the Mall and the Washington Monument areas. This cooperation of the D.C. Health Department is an example of the sympathy that many lower echelon government officials seemed to have with the anti-war movement.

Once the Medical Committee had established its liaison with the D.C. Health Department, they took off on their own and set up their work large-ly independently of the New Mobe's Logistics Department. I saw the Chair-man of the Committee in the office from time to time, and on Nov. 15 a number of their first aid teams in the field, but that was about the ex-tent of my contact with them. No one has complained of inadequate medical aid and I assume that all the Committee's plans worked out. The Washington Committee seems to have done a very competent job.

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Chapter 11

HOW MANY WERE THERE?

Washington's Chief of Police and most of the mass circulation newspa-pers and magazines reported that about a quarter of a million people came to Washington November 15 to protest the war. All conceded that it was the largest demonstration in the Capital's history. A number of observers re-ported figures much higher. New Mobe officers placed the turnout at about 600,000.

The largest number were probably present at about 3:30 P.M. At that time, the entire Washington Monument grounds east of the Monument were filled, 15th Street and half of Pennsylvania Avenue were packed as far east as the Mall assembly area, there was a torrent of people flowing from the assembly area west along the Mall toward the Monument, and there were overflow streams of people on downtown Washington sidewalks and streets. Demonstrators who had been to the Woodstock Rock Festival said that Washington was two Woodstocks, in other words, about 800,000 people.

In talking with a number of experienced mass demonstration organizers who were there, we usually-agreed that the turnout was between 500,000 and 700,000.

Comparatively, this made November 15 at least twice as large as the civil rights march of 1963 and four or five times bigger than the Lincoln Memorial-Pentagon demonstration of October 21, 1967.

A number of circumstances combined to make the demonstration so big:

- It combined the two largest groups in the country that tend to ex-press themselves through mass demonstrations, the Vietnam war pro-test movement and the devotees of rock and folk music. Each of these groups had previously shown their ability to mobilize more than a quarter of a million people for an event.

- Many of the most experienced organizers of mass demonstrations in the country worked closely together to recruit and mobilize.

- All the major peace and anti-war organizations gave full support.

- The project's style and tone were expressly peaceful and orderly.

- Plenty of time, almost three months, was given to building the demonstration.

- A government permit had been obtained under circumstances which gave people a sense of victory and elation, and prospects for a peaceful protest without violent confrontations.

- The weather was good.

I was astonished how quickly the multitudes gathered. At 6:00 A.M., I arrived at the Mall west of the Capitol to look over the situation. The

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sky was overcast, the temperature about freezing. A chill, hard, unrelenting wind drove over the Mall from the northwest. Except for a couple mummified in sleeping bags at the foot of a tree, no demonstrators were in sight. "This day," I said to myself, "will be a bomb." By about 8:30, people began to arrive in small groups. The wind abated. The sun broke out from behind purple clouds. By 9:30, people were flowing in from all sides, and I thought about 20,000 were there. By noon, Pennsylvania Avenue was filled and the Monument area was two thirds full. Waves of marchers, many carrying banners that billowed and waved, were surging up from buses parked near the Potomac. "A quarter of a million," I thought. From then on, people poured in from every point of the compass. The entire grassy Mall and Monument area seemed overrun. All these people came in about six hours.

How many were there? The best and perhaps the only way to get an ac-curate count would be from aerial photographs. News photographers probably took pictures from helicopters and planes. The Pentagon certainly did. So far, to my knowledge, no such photographs have been published. Why? Probably for the same reasons that there was no live or objective television coverage of the mass rally. Several reasons seem plausible: Because Vice President Agnew's attacks had succeeded in making the media cautious about presenting programs that were critical of the Administration. Also, the government, realizing that the truth about the size of the rally would have been a hard blow to President Nixon's myth of the "silent majority" in sup-port of his policies, may have exerted behind the scenes pressure to prevent objective coverage. Possibly, liberals who control the mass media did not want to show the country the appeal and influence of the New Mobilization, whose politics verges on radicalism. My guess is that influential publica-tions like the New York Times, Newsweek, Look and Life could publish aerial photographs if they wanted to. They owe it to the public to do so.

