Vietnam’s Prodigal Heroes: American Deserters, International Protest, European Exile, and Amnesty 2020039556, 2020039557, 9781793616708, 9781793616715

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Vietnam’s Prodigal Heroes

Glatz, Paul Benedikt. Vietnam's Prodigal Heroes : American Deserters, International Protest, European Exile, and Amnesty,

War and Society in Modern American History Series Editor: Gregory A. Daddis War has long been an integral part of United States history, shaping our national identity, conferring upon us our independence, settling the question of slavery in a divided nation, and propelling us to leadership on the world stage. Yet war equally has left an indelible impact in less positive ways, commanding substantial portions of our national budget, often dominating our approach to foreign policy, and disrupting societies abroad in devastating ways. This series aims to move beyond traditional military history focusing on commanders, campaigns, and battles. Rather, the works within the War and Society in Modern American History series aspire to evaluate how our society has gone to war, experienced war, and, perhaps most importantly, grappled with the social consequences of war. We therefore welcome original proposals and manuscripts on a wide array of themes—cultural, gender, religious, intellectual, and environmental to name but a few—that explore the connections between the human phenomenon of war and American society in the modern era.

Titles in the Series

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Black Veterans, Politics, and Civil Rights in Twentieth-Century America: Closing Ranks, by Robert F. Jefferson Vietnam’s Prodigal Heroes: American Deserters, International Protest, European Exile, and Amnesty, by Paul Benedikt Glatz 

Glatz, Paul Benedikt. Vietnam's Prodigal Heroes : American Deserters, International Protest, European Exile, and Amnesty,

Vietnam’s Prodigal Heroes American Deserters, International Protest, European Exile, and Amnesty

Copyright © 2021. Lexington Books. All rights reserved.

Paul Benedikt Glatz

LEXINGTON BOOKS

Lanham • Boulder • New York • London

Glatz, Paul Benedikt. Vietnam's Prodigal Heroes : American Deserters, International Protest, European Exile, and Amnesty,

This book is based on a dissertation entitled “Prodigal Heroes: American Deserters of the Vietnam War, International Protest, European Exile and Amnesty,” which was defended on January 7, 2019, at Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin (Germany), Philosophische Fakultät I. First advisor: Prof. Dr. Thomas Mergel, second advisor: Prof. Dr. Ursula Lehmkuhl, dean: Prof. Dr. Gabriele Metzler. Published by Lexington Books An imprint of The Rowman & Littlefeld Publishing Group, Inc. 4501 Forbes Boulevard, Suite 200, Lanham, Maryland 20706 www​.rowman​.com 6 Tinworth Street, London SE11 5AL, United Kingdom Copyright © 2021 The Rowman & Littlefeld Publishing Group, Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote passages in a review. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Information Available

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Glatz, Paul Benedikt, 1978- author. Title: Vietnam’s prodigal heroes : American deserters, international protest, European exile, and amnesty / Paul Benedikt Glatz. Other titles: American deserters, international protest, European exile, and amnesty Description: Lanham : Lexington Books, [2020] | Includes bibliographical references and index. | Summary: “This book examines young American war refusers and transnational activism during the Vietnam War”—Provided by publisher. Identifers: LCCN 2020039556 (print) | LCCN 2020039557 (ebook) | ISBN 9781793616708 (cloth) | ISBN 9781793616715 (epub) Subjects: LCSH: Vietnam War, 1961-1975—Conscientious objectors—United States. | Vietnam War, 1961-1975—Conscientious objectors—Europe. | Military deserters— United States—History—20th century. | Military deserters—United States— Historiography. | Vietnam War, 1961-1975—Protest movements. Classifcation: LCC DS559.8.C63 G58 2020 (print) | LCC DS559.8.C63 (ebook) | DDC 959.704/31—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020039556 LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020039557 ∞ ™ The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992.

Glatz, Paul Benedikt. Vietnam's Prodigal Heroes : American Deserters, International Protest, European Exile, and Amnesty,

Contents

Acknowledgments vii Abbreviations and Translations

xi

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Introduction: Reconstructing a Marginalized History

xiii

1 Stepping Out: The Appearance of American Deserters and the International Debate on War Refusal

1

2 The Deserters’ 1968: Exile Organizing, Politicization, and the Struggle for Recognition

77

3 Asylum and Exile: Consolidation of the Swedish Sanctuary, Community Building, and Exile Culture

145

4 Amnesty: Deserters and the Debate over Clemency, Exoneration, and Vindication of Vietnam War Resisters

223

Conclusion: History, Memory, and Activism

319

Bibliography 329 Index 353 About the Author

363

v

Glatz, Paul Benedikt. Vietnam's Prodigal Heroes : American Deserters, International Protest, European Exile, and Amnesty,

Copyright © 2021. Lexington Books. All rights reserved. Glatz, Paul Benedikt. Vietnam's Prodigal Heroes : American Deserters, International Protest, European Exile, and Amnesty,

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Acknowledgments

The dissertation project that became this book occupied me for a very long time. Along the way, I benefted from encounters and exchanges with a great number of people from various contexts. Each of them has a unique relation to me, to this study, and to the feld of history. It is impossible to list all of them here, and I fear that I would still overlook someone if I tried to do so. Their stories, memories, ideas, questions, doubts, and jokes are all refected somewhere in this book—some of them more, some less obvious. Thanks to all! Through the whole process of researching this history and writing this book, I was supported, encouraged, advised and, at times, admonished by my academic mentors Thomas Mergel and Ursula Lehmkuhl. I am deeply grateful to both for having accepted me as a doctoral student and for having supported me till the completion of this book. At the Freie Universität and the Humboldt-Universität in Berlin, I enjoyed and endured academic life, and learned to take what was really helpful to me and leave what was not. I benefted from the expertise and analytic thinking of Margit Mayer, Andreas Etges, Malte Zierenberg, and Benjamin Ziemann, as well as the collegial exchanges with Marlen Lux, Sophia Frese, Elisabeth Engel, Sebastian Seibert, and Dominique Rudin—in particular their example of how to not only think and talk but write. Kira Alvarez offered invaluable advice, both on my arguments and on how to make my English more precise. With Domink Nagl and Alexander Frese I held long conversations, which went far beyond history and research, and I am grateful for their insights and support. The academic environment in Berlin, in particular at the John F. Kennedy Institute and the Graduate School of North American Studies, allowed me to discuss my research with renowned American scholars Paul Boyer (†), Hayden White (†), and Marcus Rediker. Paul Boyer convinced me of the historical signifcance of war refusal, and of the larger meaning vii

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Acknowledgments

individual stories add up to. Hayden White expressed doubts about the authenticity of statements of Vietnam deserters and thus challenged me to investigate them more deeply and contextualize them. Marcus Rediker encouraged me to write a history from below and to persist in the search for the voice of the underprivileged and marginalized. Beyond Berlin, many welcomed me to discuss my research as well as history in general. Anke Ortlepp and Christof Mauch, my mentors during my studies in Bonn and Cologne, encouraged me to pursue this project and suggested valuable sources and contacts. Karl Heinz Roth, who early on noted the blank spot in historiography regarding Vietnam deserters in exile, Angelika Ebbinghaus, and Marcel van der Linden invited me to present my frst fndings and motivated me to continue my work. I also learned much from Michael J. Allen’s and Maria Fritsche’s comments and suggestions on the Vietnam era and military desertion. Felix Krämer strongly contributed to fnding the core issues of this history and helped me develop terms and concepts to grasp them. Beyond exchanges about my research, Kimberly Singletary offered me insights into American culture and society and opened up new perspectives on Germany. Stefan Zahlmann showed me how to craft history between archival research, traveling, and teaching. Servando Ortoll advised me on investigating issues from different perspectives and drawing on different sources. Derek Seidman invited me to join a panel on GI resistance and desertion and had me encounter an alternative scene of historians. When I returned to the Wisconsin Historical Society, where during my formative experience as a Fulbright student I had frst discovered documents from Vietnam deserters and the GI movement abroad, James Danky helped me fnd relevant collections to investigate the matter. Likewise, I received invaluable support from Silke Neunsinger at the Labour Movement Archives in Stockholm and Elizabeth Mock at the University of Massachusetts, Boston. I am deeply indebted to war refusers and activists of the Vietnam years, who shared with me their stories of military service, dissent and refusal, life in exile, and solidarity and support efforts. Their example and frst-hand insights, as well as their own questions to this larger history, guided my research and writing. It was both a privilege and a motivation, but also a burden, to approach this contested history and develop an apt narrative to do it justice. I decided to not list names here for reasons of privacy and respect for their choice not to publicize their story. I am very grateful to Vicki Marx and Max Watts (†) for entrusting me with the task to prepare the transfer of the collection of the Archiv Soldatenrechte in Berlin to the International Institute of Social History in Amsterdam, and at the same time allowing me to study this unique collection. Previous insights into the contents and history of the archives offered by Dieter Brünn (†) and,

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Acknowledgments

ix

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after he passed away, by Annette Reichelt and Matthias Laible were invaluable to me. I count myself lucky for having friends such as Christian Dietz, with whom I played music, sometimes to complement, sometimes to escape from academic work, and Sven Schulte, who was always available to listen to my thoughts and did not spare me provoking questions. Not least, I have enjoyed the support and backing of my families. My sister Anne-Kathrin Glatz Zimmermann has supported me with her precision and sophistication. My father Armin Glatz has always been a, mostly quiet, backer of my endeavors and especially this project. My mother-in-law Margarethe Rolshoven contributed to the completion of this book by watching our kids as well as reviewing parts of my writing. Like no one else, my partner Fee Stracke carried me through this whole process with trust and patience, humor and realism, and well-balanced doses of pressure. Thank you infnitely! During different stages, I experienced the benefts of stipends as well as the hardships of supporting oneself to carry out and complete a project like this. I am deeply grateful to the Stiftung Bildung und Wissenschaft, the German Historical Institute in Washington, DC, and the Graduate School of North American Studies and their staff for their trust in my work and their fnancial support. Also, I am indebted to all who hosted me during trips to archives and conferences, sometimes for free and always with amazingly supportive hospitality. I am very happy to be able to publish this book in the United States. My deep gratitude goes to Eric Kuntzman, Kasey Beduhn, and Alexandra Rallo at Lexington Books, and series editor Gregory Daddis for inviting my manuscript and for making this book come true.

Glatz, Paul Benedikt. Vietnam's Prodigal Heroes : American Deserters, International Protest, European Exile, and Amnesty,

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Abbreviations and Translations

ACLU ADC AStA ASU AWOL Beheiren CALCAV CCCO CCI

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CIA DFFG DRV FBI FNL FORA FRITA FUADDR IUADDR KfDA

American Civil Liberties Union American Deserters Committee Allgemeiner Studentenausschuss (Student Council at West German Universities) American Servicemen’s Union Absent without Leave Japanese Citizens’ Alliance for Peace in Vietnam Clergy and Laymen Concerned about Vietnam, renamed CALC (Clergy and Laity Concerned) in 1972 Central Committee for Conscientious Objectors Citizens’ Commission of Inquiry on U.S. War Crimes in Vietnam Central Intelligence Agency De Förenade FNL-Grupperna (United FNL-Groups in Sweden) Democratic Republic of Vietnam Federal Bureau of Investigation National Liberation Front (Vietnam) Families of Resisters for Amnesty Friends of Resisters inside the Army French Union of American Deserters and Draft Resisters International Union of American Deserters and Draft Resisters Kampagne für Demokratie und Abrüstung (Campaign for Democracy and Disarmament, West Germany)

xi

Glatz, Paul Benedikt. Vietnam's Prodigal Heroes : American Deserters, International Protest, European Exile, and Amnesty,

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xii

Abbreviations and Translations

KFUK-KFUM Kristliga Föreningen av Unga Kvinnor och Unga Män (Swedish branch of the Young Men’s/ Women’s Christian Associations YMCA-YWCA) KGB Committee for State Security of the Soviet Union LMDC Lawyers’ Military Defense Committee MDM Movement for a Democratic Military MIA Missing in Action NATO North Atlantic Treaty Organization NCC National Council of Churches NCUUA National Council for Universal and Unconditional Amnesty PACS Paris American Committee to Stop War POW Prisoner of War RITA Resister/Resistance inside the Army/Armed Forces SÄPO Säkerhetspolisen (Swedish Security Service) SDRP Special Discharge Review Program SDS Sozialistischer Deutscher Studentenbund (German Socialist Students Association) SDS Students for a Democratic Society SEN Svenska Ekumeniska Nämnden (Swedish Ecumenical Council) SJ Socialistische Jeugd (Socialist Youth, Netherlands) SKfV Svenska Kommittén för Vietnam (Swedish Vietnam Committee) UNEF Union Nationale des Étudiants de France (French National Student Union) USAREUR United States Army Europe VA Veterans Administration VFW Veterans of Foreign Wars VVAW Vietnam Veterans against the War, from 1973 VVAW/WSO (Winter Soldier Organization) WRI War Resisters’ International WRL War Resisters’ League

Glatz, Paul Benedikt. Vietnam's Prodigal Heroes : American Deserters, International Protest, European Exile, and Amnesty,

Introduction

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Reconstructing a Marginalized History

Vietnam War deserters1 from the U.S. armed forces came to the public eye for the frst time in the spring of 1967 when European media outlets reported on the motivations of American military absentees in France and Sweden to leave their units. In the fall of that year, four AWOL2 sailors from aircraft carrier USS Intrepid formulated antiwar statements and delivered them in front of a camera in Japan, appeared before the press and television in the Soviet Union, and ultimately received residence in Sweden in early 1968. Shortly after their decision to go public, an American deserter in Paris broke through the previously held anonymity and stepped before European and American journalists and a television crew from the United States to make known his opposition to the Vietnam War. In Stockholm, Roy Ray Jones explained his desertion as a protest against the war and the racism he had experienced inside the military as a Black American. The Intrepid Four, as Richard Bailey, Michael Lindner, John Barilla, and Craig Anderson would become known following their appearance in Tokyo, identifed themselves as “patriotic deserters” and declared their desertion a moral act in consequence of their objection to the American war in Vietnam. In Paris, Richard Perrin introduced himself as a “resister inside the army.” He had been involved in protest activities as a GI in the United States and was now absent from his post in West Germany to evade prosecution and to continue his actions in exile. With their action and their public statements, these barely twenty-yearold Americans contested traditional concepts of desertion and defended this severe military offense as a legitimate act of war resistance. As examples of a new type of deserter, motivated by moral, conscientious, or political convictions and acting in opposition to the American war in Vietnam, they challenged prevailing images of the deserter from coward to social misft. In xiii

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Introduction

the spring of 1968, these men and others who would join them in Sweden and France organized committees, issued declarations explaining desertion as antiwar protest, and published pamphlets directed at GIs, calling on them to desert or protest the war inside the military. At the same time, participants of the international and the American antiwar movements came to endorse and promote desertion, and organized a transnational support network to assist U.S. servicemen to escape the reach of the military authorities and fnd asylum. Following the French and Swedish sanctuaries, Canada expanded its liberal immigration policy toward draft-age men from the United States to military absentees in 1969.3 The around one thousand men who sought sanctuary in France and Sweden and the several thousands who immigrated to Canada were only a small portion of a mass of military absentees from the U.S. armed forces during the Vietnam War. More than 500,000 cases of unauthorized absences over thirty days of American military personnel, commonly referred to as desertions, were registered between 1966 and 1973, in addition to around 1.5 million AWOL incidents under thirty days. In 1971, the highest desertion rate in the U.S. Army during the twentieth century was registered with 73.5 absences per 1,000 troop strength. While few deserted in the war zone, most of the absentees went underground in the United States.4 In light of these fgures and reports of waning morale, insubordination, sabotage and even mutinies, observers either warned of or welcomed a collapse of the American military, depending on their political stance.5 Not least in response to these developments, the draft system was abolished after the withdrawal of American troops from Vietnam in 1973, and the U.S. military subsequently became an all-volunteer force.6 The Ford- and Carter administrations worked out special programs for legal relief for Vietnam era military offenders, which were accompanied by heated debates about amnesty for deserters and draft refusers. Long overlooked and underestimated, the history of American deserters of the Vietnam War can best be grasped with a transnational perspective and a focus on their experience in exile. The men and the discourse on their action are part of a transnational circuitry of American history.7 Actions and processes took place on an international level and across national borders, they concerned young Americans confronted with their country’s war in Vietnam and were about American ideals, values, culture, and politics. Deserters and their supporters both refected and referenced developments in the United States, and participated in them and infuenced their direction. The scope of this study is therefore defned by American military absentees themselves, their actions, their sanctuaries, the debates sparked by and projected onto them, and their relations with their families. The story moreover involves American and international antiwar activists, American and international media, as well as U.S. authorities and their European counterparts. With

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Introduction

xv

its transnational approach and its new perspective on the long marginalized deserters, this book contributes to the history of American and international antiwar protest during the Vietnam War, and specifcally to a more complex and comprehensive idea of the Vietnam generation and its responses to the war and military conscription. The study is guided by three central arguments on the signifcance and the new quality of desertion during the Vietnam War, which are understood in broader historical contexts of the second half of the twentieth century. First, desertion was one of the critical responses of the Vietnam generation to conscription and service in the war, next to draft evasion and draft refusal. It was moreover an important element of the oppositional movement among U.S. servicemen, and a link between the latter and American and international antiwar protest. Secondly, desertions and protest of servicemen were expressions of the broader conficts within American society of the late 1960s and the 1970s, such as dissent of members of the young generation and insubordination against their elders and the radicalization of the African American freedom struggle. Third, the debate on desertion and war resistance of young Americans during Vietnam War was a high point of an international debate on the role of the individual in armed confict, prompted by the Second World War and intensifed with the involvement of Western powers in wars of national liberation in the Third World. I. Military conscription and the demand for manpower for the war in Indochina confronted the males of the American Vietnam generation with the dilemma of either serving, possibly in combat, imprisonment, or going underground or into exile, unless they were able to fnd legal means to evade the draft.8 Desertion was the belated response of those already in the armed forces to this dilemma, often young men from less privileged backgrounds. It was a radical and consequential move to refuse deployment to the war zone, sometimes to avoid a second tour of combat, to express protest to the war in Vietnam, or to escape military justice or military life in general. As such, desertion and AWOL were crucial facets of a broader movement of opposition and disobedience in the American armed forces, and often the only way out for dissenters to evade service in the war or prosecution. About twenty-seven millions of young American men reached draftage during the years of the U.S. military engagement in Vietnam between 1964 and 1973. Around two and a half million were sent to the war during these years. Nevertheless, most male baby boomers had to consider the possibility of being drafted or fnd means to evade service in some way or another.9 Under the Selective Service System, many were able to legally escape conscription through student deferments and employment in branches of relevance to the national interest, by fulflling service requirements in the reserves or the National Guard, or through medical exemptions.

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Introduction

Conscientious objector status was granted only to a minority of draft-age Americans and even fewer servicemen. Some young war opponents chose to publicly refuse conscription, risking legal prosecution and imprisonment. Many thousands instead decided to evade the draft by leaving the United States, most of them moving to Canada. Young men from less privileged social strata and ethnic groups were largely excluded from the legal options and often did not have proper networks to take the other routes of draft refusal. They would mostly comply with the draft, or enlist voluntarily in the hope for choices concerning the type and place of service. Of those who were already in the military and would come to oppose the war, some objected to deployment orders to Vietnam and faced courts-martial, some applied for conscientious objector status, many went AWOL or deserted, often hiding underground in the United States or seeking sanctuary in Europe or in Canada. Also in the war zone, objectors refused or evaded orders and even mutinied.10 As representatives of the growing opposition inside the military, deserters and AWOL servicemen acted early on as links between civilian antiwar protest and the GI movement. War opponents in the United States and in countries where U.S. military forces were stationed organized to support oppositional servicemen, to mobilize further protest, and to assist absentees and resisters, either in legal defense or in escaping the military authorities. Activists were motivated by encounters with deserters; and reports on military resistance and desertion mobilized more supporters. The activities grew into a broad movement of GIs and civilian sympathizers within the United States and abroad, not least manifest in the publication of hundreds of alternative newspapers and the establishment of coffeehouses as meeting and counseling places in garrison towns. Like the case of the Fort Hood Three, a group of soldiers who refused to follow orders to Vietnam in 1966, the public statements by the Intrepid Four in 1967 and those of deserters following their example marked critical moments in this development.11 Actress Jane Fonda, for example, one of the initiators of the FTA tour in 1970, an antiwar alternative to the troop entertainment shows of the United Service Organizations (USO), had been deeply impressed by American deserters she met in Paris in 1968, before she turned to focus on antiwar activism.12 To European and Japanese activists, in particular, GIs represented the American Vietnam generation and those most burdened by military conscription. Abroad, deserters participated in Vietnam protest activities, but also developed their own forms of activism, focusing on the immediate challenges of life in exile, the broader GI movement, and the question of a return to the United States. II. Desertion was a facet of broader dissent and refusal of young Americans during the late 1960s and early 1970s that went beyond the Vietnam

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Introduction

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generation’s opposition to the war. A wide range of social and political conficts, which had been suppressed during the postwar period, surfaced during these years, often with the Vietnam War as a catalyst.13 Dissent within the U.S. military and the controversies on war refusal refect broader fault lines that became apparent at this point in time. The continuing mobilization of protest among GIs and increasing numbers of absence offenses beyond the end of the American escalation in Vietnam suggest that next to the war broader unrest and social crisis as well as claims for self-determination and civil liberties by young Americans contributed to the growth of the phenomenon. Following 1968, antiwar sentiment and general dissent spread among members of the middle and working classes. Many who until then had not been involved in protest activities were mobilized, both in society and in the military.14 The generational conficts of the 1960s and 1970s played out in particular intensity for young servicemen, and in turn deserters. They experienced the restrictive environment of the armed forces with its principles of discipline and order, implemented by leaders from older generations. Moreover, they were despised by a majority of Americans, who held on to traditional values of honor and patriotic duty. Americans coming of age during the 1960s came to question the consensus of the Cold War and the culture of conformity of the postwar years. Military conscription had been a crucial element of the reshaping of the United States for its new role in international politics following the victories over Nazi Germany and imperial Japan and with the advent of the new confrontation with the Soviet Union, necessitating the manning of international posts and requiring constant military readiness. Next to technological armament and the development of a military-industrial and military-scientifc complex, the military draft, traditionally an institution alien to the United States, substantiated the new strategic objectives. At the same time, military conscription contributed to a signifcant change in American culture. Military service, performed by almost three-quarters of young male Americans in the 1950s, came to be regarded as an important component of the process of becoming an adult man and American citizen. Moreover, military service and veteran benefts would provide opportunities for social advancement.15 The Korean War brought about relatively few draft refusals and desertions, and most male participants of the Rock ‘n’ Roll rebellion of the late 1950s complied with the draft, including their idol Elvis Presley.16 Not least, the Second World War generation contributed to the militarization of America, glorifed as the Greatest Generation. Around twelve million males of this age group were mobilized into the armed forces, with many of the females contributing to the victorious war effort within the military, the industry, or supportive organizations. Veterans of the Second World War became presidents and members of the political and business elite. These veterans also were

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Introduction

the parents and role models to the Vietnam generation, members of which would in record numbers refuse military service and question the authority of their elders.17 During the 1960s, and in particular with the escalation of the Vietnam War and increasing pressure of the military draft, young Americans began to claim civil liberties and freedoms, which they felt were being restricted. Often these claims came with reference to traditional American ideals such as freedom of speech and self-determination; sometimes they led to the development of sub- and countercultures. Such demands were also made within the military sphere and included employees’ rights for servicemen and a right of refusal to comply with possibly illegal orders. Soldiers’ dissent, insubordination, and desertion thus can be understood as the military variant of the broader phenomena of youth protest of the 1960s and 1970s—political protest, social and cultural dissent, and dropping-out from mainstream society. Following the Second World War, Black Americans continued fghting for civil rights and stepped up their struggle for desegregation. Many of them war veterans, they challenged white supremacy and pushed for equality in all segments of society, including education and employment opportunities and the right to political participation. Over ffteen years before the Civil Rights and Voting Rights Acts of 1964 and 1965, the frst national institution to be desegregated was the U.S. military in 1948.18 Although racism continued shaping the structures and culture of the armed forces, service in uniform was regarded as a social advancement opportunity by many Blacks and a vital basis for the claim of full civil rights, often with reference to a longer tradition of African American soldiers in U.S. history.19 But with the United States’ involvement in Vietnam, civil rights leaders and particularly younger activists began to oppose the Selective Service System and question the war’s objective. Racial discrimination affected young Blacks nationwide, not only in the South, and the draft forced them in disproportionate numbers into combat troops. As a result, twenty percent of those killed in the early years of the American Vietnam War were African Americans, almost twice the share of Blacks in American society, an injustice pointed out by Martin Luther King Jr., in 1967.20 In combination with the everyday and institutional racism they experienced throughout the United States, this led to a political radicalization of many young African Americans and mobilized Black opposition to the war in Vietnam and the draft, which was a system of “white people sending black people to make war on yellow people in order to defend the land they stole from red people” in the words of Stokely Carmichael.21 In the military, Black servicemen began to challenge racism, from demanding equal opportunities for career soldiers to rioting in military facilities, jails, and on aircraft carriers, in the United States and abroad, including in Vietnam. Black dissenters subverted military

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Introduction

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discipline by forming solidarity groups, using Black Power salutes, modifying uniforms, and growing their hair, or going AWOL. New identity politics and Black counterculture of the 1960s and 1970s permeated the armed forces.22 Servicemen of different ethnic groups serving in Vietnam practiced elements of counterculture from listening to and playing music to hairstyles and drug use.23 Popular culture and thus alternative perspectives entered the military. In turn, popular and countercultures were infuenced by GIs, deserters, and veterans when they joined the protest movement, wearing parts of their uniforms, for example, or when the media showed images of soldiers in Vietnam wearing peace signs and sporting antiwar slogans on their helmets.24 Servicemen listened to music critical of the Vietnam War and representing dissident perspectives, and thus many GIs came to share the political and antiwar sentiment of their contemporaries outside the military. Artists also communicated the plight of those burdened with military service or the consequences of war refusal to broader audiences, from Creedence Clearwater Revival’s Fortunate Son on the impact of the draft on the young members of the working-class, Marvin Gaye’s What’s Going On bewailing the loss of young African American lives in Vietnam and addressing problems faced by returning veterans, to Steppenwolf’s Draft Resister, whose frst verse tells the story of a deserter in Swedish exile.25 Beyond such widely available popular cultural products, antiwar activists developed an alternative entertainment show for GIs, contrasting the morale boosting shows of the USO in Vietnam and reinterpreting vaudeville with counterculture and an antiwar message. The FTA revue, led by Jane Fonda and Donald Sutherland, toured the United States and internationally.26 Through these different channels many U.S. servicemen were exposed to American popular culture and counterculture; and specifcally the participants of active dissent and disobedience as well as deserters in exile adapted styles and strategies from the countercultural movement. This mix of the broader developments of the 1960s and 1970s and specifc issues of GI protest and desertion characterizes many alternative press and exile publications. III. American deserters of the Vietnam War became the focus of a broader debate on the role and responsibility of the individual soldier in war, and on forms and means of resistance. While during the Cold War international peace movements had mobilized against the nuclear bomb and the destructive potential of technological warfare, the Vietnam War and other conficts over Third World national liberation were led to a great extent with ground troops.27 Reports from Vietnam, especially visual representations of U.S. servicemen prompted controversies about their conduct in combat and, in particular, toward civilians.28 The unprecedented scope and intensity of these issues in the context of the Vietnam War built on previous debates of the postwar era, and would inspire a new assessment of desertion during other

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conficts. Critical points of reference for opponents of the Vietnam War were the war crimes trials against German and Japanese decision-makers in Nuremberg and Tokyo after the Second World War.29 Based on these trials, the International Law Commission of the United Nations created the Nuremberg Principles, a set of guidelines for conduct in war, according to which an individual soldier is held legally accountable and has an obligation to refuse unjust orders, in particular those leading to crimes against humanity. In the context of the Vietnam War, these principles were crucial for war opponents to legitimize protest and resistance in the United States. They also helped to defend war refusal and desertion by American servicemen, from the frst instances of refusals of deployment to Vietnam in 1966 to the last chapter of the debate on amnesty for Vietnam War offenders in 1977.30 Upon the revelation of war crimes committed by U.S. troops in Vietnam, Telford Taylor, chief counsel for the prosecution at the Nuremberg Trials between 1946 and 1949, discussed violations of the Nuremberg Principles by the United States in the Vietnam War as an “American tragedy.” He evoked a new “ethos of Nuremberg” to guide the process of coming to terms with Vietnam and the practice of future conficts.31 Several years before the American involvement in the Vietnam confict, often noted as exemplary for the liberation movements in the Third World and their confrontation with Western powers after the Second World War, France had led a war in Indochina to restore its hegemonic status of the prewar era.32 After losing to the Viet Minh and withdrawing in 1954, France faced another upsurge to its colonial infuence in Algeria, which ended in a cease-fre agreement and Algerian independence in 1962. Like the American Vietnam generation later on, young Frenchmen were called to fght in these wars for ambivalent objectives, which interrupted and threatened their lives in an otherwise optimistic postwar era. During the Algerian War in particular, broad protests were mobilized, young men refused to be drafted, and soldiers deserted to avoid combat service. Deserters from the French military were supported by antiwar activists in France and neighboring countries during these years, including West Germany, and received asylum in neutral Sweden, before a pardon would allow them to return to France. The potential for dissent among the ranks in the military was furthermore recognized by leftist groups, who developed strategies to sustain it, often as part of their solidarity work with the liberation movements.33 Thus, not only the failed French wars in Indochina and Algeria were precedents of the American war in Vietnam, but also the dissent and protest of the young generation, including military servicemen. In 1954, Boris Vian captured the new determination for protest and refusal among French youths and conscripts in his song Le Déserteur. Censored by the French government at frst, it became one of the most infuential antiwar songs and was performed by American artists during

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the 1960s, among them Peter, Paul, and Mary, thus setting the stage for the American deserters of the Vietnam War. Vian’s protagonist is the new deserter, who not only withdraws his service from the military but goes out to publicly protest the war and to mobilize others, and who is determined to resist the authorities.34 The debate on war resistance and desertion, culminating during the Vietnam War, also prompted a new assessment of these matters in the context of the Second World War. In the United States, the treatment of deserters from the military of a democracy and in a legitimate war was discussed. Catch-22, Joseph Heller’s satirical tale of a deserter from the U.S. military set at the time of the Second World War, would become popular during the escalation of the Vietnam confict, several years after its original publication, when young Americans were affected by the war and the draft and were receptive to his take on the irrationalities of war and the military. Previously, the book had been underrated, arguably because of its deviation from the “good war” narrative of World War II.35 Moreover, the case of the execution of Eddie Slovik, the only realized death penalty against an American deserter during the Second World War, was readdressed during the debate on amnesty for Vietnam war refusers, and the question of how a democracy would deal with war refusal and desertion was discussed. An account on the case by William Bradford Huie published in 1954, which had then not pleased President Dwight D. Eisenhower who in 1945 had authorized the execution, was reissued in 1970 and inspired a television movie, which aired in the spring of 1974.36 The sympathetic perspective on Slovik, played by Martin Sheen, portrayed as a victim of the circumstances and singled out for execution as a deterrent to prevent further desertions, questioned the idealized image of the United States in the Second World War and alluded to the ongoing debate on amnesty for Vietnam War refusers. In Europe, American Vietnam War deserters moreover inspired a reassessment of the Second World War and the Nazi era, and the question of resistance. In an epic documentary flm of 1976, Marcel Ophüls presented American and French deserters of the wars in Vietnam and Algeria as representatives of human beings who had under diffcult circumstances followed the “memory of justice,” universally stored principles of humanity, and contrasted them with participants in Nazi crimes, who had violated them.37 In early postwar West Germany, deserters from the German military of the Second World War had voiced their perspective, among them writers Alfred Andersch, Heinrich Böll, and Siegfried Lenz. The rejection of a manuscript by the latter, however, refected the suppression of the issue in the dominant discourse on the war during these years.38 The example of the many thousands of deserters from the Wehrmacht, not to mention their vindication, would have subverted the myth of an honorable military, recognizing the

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resistance efforts by offcers while denying the insubordination of common soldiers, and would have proven that everyone could have acted, if only by withdrawing from the army. When West Germany created its new armed forces, this narrative was part of its identity and legitimacy, many offcers having served in the Wehrmacht before. A debate on desertion and resistance would have subverted this construction and the functioning of the new military.39 During and following the American Vietnam War, however, West German war opponents, often with links to the support network for the U.S. deserters, began to reassess the case of the military refusers of the Second World War. By the early 1980s, activists and scholars reconstructed such histories and rallied for a rehabilitation of deserters and their recognition as resisters against the Nazi regime.40

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THE MARGINALIZATION OF DESERTERS IN VIETNAM NARRATIVES Despite the record numbers of unauthorized absences from the U.S. armed forces and the public debate on desertion and war refusal during the Vietnam War, the case of the deserters is a particularly contested part of the controversial history of the confict. Not unlike their predecessors from the German military during the Second World War, American Vietnam deserters have long been marginalized both in historiography and in popular memory. According to H. Bruce Franklin, they belong to the aspects of antiwar protest and war refusal “we are supposed to forget,” as their example did not ft into the revisionist narratives on the war constructed in the 1970s and 1980s, supposedly restoring the honor of the American military and overcoming the deep divisions of American society over the war.41 At the center of this was the argument that the military in Vietnam and its morale had been undermined by negative reporting in the mainstream media, hesitant political leadership, and antiwar protests, a stab-in-the-back myth similar to the one constructed in Germany following the defeat in the First World War.42 It was promoted by conservative political leaders and interest groups, seconded by popular culture, and willingly embraced by many Americans, eager to leave the failed war in Vietnam and its negative repercussions behind. The facts about opposition coming from inside the military, dissent among the ranks and desertions, in particular to such great extent and according to Franklin a “much more common and far more threatening” challenge to the American war effort than draft resistance, would have exposed this myth.43 In 1984, only seven years after the fnal presidential and congressional decisions on the legal treatment of their offenses, Myra MacPherson observed that the deserters of the Vietnam era had “disappeared from the consciousness

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of America” and that many Americans were evading to come to terms with the controversial war, unwilling to hear the voices of the “haunted [Vietnam] generation.” In particular, the deserters were “forgotten” and “castigated” and remained “among the last permanent victims of Vietnam,” themselves reluctant to speak out.44 In the frst comprehensive study on the American Vietnam War of 1978, Guenter Lewy did acknowledge the high desertion and AWOL fgures as “disruptive and a [. . .] symptom of disorder” in the U.S. military. But he maintained that the deserters’ motives were generally not political, moral, or related to Washington’s policy in Indochina. Rather, he held on to the traditional image of the deserter as social misft and suggested that “growing permissiveness” among Americans and an “increase in social pathology, such as a rising crime rate and widespread attitudes of disrespect toward authority,” were the reasons for the record numbers of desertion, AWOL, and military dissent. His ignorance of the debate on desertion and war resistance of the late 1960s and the early 1970s, and the then just ended debate on amnesty, as well as his trivialization of GI dissent and servicemen’s war refusal refect Lewy’s revisionist perspective on the war, which was rather infuential on following scholarship.45 During the 1980s, retrospectives of the Vietnam War widely excluded absent and dissenting servicemen, and popular cultural products presented deserters as misguided youths, drug addicts, criminals, or defectors to the Soviet Union.46 More recently, and only as the last group of the Vietnam generation affected by military conscription and war service, deserters have raised their voice and added their own narratives to the range of publications on the Vietnam War, and in turn, have been recognized by scholars of antiwar protest and war refusal.47 Critical for the marginalization of military deserters in popular memory and in the historiography of the Vietnam War is the splitting of the Vietnam generation, in particular the distinction between combat veterans and war refusers. Myra MacPherson pointed out that relations among draft-age Americans were in fact much more complex, and that often individuals could experience two or more of the following: draft evasion, military service, combat, desertion, exile, protest inside the military, captivity as prisoner of war, and life as a returned veteran or convicted military offender.48 That many GIs did ponder going AWOL to evade deployment to Vietnam, but fnally chose to stay in service or only took this step after their frst tour and to avoid another one, is evident in veterans’ writings, among them Tim O’Brien.49 Also, in his chronicle of the soldiers’ revolt of the Vietnam era published in 1975, David Cortright discussed desertion and AWOL as critical facets of dissent and opposition among servicemen, and pointed out that it was sometimes returning combat veterans who took this step, disregarded by stateside military leaders and unable to cope with the boredom of military life.50 The

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separation of deserters from their peers and a division of the Vietnam generation into distinct groups instead served war proponents and amnesty opponents to preempt a broader solidarity among draft-age Americans as well as popular sympathies for their plight. Moreover, the alliance between deserters and dissenting servicemen with civilian supporters, including students, draft refusers, and older war opponents, has been neglected in the narratives of the 1980s, which returned to the traditional image of a natural enmity between war opponents and soldiers. Jerry Lembcke deconstructed the myth of the Vietnam veteran coming home, who was allegedly spat upon by war opponents. Lembcke shows how distinct images of “‘good’ veterans” and “‘bad’ veterans” were created in popular memory of the war, resulting in a marginalization of antiwar veterans, oppositional GIs, and deserters for the beneft of a restoration of the honor of the U.S. military of the Vietnam era.51 Until today, the distinction between different segments of the Vietnam generation impedes scholars from taking an integrated perspective on the confrontation with military conscription and the war. As a result, deserters have been left on the margins or neglected altogether. This study looks at those who went AWOL and into European exile with a broader perspective on the Vietnam generation and the variety of responses to military conscription and service in the war. They included a wide range of young men from different social and ethnic backgrounds, who took this step at different points in time. There were those who left their units to evade deployment for Vietnam, some had failed to evade military service before or were rejected as applicants for conscientious objector status, others had entered the military voluntarily and only developed a dissenting position during service or their own experience of combat. Those who at one point were listed as deserters by the American authorities were thus at the same time servicemen and veterans, some of them with combat experience, or draft evaders and conscientious objectors. Nevertheless, their status as deserters, in the strict sense a term only for those convicted of desertion but applied by the military authorities to servicemen AWOL over thirty days and widely used in the public debate, was critical for their situation and consequential for their lives. They were fugitive military offenders in danger of being apprehended and tried for desertion. They could not come out from hiding within the United States or return home from their sanctuaries abroad. Whether they stayed away and settled down in another country or surrendered to the military authorities and received discharge papers, they would never be able to fully free themselves from the deserter label and would have to bear the consequences of forfeiture of pay and benefts, restrictions to employment and education opportunities, and limitations to citizenship rights, depending on the type of military discharge. Their specifc status and in particular their visibility in the foreign sanctuaries made them prone to be separated from their cohorts

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in the debate. The breach of their military commitment prompted harsh reactions and accusations, and traditional images of deserters as notorious misfts and deviants contributed to their marginalization. These factors, however, from the gravity and the legal consequences of their action to their geographic separation in exile, must not limit our perspective on the deserters nor lead us to view them too distinctly from their peers. Another crucial factor in the marginalization of the military absentees from other war refusers and opponents has been the trivialization of their motives. In fact, their grounds ranged broadly from personal to moral and political reasons, which were often triggered by or developed in the context of the Vietnam War and the growing controversy about it. Most often, reasons were voiced or formulated after the fact and in specifc settings, and both contemporaries and later observers struggled to specify what had motivated the deserters. Depending on their position in the Vietnam and postwar debates, the contexts of the production of evidence, and, in turn, its interpretation, they have come to conficting claims. The most persistent view has been one quite skeptical about the potential among American servicemen for moral and political reasons to refuse continued service, established not least by studies conducted during the 1970s on the basis of participants in the clemency program for military offenders of President Gerald Ford. Those studies concluded that only a small minority of the deserters had been motivated by war-related reasons.52 Obviously, a very narrow defnition of the latter had been applied, and the authors failed to suffciently explain the bulk of absence offenses of the Vietnam era. Moreover, the samples used in these studies were limited to participants in the clemency program and its conditions of participation, thus refecting a rather small share of offenders and excluding most deserters in exile. In order to avoid punishment, most participants in the clemency program refrained from claiming political reasons and motives for their refusal of service in the war. In turn, many absence offenders chose to boycott the program because it required the fulfllment of alternative service and a declaration of contrition for their act. They felt their actions had been justifed and were moreover legitimatized ex-post by the then broadly held view that the U.S. intervention in Vietnam had been a mistake, at least. Later fndings of one of the same authors and his conclusion that the war in Vietnam had brought about more politically and morally conscious deserters, including in the sample men who had gone into exile, have been largely overlooked as they were published only in an internal discussion paper of the armed forces.53 These conficts over the meaning and signifcance of desertion from the U.S. armed forces during the Vietnam War are at the center of this study. We investigate how different agents, including military absentees themselves, assessed desertion and explained it, from the frst desertion cases in 1966 to

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the debate on amnesty for war refusers until 1977. Some of these matters have been addressed by students of the Vietnam War and American and international antiwar protest. Still, a combination of methodological limitations and latent or explicit biases against deserters have prevented a more comprehensive picture of this history.

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DESERTERS ON THE MARGINS OF HISTORIOGRAPHY Facts and fgures on absence offenses in the U.S. armed forces during the Vietnam War were recorded in the 1970s by David Cortright, and Lawrence Baskir and William Strauss, who have served as references for students of the Vietnam generation since. Cortright’s study remains a central account of opposition and dissent among U.S. servicemen during the Vietnam War and was reissued in 2005, refecting renewed interest in the matter.54 Statistics on AWOL and desertion during the confict have also appeared in encyclopedias and anthologies, and were mentioned in the frst comprehensive histories of the war and the antiwar movement. In 1991, Marilyn B. Young noted in her study on the wars in Vietnam since 1945 the quantitative dimensions of absenteeism during the American involvement in Indochina. She stressed the new type of “public, political deserters” who organized in Europe, as well as the sanctuary movement in the United States, where the “deserter, traditionally an outcast, became a moral force for an increasingly alienated community.”55 In his history of the American Vietnam antiwar movement, published in 1990, Charles DeBenedetti pointed out the growth of opposition and dissent among American servicemen since 1967 and rising desertion rates. He also mentioned the sanctuary movement for draft refusers and “soldiers AWOL on principle” as well as the support by American activists for “selfexiled resisters and deserters” in Sweden.56 Following the work of Young and DeBenedetti, desertion during the Vietnam era was addressed in studies on the experience of the soldiers in the war, veterans’ and servicemen’s opposition, military justice, draft resistance and exile, and antiwar activism, as well as on desertion in American history.57 Nevertheless, deserters have never been the main focus of students of the Vietnam War and rarely their own perspective has been examined, thus leaving them largely on the margins of historiography. The limited scholarship on deserters is in part the result of the methodological restrictions of most studies on geographic settings, involving only one or two nations, and on other protagonists than the deserters. Many of those studying the Vietnam War and the antiwar movement fall short of placing the deserters’ action in the broader context of war refusal and their generation’s confrontation with the war in Vietnam. In fact, the distinctions between different groups of the Vietnam

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generation, once promoted by conservatives and opponents of a universal amnesty to subvert solidarity among them, have infuenced students of the Vietnam War and prevented a more integrated perspective on this age group and the variety of responses to the draft and the war. Besides, many students of the Vietnam War are not free from common biases against deserters and tend to underestimate the signifcance of desertion as war refusal and dissent, both its qualitative and quantitative aspects, and rarely reexamine and critically read earlier assessments.58 If deserters are mentioned at all, they come last in studies of the Vietnam generation and its confrontation of conscription and war, which focus mostly on GIs, veterans, and draft resisters. Studies on antiwar protest often treat deserters as subjects of civilian activists rather than sovereign agents of themselves, or leave out the issue of desertion altogether. Students of GI and veteran protest movements during the Vietnam War have pointed out the critical role of dissent among American servicemen in protest and resistance, but often note desertion only in passing and fail to integrate it as a facet of soldiers’ opposition to the war. This is surprising in view of the immense fgures of unauthorized absences, the crucial issue of desertion and AWOL in counseling networks, its discussion in the alternative press of the GI and veteran movements, and not least the debate on desertion in the context of amnesty. For example, in her discussion of an anti-warrior image promoted by female and male activists of the Vietnam protest movement, Heather Marie Stur addresses the Fort Hood Three, Howard Levy, and other members of the military who refused to serve in Vietnam, as well as counseling for oppositional GIs at antiwar coffeehouses. However, the option to go AWOL is only mentioned briefy, and the perspective of deserters themselves is not addressed, although their action was the quintessential break with the warrior myth and the masculine concept of patriotism and military duty, which Stur is focusing on.59 The history of the veterans’ antiwar movement by Andrew Hunt, for its part, omits the efforts of Vietnam Veterans against the War for a universal amnesty for not only draft refusers but also deserters and other military offenders. In fact, the group promoted solidarity between the different members of the Vietnam generation and unmasked the efforts of opponents of amnesty to split those who bore the major burden of the war in Vietnam, either by serving there or by facing the severe consequences of refusal and exile.60 Notwithstanding, some scholars have taken a more integrated perspective, often inspired by David Cortright’s invaluable book. In his account on the opposition of GIs and veterans against the Vietnam War, Richard Moser points out that military absenteeism had been the “greatest drain on military manpower” during the Vietnam War and fnds an analogy between desertion by soldiers and strikes of workers. He shows that many deserters were average young Americans, who were only politicized and radicalized because

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of their experience of military service during the Vietnam War, and some of whom became activists in Canadian and European exile.61 James Lewes discusses the trope of desertion in the Vietnam era underground press, where it was at times encouraged as radical war refusal and sometimes discouraged as an individual action, which could not end the war, and thus resistance inside the military was promoted instead.62 Derek Seidman addresses how key activists mobilizing support for the GI movement in the United States had frst become aware of the potential for dissent among the ranks, when they counseled military deserters along with draft resisters. He also shows how over time activists came to discourage desertion in order to avoid punishment and the severe consequences of a conviction as well as to sustain protest activities inside the military.63 David Parsons notes how participants of the GI coffeehouse movement denied the promotion of desertions and emphasized legal means to support oppositional servicemen, when they came under surveillance of the authorities, in order to avoid repercussions.64 In her extensive history of GI resistance in the United States and abroad, Michèle Gibault argues that in Europe, desertion was in fact the predecessor of opposition within the U.S. military. She reconstructs how the matter was politicized there at the turn of 1967 and 1968 and how American servicemen frst became active in antiwar protests as absentees.65 Alexander Vazansky considers desertion as a facet of the larger disintegration process of the American military in Europe during the Vietnam War, involving political dissent and racial confict.66 In the United States, where the great majority of military absences occurred, although with much less publicity than in Europe, deserters were sheltered by sympathizers and helped to escape to Europe or Canada. Some authors pointed out that this was often an activity practiced alongside support for draft resisters and oppositional GIs. Michael Foley shows how draft resistance activists in the Boston area expanded their scope by working with GIs and veterans and by organizing a sanctuary movement for deserters in 1968, which spread across the United States. Foley argues that in this context war opponents began to reconsider their views of military servicemen, who before were often regarded as “potential enemies,” and came to proft from deserter-veterans’ “moral authority” on the war and the military system.67 For him, the new perspective was a turning point, which paved the way for an increasingly prominent role of Vietnam veterans and GIs in American antiwar protest and their cooperation with civilian activists.68 Along these lines, John Ernst and Yvonne Baldwin argue how the Vietnam era “underground railroad”—the network for support and counseling for deserters, draft-age Americans, and dissident GIs—became an important element of antiwar activism in local settings as well as the larger North American context, and a crucial factor in the development of a civilian-GI

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alliance.69 American churches also played a critical role in the sanctuary movement within the United States, the Vietnam era being a precedent of later efforts in support of Central American refugees, as Ignatius Bau has pointed out, as well as in supporting military absentees in Canadian and European exile.70 A study on the major interfaith peace organization Clergy and Laymen Concerned About Vietnam (CALCAV) by Mitchell Hall details the group’s efforts to support American deserters in European exile through the assignment of a pastor to the deserters in Sweden. Moreover, Hall notes, CALCAV battled the negative image of the exiled deserters among Americans, not least in the campaign for amnesty.71 The amnesty debate, which continued long after the U.S. withdrawal from Vietnam in 1973, is underrepresented in studies on the American antiwar movement, and, as John Hagan has noted, it is often implied that President Jimmy Carter’s pardon of 1977 had been a reconciliatory conclusion for all war refusers.72 The fact that military offenders ultimately benefted little from his policy and that many remained with less than honorable discharges has been widely overlooked, and with it the lasting repercussions of the Vietnam War on deserters. The historiography on draft-age Americans in Canada during the Vietnam War focuses predominantly on draft resisters, rather than deserters, although they made up a large share of all exiles. As in the case of GI dissent discussed above, accounts of the 1970s had treated the matter far more comprehensively.73 However, some recent studies contributed to an integration of military absentees into the history of the war refusers from the United States who sought refuge in Canada and pointed out their role as participants in antiwar protest and exile activism. John Hagan argues that Canadian exile provided an opportunity structure for draft-age Americans of different social backgrounds to become antiwar activists of their own, contrary to the popular image of draft and in particular military exiles having been less politically conscious than their colleagues in the United States.74 David Churchill points out that the acceptance of military deserters by NATO member Canada played an important role in the debate on nationalism and independence from the powerful Southern neighbor, for which the draft-age American exiles served as “embodied sites,” both as “actors and symbolic fgures.” In the study, nevertheless, deserters play the more passive role of “symbolic fgures,” while draft exiles are at the center of Churchill’s analysis of the young Americans’ active role in Canadian new social movements.75 In her study on the Canadian support movement for American war refusers, Jessica Squires argues that differences in the treatment of American draft resisters and deserters in Canada resulted both from immigration policies and from the debates on war refusal on both sides of the border. This involved the legal status, educational backgrounds, and specifc counseling efforts for military

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absentees, as well as controversies over the effectiveness of desertion and draft refusal as war resistance.76 The greater visibility of draft resisters in Canada may have prevented a more explicit focus on the deserters, who continue to play a secondary role in this historiography. A look outside North America appears promising indeed, as American deserters frst appeared in the public eye in Europe and Japan and organized their own committees in French and Swedish exile. In recent years, a number of scholars have published fndings on the implications of the Vietnam War in different countries, in which desertion and American military absentees played a role, such as the two sanctuaries Sweden and France, as well as Japan, the Netherlands, and West Germany, where American soldiers were targeted by desertion campaigns and deserters were assisted in their escape from the reach of the U.S. military authorities. However, often the focus of scholarship is on antiwar movements and politics, rather than on the experience and perspective of American deserters. In a rather pessimistic essay on the life of the American deserters in Sweden, Vernon Boggs examined how of the once warmly welcomed war refusers only a small number was able to make a living in Sweden and remained there in the mid-1980s. Boggs concluded that the Swedish authorities had offered insuffcient assistance for the young Americans, and that many deserters had showed limited willingness to integrate and assimilate.77 A more optimistic view on the integration of the American military absentees was taken by Sofa Gustafsson McFarland, who studied those who had remained and settled in Sweden.78 Carl-Gustaf Scott argues that the reception of the American war refusers was mainly a tactical move of the social democrats to integrate young leftist Swedes into their electorate, rather than a consequence of Sweden’s humanitarian tradition or an expression of the government’s stand against the American war in Vietnam, and thus remained short of political asylum. He concludes that most deserters were not very politically conscious and that the radical activism of some did not help ameliorate their situation in Sweden, but rather offended Swedish sympathizers.79 Johan Erlandsson goes into greater detail on the experience of the deserters in Sweden, from arrival, life in exile, to efforts to return to the United States and achieve an amnesty there, using oral history interviews with former exiles and activists. His study addresses relations with Swedes, including love relationships as well as conficts and misunderstandings over politics and activism, the contested status of the deserters as antiwar heroes, as well as suspicions of infltration of exile groups.80 The latter are the topic of a documentary-autobiographical account, largely based on interviews, by Matthew Sweet, who traces conspiracy theories from the early organizing efforts of deserters in Sweden to the involvement of a few former exiles in extremist politics during the late 1970s and early 1980s.81

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In Sweden, the United FNL-Groups (DFFG), which supported the South Vietnamese Front for National Liberation and were led by leftist students, and members of the more moderate antiwar movement, represented by the Swedish Vietnam Committee (SKfV), engaged in support work for American deserters, coordinated fundraising, housing, and jobs, and arranged public appearances of deserters at rallies, in the media, and at conferences. Movement participants have pointed out the solidarity efforts of the DFFG for the American exiles as well as the political signifcance of their presence in Sweden as an “important propaganda victory” both for their own activism and for the FNL’s war effort. However, in the most comprehensive scholarly study of the Swedish FNL solidarity movement, Kim Salomon mentions the DFFG’s activities regarding American deserters only briefy.82 Instead, he suggests that that solidarity work for American exiles had rather been the focus of the SKfV and one of its most important activities. Salomon thus neglects the cooperation between the DFFG and the American deserters in Sweden and evades a discussion of the sometimes conficting relations between the young Americans and their Swedish supporters of both the radical left and the moderate SKfV. The latter, which was accused by leftists to be merely a mouthpiece of the social democratic administration, formed to co-opt Vietnam antiwar sentiment in order to mobilize young voters, is the subject of a study by Erik Svanfeldt. Here, however, the committee’s participation in the support for American deserters in Sweden is only addressed in passing, next to many other protest and solidarity activities on the war in Vietnam.83 Although the number of American deserters in France was much lower than that in Sweden, recent contributions on the Vietnam antiwar movement in France and French-American relations in this context have integrated the issue. Pierre Journoud describes how the attitude of the French government toward American deserters and French organizations and American expatriate groups supporting them developed from tolerance in 1967 to repressive measures following the May revolt of 1968, resulting in the expulsion of American activists, deserters, and draft resisters for allegedly illegal political activity. They and their French sympathizers, accordingly, criticized this change of policy as not consistent with the French government’s own critical position on the American war in Vietnam and as contrary to the nation’s ideals of political liberties and free speech.84 Bethany Keenan argues that the Vietnam War, and the young Americans affected by it, were a central theme of the French protests of the 1960s, and describes both the solidarity extended by French war opponents to American deserters, among them Jean-Paul Sartre and Alfred Kastler, and the ambivalent stance of President Charles de Gaulle and his government toward them. The expulsion of some Americans and the restrictions to the activities of those remaining

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heralded the political rapprochement between France and the United States, Keenan argues.85 In West Germany, around 230,000 American troops were stationed in 1968, among them soldiers to be deployed for Vietnam or returning from the war.86 In the neighboring Netherlands, Amsterdam was a favorite destination among GIs stationed in Europe for weekend leave. Antiwar activists targeted U.S. servicemen in both contexts with desertion campaigns and organized support for American deserters to escape to France or Sweden. Such activities have been addressed in studies on protest movements of the 1960s and 1970s and the impact of the Vietnam War on Western Europe. Rimko van der Maar, for example, examines the effect of the debate about the war on relations between the government, public opinion, and oppositional movements in the Netherlands. One of his case studies deals with the assistance for American deserters by Dutch activists from a broad spectrum from the New Left and the student movement to lawyers and members of parliament, which was controversially debated not least because of the country’s NATO membership. Van der Maar reconstructs the case of an American Navy deserter, who after a long legal battle and several months of prison received a residence permit in the Netherlands in 1972, an important victory for these efforts, if unique and late during the American involvement in Vietnam.87 Regarding West Germany, Niels Seibert points out that solidarity activities for American oppositional GIs and deserters by students and activists have been largely excluded from popular narratives of the 1968 era, but should be considered important aspects of internationalist and antiracist activism of the time.88 In his study of German-American relations among student activists around 1968, Martin Klimke discusses desertion campaigns in West Germany and West Berlin, focusing on German and American students involved and the implications of their activities for German-American diplomatic relations.89 Together with Maria Höhn, he regards these campaigns as the basis of West German students’ special focus on solidarity with African American servicemen in the late 1960s and early 1970s and support of their oppositional activities.90 The “special revolutionary potential presented by black GIs,” noted by Höhn elsewhere, and West German activists’ fascination with it as representation of the struggle for civil rights in the United States, the exploitation of minorities and disadvantaged groups in the war effort in Vietnam, and furthermore the broader Third World liberation movements was also discussed by Moritz Ege.91 More generally, Höhn points out, the approach to encourage GIs to desert marked a turn in West German students’ view on American soldiers toward considering them potential allies instead of attacking them as war criminals. This is confrmed by Belinda Davis in her studies of the everyday dimension of 1960s activism and the relations between West German

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students and American soldiers. Through interaction with deserters whom they helped to escape to France and Sweden and discussions with GIs, the young Europeans learned to understand the war in Vietnam and the quandary draft-age Americans were caught in.92 Nevertheless, the focus of these studies on student activists and the young generation of war opponents in West Germany, sometimes involving American expatriates, prevents a broader perspective on desertion, war refusal, and the role of the individual soldier, which was also discussed and practiced by elder activists and in other European contexts. American deserters themselves remain mostly subjects and symbols of this activism, and their own voice in the campaigns and the debate has largely been neglected. During the Vietnam War, some 85,000 American troops were stationed in Japan and Okinawa, and thousands of GIs who served in the war across the China Seas spent their rest and recuperation breaks there. Some U.S. servicemen on R&R leave chose to go AWOL while in Japan to avoid returning to duty in Vietnam.93 Members of the Japanese Vietnam antiwar movement began to assist American deserters in Japan in 1967 and organized the appearance of the Intrepid Four, which gained great international media attention for American deserters late in the year. William Andrews considers the case of the Intrepid Four the “biggest coup” for Beheiren, the most important Vietnam antiwar organization in Japan, which experienced a boost in national public recognition as a result, and which played a critical role in deserter aid as Thomas Havens points out.94 Volker Fuhrt reconstructs how the appearance of the four Navy deserters led Beheiren to establish a network of supporters from various backgrounds to hide American deserters and help them escape to Sweden via the Soviet Union, involving not only radical leftists but war opponents and sympathizers from a much broader spectrum. Moreover, he describes how the example of American deserters served Beheiren to challenge the negative image of desertion in Japanese culture and to promote it as an act of courage and patriotism, and an inspiration for their own civil disobedience.95 Similarly, Simon Avenell fnds that the example of the Intrepid Four and their personal American “patriotic sentiment” inspired Beheiren leaders to develop a concept of individualized patriotism and “open-minded nationalism” and to make Japan a sanctuary for proponents of peace.96 Along these lines, Kei Takata argues that to Japanese activists American deserters represented “cosmopolitan agency” and were “embod[iments] of their own utopian imaginary.” Underground support for American AWOLees, accordingly, was among the few successful endeavors of activism to overcome Cold War structures, which, to be sure, regards the later stages of deserter aid without the involvement of the Soviet Union.97 Peter Kelman maintains that the appearance of American deserters opened a “new dimension to modes of protest” and direct

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action to Japanese activists. His analysis furthermore acknowledges the complicated relationship between U.S. servicemen and Japanese sympathizers, and the tensions between the latter’s expectations and the former’s own experiences and ways of reasoning.98 Noriko Shiratori understands Japanese support for the GI movement, developing at U.S. bases in Japan and Okinawa during the late 1960s, as quintessential transnational activism. She shows that deserter aid was a critical and vanguard element of Japanese solidarity with dissenting American servicemen.99 While by now desertion by American servicemen during the Vietnam War has been addressed by a wide range of contributions to the historiography of the war and American and international protest, it often remains a marginal theme. The focus on other agents, such as antiwar organizations, draft refusers, GI and veteran activists, or the authorities, leaves the military absentees in a secondary role at best; at worst they are voiceless subjects or mere statistical fgures. Thus, deserters have rarely been seriously considered as historical agents or participants in the debates over Vietnam. Regarding the Vietnam generation, many of their previously marginalized peers have been reintegrated into the larger histories of the war and its impact on American society, such as draft resisters, GIs, and veterans; the deserters however remain at the margins of historiography. Moreover, in studies of American and international antiwar protest, the controversy over desertion and war resistance has not been suffciently examined, let alone the deserters’ voice in it. Too often, we learn little about the development of the strategy to target American servicemen, debates on the legitimization of desertion and war resistance, and the transnational entanglements around this issue between agents across these national contexts. Here too, the focus on other actors than the American deserters themselves has prevented a better integration of them into the broader history of international Vietnam antiwar protest. ARCHIVES AND SOURCES Limited historical sources remain a common problem for the study of desertion due to restricted access to military records regarding recent histories, as well as a paucity of texts written by deserters, in contrast to other historical actors. In particular, historians have pointed out the diffculties in analyzing the perspective of the deserters themselves, when documents were mainly produced by the authorities and recorded statements by deserters were made in court.100 However, in the context of the Vietnam War, deserters from the American military did become visible and claimed to speak for themselves, which resulted in an increased production of texts on and by them. This study draws therefore on historical sources from a wide range of

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actors, and preserved by various archives in the United States and in Europe, in addition to media publications, and published accounts. I examined these records for the reconstruction of the history of desertion during the Vietnam War, the documentation and analysis of different perspectives, and particularly to learn about the role of the deserters in the Vietnam debate. American deserters who went into European exile authored a number of documents, among them letters, pamphlets, and newsletters. Moreover, they were featured in the American and international media, in newspapers and magazines, radio and television, as well as in books and journal articles by contemporary observers. Groups supporting the deserters also generated a range of documents on the debate on desertion and war resistance, on their solidarity work and mobilizing activities, as well as on the young Americans themselves. Moreover, several U.S. government agencies recorded information on the military absentees and their sympathizers abroad. Besides the military branches and the Department of Defense, the U.S. Department of State played a central role in this history, as the deserters in exile fell under the responsibility of the American foreign services. In addition, military and civilian intelligence agencies monitored activities of American deserters and civilian activists abroad. Finally, authorities of the countries granting asylum to American military absentees produced documents of their own on the American exiles living under their jurisdiction. Sources examined for this book are located at the Wisconsin Historical Society, where publications by deserter groups in Europe have been integrated into a collection of underground newspapers of the GI movement of the Vietnam War, and where documents from activists supporting American deserters in France have been preserved in the collection of the Paris American Committee to Stop War. The Wisconsin Historical Society also hosts the GI Press Collection, an online database of publications of the protest movement of servicemen and deserters of the Vietnam era. The University of Massachusetts Boston keeps the papers of GI and deserter activist Richard Perrin, covering his own experience of exile in France and Canada as well as the broader contexts of war refusal and the debate on amnesty. At the International Institute of Social History in Amsterdam, the papers of the War Resisters’ International and individual Dutch activists include documents on deserter support activities, as well as by deserters and exile organizations from France and Sweden. In Sweden, the Labour Movement Archives and Library hold documents of lawyer Hans Göran Franck, counselor for the American exiles, of the Swedish Vietnam Committee, members of which participated in coordinating support for the men, of government agencies, as well as papers produced by the deserters themselves. The collections of the Swedish FNL-Groups as well as the police authorities at the Swedish National Archives also contain a number of

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documents on the issue. Moreover, the papers of Jim Walch, an American expatriate in Sweden and counselor for the exile community, contain valuable documents on his and others’ work and sources by American deserters. I had the opportunity to review them before their transfer to the Labour Movement Archives and Library in Stockholm. In Germany, the Archives of the Extra-Parliamentary Opposition at the Free University in Berlin and the archives of the Hamburg Institute for Social Research include the papers of German activists who supported American deserters and organized desertion campaigns. In Berlin, the Archives for Soldiers Rights preserved the papers of Max Watts, born Thomas Schwaetzer, who organized support for American deserters in France and oppositional GIs in West Germany and who collected a vast range of documents of his own and other groups, as well as materials from activists in West Berlin engaged in the matter. After the deaths of the archives’ keeper Dieter Brünn and Max Watts, I helped with the transfer of the collection to the International Institute of Social History in Amsterdam. Furthermore, newsletters published by American deserters in Europe have been made available online by Independent Voices, a digital collection of alternative press publications, and records of a variety of groups involved in the antiwar and amnesty movements are available at the Virtual Vietnam Archive of Texas Tech University. At the U.S. National Archives in College Park, I reviewed declassifed records of the Department of State, of the Central Intelligence Agency, and materials of the Nixon administration, which have since been transferred to the Nixon Library in Yorba Linda, California. Records of the military authorities are often still restricted, and many relevant records have not been processed or transferred to the National Archives yet. Still, I was able to access documents from military agencies and the Department of Defense, both in the specifc record groups and in the collections of the Department of State. The latter is largely declassifed and contain the most extensive government records on American deserters abroad during the Vietnam War. They include correspondence of the department with diplomatic posts abroad, as well as documents from other institutions, among them the Department of Defense and military and intelligence agencies. With special inquiries based on the Freedom of Information Act and Mandatory Request applications, I was able to access previously classifed documents from these record groups. The available materials from the Central Intelligence Agency at the National Archives contain reports from the Foreign Broadcast Information Service, which monitored international publicity on the American deserters, such as media appearances of military absentees in the Soviet Union. Further requests did not result in new declassifcations of CIA records on the matter.

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The digital archive of the Federal Bureau of Investigation allows access to declassifed dossiers on American antiwar organizations and activists, including groups and individuals involved in solidarity activities for military deserters in the United States and abroad. After further inquiries with the agency, I received access to FBI records on the activities of organized deserter groups in Europe and Canada. An appeal for reprocessing of still classifed sections was not successful. At the Library of Congress in Washington, DC, I researched materials from congressional committees and their hearings, such as the protocol and report of a subcommittee of the Senate Committee on Armed Services concerned with desertion and military deserters abroad, which contain testimony by representatives of various military and government agencies. Moreover, at the website of the Library of Congress, translated documents from the Soviet Union are available, which were declassifed by the Task Force Russia in the early 1990s, when American and Russian archivists and historians collaborated on the issue of American prisoners of war on the territory of the Soviet Union. Among these fles are documents from government agencies on the Intrepid Four’s stay in Russia and the signifcance of the deserters from the United States for Soviet information politics. Concerning the media coverage of American deserters during the Vietnam War, my research builds on newspaper clipping collections at different archival collections. Moreover, I reviewed publications from the United States and the relevant European countries, both mainstream and alternative media. Television appearances of deserters on American networks were accessed at the audiovisual department of the Library of Congress and the Vanderbilt Television News Archive. Swedish television and radio features, as well as the semi-documentary flm Deserter USA, in which American exiles enacted their experience, are available through the Swedish Media Database. Further coverage of American deserters in Europe was assessed with transcripts of broadcasts at the German Broadcasting Archive and in other archival collections. Moreover, in the collection of the Archives for Soldiers Rights, now at the International Institute of Social History in Amsterdam, the reels of two press conferences of American deserters in Paris in 1967 and 1968 have been preserved and are available in digitized form. A request with the successor of the alternative media network The Newsreel, Third World Newsreel, yielded flm reels of the frst declaration of the Intrepid Four in Japan, which were digitized for this project and are now available for research. The information from frst-hand accounts was crucial for the realization of this study and in shaping the focus and scope of my research. I conducted interviews and corresponded with over two dozen former American deserters, draft exiles, and American and European activists who had worked with them. Interviewees shared memories and interpretations of their own

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biographies and the broader history, suggested themes, publications, or events to be inquired into, and in some cases made available further documents and materials, such as Max Watts and Jim Walch. During the course of my research, it became clear, however, that this book would focus on the debates and issues of the Vietnam era as they had been recorded at the time and would not cite oral history accounts.

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A NOTE ON THE TITLE Deserters who went into exile during the Vietnam War were time and again referred to as prodigal sons of America. However, this is an odd analogy, because, unlike the protagonist of the biblical story the deserters did not remorsefully come home after failing in exile and were neither welcomed back nor forgiven in the American public in the manner of the prodigal son’s father, and never fully pardoned or rehabilitated by the authorities. Moreover, the Vietnam deserters had not deliberately left their home with their share of the inheritance, but sought to escape service in a controversial and dangerous war. In contrast to the reference to the prodigal son, the AWOL U.S. servicemen who appeared in Japan, the Soviet Union, and in Europe in 1967 and 1968 were regarded as antiwar heroes by sympathizers. Over time, however, their status as heroes was contested. As living heroes often do, they disappointed the ideal characteristics ascribed to them. The combination of these two conficting images of the American deserters of the Vietnam War, prodigal sons and antiwar heroes, into the title Vietnam’s Prodigal Heroes, refects the tensions between the extremes of reactions to their action, as well as the ambivalence within such attributions in themselves and collective labels for a diverse group. Moreover, the literary concept of the prodigal hero constructs a protagonist who breaks with his or her home, and only through enduring a confict he or she may return—a scheme corresponding to the history of desertion, exile, and the struggles for recognition and amnesty.

NOTES 1. Deserter is the term commonly used for military personnel absent without authority. Under the Uniform Code of Military Justice, the term applies to military personnel absent without authority for a period longer than thirty days and then administratively dropped from the rolls as deserters, as well as servicemen convicted for desertion by a court-martial, that is, unauthorized absence with the “intent to stay away permanently” or to “avoid hazardous duty.” See Uniform Code of Military Justice, Ch. X, § 885, Art. 85, in Manual for Courts-Martial (United States, 1968), Appendix 2.

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2. Absent without offcial leave. This term applies to military personnel absent without authority under thirty days. 3. John Hagan, “Narrowing the Gap by Widening the Confict. Power Politics, Symbols of Sovereignty, and the American Vietnam War Resisters’ Migration to Canada,” Law & Society Review 34, 3 (2000), 609. 4. Lawrence M. Baskir and William Strauss, Chance and Circumstance. The Draft, the War, and the Vietnam Generation (New York: Knopf, 1978), 115, 122, 169; David Cortright, Soldiers in Revolt. GI Resistance during the Vietnam War (Chicago: Haymarket Books, 2005, frst published 1975), 10–15; John Whiteclay Chambers, ed. The Oxford Companion to American Military History (Oxford/New York: Oxford University Press, 1999), 212. On specifc fgures on American military absentees in Europe see Lawrence M. Baskir and William Strauss, Reconciliation after Vietnam. A Program of Relief for Vietnam-Era Draft and Military Offenders (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1977), 89; Data om invandrare (Stockholm: Statistiska Centralbyrån, 1981), 27; Max Watts, “The Years Passed by Army-less,” TORD 86.44.1.1, ASR/IISG, Max Watts, Data DVD; “Welcome Mat for Deserters Going in Paris,” Los Angeles Times, December 1, 1969. 5. See, for example, Robert D. Heinl Jr., “The Collapse of the Armed Forces,” Armed Forces Journal 108, 19 (1971); Richard Boyle, The Flower of the Dragon. The Breakdown of the U.S. Army in Vietnam (San Francisco: Ramparts Press, 1972); William L. Hauser, America’s Army in Crisis. A Study in Civil-Military Relations (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1973), 93 ff. 6. Beth L. Bailey, America’s Army. Making the All-Volunteer Force (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2009), 36–37. 7. On this approach and current scholarship from this perspective see Andrew Preston and Douglas C. Rossinow, eds., Outside In. The Transnational Circuitry of US History (Oxford/New York: Oxford University Press, 2017). 8. On the different facets of legal draft evasion see Amy J. Rutenberg, Rough Draft. Cold War Military Manpower Policy and the Origins of Vietnam‐Era Draft Resistance (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2019), 159 ff. 9. Baskir and Strauss, Chance and Circumstance, 5; James T. Patterson, Grand Expectations. The United States, 1945-1974 (Oxford/New York: Oxford University Press, 1996), 598–599 and 629 ff.; Christian G. Appy, Working-Class War. American Combat Soldiers and Vietnam (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1993), 17 ff. and 28 ff. 10. See on these issues and reactions John Hagan, Northern Passage. American Vietnam War Resisters in Canada (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2001); Michael S. Foley, Confronting the War Machine. Draft Resistance during the Vietnam War (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2003); Jean Anne Mansavage, “‘A Sincere and Meaningful Belief.’ Legal Conscientious Objection during the Vietnam War” (Doctoral Dissertation, Texas A&M University, 2000); Cortright, Soldiers in Revolt. 11. Richard R. Moser, The New Winter Soldiers. GI and Veteran Dissent during the Vietnam Era (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1996), 69 ff. See on these facets of the GI movement Derek W. Seidman, “The Unquiet Americans. GI Dissent during the Vietnam War” (Doctoral Dissertation, Brown University, 2010);

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James Lewes, Protest and Survive. Underground Gl Newspapers during the Vietnam War (Westport: Praeger, 2003); David L. Parsons, Dangerous Grounds. Antiwar Coffeehouses and Military Dissent in the Vietnam Era (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2017). 12. Jane Fonda, My Life So Far (New York: Random House, 2005), 194–195. FTA stood for “Free the Army,” playing on the more explicit GI slang term “Fuck the Army,” itself a pun on the military recruitment slogan “Fun, Travel and Adventure.” 13. For an overview of the conficts of the 1960s see Robert O. Self, All in the Family. The Realignment of American Democracy since the 1960s (New York: Hill and Wang, 2012), on American manhood in the context of the Vietnam War and antiwar protest 47 ff.; Maurice Isserman and Michael Kazin, America Divided. The Civil War of the 1960s (Oxford/New York: Oxford University Press, 2000), specifcally on Vietnam antiwar protest 180–186; Patterson, Grand Expectations, 442 ff. 14. See on the class base of the Vietnam antiwar movement, which was much more dynamic and complex than it is often implied in popular memory, Penny Lewis, Hardhats, Hippies, and Hawks. The Vietnam Antiwar Movement as Myth and Memory (Ithaca/London: ILR Press, 2013), 77 ff., regarding the participation of GIs and veterans 116 ff. 15. George Q. Flynn, The Draft, 1940-1973 (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1993), 88 ff.; Appy, Working-Class War, 18; Rutenberg, Rough Draft, 69 ff. 16. Patterson, Grand Expectations, 373–374; Robert Fantina, Desertion and the American Soldier, 1776-2006 (New York: Algora, 2006), 133 ff.; Melinda L. Pash, In the Shadow of the Greatest Generation. The Americans Who Fought the Korean War (New York: New York University Press, 2012), 36 ff. 17. Appy, Working-Class War, 55–63; Neil A. Wynn, “The ‘Good War.’ The Second World War and Postwar American Society,” Journal of Contemporary History 31, 3 (1996); Suzanne Mettler, Soldiers to Citizens. The G.I. Bill and the Making of the Greatest Generation (Oxford/New York: Oxford University Press, 2005), 2–4; Kenneth D. Rose, Myth and the Greatest Generation. A Social History of Americans in World War II (New York: Routledge, 2008), 2 ff. 18. Geoffrey W. Jensen, “The Political, the Personal, and the Cold War. Harry Truman and Executive Order 9981,” in The Routledge Handbook of the History of Race and the American Military, ed. Geoffrey W. Jensen (New York/London: Routledge, 2016). 19. James E. Westheider, Fighting on Two Fronts. African Americans and the Vietnam War (New York: New York University Press, 1997), 8–11. These conficting perspectives were refected in a special issue of Ebony on “The Black Soldier” of August 1968, whose cover featured Black soldiers in uniform from the American Revolution to the Vietnam War and which included texts on both the military as a career opportunity for African Americans and racial discrimination by the draft and in the armed forces (Ebony, August 1968). 20. Simon Hall, Peace and Freedom. The Civil Rights and Antiwar Movements of the 1960s (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2005), 80–82; Appy, Working-Class War, 19 ff.

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21. Charles DeBenedetti, An American Ordeal. The Antiwar Movement of the Vietnam Era (Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 1990), 158. 22. Bernard C. Nalty, Strength for the Fight. A History of Black Americans in the Military (New York/London: Collier Macmillan, 1989), 303 ff.; Westheider, Fighting on Two Fronts, 75 and 88–89; James E. Westheider, The Vietnam War (Westport: Greenwood Press, 2007), 180 ff.; Cortright, Soldiers in Revolt, 39 ff. and 119 ff.; John Darrell Sherwood, Black Sailor, White Navy. Racial Unrest in the Fleet during the Vietnam War Era (New York: New York University Press, 2007). 23. Jeremy Kuzmarov, The Myth of the Addicted Army. Vietnam and the Modern War on Drugs (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 2009), 29 ff. 24. In particular, the appearance of Vietnam veterans as protestors in the United States contributed to this development. See Andrew E. Hunt, The Turning. A History of Vietnam Veterans Against the War (New York: New York University Press, 1999), 10 and 92. 25. Kevin Hillstrom and Laurie Collier Hillstrom, The Vietnam Experience. A Concise Encyclopedia of American Literature, Songs, and Films (Westport: Greenwood Press, 1998), 111 ff.; Mary Ellison, “Black Music and the Vietnam War,” in Vietnam Images. War and Representation, ed. Jeffrey Walsh and James Aulich (Basingstoke: Macmillan Press, 1989), 65–66; James E. Perone, Songs of the Vietnam Confict (Westport: Greenwood Press, 2001), 59. 26. Jerry Lembcke, Hanoi Jane. War, Sex & Fantasies of Betrayal (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 2010), 2 and 124–126; Parsons, Dangerous Grounds, 105 ff. 27. On protests against the atomic bomb see Lawrence S. Wittner, One World or None. A History of the World Nuclear Disarmament Movement through 1953 (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1993), in particular 108 ff.; Lawrence S. Wittner, Resisting the Bomb. A History of the World Nuclear Disarmament Movement, 1954-1970 (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1997), regarding the shift in focus of protest activities on the Vietnam War especially 456 ff.; Holger Nehring, “Searching for Security. The British and West German Protests against Nuclear Weapons and ‘Respectability, 1958-1963,” in Peace Movements in Western Europe, Japan and the USA during the Cold War, ed. Benjamin Ziemann (Essen: Klartext, 2008). 28. A critical and widely distributed report by an American participant in the war was published by Green Beret master sergeant Donald Duncan in early 1966, who also testifed at the Russell Tribunal in 1967 along with other veterans (“The Whole Thing Was a Lie!” Ramparts, February 1966, 12–24; John Duffett, ed. We Accuse! A Report of the Copenhagen Session of the War Crimes Tribunal (London: Bertrand Russell Peace Foundation, 1968), 75 ff. and 105 ff. 29. Luke J. Stewart, “‘A New Kind of War.’ The Vietnam War and the Nuremberg Principles, 1964-1968” (Doctoral Dissertation, University of Waterloo, 2014). 30. The Nuremberg Principles were referenced, for example, in the pivotal Call to Resist Illegitimate Authority of 1967 and reprinted in a collection of documents

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on draft and military resistance as a guide for refusers and counselors in 1968. See Marvin E. Gettleman, Jane Franklin, Marilyn B. Young, and H. Bruce Franklin, eds., Vietnam and America. A Documented History, 2nd ed. (New York: Grove Press, 1995), 308–309; Alice Lynd, We Won’t Go. Personal Accounts of War Objectors (Boston: Beacon Press, 1968), 319–320. 31. Telford Taylor, Nuremberg and Vietnam. An American Tragedy (New York: Bantam Books, 1971), 12–17; Richard A. Falk, “Telford Taylor and the Legacy of Nuremberg,” Columbia Journal of Transnational Law 37, 3 (1999). 32. See, for example, Herbert Marcuse’s keynote at a conference on the Vietnam War in Frankfurt in May 1966, taking this perspective (Herbert Marcuse, “Vietnam— Analyse eines Exempels,” Neue Kritik, July/August 1966, 30–40). 33. Eleanor Davey, Idealism beyond Borders. The French Revolutionary Left and the Rise of Humanitarianism, 1954-1988 (Cambridge/New York: Cambridge University Press, 2015), 59 ff.; Christoph Kalter, The Discovery of the Third World. Decolonization and the Rise of the New Left in France, C. 1950-1976 (Cambridge/ New York: Cambridge University Press, 2016), 150 ff.; Claus Leggewie, Kofferträger. Das Algerien-Projekt der Linken im Adenauer-Deustschland (Berlin: Rotbuch, 1984), 84 ff.; Mathilde Von Bülow, West Germany, Cold War Europe and the Algerian War (Cambridge/New York: Cambridge University Press, 2016), 273 ff. See for continued efforts to support dissent among French troops and to reform the military following these conficts “Pour un statut démocratique du soldat,” Supplement to Notre Jeunesse, September 1964, in NARA, RG 59, Central Foreign Policy Files 1964-66, Box 1560. 34. Charlotte Frankel Gerrard, “Anti-Militarism in Vian’s Minor Texts,” The French Review 45, 6 (1972), 1118; Alfred Cismaru, Boris Vian (New York: Twayne Publishers, 1974), 19. “Le Déserteur de Boris Vian: L’histoire secrète d’un chant de révolte,” Le Figaro Online, January 2, 2016 (http​:/​/ww​​w​.lef​​i garo​​.fr​/m​​usiqu​​e​/201​​6​ /01/​​02​/03​​006​-2​​01601​​02ART​​FIG00​​013--​​le​-de​​serte​​ur​-de​​-bori​​s​-via​​n​-l​-h​​istoi​​re​-se​​cr​ete​​ -d​-un​​-chan​​t​-de-​​revol​​te​.ph​p—acc​essed​ October 2017). 35. Philip D. Beidler, “The Good War and the Great Snafu,” Georgia Review 52, 1 (1998); Sanford Pinsker, “Reassessing Catch-22,” Sewanee Review 108, 4 (2000); John E. Bodnar, The “Good War” in American Memory (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2010), 42–43. A flm adaption of Catch-22 appeared in 1970. 36. William Bradford Huie, The Execution of Private Slovik. The Hitherto Secret Story of the Only American Soldier since 1864 to Be Shot for Desertion (New York: Duell, 1954); Fantina, Desertion and the American Soldier, 127–131; Bodnar, The “Good War” in American Memory, 43–45. Earlier plans for a flm adaption by Frank Sinatra were abandoned in the early 1960s to not harm John F. Kennedy’s political career, whom the former publicly supported. In the wake of the Vietnam amnesty debate, Huie and others proposed a reassessment of Slovik’s conviction and the provision of government benefts for his widow as a belated compensation, however unsuccessfully (“Army Panel Upholds Execution of Slovik,” Los Angeles Times, August 13, 1977; “Why Not a Pardon for Pvt. Slovik?” Boston Globe, August 17, 1977; “The U.S. Should Pay Private Slovik’s Widow,” Boston Globe, March 26, 1978).

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37. Hans-Michael Bock and Tim Bergfelder, The Concise Cinegraph. Encyclopaedia of German Cinema (New York: Berghahn Books, 2009), 348. 38. Jens Ebert, “Verräter, Helden, Außenseiter. Deutsche Deserteure im politischen und literarischen Diskurs nach 1945,” in Krieg und Nachkrieg. Konfgurationen der deutschsprachigen Literatur (1940-1965), ed. Hania Siebenpfeiffer and Ute Wölfel (Berlin: Erich Schmidt, ‎2004), regarding East Germany, 27; Paulhans Stoessel, Desertion und Montage. Eine vergleichende Studie zu Desertions-Erzählungen von Heinar Kipphardt, Alfred Andersch, Heinrich Böll und Hans Magnus Enzensberger (Hannover: Wehrhahn, 2013), 302 ff. and 395 ff.; Jörg Döring, Felix Römer, and Rolf Seubert, Alfred Andersch desertiert. Fahnenfucht und Literatur (1944-1952) (Berlin: Verbrecher Verlag, 2015), 213 ff. and 221 ff.; Siegfried Lenz, Der Überläufer (Hamburg: Hoffmann und Campe, 2016), on the genesis of the book and its posthumous publication see 341–351. 39. Wolfram Wette, Die Wehrmacht. Feindbilder, Vernichtungskrieg, Legenden (Frankfurt a.M.: S. Fischer, 2002), 165–168, 197 ff., and 251 ff. 40. Wolfram Wette, ed. Deserteure der Wehrmacht. Feiglinge, Opfer, Hoffnungsträger (Essen: Klartext, 1995), documentation of the debate; Dieter Knippschild, “Deserteure im Zweiten Weltkrieg. Der Stand der Debatte,” in Armeen und Deserteure. Vernachlässigte Kapitel einer Militärgeschichte, ed. Ulrich Bröckling and Michael Sikora (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1998); Wolfram Wette, “Deserteure der Wehrmacht rehabilitiert. Ein exemplarischer Meinungswandel in Deutschland (1980–2002),” Zeitschrift für Geschichtswissenschaft 52, 6 (2004); Hannes Metzler, Ehrlos für immer? Die Rehabilitierung der Wehrmachtsdeserteure in Deutschland und Österreich (Wien: Mandelbaum, 2007), 30 ff.; Marco Dräger, “Monuments for Deserters!? The Changing Image of Wehrmacht Deserters in Germany and Their Gradual Entry into Germany’s Memory Culture,” in Traitors, Collaborators and Deserters in Contemporary European Politics of Memory, ed. Gelinada Grinchenko and Eleonora Narvselius (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2017). Dräger has suggested that the rehabilitation of deserters in Germany may in turn inspire similar debates in other countries, for example, in the United States on the deserters of the Vietnam era. For an exemplary reference to desertion during the Vietnam War in writings of the turn of 1970 and 1980 see Bodo Scheurig, “Desertion und Deserteure,” in Tragik der Abtrünnigen. Verräter, Ketzer, Deserteure, ed. GerdKlaus Kaltenbrunner (München: Herder, 1980), 77 ff. 41. H. Bruce Franklin, Vietnam and Other American Fantasies (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 2000), 47 ff. See also Walter L. Hixson, “Viet Nam and ‘Vietnam’ in American History and Memory,” in Four Decades On. Vietnam, the United States, and the Legacies of the Second Indochina War, ed. Scott Laderman and Edwin A. Martini (Durham/London: Duke University Press, 2013). 42. Jeffrey Kimball, “The Stab-in-the-Back Legend and the Vietnam War,” Armed Forces & Society 14, 3 (1988); Kevin Baker, “Stabbed in the Back! The Past and Future of a Right-Wing Myth,” Harper’s, June (2006). 43. Franklin, Vietnam and Other American Fantasies, 60.

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44. Myra MacPherson, Long Time Passing. Vietnam and the Haunted Generation (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1984), 354 and 338. 45. Guenter Lewy, America in Vietnam (Oxford/New York: Oxford University Press, 1978), 156–159. 46. See, for example, the special issue of Time Magazine “Vietnam. Ten Years Later” of April 15, 1985. On popular cultural accounts of the time, see, for example, the flms The Deserters (1983), White Nights (1985), Proud Men (1987), and the episode Thicker than Blood of the series Magnum, P.I. (1981). See, respectively, Michael Lee Lanning, Vietnam at the Movies (New York: Fawcett Columbine, 1994), 202, 350, and 148; Brigitte Scherer, “Magnum, Hawke und Al. Der Vietnamveteran in den Serien von Donald P. Bellisario,” in Unser Jahrhundert in Film und Fernsehen. Beiträge zu zeitgeschichtlichen Film- und Fernsehdokumenten, ed. Karl Friedrich Reimers, Christiane Hackl, and Brigitte Scherer (Konstanz: Ölschläger, 1995), 215. See also the novel Boonie-Rat Body Burning by Jonathan Cain (New York: Zebra, 1984). 47. Jack Todd, The Taste of Metal. A Deserter’s Story (Toronto: Harper Flamingo, 2001); Dick Perrin, G.I. Resister. The Story of How One American Soldier and His Family Fought the War in Vietnam (Victoria: Trafford, 2001); William Males, Work in Progress. Refections of an American Deserter (Self-published at williammales​.blogspot​.c​om, accessed July 2017); autobiographical accounts by Gerry Condon, Mike Sutherland (formerly Lindner), and others are included in in Ron Carver, David Cortright, and Barbara Doherty, eds. Waging Peace in Vietnam. U.S. Soldiers and Veterans Who Opposed the War (New York: New Village Press, 2019), 85-98. Moreover, the autobiographical account of a deserter from the U.S. military in Vietnam to Sweden of 1971 has been reissued in 1997 by the University Press of Mississippi (Terry Whitmore, Memphis, Nam, Sweden. The Story of a Black Deserter (Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 1997, frst published 1971)). George (Warren) Niesluchowski, who went AWOL to seek sanctuary in Paris in 1968, was subject and protagonist of a series of performance art and video installations by Simon Leung, which refected his experience of resistance and exile during the Vietnam War (Simon Leung and Marita Sturken, “Displaced Bodies in Residual Spaces,” Public Culture 17, 1 (2005), 129–132; Simon Leung, Surf Vietnam (Huntington Beach: Huntington Beach Art Center, 1998), 17–18.) A memoir written by a Navy reservist, who went into Swedish exile in 1968 after he was activated, failed to be published although already listed in the catalogues as Parker F. Smith, Exile’s Odyssey. The Memoirs of an American Deserter (La Jolla: Oak Tree, 1980). The manuscript is preserved at the U.S. Copyright Offce in Washington, DC and may one day be made available for research. A unique insight into the life of a deserter living underground in the United States during the Vietnam War is a collection of handmade record covers, discovered many years later at a Washington, DC fea market and featured in a book. They had been created by a Black AWOLee between 1968 and 1976, who imagined himself as a soul singer while hiding from the military authorities, and include several references to the Vietnam War (Dori Hadar, Mingering Mike. The Amazing Career of an Imaginary Soul Superstar (New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 2007)).

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48. MacPherson, Long Time Passing, 3–5. 49. Tim O’Brien, If I Die in a Combat Zone. Box Me up and Ship Me Home (New York: Delacorte Press, 1973), 50–65; Timothy Southerly Goins, “The Deserter,” North American Review, Winter (1974); Tobias Wolff, In Pharaoh’s Army. Memories of the Lost War (New York: Knopf, 1994), 128; Whitmore, Memphis, Nam, Sweden. Tim O’Brien also treated the issue of desertion during the Vietnam War in a novel (Tim O’Brien, Going after Cacciato (New York: Delacorte Press/S. Lawrence, 1978).) See on O’Brien’s own experience and motives for writing on the issue of desertion Larry McCaffery, “Interview with Tim O’Brien,” Chicago Review 33, 2 (1982), 129–135. 50. Cortright, Soldiers in Revolt, 10–15. 51. Jerry Lembcke, The Spitting Image. Myth, Memory, and the Legacy of Vietnam (New York: New York University Press, 1998), 36 and 53. 52. Baskir and Strauss, Chance and Circumstance, 109; D. Bruce Bell and Beverly W. Bell, “Desertion and Antiwar Protest. Findings from the Ford Clemency Program,” Armed Forces & Society 3, 3 (1977); Edward Shils, “A Profle of the Military Deserter,” Armed Forces & Society 3, 3 (1977). These studies have often served as references on Vietnam era military absentees, for example, G. David Curry, Sunshine Patriots. Punishment and the Vietnam Offender (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1985), 14 ff. 53. D. Bruce Bell, Characteristics of Army Deserters in the DoD Special Discharge Review Program (Alexandria: U.S. Army Research Institute for the Behavioral and Social Sciences, 1979). 54. Cortright, Soldiers in Revolt, 10–15; Baskir and Strauss, Chance and Circumstance, 109 ff. 55. Marilyn Blatt Young, The Vietnam Wars. 1945-1990 (New York: Harper Perennial, 1991), 204. 56. DeBenedetti, An American Ordeal, 232–233. 57. See, for example, Appy, Working-Class War, 94–95; Kyle Longley, Grunts. The American Combat Soldier in Vietnam (Armonk: M.E. Sharpe, 2008), 54–55 and 145–149; Westheider, The Vietnam War, 174–175; Elizabeth Lutes Hillman, Defending America. Military Culture and the Cold War Court-Martial (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2005), 70–72; Fantina, Desertion and the American Soldier, 149 ff. 58. This has been also noted regarding the American draft refusers and deserters in Canada during the Vietnam War. See Hagan, Northern Passage, 4 ff. and 9 f. 59. Heather Marie Stur, Beyond Combat. Women and Gender in the Vietnam War Era (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2011), 183 ff. and 207. 60. Hunt, The Turning, 172 and 182. 61. Moser, The New Winter Soldiers, 77–81, quote on page 77. 62. Lewes, Protest and Survive, 134–135. 63. Seidman, “The Unquiet Americans,” 82–83 and 127. 64. Parsons, Dangerous Grounds, 65 ff. 65. Michèle Gibault, “Consciences revoltées et pratiques de résistance des soldats américains pendant la guerre du Vietnam. Histoire du mouvement G.I.” (Doctoral Dissertation, Université Paris VIII, 1994), 367 ff.

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66. Alexander Vazansky, An Army in Crisis. Social Confict and the U.S. Army in Germany, 1968–1975 (Lincoln: Nebraska University Press, 2019), 97–160. 67. Foley, Confronting the War Machine, 322 and 309. 68. Michael S. Foley, “Sanctuary! A Bridge Between GI and Veteran Dissent,” in A Companion to the Vietnam War, ed. Marilyn B. Young and Robert Buzzanco (Malden: Blackwell, 2002), 416. 69. John Ernst and Yvonne Baldwin, “The Not So Silent Minority. Louisville’s Antiwar Movement, 1966-1975,” The Journal of Southern History 73, 1 (2007), 111–116. 70. Ignatius Bau, This Ground Is Holy. Church Sanctuary and Central American Refugees (New York: Paulist Press, 1985), 161 ff. 71. Mitchell K. Hall, Because of Their Faith. CALCAV and Religious Opposition to the Vietnam War (New York: Columbia University Press, 1990), 81–84. 72. Hagan, Northern Passage, 138 ff., specifcally 167. For example, the wrong claim that Ford and Carter had “offered a general amnesty” for military absentees of the Vietnam era was made in James F. Dunnigan and Albert A. Nof, Dirty Little Secrets of the Vietnam War (New York: Thomas Dunne Books, 1999), 339. The most substantial study on the presidential programs for legal relief for draft and military offenders of the Vietnam War is Sharon Rudy Plaxton, “To Reconcile a Nation. Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter, and the Question of Amnesty 1974-1980” (Doctoral Dissertation, Queen’s University, 1995). The public debate surrounding the Carter pardon and its genesis was analyzed by Amber L. Roessner and Lindsey M. Bier, “Pardon Me, Mr. Carter,” Journalism History 43, 2 (2017). See also on the lack of research Jason Friedman, “Just a Caretaker?” in A Companion to Gerald R. Ford and Jimmy Carter, ed. Scott Kaufman (Chichester: Wiley Blackwell, 2016), 207. 73. See, for example, Roger Neville Williams, The New Exiles. American War Resisters in Canada (New York: Liveright Publishers, 1971), specifcally 90 ff.; Renée G. Kasinsky, Refugees from Militarism. Draft-Age Americans in Canada (New Brunswick: Transaction Books, 1976), specifcally 108 ff. 74. Hagan, Northern Passage, 4 ff. 75. David Stewart Churchill, “When Home Became Away. American Expatriates and New Social Movements in Toronto 1965-1977” (Doctoral Dissertation, University of Chicago, 2001), 184 ff., quote on page 222. 76. Jessica Squires, Building Sanctuary. The Movement to Support Vietnam War Resisters in Canada, 1965-1973 (Vancouver/Toronto: University of British Columbia Press, 2013), 69 ff. 77. Vernon W. Boggs, “From Heroes to Villains: The Case of U.S. Military Deserters in Sweden,” National Journal of Sociology 1, 2 (1987). 78. Sofa Gustafsson McFarland, “Americans, Once in Exile, Now at Home in Sweden” (MA Thesis, New York University, 1990). 79. Carl-Gustaf Scott, Swedish Social Democracy and the Vietnam War (Huddinge: Södertörns högskola, 2017), 145 ff.; Carl-Gustaf Scott, “‘Sweden Might Be a Haven, But It’s Not Heaven.’ American War Resisters in Sweden During the Vietnam War,” Immigrants & Minorities 33, 3 (2015). 80. Johan Erlandsson, Desertörerna (Stockholm: Carlssons, 2016).

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81. Matthew Sweet, Operation Chaos. The Vietnam Deserters Who Fought the CIA, the Brainwashers, and Each Other (London: Picador, 2018). 82. Teddy-John Frank, “Intet är mer värdefullt än oberoende och frihet!” Om Vietnamkriget och solidaritetsrörelsen (Göteborg: Proletärkultur, 2006), 58–59 (Swedish original: “en viktig propagandaseger för både vietnameserna och oss som arbetade med stödet åt FNL”); Åke Kilander, Vietnam var nära. En berättelse om FNL-rörelsen och solidaritetsarbetet i Sverige 1965-1975 (Stockholm: Leopard, 2007), 146–147; Kim Salomon, Rebeller i takt med tiden. FNL-rörelsen och 60-talets politiska ritualer (Stockholm: Rabén Prisma, 1996), 102, 176 and 203. Salomon’s scarce treatment of the solidarity work for American deserters in Sweden appears surprising, as it was featured in the DFFG’s own chronicle, published in 1975. See Tommy Hammarström, ed. FNL i Sverige. Reportage om en folkrörelse under tio år (Stockholm: De förenade FNL-grupperna, 1975), 83–92. 83. Erik Svanfeldt, Svenska kommittén för Vietnam. Regeringens megafon eller folklig kravmaskin? (Uppsala: self-published, 1992), 24. 84. Pierre Journoud, “Les relations franco-américaines à l’épreuve du Vietnam entre 1954 et 1975. De la défance dans la guerre à la coopération pour la paix” (Doctoral Dissertation, Université Paris I, 2007), 1113–1117, 1147–1158. 85. Bethany S. Keenan, “‘Vietnam Is Fighting for Us.’ French Identities and the U.S.-Vietnam War, 1965-1973” (Doctoral Dissertation, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 2009), 279–288. 86. Charles C. Moskos, The American Enlisted Man. The Rank and File in Today’s Military (New York: Russell Sage Foundation, 1970), 209. 87. Rimko van der Maar, Welterusten mijnheer de president. Nederland en de Vietnamoorlog 1965-1973 (Amsterdam: Boom, 2007), 143–166. See also S.A.M. Oostvogels, “Foreign Deserters and Asylum in the Netherlands. The Case of Ralph J. Waver,” Netherlands Yearbook of International Law 4, December (1973). 88. Niels Seibert, Vergessene Proteste. Internationalismus und Antirassismus 1964–1983 (Münster: Unrast, 2008), 123–131. 89. Martin Klimke, The Other Alliance. Student Protest in West Germany and the United States in the Global Sixties (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2010), 81–86 and 182–187. 90. Maria Höhn and Martin Klimke, A Breath of Freedom. The Civil Rights Struggle, African American GIs, and Germany (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010), 146. 91. Maria Höhn, “The Black Panther Solidarity Committee and the Trial of the Ramstein,” in Changing the World, Changing Oneself. Political Protest and Collective Identities in West Germany and the U.S. in the 1960s and 1970s, ed. Wilfried Mausbach, Belinda Davis, Martin Klimke and Carla MacDougall (New York: Berghahn Books, 2010), 217. On the attraction of young white West Germans to African Americans in general, and U.S. servicemen in particular, see Moritz Ege, Schwarz Werden. “Afroamerikanophilie” in den 1960er und 1970er Jahren (Bielefeld: Transcript, 2007), especially 105–115. 92. Belinda Davis, “A Whole World Opening Up. Transcultural Contact, Difference, and the Politicization of New Left Activists,” in Changing the World,

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Changing Oneself. Political Protest and Collective Identities in West Germany and the U.S. in the 1960s and 1970s, ed. Wilfried Mausbach, Belinda Davis, Martin Klimke and Carla MacDougall (New York: Berghahn Books, 2010), 265. 93. Moskos, The American Enlisted Man, 209; Baskir and Strauss, Chance and Circumstance, 113. 94. William Andrews, Dissenting Japan. A History of Japanese Radicalism and Counterculture, from 1945 to Fukushima (London: Hurst, 2016), 106; Thomas R. H. Havens, Fire Across the Sea. The Vietnam War and Japan 1965-1975 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1988), 141 ff. Beheiren is an acronym of the Japanese for Citizens’ Alliance for Peace in Vietnam. My review can only draw on publications in English, which however have considered Japanese accounts on the issue, including texts by participants. 95. Volker Fuhrt, “Peace Movements as Emancipatory Experience. Anpo Tōsō and Beheiren in 1960s’ Japan,” in Peace Movements in Western Europe, Japan and the USA during the Cold War, ed. Benjamin Ziemann (Essen: Klartext, 2007), 86–88. 96. Simon Andrew Avenell, Making Japanese Citizens. Civil Society and the Mythology of the Shimin in Postwar Japan (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2010), 137–139. 97. Kei Takata, “Escaping through the Networks of Trust. The US Deserter Support Movement in the Japanese Global Sixties,” The Sixties 10, 2 (2017), 170–171. 98. Peter Gerald Kelman, “Protesting the National Identity. The Cultures of Protest in 1960s Japan” (Doctoral Dissertation, University of Sydney, 2001), 162– 204, quote on page 177. 99. Noriko Shiratori, “Peace in Vietnam! Beheiren. Transnational Activism and GI Movement in Postwar Japan 1965-1974” (Doctoral Dissertation, University of Hawaii at Manoa, 2018), 109 ff. 100. See, for example, Bodo Scheurig, “Desertion und Deserteure,” Frankfurter Hefte 34, 4 (1979), 38–39; Ulrich Bröckling and Michael Sikora, eds., Armeen und ihre Deserteure. Vernachlässigte Kapitel einer Militärgeschichte (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1998), 10–11; Maria Fritsche and Christa Hämmerle, “Deserteure in der Geschichte der Neuzeit als historiographische Herausforderung,” Wiener Zeitschrift zur Geschichte der Neuzeit 8, 2 (2008), 9; Heike NiebergallLackner, Status and Treatment of Deserters in International Armed Conficts (Leiden/ Boston: Brill Nijhoff, 2016), 1–3; Marcel van der Linden, “Mass Exits. Who, Why, How?” in Desertion in the Early Modern World. A Comparative History, ed. Matthias van Rossum and Jeannette Kamp (London/New York: Bloomsbury Academic, 2016), 34 ff.; Michael Sikora, Disziplin und Desertion. Strukturprobleme militärischer Organisation im 18. Jahrhundert (Berlin: Duncker & Humblot, 1996), 24 ff.; Mark A. Weitz, A Higher Duty. Desertion among Georgia Troops during the Civil War (Lincoln/London: University of Nebraska Press, 2005), 5–6; Christoph Jahr, Gewöhnliche Soldaten. Desertion und Deserteure im deutschen und britischen Heer 1914-1918 (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1998), 23 ff.; Benjamin Ziemann, Violence and the German Soldier in the Great War. Killing, Dying, Surviving (London/New York: Bloomsbury Academic, 2017), 109.