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Chapter 12

THE JUSTICE DEPARTMENT DEMONSTRATION

The Justice Department demonstration took place after the mass rally at the Washington Monument. had officially ended. In it, many thousands of demonstrators confronted police and eventually were dispersed by repeated gas attacks. This demonstration has been cited as an example of violence on the part of the demonstrators, and the inability of the New Mobe to control its people.

I am not concerned here with who threw the first rock or tear gas can-ister. It seems to me more important to understand how the Justice Depart-ment demonstration came to be organized and the relationship it had to the mass march and the mass rally, the two major events of Saturday sponsored by the New Mobe.

The Justice Department demonstration was -organized to protest the trial of the Chicago 8, those under indictment for allegedly trying to start a riot at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago the summer of 1968. Because the old National Mobilization sponsored the 1968 Chicago demonstra-tions, all of the Chicago 8 were closely associated with the coalition anti-war movement and the New Mobe. David Dellinger, one of the Chicago 8 (now 7, after the imprisonment of Bobby Seale), is a Co-Chairman of the New Mobilization.

It was therefore natural that the New Mobe felt that it should do some-thing to support the Chicago 8. When the fall mobilization was first plan-ned, it had two parts, an October Chicago phase under the primary leadership of SDS, and the November Washington Action, in which pacifist groups were prominent. SDS eventually demanded total control of the Chicago action and planned angry street demonstrations under the slogan "Days of Rage". This plan conflicted with the New Mobe's policy of having peaceful and or-derly demonstrations and hence the New Mobe withdrew its sponsorship of the Chicago phase. In doing this, it gave up as well a support demonstration for the Chicago 8, for that had been part of the program for the Chicago activities.

The problem, then, was planning a new support demonstration in Washing-ton in November. There were two main difficulties to doing this. One was that the time available, Nov. 13-15, was entirely taken up with the March Against Death and the mass march and rally. There didn't seem to be any significant time for fitting in a large support demonstration for the Chi-cago 8.

The second difficulty was that no one could see how a support demonstra-tion could be organized which would be peaceful and orderly in tone and character. Any conceivable demonstration would have to have members of the Chicago 8 as speakers, and several of these could be predicted to insult the police as pigs and call for angry confrontations. The New Mobe talked a great deal about a support demonstration but no one could suggest one that seemed compatible with the other parts of the Washington program. Therefore, nothing was done.

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What then happened was predictable. Members of the Chicago 8 announced their own plan to organize a support demonstration in Washington. They proposed a demonstration at the Justice Department after the mass rally Sa-turday. To publicize their intentions, Jerry Rubin posed with boxing gloves. at a press conference in front of the Justice Department.

*The New Mobe then had to decide what its policy would be toward the Justice Department demonstration.

One proposal was that the New Mobe sponsor the demonstration, assume responsibility for setting up its speakers' program and marshalling. This approach was turned down because the majority could not see how under even the most favorable circumstances they could keep the situation under control.

Another proposal was that the New Mobe provide marshalls. In regard to that, it was decided obliquely that the organizers of the Justice De-partment demonstration should not be discouraged from trying to recruit New Mobs marshalls.

The final decision was that the New Mobe wouldn't sponsor the demonstra-tion and that a Co-Chairman would make this clear at the rally if some speak-er urged people to go to the Justice Department. On the other hand, no at-tempt would be made to censure speakers who planned to urge people to go to the demonstration, and recruitment of marshalls would be allowed.

My own position was based on a scenario that seemed inescapable. The Justice Department demonstration had been set up with the symbolism and tone of angry combativeness. At the Monument rally, there would be references to the cruel treatment of Bobby Seale that would anger many. At least one major speaker would urge people to go to the Justice Department. At 5:00 P.M., at dusk, and after a cold, tiring day , tens of thousands of angry people would flow toward Pennsylvania Avenue and the Department. The au-thorities had made clear that they feared an attack on the White House and government buildings in that area. They would meet the crowd with a line of heavily armed police backed up with troops. Justice Department rally speakers would taunt the police as "pigs" and perhaps invite an attack on them. Probably there would be government provocateurs in the crowd who would see violence and a riot to be in the government's interest; a means to discredit the New Mobe and the demonstrators. They might curse and throw things at the police. At some point, the police, many of whom would be rightists and out of sympathy with the demonstrators - possibly also in league with the provocateurs - -would attack the demonstrators. They would use at least gas and perhaps clubs as well. In the darkness and the dense crowds there would be a good deal of brutality. The disorganized demon-strators might panic and run, or there could be a riot.