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Chapter 1

Stepping Out

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The Appearance of American Deserters and the International Debate on War Refusal

In 1966 and 1967 desertion from the U.S. armed forces came to the focus of the Vietnam debate, and American deserters seeking sanctuary abroad stepped into the public eye. Both developments took place outside North America. In Europe, war opponents found a new protest tactic in targeting American GIs stationed there and calling on them to protest the war and desert. In West Germany and Japan, moreover, U.S. servicemen went absent without leave (AWOL) from their units and publicized their action and motives. Key elements of this new phenomenon of the Vietnam War were the idea of the soldier as potential war resister, desertion in settings far away from home and the war zone, and the appearance of deserters as speakers in the media and the antiwar debate. The frst American deserters left their posts in West Germany and escaped to France and Sweden. A foreign environment would usually not provide the opportunity to go and stay AWOL, unlike the options within one’s home country of hiding with friends and family or in a familiar environment. During the American war in Vietnam, however, European war opponents changed these parameters and offered members of the U.S. armed forces assistance to desert. In West Germany, U.S. troops had been present since the end of the Second World War, frst as occupational forces and then as allies to contain the sphere of infuence of the Soviet Union in the Cold War. In Japan, the other main Second World War adversary of the United States turned ally in the postwar era, similar developments took place, closer to the war zone in Vietnam, however, and without potential sanctuaries in reach. The U.S. forces and their facilities in Europe and Japan offered local war opponents targets for protests against the Vietnam War. Rallies were led before military installations and representations of the United States there, and with their desertion campaigns directed at U.S. soldiers, war 1

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opponents adapted a tactic of psychological warfare. Behind these abstract symbols of American military power, however, stood individual servicemen, human beings confronted with possible deployment to the war, thus either potential perpetrators or subjects to a controversial military strategy, which would interrupt their rather unheeding young lives. Once European and Japanese war opponents understood this, they would offer GIs moral and practical support to escape service in Vietnam and establish sanctuaries to help them wait out the war, settle down, or work for a solution to return home to the United States. Campaigns to mobilize dissent among the ranks and inform U.S. servicemen about means to resist and refuse, escape assistance for deserters, and practical support for life in exile thus became important elements of antiwar activism in various contexts. Out of reach of the U.S. authorities and thus safe from prosecution for the time being, American deserters stepped before the international and U.S. media and publicized their action. A varying combination of the absentees’ need and will to explain their motives, activists’ encouragements for them to come forward as symbols of antiwar protest, and the interest of journalists into the new dissenters, brought the deserters to the public eye. While reports did make known the new phenomenon of desertion from the U.S. armed forces abroad, activism in their support, as well as the countries offering sanctuary to the men with much further reach than the channels of international antiwar networks could, the perspective of the deserters themselves was often contested. They were subject to commentary and interpretation and were placed into common reference frames of patriotism, civic duty, the Cold War, traditional images of desertion, and more established forms of war refusal, practiced by their peers from more privileged social strata. These developments of 1966 and 1967 brought American deserters to the focus of the international Vietnam debate of the next years. Their action and their perspective prompted a reassessment of desertion during a controversial war and drew attention to the potential for dissent and refusal within the U.S. armed forces. International war opponents were both motivated to support young men from the less privileged segments of American society and fascinated with their simple individual step, nonetheless dangerous and consequential, to withdraw from the military. With their action and in particular by opening sanctuaries for themselves and others to follow, American deserters would bring about new options for their military comrades, who developed doubts about America’s role in Vietnam. As new voices in the Vietnam debate, they contributed to a new image of the dissenting serviceman and the deserter, both on an international level and in the United States.

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Stepping Out

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SANCTUARY IN FRANCE AND SWEDEN In December 1966, an eighteen-year-old U.S. Army soldier from Texas left his post in Mainz, West Germany, to travel down the Rhine River to Amsterdam. Gregory Graham’s trip was not unusual; the Dutch metropole was a favorite destination for GIs on leave in Europe. However, Graham had made no plans to return to his unit and asked young locals at the central station to help him desert.1 Private Graham was one of the frst American soldiers to answer to a leafet published by the War Resisters’ International (WRI), the Committee of 100, and the Vietnam Information Group in London, and distributed by West German pacifsts at U.S. military installations and by Dutch activists to Americans visiting Amsterdam. Their message “To American Soldiers in Europe” asked GIs to protest the war in Vietnam, to refuse orders, or to desert. The only concrete hint at how to do this was a pseudo-encrypted code “INADAMNL/UGO2PROVOS,” which was easy to decipher and advised servicemen considering going AWOL to contact the Provos in Amsterdam, nonconformist youths engaged in different forms of undogmatic activism in the Netherlands since the early 1960s. And this is what Graham did.2 Dutch activists, not only participants of the Provo movement but also leftist students and members of the Socialist Youth (SJ) with contacts to elder pacifsts, brought Graham covertly to Belgium to consult a lawyer in Antwerp. The latter, however, warned them that it was not possible to safely keep an American deserter in either Belgium or the Netherlands, both member states of NATO. As a precautionary measure, Graham’s Dutch helpers therefore asked him to sign blank authorizations in Dutch, French, and English to enable sympathetic lawyers to represent him if he was arrested.3 A request by Otto Boetes, a Quaker and senator for the Pacifst Socialist Party, to the recently retired minister of justice Ivo Samkalden, returned the advice to best have Graham to surrender to the American embassy.4 Consequently, the students decided to smuggle him to France, an apparently safer and more promising place for an AWOL GI to apply for some form of a legal residence status. In June 1966, France had withdrawn its forces from NATO’s integrated military structure and required American and other allied military personnel to leave France, resulting in the relocation of the alliance’s headquarters to Belgium in the fall of 1967. Moreover, President Charles de Gaulle had criticized the American intervention in Vietnam and called for the United States to withdraw in September 1966.5 Through contacts in the French National Student Union (UNEF), the Dutch activists were put in touch with Claude Bourdet, a veteran of the French Résistance during the Second World War and a staunch critic of both the earlier French and present American involvement in Indochina. He determined it would be best for Graham to

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be taken in by American compatriots living in Paris. Some of them were members of the Paris American Committee to Stop War (PACS), an antiwar group of American intellectuals, journalists, academics, and artists. Founded in the spring of 1966, it regarded itself independent from political parties and cooperated with different French organizations of the peace movement.6 PACS executive secretary Maria Jolas, widow of literary critic Eugene Jolas and a member of the American expatriate community in Paris during the interwar years, called a special meeting to announce the unexpected arrival of the young Texan deserter just before Christmas. Many of those present were nervous about the issue, not only because of possible charges by the U.S. authorities of aiding and abetting a military deserter but also because of the committee’s restricted status as a foreign political organization in France and fear of further limitations.7 Nevertheless, some members of PACS were eager to host Graham, among them Thomas Schwaetzer, who had as a teenager come to the United States as an Austrian Jewish refugee in the early 1940s. A leftist, he had himself evaded the draft during the Korean War and gone frst to Israel and then to France, where he had since been studying and working as a geophysicist. He was joined by PACS executive committee member Mary Jo van Ingen Leibowitz in organizing practical support by American and French sympathizers for Graham and possibly more American deserters to come to France.8 Additionally, they helped establish a broad European network of activists from Paris to the Netherlands, West Germany, Switzerland, and Sweden to assist American deserters escape and fnd sanctuary and to spread information to U.S. servicemen on legal matters and available support. Participants of this “underground railway,” a reference to abolitionist assistance to fugitive slaves in North America during the nineteenth century, included students, lawyers, pastors, and members of a broad spectrum of the international antiwar movement, with various political or religious affliations, some with experience in resistance activities from the Second World War and the French Algerian War.9 When a handful more American GIs AWOL from their units in West Germany came to France over the turn of the year, activists of PACS and French war opponents and lawyers began to discuss how to legalize the status of the deserters. An appeal of January by attorneys Jean-Jacques de Felice and Nicole Dreyfus, both of whom had engaged in the defense of dissidents during the Algerian War, to the French authorities for political asylum for the U.S. military absentees was never answered, however, and the American deserters were instructed to continue to keep a low profle for the time being.10 Meanwhile, lawyers and activists planned to have one of them act in a test case to push for a solution of the men’s status, if necessary in court. They saw a chance to convince authorities that the refusal

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to fght in the Vietnam War was legitimately based on the Nuremberg Principles, according to which it was not only the right but also the duty of the individual soldier to disobey unjust orders. The International Law Commission of the United Nations had formulated these guidelines in 1950 from the conclusions of the war crimes trials against German leaders held in Nuremberg by the Allies after the Second World War. Since, they had been incorporated into American, French, and other military regulations. However, the lawyers and activists were uncertain about how grounded were the young Americans’ motives to desert and whether they were apt to stand trial and risk expulsion from France.11 One of the men, twenty-year-old African American Army private Louis Armfeld, who went AWOL from his unit in Mannheim, West Germany, in November 1966 and arrived in Paris via Amsterdam shortly after Graham, claimed to have served one year in Vietnam. That he had come to oppose the Vietnam War through frsthand experience led supporters to believe him to be a good candidate for a test case as well as for creating public attention on the matter. However, Armfeld had actually never stepped foot in Indochina, but in fact left the military to avoid service in Vietnam after receiving orders to report for duty there.12 Such false claims could have been disastrous for the objective to push for asylum in France, and it was thus fortunate for the deserters and their supporters that in a report published in March 1967, Armfeld had been cited anonymously and that a flmed interview with him shortly after was never released for broadcast. His false story of Vietnam service arguably resulted from the circumstances of the unusual encounter between the French and American war opponents from well-educated backgrounds and the inexperienced GIs. The former were waiting for an ideal deserter to claim asylum, while the young Americans were desperate for help and safety from prosecution by the military authorities, and ready to fulfll their sympathizers’ expectations.13 Ironically, it was Louis Armfeld who eventually did become the man to stand trial and would become the frst American deserter to receive a legal residence status in France in May.14 At that time, the absentees were shuttling between the countryside, where they were hosted by sympathizers and worked occasional jobs, and Paris, drawn to city life and eager to escape the boredom of isolation, which left their supporters worried about their safety from local authorities or from becoming visible to the Americans.15 Such concern proved justifed, when during a stay in the Latin Quarter in May, Louis Armfeld was picked up by the French police, who found him sleeping in a parked car. He was convicted in court for vagrancy and sentenced to ten days in prison, however, not for illegal entry into France. In place of expulsion or returning him to the U.S. military, the French authorities issued a provisional residence permit to Armfeld upon release from custody, to be renewed

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when he found work.16 While in jail, he was visited by an American military legal counsel, who offered to represent him in court and provide for lenient treatment by the Army judges upon voluntary return.17 Armfeld, however, rejected the proposal and instead had de Felice and Dreyfus defend him and push for a legalization of his status. The lawyers argued that the trial was not about a usual case of vagrancy, but concerned Armfeld’s refusal to serve in Vietnam, his personal freedom, and the very honor of France to protect the latter. Besides, they pointed out that Armfeld was not a vagrant in the legal sense, meaning a person without a domicile or support, but someone soon to fnd steady employment and settle down in France. The defense presented letters of support by prominent French intellectuals and war opponents, including philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre, national secretary of the Mouvement de la Paix pastor René Rognon, historian Pierre Vidal-Naquet, and physicist Alfred Kastler. They guaranteed assistance in fnding Armfeld work and lodging, and mathematician Laurent Schwartz further pledged the general support for American military deserters from the National Vietnam Committee.18 The Armfeld case forced the French authorities to come to a decision on the status of American deserters in the country and to reveal the government’s position on NATO regulations regarding military personnel from the United States, which they had been evading since the frst appeal for political asylum in January. Now, when U.S. troops were leaving France resulting from the latter’s withdrawal from NATO, offcials of the French Ministry of the Interior critical of the American war in Vietnam succeeded in preventing the usual process of expulsion of foreign deserters to a neighboring country, where local police or the U.S. military could easily arrest them.19 The Foreign Ministry instead informed the American embassy that Armfeld was not considered a subject to the NATO status of forces agreement, as he had not entered the country on offcial duty.20 Some observers suggested that President de Gaulle himself had ordered such a policy, while others speculated that he at least may have not been displeased about such an affront against the United States, given his strong stand against the American intervention in Vietnam. Moreover, reference was made to how some years before U.S. offcials had shut their eyes to French deserters from the Algerian War hiding in North America and West Germany and refused assistance in their prosecution. Besides, the Americans could not request the extradition of Armfeld because military offenses were defned as non-extraditable in bilateral agreements of the United States with France and other nations.21 Although the decision on Armfeld had not brought about a general political asylum policy for American deserters in France, war opponents welcomed it as a breakthrough. According to the PACS, France had acted according “to her reputation as a land of political asylum” in granting a right of residence to Armfeld, who represented the “average canon fodder” of the U.S.

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military. These members of the Vietnam generation, the committee’s newsletter explained, came from the working class and were unable to evade the draft or to achieve conscientious objector status, as they lacked the means and information of men of draft-age from more privileged segments of society to escape military service.22 In particular, activists involved in the WRI’s campaign and in assisting AWOL American servicemen were motivated by the decision to continue and expand their actions. Speaking for Dutch participants of the network, student leader Ton Regtien announced that they were to intensify their efforts to encourage GIs to desert and help AWOLees to escape to France, after their status had become more clear with the Armfeld case.23 British and West German members of the WRI broadened their campaign to call on American servicemen to protest and desert, and West German students adapted the strategy. Thomas Schwaetzer and Mary Jo Leibowitz established contacts throughout Europe and updated activists on legal and practical matters. Most importantly, the Armfeld decision served as precedent for the legalization of the status of the other American deserters already staying in France and those to follow them over the next months and years.24 Parallel to the developments in France, an American deserter found sanctuary in Sweden. However, without the involvement of prominent war opponents and less in the media spotlight than the Paris case, the decision was not publicized beyond Sweden at frst. Private Roy Ray Jones, a twentyyear-old Black GI from the U.S. Army in Fürth, West Germany, had decided to go AWOL in January 1967 after learning that his unit was to be assigned to Vietnam. He was assisted by German and Danish activists to escape to Sweden in hopes that the neutral country would offer him asylum.25 Some years before, Sweden had received draft resisters and deserters from France during its war in Algeria, and public opposition to the American war in Vietnam was strong among Swedes.26 After staying with sympathizers in Lund in southern Sweden for several weeks, Jones was brought to Stockholm, where lawyer and Amnesty International member Hans Göran Franck was to take on his case. In March, Franck fled a request with the aliens commission for permission to reside and work in Sweden and for an aliens’ passport and recommended political asylum for Jones. He argued that Jones’s action had been a political offense, which would fulfll the criteria for a status as political refugee according to international and Swedish laws on the right of asylum.27 As desertion did not per se qualify as such, Franck asked the commission to also consider the case on humanitarian terms. He asserted that Jones was not an ordinary military absentee, but had made a well-reasoned decision to protest the controversial American war in Vietnam; as a member of the armed forces, going AWOL had been the only means to do so. If asylum in Sweden was denied, Franck

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added, it was probable that Jones would face racism upon conviction by the military authorities and returning to the United States. Jones, who had grown up in Detroit and had been politicized as a teenager on civil rights issues, had developed doubts about the Vietnam War before he was drafted into the military; however, he did not dare to refuse conscription in fear of prosecution. In his appeal to the Swedish authorities for recognition as a political refugee, he explained that on moral grounds he could not use weapons against his fellow human beings and therefore had chosen to desert when he had learned that he was going to be trained for combat in Vietnam.28 In April, the Swedish aliens commission granted Jones residence and work permits and a foreigner’s passport.29 As with France, bilateral agreements on extradition between the United States and Sweden excluded desertion, which placed Jones out of reach of the American military authorities. However, he did not receive full political asylum, and the decision was an individual ruling on Jones only and not intended as a precedent for other American deserters by the Swedish government. Consequently, publicity was avoided on the case beyond the local press, and only several months later did international media report on the decision.30 Members of the Swedish antiwar scene also refrained from making the case known at frst, until in the summer British and Swedish journalists collaboratively investigated the European desertion network and interviewed several sympathizers and deserters, including Jones. In August, the fndings were published in large reports in Swedish newspapers and the London Times, as well as in Swedish and British television features.31 International and American media then picked up the matter, and Sweden became known next to France as a sanctuary for American deserters, with several men following Jones to apply for asylum there in the fall of 1967.

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IN THE PUBLIC EYE The frst reports on the deserters were published by sympathetic journalists in Europe, who explained the radical act of the young Americans in political terms, in the contexts of Vietnam antiwar protest, social unrest in the United States, and specifcally their racial and class backgrounds. They placed the few statements by deserters into these frames and thus helped Europeans aware of conficts in the United States over the war, the draft, and race relations comprehend the ex-post war refusal of the deserters and its signifcance. This way, they responded to explicit or latent resentments toward deserters that they were not bona fde war refusers, held by many contemporaries, including war opponents who endorsed draft refusal, the more indisputable and well-established form of war resistance. The issue of

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publicity, nevertheless, was controversially discussed among supporters of the deserters. Some of them promoted media attention in the hope of pressuring European governments to grant asylum and to mobilize more sympathizers. Others feared that too much information on the absentees and the network would open the way for domestic and U.S. authorities to prosecute both groups. Moreover, there were concerns about how the young Americans and their act of refusal would be presented. When the American mainstream media picked up the matter, journalists were suspicious of the support network and treated their AWOL compatriots with less sympathy than previous European reports. The deserters were mostly framed within the traditional image of military absentees as motivated by individual reasons or as notorious offenders and misfts, and regarded as insignifcant and trivial, not least due to their small numbers. Their supporters were presented as radicals eager to exploit the smallest hint of dissent of mostly naive young servicemen for their propaganda against the United States, and, it was suggested, backed by communists. Not least because of such negative press and the danger of exposition of the clandestine workings of the network, some participants viewed the publicity efforts of others with skepticism. Even so, the frst deserters, who answered reporters with some reluctance and whose statements lacked the eloquence of contemporary war opponents, were followed in late 1967 by men ready to publicize their action and determined to claim a voice in the Vietnam debate. Their decision to step out into the international public brought the case of the deserters and their European sanctuaries to the forefront of the Vietnam debate and thus added a new perspective to the discussion of the war and young Americans’ responses to it. Before the arrest of Armfeld, Jacques Amalric, who also followed the activities of PACS, reported in Le Monde on the “political desertions” of American servicemen now staying in Paris and recognized them as a “new category of war opponents,” who were bringing the widely discussed matter of war refusal by young Americans to Europe. He explained their decision as an act similar to draft resistance and defended their plea for an overdue legal solution of their then precarious existence in France.32 As early as March, L’Événement, a political monthly published by Résistance veteran and left-Gaullist Emmanuel d’Astier, had printed an article on Armfeld, who was anonymized as “M.,” and “S.,” nineteen-year-old Army private Cornell Hiselman, who had come to Paris from Mannheim via the Netherlands at the turn of 1966 and 1967. On regular duty and not on orders for deployment to Vietnam, he went AWOL in November and was approached by young activists in Amsterdam, whose help he had accepted.33 L’Événement described Armfeld and Hiselman as youngsters from underprivileged social backgrounds, with little political consciousness and mixed

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motives for desertion, prompted to act by certain doubts about the war and by the opportunity to go AWOL offered by Europeans. While the two were far from “political radicals or idealists,” the article noted, they were nevertheless eager to learn about international politics and to discuss the Vietnam War. They thus assured themselves that they were not alone and that their colleagues in the military and fellow Americans would soon better understand the confict in Indochina and with it their act of refusal. Moreover, their original enlistment in the U.S. Army was rationalized with their diffcult situation as draft-age men and their few choices as working class and Black youths. They had entered the military as an alternative offered them to evade prison and reform school, respectively; Armfeld had been convicted of failing to obey his draft notice, Hiselman had been caught after stealing a car together with friends. Further, Armfeld underscored how his alleged experience of the war in Vietnam had “opened his eyes,” such as interrogations with electric shock and the destruction of villages, and that this led to his refusal of another tour. Hiselman stated that when he had joined the military during the early stages of the American involvement in Vietnam, he had not thought of having to serve there himself. Moreover, he admitted that he had ignored politics until he learned about the actual war from one of his brothers when he returned from Indochina.34 Also before the arrest of Armfeld, an interview with him and Hiselman had been arranged by Schwaetzer and Leibowitz with French journalist Paul Bourron and recorded on flm. However, it was never aired by French or American networks, because of both newsmakers’ lack of interest in the subject and the complication of making the deserters anonymous, which made editing for television very diffcult.35 The documented interview nevertheless provides insight into the confrontation of antiwar activists and journalists with the inexperienced young deserters, who were in the middle of making sense of their action and its consequences. It also helps understand the dynamics of how Armfeld had come to make up his story of having served in Vietnam. Indeed, Schwaetzer and Leibowitz, who led a large part of the conversation, were particularly interested in Armfeld’s experience of the war. They sought from him the confrmation of matters discussed in the antiwar movement at the time, such as the lack of anti-communist convictions among many South Vietnamese, in contrast to offcial U.S. depictions, and the alleged better treatment of captured African American GIs by the Vietnamese than white Americans, citing Muhammad Ali on that “no Vietcong ever called me nigger.” Moreover, the interview developed into a debate about opposition to all wars, held by Hiselman at the time, versus the necessity of military action against fascism during the Second World War, insisted on by Schwaetzer, as well as about American ideals and identity, then questioned by a disillusioned Armfeld. Schwaetzer and Leibowitz struggled with these views, as their

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objective was to create sympathetic publicity for the deserters by showing that “it is not un-American to desert” during the Vietnam War and that “the real Americans are deserting” now in opposition to it.36 Similarly, questions to Roy Ray Jones by Swedish journalists focused on racial discrimination in the United States and specifcally in the military, and commentary interpreted his action in this context. In fact, these themes were reported on in the Swedish press at the time, from the perspective of Black Power leader Stokely Carmichael on race relations to the situation of Black GIs in Vietnam and their use as “cannon fodder.”37 After his reception of residence papers in May 1967, Roy Ray Jones was featured by Aftonbladet next to a large article on Muhammad Ali’s resistance to the draft in opposition to the American war in Vietnam and thus was presented as Sweden’s own Black war resister, who impersonated the plight of young African Americans there. Along the lines of these well-known fgures of the Black antiwar movement, Jones was cited on how the Vietnamese war for independence and the movement for civil rights in the United States were part of the same struggle for freedom. Moreover, in another interview, which was dispatched to Vietnam and aired on Voice of Vietnam, a North Vietnamese radio program directed at U.S. servicemen, Jones was asked about race relations in the military and the discriminatory character of the draft system. He told of how African American GIs often received harder punishment by military authorities and stated that there was virtual segregation of Black and white men in the mess halls and when on leave. He explained that many young African Americans lacked the options of their white peers to evade the draft, such as student deferments or emigration to Canada, where Blacks often faced job discrimination.38 Next to the domestic press in Sweden and France, the appearance of the deserters and the legalization of their status soon drew the attention of international media in Europe. While journalists were curious about the AWOL GIs, most came to focus their reports on the work of the underground support network and the perspectives and motives of the activists to encourage American servicemen to desert, rather than the latter themselves. A television report that aired in West Germany and the Netherlands shortly after the Armfeld case followed the desertion route from the Netherlands to Paris. Armfeld and Hiselman were featured as shadows projected onto a white sheet protecting their anonymity to not jeopardize their new residence status; however, they remained voiceless and their statements were overdubbed and reduced to a half-sentence on their motives ranging from fear of dying in Vietnam to being fed up with being treated as a second-class citizen as a Black American. Instead, Dutch activists spoke on how they considered their underground work “to demoralize the [U.S.] Army” part of the larger “struggle against international imperialism,” and Thomas Schwaetzer, alias Mr. Cook, on how the network involved people from a variety of political

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backgrounds, including pacifsts, communists, and religiously motivated war resisters.39 While Dutch newspaper commentary suspected that the shadows had been a publicity trick of the activists and that the deserters had been played by actors, the broadcast sparked further interest in the actual extent of these activities. Dutch senator Otto Boetes decided to make known his involvement in the deserter help network to authenticate the claims of the report.40 Moreover, the news on the appearance of actual American deserters also motivated Europeans to get involved in the campaigns and in the underground support efforts. In West Germany, for example, two students who saw the program decided spontaneously to contribute to the campaign and printed their own leafets for distribution to U.S. servicemen stationed in the area of their hometown Worms. Schwaetzer, in turn, used the occasion of the television appearance to inform West German students and antiwar activists on the efforts of their counterparts in the Netherlands and France and called on them to participate.41 In the United States, there had been scarce coverage of the Armfeld case and the desertion campaign in Europe. More Americans learned about their exiled compatriots after in August the London Times published a half-page article on Roy Ray Jones, Cornell Hiselman, and the European support network and prompted American correspondents to follow-up on the matter. The Times’ fndings were based on an inquiry by a team of English and Swedish journalists and were also featured in British and Swedish television reports.42 The half-page article in the Times described the underground assistance for American military absentees in Europe, their legal status in Sweden and France, and the leafet-campaign encouraging desertion. It was headed by photographs of Jones and Swedish activist Eva Almgren, who had hosted him when he frst arrived in the country, and a reproduction of his leave pass, forged by a friend of his according to the caption. As before in the Swedish press, Jones was quoted on race relations in the United States, and he pointed out the similarity of white Americans’ racism toward the Vietnamese and toward Blacks at home. Specifcally, he told the television crew how he had been a victim of the U.S. military’s racist recruitment system, which placed disproportionate numbers of African Americans in units assigned to dangerous tasks in Vietnam, himself having been trained as a scout.43 Cornell Hiselman, again flmed as a shadow and speaking as Buster, appeared self-confdent, clearly strengthened in his position since the frst interviews in the spring. He rebutted a journalist’s implication that he had “run out on his country” with the claim that he was in fact “fghting for my country” and “for the freedom of the [Vietnamese] people which my country claims [. . .] to be doing now,” by having deserted and now protesting the war. He stated that he had become “kind of proud of it [his desertion]” by then and

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that he had been affrmed by the opposition articulated by U.S. soldiers in Vietnam he had learned about, who “want[ed] out” themselves.44 Hiselman now underscored the difference between the causes of American interventions in Vietnam, where the United States was “not fghting legally,” and the legitimate mission in Europe during the Second World War, asserting that he “would not have deserted against Hitler.” The reports thus recognized both Jones’s and Hiselman’s objection to the American intervention in Vietnam and respected their decision to refuse to participate in this specifc war. Moreover, the Times contested the common charge of cowardice against deserters and concluded that the absentees’ “decision has taken [. . .] as much moral courage as facing enemy bullets requires of physical courage.”45 The following coverage by American media, in contrast, refected considerable doubts among U.S. journalists about the motives of deserters, the extent and effectiveness of the support activities, and the fgures cited by the Times.46 The paper had considered estimates of an absentee rate from the U.S. forces in Europe between one thousand per year and sixty per month within reason, neither provable nor disprovable without offcial data from the military.47 American reporters inquired with the Departments of Defense and State and the headquarters of the U.S. Army in Europe (USAREUR) on unauthorized absence rates and the desertion campaigns, and concluded that the story had been “exaggerated,” even “phony” and “untrue.”48 Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara was quoted that the claims were “sheer nonsense,” and Pentagon offcials contrasted their fgures of over three hundred long-term absentees since the mid-1960s with the over ten thousand men who had volunteered for Vietnam from the European command since January 1967, accordingly. Some reports even cited fourteen thousand volunteers, which only was an estimate until the end of the year, however.49 While USAREUR headquarters conceded that monthly desertion cases did amount to between sixty and ninety-fve, it noted that many absentees ultimately returned and were not convicted as deserters. This reinforced the suspicions of Chicago Tribune reporter Harry Stathos concerning the GIs’ motives to go AWOL, refusal to serve in Vietnam and antiwar protest, which he therefore set in quotation marks. Rather, he chose to cite an Army spokesman that in many cases “a soldier gets drunk, has a wild time with a girl, overstays his leave, and then is too frightened to return.”50 American commentators thus reaffrmed traditional images of deserters and disregarded the new quality and signifcance of desertion in the context of the war in Vietnam. Hiselman and Jones were quoted in some reports only briefy on the former’s assertion to have not deserted if he had been a GI during the Second World War and on the latter’s comparison of American racism in the United States and in Vietnam.51 Neglecting the deserters’ perspective completely, the Sunday News labeled them “defectors,” usually the term for

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those changing over to the other side in the Cold War, and described them as a “dropout,” an “‘unstable’ character,” and one with “a severe whiskey problem,” “tempt[ed]” to desert and “spirit[ed] [. . .] from their Army units” by “Europe’s peaceniks.” The deserters were presented more as pawns of the international antiwar movement than sovereign agents themselves, whom antiwar activists wanted to publicize as “anti-Vietnam cause[s] célèbre[s]” and as “martyr[s].” While they “dutifully” made statements against the war, they were of “little political value” in the end, the report by Russ Braley and others in the Sunday News concluded.52 Moreover, American observers suspected the deserters’ sympathizers of receiving fnancial support from the Soviet Union and referred to them as “anti-American agitators” with “Red leanings,” including “some hardcore Communists.” Therefore, some correspondents considered the publicity for the deserters and the support network a propaganda move, with its “curiously” synchronous publications in Great Britain and Sweden and the clandestine interview arrangements in the style of “good old-fashioned continental intrigue” of spy movies from the early Cold War era.53 Braley’s later deliberations on his encounter with American deserters in Paris refect his own anti-communist mindset and his belief that their supporters were communists themselves, or at least connected to communists or backed by the Soviet Union. Such a bias prevented him and others from comprehending desertion as a harbinger of the new and growing dissent among members of the Vietnam generation in uniform.54 Nevertheless, the American deserters and the support network in Europe did make American newsmakers curious, despite or because of the particular circumstances of interviews and the limited insight into the clandestine activities of Thomas Schwaetzer and others. A necessity to protect activists and deserters, who in France were granted residence permits on the condition of abstinence from political activities, this peculiar style of managing public relations also functioned as a hook to pique the mainstream media.55 As noted above, the technique to present real deserters as projected shadows onto a white sheet led some observers to doubt the authenticity of the men, and the excitement about secrecy both amused and annoyed many American correspondents. By the fall of 1967, this tactic was seen as tired and worn out, and New York Times correspondent John Hess suggested to Schwaetzer that in the media business one had to “constantly increase the ‘offering’” to uphold the interest of reporters.56 A disappointment of this logic could quickly bring observers to ridicule the matter, such as Michael Durham, who in an article in Life magazine recounted his interview with deserters behind a sheet in the form of a satirical theater review, mocking this “Bill and Buster Show” as the “oddest [p]lay of the Paris [s]eason,” a piece of “theatre of the absurd” in which, however, “the curtain never rises.” Durham, who had written sympathetically on the civil rights movement during the early sixties, showed little sympathies

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with the “alleged deserters” from the U.S. Army in Paris and was irritated by the conduct and statements of Schwaetzer. He questioned whether the “actors” were actually military absentees and, if so, disputed the authenticity of their statements on their motives and their position on the Vietnam War, even challenging them to reveal themselves. He supposed that they “would use simpler words if they were expressing their own thoughts” and that they had been instructed what to say. The interventions by Schwaetzer alias Mr. Cook during the interview to “prompt” one deserter to speak or to limit the digressions of the other added to Durham’s impression of a setup and publicity feat staged by zealous war opponents. In the end, he did not care much about the protection of the deserters’ and Schwaetzer’s identity and described their facial and physical features with as much detail as possible.57 As they were confronting the media, Armfeld and Hiselman were coming to terms with their action and learned to understand its broader implications, not least through discussions with Schwaetzer, Leibowitz, and other sympathizers of the American expatriate community in Paris. Obviously, they would not stand a thorough test on their politics, if an American journalist challenged them. In contrast to reporting between parody and negative stereotyping in American publications, pieces in French popular media, such as magazines Paris Match and Lectures pour Tous, presented a more balanced picture, took the special circumstances of the deserters into consideration, refected the reporters’ genuine interest into the young Americans’ motives and situation, and allowed more space for the deserters’ own words. Without commentary, Paris Match described the clandestine arrangement of an interview and presented questions and answers by three deserters, Hiselman alias Buster, Richard Perrin, a nineteen-year-old Army deserter from West Germany, alias Andy, and another absentee alias George of twenty-two years of age, about their motives, their backgrounds, their life in exile, and their hopes for the future. George explained that many in his generation were not very politically conscious and that he himself was neither a staunch defender of capitalism nor of communism. He simply opposed the Vietnam War and hoped to return home once it was over. Hiselman and Perrin were unable to contact their parents, as they feared family members were obliged to pass on all information to the authorities and otherwise would face charges of aiding and abetting a deserter and impeding his prosecution.58 An article by André Coutin in Lectures pour Tous reconstructed the case of Louis Armfeld and presented statements by Hiselman alias Jimmy about his own desertion, background, and situation in France. Coutin placed the young Americans in line with French deserters of the Algerian War, which had brought about a new type of military absentee, the “political deserter.” That Hiselman explained how he developed a political consciousness only following his refusal to continue to serve in the U.S. military, which for

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many American observers was proof of his lack of clear and well-grounded motives, did not keep Lectures pour Tous from recognizing him as a legitimate war refuser, and the paper defended this as a consequence of the limited choices of a young American from a non-privileged background confronted with the war in Vietnam.59 In early 1968, a more sympathetic perspective on the American deserters, and an explanation of their act in the context of the Vietnam War were published in the Saturday Evening Post. The article focusing on draft resistance and antiwar protest was written by French-American journalist Sanche de Gramont, who, after graduating from Yale, had himself been drafted into the French military and served during the Algerian War. Here, Hiselman, alias Shorty, told of how his enlistment in the Army had been an alternative to reform school, recalled his at frst positive experience of service in the military, and at last explained his decision to desert after he learned that he would be sent to Vietnam. Such disappointment with military service was noted by many less privileged members of the Vietnam generation, who chose to enlist as volunteers to learn a trade in the armed forces as a basis for a civilian job later on.60 Following European reports of August 1967, the news of the desertion network and the public appearance of AWOL GIs had also been spread by the American alternative press and protest-movement channels. While sometimes statements by the “conscientious AWOLs” were featured, the main emphasis was placed on the support network and in particular the campaigns to encourage U.S. servicemen to desert. These activities were endorsed as an important contribution to the antiwar effort.61 American antiwar activists were themselves discussing to intensify support activities for oppositional and fugitive GIs at the time, and the examples from Europe, in particular the explicit calls to desert, were followed with great interest. To be sure, in the United States such actions would have provoked much harsher legal charges than abroad and had to be conducted with particular caution.62 Members of the American New Left were fascinated with their European counterparts and their radical move to encourage and help American soldiers to go AWOL and underground, and some adapted and used European leafets in their own campaigns.63 In September, former vice president of the American Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) Jeff Shero, author of a resolution on GI resistance and deserter aid at the organization’s convention in June, wrote euphorically in leftist publications of the “thousands of crow quick minds” of the “international underground” in Europe, the “elusive cobweb” of students, hippies, Provos, Quakers, and prostitutes in Amsterdam, who were duping the U.S. military authorities and supposedly had aided the desertion of some four-hundred American servicemen. The deserters, however, did not have a voice in

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his reports.64 The National Guardian reconstructed in detail how the frst American deserters had gone underground in Europe and found asylum in France and Sweden, partly drawing on the London Times article of August article and citing Jones on his experience of racism in the military and the prospect of dangerous service in Vietnam. Gregory Graham was quoted as Rusty on his motives and political position, stating that he “d[id]n’t know much about politics” and that he was no pacifst, but that “common sense tells me that we Americans are fghting a very dirty war in Vietnam.” Otherwise, the text focused on the support network and the perspective of the European activists, such as Dutch student leader Ton Regtien. Despite the little space attributed to the deserters and with little concrete evidence, the paper interpreted desertion as a form of protest among the “anti-war GIs,” and a photograph of a tank confronting civilians, without further specifcation, was printed alongside the article with the caption that this was a “good example of why GIs are deserting.”65 In Ramparts, Thomas Bransten welcomed the appearance of a new category of military absentees in Europe, the “political deserters,” which had also been recognized by French observers. He argued that through the encounter with young Europeans, the “original unwillingness” to fght in Vietnam of young Americans from the lower social strata developed into “increased awareness and political curiosity,” and desertion turned into an act of “political defance.” The magazine quoted Hiselman alias Buster on his motives to desert, how he “would have been glad to fght Hitler,” but not the Vietnamese, as they “aren’t out to conquer the world,” and Armfeld alias Anderson on that there were many more in the Army who would also desert, however, were not aware of the support network and the sanctuaries.66 Without such interpretation and political analysis, the Los Angeles Free Press featured the perspective of the deserters themselves with a translated version of the interview with three absentees from Paris Match, and thus a more human perspective of what it meant to live in exile after going AWOL abroad.67 DESERTION CAMPAIGNS A crucial factor in prompting public interest into the deserters and the European support network were pamphlets addressing American servicemen and encouraging them to go AWOL and protest the Vietnam War. Such calls were frst produced in Europe in 1966, and the strategy was adopted by a number of different groups during the following years. It became a critical element of antiwar protest activities, in particular in West Germany, where the majority of the U.S. troops in Europe were stationed, and from where growing numbers were redeployed to Vietnam.68 Next to information on legal

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matters, possible sanctuaries, and offers of assistance and counseling, the tracts discussed the Vietnam War and the moral and political signifcance of refusal. They provide insight into the mentalities of war opponents, from pacifsts to radical supporters of the Vietnamese National Liberation Front (FNL), on the role of the individual soldier in war, their image of young Americans and servicemen in particular, their own position in antiwar protest and resistance, and their perspectives on the Vietnam War and American politics and society. Moreover, we learn about the development of the strategy to encourage desertions and support absentees, which involved different groups of the international antiwar movement within Europe, across the Atlantic, and in Asia. Eventually, the voice of the new deserters themselves entered the campaign, not least when they issued their own declarations and organized their own committees in exile. Their example, which was publicized through channels of the antiwar movement and in the mainstream media, in the end was the most powerful factor in moving GIs to reconsider their position and in mobilizing the thousands of deserters to follow them in Europe, Japan, and North America. The American deserters who came to Paris in late 1966 and 1967 had followed the advice to contact the Provos in Amsterdam printed or stamped on the “To American Soldiers in Europe” leafets; some of them had received the actual fyers, while others had heard about the route through hearsay. The campaign of the WRI, the Committee of 100, and the Vietnam Information Group marked the frst initiative to target American servicemen and ask them to protest and resist the United States’ intervention in Vietnam, and their leafet became the most widely distributed publication of its kind over the next years.69 The strategy to encourage GIs to desert and disobey the policy of their government and military leadership was adopted by many European antiwar activists, and in 1970 the WRI expanded its activities into a world campaign in support of U.S. servicemen refusing to go to Vietnam, mobilizing prominent international war opponents to support pleas for political asylum for American deserters in Western nations. The idea had frst been discussed at the WRI’s triennial conference in Rome in April 1966, when delegates of the American War Resisters’ League (WRL) suggested to publicly offer support for U.S. servicemen, if they deserted abroad, complementing declarations of solidarity with GIs in the United States and Vietnam. The Europeans, however, radicalized this approach and appealed to WRI members to proactively “urge US servicemen to defect from the armed forces in protest against the war in Vietnam.” Soon after the convention, British activists of the WRI, the Committee of 100, and the Vietnam Information Group printed their frst leafet at Stanhope Press, run by Committee of 100 member Pat Pottle.70 They were eager to implement this new strategy

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of direct action, who had a few years before formed the Committee of 100 to bring in more concrete activism and civil disobedience into the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament.71 The fyers were to be handed out to members of the U.S. military stationed in West Germany, GIs visiting Amsterdam, as well as to American Air Force personnel in Great Britain and to U.S. Navy sailors during feet visits in Europe.72 A number of organizations of the international peace movement came to support the campaign and were listed on the second version of the pamphlet, among them European WRI sections as well as the American WRL.73 Similar fyers, adapting parts of the WRI’s leafet, were published in Japan in late 1966.74 A cartoon, frst printed on the inside of the leafet and in later versions as a cover, depicted a Vietnamese woman with her baby in her arms running from a rain of bombs and wearing the stereotypical black pajamas and conical hat. The image was designed to address average GIs used to racist depictions of the enemy and the population of Indochina and stood in contrast to the photos and drawings of heroic or victimized men and women otherwise printed in publications of the antiwar movement. The sarcastic illustration exposing the United States’ disproportionate use of force against civilians in Vietnam was complemented with a quote by Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara on how Americans “should be proud” of “applying an unlimited military power in pursuit of a limited political objective.” Otherwise, the pamphlet used a sober language and in rather long paragraphs provided historical information on the confict in Indochina. It fnally urged American soldiers to protest and resist the present war led by the United States in Vietnam, proposing various modes, including desertion. Reference was made to precedents of military and draft resistance and desertion, for example during the French Algerian War and from the German army during the Second World War. As legal basis for protest and resistance to the Vietnam War the leafet cited the Nuremberg Principles, which placed upon individual soldiers the “duty to decide whether a war is right or wrong” and then act accordingly. Consequently, U.S. soldiers were encouraged to write petitions or letters to offcers, their congressmen, or the president, to participate in antiwar rallies or organize protests inside the military barracks, to apply for conscientious objector status, or to desert. The authors acknowledged the diffcult position the GIs found themselves in and recognized the danger of imprisonment, but asserted that any such action “could have a powerful effect in building up pressure against the war” and “could help to end a terrible war and save Vietnamese and American lives.”75 A revised version of the leafet in late 1966 used a more colloquial language less likely to scare young Americans off, and also toned down the call to desert. The changes were made in response to confscations of the

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leafets and charges by West German authorities of incitement of members of a NATO partner’s military force to desert, as well as to distributors’ experiences of some GIs aggressively rejecting them and others who had been turned off by the demanding text.76 The gap between civilians and soldiers, which had previously frustrated similar approaches, was particularly complicated to bridge as here Europeans confronted Americans, who also differed in educational backgrounds and age. Therefore, the authors now referred to their addressees not as “soldiers” anymore, but as “servicemen,” who had been “forced” into military service. This way they alluded to the American draft system with its socially and racially discriminatory mechanisms, which either obligated eligible men to register and serve or pressured others to enlist as volunteers. Thus, and noting that many members of the listed organizations had once themselves faced the same dilemma as young Americans now, they expressed greater solidarity and understanding for GIs. Moreover, they made clear that they were not “Communists and fanatics,” but among the company of “hundreds of thousands of Americans, including congressmen, ministers, teachers, scientists,” and as neutrals “condemn[ed] the atrocities which are committed by both sides” in Vietnam. They pointed out that they had opposed the Soviet intervention in Hungary ten years before, and affrmed the United States’ just cause to intervene in Europe during the Second World War, when “US troops were hailed as liberators.”77 Beyond all these assertions and modulation efforts, for the revised leafet the authors could draw on the example of actual oppositional American soldiers, three U.S. Army privates, who in June had refused to serve in Vietnam and were sentenced to long prison terms in September 1966. The Fort Hood Three, as they became known according to their post in Texas, impressed war opponents in the United States and Europe alike. In fact, Pete Seeger wrote a ballad in their honor.78 Their unprecedented act of refusal and their defense based on the Nuremberg Principles made their case a crucial reference for resistance and disobedience of U.S. servicemen.79 As regular soldiers representing young Blacks, Latinos, and white Americans, they made for ideal icons to call on GIs to follow their example. The new leafet of the WRI thus featured a photo of the three men in uniform and informed about how they had claimed that the American war in Vietnam was immoral and illegal, had been sentenced by court-martial to fve, in one case three, years in military prison, and that they had received solidarity and support by many Americans. Now it was fellow GIs who stood as examples for protest and resistance and as an encouragement for others to follow them, not just European pacifsts with, if at all, an experience of draft refusal or military service in the past and in a different context.80 The Fort Hood Three contributed substantially to a change of perspective of many American and European war opponents toward U.S. servicemen.

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They helped civilians with no military service experience and no personal connection to GIs understand that not all soldiers were obedient servants of the war effort, but often young men caught in the predicament of their generation, the draft and the Vietnam War. That some were indeed willing to act and refuse, moreover, motivated Europeans to continue and expand their efforts to reach American servicemen, mobilize such potential for dissent, and encourage desertion. Besides the Fort Hood Three, the case of Captain Howard Levy challenged common images of soldiers. Levy, an Army physician, refused to train medics of the Special Forces for Vietnam service, holding the Green Berets responsible for war crimes there and citing the conclusions of the trials of German doctors at Nuremberg after the Second World War.81 Reports by veterans returning from the war in Vietnam played a crucial role in this development, who, as insiders drawing on actual experience, had particular credibility, not least as witnesses at the International War Crimes Tribunal organized by British philosopher Bertrand Russell, himself one of the founders of the Committee of 100. Green Beret Master Sergeant Donald Duncan’s account on his service in Vietnam, frst published in Ramparts in February 1966, was reprinted by Stanhope Press in London and others and widely circulated among participants of the international antiwar movement.82 Next to these concrete examples of soldiers’ opposition to the Vietnam War and their diffusion in the international antiwar scene, the Nuremberg Principles, cited both by military resisters and activists, were a crucial factor in the discussion of the role of the individual soldier in the war and as a potential resister. The reference to Nuremberg conveys the critical legacy of the Second World War and the process of coming to terms with crimes against humanity in its aftermath in the Vietnam debate. The Nuremberg Principles provided defnitions of both what constitutes a war crime and a reference for the defense of servicemen refusing participation in the war. At the turn of 1966 and 1967, the ideal of the Nuremberg Principles, the examples of soldiers’ and veterans’ war resistance in the United States, and the values promoted by the WRI in its pamphlet directed at U.S. servicemen in Europe confronted the reality of American deserters appearing in Amsterdam and Paris, who would not formulate their motives in such terms. British WRI activist Tony Smythe lamented in 1967 that many European pacifsts were holding on to the traditional ideal of conscientious objection and had reservations against military deserters, and with a latent class bias met them with suspicion for not having resisted the draft in the frst place. Smythe had himself refused induction as well as alternative service in the late 1950s and spent three months in prison. However, in the context of the Vietnam War, he saw great potential in the simple refusal of young Americans for much broader antiwar and anti-draft protest. In

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contrast to the idealist resistance of individuals who were ready to confront the authorities and risk imprisonment, Smythe argued, desertion and draft evasion of young Americans, only a minority of them actual conscientious objectors, held the potential to turn into the “most startling mass refusal” and would eventually be more effective than the martyrdom of a few. In this present “antiwar situation” he therefore called on Europeans for an intensifcation of the campaign to reach out to GIs and for practical support for the “non-pacifst reluctant American recruits,” and pointed out that not their often more personal than political objections mattered, but the mere fact that they “just don’t want to go.”83 Also, activists of the European New Left debated the role of the Vietnam generation in the war, not least drawing inspiration from radical draft resistance, but also concerning the individual soldier in combat. The latter was represented in Europe, and in particular West Germany, by the many U.S. servicemen stationed there, who were easy targets for projections of contempt about the American war effort in Vietnam, but as the campaign of the WRI suggested, also had potential for dissent. Eager to fnd concrete means of resistance to the American war in Vietnam and support of the Vietnamese struggle for independence, European New Leftists embraced the strategy to reach out to GIs. They claimed the role of political vanguard to help these representatives of the lumpenproletariat emancipate themselves, as a Dutch organizer put it, to educate them about American imperialism, and to mobilize them for protest and desertion.84 In West Germany, where students were controversially debating to collect money to fund weapons for the Vietnamese FNL, the concept of the WRI and the Dutch activists to target American soldiers and mobilize them to impede the war effort entered the discussion as an alternative form of concrete activism. With such direct action, leftist students hoped to “break through the powerlessness of mere protest and indignation,” of which they accused public demonstrations, antiwar declarations, and even Bertrand Russell’s war crimes hearings.85 Rudi Dutschke, one of the leaders of the German Socialist Students Association (SDS) in West Berlin, had been formulating strategies for a revolt, including the agitation of U.S. servicemen stationed in Germany, whom he considered among the weakest links in the power structure and who were to be mobilized for resistance, similarly to the workers.86 As “the common American soldier despises his ‘deployment’ to Vietnam,” but “in the system of obey and command his contempt remains silent,” German New Leftists considered it their own task as a political vanguard to mobilize this dormant opposition within the U.S. military. GIs in West Berlin and West Germany therefore needed to be “taught” on the war in Indochina and “about what was waiting for them in Vietnam,” and help was to be offered to those unwilling to be “used as cannon-fodder in

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the senseless jungle war.”87 Condemned elsewhere as brutal killers and Nazi troopers, they were thus turned into victims of the American draft system and military policy, who required support and needed to be enlightened about their position and role, as well as into victims of the actual war, not least of the Vietnamese FNL, whose determination European leftists were fascinated with.88 Such efforts to reach out to those concretely affected by the war came to complement the young intellectuals’ claim of responsibility to inform the German public about the Vietnam War and mobilize pressure against the federal government, which they pursued with exhibitions, flm-screenings, publications, debates, and protest demonstrations.89 At its national convention in Frankfurt in September 1967, the West German SDS adopted the strategy of encouraging American servicemen to desert and assisting absentees in fnding sanctuary in Europe as a central element of its Vietnam campaign. With such actions to “subvert the stability of the armed forces and weaken soldiers’ fghting morale,” they hoped to further their objective for a concretization of Vietnam protest practice. But apart from a declaration of solidarity with the students in Worms who were charged for their desertion calls, no reference was made to the previous efforts of the WRI and its German sections.90 Although SDS members had been following the campaign, an offcial association with pacifsts seemed taboo for the radicalizing students, and detrimental to their full solidarity with the war effort of the Vietnamese FNL. Instead, the resolution and previous motions on these issues cited the American SDS as a vanguard of antiwar activities, who had debated and endorsed deserter assistance at its own national convention at the end of June, too, as noted above.91 This refected the close association of the West German New Left with its American counterpart. It resulted in certain limitations in the Germans’ perspective on the concept of desertion campaigns as well as the role of GIs themselves, the case of the Fort Hood Three neither mentioned in the documents. During the debates on the matter at the conference, nevertheless, Dutch student leader Ton Regtien reported on the advanced deserter support activities in the Netherlands, and Mary Jo Leibowitz participated in the convention to work on expanding the underground network from Paris and the Netherlands to West Germany.92 In the context of the event, German SDS activists drafted their own leafet to be distributed among American servicemen, captioned “Who’s Afraid of the Vietcong?” This was a pun on either or both the song Who’s Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf? from Disney cartoons and the German children’s activity game ‘Wer hat Angst vorm schwarzen Mann?’93 It again inverted the image of the American GI in Vietnam from perpetrator and willing participant “in this killing sport,” into the position of a victim of brutal warfare, both of the enemy as well as friendly fre. In the song and the game, piglets

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and children, respectively, claim to have no fear, but still run away when the wolf or the “Black man” appears, implying that American soldiers were indeed scared of the Vietnamese FNL fghters. In a strongly sarcastic tone, the text furthermore ridiculed the oft-cited progress the United States claimed to be making in the war. It contrasted former under secretary of state George Ball’s statements on the alleged weakness of the FNL with evidence on its actual strength and determination, as well as on the previous French failure to win in Indochina despite substantial American support. The authors then invited GIs to “volunteer for a chance to play American roulette in McNamara’s war,” where “napalm bombs do happen to hit friendly troops instead of only civilians.” Moreover, they alluded to the easy availability of sex for U.S. servicemen during rest and recuperation periods, only to warn them to “n[o]t get your balls shot off” in combat before. Instead of an explicit call to desert, the leafet mentioned those “misled GIs,” mocking the military authorities’ depiction of the deserters, who had “gone AWOL and found work” and were now “living peacefully in Paris.”94 Returning from the SDS convention in Frankfurt, Mary Jo Leibowitz brought this leafet to Paris and discussed it with Thomas Schwaetzer and the deserters, who found it too provocative and its sarcasm diffcult to comprehend.95 At the time, they were working on their own letter “To those guys still in the army,” which for the frst time included a statement by an absentee in exile, who could address GIs as a peer who “used to be in there [the Army] too.” Cornell Hiselman, the author, told of a good life in Paris—which was not explicitly mentioned but implied by “somewhere in Europe”—where he and “more than 10 guys” had been granted residence permits, where “life is a great deal better than being in Vietnam,” where he had found a job that paid better than a private’s pay, and not least where he was able to go dancing as he pleased. He concluded his message with a call for desertion, however, spelled “dessert,” claiming that “it’s not a bitter thing to desert, it’s the sweetest thing in the world.” The support group in Paris added information on actual and potential sanctuary countries and other organizations assisting deserters in Europe. Moreover, they pointed out that they “don’t tell you: Desert” but that it was “up to you to make up your mind.” Rather, they argued that the “Vietnam war stinks” and that “we (and that means you!) have no business there.” Like the authors of the WRI leafet, they asked GIs to protest inside the Army, to go to prison, citing the examples of Muhammad Ali, Howard Levy, and David Samas of the Fort Hood Three, and offered help to those who did decide to go AWOL.96 Along with this leafet, Schwaetzer, Leibowitz, and the deserters sent suggestions to the German SDS leaders to improve their own campaign, many of which were indeed adapted into a new pamphlet. It was structured by three headlines carrying the central message “Of course, some GI’s want to

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go to Vietnam [. . .] But most GI’s want to come home from Vietnam [. . .] And some GI’s have left the army instead of going to Vietnam.”97 The fyers were frst distributed to American soldiers in West Germany during the international days of protest around October 21, 1967. They were mobilized in the United States under the slogan “Support Our Men in Vietnam! Bring Them Home Now—Alive!” an inversion of the motto of a conservative movement to support the American war effort, and refecting the new perspective on military servicemen taken by antiwar groups to regard them as victims of government policy and as potential war opponents.98 The provocative text of the West German SDS’ previous leafet was replaced with quotes from American servicemen: from a combat veteran who had changed his views on the Vietnam War after experiencing it himself, from retired Marine Corps general David Shoup on his opposition to the United States’ engagement on the ground in Vietnam, and from a veteran expressing his concern about the destruction of the country and its people in a letter to Senator William Fulbright. Fulbright in fact cited this letter before Congress to back up his own critique of the war with the perspective of those having to fght in it. The latter two references were taken from the frst issue of Veterans Stars & Stripes for Peace, published by antiwar veterans for the mobilization of the protests of October 21 and also circulated in Europe.99 The new leafet pointed out that many returning veterans had come to doubt the American objective of “fghting for democracy in Vietnam” and had “realize[d] that the Vietcong are highly motivated and good soldiers,” a more sober wording to highlight the FNL’s determination than that of the previous fyer. Not least it presented the perspective of actual U.S. combat soldiers. Nevertheless, the text contained a certain cynicism concerning the brutality of the war and the dangers for American GIs, as it described how men had deserted to “not add their limbs to these more than 100,000 already wounded or killed.” The German SDS listed contacts of support groups in France, Sweden, the Netherlands, Denmark, and Switzerland to help those looking for sanctuary in Europe. Moreover, statistics from European newspapers on increased desertion rates were cited to assure addressees that they were not alone if they went AWOL.100 One version of the leafet bore a cross-section of a ball bearing as a background graphic, one ball outside the rings, captioned “Not Me!”—an illustration of how the war machine would not run smoothly anymore through the desertion of individual soldiers. The leafet was reprinted by West German sections of the WRI, and copies issued by SDS in early 1968 also listed the German Campaign for Democracy and Disarmament (KfDA) as a contact for GIs considering desertion.101 In contrast to the neglect of the WRI’s vanguard role in targeting American servicemen in Europe and other anti-pacifst rhetoric by SDS leaders of the time, this refected pragmatic cooperation of a variety of factions of the Vietnam movement in the European desertion network.

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In early 1968, the German SDS returned to a more sarcastic tone in its efforts to address GIs in West Germany when it adapted a fyer from the United States and printed it on the backside of its desertion leafets to especially target Black servicemen. First published in 1966 by the Harlem Progressive Labor Club for a draft resistance campaign, it featured a parody of the iconic U.S. Army recruitment poster of the First World War, with a ferce-looking Uncle Sam and the provocatively modifed slogan “Uncle Sam Wants You Nigger.” With bitter irony, the text called on African Americans as “member[s] of the world’s highest paid black mercenary army” to be trained “in the skills of killing off other oppressed people” and to “support White Power” in Vietnam, closing with “Die Nigger Die—you can’t die fast enough in the ghettos.”102 Already occupied with the radicalization of the Black freedom struggle, West German students eagerly took up the leafet, which—in a wording they arguably would themselves have been cautious not to use—bluntly delineated the entanglements of racism in the United States, the discriminatory draft system, American imperialism, and wars of suppression against nonwhite people.103 The leafet had been circulating in Europe since the spring of 1967 and was listed by the Paris support group for deserters as obtained from Black Power leader Stokely Carmichael. In a similar fashion to the wording on the fyer, he criticized the American Vietnam draft as a system of “white people sending black people to make war on yellow people in order to defend the land they stole from red people.”104 When Carmichael visited London in July 1967 and spoke at the Congress on Dialectics of Liberation, a poster-size version of the Uncle Sam leafet was pinned at the rostrum, illustrating the connection between Third World liberation movements and racism in the United States.105 The activists in Paris printed copies of the leafet and sent them to Amsterdam and West Germany for distribution to GIs, where it was reproduced.106 The use of the Uncle Sam leafet by activists in Europe refected their special concern with Black GIs, regarded as double victims of general discrimination in the United States and disproportionate recruitment into the Vietnam forces. During the following years, West German students would turn from encouraging desertions to focus on solidarity work for oppositional African American GIs and promoted the perspective of the Black Panther Party in the Frankfurt and Mannheim areas.107 The fyer and its condensed message and drastic wording also inspired Italian composer Luigi Nono, who used the text for a musical piece interrelating the Vietnam War and racism in the United States, and Swedish writer Björn Håkanson to a poem on American imperialism and the disenfranchisement of Blacks, which cited the frst line of the leafet.108 Nevertheless, the tone and scope of the desertion campaign was to change substantially, when American deserters organized in French and Swedish

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exile and contributed their own pamphlets to fellow GIs stationed in Europe in 1968. Besides taking on the task of distributing these materials, Europeans and American expatriates themselves developed new approaches to the strategy to reach U.S. servicemen. American students and activists in West Berlin recommended to abandon the concept of educating GIs on the political dimensions of the Vietnam War and to turn to a more personal and sympathizing style of organizing, addressing more the personal concerns of servicemen.109 New fyers, in turn, were focused either on providing information on how to desert and seek sanctuary in Europe, or discussed the war and the situation of young Americans in the military in a colloquial language. For example, leafets printed in small font and folded into the format of match sleeves, which were circulated in bars frequented by GIs in West Berlin and West Germany following the Tet Offensive, only briefy contrasted the offcial line of the U.S. military on the war and the actual developments in everyday English. The leafets then offered counseling for dissenters and support for deserters in Europe, Japan, and North America, without using the term desertion.110 Other small stickers provided addresses and used short slogans, for example, “be a man, not a war machine.” Or, on the occasion of the anniversary of the victory of the Allies on May 8, 1945, the role of GIs as those who once “freed Europe” was asserted, but their successors were now advised to “free yourselves.”111 Moreover, activists played on American popular cultural themes and adapted warnings of Smokey the Bear, mascot of the U.S. Forest Service, to “keep Vietnam green” and prevent forest fres in allusion to the use of defoliants and napalm. They cited Canned Heat’s Going Up the Country, which addressed draft evasion to Canada, and spelled it with a Swedish “upp.” Often, they used gender stereotypes and sexual innuendo to reach young GIs and alluded to the allegedly liberal attitude on sex of French and Swedish girls.112 “Where It’s At,” a leafet published in April 1968 by members of the U.S. Campaign, an antiwar committee formed by American expatriates in West Berlin in early 1967, was conceptualized as a GI newspaper in the style of underground publications in the United States. It featured texts on various issues relevant to young American servicemen, next to “travel tips” in Europe as a disguised encouragement to desert. It would develop into the frst newspaper of the GI movement in West Germany and West Berlin and was to include an increasing share of articles contributed by U.S. soldiers themselves.113 A TRANSNATIONAL DESERTER SUPPORT NETWORK The strategy to address American servicemen in Europe gained signifcance in the international antiwar movement, and the growing numbers of U.S.

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deserters enhanced its expansion in 1968. The campaigns and practical assistance for fugitive GIs became an omnipresent theme in Vietnam protest discourse, both on the level of conferences and publicized debates as well as in correspondence among activists and organizations within Europe, across the Atlantic, and also to Japan, with its strong presence of American forces, as a staging area for the Vietnam War, and site of rest and recuperation for troops from the combat zone. Activists abroad endorsed desertion in a more passionate way than their American counterparts, who were subject to U.S. law and thus had to be cautious to avoid aiding and abetting charges.114 Consequently, while more servicemen were deserting within the United States and sought counsel and support from war opponents, on an international level the matter was debated more widely and openly and endorsed as a means of direct action against the American war in Vietnam. American activists, nevertheless, drew inspiration from European and Japanese groups focusing on support for their compatriots who deserted the military.115 In turn, war opponents in Europe and Japan employed the expertise of American activists and lawyers on military justice, followed the development of the GI movement in the United States, and came to adapt their activities to complement deserter aid with counseling for oppositional servicemen and support of resistance inside the military.116 In a tract published in July 1967, French war opponents cited the example of deserters from the U.S. armed forces, when they expressed their hope for an American defeat in Vietnam, with reference to their own country’s failure in Indochina in 1954. Critical for this perspective were the present examples of American war resisters, both draft and military refusers. Those who had traditionally been branded as traitors and left to an isolated struggle, the French appeal asserted, were now recognized and supported by international opponents of the war in Vietnam.117 In September 1967, the Stockholm World Conference on Vietnam, which brought together representatives of the international peace movement, too recognized the appearance of American deserters in Europe with reference to the radicalization of the protest movement in the United States, and called for solidarity and support for the “young Americans who, in various ways, refuse to take part in the war in Vietnam.” At its next session in March 1968, when several dozens of American deserters had arrived in Sweden and France and growing numbers were expected to follow them, the conference issued an appeal to international war opponents to offer practical support for American war refusers in exile and to campaign for the opening of additional sanctuaries in other Western countries.118 West German students and activists placed the strategy to encourage U.S. servicemen to resist and desert on the agenda of the International Vietnam Conference in West Berlin. Held in February 1968 under the impression of the Vietnamese Tet Offensive, this was a crucial event for the New Left in Europe

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and its radicalization, and was endorsed by prominent intellectuals such as Ernst Bloch, Ossip Kurt Flechtheim, Helmut Gollwitzer, Herbert Marcuse, Jean-Paul Sartre, Laurent Schwartz, and Peter Weiss.119 Before an enormous fag of the Vietnamese FNL as backdrop of the auditorium’s stage, participants debated the American war in Vietnam as exemplary for Western global imperialism and the struggle against it, and discussed how to move on from protest to resistance inside industrialized countries. Calls for desertion and support for AWOL and oppositional American servicemen were endorsed as a critical form of action in this process, and one of the few means available for activists in the West, next to sabotage and blockades of troop and munition transports.120 Afterward, not only the SDS but also the umbrella organization of West German student associations called on its members to participate in the desertion campaign and support efforts for fugitive GIs, and moreover appealed for political asylum for American war refusers in Germany.121 The World Conference of Lawyers for Vietnam organized by the International Association of Democratic Lawyers, convening in Grenoble in July and attended by Nicole Dreyfus and Hans Göran Franck, discussed the legal basis for refusing service in wars of aggression, next to the issues of national self-defense and self-determination of the Vietnamese and the methods of warfare applied by the American and South Vietnamese forces. The convention declared the American military action in Vietnam a neocolonial intervention and a war of aggression according to international law in general and a violation of the Geneva Accords of 1954 specifcally, involving illegal attacks on civilians and infrastructure. The lawyers therefore concluded that draft refusal and desertion by young Americans was a justifed action according to international law and in accordance with the Nuremberg Principles, thus backing up the moral legitimacy claimed by the deserters and their sympathizers with profound legal expertise.122 In 1967, leaders of Beheiren, the key organization of the Vietnam antiwar movement in Japan, began to correspond with European activists on deserter support work, including how absentees could be transferred to Europe to seek asylum as no sanctuary was to be found in Asia.123 Most importantly, in November Beheiren organized the public appearance of four American Navy deserters, to be known as the Intrepid Four, which was to create international and American media attention far beyond the previous cases in Europe. At a conference in Kyoto in August 1968, and at another session of the Stockholm Conference in the spring of 1969, members of the Japanese deserter support committee shared their experience with war opponents from Europe and North America, among them key activists of GI solidarity groups in the United States, and discussed how to coordinate activities on an international level.124 Beyond discourse on the signifcance of desertion and deserter aid in Vietnam antiwar protest, a transnational network was established, through

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which American servicemen were helped to escape to countries tolerating them or offering them asylum. Channels of the international peace movement and the New Left were used to expand the network and keep participants informed on legal and practical matters, and specifc contacts were made to promote the cause of dissenting and deserting GIs. Notwithstanding growing disagreements about the meaning of the war in Vietnam between pacifsts and radical leftists, members of these factions cooperated in their effort for solidarity and practical assistance for American deserters. The network consisted of a visible part, contacts for deserters and supporters with representatives of various groups and organizations printed on leafets and publicized in the press. A larger part involved individuals working in clandestine ways, often themselves only informed about the next link of the “underground railway,” from and to where a deserter was to be transferred.125 According to an anonymous report of early 1968, the variety of participants included “labor unionists and intellectuals; priests and students; professors, housewives and provos.”126 Secretive measures were necessary to protect these network participants from prosecution, and in particular the deserters from the U.S. military police and local authorities, who would hand them over to the Americans. In fact, U.S. and European intelligence agencies early on collected data on the support network and desertion campaigns, and groups and individuals involved.127 Although not as strict and clear as within the United States, activities to assist deserters from a visiting force were criminal offenses in West Germany and under the special regulations on the status of the allied forces in West Berlin, and could lead to at least preliminary charges. In most cases, however, activists and lawyers argued that the American war in Vietnam did not fall within the NATO regulations. Moreover, participants of the support network incriminated themselves when they provided fugitive GIs with forged leave papers, as most of the regular servicemen in Europe did not have American passports and thus were unable to travel as regular tourists.128 In the fall of 1967, activists involved in the desertion campaign turned to mobilize new participants and thus expand the network, often drawing on contacts from the broader antiwar movement. The Paris-based group of Thomas Schwaetzer and Mary Jo Leibowitz sent out letters to recruit sympathizers in West Germany and distributed elaborate information on the legal situation of American deserters in different countries and on forms of practical support for dissenting GIs both in Europe and the United States. The group referred to themselves frst as Aiders and Abettors, thus embracing the potential legal charge as an identifer for their activism, and then as Friends of Resisters Inside the Army (FRITA) to emphasize the larger potential for opposition among American servicemen. They encouraged war opponents throughout

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Europe to join the campaign and this way to “do something to end it [the war].” Reaching out to the “young Americans who are called on to do the killing, and the dying, in Vietnam,” assuring them of solidarity when they were coming to doubt their country’s mission there, and informing them about ways and means of protest and resistance were concrete actions available for Europeans, they argued. The actual matters of desertion and underground support were only implied in order to not incriminate recipients and senders. As an example of how “friendly civilians” could work with American soldiers, the group referred to The Bond, a newspaper published in the United States addressing GIs and allowing them to voice their own perspective since the summer of 1967, and copies of which were also distributed in Europe.129 Moreover, FRITA collected and shared information on the status of U.S. servicemen in different national contexts and issued “Helpful Hints” for them and civilian sympathizers with addresses of groups participating in the network and lawyers in relevant countries, who were ready to counsel and defend American military absentees. They also asked Europeans to add their own contacts to the list.130 The central role claimed and played by the group in the network is refected in one of Thomas Schwaetzer’s noms de guerre, Mr. Cook, which alluded to Thomas Cook, pioneer of organized travel in the nineteenth century. The alias thus humorously conceived Schwaetzer’s efforts to manage the deserters’ escape routes in Europe as those of a travel agent.131 Until the end of 1967, French residence permits had been granted to a few men since the trial of Louis Armfeld, and in Sweden, Roy Ray Jones was the only American deserter who had received asylum. FRITA in Paris therefore promoted further tests of the possibilities for sanctuaries in various countries. These were selected based on cases where individual deserters had been tolerated or American draft resisters were accepted, or on estimates based on a government’s stand on the war in Vietnam or a country’s position in international relations. The list of countries, where for an AWOL GI “the fact that he is a deserter will not hurt him and may help him” to receive asylum, included Sweden and France, known through reports on Roy Ray Jones, Louis Armfeld, and others, neutral Switzerland, which had been reported on as possibly favorable in May 1967, nonaligned Yugoslavia, Israel, possibly receiving Jewish American war refusers, and Denmark, although a NATO member, considered a “fertile ground for a test case” because of the successful transit of deserters through the country and a strong public opinion against the war in Vietnam, and likewise Norway. As Mexico and Canada, known destinations for draft evaders, had been reported of having rejected American military absentees, and with deserters underground in the United States leading a precarious existence, FRITA pointed out the critical signifcance of the European sanctuaries and their expansion.132 In 1968, Sweden

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and France emerged as the primary countries of asylum for American deserters, until in May 1969 Canada allowed this group of war refusers to enter the country legally.133 During the late 1960s, the support network for American deserters in Europe involved a wide range of players of the antiwar movement, refecting considerable cooperation on that matter within national contexts and on a transnational level. The network included religious groups, political associations, peace movement organizations, and student unions, with pacifsts as well as supporters of the Vietnamese FNL among their membership. Since the frst publication of the leafet “To American Soldiers in Europe,” the offces of the British WRI in London functioned as an important contact for young Americans facing the draft or already in the military, for counseling on possibilities of going abroad. WRI General Secretary Devi Prasad instructed the men on the limited options of seeking sanctuary in Europe and recommended them lawyers and activists in relevant places, including France and Sweden.134 Building on the fndings and experience of the activists in France, Sweden, and elsewhere, the WRI published fact sheets and a small book about the legal status of American deserters in different contexts and the situation in the sanctuaries, and distributed them as basis for counseling for activists and as information for GIs, as well as to mobilize new supporters.135 In the Netherlands, since the frst days of the desertion campaign, the SJ and the Provos had been publicized as contacts for American deserters. In West German cities with U.S. military presence, such as Frankfurt, Munich, Augsburg, Stuttgart, and West Berlin, the offces of the SDS and student councils were listed next to addresses of the German sections of the WRI and the KfDA. For France, contacts of lawyers Jean-Jacques de Felice and Nicole Dreyfus, the Quaker Center, the National Vietnam Committee, the Mouvement de la Paix, and the UNEF in Paris were printed on leafets, next to the Protestant St. Nicolas Church in Strasbourg, just across the German border in Alsace and thus the closest haven for AWOL GIs from the U.S. military installations in southern Germany. Most of those members of the PACS who supported American deserters in Paris refrained from making this public, both concerned as U.S. citizens about avoiding aiding and abetting charges as well as to not jeopardize their committee’s status in France. In Sweden, the Swedish Vietnam Committee (SKfV), the United FNL-Groups (DFFG), the student organization Clarté, and the Swedish section of the World Federation of Democratic Youth were listed next to lawyer Hans Göran Franck. In Denmark, social democratic and socialist youth organizations and Tema publishers in Copenhagen were listed. In Switzerland, counsel was offered by the Centre Internationale in Geneva, and in Zurich by the Quaker Center and lawyer Hansjörg Braunschweig.136 Also, American expatriates in West Germany participated in the efforts to address GIs and support deserters,

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among them members of the U.S. Campaign.137 In 1972, moreover, the Lawyers’ Military Defense Committee (LMDC), an affliate of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), founded in 1970 to provide civilian counsel to U.S. servicemen, opened its second international offce after Saigon in Heidelberg in southwest Germany, site of the headquarters of USAREUR.138 Participation in the deserter support network, which helped several hundred servicemen to seek asylum during the late 1960s and early 1970s, was critical for the self-confdence of many groups and individuals in Europe as resisters to the American war in Vietnam, and likewise in Japan.139 Reaching out to GIs and assisting deserters was regarded as a form of civil disobedience and direct action and thus a crucial means to realize the step from protest to resistance. Dutch activist Ton Regtien stated in 1967 that “to aid these people [deserters] seems to me a more satisfying way than to organize and join in Vietnam demonstrations.”140 In early 1968, an anonymous member of the “organization” in West Germany argued that deserter assistance as an “attack” on the “ideological integration and physical strength” of the U.S. armed forces “constitutes a signifcant objective and an important contribution to the effort to end the war.”141 Karl Dietrich “KD” Wolff, West German SDS leader and one of the organizers of the network hub in the Frankfurt area, noted in the summer that the “fght against this army” and efforts to “explain to them [American servicemen] the nature of the war in Vietnam” was “the most concrete issue for European groups” in the larger “antiimperialist struggle.”142 Toward American journalists, Wolff and his brother Frank disclosed their role as organizers of a section of the underground network, claiming participation of around fve hundred activists and twenty engaged full-time in the desertion campaign.143 Leftist and student publications moreover boasted the determination of activists to support American deserters despite the risk of prosecution, as well as the adventurous methods of bringing GIs underground and across borders and of distributing desertion leafets. The latter was even realized by shooting them with freworks rockets into U.S. military facilities, and sometimes activists were confronted by local police and American military guards.144 The critical role of underground assistance for American deserters in Vietnam antiwar activism is also evident in later refections of participants, often alluded to as one of the “proudest memories of many an old SDS comrade.”145 The dimensions of the network and its activities given by some convey the great signifcance they attribute to their deserter support efforts, for example, in the recollections of KD Wolff the number of deserters amount to “tens of thousands [who were] taken to Sweden.” An exaggeration arguably in response to the neglect by contemporary media during the late 1960s and in turn historiography, this fgure and Wolff’s “we” refect his claim as part of the larger desertion and draft refusal movement of young Americans both

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in Europe and North America.146 On the other hand, former movement participants have noted how the work to support deserters and actual encounters with young Americans directly affected by the war effort helped them realize the dimensions of the Vietnam generation’s dilemma. They came to reconsider the role of the individual soldier in the war and were inspired by the protest and refusal of these members of the “other America.”147 Deserter aid in Europe entered the protest pop culture and contributed to a somewhat romanticized memory of underground activism. Franz Josef Degenhardt’s song P.T. aus Arizona of 1968 alluded to the clandestine practice of the escape network between southwest Germany and France, with activists playing tricks on the CIA. Assistance to fugitive GIs to Sweden was honored by Walter Mossmann as one of the critical actions of his “radical friends” in his musical refection of the years of protest and revolt of the late 1960s and the 1970s.148 The image of the American deserter in these texts ranged from an idealized fgure of an American Indian draftee in P.T. aus Arizona, a nameless subject to be smuggled out of Germany in Mossmann’s song, to that of a deserter hiding in West Berlin between a love affair and war refusal. The latter was the protagonist of a motion picture by Werner Klett and Günter Adrian, shot in 1967 and screened in the spring and summer of 1968. The flm arguably caught the dilemma of the young GI and the setting and circumstances in which he found himself abroad quite well, however, did not ft into the politicized debate on desertion among war opponents of the time and was criticized for being politically shallow and too romantic.149 During the late 1960s, activists drew considerable self-confdence from illegal underground activities on the verge of confronting the domestic or U.S. military police. They were convinced that they were acting morally right and politically just, and that they conformed to international law and the Nuremberg Principles. A confrontation with their own governments, moreover, was a means to protest their complicity with the United States in its war effort, or at least European leaders’ inaction regarding possible violations of international law by their transatlantic ally. Early on, the campaign to call on U.S. servicemen to desert and protest the Vietnam War had prompted police measures to impede the distribution of leafets. Flyers were confscated and distributors charged with infringing German and NATO regulations on the status of visiting forces, for the frst time in the summer of 1966.150 U.S. diplomatic and military delegations urged German authorities to act, and in West Berlin the Allies amended the regulations to allow for harsher prosecution of persons calling on their forces to desert.151 While the WRI changed the text of its message to U.S. servicemen in a new version of its leafet and omitted the explicit term of desertion, lawyers defending activists in West Germany brought the matter of the Vietnam War before the courts

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and tried to turn the trials into a stage for their antiwar campaign, at best through a judicial opinion that the United States violated international law.152 Attorneys Walter Ammann of Heidelberg and Heinrich Weiler of Frankenthal maintained that the American intervention in Vietnam was an “illegal war of aggression” and a “crime against humanity,” and that a “just court decision” could not “factor out that core of the matter.” They recommended courts to consider the fndings of Jean-Paul Sartre and Bertrand Russell, which backed up their claims, and proposed to have renowned law scholars Felix Ermacora and Wolfgang Abendroth testify on the genesis and nature of the war.153 Ammann, who would attend the lawyers’ conference on the Vietnam War in Grenoble in 1968 discussed above, argued in 1967 that calls for disobedience and desertion issued by his clients to American servicemen were not only their legal right but their duty.154 Heinrich Weiler, who was working on an elaborate analysis of the American war in Vietnam in the context of international law, cited the Nuremberg Principles as the legal basis for desertion during this confict and maintained that they also vindicated those who aided and abetted desertion.155 For both lawyers, it was thus not only lawful for their clients to call for desertions but their duty to assist deserters from an illegal war, as formulated at the convention in Grenoble. In 1968, Ammann even appealed to the West German Federal Constitutional Court, as a prosecutor in Heidelberg had not only confscated activist students’ leafets but the car of one of them for several months, in which they had been transported.156 However, West German courts avoided any declaration on the American war effort in Vietnam and in most cases either closed the proceedings or acquitted defendants on the basis that existing laws were inapplicable in this context.157 Nevertheless, the trials brought the matter into the public debate, and the absence of a precedent of harsh punishment encouraged activists to continue campaigning. THE INTREPID FOUR In late 1967, the debate on desertion and war resistance focusing on Europe was overtaken by the appearance of American deserters much closer to the war zone in Japan, who almost immediately publicized their act as a protest against the American intervention in Vietnam. They drew unprecedented international and American media attention because of their transfer to Sweden via the Soviet Union. Their protest as “average” American citizens and “patriotic deserters” and their frm pacifst position, upheld in Japan, the Soviet Union, and in Sweden, impressed many sympathizers and challenged the traditional image of deserters more substantially than the previous appearances in Europe could.

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In late October 1967, four U.S. Navy sailors did not return from shore leave to their ship, aircraft carrier USS Intrepid, and went underground in Tokyo. Soon to be known as the Intrepid Four in the international antiwar movement, they introduced a new concept of “patriotic desert[ion]” and became icons of dissent among American servicemen.158 The four young men, three of them nineteen and one twenty years old, were new speakers in the Vietnam debate, and their public statements marked a new mode of antiwar protest. Moreover, their white middle-class backgrounds and “ordinariness” challenged the notion of military absenteeism as a phenomenon involving members of disadvantaged social strata and ethnic minorities, as they confronted Middle America with their uncompromising response to the Vietnam generation’s dilemma.159 Although the four were able to uphold their adherence to American ideals and their pacifst stance against the Vietnam War, their appearance in Moscow was met with dismay by many American news commentators, who framed them in Cold War schemes and neglected the signifcance of their act for their peers in the United States. Nevertheless, in the international antiwar movement, the Intrepid Four became symbols of their generation’s growing opposition to the Vietnam War and its confrontation of the American military system. Their example also contributed to the expansion of deserter support networks and campaigns to mobilize dissent among U.S. servicemen in North America, Europe, and Japan. Their eventual reception of Swedish residency in January 1968 set a precedent for many more American deserters and made the country their safest sanctuary until the Canadian policy change of May 1969 to grant military absentees immigrant status. During service on the Intrepid in the Gulf of Tonkin in August 1967, from which jets launched attacks on North Vietnam, a group of sailors began to discuss the American war effort and question the United States’ objective and military strategy. Four of them, Richard Bailey, Michael Lindner, Craig Anderson, and John Barilla, ultimately decided to act on their political and moral convictions and desert as a statement of protest against the war. They took their chance when the Intrepid landed at Yokosuka for rest and recuperation in October. On the twenty-third, they left their uniforms aboard and destroyed their military ID cards to make their step irreversible; in case of apprehension, such evidence for an “intent to stay away permanently” as basis for a conviction of desertion would have made a plea for lenient treatment impossible.160 Without knowledge of potential sympathizers in Japan, they took a train to Tokyo and told passers-by about their desertion in opposition to the United States’ war in Vietnam. A Japanese student offered to seek support for them and to hide them from the U.S. Navy shore patrol and local police. A professor at Tokyo University, whom the student contacted frst, declined to help, but members of Beheiren were ready to take on the case of the four AWOL sailors.161

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Next to practical support underground in Japan, the Beheiren activists offered the four absentees to publicize their protest against the Vietnam War as well as assistance to travel to Europe to seek asylum. Direct passage was impossible without proper documents, and therefore Yuichi Yoshikawa, secretary-general of the committee, negotiated a transfer to Europe via the USSR with the Soviet embassy.162 Committed to make known their view on the war and motives to desert, the four men formulated a joint declaration as well as individual statements, which they read out before a camera.163 Only after their departure for Russia, the flm was to be presented to the public by Beheiren leaders Makoto Oda, Shunsuke Tsurumi, Rokurō Hidaka, and Yuichi Yoshikawa in a press conference. To achieve as much media attention as possible, the event was scheduled for November 13, 1967, to coincide with the visit of Japanese Prime Minister Eisaku Satō in Washington.164 In their joint statement, read out by Richard Bailey, the four absentees introduced themselves as “patriotic deserters”—a radical resignifcation of a word traditionally “applied to cowards, traitors and misfts.” They asserted that they had acted as “true Americans,” independent and “not affliated with any political party,” who opposed the United States’ military intervention in Vietnam, but not their country’s ideals. They laid claim to the “freedoms guaranteed to us as Americans,” appealed to their compatriots to “let the Constitution prevail,” and rejected being labeled “anti-American or a Communist” or with “some kind of ‘[-]ist’ pronoun” in general.165 Instead, they identifed as average young Americans from the middle-class, who had faced the same diffcult choices as many others of their generation, most importantly the military draft. They argued that they had acted according to the “truth” about the United States’ war in Vietnam, which they found “criminal” and detrimental to the Vietnamese entitlement to national sovereignty and independence. They expressed regrets that, in spite of basic objection to the war, many Americans were “individually indifferent” to take action. As deserters, however, they found themselves in a special position to contribute to a mobilization of antiwar protest among Americans, “particularly those in the military,” and on an international level, and to appeal for a “humanitarian stand [of the United States] in Vietnam rather than a military stand.”166 Beheiren leaders, some of whom had studied in the United States, maintained relations with members of the American antiwar movement, such as historian Howard Zinn, whom they called for advice on the case of the four sailors.167 They asked him to come to Japan to talk to the deserters as a compatriot and counsel them on the meaning of their action. Unable to travel himself, Zinn sent Ernest Young to Tokyo, Far Eastern historian and previously an assistant of former U.S. ambassador to Japan, Edwin Reischauer. After a long conversation with the four deserters, Young was convinced that they were frm in their decision and aware of its consequences.168 He returned to the

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United States impressed with the young sailors’ motives, their “ordinariness,” and “special sort of maturity,” and with flm reels of their statements.169 Liberation magazine organized a public screening in New York on November 14 and published the declarations of the sailors in its November issue, whom it dubbed “Intrepid Four”—an inversion of the meaning of fearlessness and courage in time of war.170 The four deserters added an unprecedented and unique inside view by actual U.S. servicemen to the deliberations by intellectuals on American GIs in the magazine, for example, as “potential revolutionaries” by David Dellinger and others, inspired not least by the encounters of protestors and soldiers at the Pentagon during the Vietnam protests in Washington on October 21.171 As the Intrepid Four were new and somewhat peculiar fgures in the American Vietnam debate, Ernest Young contributed an introduction to their statements, asserted the “honest and direct, completely unservile” character of these “vaguely educated” youths, and explained their “conscientious position,” which—unlike their draft-resister coevals—they had developed not before but only during military service.172 By the time their case was published by Beheiren and Liberation magazine, the four deserters had already left Japan for the Soviet Union on a Russian freighter. They had not intended to enter the territory of the United States’ Cold War antagonist when they decided to go AWOL, however, did not have much choice to realize their passage to a neutral country otherwise.173 Eventually, the stay of the Intrepid Four in the Soviet Union amounted to almost seven weeks, until in late December their transfer to Sweden was arranged by the Soviet Peace Committee and the SKfV. To be sure, the Russians hoped to proft from the unique case of refusal by young Americans and “use [it] in the broad context of propaganda against US aggression in Vietnam” before their departure, as KGB chairman Yuri Andropov recommended to the party leadership.174 After consultations with the Soviet Peace Committee in Moscow, the four deserters agreed to public and media appearances.175 The KGB was confdent in their great potential for propaganda, both toward Eastern and Western audiences, and planned to “advantageously infuenc[e] them to us and [. . .] inclin[e] them toward more decisive and harsher political condemnation of US aggression in Vietnam.”176 However, those in charge of this task soon realized that the four Americans held a “defnite position[,] which they [had] worked out while still in Japan,” and concluded that it was “essential for us to respect this fact.”177 The publicity program for the Intrepid Four and their “honest and noble cause” was thus limited to interviews for Soviet television and Pravda, as well as an appearance at Moscow University. Recordings and transcripts of their statements and a joint declaration were transmitted to Western audiences via the Tass news agency and Radio Moscow.178

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In the Soviet Union, the Intrepid Four did hold on to the arguments they had formulated in Japan. Their rationale concerned their American identity, opposition to war and the Vietnam War specifcally, and their conviction to stand as examples of antiwar protest. They affrmed their identity as “loyal” and “real Americans with a sense of high moral responsibility” and claimed that “our voice represents the [American] people.”179 Furthermore, they pointed out that they “oppose all aggressive wars in general and particularly the American aggression in Vietnam” and “feel that all armed forces must be reduced to a minimum”—a pacifst line and an implicit critique of the Soviet side of the arms race as well. The Intrepid Four appealed to Americans and people worldwide to “take concrete action to put an end to the war in Vietnam” and expressed the hope that their action would serve others as an encouragement and “infuence young people [. . .] to unite and raise their voices louder.” Finally, they asserted that they did not intend to stay in the Soviet Union, but planned to ask for asylum in a neutral country and continue to work for peace there.180 In the United States, the appearance of the Intrepid Four in the Soviet Union created unprecedented media interest in desertion within the context of the Vietnam War. American commentators framed the case of the four Navy absentees within the mindset of the Cold War, placed them in line with previous defections, for example, by alleged CIA agent John Discoe Smith, and considered their presentation in Moscow proof that there was “still [i]ce in the [t]haw” in U.S.-Soviet relations.181 Moreover, that American deserters now surfaced in Moscow seemed to confrm the earlier presumptions that communists were involved in the European desertion campaign and exploited the young Americans for propaganda. Suspicion of manipulation by the Soviets coupled with traditional images of deserters as social misfts and confused young men prevented American observers to regard the perspective and arguments of the Intrepid Four seriously. As a result, they would not consider them as—albeit unusual—representatives of a growing number of Americans opposed to the United States’ intervention in Vietnam, as one reader suggested in a letter to the editor of Newsweek.182 In consequence, the Intrepid Four’s concept of desertion as an act of patriotism, which had been highlighted by Liberation magazine, was lost to audiences of American mainstream media. Instead, the focus on their reception in Moscow with “black caviar and Red encomiums” and their objective to inspire American servicemen to follow their example, which could make them indictable for enticing desertion, rather than on their affrmation of American ideals, created an image of defectors who had turned their backs on their country.183 Confused with or unwilling to grasp the averageness of the four, American reporters sought for occurrences of deviance in their biographies to ft them into common perceptions of the deserter. Reports even

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portrayed their actions as a form of juvenile delinquency, an issue widely discussed in the United States at the time.184 Newsweek’s earlier presentation of the Intrepid Four as “four ‘average Americans,’ defectors all” demonstrates that the deserters’ appearance in the Soviet Union made an unbiased judgment by American commentators impossible.185 The report acknowledged that they seemed to be “well-adjusted, apple-cheeked American youth” and sounded like “college sophomores” in their critique of American Vietnam policy. They were, however, accused of having “repudiated their country itself” by taking “refuge in the Soviet Union.” The story of their alleged defection to Moscow drowned out their actual congruence with their colleagues stateside, their affrmation of American ideals and self-identifcation as patriots, and their understanding of desertion as a legitimate form of protest. Based on assertions by their parents on the boys’ “absence of [. . .] rebellious nature or a deep commitment to any kind of social cause,” lack of interest in politics, and instead a readiness to fulfll their duty, Newsweek supposed that the four had deserted because of weariness with military service and had “stumbled unwittingly into deeper water than they had intended.” The declarations of the Intrepid Four were deemed a “performance,” satisfying Beheiren and Soviet propaganda and “earning them bed and board,” not without certain pity for their predicament. Obviously, the four’s consciousness of the consequences, confrmed by Ernest Young in Liberation magazine, had been disregarded by Newsweek’s author.186 As recommended to them by Ernest Young, the Intrepid Four refused to meet Western media, fearing that their own perspective would be lost or distorted. Likewise, they turned down an invitation by the Vietnam News Agency and the embassy of North Vietnam, as well as a request of the Russell Tribunal for statements. What they said to Soviet audiences, on the other hand, the deserters were confdent was published verbatim or in original recording.187 However, without direct access to the four absentees, American reporters were suspicious about the authenticity of the statements transmitted by Tass. Thus, they did not cite the Intrepid Four’s own formulation of their motives, but sought to answer the “puzzle” by investigating their past and consulting their parents, who viewed the case with “haunting doubts” and alleged that their sons had fallen victim to Soviet propaganda makers and had been brainwashed, a typical reaction in the context of the Cold War.188 All asserted that they were average American middle-class youths. For example, John Barilla’s father called his son a “good American citizen,” and Craig Anderson had been a “good bright [and] all American boy” and “as normal as normal can be” according to his high school football coach.189 In a statement at his church, Homer Bailey, Richard’s father and a commander in the Navy Reserve, affrmed his anti-communist convictions, expressed

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his confusion about his son’s action, who had once been “very proud of his uniform and his contribution to his country,” and argued that it was “obvious to me that the line he now recites was prepared for him,” who at nineteen was “very impressionable.” While Michael Lindner’s father did not “believe the kids know what they’ve done,” John Barilla’s father even suspected that his son had been “kidnapped” to the Soviet Union.190 Similarly, Craig Anderson’s mother was cited that she assumed that her “son must have been led into his act.”191 For the New York Times, Barnard Collier drew a “[p]rofle” of the Intrepid Four as “[m]en [w]ithout [c]ompelling [g]oals,” ftting the traditional image of deserters as deviants, who had gone AWOL out of general “dissatisfactions” with military discipline and their “menial jobs” aboard the Intrepid, which they had projected onto the Vietnam War. Instead of consulting the four absentees’ own statements on their motives, Collier based his article on letters by Richard Bailey to his sister written before his desertion, where he had complained about his “monotonous” duties, expressed doubts with the war and American politics, and pondered about himself and his feelings—common themes of deliberation among soldiers and young men in general, which however were dramatized here as roots for desertion. Moreover, Collier dug up how Bailey had allegedly been a “disciplinary problem” in high school and had dropped out to join the Navy, however, without mentioning that he fnished his diploma in a correspondence course during service. While the text did not provide any information on the backgrounds of Michael Lindner and John Barilla, it described Craig Anderson as someone unable to cope with discipline and order—in contrast to his football coach’s perspective—as he had missed training as a member of the Navy Reserve and was obliged to join active duty in turn. Accordingly, Anderson had attempted to evade service through an assessment by a military psychiatrist, whose recommendation for an administrative discharge had been overturned by an offcer. To confrm this picture of the Intrepid Four as disoriented young men, Collier cited Beheiren secretary-general Yuichi Yoshikawa, who characterized them as “not revolutionary fghters, [. . .] not backed by ideologies.” However, Yoshikawa had not intended to present the sailors as confused adolescents, but had argued that the Intrepid Four demonstrated how “the war in Vietnam has been escalated into such inhuman stage as to force ordinary young men like these four boys to abandon the military,” and how “ordinary Americans, ordinary human beings” were able to “take [. . .] courageous steps for what they believe.”192 In late December, the Intrepid Four agreed to an interview with Richard Reston, correspondent with the Los Angeles Times in Moscow. By then, they had been frustrated both with previous American media depictions as well as their long unresolved situation and ambivalent stand in the Soviet Union,

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awaiting passage to Sweden.193 In turn, the KGB supported the decision and considered the prospect of a report by Reston benefcial to the “future growth of the campaign for peace in Vietnam” in the West.194 In the article resulting from the interview early on December 29, 1967, the day of their departure to Sweden, Reston allowed the Intrepid Four to explain themselves for the frst time in the American media. Moreover, he asserted that they had acted consciously, were convinced that they had contributed to American and international antiwar protest, and considered their new form of desertion as an “honorable way to protest” and “something of a precedent.” The four responded to the “distort[ion of] our position” by American commentators, who had alleged they had “repudiat[ed] our country rather than our government,” and pointed out that they had not intended to enter the Soviet Union nor to stay there. Regarding the politicization and framing of their case in the logic of the Cold War and the charges of defection, Craig Anderson argued that they had acted as “neutral” and “apolitical” persons, “as human beings against the war.” Michael Lindner once again distinguished between their allegiance to the United States and the American people and their protest against the “war machine that is committing the war crimes.” They pointed out that “our actions helped to make a deserter more honorable,” which was “no longer a dirty name” now, and argued that they had created awareness among Americans for the existence of dissent and opposition among American servicemen.195 After the interview, the Intrepid Four boarded a plane to Stockholm to apply for asylum in Sweden. The neutral state had been their choice early on, and in late November they had frst contacted the SKfV for assistance to enter the country. After transit visas had been denied by Finland in midDecember and another plea by the four absentees, the committee arranged for them to come to Stockholm.196 It planned an entry of the deserters into Sweden without visas, which visitors normally had to obtain in advance. Only on the day before their arrival at Arlanda airport, Bertil Svahnström, vice chairman of the SKfV, notifed Minister of the Interior Rune Johansson of the case. He argued that the SKfV’s arrangement had helped the government evade an advance decision and a probable diplomatic response from the United States. But the highly publicized reception of the Intrepid Four at Arlanda airport on December 29, generally sympathetic commentary, and the broad antiwar sentiment among Swedes placed considerable domestic pressure on decision-makers in Stockholm, making a ruling against the deserters unlikely.197 Indeed, the Swedish aliens board recommended that on humanitarian grounds the absentees should be granted a right of residence. This was a compromise to comply with Swedish neutrality and the country’s tradition of sanctuary, while at the same time, the deserters were not to be equated with

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refugees from the Eastern bloc, who received full political asylum in Sweden, and which would have been an even stronger provocation toward the United States. Nevertheless, the condition that the Intrepid Four abstained from political activities was dropped by the aliens commission in its unanimous decision in favor of the deserters’ appeal for asylum on January 9, 1968.198 The case of the Intrepid Four was processed unusually fast by the Swedish authorities, when applications by other American deserters already in the country were still pending, and clearly in response to the public and political pressure created by the arrangement of their entry into the country by the SKfV.199 The arrival of the Intrepid Four created great media attention, not only in Sweden, but also with American newsmakers. In the neutral country, they were approachable for reporters from the United States, and on the day after their reception in Sweden, CBS correspondent Peter Kalischer came to Stockholm from Paris to interview the four. He considered their action without precedent, as “nothing like that has come along before,” and of relevance to the “furious debate” on the Vietnam War going on in the United States.200 CBS produced a half-hour Special Report on “The Four Navy Deserters,” which was aired on the evening of January 1, 1968, between the college football bowl games and the Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour New Year’s special, reaching millions of Americans.201 After their positive encounter with Richard Reston just before their departure from the Soviet Union, they hoped to be able to bring across their perspective to American viewers in a conversation with a well-established journalist as Kalischer on neutral ground and without the framings of the Cold War, and thus bypass the mostly skeptical and unsympathetic press. Moreover, an invitation by one of the three major networks must have fattered the young men after their journey from Japan via the Soviet Union to Sweden and the ambivalent reactions to their action. At the height of the television boom of the 1960s, like many contemporaries the Intrepid Four believed that the medium would transport their perspective without distortion, a hope also shared by other American deserters confronting the media. Challenged by Michael Durham of Life to step through the sheet and disclose his identity, for example, Cornell Hiselman had responded that he would only do so if his statements were transferred verbatim by a Telstar satellite to the United States.202 As we shall see, this was an illusion, and the deserters as media novices struggled to get across their perspective on television. After all, they were subject to editing and newsmakers’ comments and interpretation. To “[s]peak for [t]hemselves,” as the alternative press captioned reprints of the original statements of the Intrepid Four from the Soviet Union, was an ideal claim by the deserters and their sympathizers; how the message was received and presented, however, strongly depended on the context of

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production, interpretation, and commentary, and not least on the mindset of readers or viewers.203 The establishing shot of the CBS Special Report showed the four deserters at a long desk in a neutral television studio, all dressed in coats, shirts, and ties, almost like a round table of experts. The camera then showed them individually, while Kalischer asked whether they regretted their action, now that they were “men without a country” after “jump[ing] your ship” and “declar[ing] yourselves to be deserters for political reasons.” As in an interrogation, he addressed each one with name and military rank, and all answered that they did not regret this step. Then, host Martin Agronsky summarized their desertion in Japan and trip through the Soviet Union and introduced them as “four ordinary American boys with typical American backgrounds, from typical American towns” who were now, however, “men without a country.” He thus highlighted the break with their previous lives and, like Kalischer, alluded to the classic image of a military man renouncing the United States in Edward Everett Hale’s allegory of the Civil War era. That the protagonist of The Man without a Country had been charged with treason conveys how grave an offense the commentators regarded the desertion of the Intrepid Four, and how they frst saw it as an abandonment of their country, rather than an act of protest against the specifc war in Vietnam. The short biographies presented by Agronsky ft the process of coming of age of average young Americans, including scouting, making music, and playing sports. Besides noting Richard Bailey’s decision to leave high school after losing interest and enlisting in the Navy, he refrained from presenting their youth as one of deviants, delinquents, and misfts. Instead, Agronsky cited Craig Anderson’s football coach on how he had been “so typical, as normal as could be” as well as the deserters’ parents on their normal upbringing, their patriotic opinions, and their previous abstinence from antiwar protest.204 Crewmen of the Intrepid, which had just returned to port in Norfolk, Virginia, told CBS that the four AWOLees had been “good workers” and average sailors, who had done “satisfactory” service aboard. Their “disappoint[ing]” step, however, could not “jeopardize” the “highly competitive” spirit of the crew and had not affected its performance, Captain William McVey asserted. In his concluding remarks, Martin Agronsky left open to question “who is to judge these four young Americans” who were “for the rest of their lives men without a country.” However, he commented that for those “whose conscience truly makes military service intolerable” there were provisions in the United States for exemption or alternative service. He suggested moreover that there had been a “failure of their teachers, their elders to give them an adequate sense of patriotic purpose.” Convinced that the deserters’ break with their country was irrevocable and offering them no chance for a return, he solemnly cited from Hale’s text how the remorseful

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Philip Nolan, forever banned from his home country for treason to live in exile, expressed his last wish on his deathbed to have inscribed as an epitaph on his tombstone that while he “loved his country as no other man” he nevertheless “deserved less at her hands.”205 If there had been some compassion or understanding in Agronsky’s introduction of the Intrepid Four, these moralizing words of one of the leading American reporters and the reference to Hale’s story manifested an irreversibility of their desertion and deprived them of any chance to return to the United States. The interview with Kalischer, in turn, demonstrated the futile struggle of the deserters to explain their action and free themselves from the framings of the Cold War and traditional labels of cowardice, shirking, and aiding the enemy. Clearly, there was a communication gap between the deserters and Kalischer, who not only applied traditional reference frames but also that of the radical antiwar students’ confrontation with the establishment, which neither ft the Intrepid Four, who rejected any political affliation and insisted that they had taken a “moral stand.” These misunderstandings and, ultimately, the tough questions by Kalischer, sometimes as in an interrogation and sometimes as if these young men were experienced debaters, pushed the deserters into a defensive position and prompted them to give defant answers, unable to conceal their frustration and leaving the image of misled and confused boys. In the dynamic of the conversation, the four deserters thus failed to affrm their allegiance to American ideals, which they had in all of their previous statements, and to proclaim their new ideal of “patriotic deserters” toward the American public.206 In fact, the Intrepid Four were still subject to the political framings they had been confronted with when they tried to present their position in the Soviet Union. Kalischer devoted considerable time on their experience there, how they had supplied the Russians with “considerable propaganda,” and implied that they had given in to such exploitation, not least by accepting funds from the Soviet Peace Committee to support their life in Swedish exile. The absentees replied that only “actual statements” and “exactly what we said” had been published by the Soviets, which, however, had been ignored or distorted in the American media. While the Intrepid Four told Kalischer how their negative idea of the Soviet Union had changed considerably during their stay, they pointed out that they would not want to live in Russia and that there had been “no real common interest” between themselves and the Soviet Peace Committee. While this was only addressed shortly during the television interview, press reports featured the deserters’ assertion that they had not deliberately chosen the Soviet Union nor had planned to defect there more prominently.207 Regarding their motives and political views, Peter Kalischer offered the deserters to choose allegiance to either the Democrats or the Republicans.