Confrontations between masses of demonstrators and the authorities can be among the most powerful means for educating people politically and re-ducing the government's will to be brutal and destructive. They can also encourage a movement in unrealistic and counter-productive strategies, and brutalize and militarize the government. What happens depends on the at-titude of the demonstrators, on their style.

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If demonstrators vilify the police and soldiers, throw things at them, and then, if attacked, respond with more anger and invective, they harden the government's attitude and strengthen militaristic and totalitarian ten-dencies. They also alienate the middle class and expose themselves to per-secution and repression. These consequences were demonstrated by the angry rallies and street melees during the 1968 Democratic Convention in Chicago, and the January, 1969 Counter-Inaugural protests in Washington.

On the other hand, the consequences of a confrontation are quite dif-ferent if demonstrators keep their cool, do not retaliate, and persist in their protests aginst bad government policies, even if gassed and beaten. Such confrontations expose the government as harsh and ridiculous, stimulate the sympathy and support of the middle class toward the demonstrators, weak-en tendencies in the government toward hardness and militarism, and make it very difficult for vindictive officials to prosecute and repress the demon-strators.

I was opposed to the Justice Department demonstration and urged the New Mobe to discourage it, because as it was set up it tended to be a con-frontation that would be destructive to the movement and a boon to the mil-itaristic, reactionary elements in the government. As matters turned out, it is the one event during Nov. 13-15 that seems to have tempted Attorney General Mitchell to indict leaders of the New Mobe for conspiring to incite a riot. If he does not press for an indictment, it is my guess that he be-lieves his case critically weakened by the context provided by the preced-ing events of Nov. 13-15 sponsored by the New Mobe. All of these events were expressly peaceful in character, and this policy was unequivocably backed up by careful organization and a massive marshalling program. An objective study of the demonstrations would reveal that government actions, not those of the New Mobe, increased the chances for violence.

On the other hand, if, with the knowledge I now have, I was asked what the New Mobe's attitude should have been toward the Justice Department de-monstration, I might reply that it should have been full sponsorship. This is because the marshalls Nov. 15 insured to such a high degree the New Mobe's policy of peaceful and orderly demonstrations that in large numbers they might have been able to keep the demonstrators more cool-headed at the Justice Department. The demonstration might have taken place with-out anyone being gassed, or, if the police had attacked, their action would have been clearly a vicious assault on an orderly and peaceful gathering of citizens. Such a policy would have been very risky, for there were so many forces working on both sides for an angry and violent confrontation that even in-depth marshalling and a balanced speakers' platform might not have forestalled a bitter clash.

An argument made in categorical support of the Justice Department demon-stration is that some outlet for people's frustration and anger must be pro-vided by a movement. If the movement can't provide a completely peaceful outlet, then it should go along with what exists, even if that is far from ideal. This isn't a completely sound strategy. Certainly, a movement should try to provide peaceful outlets for outrage. But, if it has organized three days of vigorous and massive demonstrations, and a tactic is imposed on it that is unsound, it may be wise to reject that tactic outright. Any alternative can make a mockery of the careful thought that goes into planning a

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The argument also has paternalistic overtones. It tends to regard de-monstrators as children. An angry or frustrated child may instantly re-quire constructive outlets for his feelings. Adults are supposed to have the introspection, self-control, sense of humor and imagination that give them freedom from such mechanistic dependencies.

The Justice Department demonstration has been praised because it was the only event of Nov. 13-15 that was a "threat" to the government. This judgment views every physical threat as a political threat,and is unsound. Bank robbers are a physical threat to the "Establishment" but they aren't remotely a political threat. A tactic which alienates the public tends to buttress the Establishment and harm the movement, no matter how much it frightens the authorities into calling forth police and troops.

It has also been argued that demonstrators are morally justified in being angry and abusive. This argument is true, but misses the point. The point is not what is justified, it is what are the best strategies and tac-tics for dealing with political realities? A mature movement doesn't waste time whitewashing itself. It seeks the most effective ways to reach its goals. In an affluent society such as ours, it is self-defeating to become angry and abusive toward the government. Life styles with love, beauty and vitality; objective, rational criticism; moral witness and con-frontation; organization; mass demonstrations; widespread noncooperation - these are the best tactics for winning real power to the people and a-chieving justice and peace.

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Chapter 13

A GENERAL PRACTICAL APPROACH TO ORGANIZING LARGE DEMONSTRATIONS

Organizing the practical matters of a giant demonstration isn't nearly as difficult as it may seem. Actually, it is easier than organizing small activities. This is because for the big ones you have an asset that you don't have for the little ones - an unlimited reservoir of eager and capa-ble volunteers. This means that if you plan well, and give yourself time to put into motion all the arenas of activity, when the day of the demon-stration comes you have nothing to do but go around shaking hands. You have organized yourself out of a job. But, before that moment of liesure, there are preliminaries.

The plan - Every aspect of the demonstration must be analyzed in detail, and as realistic a plan as possible developed to cope with

problems. Not only is a sound and detailed plan necessary as a guide, it psychologically fundamental to working with your colleagues and with

volunteers. If a bright person senses that you haven't thought out a situation, or are proceeding on the basis of a notion or pet theory, or if you are faking or covering up, he will lose confidence in you and won't work enthusiastically with you, if at all.

A realistic plan depends not only on good analysis but also on facts; knowledge. A mass demonstration is so complicated that no one person can have all the knowledge and experience needed to organize it. Therefore, every problem should be approached by a working committee of people with as much experience as possible. People must come to meetings with the attitude that they are looking for the best approach, and not trying to impose their ideas. They must come realizing that they may be wrong. Discussions should always be about realities, not about abstractions. In one argument that developed over a sound system matter, John Gage held up his hand and said only one word, "FACT". He was hearing too many opinions and wanted to get down to earth with a fact.

I had confidence that Nov. 13-15 would work out because every detail of the demonstration had been scrutinized by thoughtful, knowledgeable people, and a plan had been developed which all accepted as the best that could be achieved.

People - To carry out elaborate plans, capable people are needed. Folks with experience in professional organizations would be

horrified at the way the Logistics Department for Nov. 13-15 was staffed. We had two full time staff members for everything. No secretary. No ad-ministrative assistants. Our tasks - any major one of a dozen - looked impossible with a staff that size. What we knew was that the last few days before the demonstration we would suddenly have hundreds of brilliant volunteers to help us put together the parts. So, we worked out our plans, collected essential hardware, badgered the New Mobe's financial department for contingency cash, and waited. We weren't disappointed. The last week, Logistics had dozens of experts cooperating with it to set up the March

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Against Death starting site, install sound systems, develop communications, collect money, organize and train marshalls, etc. If one were to plot a curve against time of the numbers of people involved in logistics during the demonstration, the curve would be low and flat up until about two weeks before the events. Then it would start to climb gradually. A week before, it would start to climb steeply and the last two or three days before and during the action it would go straight up. For example, our mar-

shalling force went from two to ten up until about Nov. 11, then to 250 on Nov. 12, 800 on Nov. 13, 2000 on Nov. 14 and 4-6,000 on Nov. 15.

Of course, the drop is as fast afterwards. With simply a request, we rented and had delivered to us six 18 foot trucks the week before Nov. 15. I spent a good part of a day getting the vehicles returned. We collected almost $100,000 in a few hours. It took us three days to count it.

But capable people are the key to getting things done. Nov. 13-15 I understood how generals feel directing armies. In the anti-war movement the legions are here on Saturday, gone on Sunday.

The hardware - Logistics involves things, hardware. It is important that the hardware be available when you need it. A plan amounts to little if the things for its realization aren't at hand. People who try to or-ganize large demonstrations will get themselves into impossible situations and end up ill and with a sense of failure if they don't gather together the hardware at an early stage.

It is always better to have too much hardware than too little. It is a most distressing experience to see an important task go unaccomplished because you lack a rope, or a can, or a pair of pliers, or a camera, or a bullhorn, or a walkie-talkie, or a pencil, or a piece of paper, or a felt-tip marker.