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When they, young Americans who had never been allowed to vote yet, refused to make such a choice and insisted that they were “apolitical” and had acted on moral grounds, he asked them if they were communists. They denied this, to be sure; however, the discussion of their stand and their motives more and more cornered the deserters. First, they claimed that they opposed all wars, but Kalischer questioned whether they would defend the United States if it was attacked and whether they would have fought against Nazi Germany and imperial Japan in the Second World War, which they confrmed both. Regarding the Vietnam War, their reluctance to choose sides, their rejection of the term Vietcong, used by the host, and understanding expressed by Bailey for how the civilian population in South Vietnam had come to support the goals of the FNL there, prompted Kalischer to conclude that the deserters wanted the latter to win. Finally, he pointed to their previous announcement that they would ask others in the American military to follow their example and “defect,” thus not only accusing them of aiding and abetting desertion but also implying that this came close to a defection to the enemy or would involve going to the Soviet Union, too.208 When they were fnally asked about the relations with their families and offered to send them a message, the four men were already rather exhausted and frustrated. As a result, they gave quite defant answers that a break with their parents and their “apathetical” white middle-class lives was inevitable, and that there was “really nothing more to say,” except for the vague hope that they would “look where the United States is gonna start now, and where they are going with it.” Beyond the diffcult situation on a familiar level, the insistence of Kalischer and Agronsky that the Intrepid Four would never be able to return home, thereby neglecting the real option of remorse and facing military justice, left out any notion of possible forgiveness for the Vietnam War refusers nor of a reconciliation of the generations.209 AN AMERICAN GI RESISTER IN PARIS The appearance of the Intrepid Four in Japan and the Soviet Union motivated an American deserter in France to make a public statement of his own on his motivations for desertion. It was flmed and dispatched to the United States on December 9, 1967, featured in the press, and subsequently aired by CBS.210 Richard (Dick) Perrin took the step through the white curtain of a makeshift studio set up at a Paris apartment, which until then had protected American deserters’ anonymity and security in France. He introduced himself with his full-service number and stated “I am a RITA,” a “resister inside the army.”211 Timid at frst, but with growing self-confdence, the nineteen-yearold explained how as an Army soldier at Fort Sill, Oklahoma, he had been

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involved in protest activities, received punishment, and was then posted to Kitzingen in West Germany, from where he went AWOL in early September. Desertion—a term which Perrin carefully avoided—thus had only been his way out to evade further prosecution and to continue his antiwar protest, if from exile. In fact, he maintained that he would return to the military if the United States withdrew its troops from Vietnam. Thus, rather than to legitimize and promote desertion, Perrin’s objective was to inform about growing dissent among American servicemen, many of whom did not dare publicize their perspective, and to contribute to further mobilization of antiwar protest among GIs. Perrin thus added a broader perspective on servicemen’s dissent to the debate on desertion and war resistance, boosted by the appearance of the Intrepid Four only a few weeks before. While alone as an AWOLee, Dick Perrin was backed by the network of sympathizers in Paris and Thomas Schwaetzer, who had diligently staged the press conference at a secret address, to which liaisons escorted American journalists. They were warned to not disclose the whereabouts of the deserter and advised to locate the event “somewhere in Western Europe” in their reports.212 After his statement, Perrin was joined by Stokely Carmichael, who was visiting Europe at the time to participate in Bertrand Russell’s war crimes hearings in Roskilde, Denmark, and to give speeches in France and Sweden.213 In Sweden, Carmichael had already met a deserter and expressed solidarity with his refusal of continued service in the U.S. Army. This was twenty-four-year-old African American William Percell, according to reports a former schoolmate of Carmichael, who was absent from his unit in West Germany and had come to Malmö with his Danish fancée to ask for asylum.214 At the press conference in Paris, Carmichael interviewed Perrin about how he came to oppose the war in Vietnam and on dissent among GIs in general, and Black servicemen in particular. Carmichael’s prominence as a movement leader valorized Perrin and his action and helped to draw media attention. His agreement to participate in the event had motivated the young deserter to take the bold step before the press in the frst place.215 Finally, Ton Regtien, leader of the Dutch student movement, took part in the event and reported on the European underground network to help AWOL American servicemen escape, and on prospective efforts to support oppositional GIs. Although he felt compelled to participate by Thomas Schwaetzer, his presence refected the signifcance of Perrin and his decision to go public for European antiwar activists and their new focus on American soldiers and deserters.216 In his statement, Dick Perrin covered the time from his enlistment until his transfer to West Germany. He did not speak about his eventual decision to go AWOL nor explicitly legitimize desertion. Instead, he focused on his participation in protest activities inside the army and restricted his story to events in the United States. Perrin told of how in January 1967, he had decided to join

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the Army as a volunteer “for choice rather than chance,” when he had failed to fnd a job after graduating from high school. He was rejected by employers because of his draft eligible status and was thus a typical example for draftinduced enlistment by members of the Vietnam generation, as described by historian Christian Appy.217 In developing his opposition against the Vietnam War, discussions with his older half-brother Ronald, a doctoral student in philosophy at the University of California in San Diego, played a crucial role, as well as listening to returned Vietnam veterans’ stories of atrocities and torture and reading of Senator William Fulbright’s critique of the United States’ escalation of the war in Vietnam.218 Following his transfer to Fort Sill, Perrin acquainted Private Andy Stapp, a former Penn State student who had joined the U.S. Army in May 1966 with the objective to mobilize dissent among GIs and who was to initiate the American Servicemen’s Union in late 1967.219 Perrin reported on how he, Stapp, and a few others distributed antiwar literature among fellow soldiers, discussed the war, and authored commentaries and solidarity statements with oppositional servicemen, for example the Fort Hood Three and Howard Levy.220 After an article by Perrin was published in the National Guardian, in which he described how he had come to oppose the war and appealed for support for antiwar GIs, he and Stapp were arrested by civilian detectives for an alleged traffc offense and turned in to the military police.221 They received nonjudicial punishment and confnement to the barracks area. When Perrin still met with Youth against War and Fascism and Committee for GI Rights activists Maryann Weissman and Key Martin outside the fort, he was sentenced by court-martial to thirty days of hard labor.222 Before half of this was over, Perrin was deployed to West Germany, where he was isolated from the stateside GI movement and its supporters.223 With “resistance inside the army,” or RITA, Dick Perrin introduced a new concept of protest among American servicemen and military absentees. He had developed the term during his stay in France to cover the oppositional activities inside the military he had experienced, as well as his continued activism after going AWOL and into exile. However, journalists at the press conference did not show much interest in the new phenomenon, and following reports did not credit the term to Perrin, but referred to it as “peacenik [. . .] slang” for GI organizing efforts by civilians.224 Moreover, Perrin’s perspective was not presented independently by American journalists, but was framed within the common schemes of the Vietnam debate, not least because of the presence of Stokely Carmichael. CBS correspondent Peter Kalischer, for example, pressed Perrin to comment on Carmichael’s full support for the Vietnamese FNL, to which he eventually conceded that “it would [not] do any harm for someone to set the United States in its place,” which went beyond his previous response that he “would like to see peace in

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Vietnam.”225 As a result, some news commentators accused Perrin of having “called for the defeat of the United States.”226 As in the case of the Intrepid Four, American media investigated Dick Perrin’s youth. However, no instances of deviance were discovered, and reporters concluded that he had been an “average [s]tudent,” who had participated in the high-school band and orchestra, the ski team and student newspaper, and Sunday school.227 They also consulted his father and mother, who had known about their son’s views since they had visited him at the Fort Sill stockade in August 1967 and had been informed about his absence from the Army in West Germany in September, but who were shocked about his statements before television cameras and the press.228 Like some of the parents of the Intrepid Four, his mother Betty, who worked as a nurse in a hospital of the Veterans Administration, suspected that her son had been “brainwashed by subversive elements.” She alluded to the members of the Committee of GI Rights, whom Dick had been involved with at Fort Sill, and pointed out that he was only nineteen years old and “pliable.”229 His father Rene, a veteran of the Second World War and member of the American Legion, added that his son had been “infuenced from the outside, by ministers and others.”230 Notwithstanding, the Perrins rejected implications that they had “lost a son,” and Betty asserted that Dick was “entitled to his beliefs,” nevertheless regretting that he had not followed their advice to wait with expressing them publicly until his discharge from the Army.231 The reports about Dick Perrin’s desertion and antiwar statements prompted a debate in the local newspapers of his home about his motives as well as the role of his parents and elders.232 It involved conficting perspectives on his concrete case as well as the dilemma of draft-age Americans in general, the relations between the Vietnam and older generations, antiwar protest, and the ideals of civic duty and honor. While some comments refected understanding for the plight of Perrin’s generation and his own quandary, others regarded his action as the result of the infuence of others, both during his youth and in particular as a GI and AWOLee. That a nineteen-year-old could act like Perrin seemed beyond belief for many contemporaries, both of his own age group and older. They blamed outsiders for having pressured and exploited Dick, or lamented the tragedy of his diffcult situation. In particular, Stokely Carmichael, clearly a controversial fgure and viewed with suspicion by many Americans, was condemned for having infuenced Perrin to come out and protest the war. The editor of the Connecticut Valley Times-Reporter expressed concern with Perrin’s case as a symbol of the “modern American dilemma” which might even “become the modern American tragedy,” when a young man of “humanitarian conscience” could get caught in a “complex of national and international issues” and take such a consequential step to desert

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and publicly protest his government’s policy.233 One of the paper’s readers expressed her pity for Perrin and is family, whose “real tragedy” was that Dick carried “not the mark of a military man, but the mark of a boy.” He thus symbolized how political decision-makers ordered teenagers to “carry a gun,” who were otherwise not considered mature enough for voting, drinking, and getting married. She blamed the draft laws and the United States’ military policy for this dilemma and argued that Perrin was “too young to have even a vague knowledge of what he is really doing,” when he went AWOL and stepped before the press. She lamented how he had come under the infuence of Stokely Carmichael, whom she considered a “poison to truth” and a “traitor,” who had exploited the “obvious inner confict” of the young deserter.234 While also charging Carmichael, who made his “blood boil,” for having pushed Perrin to step before the cameras, another reader nevertheless stated that Dick had “renounced his birthright” through his action and was forever a “man without a country,” the same concept referenced in the case of the Intrepid Four. He invoked the principle of “right or wrong, My Country,” and called on readers to join him in praying that Perrin would live a long life so that he would often have to think of how wrong he had been.235 The editor of the Barre Montpelier Times-Argus argued that it was less Dick Perrin’s action itself that shocked most Vermonters, but that he came from their state and had fouled his and their own nest. While not justifying Perrin’s desertion and protest statement, his commentary aimed to restore the honor of the Perrin family and noted the honorable military service of Dick’s grandfather in the French Foreign Legion, his father’s in the U.S. Army during the Second World War, as well as his half-brother Ronald’s stint in the armed forces during the early 1960s. In effect, thus, the honor of the male Perrins of several generations mitigated the misconduct of the youngest of them. The editor, too, criticized Stokely Carmichael, but credited Dick Perrin’s own position on the war in Vietnam and placed it in the line of prominent war opponents, such as Senators William Fulbright and Robert Kennedy, and Congressman Eugene McCarthy, who at the end of November 1967 had announced his candidacy for the Democratic primaries to challenge President Johnson. The commentary moreover called for lenient judicial treatment of Perrin, as the military action of the United States in Indochina was not an offcially declared war.236 A peer to whom Dick Perrin had been a “very close friend,” nevertheless viewed him as the victim of outside infuences. Instead of Carmichael and leftists in Europe, he named several citizens of their hometown of Springfeld, among them ministers and former senator Ralph Flanders, and attacked their “contemporary liberal philosophy.” Although the Vietnam War was “disagreeable” and “messy,” the young man accepted it, citing Ecclesiastes 3 on how there was a “time of war and a time of peace.” His and others’ blaming

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of elders for the dilemmas of the Vietnam generation—here its confusion and deception into radical war refusal, above for its exploitation by the military system—refect a considerable communication gap between the generations and within American society.237 One of those accused, pastor David Heintzelman, disagreed with the view that Dick Perrin had been lead into his action under the infuence of others and maintained that “our young people understand what is happening” and were “deeply disturbed” by the war in Vietnam, the international arms race, and racism. Without further discussing Perrin’s specifc act to desert, he concluded with an appeal to American citizens to work for a world of peace and understanding.238 Another one charged by the young reader, Baptist minister Phillips Henderson, who had known Perrin as a member of his parish and who had been contacted by him as a GI for counseling when his doubts about the war were growing, explained that Dick’s idealism and beliefs had led to an irrevocable determination to refuse continued service in the Army. Henderson described him as a youth interested in human relations, the civil rights movement, and the moral aspects of the American war in Vietnam, who would with a “quiet tenacity” stick to his views. With his “wide streak of idealism” and his “impatience with hypocrisy,” Perrin could sometimes overlook the opposite perspective of a complex situation, which, however, was not an unusual characteristic of young men in general, the minister argued.239 For several weeks Dick Perrin had not been in touch with his parents, who were enduring the public debate about their son as well as the reactions of neighbors, colleagues, and clients about his desertion and protest statement.240 In particular, a long tirade by the sister of Rene Perrin’s deceased frst wife about his “Prodigal Son” Ronald, published in a local newspaper just after Christmas, was disturbing for the Perrins. She not only unfolded family matters but condemned her nephew Ronald, Dick’s older half-brother, for having indoctrinated him and having induced him to desert.241 In Paris, Dick himself was worried that letters to and from his parents were being held up and that they could incriminate themselves if directly got in touch with him. He therefore called the editor of the Connecticut Valley Times-Reporter to send a message to them, that he loved them and hoped to eventually be able to visit them in Springfeld.242 The heated debate on his desertion in his hometown and the misunderstandings about his action and motives, not least the repercussions on his parents, burdened him far away in France. Thus, next to reviving communication with his family, not least through the mediation of minister Henderson, Perrin felt compelled to explain himself and for that purpose sent a statement “To the People of Springfeld” to the Times-Reporter, which was published in early February 1968.243

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Perrin rejected allegations that he had been brainwashed or under the infuence of others when he deserted and decided to make his action and antiwar stance public, and instead suggested that many in Springfeld had themselves been “duped” by the Johnson administration about the goals and conduct of the war, citing Vermont senator and early Vietnam skeptic George Aiken. Regarding his decision to go AWOL, Perrin told of how his parents had advised him to not continue his protest activities after release from the stockade at Fort Sill and had told him to trust that the American people would elect another president if they opposed the war effort. Perrin, himself too young to vote, however, had become disillusioned about the choices available to U.S. citizens, with Eugene McCarthy lacking support from business leaders, and the other candidates depending too much on the interests of the latter, not least the defense industry, and would not change “our insane foreign policy.” He defended not only his own position but also those condemned for allegedly having infuenced him. Social and political issues had occupied him as a youth in Springfeld, accordingly, and the only person he could discuss them with had been his minister, Phillips Henderson. Perrin referred to a statement he had once made before the congregation of Henderson’s church about the discrimination of African Americans, by which he had apparently provoked many. Then, and now, he argued, they were misunderstanding the idea of Black Power and the position of Stokely Carmichael. Perrin’s defense thus did not tone down the message of his appearance in Paris, but rather affrmed it. While he noted that many would not listen to his argument, his desire to legitimize his act and explain his motives refect considerable hope that Americans would eventually comprehend his own refusal and that of others of his generation, and themselves would come to oppose the war, too.244 Only a few days after the publication of this statement to the people of his hometown, Dick Perrin was to once more step before television cameras and international reporters in Paris, determined to continue his actions in protest against the American war in Vietnam. CONCLUSION The year 1967 saw the frst American deserters of the Vietnam War to step out and explain their actions. In Europe and Japan, they were received by sympathetic war opponents and were offered the opportunity to speak about their motives to go AWOL and their position on the United States’ war. Antiwar activists organized a support network to assist dissenting American servicemen to escape the military authorities and fnd sanctuary in France and Sweden. Aid for fugitives and exiles and encouragement to desert, the latter traditionally a means of psychological warfare, became a

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crucial form of direct action and concrete antiwar activism for war opponents abroad. Beyond all campaigning, the appearance of American deserters themselves was to open sanctuaries, and their example prompted a new debate on desertion and war resistance and would mobilize others in the U.S. military to protest or desert. The young American servicemen who went AWOL abroad had, like many of their age group, been confronted with military conscription and possible service in the war and had not been able to evade the draft. To European sympathizers, they represented the American Vietnam generation and the underprivileged social strata and ethnic groups, which were especially affected by the draft and the war. Many Europeans concerned with American deserters had previously followed the civil rights movement in the United States and, during the escalation of the Vietnam War, studied and protested the racial and class discriminatory mechanisms of the Selective Service System. Mobilizing dissent among GIs and assistance for deserters therefore was understood as a means of practical solidarity with the young disadvantaged members of American society and a contribution to their emancipation. At a time when participants of the student movement, often from the white middleclass, dominated the debate on draft resistance in the United States, the new perspective on desertion therefore broadened the scope of discourse on the Vietnam generation and war refusal. Through their action to leave the military and seeking sanctuary far away from home, American deserters were separated from those of their age group, who either refused the draft or continued to serve in the military. Both the geographical factor of exile as well as the common concepts and images of desertion therefore led to marginalization of the AWOLees in discourse on the Vietnam generation and its responses to the draft and the war. American media depictions of the frst absentees appearing in Europe drew on traditional images of deserters as social misfts coming from the margins of society, easily misguided and manipulated by leftist war opponents, and trivialized the new war refusers as the usual share of deviants. Therefore, the example of the Intrepid Four and Dick Perrin as boys from the middle-class was crucial for observers from the United States to realize the scope of dissent in the armed forces beyond disadvantaged groups and for an understanding of desertion as one of the responses of the Vietnam generation to the draft and military service. Nevertheless, at the turn of 1967 and 1968, traditional explanations for desertion coupled with the logics of the Cold War prevented many American journalists from comprehending the action and motives of the deserters. For them and most Americans, an escape to the Soviet Union was the ultimate transgression of the Cold War consensus and a subversion of the United States’ position in international relations. Desertion was the most drastic break with the

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traditional ideals of patriotism and civic duty, which through a process of militarization of American society since the Second World War and in the constant state of defense readiness of the Cold War had been exalted as critical virtues to be installed into the young generations. Not least, the misunderstandings over American ideals and the refusal to serve in the Vietnam War indicate the substantial generational gap between those coming of age during the 1960s and older generations, in particular the generation of the Second World War, whose members had in great numbers served in the military and in the postwar years became leaders, parents, and role models of the Vietnam generation. The appearance of the new deserters enhanced a debate on the role of the individual soldier in war, led by participants of the international peace movement regarding the intervention of Western powers into wars of national liberation in the Third World, from the French wars in Indochina and Algeria to the United States’ war in Vietnam. These new wars shifted the focus of peace activists from technological warfare and in particular the nuclear bomb in the context of the Cold War to the infantry soldiers recruited from the young generation and ordered to fght the insurgents. Both the conduct of the American troops in combat transmitted via the media to Western publics and reported on by veterans, as well as the protests of the Vietnam generation against conscription, contributed to this new concern with servicemen and their agency in war and in resistance. A crucial reference in this debate were the Nuremberg Principles, drawn from the war crimes trials following the Second World War and integrated into the legal framework of the United Nations, now serving to legitimize war refusal by young Americans. The new American deserters appeared at the intersection of critical diachronic and synchronic developments of the postwar era and the 1960s, the wars for liberation and national independence, the Cold War, the legacies of the Second World War, the conficts over race, class, and generation in the United States, and international protest and antiwar activism. They were agents of a transnational circuitry of American history, moved across borders, and prompted and enhanced debates not only on their own action but these larger issues. As unusual speakers in any setting, from the mainstream media to the antiwar scene, from Japan, the Soviet Union to France and Sweden, they time and again struggled to voice, defend, or to develop their position on the war, American politics, and their action. The step into the public taken by the frst absentees in 1967 and the establishment of a support network, notwithstanding, demonstrated the existence of a growing potential for dissent among U.S. servicemen and irrevocably entered desertion as a form of war refusal into the American and international Vietnam debate.

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NOTES 1. Max Watts, US-Army-Europe. Von der Desertion zum Widerstand in der Kaserne (Berlin: Harald Kater, 1989), 7 ff.; “Anti-war GIs Deserting,” National Guardian, September 9, 1967; Stockholm 770, January 24, 1968, NARA, RG 59, Central Foreign Policy Files 1967-69, Political & Defense, Box 1666. 2. “To American Soldiers in Europe,” War Resisters’ International and others, London, [Summer 1966], IISG, Ton Regtien, 202; “Provos Helping GI Deserters,” Chicago Tribune, March 26, 1967. See on the Dutch Provo movement Richard Kempton, Provo. Amsterdam’s Anarchist Revolt (Brooklyn, NY: Autonomedia, 2007). Sometimes, the code was printed on the leafets, sometimes stamped by hand. A stamp used for this purpose can be found in the collection of Max Watts (ASR/ IISG, Max Watts). 3. Authorization, IISG, Ton Regtien, 202. 4. “Anti-war GIs Deserting,” National Guardian, September 9, 1967. 5. Garret Joseph Martin, General de Gaulle’s Cold War. Challenging American Hegemony, 1963–1968 (New York: Berghahn Books, 2013), 99 ff. and 114–115; Maurice Vaïsse, “De Gaulle and the Vietnam War,” in The Search For Peace in Vietnam, 1964-1968, ed. Lloyd C. Gardner and Ted Gittinger (College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 2004), 162 ff. 6. Watts, US-Army-Europe, 9. “Anti-war GIs Deserting,” National Guardian, September 9, 1967; Journoud, “Les relations franco-américaines à l’épreuve du Vietnam,” 1114. See for details on the PACS membership and organization SHSW, PACS, Box 7, Administrative Documents 1966–1968. 7. See on the offenses of enticing desertion and harboring deserters in the United States 18 U.S. Code § 1381. 8. Notes on deserter aid (“Baby—Is it understood that Tommy will act as liaison?” and “Money?”) in Notebook “automne ‘66,” Maria Jolas, SHSW, PACS, Box 8; Max Watts, “So Far Un-Named,” TORD 86.31.1.1 and “So Far Un-Named,” TORD 86.43.1.1, ASR/IISG, Max Watts, Data DVD; “Max—First Shirt of RITA,” Overseas Weekly, February 15, 1970; Watts, US-Army-Europe, 7 ff.; James Reston Jr., The Amnesty of John David Herndon (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1972), 57 ff.; Michel Levine, Affaires non classées. Enquêtes et dossiers de la Ligue des Droits de l’Homme (Paris: Fayard, 1973), 225 ff.; Yvonne Schürmann-Zehetner, “René Leibowitz. Ein Pionier für die Musik des 20. Jahrhunderts” (Doctoral Dissertation, Universität Wien, 2010), 377 ff. and 495–496. Van Ingen Leibowitz published a memoir on these activities, dubbed “baby business” by herself alias June and Thomas Schwaetzer alias Max, who referred to the deserters as babies, requiring baby-sitting and to be taken care of (June van Ingen, Against the Army (Self-published at againstthearmy​.blogspot​.c​om, 2011–2013, accessed October 2015), Section “Story #1: Max’s Anti-Vietnam Network” and following sections). 9. See on the use of the term underground railway or -road in this context “Provos Helping GI Deserters,” Chicago Tribune, March 26, 1967; Watts, US-ArmyEurope, 7; Rhodri Jeffreys-Jones, Peace Now! American Society and the Ending of

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the Vietnam War (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1999), 120; Squires, Building Sanctuary, 40. See on the North American underground assistance for draft resisters and deserters to escape to Canada, for example, Ernst and Baldwin, “The Not So Silent Minority,” 111. For the European network see Agnès van Parys, Les déserteurs (Paris: Balland, 1971), 246 ff.; van der Maar, Welterusten mijnheer de president, 144 ff. 10. “De nombreux jeunes américains fuient la guerre du Vietnam,” Le Monde, May 5, 1967; “Face à face un GI,” Lectures pour Tous, December 1967; van Parys, Les déserteurs, 246–247; Geoffrey Adams, The Call of Conscience. French Protestant Responses to the Algerian War, 1954–1962 (Waterloo: Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 1998), 214. 11. “De nombreux jeunes américains fuient la guerre du Vietnam,” Le Monde, May 5, 1967; Matthew Lippmann, “Nuremberg. Forty Five Years Later,” in Perspectives on the Nuremberg Trial, ed. Guénaël Mettraux (Oxford/New York: Oxford University Press, 2008), 534n406. 12. “Data on U.S. Military Absentees Known or Believed to Be in France,” Military Liquidation Section, the U.S. Embassy, Paris, Attachment to Paris A-2116, May 9, 1968, NARA, RG 59, Central Foreign Policy Files 1967-69, Political & Defense, Box 1667; Reston Jr., The Amnesty of John David Herndon, 60; van Ingen, Against the Army, Section “Amsterdam, Part 2.” 13. “Déserteurs américains en France,” L’Événement, March 14, 1967, 13–14; “De nombreux jeunes américains fuient la guerre du Vietnam,” Le Monde, May 5, 1967; Max Watts, “La Barba,” TORD 82.2, ASR/IISG, Max Watts, Data DVD; van Ingen, Against the Army, Section “Film Interview.” Van Ingen noted that without Armfeld’s story of his war experience, the remaining parts of the flmed interview were of little value for the French journalists and American supporters. 14. See for an overview van Ingen, Against the Army, Section “Test Case.” 15. Max Watts, “La Barba,” TORD 82.2, ASR/IISG, Max Watts, Data DVD; van Ingen, Against the Army, Section “The Phoneless Friends.” 16. “Un déserteur américain opposé à la guerre du Vietnam serait relaché,” Le Monde, May 10, 1967; van Parys, Les déserteurs, 246–247; Journoud, “Les relations franco-américaines à l’épreuve du Vietnam,” 1150. 17. “Case of U.S. Army Private Louis Armfeld,” Paris 18182, May 12, 1967, NARA, RG 59, Central Foreign Policy Files 1967-69, Political & Defense, Box 1661. 18. “Un déserteur américain opposé à la guerre du Vietnam serait relaché” and “Le jeune déserteur américain a obtenu un permis de séjour temporarire en France,” Le Monde, May 10 and 21–22, 1967; “U.S. Deserter Gets Sentence in Paris,” New York Times, May 19, 1967; “Leafets Urge GIs to Desert,” International Herald Tribune, May 29, 1967. 19. Journoud, “Les relations franco-américaines à l’épreuve du Vietnam,” 1149–1150. 20. “Case of U.S. Army Private Louis Armfeld,” Paris 18182, May 12, 1967, NARA, RG 59, Central Foreign Policy Files 1967-69, Political & Defense, Box 1661. See Article VII of the NATO agreement on the status of forces of June 19, 1951, and NATO document AC/54/D/3 (2nd Revise) of May 20, 1954, which specifes that the

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former only applies to personnel on offcial duty (Attachment to Department of State to Senate Committee on Armed Servicees, July 8, 1968, NARA, RG 59, Central Foreign Policy Files 1967-69, Political & Defense, Box 1667); Conférence Mondiale de Juristes pour le Vietnam (Bruxelles: Editions de l’Association Internationale des Juristes Démocrates, 1968), 146–147; Niebergall-Lackner, Status and Treatment of Deserters, 240. 21. van Parys, Les déserteurs, 247; Reston Jr., The Amnesty of John David Herndon, 57; “G.I.’s Who Desert Find France Precarious, Nonpolitical Haven,” New York Times, July 2, 1967; “Face à face un GI,” Lectures pour Tous, December 1967; “Les flières de la désertion,” Le Nouvel Observateur, March 6, 1968. See on extradition law and the exclusion of military offenses Niebergall-Lackner, Status and Treatment of Deserters, 234 ff. 22. “We Won’t Go!” PACS News, July 1967. 23. “Anti-war GIs Deserting,” National Guardian, September 9, 1967. 24. “U.S. Military ‘Deserters’ in France,” Military Liquidation Section, U.S. Embassy, Paris, June 27, 1968, Attachment to Paris A-2455, July 25, 1968, NARA, RG 59, Central Foreign Policy Files 1967-69, Political & Defense, Box 1663; “Data on U.S. Military Absentees Known or Believed to Be in France,” Military Liquidation Section, U.S. Embassy, Paris, Attachment to Paris A-2116, May 9, 1968, NARA, RG 59, Central Foreign Policy Files 1967-69, Political & Defense, Box 1667. 25. “Underjordiskt nät smugglar soldater undan Vietnamkriget,” Svenska Dagbladet, August 17, 1967; “How Anti-Vietnam Deserters Go Underground,” Times, August 17, 1967; “Lundaficka avslöjar desertörcentral: Sverige rymmares drömmål,” Arbetet, November 9, 1967. 26. “The Legal Status of the American Deserters in Sweden,” SKfV, [1969], ARAB, Hans Göran Franck, 4.3.7 001; Yngve Möller, Sverige och Vietnamkriget. Ett unikt kapitel i svensk utrikespolitik (Stockholm: Tiden, 1992), 63 ff.; Salomon, Rebeller i takt med tiden, 93 ff.; Thomas Etzemüller, 1968—Ein Riss in der Geschichte? (Konstanz: UVK, 2005), 120 ff.; Scott, Swedish Social Democracy and the Vietnam War, 17 ff. and 137. 27. See on military desertion and draft evasion and asylum law Andreas Zimmermann, ed. The 1951 Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees and Its 1967 Protocol. A Commentary (Oxford/New York: Oxford University Press, 2011), 430–431; Niebergall-Lackner, Status and Treatment of Deserters, 177 ff. 28. Hans Göran Franck to Statens Utlänningskommission (Aliens Commission), Stockholm, March 28, 1967, ARAB, Hans Göran Franck, 4.3.7 001. On Jones’ youth and previous involvement in political protest see Ze’ev Chafets, Devil’s Night. And Other True Tales of Detroit (New York: Random House, 1990), 12; “They Turned Their Backs on America,” Sunday Herald Traveler, March 31, 1968. 29. “Han vägrade också at slåss i Vietnam, deserterade och får stanna i Sverige!” Aftonbladet, April 21, 1967; “Underjordiskt nät smugglar soldater undan Vietnamkriget,” Svenska Dagbladet, August 17, 1967. 30. Stockholm 153, August 17, 1967, NARA, RG 59, Central Foreign Policy Files 1967-69, Political & Defense, Box 1666; “Desertörer okända i USA ‘338

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saknas,’” Svenska Dagbladet, August 18, 1967; Scott, Swedish Social Democracy and the Vietnam War, 136–137. 31. “How Anti-Vietnam Deserters Go Underground,” Times, August 17, 1967; “Underjordiskt nät smugglar soldater undan Vietnamkriget,” Svenska Dagbladet, August 17, 1967; “Vietnam-desertörer fyr till Sverige!” Aftonbladet, August 17, 1967. 32. “De nombreux jeunes américains fuient la guerre du Vietnam,” Le Monde, May 5, 1967. Amalric also participated in PACS discussion events, for example, in June 1967 as speaker on “American Attitudes towards the War in Vietnam as Seen by a French Observer” (Event fyer, SHSW, PACS, Box 8). 33. “Data on U.S. Military Absentees Known or Believed to Be in France,” Military Liquidation Section, U.S. Embassy, Paris, Attachment to Paris A-2116, May 9, 1968, NARA, RG 59, Central Foreign Policy Files 1967-69, Political & Defense, Box 1667. 34. “Déserteurs américains en France,” L’Événement, March 14, 1967, 13–14 (French original: “ni des militants politiques ni des idéalistes” and “Ses yeux s’ouvrent”). 35. “De nombreux jeunes américains fuient la guerre du Vietnam,” Le Monde, May 5, 1967. 36. van Ingen, Against the Army, Section “Film Interview.” 37. “Allt fer färgade kallas in i USA till kriget i Sydvietnam,” Aftonbladet, April 4, 1967; “Negern kanonmat i Vietnam,” Svenska Dagbladet, April 10, 1967; “En riktig neger,” Aftonbladet, April 12, 1967 (Swedish original: “kanonmat”). 38. “Clay: Jag vägrar mörda i Vietnam,” and “Han vägrade också at slåss i Vietnam, deserterade och får stanna i Sverige!” Aftonbladet, April 21, 1967; Interview transcript in Committee on Armed Services, Treatment of Deserters from Military Service. Report of the Committee on Armed Services, Ninety-frst Congress, First Session, March 11, 1969, 15 ff.; “Hanoi Domestic Service in English,” NARA, RG 263, Sound Recordings of Monitored Foreign Broadcast Materials 1950–1976, BV 1685. 39. Report, SWF, May 26, 1967, Transcript in “Notstand in Aktion,” Der Schwarze Kanal, June 5, 1967, DRA (German original: “gegen den internationalen Imperialismus zu kämpfen, die Armee zu demoralisieren”). In the Netherlands, the program was aired by Attentie on NCRV on May 27, 1967. On details on the flming and arrangement of the interview see Max Watts, “La Barba,” TORD 82.2, ASR/ IISG, Max Watts, Data DVD. 40. van der Maar, Welterusten mijnheer de president, 147–148; “Dutchman Tells of Group Helping G.I.’s to Desert,” New York Times, June 21, 1967; “Alleged Amsterdam Desertion Route,” The Hague A-30, July 13, 1967, NARA, RG 59, Central Foreign Policy Files 1967-69, Political & Defense, Box 1666. 41. Anklageschrift, 3 Js 653/67, Oberstaatsanwalt, Landgericht Mainz, August 7, 1967, APOA, Privatbesitz/Horlemann/Vietnam; Beschluss in der Strafsache gegen Rolf Schulz und Karl Harlos, Landgericht Koblenz, AR 14/68 (2), 3 Js 653/67, April 4, 1968, APOA, Vietnam/FFM; “In München erlaubt—in Worms strafbar,” Saarbrücker Zeitung, September 26, 1967; Photocopied clippings from the New York

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Times, the International Herald Tribune, and the London Times of May 1967 on the Louis Armfeld case and the Western desertion network with handwritten notes by Thomas Schwaetzer “Where is the German opposition to Viet-Nam?” and “Watch TV Friday 8:15 p.m.,” APOA, Privatbesitz/Vietnam. 42. “How Anti-Vietnam Deserters Go Underground,” Times, August 17, 1967; “Underjordiskt nät smugglar soldater undan Vietnamkriget,” Svenska Dagbladet, August 17, 1967; “Vietnam-desertörer fyr till Sverige!” Aftonbladet, August 17, 1967; “The Deserters,” Post Production Script, Rediffusion Television, August 17, 1967, IISG, Ton Regtien, 202 (broadcast on ITV). 43. “How Anti-Vietnam Deserters Go Underground,” Times, August 17, 1967; “The Deserters,” Post Production Script. 44. “The Deserters,” Post Production Script. Hiselman referred to pamphlets by oppositional GIs, probably including “GI’s in Vietnam Want to Come Home,” an open letter of November 1966, printed by Veterans and Reservists to End the War in Vietnam and Fifth Avenue Vietnam Peace Parade Committee and distributed in Europe in 1967. The leafet was labeled by Thomas Schwaetzer as “RN 1,” that is, the frst document of soldiers’ and deserters’ resistance against the Vietnam War known to him (RITA Notes Index, ASR/IISG, Max Watts, Data DVD). Copies of the leafet are also archived in the collections of other participants of the campaign and network, such as the PACS and Ton Regtien, in whose papers it can be found next to the script of the television interview (SHSW, PACS, Box 2, Draft Resistance/All Groups/1967–1968; IISG, Ton Regtien, 202). See on this early case of GI resistance Lembcke, The Spitting Image, 36. 45. “How Anti-Vietnam Deserters Go Underground,” Times, August 17, 1967. 46. Typical reporting on military deserters in the United States at the time concerned absentees’ criminal offenses or their successful apprehension. See, for example, “Deserter Named in Blast at Motel,” New York Times, January 9, 1967; “Purchase of Dynamite in Motel Blast Linked to Army Deserter,” Los Angeles Times, January 9, 1967; “Army Deserter Held on Murder Count,” Washington Post, April 4, 1967; “FBI Arrests 3 on Charges of Desertion,” Chicago Tribune, April 23, 1967; “Seized as Deserter,” Chicago Tribune, June 7, 1967; “Naval Deserter Held,” Chicago Tribune, July 29, 1967; “Some ‘Lost’ GIs Found,” Los Angeles Times, September 30, 1967. 47. “How Anti-Vietnam Deserters Go Underground,” Times, August 17, 1967. 48. “GI Desertion Story Phony, U.S. Declares,” Chicago Tribune, August 18, 1967; “Lies, Army Calls Stories of GI Desertions,” Chicago Tribune, September 10, 1967; “U.S. Denies Desertion Report,” Washington Post, August 18, 1967; Paris 2128, August 21, 1967, NARA, RG 59, Central Foreign Policy Files 1967-69, Political & Defense, Box 1666. 49. “GIs Reported Deserting to Avoid Vietnam Duty,” Los Angeles Times, August 18, 1967; “GI Desertion Story Phony, U.S. Declares,” Chicago Tribune, August 18, 1967; “Lies, Army Calls Stories of GI Desertions,” Chicago Tribune, September 10, 1967. Diplomatic posts were instructed to limit answers to press inquiries to this information (“Guidance for Amembassy Stockholm on ‘Deserters’ Story,” Department of State 23477, August 18, 1967, NARA, RG 59, Central Foreign Policy Files 1967-69, Political & Defense, Box 1666).

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50. “Lies, Army Calls Stories of GI Desertions,” Chicago Tribune, September 10, 1967. 51. “Aid For Deserters Said to Increase,” New York Times, August 18, 1967; “GIs Reported Deserting to Avoid Vietnam Duty,” Los Angeles Times, August 18, 1967; “GI Desertion Story Phony, U.S. Declares,” Chicago Tribune, August 18, 1967. 52. “How Europe’s Peaceniks Tempt Our GIs to Desert,” Sunday News, September 10, 1967. 53. “Aid for Deserters Is Said to Increase,” New York Times, August 18, 1967; “How Europe’s Peaceniks Tempt Our GIs to Desert,” Sunday News, September 10, 1967. 54. Russ Braley, Bad News. The Foreign Policy of the New York Times (Chicago: Regnery Gateway, 1984), 628–629n41. 55. “Max—First Shirt of RITA,” Overseas Weekly, February 15, 1970. This strategy of Schwaetzer is evident in his telephone conversations with journalists, a number of which he recorded on tape. See, for example, Audio Cassettes 6, 10, 14, and 17, ASR/IISG, Max Watts. 56. Max Watts, “La Barba,” TORD 82.2 and “Pear shaped …,” TORD 77.4, ASR/IISG, Max Watts, Data DVD. 57. “The Oddest Play of the Paris Season,” Life (Atlantic), December 11, 1967, 79–82. See on Durham’s earlier reporting on civil rights issues Peter B. Levy, “The Black Freedom Struggle and White Resistance. A Case Study of the Civil Rights Movement in Cambridge, Maryland,” in The New Left Revisited, ed. John McMillian and Paul Buhle (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2003), 70. 58. “Cachés derrierère un drap, trois déserteurs américains parlent,” Paris Match, October 14, 1967. 59. “Face à face avec un GI,” Lectures pour Tous, December 1967. 60. “INADAMNL UGO2PROVOS,” Saturday Evening Post, January 27, 1968. See on such and other motives for enlistment Appy, Working-Class War, 44 ff. 61. “Conscientious AWOLs,” The Nation, November 13, 1967, 488–491. Despite the title, the article focused on the desertion campaigns, the European support network, and the legal status of deserters in France and Sweden, without the perspective or statements of the absentees themselves. 62. See, for example, the discussion of the matter among Students for a Democratic Society and the American New Left (“Draft & Resistance,” New Left Notes, July 10, 1967; “SDS Sets Out on Radical Path,” National Guardian, July 15, 1967; “Concerning the Eventual Radicalization of Members of the U.S. Armed Forces,” New Left Notes, September 18, 1967). Moreover, in the summer of 1967 American activists began to publish The Bond, a newspaper to support and mobilize opposition among American servicemen, which became the central organ of the American Servicemen’s Union (ASU) in early 1968 (Seidman, “The Unquiet Americans,” 129–130). 63. See, for example, a request for desertion campaign leafets by American activists (Students for a Democratic Society, Southern California Offce to SDS Frankfurt, September 28, 1967, APOA, Vietnam/FFM).

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64. “The Mood in Europe,” New Left Notes, September 18, 1967; “European Underground Aids AWOL GI’s,” Los Angeles Free Press, September 1, 1967; “SDS Sets Out on Radical Path,” National Guardian, July 15, 1967. 65. “Anti-war GIs Deserting,” National Guardian, September 9, 1967. In another report on desertions of January 1968, an image of North Vietnamese children “being unearthed” after an American air attack was printed as example of “why GIs desert” (“GI Desertions Increase,” National Guardian, January 20, 1968). 66. “The Deserters,” Ramparts 6, 3, October 1967, 14–20. 67. “US Deserters Hide and Speak,” Los Angeles Free Press, November 24, 1967; “Cachés derrière un drap, trois déserteurs américains parlent,” Paris Match, October 14, 1967. 68. T. Michael Ruddy, “A Limit to Solidarity. Germany, the United States, and the Vietnam War,” in The United States and Germany in the Era of the Cold War. A Handbook. Volume 2: 1968–1990, ed. Detlef Junker (Cambridge/New York: Cambridge University Press, 2004), 129–130. 69. Within one year around 50.000, and until the end of 1970 some 150,000 copies were printed and distributed according to the WRI (“How Anti-Vietnam Deserters Go Underground,” Times, August 17, 1967; Devi Prasad, They Love It but Leave It. American Deserters (London: War Resisters’ International, 1971), 28; Paul Wehr, “Getting the Movement Together,” in 50 Years of War Resistance. What Now? ed. Kenneth E. Boulding and Devi Prasad (London: War Resisters’ International, 1972), 41; Devi Prasad, War Is a Crime against Humanity. The Story of the War Resisters’ International (London: War Resisters’ International, 2005), 377). 70. David McReynolds, “Pacifsts and the Vietnam Antiwar Movement,” in Give Peace a Chance. Exploring the Vietnam Antiwar Movement, ed. Melvin Small and William D. Hoover (Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 1992), 62–63; “The WRI 12th Triennial Conference. Proposed Action,” War Resistance, 17 (1966), 11 as cited in Prasad, War Is a Crime against Humanity, 375–377; “To American Soldiers in Europe,” War Resisters’ International and others, London, [Summer 1966], IISG, Ton Regtien, 202; “To American Servicemen in Europe,” (updated version), War Resisters’ International and others, London, [Fall 1966], IISG, WRI, 408. The text of the frst version is reprinted in Prasad, War Is a Crime against Humanity, 377–378. 71. Richard Taylor and Colin Pritchard, The Protest Makers. The British Nuclear Disarmament Movement of 1958–1965, Twenty Years on (Oxford/New York: Pergamon Press, 1980), 9 ff. 72. “Leafets Urge GIs to Desert,” International Herald Tribune, May 29, 1967; Telegram, Svend Svendsen to War Resisters’ International, Copenhagen, July 13, 1966, IISG, WRI, 408. 73. The frst version had only listed the WRI, the Committee of 100, and the Vietnam Information Group. 74. Shiratori, “Peace in Vietnam! Beheiren,” 89; Ernest P. Young, “A Note on Beheiren,” Bulletin of Concerned Asian Scholars 1, 2 (1968), 6–7. 75. “To American Soldiers in Europe,” War Resisters’ International and others, London, [Summer 1966], IISG, Ton Regtien, 202.

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76. Niebergall-Lackner, Status and Treatment of Deserters, 240; The German Criminal Code. A Modern English Translation (Oxford/Portland: Hart, 2008), 105–106; Reinhart Maurach, Friedrich-Christian Schroeder, and Manfred Maiwald, Strafrecht Besonderer Teil. Teilband 2: Straftaten gegen Gemeinschaftswerte (Heidelberg: C.F. Müller, 2012), 435. 77. “To American Servicemen in Europe,” War Resisters’ International and others, London, [Fall 1966], IISG, WRI, 408. 78. Perone, Songs of the Vietnam Confict, 46. 79. See, for example, Lynd, We Won’t Go, 181 ff. 80. “To American Servicemen in Europe,” War Resisters’ International and others, London, [Fall 1966], IISG, WRI, 408. 81. Stewart, “A New Kind of War,” 211 ff. 82. “The Whole Thing Was a Lie!” Ramparts, February 1966, 12–24; “A ‘Green Beret’ Blasts the War,” Donald Duncan, Stanhope Press London, [1967], APOA, SDS/B IV; “Het was een grote leugen,” Vietnam Bulletin, July 21, 1966, IISG, Ton Regtien, 202; “Amerikansk krigshjälte hoppar av: ‘Alltihop en lögn,’” Arbetet, February 7, 1967. 83. Tony Smythe, “Conscientious Objection and War Resistance,” War Resistance, 2 (1967), 17–22. 84. “J’ai suivi les flières de la désertion,” L’Express, May 22–28, 1967, 81–82. 85. “Rundschreiben,” SDS Berlin to Jürgen Horlemann, May 22, 1967, APOA, Privatbesitz/SDS/A I; “Keine Waffen für die FNL?” SDS Berlin, [June 1967] and “Resolution des Vietnam-Komitees an der Freien Universität Berlin,” May 25, 1967, APOA, Vietnam/Berlin/Konferenzen/’66-’73/I (German original: “die Ohnmacht bloßen Protests und der Indignation zu durchbrechen.” See also the earlier debate on protest strategies and tactics among West Berlin SDS activists “Horlemann-Referat zu Flugblatt,” May 18, 1966, APOA, Privatbesitz/SDS/A I. 86. Notes by Rudi Dutschke on leave times of U.S. servicemen, typically frequented bars, distribution of leafets, calls for desertion, “Ende Mai 1967,” HIS, RUD 240.01; on protest tactics and strategies of 1967, “Fokustheorie i.d. 3. Welt und ihre Neubestimmung in den Metropolen,” RUD 240.04; and on targeting military institutions and on underground support for deserters, “Dutschke-Strategiefrage!?!” September 5, 1967, HIS, RUD 240.06. 87. “Resolution des Vietnam-Komitees an der Freien Universität Berlin,” May 25, 1967, APOA, Vietnam/Berlin/Konferenzen/’66-’73/I (German original: “Der gemeine amerikanische Soldat lehnt seinen ‘Einsatz’ in Vietnam ab,” “seine Abscheu bleibt stumm im System von Befehl und Gehorsam,” “darüber unterrichten, was sie in Vietnam erwartet,” “der sich nicht im sinnlosen Dschungelkrieg Vietnams verheizen lassen will”). See on the activists’ concept of realizing this approach Untitled, [plan of action to form agitation groups and target American servicemen in West Berlin], SDS Berlin, May 22, 1967, APOA, Privatbesitz/SDS/A I. 88. “Müssen die Vereinigten Staaten alles Leben in Vietnam vernichten, um das Land zu befrieden?” Informationen über Vietnam und Länder der Dritten Welt, 2, SDS Berlin, June 1966, APOA, Privatbesitz/SDS/A I; “Warum wird der amerikanische Soldat durch einen Krieg brutalisiert, der in Vietnam das Volk

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vom Kommunismus befreien soll?” Informationen über Vietnam und Länder der Dritten Welt, 3, SDS Berlin, September 1966, APOA, Privatbesitz/Vietnam. On Nazi references in Vietnam antiwar protests see Wilfried Mausbach, “Auschwitz and Vietnam. West German Protest Against America’s War during the 1960s,” in America, the Vietnam War, and the World. Comparative and International Perspectives, ed. Andreas W. Daum, Lloyd C. Gardner, and Wilfried Mausbach (Cambridge/New York: Cambridge University Press, 2003); Michael Schmidtke, Der Aufbruch der jungen Intelligenz. Die 68er Jahre in der Bundesrepublik und den USA (Frankfurt a.M.: Campus, 2003), 157; Philipp Gassert, “Antiamerikaner? Die deutsche Neue Linke und die USA,” in Antiamerikanismus im 20. Jahrhundert. Studien zu Ost- und Westeuropa, ed. Jan C. Behrends, Árpád von Klimó, and Patrice G. Poutrus (Bonn: Dietz, 2005), 266–267; Max Paul Friedman, Rethinking Anti-Americanism. The History of an Exceptional Concept in American Foreign Relations (Cambridge/New York: Cambridge University Press, 2012), 196. See for images of Vietnamese fghters in the Swedish Vietnam solidarity movement, which can be applied to other European New Left contexts Salomon, Rebeller i takt med tiden, 280 ff. 89. See, for example, Jürgen Horlemann and Peter Gäng, Vietnam. Genesis eines Konfikts (Frankfurt a.M.: Suhrkamp, 1966); Dorothee Weitbrecht, Aufbruch in die Dritte Welt. Der Internationalismus der Studentenbewegung von 1968 in der Bundesrepublik Deutschland (Göttingen: V&R Unipress, 2012), 143 ff. 90. “Solidarität mit Rolf Schulz und Karl Harlos,” and “Solidarität mit dem [sic] amerikanischen SDS und der Widerstandsbewegung in den USA” in “Resolutionen und Beschlüsse,” XXII. Ordentliche Delegiertenkonferenz des SDS, [Frankfurt, September 1967], APOA BV/22. DK/1967/SDS (German original: “die Stabilität der Streitkräfte zu unterhöhlen und die Kampfmoral der Soldaten in den Staaten selbst, in Europa und Südvietnam zu schwächen”). 91. “Initiativantrag Vietnam,” and Initiativantrag “SDS—USA,” [Frankfurt, September 1967], APOA BV/22. DK/1967/SDS. 92. van Ingen, Against the Army, Sections “Extended Network” and “Frankfurt am Main”; Ton Regtien, Springtij. Herinneringen aan de jaren zestig (Houten: Wereldvenster, 1988), 156–157. 93. Who’s afraid of the black man? 94. “Who’s Afraid of the Vietcong?” SDS Frankfurt, [August-September 1967], IISG, Ton Regtien, 202. 95. “Liebe Deutsche Freunde,” [FRITA Group, Paris], September 11, 1967, IISG, Ton Regtien, 202. 96. “To those guys still in the army,” [Paris, 1967], IISG, Ton Regtien, 202, emphasis original. The leafet was listed as the frst one written by a GI by the Paris support group (“Background Literature RITA/FRITA,” [Paris, 1968], ASR/IISG, Max Watts). Hiselman noted that he was the author of the fyer in an interview with a French journalist (“Face à face un GI,” Lectures pour Tous, December 1967). 97. “Liebe Deutsche Freunde,” [FRITA Group, Paris], September 11, 1967, IISG, Ton Regtien, 202; “Of Course, Some GI’s Want to Go to Vietnam,” SDS Frankfurt, [Fall 1967], APOA, Vietnam/FFM.