We made a mistake Nov. 13-15 that was the result of too little experi-ence with mammouth demonstrations. We tried to store the hardware in the same areas where people were working. Consequently, a bullhorn was stolen, numbered stickers for buses were misplaced and banners and placards weren't available. In a large project there should be a warehouse for the hardware. Things should go there, people elsewhere.

Money - Since most of the pieces of a mass demonstration are put to-gether by volunteers as the last moment, you can't permit lack of ready cash to halt operations. Logistics should have a contingency fund of $1000 a day for each of the last four days.

Time - You must give yourself ample time to study situations and de-velop plans.

Concentration and availability -cannot be done on a 9-5 or part time job and be available day and night. time. It means being able instantly

A good job on a large demonstration basis. You must give yourself to the This doesn't mean working all the to think and work when needed.

Address Reply to the

Division Indicated

and Refer to Initials and Number

Appendix I -53-

PERMIT FOR THE MARCH AGAINST DEATH

UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE

WASHINGTON, D.C. 20530

November 10, 1969

PERMIT

New Mobilization Committee to End the War in Vietnam

1029 Vermont Avenue, N. W. Washington, D. C.

Gentlemen:

This letter constitutes a permit for the conduct of a March commencing on November 13, 1969, which your Committee (Permittee) desires to hold. This per: is granted'in response to written requests made on Permittee's behalf to the Government of the District of Columbia and the Federal Government. This permit covers the areas and activities described herein and is issued subject to all of the conditions enumerated herein.

1. Permittee may conduct a March commencing at approximately 6 PM on Thursday, November 13, 1969, and ending at approximately 10 AM on 'Saturday, November 15, 1969.

2. Marchers shall as in the area under the Memorial Bridge described as area 'A' on the attached map which is specifically made a part of this permit. The roadways designated on the attached map as '1' and '2' shall be closed to public vehicular traffic as early as possible on Thursday, November 13, but no later than 9 AM. Permittee may commence erecting facilities authorized herein anytime subsequent to the closing of the roadways. No more than 3500 persons shall assemble in area 'A' at any time.

3. • Tents may be erected on the surface of one roadway pursuant to agreement with the United States Park Police. The roadway not used for facilities may he used for bus parking. Any such tents shall not be used for sleeping or other overnight occupancy, but may be used for medical services and as rest areas, waiting areas, and storage areas. In addition, portable sanitation facilities and telephones may be erected on the same roadway as the

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tents. No damage to adjoining park land is authorized in connection with any installation.

4. Beginning at approximately 6 PM marchers shall commence moving from the assembly area wet onto the north sidewalk of Memorial Drive. Marchers shall obey all lawful instructions of the. Park Police 'who shall be responsible for traffic control of the area. - Marchers shall remain on the sidewalks at all times. They shall move west on the sidewalk to the gates of Arlington National Cemetery, turn around and proceed east along the north sidewalk across Memorial Bridge; around the north side of the Lincoln Memorial onto the west sidewalk of 23rdStreet to .Constitution Avenue, then across 23rd Street and east on the south sidewalk of Constitution Avenue to the east sidewalk of 17th Street; north to Pennsylvania Avenue:; east on -the south sidewalk of Penn-sylvania Avenue to the west sidewalk of 15th Street, south across Treasury Place and then across 15th Street, east on the south sidewalk of Pennsylvania Avenue to Constitu-tion Avenue, east on Constitution Avenue to 1st Street; across 1st Street onto the east sidewalk of 1st Street, N. W. Then to the loop of the sidewalk running on the west front . of the Capitol and return to:the east sidewalk of.lst Street, and then to their .buses for immediate departure. Permittee will proceed with the March and demonstration on the Capitol grounds pursuant to arrange- ments made and agreed to by the U.S. Capitol Police. Permittee may erect one small tent and other facilities pursuant to agreement with the appropriate Government officials on the east end of the Mall area.

5. During the hours of 7 AM to 9:30 AM and 4 PM to 6:30 PM on Friday, November 14, 1969, the par-ticipants shall follow a route of. march- moving immediately from area 'A' onto the north sidewalk of Memorial Bridge and east across the Bridge without .moving to the Cemetery gates. Once across. Memorial Bridge, .the route of the March shall be as described in paragraph 4.