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98. Announcement of protest activities on October 21, 1967, in Washington, DC, in New Republic, July 8, 1967, 34. The slogan was also cited by West German organizers of the October protests (“Vietnam-Gegner: Internationale Protest-Tage im Oktober,” Berliner Extra-Dienst, September 2, 1967). On supporters of the American war in Vietnam, in particular a parade in New York City in May 1967 under the motto “Support Our Boys in Vietnam” see Tom Wells, The War Within. America’s Battle over Vietnam (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1994), 144; Melvin Small, Antiwarriors. The Vietnam War and the Battle for America’s Hearts and Minds (Lanham: SR Books, 2002), 66. On the antiwar movement’s adaptation of the slogan see DeBenedetti, An American Ordeal, 154–155; Hunt, The Turning, 6–7. 99. Veterans Stars & Stripes for Peace, September 1967, including excerpt from Congressional Record of June 16, 1967; “Helpful Hints for Servicemen,” [Paris, Fall 1967], IISG, Ton Regtien, 202. 100. “Of Course, Some GI’s Want to Go to Vietnam,” SDS Frankfurt, [Fall 1967], IISG, Ton Regtien, 202. 101. See reprints of this leafet from SDS Stuttgart and from Verband der Kriegsdienstverweigerer, Stuttgart, [Fall 1967] and the version “Do You Want to Go to Vietnam?” SDS Frankfurt, [early 1968], IISG, Ton Regtien, 202. 102. Committee on Un-American Activities, Subversive Infuences in Riots, Looting, and Burning, Part 3, Ninetieth Congress, First Session, November 28–30, 1967, 1298–1300; “Uncle Sam Wants You Nigger,” ASR/IISG, Max Watts; Reprint on fipside of “Do You Want to Go to Vietnam?” SDS Frankfurt, [early 1968], IISG, Ton Regtien, 202. 103. See on the interest of Europeans in the civil rights movement and racism in the United States and in turn Black servicemen stationed abroad Brenda Gayle Plummer, “Peace Was the Glue. Europe and African American Freedom,” Souls 10, 2 (2008), 117–119; Ege, Schwarz Werden, 93 ff.; Klimke, The Other Alliance, 108 ff. 104. DeBenedetti, An American Ordeal, 158; “Allt fer färgade kallas in i USA till kriget i Sydvietnam,” Aftonbladet, April 4, 1967; “Background Literature RITA/ FRITA,” [1968], ASR/IISG, Max Watts; RITA Notes Index, ASR/IISG, Max Watts, Data DVD. 105. Peniel E. Joseph, Stokely. A Life (New York: Basic Civitas, 2014), 200–201; “In Pictures: The Dialectics of Liberation,” flm stills from a documentary on the conference by Peter Davis (http​​s:/​/5​​0​.rou​​ndhou​​se​.or​​g​.uk/​​conte​​nt​-it​​ems​/d​​ialec​​tics-​​liber​​​ ation​​-pict​​ures,​ accessed October 2017). 106. “Uncle Sam Wants You Nigger,” Reprint by FRITA and “Liebe Deutsche Freunde,” [FRITA Group, Paris], September 11, 1967, IISG, Ton Regtien, 202; Reprint with Stamp of Dutch Socialist Youth, APOA, Vietnam/FFM. 107. Ege, Schwarz Werden, 105 ff.; Höhn, “The Black Panther Solidarity Committee and the Trial of the Ramstein”; Höhn and Klimke, A Breath of Freedom. See the fles of SDS leader and GI organizer KD Wolff on activities to support African American GIs and mobilize dissent among the ranks HIS, WKD 001, Box K.D. Wolff/Black Panther/RAF Sammlungen. 108. Roger Sutherland, New Perspectives in Music (London: Sun Tavern Fields, 1994), 60–62; Arne Gadomski, “Venedigs Vergangenheit und Gegenwart im

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intertextuellen Gefecht des Contrappunto dialettico alla mente,” in Venedig. Luigi Nono und die komponierte Stadt, ed. Friedrich Geiger and Andreas Janke (Münster: Waxman, 2015), 87–89; Birgitta Steene, “The Swedish Image of America,” in Images of America in Scandinavia, ed. Poul Houe and Sven Hakon Rossel (Amsterdam/ Atlanta: Rodopi, 1998), 183. 109. “Warum Widerstand Demonstration ersetzen muss,” Discussion with Presentation by Patty Lee Parmalee, AStA Freie Universität Berlin, APOA, Vietnam/ Berlin/Konferenzen/’66-’73/I; “Vom Protest zum Widerstand,” [Presentation, Patty Lee Parmalee, February 1968] APOA, Privatbesitz/Horlemann/Vietnam; “Westberliner Nächte: Agitation unter US-Soldaten,” Berliner Extra-Dienst, March 27, 1968; Patty Lee Parmalee, “1968: SDS und SDS. Eine Amerikanerin in Ost und West,” Beiträge zur Geschichte der Arbeiterbewegung 43, 1 (2001), 91–93. 110. “What’s Going on?” [early 1968], APOA, Privatbesitz/Horlemann/Vietnam; “Aktion GI: Flugblatt für Soldaten in Westberlin,” Berliner Extra-Dienst, February 17, 1968. 111. “Be a Man, Not a War Machine,” Reprint in The Second Front 1/1, May 8, 1968; “May 8, 1945, GI’s Freed Europe,” Reprint in Spiegel, June 23, 1969, 80. 112. “Smokey the Bear Says: Keep Vietnam Green, Stay Here,” [Berlin 1968], and Notebook with drafts for fyer slogans such as “Smokey the Bear says: People who use napalm should burn in hell,” “Smokey the Bear says: Only you can prevent forest fres in Southeast Asia,” and “Frenchmen don’t like speaking your language. French girls do,” APOA, Privatbesitz/Horlemann/Vietnam; “Going Upp the Country,” in Watts, US-Army-Europe, 30. The latter leafet was sent to Thomas Schwaetzer by Thomas Reston in the spring of 1969, the youngest son of New York Times journalist James Reston and brother of Richard and James Jr., who at the time lived in Europe and worked as a journalist, publishing also on AWOL U.S. servicemen from West Germany (Thomas Schwaetzer to Tom Reston, Paris, April 25, 1969, and May 21, 1969, ASR/IISG, Max Watts; “Patriotism Moved G.I. to Enlist—and Desert,” Boston Globe, June 29, 1969; “Interview with Thomas B. Reston,” 2005, LOC, Foreign Affairs Oral History Collection of the Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training (http​​s:/​/w​​ww​.lo​​c​.gov​​/item​​/mfdi​​pbi​b0​​01631​, accessed September 2017). The 1968 song by Canned Heat alludes to the exile of draft-age Americans during the Vietnam War by referring to “all this fussing and fghting” and the idea to “even leave the USA.” See James E. Perone, Music of the Counterculture Era (Westport: Greenwood Press, 2004), 145. 113. Where It’s At, April 1968; “Demonstrators Suggest GIs Vacation in France,” Overseas Weekly, May 19, 1968. See on the U.S. Campaign to End the War in Vietnam and its activities to reach U.S. servicemen in West Berlin Klimke, The Other Alliance, 81 ff. 114. See 18 U.S. Code § 1381, Enticing Desertion and Harboring Deserters. 115. See, for example, the critical discussion of the treatment of deserters in the United States and in Europe and a certain reluctance of American activists on the matter Fred Gardner, “The Future of Desertion,” in Decade of Crisis. America in the ‘60s, ed. Andrew Kopkind and James Ridgeway (New York: World Publishing, 1972), 154–162. The text was originally published in May 1970 in Hard Times.

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116. Activists of the U.S. Campaign in West Berlin published and distributed a forty-page brochure on GI organizing including elaborate information on U.S. military law (“Handbook for Desertion and for Building Resistance in the U.S. Army,” U.S. Campaign Berlin, [Spring 1968], ASR/IISG, Max Watts and Ton Regtien, 202 and APOA, Privatbesitz/Horlemann/Vietnam). Similar material from experts in the United States was distributed in Europe, such as a memo by John McClellan of the National Lawyers Guild (“Memo on Desertion, AWOL and Missing Movement,” National Lawyers Guild, July 1967, IISG, Ton Regtien, 202; John McClellan, National Lawyers Guild to SDS Frankfurt, April 2, 1968, APOA, Vietnam/FFM). The memo was also reprinted by the War Resisters’ International and other activists in Europe (“American Deserters,” War Resisters’ International, [London, 1969], 8 ff., SHSW, Pamphlet Collection; “Memo on Desertion, AWOL and Missing Movement,” Reprint, APOA, USA/GIs); Prasad, They Love It but Leave It, 58 ff. 117. “En vue de la défaite américaine. Appel international pour une rupture,” Reprint in Lignes, 33 (1998), 99–101. An English translation was sent by PACS members to leaders of Resist in the United States; after all, the French declaration was an affrmation of the group’s Call to Resist Illegitimate Authority (“Towards an American Defeat. An International Call to Break off Relations,” SHSW, PACS, Box 2, Resistance 67-68/Deserters 67–68). 118. “Programme of the Stockholm World Conference on Vietnam,” September 16–17, 1967, APOA, Privatbesitz/Vietnam; “Rapport om Stockholmskonferensens marsmöte (Emergency Consultative Meeting) 1968,” ARAB, Hans Göran Franck, 4.03.14 003. At the conference in September 1967, Claude Bourdet took a strong stand for solidarity with deserters and called on participants to endorse the campaign of the WRI (Notes on conference in Stockholm in Notebook “Summer 1967,” Maria Jolas, SHSW, PACS, Box 8). 119. “Aufruf zur Internationalen Vietnamkonferenz, Westberlin, 17/18. Februar 1968,” APOA, Vietnam/Berlin/Konferenzen/’66-’73/I. 120. Der Kampf des vietnamesischen Volkes und die Globalstrategie des Imperialismus. Internationaler Vietnam-Kongreß (Berlin: Internationales Nachrichten- und Forschungsinstitut, 1968), 159. See image of rostrum and fag in Klimke, The Other Alliance, 94. 121. “Nichts geht uns nichts an,” Spiegel, March 18, 1968, 85–86; “Aufforderung zur Desertion,” Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, March 7, 1968. 122. Conférence Mondiale de Juristes pour le Vietnam, 136–139 and 146–147; Invitation, Conférence Mondiale de Juristes pour le Vietnam, Brussels, May 16, 1968, and “Liste des participants,” ARAB, Hans Göran Franck, 4.03.14 003. 123. Japanese activist Taketomo Takahashi was present at a PACS meeting to discuss the case of “Kim” (Kenneth Griggs), an American soldier hiding in Japan and waiting to fnd a country to offer him asylum, and establish a contact with Beheiren leaders (Notebook “begun April ‘67,” Maria Jolas, SHSW, PACS, Box 8). On the desertion of Kenneth Griggs in the spring of 1967 see “A G.I. Assigned to Vietnam Defects to Cubans in Tokyo,” New York Times, April 14, 1967; “Alleged Defection of PFC Kenneth C. Griggs,” Tokyo 8228, May 15, 1967, NARA, RG 59, Central Foreign Policy Files 1967-69, Political & Defense, Box 1661. On the activities of

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Beheiren in the Vietnam antiwar movement, in particular deserter aid, see Kelman, “Protesting the National Identity,” 162 ff. 124. “Beheiren International Conference Held 11–14 August 1968 in Kyoto, Japan,” Tokyo A-96, October 15, 1968, NARA, RG 59, Central Foreign Policy Files 1967-69, Political & Defense, Box 1514. Among the American participants were Jeff Sharlet, editor of Vietnam GI, an underground publication for servicemen, GI coffeehouse organizers Fred Gardner and Donna Mickelson, Ken Cloke, SDS activist and member of the National Lawyers Guild, and Barry Sheppard of the GI Civil Liberties Defense Committee. See also on the relations between Japanese and American antiwar activists Fuhrt, “Peace Movements as Emancipatory Experience. Anpo Tōsō and Beheiren in 1960s’ Japan,” 86–87; Naoko Koda, “Challenging the Empires from Within. The Transpacifc Anti-Vietnam War Movement in Japan,” The Sixties 10, 2 (2017). 125. Karl Heinz Roth, “Die Nordroute der ‘Underground Railway.’ Hilfe für GIs auf der Flucht nach Skandinavien,” SDS/APO 68 Hamburg, 2020 (https​:/​/sd​​s​-apo​​ 68hh.​​de​/wp​​-cont​​ent​/u​​pload​​s​/202​​0​/08/​​GI​-​No​​rdrou​​te​.pd​​f, accessed September 2020). See also the notes of Dutch activists on this matter, a rare document on this activity, which was otherwise conducted with great secrecy (Handwritten notes on deserter assistance, IISG, Frits Eisenloeffel, 64). See on the functioning of similar activities in Japan Shiratori, “Peace in Vietnam! Beheiren,” 140 ff. 126. “A Letter from Deutschland. The Work of the German Group,” The Second Front, 2, February 19, 1968. 127. “Counterintelligence Study ‘R[evolutionary] P[rotest] M[ovements],” Assistant Chief of Staff for Intelligence, Department of the Army, [1969], NARA, NPMP, White House Special Files, Staff Member and Offce Files, John W. Dean III, Demonstrations & Domestic Intelligence, Box 78; “U.S. Military ‘Deserters’ in France,” Military Liquidation Section, U.S. Embassy, Paris, June 27, 1968, Attachment to Paris A-2455, July 25, 1968, NARA, RG 59, Central Foreign Policy Files 1967-69, Political & Defense, Box 1663; “Project 1663,” Agent Report on West German Antiwar Activists, April 30, 1968, RG 319, Security Classifed Intelligence & Investigative Dossiers—Impersonal File 1939–1976, Box 138; “Circular 175: Request for Authority to Negotiate and Conclude an Agreement between the U.S. and the FRG on Administrative Arrangements Relating to Monitoring of Mail and Telecommunications by the FRG on behalf of U.S. Armed Forces in the FRG,” Action Memorandum, Department of State, September 14, 1968, RG 59, Central Foreign Policy Files 1967-69, Political & Defense, Box 1655; Erfahrungsbericht über die Beobachtungen der Ämter für Verfassungsschutz im Jahre 1968 (Bonn: Bundesministerium des Innern, 1969), 92 ff.; Committee on the Judiciary, Organized Subversion in the U.S. Armed Forces. Hearings before the Subcommittee to Investigate the Administration of the Internal Security Act and Other Internal Security Laws, Part 1: The U.S. Navy, Ninety-fourth Congress, First Session, September 25, 1975, 43 ff.; Moshik Temkin, “American Internationalists in France and the Politics of Travel Control in the Era of Vietnam,” in Outside In. The Transnational Circuitry of US History, ed. Andrew Preston and Douglas C. Rossinow (Oxford/New York: Oxford University Press, 2017), 256–261.

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128. “Outline,” [Paris, Fall 1967], ARAB, Hans Göran Franck, 4.3.7 002; Article VII of the NATO agreement on the status of forces of June 19, 1951, and NATO document AC/54/D/3 (2nd Revise) of May 20, 1954, which specifes that the former only applies to personnel on offcial duty (Attachment to Department of State to Senate Committee on Armed Servicees, July 8, 1968, NARA, RG 59, Central Foreign Policy Files 1967-69, Political & Defense, Box 1667); Conférence Mondiale de Juristes pour le Vietnam, 146–147; NiebergallLackner, Status and Treatment of Deserters, 240; German Criminal Code § 109b and c regarding solicitation to military disobedience and desertion, respectively, in The German Criminal Code. A Modern English Translation, 105–106; Maurach, Schroeder, and Maiwald, Strafrecht Besonderer Teil. Teilband 2: Straftaten gegen Gemeinschaftswerte, 435. 129. “Dear Friend” and “Liebe Freunde,” FRITA (Friends of Resisters Inside the Army), Paris, [Fall 1967], ARAB, Hans Göran Franck, 4.03.14 003, emphasis original; Max Watts, “Addressing the Address Problem,” TORD 77.1 and “La Barba,” TORD 82.2, ASR/IISG, Max Watts, Data DVD. 130. “Outline,” [Paris, Fall 1967], ARAB, Hans Göran Franck, 4.3.7 002; “Helpful Hints for Servicemen,” [Paris, Fall 1967], ARAB, Hans Göran Franck, 4.03.14 003. The materials can also be found in the collections of other network participants, for example, in IISG, Ton Regtien, 202. 131. “Lawyers + Contacts,” [Paris, Fall 1967], ARAB, Hans Göran Franck, 4.3.7 002; “War Foes in Europe Urge G.I.’s to Spread Propaganda in Army,” New York Times, October 29, 1967; “The Oddest Play of the Paris Season,” Life (Atlantic), December 11, 1967, 79–82. 132. “Outline,” [Paris, Fall 1967], ARAB, Hans Göran Franck, 4.3.7 002; “Dear Friend” and “Liebe Freunde,” FRITA (Friends of Resisters Inside the Army), Paris, [Fall 1967], ARAB, Hans Göran Franck, 4.03.14 003; “Helpful Hints for Servicemen,” [Paris, Fall 1967], IISG, Ton Regtien, 202; “Leafets Urge GIs to Desert,” International Herald Tribune, May 29, 1967; “The Deserters,” Ramparts 6, 3, October 1967, 20. Ramparts reported of ten U.S. deserters staying in Yugoslavia. A case of an American GI of Serbian origin, who had gone AWOL in Vietnam in late 1967 and escaped to Yugoslavia, is documented in the fles of the Department of State (“US Army Deserter Tihomir Momirovic,” State 119260, February 24, 1968, and “US Army Deserter Tihomir Momirovic,” Belgrade 2287, February 27, 1968, NARA, RG 59, Central Foreign Policy Files 1967-69, Political & Defense, Box 1666). 133. Hagan, “Narrowing the Gap by Widening the Confict,” 609. 134. See the inquiries of draft-age Americans and U.S. servicemen to the War Resisters’ International and the organization’s advice to them in IISG, WRI, 407. 135. “American Deserters,” War Resisters’ International, [London, 1969], SHSW, Pamphlet Collection; Prasad, They Love It but Leave It. 136. “Helpful Hints for Servicemen,” [Paris, Fall 1967] and “Do You Want to Go to Vietnam?” SDS Frankfurt, [early 1968], IISG, Ton Regtien, 202; “What’s Going on?” [early 1968], APOA, Privatbesitz/Horlemann/Vietnam.

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137. Where It’s At, April 1968; “US SDS,” [Berlin, 1968], IISG, Ton Regtien, 202; “Friends,” U.S. Campaign Berlin to Swedish Organizations, April 17, 1968, ARAB, SKfV, F1: 8. 138. Howard J. De Nike, Mission (Un)essential. Contemplations of a Civilian Lawyer in Military Court (Berlin: Harald Kater, 2002), 101 ff.; William Thomas Allison, Military Justice in Vietnam. The Rule of Law in an American War (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2007), 33–34; Vazansky, An Army in Crisis, 137 ff. 139. On the Japanese context see Kelman, “Protesting the National Identity,” 162 ff.; Avenell, Making Japanese Citizens, 137; Andrews, Dissenting Japan, 106–108; Takata, “Escaping through the Networks of Trust. The US Deserter Support Movement in the Japanese Global Sixties”; Shiratori, “Peace in Vietnam! Beheiren,” 109 ff. 140. “Anti-war GIs Deserting,” National Guardian, September 9, 1967. 141. “A Letter from Deutschland. The Work of the German Group,” The Second Front, 2, February 19, 1968. 142. SDS Frankfurt to ADC, FNL-Groups, Clarté, Swedish Peace and Arbitration Society and others, July 9, 1968, APOA, Vietnam/FFM. The letter was published by the ADC as evidence for the signifcance of desertion and deserter support activities “A Letter to the Swedish Left,” The Second Front, December 6, 1968, 8. Also see on these activities further correspondence of SDS offce in Frankfurt with American and European activists (APOA, Vietnam/FFM). 143. “Follows Desertion Trail of GIs,” Chicago Tribune, February 20, 1968. See also on the publicity management of the SDS activists Request for Information on Vietnam Protest Activities and Deserter Aid, National Broadcasting Company to SDS Frankfurt, February 1, 1968, APOA, Vietnam/FFM. 144. “Nervosität im US-Viertel: Massenaufgebot gegen Zettelverteiler,” Berliner Extra-Dienst, April 3, 1968; “Alliierte: Verordnung gegen die APO?” Berliner ExtraDienst, September 21, 1968; “Desertation: Mit Hubschraubern und Jeeps,” Berliner Extra-Dienst, November 6, 1968; “Wieder Aufruf zu Fahnenfucht in Berliner Studentenzeitung,” Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, November 6, 1968. 145. Gaston Salvatore, “Der Tag, als wir jung waren,” Park Avenue, February (2008), 101; Dietrich Hildebrandt, “. . . und die Studenten freuen sich!” Studentenbewegung in Heidelberg 1967–1973 (Heidelberg: esprint-Verlag, 1991), 73 (German original: “zu den stolzesten Erinnerungen mancher alter SDS-Genossen”). 146. KD Wolff, “Amis und Naner—Mit Amerikanern in Hessen seit 1945,” in Amerikaner in Hessen. Eine besondere Beziehung im Wandel der Zeit, ed. Gundula Bavendamm (Hanau: Cocon-Verlag, 2008), 201 (German original: “Zehntausende nach Schweden gebracht”). 147. Karl Heinz Roth, “1968—ein Mythos?” 1999. Zeitschrift für Sozialgeschichte des 20. und 21. Jahrhunderts 13, 2 (1998), 9–10; Davis, “A Whole World Opening Up. Transcultural Contact, Difference, and the Politicization of New Left Activists,” 265. 148. Heinz Ludwig Arnold and Franz Josef Degenhardt, Väterchen Franz. Franz Josef Degenhardt und seine politischen Lieder (Reinbek: Rowohlt, 1975), 117–118; Walter Mossmann, “Lied für meine radikalen Freunde,” Frühlingsanfang, Trikont/ Unsere Stimme, 1979.

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149. “Make Love Not War—Die Liebesgeschichte unserer Zeit,” Werner Klett, 1968, DVD, Private Collection, Marina Klett, Berlin; “Ärger mit BMW,” Spiegel, March 25, 1968, 184; “Make Love—Not War,” Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, June 15, 1968. 150. “WRL and the ‘Two Internationals,’” War Resisters League, [Summer 1966], SHSW, PACS, Box 1, Correspondence/Notices & Leafets; “Leafets Urge GIs to Desert,” International Herald Tribune, May 29, 1967. 151. “Solicitation to Desert,” Bonn 10225, March 29, 1968, and “Solicitation to Desert,” Bonn 10388, April 3, 1968, NARA, RG 59, Central Foreign Policy Files 1967-69, Political & Defense, Box 1666; “Solicitation of Members of the Allied Forces to Desert,” Berlin A-596, May 3, 1968, NARA, RG 59, Central Foreign Policy Files 1967-69, Political & Defense, Box 1663; “Rechtshilfe,” Spiegel, June 24, 1968, 18; “Alliierte verschärfen ihre Gesetze für Berlin,” Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, September 20, 1968. 152. “Amerikaner sollen nachdenken,” Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, November 16, 1967; “To American Servicemen in Europe,” War Resisters’ International and others, London, [Fall 1966], IISG, WRI, 408. 153. “Vietnam vor deutschen Gerichten,” Süddeutsche Zeitung, November 22, 1968. German original: “völkerrechtswidriger Angriffskrieg, also ein Verbrechen gegen die Menschlichkeit,” “gerechtes Urteil,” “Kern der Sache ausklammern.” See on the lawyers’ strategy and argument “In München erlaubt—in Worms strafbar,” Saarbrücker Zeitung, September 26, 1967; Walter Ammann to SDS, October 9, 1967, Heinrich Weiler to Jürgen Horlemann, April 16, 1968, and Heinrich Weiler to Jürgen Horlemann, May 9, 1968, APOA, Privatbesitz/Horlemann/Vietnam. 154. Walter Ammann to Oberstaatsanwalt, Landgericht Mainz, July 21, 1967, and Walter Ammann to Amtsgericht Worms, August 28, 1967, APOA, Privatbesitz/ Horlemann/Vietnam; “Liste des participants,” Conférence Mondiale de Juristes pour le Vietnam, July 6–10, 1968, ARAB, Hans Göran Franck, 4.03.14 003. 155. Heinrich Weiler to Jürgen Horlemann, April 16, 1968, APOA, Privatbesitz/ Horlemann/Vietnam; Heinrich Weiler, Vietnam. Eine völkerrechtliche Analyse des amerikanischen Krieges und seiner Vorgeschichte (Meisenheim am Glan: Anton Hain, 1973), 169 ff. The dissertation was frst published in 1969. 156. “Vietnam vor deutschen Gerichten,” Süddeutsche Zeitung, November 22, 1968. 157. “In München erlaubt—in Worms strafbar,” Saarbrücker Zeitung, September 26, 1967; “Wegen Anstiftung zur Desertion verurteilt,” Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, May 31, 1968; “Freispruch: Keine Verleitung zur Fahnenfucht,” Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, January 29, 1969; “Größerer Maßstab,” Spiegel, June 23, 1969, 80; “Court Acquits Student of Attempt to Induce American Soldiers to Desert,” Bremen A-48, March 26, 1969, NARA, RG 59, Central Foreign Policy Files 1967-69, Political & Defense, Box 1667; Einstellung der Anzeigensache gegen Ulrich Röhmin, Staatsanwaltschaft, Landgericht Stuttgart, December 8, 1966, APOA, Privatbesitz/ Horlemann/Vietnam; Einstellung des Ermittlungsverfahrens gegen Richard Vogel, 2 Js 145/66, February 10, 1967 and Beschluss in der Strafsache gegen Rolf Schulz und Karl Harlos, Landgericht Koblenz, AR 14/68 (2), 3 Js 653/67, April 4, 1968, APOA, Vietnam/FFM.

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158. Joint Statement, Tokyo, November 1, 1967, in “The Intrepid Four: Patriotic Deserters,” Liberation, November 1967, 43–46. 159. “The Intrepid Four: Patriotic Deserters,” 43. 160. Uniform Code of Military Justice, Ch. X, § 885, Art. 85 in Manual for Courts-Martial (United States, 1968), Appendix 2. 161. “We Couldn’t Swing With It. The Intrepid Four,” Atlantic, June 1968, 57–64; Kelman, “Protesting the National Identity,” 165 ff. 162. Yuri Andropov, Chairman Committee for State Security (KGB), to Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU), November 10, 1967, 2751-A, LOC, TFR 32-1, 32-17. 163. “Four Americans,” Statements of the Intrepid Four, Tokyo, November 1, 1967, DVD, Third World Newsreel, New York. Prints of the statements were distributed by Beheiren, wired to the United States by the American embassy in Tokyo, and published in Liberation magazine (“Joint Statement by Four Patriotic Deserters of the USS Intrepid,” Tokyo 3280, November 13, 1967, NARA, RG 59, Central Foreign Policy Files 1967-69, Political & Defense, Box 1666; “The Intrepid Four: Patriotic Deserters,” Liberation, November 1967, 43–46). 164. Kelman, “Protesting the National Identity,” 167 ff. 165. Individual statements of Craig Anderson, Richard Bailey, John Barilla, and Michael Lindner, respectively (“The Intrepid Four: Patriotic Deserters,” Liberation, November 1967, 44–46). 166. All other quotes from joint statement (“The Intrepid Four: Patriotic Deserters,” 44–45). 167. Zinn and Ralph Featherstone of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) had visited Japan for a speaking tour in the summer of 1966. That year Beheiren also organized a Japanese-American conference on Vietnam, at which David Dellinger was keynote speaker along with Makoto Oda, who had been a Fulbright student at Harvard in 1958. In May 1967, Zinn had discussed mobilizing dissent among U.S. troops at bases in Japan with Beheiren activists (Avenell, Making Japanese Citizens, 118–120; David T. Dellinger, From Yale to Jail. The Life Story of a Moral Dissenter (New York: Pantheon Books, 1993), 222 ff.; Howard Zinn, You Can’t Be Neutral on a Moving Train. A Personal History of Our Times (Boston: Beacon Press, 1994), 108–110; Shiratori, “Peace in Vietnam! Beheiren,” 90–95; Fuhrt, “Peace Movements as Emancipatory Experience. Anpo Tōsō and Beheiren in 1960s’ Japan,” 87). 168. “Defector Mystery Deepens,” Boston Globe, November 23, 1967; Tokyo 3279, November 13, 1967, NARA, RG 59, Central Foreign Policy Files 1967-69, Political & Defense, Box 1666); Kelman, “Protesting the National Identity,” 171; Zinn, You Can’t Be Neutral on a Moving Train, 112–113; George R. Packard, Edwin O. Reischauer and the American Discovery of Japan (New York: Columbia University Press, 2010), 151–152. 169. “The Intrepid Four: Patriotic Deserters,” Liberation, November 1967, 43. 170. “4 U.S. Deserters Sought in Japan,” New York Times, November 15, 1967. 171. “Resistance: Vietnam and America,” “Pentagon Confrontation,” and “Talking with the Troops,” Liberation, November 1967, 3–8, 9–11, and 12–19, respectively, quote on page 6.

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172. “The Intrepid Four: Patriotic Deserters,” Liberation, November 1967, 43. 173. Yuri Andropov, Chairman Committee for State Security (KGB), to Central Committee of the CPSU, November 10, 1967, 2751-A, LOC, TFR 32-1, 32-17; “We Couldn’t Swing With It. The Intrepid Four,” Atlantic, June 1968, 61. 174. Yuri Andropov to Central Committee of the CPSU, November 10, 1967. 175. Yuri Andropov, Chairman Committee for State Security (KGB), to Central Committee of the CPSU, November 14, 1967, 2771-A, LOC, TFR 32-1, 32-20. 176. Committee for State Security (KGB) to Central Committee of the CPSU, November 17, 1967, 2802-A, LOC, TFR 32-1, 32-26. 177. Information, Committee for State Security (KGB), November 21, 1967, LOC, TFR 32-1, 32-28. 178. “Four from the Intrepid” (Pravda, November 21, 1967), Current Digest of the Soviet Press 19, 47 (December 13, 1967), 10; “Intrepid Deserters,” Moscow 1876, November 21, 1967, NARA, RG 59, Central Foreign Policy Files 1967-69, Political & Defense, Box 1666; “They Challenged the Pentagon” and “Four from the Intrepid” (Pravda, November 21, 1967 [Joint Statement of and Interview with the Intrepid Four]), Current Digest of the Soviet Press 19, 47 (December 13, 1967), 8–10. Further reports appeared in Izvestia (Current Digest of the Soviet Press 19, 47 (December 13, 1967), 33). See also “4 Navy Defectors on TV In Russia, Condemn War,” Boston Globe, November 21, 1967; “4 U.S. Deserters at an Antiwar Rally in Moscow,” New York Times, November 23, 1967; “Intrepid Deserters” and others, Radio Moscow in English, NARA, RG 263, Sound Recordings of Monitored Foreign Broadcast Materials 1950-76, L 3226, -3236, -3240, and -3260. 179. Craig Anderson on Soviet television (“Intrepid Deserters,” Radio Moscow in English, L 3236); “They Challenged the Pentagon” (Pravda, November 21, 1967), Current Digest of the Soviet Press 19, 47 (December 13, 1967), 8. 180. “Four from the Intrepid” (Pravda, November 21, 1967), Current Digest of the Soviet Press 19, 47 (December 13, 1967), 9–10; “They Challenged the Pentagon,” November 21, 1967. 181. “Soviets Exploit US Defectors’ Opposition to Viet War,” Washington Post, November 22, 1967; “U.S. and Russia,” New York Times, November 26, 1967. 182. “Why Defect?” Newsweek, December 25, 1967, 1–2. 183. “The War: Caviar & Encomiums,” Time, December 1, 1967; “Defectors: Just Average,” Newsweek, December 4, 1967, 26. 184. At the time of the appearance of the Intrepid Four in Japan and the Soviet Union, for example, Life magazine featured a photo report on American youth running away from home and living on the street (“Runaway Kids,” Life, November 3, 1967, 18–29). See in general on the American debate on juvenile delinquency in postwar America Nina Mackert, Jugenddelinquenz. Die Produktivität eines Problems in den USA der späten 1940er bis 1960er Jahre (Konstanz/München: UVK, 2014). 185. Table of Contents, Newsweek, December 4, 1967, 5. 186. “Defectors: Just Average,” Newsweek, December 4, 1967, 26–28. 187. Michael Lindner (“The Four Navy Deserters,” CBS News Special Report, December 30, 1967, broadcast January 1, 1968, LOC, Motion Picture, Broadcasting & Recorded Sound Division); Information, Committee for State Security (KGB), November 21, 1967, LOC, TFR 32-1, 32-28.

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188. “Defectors: Just Average,” Newsweek, December 4, 1967, 28; “Those Who Best Know Four Defected Sailors,” Boston Globe, November 23, 1967. See, for example, on the trope of brainwashing during the Cold War Matthew W. Dunne, A Cold War State of Mind. Brainwashing and Postwar American Society (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 2013); Ron Theodore Robin, The Making of the Cold War Enemy. Culture and Politics in the Military-Intellectual Complex (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2001), 162 ff. 189. “Those Who Best Know Four Defected Sailors,” Boston Globe, November 23, 1967; “Defectors: Just Average,” Newsweek, December 4, 1967, 26. 190. “Those Who Best Know Four Defected Sailors.” 191. “Profle of 4 Navy Deserters: Men Without Compelling Goals, With Dissatisfactions Focused by War,” New York Times, December 1, 1967. 192. “Profle of 4 Navy Deserters”; Kelman, “Protesting the National Identity,” 185–188, quote on page 186. On Richard Bailey’s high-school diploma see “Defectors: Just Average,” Newsweek, December 4, 1967, 26–28. 193. “4 Navy Defectors ‘Fed up’ in Soviet,” New York Times, December 28, 1967. 194. Semyon Tsvigun, Deputy Chairman Committee for State Security (KGB), to Central Committee of the CPSU, November 22, 1967, 3070-U, LOC, TFR 32-1, 32-37. 195. “U.S. Deserters Tell Reasons,” Los Angeles Times, December 30, 1967. The article also appeared as “Navy Deserters Reveal Reasons for Going to Sweden,” Boston Globe, December 31, 1967. 196. Telegrams, Intrepid Four to Swedish Committee on Vietnam, Moscow, November 29 and December 20, 1967, ARAB, SKfV, F1: 8; “Protokoll fört vid sammanträde med AU inom Svenska kommittén för Vietnam den 1 dec. 1967” and “Protokoll fört vid sammanträde med styrelsen för Svenska kommittén för Vietnam den 19 dec. 1967,” ARAB, SKfV, A 1: 1; “4 Antiwar U.S. Sailors Refused Finnish Visas,” Los Angeles Times, December 16, 1967. 197. Bertil Svahnström to Minister of the Interior Rune Johansson, Stockholm, December 28, 1967, ARAB, SKfV, F1: 8; “Desertörerna bör få stanna” and “Ska de fyra amerikanska desertörerna få stanna i Sverige?” Aftonbladet, January 2, 1968; “Fyra amerikanska soldater,” Dagens Nyheter, December 30, 1967; “Desertörerna föreslås få stanna i Sverige,” Svenska Dagbladet, January 3, 1968. 198. “Curbs on Political Activities of Four US Deserters in Sweden Not Likely to Be Effective,” Department of State Intelligence Note 7, January 4, 1968, and “Swedish Aliens Commission Fails to Place Political Curbs on Four US Deserters,” Department of State Intelligence Note 34, January 11, 1968, NARA, RG 59, Central Foreign Policy Files 1967-69, Political & Defense, Box 1666); “4 Sailors Win Haven In Sweden,” Washington Post, January 10, 1968; “Avhopparna får stanna i Sverige,” Dagens Nyheter, January 10, 1968; “Avhopparna tillåts stanna i Sverige,” Svenska Dagbladet, January 10, 1968. 199. “Amerikansk desertör kan få svensk asyl som julklapp,” Aftonbladet, December 2, 1967; “Yank Deserter Met in Sweden by Carmichael,” Chicago Tribune, December 3, 1967; “GI Says ‘Farewell to Arms.’ Asks Sweden for Asylum,” Jet, December 21, 1967, 23; Thomas Lee Hayes, American Deserters in Sweden. The

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Men and Their Challenge (New York: Association Press, 1971), 16; Scott, Swedish Social Democracy and the Vietnam War, 133. 200. Interview with Peter Kalischer, December 30, 1967, SMDB, TB85-0004-015. 201. “The Four Navy Deserters,” CBS News Special Report, December 30, 1967, broadcast January 1, 1968, LOC, Motion Picture, Broadcasting & Recorded Sound Division. 202. “The Oddest Play of the Paris Season,” Life (Atlantic), December 11, 1967, 81. 203. “The Intrepid Four Speak for Themselves,” The Ally, February 1, 1968; “The Intrepid Four Speak Their Mind,” The Second Front, 2, February 19, 1968. 204. “The Four Navy Deserters,” CBS News Special Report, December 30, 1967, broadcast January 1, 1968, LOC, Motion Picture, Broadcasting & Recorded Sound Division. 205. “The Four Navy Deserters.” 206. “The Four Navy Deserters.” 207. “The Four Navy Deserters”; 4 Navy Defectors ‘Fed up’ in Soviet,” New York Times, December 28, 1967; “U.S. Deserters Don’t Like Russia,” Boston Globe, January 1, 1968. 208. See on solicitation to desert Uniform Code of Military Justice, Ch. X, § 882, Art. 82 in Manual for Courts-Martial (United States, 1968), Appendix 2. 209. “The Four Navy Deserters,” CBS News Special Report, December 30, 1967, broadcast January 1, 1968, LOC, Motion Picture, Broadcasting & Recorded Sound Division. 210. “G.I. Deserter in West Europe Depicts Antiwar Drive in Army,” New York Times, December 10, 1967; “Vt. GI Deserts in Viet Protest,” Sunday Herald Traveler, December 10, 1967; “Springfeld GI, Bitter about War, Deserts,” Rutland Daily Herald, December 11, 1967; “Editor’s Journal,” Barre Montpelier Times-Argus, December 16, 1967; Gloria Emerson, Winners and Losers. Battles, Retreats, Gains, Losses, and Ruins from a Long War (New York: Random House, 1976), 125 ff. 211. Richard Perrin, Interview, Paris, December 1967, ASR/IISG, Max Watts, Film Reels and DVD. 212. “G.I. Deserter in West Europe Depicts Antiwar Drive in Army,” New York Times, December 10, 1967. Schwaetzer stayed behind the curtain and occasionally answered questions or interfered to prevent the disclosure of details on the support network (Richard Perrin, Interview, Paris, December 1967, ASR/IISG, Max Watts, Film Reels and DVD). 213. Joseph, Stokely. A Life, 225–228; Journoud, “Les relations franco-américaines à l’épreuve du Vietnam,” 1112; Keenan, “Vietnam Is Fighting for Us,” 141– 143. “Carmichael in Paris, Shouts for U.S. Defeat,” Los Angeles Times, December 7, 1967; “Carmichael predikar kärlek i Lund,” Aftonbladet, December 3, 1967. 214. “Yank Deserter Met in Sweden by Carmichael,” Chicago Tribune, December 3, 1967; “GI Says ‘Farewell to Arms.’ Asks Sweden for Asylum,” Jet, December 21, 1967, 23. 215. Perrin, G.I. Resister, 74 ff. Refections on deserters and support activities read by Max Watts, Audio Cassette 27, Side A, ASR/IISG, Max Watts. 216. Regtien, Springtij, 160–162.

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217. Appy, Working-Class War, 44 ff. 218. Perrin stated that he had read a review of J. William Fulbright’s The Arrogance of Power (New York: Random House, 1966). On the exchanges with his brother see Perrin, G.I. Resister, 36–38. 219. Andy Stapp, Up Against the Brass. The Amazing Story of the Fight to Unionize the United States Army (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1970), 15 ff. On Stapp’s encounter and collaboration with Perrin see pages 60–61 and 69 ff. 220. See, for example, “Dear Pvt. Johnson, Mora & Samas,” The Bond, August 18, 1967. 221. “… I Wasn’t Alone …,” National Guardian, July 15, 1967. 222. See for details “Two Sill GIs Convicted, Third Cleared,” Daily Oklahoman, August 1, 1967, and “Soldiers against the War. The Story of Pvt. Andrew Stapp and the Fort Sill GI’s,” Committee for GI Rights, New York, August 1967, UMB, Perrin VII, Folder 1. 223. Richard Perrin, Interview, Paris, December 1967, ASR/IISG, Max Watts, Film Reels and DVD. 224. “Vt. G.I. Quits till Viet War Is Over,” Boston Globe, December 10, 1967; “G.I. Deserter in West Europe Depicts Antiwar Drive in Army,” New York Times, December 10, 1967. The term and concept RITA were frst reported on in October 1967, along with an alternative “AITA,” meaning “Act Inside the Army” (“War Foes in Europe Urge G.I.’s to Spread Propaganda in Army,” New York Times, October 29, 1967). 225. Richard Perrin, Interview, Paris, December 1967, ASR/IISG, Max Watts, Film Reels and DVD; “AWOL GI Recalled as Average Student,” Connecticut Valley Times-Reporter, December 11, 1967. 226. “America Faces Threat of Racial War,” Burlington Free Press, December 11, 1967; Springfeld GI, Bitter about War, Deserts,” Rutland Daily Herald, December 11, 1967. 227. “AWOL GI Recalled as Average Student,” Connecticut Valley TimesReporter, December 11, 1967; “Springfeld GI, Bitter about War, Deserts.” 228. Captain Clyde Brown, Army Chaplain, Fort Sill, to Rene and Betty Perrin, August 8, 1967, and 1st Lieutenant Jerry Hooks, 64th Armor, Kitzingen (West Germany), to Rene and Betty Perrin, September 13, 1967, UMB, Perrin II, Folder 1. 229. “Vt. GI Deserts in Viet Protest,” Sunday Herald Traveler, December 10, 1967. 230. “Springfeld GI, Bitter about War, Deserts.” 231. “Vt. GI Deserts in Viet Protest.” 232. Clippings from local newspapers analyzed here were collected by Dick Perrin’s mother and form part of his archival collection at the University of Massachussetts Boston (UMB, Richard Perrin, II, Mom’s Scrapbook, 1967–1977). 233. “American Dilemma,” Connecticut Valley Times-Reporter, December 14, 1967. 234. “I Ache for Dick Perrin,” Connecticut Valley Times-Reporter, December 14, 1967. 235. “Man without a Country,” Connecticut Valley Times-Reporter, January 31, 1968.

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236. “Editor’s Journal,” Barre Montpelier Times-Argus, December 16, 1967. 237. “Philosophy Blamed,” Rutland Daily Herald, December 20, 1967. 238. “Missed the Point,” Rutland Daily Herald, clipping without date [December 1967], UMB, Richard Perrin, II, Mom’s Scrapbook, 1967–1977. 239. “Man’s Inhumanity to Man Deeply Affected Perrin,” Connecticut Valley Times-Reporter, December 12, 1967. 240. Letters to parents following the publication of Richard’s desertion in UMB, Richard Perrin, III, Letters December 1967; Emerson, Winners and Losers, 130–131; Perrin, G.I. Resister, 89–91. 241. “Relative Is Dismayed by Richard Perrin’s Act but Sympathizes with Both Him and His Family,” Barre Montpelier Times-Argus, December 28, 1967. 242. “Dick Perrin Telephones, ‘Tell Parents I’m Fine’” Connecticut Valley TimesReporter, clipping without date [January 1968], UMB, Richard Perrin, II, Mom’s Scrapbook, 1967–1977. 243. “Perrin Tells ‘Why and What I Resist,’” Connecticut Valley Times-Reporter, February 8, 1968. 244. “Perrin Tells ‘Why and What I Resist.’”

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Chapter 2

The Deserters’ 1968

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Exile Organizing, Politicization, and the Struggle for Recognition

The appearance of the Intrepid Four in Japan and the Soviet Union and their reception in Sweden and Dick Perrin’s step before the press in France in late 1967 and early 1968 had brought desertion and sanctuary unprecedented attention. These new deserters were soon followed by a growing number of U.S. servicemen from West Germany, the United States, and Asia. Desertion and asylum were now not a matter of individuals being granted a right of residence anymore, but the sanctuaries in France and Sweden became an option for dissenting American soldiers to quit participating in the military system and the war effort. While in quantity, more men went underground in the United States or left for Canada, hoping for equal treatment as draft refusers there, the European sanctuaries, in particular Sweden, were the most secure for military absentees until the spring of 1969, when the Canadian government offcially extended its liberal immigration policy to U.S. deserters. The number of unauthorized absences grew in 1968 along with the escalation of America’s engagement in Vietnam, which was not least a response to the Tet Offensive of the Vietnamese FNL and North Vietnam. The increase in demand for manpower, higher draft levels, more deployments to Vietnam, and not least the prospect of service in an increasingly brutal war, led to rapid growth in refusals by young Americans, either to enter the military in the frst place or to continue to serve. Likewise, antiwar protests intensifed in the United States and internationally, and war weariness among Americans in general grew during this period, considered a decisive turning point of the war in Vietnam by many observers and historians.1 Eventually, President Johnson withdrew his candidacy for reelection, unable to communicate to Americans the United States’ objectives in Vietnam, despite eventual successes of American troops in countering the Tet Offensive. 77

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1968, a symbolic year of protest and politicization of the young generations in Western countries and Japan, also marked a caesura for the experience of U.S. servicemen who decided to go AWOL and seek sanctuary abroad.2 In 1968, deserters became both targets and participants of the broader mobilization process among the young generation and experienced politicization and radicalization, joining larger protest activities and staging their own activism. Formulating positions, speaking at rallies, publishing declarations and pamphlets, communicating via alternative and mainstream media, and organizing committees were all processes and actions experienced by many participants of the movements for social change and against the American war in Vietnam, and by many American deserters abroad, too. Arguably, the momentum and rush experienced by of those politicized during this era were especially intense for young American AWOLees with scarcely any previous experience of political activism and publicity, who suddenly were in the spotlight abroad and who were on a “natural high” as a result, or, according to one deserter, in cultural shock on several levels.3 Exile brought these young Americans into a different country with a different society, culture, and language, and also into the focus of the antiwar scene as well as the local and international media. This placed on them enormous pressure and expectations, including the dangers of exposure and exploitation. At the same time, it offered them opportunities to explain themselves and plea for support and solidarity. Although a personal decision, going AWOL in this setting was almost inevitably a matter of discussion with peers about motives and consequences, with fellow GIs, other absentees, supporters and sympathizers, and American and international reporters. Also, the application for asylum with the police and immigration authorities in France and Sweden required a defense of one’s decision. The bleak prospects for a return home and the often complicated relations of many deserters with family and friends prompted a process of coming to terms as well as a need for exchange with others about it. Knowledge that one was not alone was not only comforting but turned a personal decision into one with collective meaning and into an act of political signifcance. Thus, with an impetus to legitimize one’s action, with the momentum of peers with the same objective, and with the encouragement of international and American supporters, deserters in exile began to organize and to rally for recognition.4 The groups formed by American deserters in Europe in early 1968, sometimes and in varying degree supported by draft refusers and other American sympathizers, all followed the objective to justify refusal of military service in a war like that of the United States in Vietnam, and all asserted their members’ American identities and claimed allegiance to American ideals. A photograph of four deserters posing in front of the Statue of Liberty replica in

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the Luxembourg Gardens in Paris, which was featured in an exile publication in May 1968, epitomized how these young Americans sought abroad the freedoms they were denied at home and in the military.5 The deserters faced numerous challenges in European exile, from the personal process of coming to terms with one’s act and its consequences, coping with the practical problems of daily life, confronting the media, dealing with the interest and offers from sympathizers, as well as real or perceived threats to their security and safety from prosecution by the U.S. authorities. As a result, the groups adapted and developed different strategies and drew on different frames of reference for their arguments. The names of the committees formed in Paris and Stockholm were programmatic and convey key objectives and motives for their inception. Resistance Inside the Army (RITA) considered desertion one facet of a larger oppositional movement evolving within the U.S. military. The Second Front integrated military absentees into the larger American and international antiwar movement and radical protest against the U.S. war effort. The American Deserters Committee (ADC) placed an emphasis on the young men’s identity as Americans and endorsed the label of deserter as a positive term of identifcation. Some of the absentees stepping out in Europe in 1968 asserted their individuality, both regarding their decision to desert as well as its consequences, and worked together to publicize these distinct perspectives. Others insisted on the collective meaning of their act, issued joint declarations, and chose spokesmen for the growing community of deserters in exile. Deserters organizing in France and Sweden in 1968 were supported by local activists, including American expatriates, both concerning the practical challenges abroad as well as in political matters, and not least in providing the infrastructure necessary for organizing and producing and distributing pamphlets. Relations between the absentees and others were not without frictions; young Americans with little political experience and from less educated backgrounds, in the middle of a process of coming to terms with their action and developing their own position, confronted leftist students, traditional pacifsts, intellectuals, and movement representatives—Swedish, French, or American. Moreover, while alliances between deserter groups were formed, there were also conficts among the exiles about the meaning of desertion, representation, and legitimacy of leaders. Furthermore, there were disagreements about political positions and the direction of activism, about what perspectives were to be publicized and what objectives were to be followed. In the complex setting of exile, and with the continuous infux of new absentees, deserter groups thus formed and reformed, cooperated with each other and with outsiders, and struggled to defend new concepts of desertion and antiwar protest both in Europe and in North America.

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RITAS IN FRENCH EXILE The public appearance of Dick Perrin in December 1967 and his previous experience of GI protest activities in the United States prompted fellow deserters in France to consider taking a similar step to publicize their own motives for refusing participation in the Vietnam War. Terry Klug, a twentyyear-old U.S. Army absentee who had come to France in the fall of 1967, lived and worked in southern France at the time. Upon learning of Perrin’s step aboveground he decided to return to Paris, as “down here” he began to “feel absolutely useless.”6 George Wuerth, twenty-three, who had joined the Navy after studying in college and working as a school teacher, had left USS Charles F. Adams of the Sixth Fleet in Cannes in December 1967 after reading about the Intrepid Four in Time magazine. Their and Perrin’s example encouraged him to also speak out about his motives and opposition against the war when he came to Paris.7 Cornell Hiselman, who alias Buster had previously answered journalists’ questions from behind a white sheet, was eager to further develop and formulate his position and political consciousness on the Vietnam War and his refusal. Moreover, Philip Wagner, a twentyfve-year-old former Peace Corps volunteer, economics student, draftee and rejected applicant for conscientious objector status, now AWOL from the U.S. Army, had arrived in Paris via Amsterdam and offered a pacifst perspective. The fve discussed how to continue what Perrin, and earlier Louis Armfeld and Hiselman, had started. They decided to both publicize their perspective in the media and at the same time to reach out to fellow servicemen in the American military and inform them about ways to protest the Vietnam War and the alternative of desertion.8 The men adapted Perrin’s concept of RITA as an open frame for individual deserters, each one with his own perspective on desertion, the Vietnam War, protest and refusal. As means for communicating this, they conceptualized a sheet newspaper, primarily directed to other U.S. servicemen and programmatically named Act to encourage them to resist or desert themselves, and published the frst issue in February. This small group of individual deserters with various degrees of political consciousness and of experience in antiwar protest did not consider formal elements of organizing, such as the formulation of a common political position, the selection of offcial representatives, or procedural matters. Rather, the group’s formation and development into an activist committee was a result of their discussions on their refusal, its meaning and consequences, and their work on publishing Act. Crucial for this process was Perrin’s experience of GI protest in the United States, his encounter with participants of the ASU and civilian supporters of oppositional soldiers, and not least the role of the newspaper The Bond in mobilizing and politicizing GIs, which inspired

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Act. The term RITA was a reference to this new protest movement among American servicemen and refected the claim of the deserters to be part of it, although factually outside the military and in exile. While it legitimized desertion as resistance and one form of refusal and protest available to GIs, it created confusion about the group’s position among journalists, sympathizers, and other American draft-age exiles in Europe in 1968, before a more comprehensive understanding of protest, refusal, and resistance among the Vietnam generation would develop. Thomas Schwaetzer, who had coordinated a large part of the support network for the deserters in Paris and was responsible for much of the publicity the movement had received in 1967, assisted the group. In the summer of that year, however, he had discouraged the formation of “deserters clubs,” fearing this could endanger the exiles’ precarious status in France and expose them to possible infltration by U.S. agents.9 When Dick Perrin arrived in France, reported on GI activism in the United States, and expressed his willingness to continue his protest in exile, Schwaetzer came to endorse the concept of RITA and encouraged the deserters to organize and to publish their own newspaper.10 He soon was convinced that desertion was the frst phase of mobilization in a broader protest movement among American servicemen. He therefore promoted that European desertion campaigns be complemented with the encouragement for resistance inside the military.11 Besides their support in tackling the practical challenges of exile, Schwaetzer and other French and American sympathizers shared with the deserters the infrastructure necessary for political activism, such as printing means and contacts with international antiwar groups for the distribution of Act. No less than Jean-Paul Sartre provided a secure address for the group’s correspondence since the American deserters were not allowed engagement in political activities in France.12 Sartre’s name and his endorsement of the deserters and their activities authenticated them with international war opponents and potential supporters.13 Moreover, the milieu of sympathetic war opponents in the French capital, not least American compatriots and members of the PACS, fostered the development of deserters’ political consciousness through discussions of their thoughts and access to antiwar literature.14 In early 1968, Schwaetzer and his French and American friends arranged a press conference for the deserters to publicize the launch of Act and to announce their objective to reach out to fellow U.S. servicemen, particularly in Europe. Like the earlier media appearances of American deserters in France, the event was elaborately staged at a private home, the location of which was not disclosed to the American and international journalists,

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who were escorted there by liaisons of the support network and who were instructed to mention in their reports only Western Europe as the setting.15 On February 11, fve young Americans stepped through the white sheet before the television cameras and microphones, presented the frst issue of their new publication, and faced the reporters’ questions. Next to Perrin, who had done this already two months before, Terry Klug, George Wuerth, Cornell Hiselman, and Philip Wagner now left the safety of their private exile and publicized their names, action, and motives.16 They exposed themselves both to the media and the American public as well as to the U.S. authorities, which would monitor their statements and activities for possible prosecution. The encounter of the men with reporters, and vice versa, exemplifes the confrontation of this new type of refusers of the Vietnam generation with older Americans and the media establishment. Like earlier with Perrin and the Intrepid Four, the questions and answers illustrate the absentees’ diffcult quest to seek a voice in the antiwar debate and mobilize protest among their peers, while being pressured to explain themselves and being confronted with the interpretations of their act by newspeople, most with little sympathies and will to comprehend, let alone, endorse them. Planned as an event to achieve wide publicity for the GI newspaper Act, the press conference turned into a questioning of the fve deserters by the American journalists, regarding their personal motives and position as well as their status as fugitive military absentees, their degree of organization and politicization, and relations with European leftist groups. In the television crew’s spotlights and before the reporters’ microphones, the fve deserters sat at a large table, on which they displayed the frst issue of Act and other publications directed at American servicemen, such as issues of The Bond, the newspaper of the ASU, and the Uncle Sam leafet, discussed previously. Behind them on the white sheet protecting Schwaetzer’s anonymity, there was a large, hand-drawn poster with the acronym RITA in bold letters and a list of countries of sanctuary for AWOL GIs. In this setting, the fve men appeared as a formal committee to the reporters, who asked about its political position and organizational structures. But the deserters rejected this interpretation as a misunderstanding, and Cornell Hiselman pointed out that the group was “not a complete organization, it’s just, let’s say, people against the war,” “like friends who are against a certain thing” and who “sought a compromise” to act. Perrin explained that the group was an “editorial committee” of individuals who intended “to let the soldiers know what we think.” He made clear that he did “not believe in organizations” and that “a person should be judged by his actions, not what he says or which organization he belongs to.”17 Terry Klug and Perrin continued to feel the need to point out the political independence of the group rallying under the concept of RITA and insisted in Act that they were “not tightly organized with offcers[,]

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membership[,] or a given political line,” but rather were “individuals of many political, religious and philosophical beliefs united in their opposition to this war.”18 Such skepticism toward formal organization resulted from the young Americans’ fundamental individualism and ideal of independence, as well as their cautiousness toward political parties and protest groups. Most of them had not grown up in milieus of politics and activism and had only after their desertion encountered protest groups and war resisters abroad. Their act of refusal had often been based on concepts of humanity and American ideals, not easily classifable into the political frames of the debates of the Sixties and the Vietnam War.19 Having been raised in the culture of Cold War America with its dichotomy of good and evil, they were wary of political exploitation and in turn being called traitors, when they received support in exile from those labeled as ‘Reds’ by many Americans. While they nevertheless adopted certain political views, strategies, and organizing techniques from their sympathizers, they still tried to preserve their independence from political groups. Therefore, at the press conference and in their contributions to Act the fve absentees pointed out that they all had their own military experiences and specifc motivations to desert, and that “all have different opinions, different ideas” on how to express their views. Navy deserter Wuerth, for example, chose to wear his uniform at the press conference along with a goatee, which he had grown as a critique of military authority. As an “extreme pacifst,” he wanted to show his “disgust for the entire outft as well as the armed forces.” Dick Perrin told the journalists that he had enlisted voluntarily and developed critical views on the war in Vietnam only during his military service. For him, desertion was a means to evade prosecution for his antiwar activities in the Army and to continue them outside. Terry Klug stated that he had decided to go AWOL in North Carolina after having received orders for Vietnam and traveled to Italy, from where he came to Paris. When he had been denied conscientious objector status two times, Philip Wagner decided to desert and traveled from Texas to Amsterdam.20 He wrote in Act that according to the “decision of the Nuremberg Trials—individual soldiers not only have the right but the duty to conscientiously question their own actions,” refecting the reasoning brought forth by war opponents in the United States and Europe earlier, for example, in the American Call to Resist Illegitimate Authority and the WRI’s leafet “To American Soldiers in Europe.”21 The open concept of RITA, the deserters argued, allowed for such individually distinct reasonings and interpretations of desertion. Moreover, RITA, rather “in the armed forces” than just “in the Army” as Navy absentee George Wuerth proposed to extend it to all military branches, integrated their action into a larger context of dissent and protest among American

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servicemen and provided a new, uncharged term of identifcation alternative to “deserter” with all its negative connotations.22 However, at the press conference they could not evade the deserter label and faced tough challenges to their new concept. Clearly, the journalists were confused by the idea of RITA, because the editors of Act simply were fugitive absentees and outside the military. AWOL for more than thirty days, they were administratively classifed deserters by the military and commonly referred to as such in the media, notwithstanding that they had not been convicted by a military court. Moreover, the term deserter had already been claimed and redefned as an act of patriotic protest by the Intrepid Four, who had received great attention after the publication of their statements in Japan and the Soviet Union in the fall of 1967, much more than Perrin as a RITA. Their self-identifcation as patriotic deserters appears to have been easier to comprehend by contemporaries, who were familiar with draft resistance and its advocates’ reasoning, and far less with the beginnings of an oppositional movement among servicemen, not to speak of a GI resister in exile. In fact, the reporters made reference to the new deserter image introduced by the Intrepid Four and demanded from the editors of Act to also explain their own status and self-conception. They were therefore confronted both with the traditional labels for deserters as well as the recent resignifcation of desertion. As he had in December, Dick Perrin asserted that he was not a deserter, because he had not left the military “with the intention to never return”—one of the conditions for a conviction of desertion—but that he “will return [. . .] when there is a complete unconditional withdrawal of all troops in Vietnam.” He argued that he had become a “resister” while still in the army, that he had left the military to continue his activities, and therefore was still one. Similarly, Philip Wagner pointed that according to military law he would only be tried for AWOL if he returned to his unit, not desertion since they were all offcially still members of the military. As to whether they “reject[ed] the term deserter” altogether, Cornell Hiselman replied that he strongly rejected the connotations of “crumb” and “bum,” however, conceded that if “deserter” signifed “someone who fghts for what is right” and “for the freedom of the world,” he would identify as such. George Wuerth argued that he was a “refugee from the government of the United States” and compared his situation to that of those who fed from Hungary following the Soviet invasion of 1956 and from East to West Germany, who were not labeled “deserters” but considered refugees. He apparently confused the terms deserter and defector, the latter of which had been used by American media for the Intrepid Four when in the Soviet Union and also for military absentees in Europe. One reporter disputed Wuerth’s self-image as a refugee, arguing that he had not been oppressed in the United States, and repeated the question, “Are you a deserter?” Wuerth stated that it was “relative to who calls you a deserter”

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and that he would be regarded as one by the American authorities. However, he insisted that he was “not a deserter” because he had “done what is right” and declared “I’m a refugee.”23 The journalists’ persistence on the term deserter left the fve American exiles struggling to defend their own individual self-identifcation. In fact, the short edit of the event broadcast to American viewers by the Huntley-Brinkley Report on NBC did neither explain the new consciousness of the war refusers nor their rejection of being typecast deserters.24 American newspapers, in turn, noted their appearance mostly as news of American military absentees fnding sanctuary in Europe.25 In the New York Times, John Hess, who had also reported on Perrin in December, did write about the rejection of the term deserter and presented Philip Wagner as a non-stereotypical absentee with his university education and Peace Corps experience, but did not elaborate on the new RITA concept.26 Newsweek also reported on the press conference, however, with an ironic undertone on the allegedly politicized deserters, who were described as representing the “standard cross-section of military malcontents” now “displayed” as “prize exhibits” by antiwar activists in Europe under the direction of “Mr. Cook,” an alias of Thomas Schwaetzer. The text cited military sources asserting desertions were on a downward trend in Europe and that many AWOLees were just on a “spree” and would return eventually. Therefore, Act and RITA were to be considered a facet of the zeitgeist rather than evidence for broader dissent in the military. Newsweek concluded that “if RITA proves anything, then, it would seem to be that in this institutionalized age, even the inevitable dropouts must organize.”27 Besides, it seems that to many American newsmakers the appearance of their fve fugitive compatriots was of less interest than the European underground network supporting them. A series by Russ Braley published in the Chicago Tribune and the New York Daily News mentioned the press conference only in passing and without addressing the new self-identifcation of the men, while detailing entertainingly the cloak-and-dagger-style arrangements of contacts with activists and their clandestine operations to help deserters escape.28 In their own newspaper Act, the exiles were more independent from such challenges to their individual perspectives and to the new idea of RITA as an open concept. Initiated to call on American servicemen to take action against the Vietnam War, whether through desertion, individual disobedience, or organizing resistance inside the military, the paper also created a counterpublic space for the deserters and oppositional GIs. It featured letters, commentaries, and poetry, a mix of appeals to others and refections on their own act and its consequences. Under the common denominators of opposition to the Vietnam War, critiques of the U.S. military and American society, the necessity to provide information to American servicemen beyond the mainstream and military media, and the objective to call on them to consider their

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position and act, the contributions refected a variety of “political, pacifstic or whatever” views.29 Some of the authors identifed as “RITA[s]” or “Full Time Resister[s],” others referred to themselves as deserters.30 The former concepts served to preempt the charge of an “intent to remain away therefrom [one’s unit] permanently” by arguing that the men had “temporarily left the Armed Forces” to devote themselves to antiwar activities, but could still return to the military.31 Consistent with the broad conception of RITA to include any kind of protest and resistance by American servicemen, Act featured information on desertion and implicit encouragements to go AWOL and, on the other hand, detailed the strategies of the GI movement, then little known among U.S. servicemen in Europe. In each issue of Act in 1968, the editors pointed out that “we don’t urge you to desert,” but instead declared it a “totally personal decision” and just one alternative to resist the Vietnam War.32 However, if an American serviceman considered desertion, he required information on how to go about, particularly abroad. Consequently, about a quarter of the paper featured such “helpful hints,” listed contact addresses of organizations and lawyers assisting AWOL servicemen in Europe, explained how to escape from the military and go underground in NATO member states, and provided updates on the situation in sanctuary countries.33 Additionally, Act informed about developments of the GI movement and groups involved in it, such as the ASU, whose goal was to organize soldiers inside the military, and the Committee for GI Rights in New York, which provided legal assistance to oppositional servicemen.34 Act also used reprints of cartoons and texts from the GI underground press, in particular the ASU newspaper The Bond. Many contributions to Act refect the exiles’ compulsion to respond to latent and open accusations they were facing, such as charges of cowardice, social deviance, failure to fulfll their patriotic duty, and betrayal of American ideals. Terry Klug pointed out that a RITA was “neither unpatriotic nor antiAmerican,” but meant “acting” according to what he found “right and for the best human interests” at the time of “his country’s inhuman aggression” in Vietnam.35 Next to a cartoon drawing of a Statue of Liberty, a skeleton in rags with a died-out torch, George Wuerth discussed the American ideals of “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness,” which he was ready to “defend to the death,” but which were being betrayed in the United States’ “[immoral] and illegal [. . .] war of aggression” in Vietnam. He expressed his fear of “the deranged audacity of our leaders and the blind obedience of their subservients,” a further escalation and a “world wide showdown,” involving the Soviet Union and China, and appealed to his “fellow Americans” and their consciences to help end the war.36 Private Ralph Denman, twenty years old, who had gone AWOL from his unit in West Germany in February 1968 after

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an argument with his superior and receiving orders for Vietnam, refected on how his “countrymen” would think about his desertion, whether he was considered “just another one of the misfts who was unable to adjust” or as one with “tangible and sincere beliefs,” one who made use of his “freewill [sic],” a “gift from the creator.” He argued he had “denied myself the expression of my innermost convictions for the most of my life” and only in the context of the Vietnam War and his military service had seen a “ficker of light,” which made him “staunchly refuse to surrender my integrity to the force of social pressure.” Thus, he regarded his desertion not only a refusal of military service but also a rebellion to social conformism in the United States, paralleling that of many others of his generation.37 Writing and acting as individuals, all contributors to Act used their full names, service number, and military rank; most of them were privates and most had enlisted in the Army as volunteers.38 This way they ensured the authenticity of the paper as a medium of their own voice and affrmed their self-confdence to stand up to their decision to refuse to serve in the Vietnam War. While the American deserters’ right of residence in France was issued on the condition of non-involvement in political activities, the editors deemed it safe to publish their names, as the texts concerned matters relating to the United States and its military, not their host country. Nevertheless, Western Europe was listed as Act’s place of publication, and Jean-Paul Sartre’s post box and the address of other French sympathizers under the fctitious name “Miss Rita Act” were printed as contacts.39 This was to ensure some protection from investigations by the French and American authorities for the deserters and their American supporters in Paris, and indeed intelligence services took rather long to locate the base of RITA and their supporters.40 Act was published four times in 1968 and once in early 1969, before most of its editors left France and exiles reorganized there, with one more issue in 1970. It was produced in several thousand prints per issue and distributed via the networks of the international antiwar scene as well as those of the GI movement, and mailed to individuals inside and outside the military. Act informed many American soldiers in Europe on methods to protest and desert, provided resources for legal counseling, and was also referenced in other GI newspapers. In West Germany, the initiative of the RITA group and Act’s reports on the ASU inspired soldiers stationed in Baumholder to form Europe’s frst chapter of the union and subsequent publication of their own Gig Sheet. Although short-lived, Act is an important example of both the publications by American deserters as well as the GI underground press in general. Chronicler of the GI movement David Cortright pointed out that Act had been among the frst such newspapers solely authored by U.S. servicemen themselves, and included this exile publication in his index of soldiers’ movement publications.41

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THE SECOND FRONT IN PARIS At the same time as American deserters were coming to rally around the concept of RITA, another committee of exiles from the United States was set up in Paris. In contrast to the editors of Act, who were skeptical of formal organization, this group was initiated by draft-age Americans to explicitly organize and politicize deserters and draft resisters in French exile. They sought to represent the war refusers, create public attention and political relevance for the new phenomenon of desertion, to ensure practical support and consolidation of the French sanctuary, and furthermore to contribute to the larger movement for social and political change in the United States. In its statement of purpose, the committee therefore stated that organizing in exile was essential to “build an organization to represent ourselves,” to “increase our number,” to “maintain the support of friends,” and to “provide for our continued security in exile,” not least through the solidarity of the French public and the “strength of [. . .] popular opinion.” Eventually, they regarded political organizing of the war refusers crucial to “remove the causes for desertion and draft refusal” in the United States and to make a return of the deserters possible, “as free men.” In late January 1968, the group distributed for the frst time a brochure called The Second Front, which was directed at American exiles in general, but explicitly reached out to military absentees to share their experiences of service and desertion and to participate in the new committee. For this purpose, the editors proposed a round table of deserters and draft resisters and asked their readers to answer a questionnaire on their motives and views.42 The authors of The Second Front chose to remain anonymous at frst and identifed themselves as a group of American deserters and draft resisters in exile, who had left or refused service in the U.S. military “for a wide variety of reasons—some of them political, some of them not.”43 This way, they presented themselves as open-minded for different motives for desertion, not least to avoid losing politically inexperienced military absentees. Nevertheless, the editors’ considerable experience in activism, organizing, and New Left politics was evident, for instance in their use of “For Liberation” as salutation as well as their choice of “second front” as name and motto.44 The latter refected the strategy of American and international war opponents to complement the front of the wars of liberation in the Third World, frst and foremost in Vietnam, with a front of revolutionary struggle inside the Western countries, as well as the rhetorical use of war terminology and symbols to highlight the determination and potential of antiwar protest.45 While the leftist organizers, among them Princeton student and SDS activist Robert Burlingham, who had come to Paris on a Fulbright scholarship, arguably had known the concept before, it was also discussed

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among American war opponents in Europe at that very time and may have inspired the group’s name.46 At a conference held in Paris in early January 1968 to coordinate the activities of American war opponents in Europe, organized by the PACS and Stop It, an American protest group in London, anthropologist and PACS executive committee member Marshall Sahlins argued in his keynote that “we are the second front of the war, perhaps the decisive front” and capable of staging an American Dien Bien Phu in Washington, alluding to the decisive battle of the French war in Indochina in 1954 and a symbol for both the determination of the Vietnamese to win independence as well as the failure of Western military power to succeed in Vietnam.47 Mainly draft refusers or students themselves, the frst organizers of the Second Front were eager to integrate American deserters into their antiwar activities. The example of the Intrepid Four impressed them, and they believed that military absentees speaking out against the Vietnam War were highly valuable for weakening the U.S. armed forces.48 In France, the organizers of the Second Front therefore not only offered American deserters a forum to come to terms with their action but also encouraged them to publish statements and to call on others to desert. The questionnaire distributed to mobilize American exiles to participate in the Second Front therefore linked an individual’s desertion with the broader Vietnam antiwar movement. It inquired about the motivations for draft refusal and desertion, about the question of eventually returning to the United States, and if one thought of himself as “a traitor to your country,” a provocative rhetorical move to prompt exiles to respond. Finally, readers were asked to consider possible forms of activism, whether they were ready to encourage others to desert or to resist the draft.49 While the authors of Act insisted that there were different forms of protest available to U.S. servicemen next to going AWOL, the Second Front made promoting desertion its main cause. Its brochure offered information on sanctuaries in France and Sweden and on the support for deserters from European activists. Next to a statement of the Intrepid Four, it featured the spectacular escape of two GIs with an Army jeep from West Germany to France in late January to illustrate how American servicemen could desert and take a stand against the war.50 Moreover, a press conference was announced to publicize the deserters’ motives and position on the Vietnam War, with the hope for international news reporting, which would reach “our former buddies” in the military and encourage them to desert so “that they don’t risk their necks in the senseless war.” The editors claimed legitimacy to represent the deserters and to empower them “for the frst time” to “tell our stories,” while preserving their own anonymity.51 The story of the desertion of Terry Wilson and Otis Anderson with the jeep, which had been reported on in the American press in

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January, with full names, ages (seventeen and nineteen), and hometowns, was an important factor in creating the brochure’s legitimacy as voice of the exiles and means to reach out to GIs still in the military.52 Next to the balanced statements of the Intrepid Four and the story of American student and draft exile James Everett, alias Lenny, the bold act of these two teenagers, one Black and one white and both from the working class, and their simple yet radical refusal of being sent to the United States for training for Vietnam, added an inside view of an Army experience and considerable authenticity to the publication and its objective to address GIs with similar backgrounds.53 Beyond its efforts to organize and politicize American war refusers in exile and encourage U.S. servicemen to desert, the Second Front also called on French war opponents for moral and practical solidarity. In February, the group held a meeting with French sympathizers to both announce its formation and issue public appeals for support, which was presided by Pasteur René Rognon of the Mouvement de la Paix. Delegates from key organizations of the French antiwar movement, such as the Comité Vietnam National, the Collectif Intersyndical Universitaire, and the Mouvement contre l’Armement Atomique, attended and endorsed the war refusers’ action as one which “tomorrow may become [. . .] decisive” and was “far from isolated” from the larger antiwar movement in the United States.54 The Second Front issued an appeal to the people of Europe for support for the “frst of America’s political refugees” who had been “forced [. . .] to choose exile,” concerning fnancial help and in fnding housing and jobs, which was published in several French newspapers subsequently. It presented the Second Front as a group of Americans who resisted their government’s policy, but adhered to the American democratic traditions and ideals, a claim also made by many war opponents in the United States as well. Countering charges of being “traitors to our country,” the authors affrmed their allegiance to the American “revolutionary principles of 1776,” which, they argued, the U.S. government was violating in the Vietnam War.55 At this meeting with French supporters, members of the RITA/Act group were also present, and soon the two committees of American exiles were discussing cooperation. It was in the interest of both to consolidate the situation of deserters and draft refusers in France and coordinate practical support, as well as to further publicize the new phenomenon of servicemen’s war resistance and push for recognition of the deserters. Next to the editors of Act and the Second Front, draft-age Americans, who in the fall of 1967 had formed the Resistance in France in reference to the American draft resistance movement, participated in forming the French Union of American Deserters and Draft Resisters (FUADDR).56 But soon there were tensions about the interpretation of desertion, the political orientation, as well as the organizational style of this broader

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association of American exiles in France. At the core of the confict stood the open concept of RITA versus the Second Front’s claim of desertion as the only unequivocal form of resistance available to American servicemen. Like other contemporaries, many draft resisters and deserters found the concept of RITA contradictory as a motto of military absentees in exile. Unlike Perrin, few American soldiers at the time, in particular in Europe, had experienced acts of protest and resistance themselves or by fellow servicemen. Perrin’s own desertion seemed proof that it had been impossible for him to continue his protest activities inside the Army. Like the draft refusal of key organizers of the Second Front, desertion was closer to the ideal of absolute noncooperation with the U.S. authorities and thus a more radical form of resistance. For absentees who had just left their units, they believed moreover, an affrmation of their desertion as the right move was much more motivating to hold out in exile than the idea that their act was merely second best, as implied by RITA. On the other hand, RITA also had the potential to help deserters come to terms with their action and to cope with their situation in exile. RITA avoided and replaced the negatively connoted term deserter, which many men still felt uncomfortable to identify with, and allowed them to regard themselves part of a larger oppositional movement among American servicemen. During the formation of the FUADDR, both approaches were discussed and integrated at frst. But when the Second Front came to endorse desertion exclusively and denounce the concept of RITA, the editors of Act left the union.57 A text in The Second Front of April charged the concept of RITA as “playing with words,” the editors of Act were attacked for “preferr[ing] not to practice what they preached,” as they were not inside the armed forces anymore, and for oppositional GIs in the military the term “RRITAs,” “Resisters really inside the Army,” was suggested mockingly. The Second Front argued that protest activities in “the single place where resistance inside the army might prove signifcant, that is, Vietnam” was extremely dangerous for a soldier’s life, which could be “wasted” and “lost to the movement.” Instead, there was nothing “shameful to desert from a brutal, dehumanizing, war machine,” and as a deserter, an American soldier could “serve [the antiwar movement] more effectively and longer.”58 Writing in Act, Terry Wilson rejected the strategy of resistance inside the military as “pacifcation” and argued that only desertion qualifed as “direct action” and was a potent form of protest. He found that if a soldier was opposed to the war in Vietnam and “tired of being treated like shit by lifers,” he “should have the guts to stand up to it” and “desert.” The editors of Act defended the idea of GI resistance and replied that oppositional soldiers working inside the military “certainly [. . .] are guys with guts,” as they faced punishment and harassment from the “brass.” Once again, they pointed out that RITA welcomed all forms of protest and resistance, from desertion to

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activism by active duty servicemen, and trusted that “enlightened GIs will act—each in his own way.”59 In turn, the Act group criticized those who endorsed desertion as the single form of action available for U.S. soldiers for “political bickering, hair-splitting” and “turn[ing] off” potential supporters. They suspected that a class bias made many educated war opponents “blind” for the potential of opposition among working-class servicemen, and that the exclusive endorsement of desertion had been the idea of draft refusers from middle-class backgrounds. However, they felt affrmed by the momentum the GI movement was gaining in the United States during 1968, considered desertion in Europe one early facet of this “rapidly evolving process,” and came to focus increasingly on promoting oppositional activities among GIs and the program of the soldiers’ union ASU there.60 Another dimension of the confict between the groups concerned organizers who were no draft or military exiles themselves, but rather acted as mentors. Their role was contested during the discussion of the formation of a union of exile organizations, and with it the very question of representation of the deserters and their entitlement and capacity to speak. Members of the Second Front suggested to exclude Thomas Schwaetzer from the round table of deserters and draft resisters, arguing that he was not a military or draft exile.61 Members of the RITA committee proposed to likewise exclude Robert Burlingham from the discussion, as he had come to France as a Fulbright student and not to escape military service. These former servicemen with mostly a working-class background and little previous exposition to politics found his student activist demeanor and his insistence on desertion suspicious. When the Second Front refused to except Burlingham from the FUADDR but argued that he was a “draft resister in the broad sense,” an American of draft age and in case of a draft notice ready to resist, the RITA group withdrew from the new union.62 The exiles’ independence and their determination to “speak for themselves,” as well as their “ability to manage their own affairs, to direct their own organization, and to express their own views,” was asserted, when on April 3, 1968, the formation of the FUADDR was publicized—then including the Second Front, RITA/Act, and the Resistance in France.63 In part, this refected the typical pattern of the young exile organizations and their supporters to legitimize the deserters’ agency and the authenticity of their statements toward the public and the media, as well as to counter the image of nonpolitical absentees. However, the text implied that the editors of Act had not been independent and sovereign, but under the infuence of Thomas Schwaetzer. Another text published in The Second Front openly attacked Schwaetzer. The anonymous authors held him responsible for negative publicity for the American deserters and accused him of trying to control the exiles’ own efforts of organizing. The basis for the charges was the article on

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the “Bill and Buster Show,” published in Life magazine in December 1967, which had presented an absurd image of the deserters in Paris and Schwaetzer himself.64 The Second Front, however, blamed this on the latter’s own “strange publicity tricks” and “fair for cloak-and-dagger press interviews,” rather than on Life’s reporter and his bias against the deserters and their supporters. Accordingly, it had been Schwaetzer’s fault that deserters in Europe had been presented as “half-witted dropouts and misfts.” Furthermore, the authors accused him of having missed the moment when deserters had become ready to step into the public and started “speaking out for themselves,” thus omitting the fact that he had made possible the frst appearance of Dick Perrin in December 1967. Instead, they argued, his “reluctance to let deserters stand on their own” was evident in that he had tried to control the editors of RITA during their press conference with his “obstrusive quasi-presence” from behind the white sheet.65 The text even exposed Schwaetzer, who in all press interviews had maintained anonymity and used pseudonyms, by describing “Max” or “the mysterious Mr. Cook” as a “rotund, talkative [. . .] Austrian,” characteristics which would make it easy for the French and American authorities to identify him.66 These charges illustrate the intensity of the debate over desertion and the struggle for a voice of the deserters in Europe in the spring of 1968. While Schwaetzer was a somewhat peculiar fgure, who with his zeal in assisting military absentees in France, his transnational identity, and his ability to work with different groups of the antiwar movement as well as the international media confused many younger activists from the New Left. The perspective presented in The Second Front distorted his role and moreover negated the agency of Dick Perrin and his friends, who had initiated and realized Act themselves, at a time when the draft resisters organizing the Second Front were claiming to represent deserters and to speak for them. While making use of the support by Schwaetzer and others, the editors of Act were in fact able to maintain certain independence from their mentors, and during their frst press conference some of them grinned at Schwaetzer’s elaborations from behind the sheet.67 Later on, RITA/Act lost the support of Jean-Paul Sartre when it was claimed that the group was a CIA set up. The editors of Act suspected that again the Second Front was responsible for such slander, and accused Robert Burlingham of splitting the exile organizations in France, making constructive cooperation impossible.68 The negative depictions of Schwaetzer and the RITA group would spread among activists in the larger deserter support network in Europe. A leafet distributed in West Germany, for example, which ironically reproduced the information section of Act, warned American servicemen to “beware of a

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‘Mr. Cook’ or Tomy Schwaetzer” who was “the best of friends with Col. Lake of the Paris U.S. Embassy,” implying that he was an agent or collaborator of the American authorities.69

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FRENCH SANCTUARY IN JEOPARDY Political organizing of American deserters in France risked jeopardizing their right of residence in the country, as the permits issued by the French authorities required American military absentees to refrain from such activity. Since some of the activists maintained anonymity and the groups focused their statements on matters outside France, such as the U.S. military and the American war in Vietnam, they had not provoked any repressive reaction in early 1968. However, the war refusers and their American supporters were under observation of the French authorities.70 When American exiles turned to open appearances and more radical activities in the spring, they tested the tolerance of their French hosts, and in the generally changing political climate in the advent of the May revolt, countermeasures by the authorities were imminent. As the frst public action of the FUADDR, fve American deserters and four draft resisters publicized their reception of residence permits in March, accompanied by lawyers Nicole Dreyfus and Jean-Jacques de Felice. The nine men, among them Philip Wagner and Ralph Denman, declared their action a protest against the Vietnam War, which they argued violated the Nuremberg Principles. Moreover, they announced to inform American servicemen with “true facts” on the war.71 Following on the previous activities of RITA and the Second Front, the press conference publicized France as a deserter sanctuary and drew the attention of the American media. But such advertisement for asylum in France apparently went too far and violated the condition of abstention from political activities, which resulted in the French authorities’ turn to a harder line on the American exiles. On the day before the next action planned by the FUADDR for April 3, the Ministry of Interior instructed police to offer deserters involved in political activities expulsion to a country of their choice.72 The meeting, scheduled to concur with anti-draft protests in the United States, was nevertheless held and attended by a number of prominent French war opponents, among them Jean-Paul Sartre and Alfred Kastler, American supporters, and Vietnamese students, who expressed their support for the American exiles. In place of the deserters, who did not participate to avoid charges of illegal political activities, a French activist read out a declaration of the FUADDR on its objectives to mobilize resistance to the Vietnam War and desertion among GIs, to coordinate support for the American exiles in France, and to cooperate in an international network,

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including the deserters in Sweden as well as supporters in West Germany and Japan. American draft resisters present at the meeting collected draft cards to be sent to the National Draft Offce in Washington in protest.73 In early May, the mobilization of French students and workers “overtook” that of the American and other European movements, and a revolt broke out in Paris, culminating in the occupation of Sorbonne University and the erection of street barricades in the Latin Quarter.74 After the setback of early April, the commotion and the apparent safety of occupied university buildings created new opportunities for American exiles in Paris for action and to speak out. Many deserters now participated in rallies, and some even joined the French protestors on the barricades.75 The FUADDR organized a screening of Newsreel flms, among them the statements of the Intrepid Four in Japan, and the American avant-garde Bread and Puppet Theater gave a beneft show for the exile union.76 Although a speech by Dick Perrin at the Sorbonne on May 3 was canceled because of a police raid, the university provided a relatively secure space for the American exiles.77 The Second Front brochure proudly reported on the exiles’ “sharing an offce with the Comité du 22 Mars in an occupied faculty,” one of the major players in the student movement.78 At a press conference at the university on May 21, members of the FUADDR, now without the participation of RITA/Act, read out a declaration of solidarity with the French revolting students and workers, which evinced the group’s anger at the government restrictions on the deserters’ political activities as well as the exiles’ new self-confdence in the momentum of the revolt. They argued that “we are political exiles[,] and we refuse to remain silent,” that they were part of “one revolutionary movement” against “capitalist institutions of exploitation and control” and “fascist repression,” in Europe and the United States, as well as on the “third world liberation fronts.”79 The Second Front went even further and called for “new mobilization of opposition against the Gaullist regime,” which “did not intend to let us act freely on our political beliefs” and from which it “anticipated [further] repression,” in a contribution to the Tribune du 22 Mars, a newspaper of the French student movement.80 The new radicalism of the American deserters and draft resisters in Paris resulted in further restrictions by the French authorities following the events of May and early June.81 Beyond the general response of the French state to the revolt, the forthcoming peace negotiations between the United States and the Vietnamese parties to be held in Paris contributed to a harder line on American exiles and activists, including the PACS, which was prohibited from holding a round table on the conduct of the U.S. military in the war in July.82 In the summer, several deserters and draft resisters faced diffculties extending their residence permits, were questioned about political activities, and some were

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explicitly expelled from France.83 Warren Hamerman, a draft resister, who had been involved in the spilling of blood by Philip Berrigan, James Mengel and others over draft fles in Baltimore in October 1967 and faced prosecution in the United States, was considered a “foreign agitator” by the French authorities and was asked to leave the country in July. Alfred Schmidt, an Austrian born deserter from the U.S. Army and a contributor to the newspaper The Second Front, published by FUADDR and deserters in Sweden from May on and, like Act, directed at U.S. servicemen, received orders to leave France in August.84 The two and several other American deserters, including George Wuerth of the RITA/Act, left France for Sweden in the following months. Others, among them Dick Perrin, Philip Wagner, and Cornell Hiselman, chose to relocate to Canada later in 1968 and in early 1969.85 Repercussions also affected American expatriates allegedly or actually involved in supporting deserters and draft resisters in Paris, such as one of the initiators of the PACS, National Guardian correspondent Schofeld Coryell, and Thomas Schwaetzer, who received orders to leave France in August and September, respectively.86 Nevertheless, American exiles in France were able to continue some of their activities during the summer and fall. In June, exiles using the name the Second Front again collected signatures to messages to be sent to the American and Vietnamese delegations at the peace talks.87 Moreover, they continued to promote desertion and announced in The Second Front newspaper of September, which focused in large part on the situation in Sweden, that Paris was “still [g]ood for a French [l]eave” and offered safety for absentees who could not reach Scandinavia, dismissing the reports of expulsions of and repression against politically active deserters as “rumors.”88 Also, the RITA group published further issues of Act, both explaining the concept of the ASU and resistance inside the military, and providing information for GIs willing to desert in Europe.89 In fact, although in smaller numbers, AWOL Americans continued to enter France and required practical support to start a new life in exile.90 The assistance network had suffered in the context of the May revolt, and during the summer, exiles and sympathizers reorganized. Mary Jo Leibowitz, PACS member and partner of Thomas Schwaetzer in the deserter support network, published an appeal for practical and fnancial help in Le Monde. Draft exile Larry Cox, member of PACS since the fall of 1967 and speaker for the American draft refuser group Resistance in France, took the lead in reforming the Second Front in the late summer and fall, concerning the coordination of support and the “creat[ion of] a strong deserters’ community,” as well as their “grow[th] in political awareness” and their consciousness about their role as “part of the American anti-war movement” and in the “fght [. . .] against American imperialism.”91

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THE AMERICAN DESERTERS COMMITTEE IN SWEDEN In Sweden, American deserters were allowed to live more openly than in France. They were able to publicize their views and engage in politics more freely but were also confronted with the curiosity of local and American reporters, as well as the interests of Swedish antiwar groups. The young Americans, who had made such a personal and critical decision to go AWOL and leave the United States, were suddenly in the spotlight of the media and faced inquiries into their feelings, their motivations, and their new life in exile, only a short time after their arrival. While in France politically conscious American deserters had to woo reporters to listen to their perspective, absentees in Sweden were practically fair game for American journalists interested in publishing human interest stories on them in early 1968. Swedish war opponents, in turn, welcomed them as antiwar heroes and recognized the political signifcance and the moral authority of the young men, who had been immediately affected by the American war in Vietnam and who had refused to participate in it. Moreover, they were eager to make use of the deserters’ potential for the mobilization of national and international Vietnam protest.92 As a result, organizing of American deserters in Sweden was frst motivated to protect individual deserters from being exposed to the American media and from being exploited by local antiwar organizations. Bertil Svahnström, cochairman of the SKfV, encouraged the Intrepid Four to issue an appeal to the American public and to U.S. servicemen, and presented them and others, among them Roy Ray Jones, at conferences and rallies. Here they shared the platform with prominent war opponents and politicians, such as the SKfV’s chairman Gunnar Myrdal and Minister of Education Olof Palme.93 Likewise, members of the DFFG, who had come to consider desertion from the U.S. military a “powerful contribution to the Vietnamese people’s struggle,” invited deserters to participate in meetings and organized press conferences for newly arrived absentees.94 Swedish organizations joined to form a committee to mobilize and coordinate support for the American war refusers in January 1968 despite tensions between moderates, pacifsts, and radical leftists regarding Vietnam antiwar activities. Initiated by the Swedish section of Amnesty International in late 1967, the Working Group to Aid American War Resisters comprised of representatives of a broad spectrum of the Swedish Vietnam movement, such as the SKfV, the DFFG, the pacifst Swedish Peace and Arbitration Society, New Leftist student association Unga Filosofer, the Council of Swedish Youth Organizations, the Stockholm Conference on Vietnam, the Swedish Tribunal Committee for Bertrand Russell’s war crimes hearings, and the Swedish Vietnam Day Committee. To ensure participation of the American exiles, the

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new support group encouraged deserters to form their own committee and to send representatives to its sessions.95 In January, American deserters set up a committee of their own to assist newcomers to Sweden and to inform GIs about the sanctuary there.96 However, with the organization of the Swedish working group, the increased media interest, and the growing number of American deserters, they soon reorganized as the ADC to better respond to this situation in February. Their goals included gaining certain independence from Swedish sympathizers, to not get caught between the moderate SKfV and the radical DFFG, and to achieve control over publicity.97 The deserters were anxious about their image in the media, in particular in the United States, and how they and their decision to desert would be presented there. Depictions of the new exiles in reports ranged from confused kids, who simply had to be convinced to come home, to that of radicals, who had turned against their home country and supported the Vietnamese FNL. The ambivalent experience of the Intrepid Four with the high level of publicity in different contexts made most deserters cautious.98 As a frst move, the ADC therefore decided to call off an appearance for the Huntley-Brinkley Report on NBC to be flmed on February 25 in Stockholm. Besides, the deserters debated over the political line their committee should follow and whether to tone down public rhetoric. For example, the appeal of the Intrepid Four could be interpreted as an inducement to desert by the American authorities and serve as evidence for possible prosecution by military justice. Similarly, they were doubtful about the meaning and effect of antiwar statements and declarations of solidarity with the Vietnamese struggle for independence, which were promoted by the Swedish DFFG and which went beyond general antiwar protest and could lead to charges of aiding the enemy.99 The around twenty deserters involved in the ADC’s formation decided to focus on internal organizing, to come to a consensus on the position of the small but growing exile community, and to select peers to represent them.100 Several absentees acted as co-chairmen, speakers, media representatives, and editors of declarations, including the brochure of the Second Front in France, to which the ADC began to contribute in March. To integrate newcomers, the committee issued a questionnaire, in which they were asked about their background, motives, political views, work experience, and plans for life in exile. Also, the group sent out letters to the deserters in Sweden to keep them informed about social and legal matters and to invite them to participate in the ADC’s activities.101 The organizers included young Americans of different backgrounds and a relatively broad age range, from late teens to mid-twenties, all with a personal experience of military service and individual motives and circumstances of their decision to go AWOL and travel to Sweden to seek sanctuary. They

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were united by facing the consequences of their step and confronting life in exile, separated from family, friends, or partners in the United States, as well as dealing with the interest of the media and antiwar groups. Among them were men with some experience of publicity and activism in exile and few who had been involved in such within the military. Most had only arrived in early 1968, Blacks and whites, many of them privates and a few higher ranks, often from U.S. Army units in West Germany. Some had received orders to Vietnam, some had realized that their training would prepare them for the war, and some refused to be any part of the military any longer. The group included Roy Ray Jones, Richard Bailey, Jim Dotson, a twenty-two-year-old Black GI who had left his Army unit in Italy in January and had come to Sweden via Denmark, Robert Argento, a twenty-three-year-old U.S. Army sergeant absent from West Germany, and Bill Jones, twenty, an Army medic who had arrived in Sweden AWOL from West Germany in January. They were joined by deserters coming from the United States to Sweden, among them John Toler, a Green Beret sergeant of twenty-two, Army absentee John Ashley, also twenty-two, and twenty-four-year-old African American Donald Williams, the one with the longest record of service in the Army.102 The deserters were supported by Michel Vale, a thirty-two-year-old American expatriate, who had been living in Europe and Sweden for several years and worked as a translator. Vale was approached by Bertil Svahnström and Hans Göran Franck in early 1968 to take on the role of counselor to his young compatriots, which he shared with George Carrano and Sherman Adams. Carrano, twenty-six, moved to Sweden in early 1968 with a 1-A draft classifcation and had previously been involved in student organizing at Plattsburgh State University College, New York. Adams was a thirty-year-old African American expatriate and former heavyweight boxer, living in Sweden since coming there as a sparring partner of Floyd Patterson and Ingemar Johansson in 1963.103 The three Americans became mentors for the deserters in the organizing process and helped them understand and explain their act of desertion. Their political style and guidance was more accessible to the absentees, many of whom were only beginning to frame their action in political terms, than that of Swedish sympathizers of either side of the spectrum. Their backgrounds and infuence contributed to the ADC’s appropriation of political concepts from the American New Left and the Black Power movement. The ADC presented its position to the public and to sympathizers in a series of declarations. It emphasized its objective to ensure practical support for deserters in exile, legitimized their act of refusal as based on American ideals, and claimed a role in the American antiwar movement. The choice of name demonstrated the men’s new self-confdence as deserters and affrmed their identity as Americans, and thus rebutted the images of men without a country and defectors who had renounced their citizenship by refusing

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to serve and going abroad, promoted in media reports. In its “Statement of Purpose to the Swedish People,” which comes close to a constituting document and which was later updated as a general program, the ADC outlined its objective to tackle the practical problems of exile as well as its political goals and concern for control over publicity. The ADC’s “personal and immediate” work included assistance in fnding housing, jobs, and access to education, as well as the coordination and maintenance of Swedish support. The “political and long-run” objective was frst to provide a forum for the individuals’ coming to terms with their act of desertion, to “serve as a group within which we can discuss the political, collective meaning of our refusal of military service.” Second, the ADC was to become the representative body of the new exile community, “the instrument through which we make our position known in Europe, at home and in the armed forces to encourage others [. . .] to join us.”104 A “Declaration,” which somewhat echoed the Declaration of Independence and the preamble to the Constitution of the United States, began with “We, the American deserters in Sweden” and pointed out that exile had not been their own choice, but that they had been “forced by conscience to abandon [their] homeland” when confronted with the prospect of military service in Vietnam.105 Hoping for amnesty, they appealed to Americans to bring about “changes within the United States in order to create favorable conditions for our eventual return there.”106 In an adaptation of the Second Front’s message to Europeans, the ADC, claimed loyalty to the American ideals of “liberty, justice, equality, and democracy,” argued that the exiles were wrongfully accused of being “traitors to [their] country,” and instead charged the Johnson administration of “fundamental betrayal” of these principles in the Vietnam War.107 Moreover, frequent references to contemporary social and economic inequality in the United States, in particular racism, indicate the exiles’ concern to “retain [their] awareness, as Americans, to America’s problems.”108 The ADC used concepts from the Black Power movement on U.S. imperialism in Vietnam and “internal colonial tendencies” against Black Americans in the United States, where the draft system used the “black ghetto” as a “recruiting center” for the war in Vietnam and served to suppress racial uprisings.109 In consequence, the members of the ADC claimed to be an “integral part” of the American, rather than the international, antiwar movement.110 They considered themselves and their politics in line with those of war opponents in the United States, voiced by “eminent doctors, philosophers, and scientists” and the “American youth, who have repeatedly expressed their abhorrence for the war by demonstrations, draft resistance, and desertion.”111 Boasting the self-confdence of “courageous resistors to this war,” the deserters even regarded themselves in a vanguard position and felt an

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“obligation” to “stand as examples of resistance” to fellow Americans and a “duty” to lead a “crusade to inform the American people of the truth.”112 They called on Americans to follow their example, on workers to go on strike, scientists to refrain from contributing to arms technology, on young men to refuse to be drafted, and—despite earlier doubts—soldiers to desert.113 In fact, the ADC’s mission to encourage “American servicemen the world all over to sever all ties with their command” and to desert became one of the committee’s major efforts.114 ADC members published letters and pamphlets to GIs, contributed to The Second Front newspaper, and produced tapes to be aired on North Vietnamese and East German radio services directed at American soldiers. Like the Second Front in Paris, the ADC promoted “desertion” as the “only answer” and “only way to hasten the ending of the war.”115 With its publications, the ADC contributed to the international desertion campaigns and mobilization of opposition to the Vietnam War. Besides, the encouragement of others to desert functioned as a legitimization of its members’ own desertion and refected their own coming to terms with their acts. The committee’s tracts to American servicemen contain refections on masculinity, honor, cowardice, and death, and responded to common accusations against deserters, often by rhetorically reversing them. Bill Jones played on the theme of military training “making you a man, and making you a soldier,” “ready to die,” and “to kill.” He challenged American soldiers to “show them [the military] how a man really acts” and to make “a man’s decision” to leave and go into exile, instead of following orders.116 A sticker distributed in Europe in May 1968, picked up on the same theme by calling on American servicemen to “be a man, not a war machine, DESERT.”117 A leafet published by the ADC together with the FUADDR in Paris warned that “desertion isn’t for cowards,” but that it “takes guts to pick up and leave [. . .] and live in exile,” and rebutted the charge of shirking and desertion out of fear and lack of courage.118 Richard Bailey argued that the “loudmouth, insulting N[on] C[ommissioned] O[ffcer]” in Vietnam was “no hero,” but “a threat to mankind,” and that instead “true heroism” was not to “take life” but to “give [. . .] life.”119 John Ashley and Alan Cohen, a deserter from a U.S. Army unit in Ethiopia, argued that there was nothing disgraceful about desertion, but that it was an “honorable alternative to dying on the battlefelds for something you don’t support.”120 Death was also addressed in a provocative, cynical manner, for example, by spoofng military slogans, such as “Uncle Sam needs you—to stop the bullets, to smother the grenades,” and the military’s commitment to care of its members, “they clothe you, and feed you, and pay for your transportation to the war [. . .], [a]nd when you die, they’ll pay for your funeral.”121 Fear, however, was not openly discussed nor defended as a legitimate reason for deserting, but instead attributed by the ADC to GIs who “because of fear

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[. . .] are unable to dissociate themselves” from the U.S. military and required help and solidarity from the deserter exiles to overcome this anxiety.122 Members of the ADC were also concerned with human self-determination. The conviction to serve humanity, instead of the interests of the proponents of the war, had been expressed earlier by the Intrepid Four. Richard Bailey wrote in The Second Front that in exile deserters could “start their lives in the service of mankind” and invited others to join the ADC in “our work to save man’s future on earth.”123 The deserters maintained that their “duty to the rest of mankind and to the Vietnamese people far outweighed our duty to the US Army,” valuing universal human rights over military duty and discipline. This concerned both “our fellow men” as well as the young Americans’ own right to self-determination, who refused to be “used as pawns in the deadly game of world imperialism.”124 As deserters, they had regained their personal freedom and human dignity, which the military took away from recruits by treating them like “animals” and turning them into “well-running machine[s], easy to control, easy to handle.”125 The deserter groups in France and Sweden exchanged letters and discussed cooperation early on. As soon as the formation of the frst committee in Sweden had been announced, the organizers of RITA contacted their counterparts in Sweden.126 However, when the ADC was initiated, it became clear that its focus on desertion as the best form of antiwar resistance for American servicemen was more compatible with the objective of the Second Front in Paris. Moreover, the mentors of the two groups had similar backgrounds in the American New Left and shared suspicions toward Thomas Schwaetzer, his media politics, and his support for RITA and the promotion of the ASU in Europe.127 After a visit of George Carrano in Paris and further correspondence, the ADC and the Second Front agreed to form an International Union of American Deserters and Draft Resisters (IUADDR).128 Its objective was to contribute to the international desertion campaigns and amplify the voices of exiled deserters. An appeal to the “Guys Still in the Armed Forces,” published jointly by the groups in Paris and Stockholm, recommended to GIs to “split before it’s to late” and to come to France or Sweden. Using GI slang, the pamphlet warned that leaving the military and going into exile took courage, however assured that “people will support you,” either the students in Europe, Japan, and North America, and suggested even to desert “in Nam.” In the war zone, accordingly, GIs faced a deadly dilemma, as in Vietnam “unless you desert, you either kill or get killed.”129 The fyer was inspired by the earlier message with almost the same title published in 1967 by those deserters and their supporters in France, who were to form RITA. However, it replaced the general encouragement to resist the war, either by deserting or protesting inside the military, with an explicit call to desert.

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Beginning in May, the IAUDDR produced a newspaper, titled The Second Front and replacing the previous brochure of the same name, to promote desertion from the U.S. armed forces. It came out for the frst time on May 8, 1968, the anniversary of Victory in Europe Day, when a desertion campaign was launched by German students and American activists in West Berlin and West Germany.130 The paper was similar in style to Act and allowed American exiles in Sweden and France to speak out and publicize their motives to desert and their views on the Vietnam War. It also provided information for American servicemen about the European sanctuaries for absentees, on how to go about getting there, as well as addresses of groups helping American deserters in North America, Europe, and Japan. However, different contacts were presented for France and Sweden than in Act, refecting both groups’ claim to receive newly arriving deserters and the mutual distrust that had evolved in the spring. Moreover, The Second Front promoted desertion as the only unequivocal form of resistance available to American servicemen and thus did not report on the larger GI movement in the U.S. military nor suggest other ways for servicemen to protest or resist the war.131

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THE RETURN OF ROY RAY JONES AND SELF-DEFENSE OF THE ADC Among the central motives for the American exiles in Sweden to form the ADC had been to limit and control publicity and to maintain independence from Swedish groups. However, a rush of events brought the ADC to the spotlight soon after its initiation, and the deserters came to align themselves politically with the Swedish New Left. In March 1968, Roy Ray Jones, the frst American deserter who had come to Sweden one year before, returned to U.S. military control in West Germany, and the American journalist, who had arranged this, came back to Stockholm and encouraged others to surrender, too. The ADC was prompted to act and defend the deserters, and with the support of Swedish leftists strove to expose illegal actions of the American authorities in Sweden and to appeal for a secure asylum status. In this context, relations with moderate Swedish supporters worsened, and with the arrival of another group of deserters from Japan via Moscow tensions escalated, because both the ADC leaders and Bertil Svahnström felt entitled to receive the men in Sweden. These events evince the deserters’ diffcult struggle for a unifed voice, their exposition to the media, to local political groups, and to the threats of the U.S. authorities—actual or imagined—as well as the complicated relations between individuals and their personal experience of desertion, collective self-perception, and perceptions by others.