6. Marchers may carry small placards bearing the names of war dead and Vietnamese towns. They may also carry candles. The placards shall be placed in coffins located in the area of th-e Capitol building, the location to be designated in agreement with appropriate Government officials.

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7. Participants shall at all times obey all traffic regulations unless otherwise directed by appropriate Government authorities. Marchers shall march single file, where possible, throughout the march route and shall at all times remain single file in front of the White House. Permittee shall not block reasonable use of the sidewalks.

8. All facilities and equipment authorized to be erected shall be removed no later than 5 PM on Sunday, November 16, 1969, but roadways designated '1' and '2' must be cleared of all obstructions by 1 PM on Saturday, November 15, 1969. No facilities may be used after the expiration of this permit. It is mutually agreed that the issuing authorities shall not be responsible for any equipment of the Permittee, other than normal police and fire protection.

9. For the safety of participants, no participant in any event herein authorized shall carry on his person any firearm, explosive, club, or other weapon. No partici-pant will be permitted to carry any support for picket signs, banners and the like which is more than three-quarters of an inch square.

10. No property of any Federal agency or depart-ment or of the District of Columbia, or of any person within the area of the activities described herein, shall be willfully destroyed, damaged, or defaced by the Per-mittee or any participant.

11. Permittee shall use all means at its command and under its control to avoid any and all loss, damage, claim, or liability whatsoever for personal injury or death, or damage to or destruction of property of others due to the exercise by the Permittee of the privileges and obligations established by this permit, or due to any other act of Permittee.

12. With respect to the permission granted herein, the Permittee agrees to comply with all lawful instructions issued by appropriate Government authorities.

13. Permittee agrees that the areas covered by this permit shall be left in substantially the same condition as prior to the uses authorized herein, and all litter shall be placed in the trash containers provided.

13. Permittee and all participants in the activities herein authorized must comply with all of the conditions of this permit.

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rules, and regulations applicable to the areas covered by the permit shall remain in effect and shall be fully applicable to Perm and to partici- pants at any of the activities described herein, to the extent not .inconsistent with the express provisions of this permit.

15. This permit in no way authorizes any activi by Permittee or by participants in the activities describe herein in violation of applicable laws or regulations, nor does it permit entry into any public building or the grounds thereof which are closed to the public. Expiration of this permit will not be the basis for denying to any person the right to do anything which the general public is permitted to do. Violations by Permittee or partici-pants of the terms of this permit or of applicable law or regulations, resulting in substantial danger to people or property or in serious disorder, shall cause immediate revocation of the permit by the signatories hereto for the issuing agencies, with the concurrence of the negotiators for the issuing agencies. !Any persons violating any law or regulation shall be subject to immediate arrest, de-tention, and prosecution in accordance with law.

16. In the event circumstances during the duration of this permit indicate a potential for civil disturbance, after -consultation with the Permittee, this permit may be immediately revoked.

17. The issuing agencies, jointly and separatel specifically prohibit, pursuant to all applicable laws and regulations, any act by Permittee or participants in any of the events described herein, which are prohibited by existing law or regulation and which are not specifically authorized herein.

18. Permittee may use hand portable amplifica-tion systems for crowd control in connection with the events authorized herein, except that such amplification equipment shall not be used on Pennsylvania Avenue between 15th and 17th Streets, N. W. Permittee may utilize one truck with portable amplification equipment at the be-ginning of the march route.

19. Permittee may use reasonable necessary portable radio communications of ten watts or less.

20. This permit is issued by agencies of the United States acting through the United States Department of Justice and the District of Columbia.

New Mobilization Committee to End the War in Vietnam

By

By )f Columbia

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21. This permit shall expire at 10 AM on Saturday, November 15, 1969, except as provided in para-graph 8.

Permittee Issuing Agencies

U. S. Department of Justice

By

I

Permit Issued November 10, 1969

LOST ON NOV.15

These three displays were carried in the November 15 mass march in Washington. They never found their way back to me. They are part of a set that includes, in addi-tion, A.J. Mus to and Martin Luther King (who were return-ed). All the displays are mounted on plywood sheets and appear the same from both sides. If you know where any of these displays are, or could return them to me, please write: Bradford Lyttle, 339 Lafayette Street, NYC 10012