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In March, just after the ADC’s formation, the American exiles were shocked by the sudden return of Roy Ray Jones and their apparent insecurity in Sweden, as his decision had been encouraged by Americans who had acted as mediators with the military authorities and against whose activities their asylum status obviously did not insulate the deserters. Such vulnerability of an individual absentee reinforced the deserters’ conviction of the necessity to unite and support the young exile community. The newly formed ADC planned to stage a coup to unmask the Americans involved in Jones’s return as government agents, to publicize the deserters’ precarious situation in Sweden, and to appeal for full status as political refugees with protection from the reach of the U.S. authorities in neutral Sweden. Support for the strategy came from activists of the Swedish New Left, rather than from the SKfV. With the action, the ADC proved it could confront the American authorities and defend and protect its constituency, and established itself as a representative body of the deserters in Sweden. Jones’s decision came rather unexpectedly for the American exiles and their Swedish sympathizers, as he and his German wife Gabriele had quite successfully made a life in Sweden for themselves and their son, who had been born in December 1967. They were both employed and rented their own apartment. Jones had participated in the formation of the ADC and had given a speech at the until-then largest Swedish Vietnam antiwar rally at Sergels Torg in February, next to Olof Palme, Gunnar Myrdal, and the North Vietnamese ambassador to the Soviet Union, Nguyen Tho Chan.132 His press statement upon arrival in Frankfurt, West Germany, before surrendering to the U.S. Army, bewildered American exiles and Swedes alike, when he portrayed the latter as inhospitable, particularly toward Black people, and they suspected that his return had not been voluntary.133 ADC member Donald Williams argued that his “brother” and “very good friend” had “made a deal with The Man” to receive lenient punishment in exchange for such allegations about Sweden. Moreover, his two suicide attempts before the trial were evidence that he had been pressured to return.134 Roy Ray Jones came back to Stockholm with his family in May 1969, just over a year after his departure, to once again apply for asylum, after he had experienced discrimination in the United States as a deserter and for his interracial relationship. He gave an elaborate account in his new appeal of how he had been compelled to surrender with threats to his own and his family’s safety combined with offers for leniency. Jones had suggested as early as in August 1967 that he did not feel entirely secure in Sweden and indicated that “certain organizations can easily kidnap you.”135 He described how in 1967 and 1968 he had been approached by Americans, who expressed interest in his situation in Sweden and discussed options and prospects of returning to the

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United States with him. One of the men was Black journalist Richard Gibson, then based in London. He frst visited Stockholm in 1967 and was suspicious to Jones and Swedish activists early on because of his strong curiosity in the Black deserter and the Swedish antiwar movement, as well as the discrepancy between his demeanor as leftist reporter and his lodging at the prestigious Strand Hotel.136 In March 1968, Jones received a proposal for lenient treatment upon voluntary surrender by William Russell, a white Mississippian of sixty-two years and editor of the Army Times in Frankfurt, West Germany, who acted as an intermediary for the U.S. Army authorities. According to Jones, he eventually gave in to the pressure from Gibson and Russell and a personal offer by USAREUR Judge Advocate Lewis Shull via telephone. He few to Frankfurt with Russell, who instructed him in detail on “what to say to the press.”137 On April 3, 1968, Roy Ray Jones pleaded guilty at a U.S. Army general court-martial in Fürth, West Germany, of unauthorized absence for over one year, and received a sentence of four months at hard labor, a bad conduct discharge, as well as forfeiture of all pay and allowances. Defense counsel Captain Thomas Atkins appealed to the court for leniency, after Jones had attempted twice to take his own life while awaiting trial. Atkins argued that Jones had “learned his lesson” and returned voluntarily, and therefore had deserved “a chance to make something of his life.” Moreover, he found, a stiff sentence would deter other potential returnees among the American deserters, who were “used as anti-American tools” in Sweden.138 With such arrangements and leniency, far short of the possible maximum penalty for desertion of fve years of imprisonment and dishonorable discharges, the U.S. military authorities were aiming to encourage more returns and prevent further desertions and thus score a “propaganda victory” over the often positive depictions of the Swedish sanctuary in the media and its advertisement in the antiwar movement.139 The plan was successful at frst, in that American media reports presented Jones as remorseful returnee, not least in publications for military personnel, and speculated “‘reverse defections’ had only begun.”140 However, on the long run, the move did not stop the increase of the AWOL and desertion rates from the U.S. armed forces in Europe, nor in general, which would continue beyond the end of the American escalation of the war in Vietnam. Moreover, observers from the defense community found Jones’s term, which subsequently was suspended to three months, much too light, not least in light of his antiwar declarations made in Sweden in 1967 and early 1968. At the hearings of a subcommittee of the Senate Committee on Armed Services on the American military absentees abroad, held in May 1968, Chairman Senator Daniel Inouye, a highly decorated veteran of the Second World War, argued that such lenient punishment was ineffective as a deterrent of

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further desertions and, besides, sent the wrong message to young Americans in general. This way, desertion, the much more grave offense, would become an attractive alternative to resistance to the draft, for which higher sentences were issued by the courts.141 The committee therefore urged the military authorities to abandon this strategy and instead prosecute absentees from the armed forces with greater rigor and stringency.142 A few days after the surrender of Roy Ray Jones, William Russell returned to Sweden to make similar offers to the other deserters. On March 15, he attended the ADC’s frst press conference, which focused on the Jones case, and announced that absentees willing to return within the next two days could expect lenient treatment. The deserters speaking for the ADC laughed scornfully at Russell’s proposal, accused him of being a government agent and of illegally intervening into Swedish affairs, and asked him to leave the meeting. Russell denied such allegations to the Swedish press, of course. However, for the ADC, his knowledge about forty-two American deserters in Sweden, including recent arrivals, was proof that he was at least cooperating with the American military authorities.143 Besides their publication of Russell’s involvement in the return of Roy Ray Jones, the ADC’s organizers plotted to catch him red-handed as well as expose illegal participation of the U.S. embassy in facilitating the return of American deserters from Sweden. They set a trap together with editors of the leftist weekly Tidsignal and sympathizing students. Pretending to be Fulbright students, John Armfeld and Peter Gross, that is Michel Vale and George Carrano, called Russell early on March 16 to inform him about deserters willing to turn themselves in. They stated that the deserters refused to enter the American embassy and insisted on discussing the deal on Swedish territory. For the meeting, an apartment at the Jerum student dormitory was equipped with microphones and tape recorders to document Russell’s actions. In the morning of Sunday, March 17, the deadline of his return-for-leniency offer, Russell arrived at the apartment, where Army deserter and ADC cochairman James Dotson posed as willing to surrender. Consul Merle Arp of the U.S. embassy was authorized by his superiors to join them at Jerum to issue temporary identifcation papers. When he began to fll in the forms, several persons barged into the apartment, among them Carrano, Vale, and Tidsignal’s Bo Hammar, taking pictures of the scene and shouting “you will see this in the papers,” before Arp and Russell were able to leave.144 With photographs and tape recordings as evidence, the ADC and Tidsignal intended to publicize these, as they saw it, illegal undertakings of American agents and the U.S. embassy in Sweden, interfering into domestic affairs and violating the sanctuary of the American military absentees. However, before the report was to appear several days later, Swedish and American dailies had already published the line of Russell and the U.S. embassy. The

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latter had immediately informed the wire services to “spike [the] story” of the “entrapment” and alleged theft of identity certifcates from Arp.145 Swedish newspapers cited Consul Arp that there had been “no scrimmage at all.” American media, however, reported that he and Russell had been “jostled” and “pushed around” to have both men in one picture as proof for their complicity, based on Russell’s account.146 Although a Department of State spokesman denied the “supposed rouging up” and in spite of a reply by Tidsignal reporter Bo Hammar in the Swedish press that there had been no violence and no theft of certifcate forms, the deserters in Sweden had already been widely portrayed as troublemakers.147 Thus, the detailed report in Tidsignal did not have a scoop’s effect, which the ADC and the paper’s publishers had hoped for. Complete with pictures of Arp, Russell, and Dotson—obviously none of them arranged by force as alleged in the American press—Tidsignal argued that the incident at Jerum was proof that American agents were operating in Sweden and working covertly with the U.S. embassy there. The Swedish government was criticized for tolerating these activities and called upon to protect the security of the deserters as “political refugees.”148 The strategy of the ADC and its sympathizers to provoke an outcry about unhampered activities of U.S. agents and to pressure the Swedish government to defend the status of the American deserters as one of political asylum failed. Instead, the unconventional methods and the allegations of violence created an image of the deserters as troublemakers, rather than that of victims of the American authorities’ “manhunt,” as communist biweekly Ny Dag phrased it.149 Nevertheless, the Jerum incident created considerable embarrassment for William Russell and the United States. Russell ended his efforts to encourage absentees to return, and the American embassy adapted a policy to provide counsel and assistance to deserters considering a surrender only on its own grounds, not least to avoid further charges of illegal interference into Swedish affairs.150 Furthermore, the practice of the Swedish authorities to continue to grant residence permits to American deserters applying for political asylum in Sweden as well as the absence of another test case for the men’s status and security left most of them and their sympathizers believing that the sanctuary was safe and dispersed most doubts about whether they were political refugees. With the coup, the ADC forged its status as the representative body of the growing exile community, with the Jerum affair as a kind of founding myth and proof of the committee’s capability of protecting the deserters and even confronting the American authorities.151 As it had been supported in the affair by Swedish leftists and the DFFG, rather than the SKfV, the ADC came to position itself closer to the former, diverging from the principle to maintain the deserters’ independence from Swedish politics on which it had been founded.152

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REPRESENTATION CLAIMS AND CONFLICTS With the new self-confdence gained from the Jerum coup, the ADC laid claim to represent all American deserters present in and coming to Sweden. Along with the committee’s alliance with the DFFG, this led to frictions with some of the exiles’ Swedish supporters, in particular Bertil Svahnström, chairman of the International Liaison Committee of the Stockholm Conference on Vietnam and vice chairman of the SKfV. When Svahnström invited American deserters to the Emergency Consultative Meeting of the Stockholm Conference held in late March 1968 without contacting the ADC, members of the latter felt offended. They accused him of having disregarded the ADC as the representative body of the American exiles and thus excluding them from this important event of the international antiwar movement, which was attended by prominent activists from the United States and representatives from Vietnam.153 The participation of the American deserters was of special value for Svahnström and the organizers of the conference, and the appeal of the Intrepid Four was sent out with the invitations. The deserters were proof of growing dissent within the U.S. armed forces and would motivate participants of the international movement to take on the question of “defectors and indictments” and the search for further sanctuaries for military absentees, in particular, after earlier appeals had often focused on draft refusers.154 The presentation of deserters at the conference also refected the pride Svahnström and Swedish pacifsts took in their vanguard role in this matter and their success of having pushed the Swedish government to grant them asylum. For the ADC, in turn, participation in the meeting was critical, as it marked the frst opportunity to appear before the international antiwar scene and to meet American activists. After some debate between the deserters and Svahnström and the mediation of an American delegate to the conference, Bill Jones was allowed to participate and speak for the ADC.155 However, rather than for a discussion of the American deserters’ situation in exile, Jones used the podium to criticize the SKfV and praise the DFFG. Like the ADC, the latter had not offcially been invited to the conference, and two of its members had only come to the event with Jones. To the international audience, in particular the delegates from Vietnam, he lauded the DFFG for the mobilization of the strong antiwar sentiment in Sweden and told of how they had initiated protest activities in 1965. Moreover, he expressed the deserters’ gratitude for support by the DFFG, which “more than any other single organization here in Sweden [. . .] faithfully stood by us deserters” in practical and political matters. The SKfV, in turn, had “constituted effortlessly” and only co-opted the Vietnam question, according to Jones. He accused its leaders of exploiting it for their “personal glory and self-satisfaction”

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and claiming credit for the Swedish opposition to the Vietnam War.156 Jones employed Swedish leftists’ view of the SKfV as a paper organization formed by the social democrats to utilize the Vietnam question to integrate young Swedes into their electorate.157 However, he thereby neglected previous merits of members of the SKfV in the peace movement, for example, Bertil Svahnström’s leadership in the campaign against nuclear armament and Hans Göran Franck’s involvement in Amnesty International, apart from their instrumental role in opening the Swedish sanctuary for American deserters in the frst place in 1967. In particular, Svahnström as host of the conference felt affronted and embarrassed by Jones’s comments. Without doubt, the relationship between the ADC and the SKfV was seriously damaged. The confict between Svahnström and the ADC escalated when in May six deserters were expected to arrive in Stockholm from the Soviet Union, among them the frst ones who had served in Vietnam before publicizing their desertion as protest against the war, and both parties laid claim to welcoming them in Sweden.158 After staying with members of Beheiren’s underground network in Japan for several weeks, in some cases months, the group had been transferred to the Soviet Union in late April.159 They were interviewed on television and featured by newspapers there, and their statements were transmitted worldwide. Their accounts of torture, atrocities, and rape committed by Americans servicemen in Vietnam and their experience as war veterans made them particularly attractive as witnesses of the war, not only to the Soviets but also to European war opponents and the ADC, until then comprised of men who had not seen the war.160 The six newcomers were attributed similar moral authority as other veterans who, as insiders, had reported on illegal means employed by the U.S. military in Vietnam, such as Donald Duncan and Peter Martinsen, witnesses at the Russell Tribunal in 1967.161 Moreover, as war veterans, the six deserters added a new dimension to the debate on desertion. As they had already served, they could not easily be labeled cowards. In fact, one of the absentees, Marine Corps corporal Terry Whitmore, had been awarded a Bronze Star and a Purple Heart by President Johnson himself, after he had been wounded at Con Thien in December 1967.162 Finally, the group represented several ethnicities and social classes and thus symbolized American society and the Vietnam generation. Whitmore was a twenty-one-year-old African American from Memphis, Army private Kenneth Griggs, twenty-one, had been adopted by an American family as an orphan of the Korean War, nineteen-year-old Army specialist Mark Shapiro came from a Jewish middle-class family; also nineteen, seaman Philip Callicoat was the son of a pastor from Ohio, and Marine Corps private Joseph Kmetz from New York, twenty-seven, and Army specialist Edwin Arnett from California, twenty-nine, rated as white working-class.163

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In mid-May Bertil Svahnström corresponded with the Soviet Peace Committee to arrange the transfer of the group to Sweden, as he had in the case of the Intrepid Four half a year before. In his letter to executive secretary Mikhail Kotov, he mentioned the “considerable interest” in the war-veteran deserters in Sweden and told of the “a little complicated” situation in Sweden concerning the “position and treatment of the deserters,” alluding to the conficts with the ADC and the DFFG. He asked Kotov to therefore let the SKfV handle the case to make sure that the six deserters would not be “put into wrong hands.”164 The Russians complied, and soon after, the SKfV received a telegram from Moscow, which in the name of the six deserters asked for their reception in Sweden and assistance in their application for asylum there.165 For their arrival, Svahnström scheduled a press conference with the newcomers to present them to the Swedish and Western publics and have them report on their war experience and motives to desert once more, this time independent from the perspective of the Soviets.166 At the same time, the ADC claimed responsibility for the newcomers. The reception of the men traveling the “Rising Sun Route” from Japan via the Soviet Union to Europe meant a major step in the mobilization of an international desertion network proposed by the ADC and the Second Front in Paris in early April.167 At a rally held on Sergels Torg in Stockholm, the ADC announced the cooperation of the exiles in France and Sweden in the IUADDR and with Western European and Japanese antiwar activists, euphorically expecting the deserters from Japan next to many more from North America and West Germany.168 The ADC and its partners in France anticipated these war veterans’ political potential and featured a declaration by Kenneth Griggs in The Second Front brochure, which had been publicized previously in Japan by Beheiren.169 When he and the other fve deserters from Japan awaited to be transferred to Sweden after their fve-week stay in the Soviet Union, ADC cochairman Bill Jones was eager to get in touch with them and even considered traveling to Moscow to meet and escort them to Stockholm. The deserters’ committee approached Bertil Svahnström on whether the SKfV could fund and arrange this trip, which he denied, however.170 Without doubt, the request was impracticable at this late point and, besides, quite intemperate in light of the previous frictions. Still, the ADC’s leaders once more felt bypassed and turned down by Svahnström. On Saturday, May 25, the six deserters arrived from Leningrad at Arlanda Airport. Bertil Svahnström and members of the SKfV as well as newspeople welcomed them. After posing for the cameras on the tarmac in front of their plane, the men were brought to the police station by Svahnström to register and apply for asylum. The roughly two dozen ADC members who had also come to the airport could not greet the long-awaited newcomers, however,

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and their anger at Svahnström grew. As the six deserters from Moscow had entered Sweden without visas, they had to stay in police custody for a few days until they received preliminary residence permits—the usual procedure American AWOLees underwent upon arrival in Sweden. Svahnström informed them about the press conference he had planned for after their release and offered them assistance in fnding housing and work. He also warned them of the ADC and its allegedly dogmatic leaders.171 The press conference with the eagerly awaited war veterans failed, however, and an embarrassed Bertil Svahnström had to explain their absence to the journalists assembled at Folkets Hus in Stockholm. He reported that the six deserters had disappeared from the police station shortly before the event, had “defected” to the ADC or been “kidnapped” by its leaders. In fact, Bill Jones, Donald Williams, and Michel Vale had visited them just before their release from custody. They maintained that the newcomers had not been ready for a media appearance so shortly after their arrival in Sweden and had not been offered much of a choice by Svahnström than to comply with his plan. Therefore, they had chosen to accept the ADC’s offer of support in settling in Stockholm. Clearly, the failed press conference with the war-veteran deserters meant the next embarrassment for Svahnström and the SKfV caused by the ADC. He charged the committee of having sabotaged the event and declared any future cooperation between the SKfV and the deserter committee impossible. Moreover, he disputed the ADC’s claim to represent the American exiles and contended that it only comprised of a quarter of all deserters in Sweden.172 A few days later, the ADC held its own press conference with some of the newly arrived absentees. It focused, however, not on their war experiences and motives to desert, which some of them later discussed in The Second Front brochure, but on their decision not to appear before the press with Svahnström.173 Moreover, ADC members defended their committee’s politics and its right to represent the American exiles in Sweden and accused Svahnström and the SKfV of having attempted to divide the deserters.174 Philip Callicoat pointed out that he and the others had not been forced to go along with the ADC. Wary of “authoritarian measures” after his experience of military service, the Soviet Union, and underground life in Japan, he asserted that he “would have become physically violent if these two men [Vale and Jones] would have tried to pressure us into coming with them.” Instead, they “simply presented their program” at the jail and let the newcomers discuss the matter among themselves, before deciding whom to join, the ADC or Svahnström. Callicoat found that the “[American Deserters C]ommittee stood for the same thing I did” and decided to accept its offer, along with three others, while two decided to accept Bertil Svahnström’s offer for support. When the police released them, the ADC representatives were waiting

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for them, took all six to Stockholm, and provided them with Svahnström’s phone number.175 African American draft resister Walter Woods responded to Svahnström’s allegations against the ADC, which denounced it as a group run by political extremists and involving only a minority of the exiles in Sweden. According to Woods, more than half of all deserters, and four-ffths of those living in the Stockholm area, participated in the committee. Moreover, its organizers held “moderate” political views and were “far from the extremist trouble makers,” as which they were presented in the media and by “unfriendly individuals and groups.” In particular, he defended Bill Jones against “libelous” accusations by Svahnström of being an “irresponsible anarchistic madman.”176 In turn, Bill Jones explained the ADC’s objective to “educate ourselves,” learn “self respect,” and mobilize and support those “frailer than us,” and made a strong case for the committee’s independence from Swedish groups and their “misconceptions” of the deserters and their situation. He accused “bourgeois” Swedes of “seek[ing] to disunite us” and of using “humanitarian aid of commiseration and pity, or egocentric pampering and fattery” of individual deserters to their own end and for their own prestige. Bertil Svahnström, accordingly, had “run the deserters through too much of a publicity mill” in early 1968, subjecting them to “exploitation” by the media, and then subverted the ADC’s political development and status as a representative body. On the other hand, Jones now also criticized DFFG activists for having failed to appropriately handle politically inexperienced American deserters, whom they had deterred with leftist concepts and their radical solidarity with the Vietnamese FNL.177 Bertil Svahnström faced further criticism by the ADC and its Swedish leftist sympathizers. The committee published a long catalogue of complaints about Svahnström and his alleged “abuse of the ADC” and “personal vendetta” against Bill Jones, who was emerging as the committee’s primary spokesman. The deserters reiterated that Svahnström did not respect the ADC as a representative body and had bypassed it in several cases. It accused him of pressuring American exiles not to participate in leftist events and to quit their political engagement, promising fnancial support, and warning them that political organizing could jeopardize their residence status in Sweden. According to the text, Svahnström slandered the ADC with potential sympathizers, including American antiwar activists, by depicting it as “run by Maoist extremists” and infltrated by the CIA. The ADC insisted on its independence and its refusal to be “associated with any issues within domestic Swedish politics” and “used as pawns between opposing Swedish factions.”178 However, the ADC had practically chosen sides by this time, and its grievances were augmented by the DFFG’s own animosity against Bertil

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Svahnström, the SKfV, and Hans Göran Franck. The FNL groups had ruled out “all political cooperation with people like Bertil Svahnström” when the Working Group to Aid American War Resisters was formed in early 1968 and by May declared a “virtual break with Franck, Svahnström, and their like” in the deserter question. Hans Göran Franck was criticized for having “pressured the deserters into political passivity” by the DFFG’s deserter committee, and the ADC complained that he did not share his address list of American deserters in Sweden.179 Franck’s and Svahnström’s advice to the deserters on political matters was in fact not meant to prohibit any activities or statements, but rather an appeal for moderation to not risk the sympathies for the absentees in the Swedish public and government agencies. After all, it had been Svahnström and Franck, who had defended the deserters’ right to political engagement and free speech in Sweden, when the regulations for asylum were discussed at the turn of 1967 and 1968. Nevertheless, the frictions described above had led to a rupture between the organized deserters and their original Swedish supporters, which could not easily be resolved, even less so in the context of the conficts between the SKfV and the DFFG. Later on, Franck and Svahnström were even confronted with defaming rumors regarding their past. Franck was accused of cooperation with the CIA when he was a member of the socialist student organization Clarté around the year 1950, and there were claims that Svahnström had sympathized with the Nazis as a press correspondent in Germany during the 1930s and 1940s. Franck and Svahnström assumed that the ADC’s mentor Michel Vale was behind this, and suspicions came up that he worked as an infltrator with the objective of splitting the deserter community and their Swedish supporters.180 What may appear as an irrational act of the deserters biting the hand that fed them, and what some observers considered the actions of provocateurs, must be understood with regard to the complex situation of the American deserters in exile in 1968. In fact, a sociologist from the United States, who visited Sweden to study the exiles in 1969, suggested it was not unusual that such striving for “self-determination requires that we break with our benefactors” to explain the ADC’s confrontation with Svahnström and the SKfV.181 In addition to their diffcult personal process of reconciliation with their situation, the young and politically inexperienced men were confronted with the interest of rivaling sympathizers and the international media, with endorsement and exploitation. Organizing a committee, adopting political strategies, and speaking out were means taken by the deserters with the objective to gain independence and control over their image. Certain actions collided with the concepts of some of their Swedish supporters and threatened to compromise the latter’s sympathies, and in turn mobilized the support of others. The deserters’ style of activism and politics was unconventional and sometimes impulsive, and they often clasped to the newly learned political

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ideas and strategies. They were unusual participants of the Vietnam debate in Sweden, and their position changed substantially when their number grew. Moderate Swedish war opponents were irritated by the ADC’s politics and the bold demeanor of its leaders, who strove to claim the role of representatives for the deserters from them, while young leftists were fascinated with the young Americans’ political radicalization. Not least, the similar age of young Swedes and American deserters, mutual attraction, and common popcultural inclinations contributed to their association, while most members of the SKfV represented the Swedish social democratic establishment and came from older generations, its chairman Gunnar Myrdal at sixty-nine and Bertil Svahnström at sixty.182

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RECOGNITION IN THE INTERNATIONAL AND AMERICAN ANTIWAR MOVEMENTS The day-to-day challenges of exile and the relations with local groups and authorities occupied much of the deserters’ lives. But a major objective of their organizing was to reach out to U.S. servicemen and to the American antiwar movement. Their declarations and statements refected the men’s longing for recognition of their action as part of international, and in particular, American, protest against the Vietnam War. Endorsements by prominent war opponents were thus invaluable for their self-assurance and vindication, such as the appeal for solidarity for the deserters by representatives of the French peace movement of February 1968, cited above, Bertrand Russell’s “warmest good wishes for the growth of the [American Deserters] Committee” and solidarity with “ex-servicemen who courageously refuse to have anything further to do with this ugly aggression” in May, or American singer Phil Ochs’s concerts for the beneft of the deserters at Konserthuset in Stockholm in June.183 During the frst half of 1968, desertion by American servicemen was primarily a theme of the international Vietnam debate, not least because of the imminent issue of asylum and exile. Here, they were more visible than in the United States, where desertion and assistance took place mostly underground, while in Europe and Japan they were frst recognized as war resisters. Reports from abroad, and especially personal encounters between deserter exiles and American activists, were then crucial in mobilizing solidarity and support from the antiwar movement in the United States, as when Ernest Young had communicated the case of the Intrepid Four from Japan. The new recognition of deserters in Sweden and France and their relations with American antiwar groups both affected exile activism and contributed to the growth of solidarity work for military absentees inside the United States.

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In 1968, several international conferences on the Vietnam War followed up on the discussion on desertion and war resistance of 1967, recognized the now more pressing issues of asylum and practical support on their agendas, and expressed solidarity with the growing number of young Americans refusing to serve in the war. In February, the International Vietnam Congress in West Berlin recognized the potential of desertion to weaken the U.S. armed forces and its crucial role in the turn from protest to resistance called for by the initiators of the event. In March, the Stockholm Conference on Vietnam appealed to the international Vietnam movement to support American deserters and draft resisters and to campaign for additional sanctuaries. In July, the World Conference of Lawyers for Vietnam in Grenoble declared that desertion by young Americans was a legitimate act of refusal to participate in a war of aggression and in accordance with the principles laid down by the war crimes trials at Nuremberg. And in August, Japanese and American activists discussed the matter at an international convention on the Vietnam War organized by Beheiren in Kyoto.184 American deserters were sometimes invited to such events and participated in countries where they were safe from the U.S. and allied authorities. While deserters had to pass on invitations to the conference in West Berlin, American exiles in Sweden joined the Stockholm Conference, as noted above, and in late July and early August 1968, a delegation of the ADC visited the World Youth Festival in Sofa, Bulgaria, which focused on the war in Vietnam.185 There, American deserters encountered not only international and American war opponents but also representatives from North Vietnam, who honored them for their refusal to fght and presented them each with a fower and an aluminum ring made from shot-down U.S. Air Force planes. Their appearance in Sofa was not only recognized and publicized in communist states but also in the international antiwar movement, not least with a Soviet produced flm with English commentary for distribution in the West.186 ADC members were also esteemed participants and speakers at Vietnam and Third World solidarity meetings in Scandinavian countries and traveled to speak there, such as in Helsinki in April and in Copenhagen in October 1968.187 American deserters approached activists from the United States to ask for solidarity and support whenever they had the opportunity. Such personal encounters with exiled deserters contributed substantially to their recognition in the American antiwar movement and an integration of their plight into the Vietnam debate. For example, at a conference organized by the World Federation of Democratic Youth in April 1968 in Stockholm, deserters of the ADC discussed their situation in exile and dissent among American servicemen with Ken Cloke, who as a specialist on draft and military law was intensifying his work in the latter feld at the time. Other American participants

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of this meeting included members of the National Mobilization Committee to End the War in Vietnam, the W.E.B. Du Bois Clubs, and the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC).188 In July, ADC cochairman Bill Jones spoke at the convention of the World Council of Churches in Uppsala, Sweden, which recognized the refusal to bear arms and “voluntary exile for reasons of conscience” in time of war in its resolutions on human rights and on refugees, and appealed for solidarity and compassion for the young men. Jones and fellow ADC members discussed their plight with American clergymen participating in the conference, who then brought the issue of practical support for the exiles on the agenda of Clergy and Laymen Concerned About Vietnam (CALCAV).189 While such meetings between American deserters and war opponents from the United States were facilitated rather easily in countries of exile, some of the encounters took place in the Eastern bloc. At the World Youth Festival in Sofa, the disparate backgrounds of the deserters, mostly from the working class, and the delegates from the United States, many of them students, caused certain irritations over political theory and the practice of desertion. Moreover, in the general atmosphere of euphoria, cautiousness, and distrust at the event, where Western New Leftists confronted communists loyal to the Soviet Union, closer contact between the deserters and the other American visitors was further complicated.190 In September 1968, members of the ADC participated in a meeting of American activists of SDS and draft resistance groups with representatives of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV) and the Vietnamese FNL in Budapest. It was organized by David Dellinger of the National Mobilization Committee to End the War and had a focus on mobilizing opposition among American servicemen. The deserters, representing this development, drew their compatriots’ interest in their action and new life in exile. Subsequently, two of the participants of the meeting in Budapest, international secretary of SDS Bernardine Dohrn and former SDS national offcer Vernon Grizzard of the Boston Draft Resistance Group, included a visit to the deserters in Stockholm in their itinerary of meetings with European New Left leaders.191 These encounters with deserters in European exile were instrumental for an increased awareness among American antiwar groups of their cause. To improve American support for the exiles, David Dellinger and CALCAV executive secretary Richard Fernandez organized a visit of an interorganizational delegation to France and Sweden to assess the situation of the deserters there, combined with a meeting with North Vietnamese and FNL representatives regarding the peace negotiations in Paris.192 The trip, undertaken in late October 1968, had the greatest effect on the debates on desertion and exile in the United States as well as on the deserter communities in Europe until then. Upon returning to America, participants reported

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on the meetings with the absentees, not least in the denominational- and alternative press, and presented a sympathizing picture of the deserters, quite different from those in the American mainstream media and from that of European observers.193 Furthermore, in the spring of 1969 CALCAV commissioned Episcopal priest and antiwar activist Thomas Lee Hayes to Sweden for one year to provide guidance for the growing exile community and to coordinate support activities. This new interest of American antiwar groups in the exiled deserters in 1968 was enhanced by a general turn of the American movement to the situation of U.S. servicemen, which included support and counsel for oppositional GIs, mobilization of dissent among soldiers, as well as the assistance of deserters, both to escape to Europe or Canada, and through church sanctuaries inside the United States.194 The delegation, which in late October traveled to Europe from the United States, represented a wide spectrum of the American antiwar movement. It comprised of SDS member Martin Kenner, Resist central committee member Grace Paley, Vietnam veteran and founder of the servicemen’s newspaper Vietnam GI Jeff Sharlet, director of the National Black Anti-War Anti-Draft Union John Wilson, and civil rights lawyers Howard Moore and Charles Webster. Moreover, sociologist and historian Franz Schurmann, law professor Joseph Sax, theologians and CALCAV leaders Harvey Cox, Michael Novak, and Richard John Neuhaus, and Episcopal priest David Gracie participated. The group further included Peace and Freedom Party candidate for the U.S. Senate Paul Jacobs, journalist John Cogley, and Edwin Janss of Business Executives Move for Peace in Vietnam. The original list of had also included Noam Chomsky of Resist, Howard Zinn of the National Mobilization Committee, and retired U.S. Army captain Albert Nowell. Eventually, the mother of a deserter, Marjorie Dunn of Iowa, came to Europe with the delegation to see her twenty-one-year-old son Dennis for the frst time since he had departed to West Germany, where he had gone AWOL in the spring of 1968.195 In Paris, the visitors met with American deserters and draft resisters, some of whom joined the consultations with representatives of the Vietnamese FNL and the DRV.196 According to the delegation’s reports, the twenty deserters present at the meetings and their colleagues remaining in France, after several had relocated to Sweden, had settled rather well at this point and had overcome most of the diffculties they had faced in the wake of the May revolt. Besides support from the network of French and American sympathizers, they received counsel from William Bloom, a Presbyterian minister from the United States, who worked as a student pastor in Paris.197 In Stockholm, however, they found the over 150 deserters in the middle of a debate on their status in Sweden. In addition, conficts among the exiles on the ADC’s role and leadership broke open during the visit. The deserters feared that their

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sanctuary in Sweden was at risk and suspected that the government’s asylum policy was changing to their disadvantage after the social democrats’ landslide victory in September, which was credited in part to its cooptation of the Vietnam and deserter issues, thus attracting young voters.198 These doubts were prompted by expulsion orders from Sweden for military absentees convicted of theft upon completion of their prison sentences, and by Swedish government representatives’ reluctance to defend the policy of sanctuary for deserters. In addition, some applications for residence permits by American draft refusers were denied, although the authorities had previously treated this group like military absentees.199 The American delegation arrived in Stockholm when the ADC and Swedish sympathizers were launching a campaign for full political asylum for all war refusers from the United States with a large assembly at Medborgarhuset. The visitors joined the meeting, and several of them spoke there to express the support of the American antiwar movement for their young compatriots in exile.200 Their perspectives ranged from a pacifst legitimization of desertion and Christian charity to a political interpretation in the context of international anti-imperialism. Harvey Cox extended “personal and pastoral greetings from the United States” to the deserters, whom many Americans “applaud[ed] and appreciate[d]” and were “proud of.” He addressed the deserters as “our fellow countrymen,” countered their exclusion and alienation from American society, and expressed the hope that they would soon be able to return “back home not as errant children but as the champions of conscience and the witnesses for peace they are.” Cox legitimized desertion as an act of conscience to refuse participation in a war “grossly immoral and an evil blight on our national life.”201 Martin Kenner and John Wilson presented the ADC with an endorsement letter, signed by themselves, Bernardine Dohrn, Tom Hayden, Rennie Davis, David Dellinger, Noam Chomsky, and Ken Cloke. They applauded the deserters’ “courage to stand by convictions,” endorsed their “assert[ion of] humanity,” and integrated the “desertion movement” into the “struggle” to “end American domination” of the world. Moreover, they welcomed the politicization of desertion and recognized the absentees’ organizing efforts as “parallel to our own struggle” and an “example to Americans, particularly those in the military.” Finally, the letter valued the deserters’ role in European exile as a “vital element” of the internationalization of opposition to the American involvement in the Vietnam War.202 The deserters welcomed these declarations of solidarity from the United States, and for the ADC the political endorsement of desertion by members of the American New Left was particularly gratifying. The committee drew new self-confdence from this and affrmed its claim as the representative body of the deserters in Sweden, particularly strengthened by its designation as an autonomous chapter of SDS following the visit. While apparently more

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a symbolic title granted by SDS leaders to keep up the deserters’ morale, it nevertheless was a valuable reference for the ADC for legitimization and to mobilize support in Sweden.203 ADC spokesmen Richard Bucklin and Rod Huth, Bucklin an absentee from the U.S. Army in West Germany and Huth a former UCLA student and Marine Corps deserter, proudly announced that their committee was “now recognized as an integral part of the American left.” Although a “political group in exile,” it was a “moving force within the American movement for basic change” next to its “role as representing the interests of the deserters’ community in Sweden.”204 Within the deserter community and inside the committee, however, there had been frictions about the political direction, leadership, and practice of activism for some time. The meetings with American antiwar activists allowed for a more open discussion of these matters, and a number of absentees dissenting from the line of the ADC were encouraged by visitors from the United States to reform the committee or form a new group themselves.205 Since its inception in early 1968, the ADC had undergone a rapid process of radicalization, and leading members had politicized to such an extent that many of the deserters arriving in Sweden later on were perplexed with or deterred by their politics—similar to how the committee’s initiators had been by the DFFG in early 1968, as noted above. The ADC claimed to represent all the deserters in Sweden, although the community was constantly growing and there were no formal means for democratic legitimization or participation of absentees. In effect, newcomers, who had yet to undergo a process of coming to terms with their act of refusal and step into exile themselves, were confronted with a group of men who were far advanced in this matter and who promoted the political and radical version of it, leaving little room for different interpretations and individually specifc needs. Moreover, with its focus on the politicization of the deserters, the ADC’s objective to contribute to an improvement of the practical challenges of life in exile came to be neglected, dissenters argued, which were nevertheless the more imminent with the growing number of absentees coming to Sweden who required such assistance. The culture of the political debate in the committee itself, too, suffered and became dominated by a core of members who adopted rather radical views. Their dogmatism, which their critics accused them of, to a great extent was a result of their rapid process of politicization and their holding on to newly learned concepts. The young men, many of whom had not experienced political activism before, now defended perspectives that had helped them come to terms with their act, but which prevented them from discussing or accepting different reasonings, not unlike the confict over the interpretation of desertion in France earlier. In such a rather precarious construct, distrust against dissenters could quickly emerge, and in particular newcomers and outsiders

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easily became targets of accusations of splitting the community and infltrating the committee. While similar dynamics can be observed in other contexts of political organizing of marginalized groups, deserters were particularly vulnerable to suspicions and infghting because of the special circumstances of desertion, exile, the danger of prosecution, as well as perceived or real activities of the U.S. authorities to subvert the exile community. The signifcance of such fears for the exiled deserters is evident in the semi-documentary flm Deserter USA shot in the summer of 1968, in which one of them is depicted as an American agent infltrating the ADC and passing on information on individuals to the U.S. authorities. It was also noted by contemporary observers of the community and still occupies some former exiles and students of their history.206 Much of these suspicions, however, were the result of a working arrangement between the U.S. embassy and the Swedish immigration authorities, with the latter informing the former routinely about newly arrived military absentees. These details and resulting action by the military and judicial authorities in the United States, for example phone calls to their parents, could only come from within the community, some deserters believed and grew cautious of possible agents among their peers. Next to the information fow between the Swedish and American authorities, the U.S. armed forces collected information on the deserters and the deserter support network through the debriefng of returnees and through other informers active in Europe. Moreover, media reports and exile publications themselves provided the intelligence services with considerable information about the absentees.207

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NEW DIRECTIONS OF DESERTER ACTIVISM In late 1968, several deserters, who had been involved in the formation of the ADC yet grew frustrated with its development and failed to reform it, organized a new exile committee. This group placed more emphasis on the practical challenges of the absentees in Sweden and pledged to allow a more accessible discussion of the meaning of desertion, nevertheless clearly in political terms. The organizers of the Underground Railway, among them Robert Argento, John Toler, and Richard Bailey, identifed as part of the support networks for American war refusers in Europe and North America, which had referenced that for fugitive slaves before and during the American Civil War, too. Thereby they placed the focus of their work on the aid for military absentees seeking sanctuary in Sweden, rather than their own act of refusal and identity as deserters. With its focus on the practical issues of exile, its more moderate political positions, and its openness for alliances, the Underground Railway managed to improve the relations between the

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deserters, the SKfV, and the Working Group to Aid American War Resisters substantially.208 In the context of the campaign for political asylum in Sweden during the winter, there seemed to be more solidarity than rivalry between the Underground Railway and the ADC. The latter, too, turned to call for practical improvements for the American exiles in Sweden, and both groups appealed for recognition as political refugees of all U.S. war refusers. Likewise, among Swedish groups, tensions over deserter solidarity work decreased considerably during the campaign for political asylum, when a broad spectrum of organizations, including the SKfV and the DFFG, supported the plea, and when the DFFG reorganized its deserter assistance practice and showed themselves open for collaboration. Eventually, in the spring of 1969, the Swedish authorities responded to the campaign and improved government assistance for the American deserters, now numbering over two hundred. The exiles then also were to receive substantial aid from the United States with the CALCAV-sponsored mission of Thomas Lee Hayes. It appears that by then much of the pressure on the deserters to respond to public interest and to take a political position was gone. Deserter organizing could thus continue at a more sustainable pace, with an ADC both taking on the practical issues of exile and promoting political debate, however more open-ended than before, and with the organizers of the shortlived Underground Railway reintegrating into the committee or joining less formal circles of the Swedish scene. The American delegation’s visit to Sweden in the fall of 1968 was critical for a new image of the deserters in exile in the United States.209 Vice versa, the encounter with American activists infuenced the exiles’ understanding of their own act and the choices made by others of their generation. Their compatriots, it seems, helped those who had previously insisted on desertion as the best and most unequivocal form of resistance to consider it as one alternative for refusal for draft-age Americans. At the same time, they realized that opposition inside the U.S. armed forces was indeed growing and that a protest movement of GIs was developing. American New Leftists endorsed GI resistance and declared their solidarity with the deserters in exile as part of this development, and in particular Jeff Sharlet impressed American exiles in Sweden with his activism in support of oppositional servicemen. Richard Bucklin and Rod Huth of the ADC formulated their own position on GI resistance in revolutionary terms, which stood for new “efforts toward destroying the U.S. Armed Forces,” the “‘Achilles’ heel’ of the American empire,” and its “weakest link in the chain of oppression engulfng the world.” Moreover, they argued that in America the “working class must be analyzed and won over,” and that the majority of U.S. servicemen came from this class and were “open and

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susceptible to radicalization.” Themselves often from similar backgrounds, the deserters claimed a vanguard position in this struggle for “radical social change,” as they had the “knowledge and experience to reach American workers [and] soldier[s].”210 At the turn of 1968 and 1969, two deserters even decided to return from their European sanctuary to the military, convinced that their place of activism was in America. In December, Donald Williams went back to the United States from Sweden to turn himself in. During his detainment in military prison at Fort Dix, New Jersey, he participated in a hunger strike and publicized the harassment by guards. After his release, he continued as an antiwar activist and participated in the Winter Soldier Investigation, where he chaired the Third World panel at its hearings in Detroit in early 1971.211 In January 1969, Terry Klug, one of the most active participants of RITA/Act in Paris, announced to become an organizer for the ASU in the United States, “where my struggle will be most effective.” He argued that as an exile, he had realized his identity as a “real American” and his “vital duty to perform for the beneft of my country.” Through responses to Act he had grasped the strong potential of military opposition. He asserted that his return was a personal decision, which was not intended to discredit other exiles convinced of desertion. Instead, Klug emphasized the continuing importance of the publications Act and the Second Front for mobilizing dissent among American servicemen.212 Like Williams detained at Fort Dix, Klug participated in protests of inmates against the brutal conditions in the stockade in June and was charged as one of the rebellion’s leaders for conspiracy to riot. The Fort Dix ThirtyEight were supported by a broad coalition of war opponents, among them Quakers, Rutgers students, Black Panthers, and Young Lords, and the acquittal of Klug in 1970 was celebrated as a victory of the GI movement.213

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CONCLUSION On the formation of the RITA committee in Paris, one American journalist had remarked that in the zeitgeist of the late 1960s, not just students and young intellectuals would organize, but also the “inevitable dropouts,” and thus the deserters.214 Notwithstanding this ironic comment by someone reluctant to acknowledge the new consciousness of deserters, organizing was a crucial means of American exiles to cope with their new life situation, to respond to increased public interest, and not least to help the young refusers to make sense of their action and its consequences. The affrmation of a collective meaning of their act to desert was a crucial factor in this process, as part of antiwar protest and as a response to the draft and military service by a growing number of members of the Vietnam generation. An individual step

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achieved signifcance when others took the same action, and a collective identity was constructed when it was explained in political terms. Before in the 1970s many of the young generation would turn toward individualism and self-determination, political organizing and the manifestation of collective identity was of great importance for many young Americans and Europeans. This was critical in particular for the exiled deserters, unifed by their action, their age, and their American identity, and their cause to defend themselves and make it abroad. They adapted available organizing concepts and political interpretations, and applied them to their own situation and goals. While the rapid process of organizing and politicization was not without conficts, among exiles and between them and sympathizers, it was a crucial phase of the debate on desertion and war resistance and the new deserters’ voice in it. A key objective of deserters’ committees abroad was to claim recognition as part of the Vietnam generation and its broader protest against the draft and the war. Depending on the previous experience of the absentees and their specifc development of political consciousness, they considered themselves a facet of the GI movement or understood desertion as an act of refusal complementary to draft resistance in the United States. However, the separation of the deserters in exile from their colleagues in North America contested their claims—legally through their unauthorized absence, geographically, and through discourse distinguishing them from others. These circumstances also made defending their action as equally legitimate as that of draft refusers and oppositional GIs diffcult. Because of their exile as well as the greater attraction of draft resistance and the GI movement to American war opponents, deserters struggled to gain approval in the United States, while in Europe they had been endorsed as representatives of the Vietnam generation and of those most affected by the war and the draft. Beyond the mediation of Europeans and Americans through the channels of the international peace movement, personal encounters between deserters and activists from the United States were crucial in mobilizing solidarity with the exiled absentees in their home country. The more vocal and visible the young war refusers became in the American and international Vietnam debates, the more they faced the reaction of the American political establishment. The U.S. government took different strategies to contain desertions and to prevent a further movement into exile. One was to downplay the numbers and signifcance of the desertions as independent from the Vietnam debate, with absentees representing the inevitable share of misfts present in the armed forces at any time. Another approach of the military authorities was to offer lenient judicial treatment to returnees and thus entice deserters to come back from exile to end the phenomenon, as in the case of Roy Ray Jones. When this tactic failed and increasing

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numbers of servicemen still went AWOL and sought sanctuary abroad, a Congressional committee insisted on harsh punishment of deserters to deter further absences and to uphold military discipline.215 The demands of the committee, most of whose members came from the generation of the Second World War, at the same time refected a concern with broader developments in American politics and society, ranging from liberalization to threats to public order, and a lack of determination of the establishment to counter them. Conservatives believed that the military’s failure to deter desertions refected a general attitude of permissiveness toward the Vietnam generation, which was out of place regarding the priority of military discipline in time of war.216 The confict over patriotism, civic duty, manliness, and honor between the generations of the Second World War and those coming of draft age during the Vietnam War thus culminated in the debate on desertion and war refusal. It subsequently led to calls for a harsh treatment of military absence offenders, which would make their efforts for vindication and amnesty even more diffcult. By the turn of 1968 and 1969, the new dimensions and quality of desertion were undeniable facts of the Vietnam War and acknowledged in the international and American sphere. Figures of over 50,000 desertion cases in 1968 led political and military leaders to propose stronger countermeasures against the absences and the escape of U.S. servicemen into sanctuaries abroad.217 War opponents recognized the perspective of the war refusers and included it into the canon of protest voices on the war, from Newsreel flm distribution and reprints of the statements of the Intrepid Four to the appearance of deserter and ADC activist John Toler in the key documentary on the Vietnam War of the time, In the Year of the Pig.218 The new image and the deserters’ own perspective were frst promoted in Europe, Japan, as well as in the Eastern bloc. The deserters themselves and their “archetypal anti-war act” with its “virtue of simplicity,” as American GI organizer Fred Gardner put it echoing British WRI activist Tony Smythe’s earlier appeal, were critical in mobilizing recognition among American war opponents and in turn broader support for AWOLees in North America.219 Despite all frictions and misunderstandings, exile activism in France and Sweden contributed substantially to a new image of deserters as legitimate war refusers and representatives of the less-privileged members of the Vietnam generation, otherwise unable to evade the pressures of military conscription.

NOTES 1. See, for example, Don Oberdorfer, Tet! The Turning Point in the Vietnam War (Baltimore and London: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2001 (1971)), xi ff.; Stanley

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Karnow, Vietnam. A History (New York: Penguin Books, 1997), 528 ff.; Young, The Vietnam Wars. 1945–1990, 210 ff.; Marc Frey, Geschichte des Vietnamkriegs. Die Tragödie in Asien und das Ende des amerikanischen Traums (München: Beck, 1998), 160 ff. 2. See, for example, Oliver Rathkolb and Friedrich Stadler, Das Jahr 1968. Ereignis, Symbol, Chiffre (Göttingen: V & R Unipress, 2010); Gerd-Rainer Horn, The Spirit of ‘68. Rebellion in Western Europe and North America, 1956–1976 (Oxford/ New York: Oxford University Press, 2007); Mark Kurlansky, 1968. The Year that Rocked the World (New York: Ballantine, 2004). 3. Barbara W. Bright, “An American Deserter in Sweden,” ICWA-Report, May 26, 1970, Institute of Current World Affairs (ICWA) Publications Archive (www​ .icwa​.org), accessed May 2010; Whitmore, Memphis, Nam, Sweden, 182 ff. 4. On the transnational dimension of efforts for recognition of social movements in the twentieth century see Dieter Gosewinkel and Dieter Rucht, eds., Transnational Struggles for Recognition. New Perspectives on Civil Society since the 20th Century (New York: Berghahn Books, 2016). 5. “Liberty in Paris,” The Second Front 1/1, May 8, 1968. They were George Niesluchowski, an army absentee who had come to France from the United States, and Alfred Schmidt, Otis Anderson, and Jesus Michael Garcia, who were AWOL from U.S. Army posts in West Germany. 6. Terry Klug, alias Irving, letter [to Thomas Schwaetzer], January 3 [1968], ASR/IISG, Max Watts, unsorted materials transferred in 2012. See on Terry Klug’s background Perrin, G.I. Resister, 84–85. 7. “Recent Information on Deserters in France,” Paris A-907, February 13, 1968, NARA, RG 59, Central Foreign Policy Files 1967–1969, Political & Defense, Box 1666; “The War: Caviar & Encomiums,” Time, December 1, 1967. 8. RITA/Act Press Conference, February 11, 1968, Film Reels/DVD, ASR/ IISG, Max Watts. Philip Wagner had been sent to Nigeria as a Peace Corps volunteer in December 1961 (The Volunteer 1, 2 (February 1962)). 9. “This Week. The Deserters,” Post Production Script, directed by Randal Beattie, Rediffusion Television, transmission August 17, 1967, IISG, Ton Regtien, 202. 10. T[homas] S[chwaetzer] to John McClellan, November 5, 1967, Frita, Paris, SHSW, PACS, Box 2, Draft Resistance/All Groups/1967-1968. 11. “Resistance in the United States Armed Forces. Discussion Notes for Ritas and Fritas, Fall 1968,” SHSW, Microflm P82-1950. 12. Jean-Paul Sartre’s address was printed on Act issues 1/2 and 1/3. Dick Perrin referred to the network at the press conference, at which Act was frst presented (RITA/Act Press Conference, February 11, 1968, Film Reels/DVD, ASR/IISG, Max Watts). 13. See, for example, the notices on the RITA/Act group in the British pacifst newspaper Peace News (“Deserters’ Guide,” Peace News, April 19, 1968, and “Lovely RITA,” Peace News, May 3, 1968). 14. van Parys, Les déserteurs, 250–251. 15. “5 U.S. Deserters Press a ‘Recruiting’ Campaign,” New York Times, February 12, 1968. Reporter Russ Braley described the process of how he got in touch with

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Schwaetzer alias Mr. Cook in Paris and was brought to an apartment by a young American woman called “Daisy” to interview Dick Perrin and Philip Wagner, shortly before the publication of Act (“U.S. Reporter Tracks down GI Deserters,” Chicago Tribune, February 21, 1968; “2 Deserters Tell Why: Peacenik Persecution,” Daily News, February 21, 1968). 16. Thirty minutes of flm of the press conference have been preserved, as well as a three-minute edited section with commentary (RITA/Act Press Conference, February 11, 1968, Film Reels/DVD, ASR/IISG, Max Watts). The latter was aired on the Huntley-Brinkley Report on NBC on February 13, 1968 (“Army Says Deserter Not Resident Here,” Fort Wayne News Sentinel, February 1968, Clipping, ASR/IISG, Max Watts; Watts [Thomas Schwaetzer] to Michael [Michel Vale] and G[eorge Carrano], Paris, March 12, 1968, ASR/IISG, Max Watts, Alphabet/American Exile (5)). Besides the television crew, the press conference was attended by around twenty reporters, for example, from the UPI news agency, the New York Times, the International Herald Tribune, and the London Times. See “France Haven for Deserters,” Chicago Tribune, February 12, 1968; UPI photo “Five Deserters from the U.S. Military Services at a Press Conference in an Unidentifed Western European City,” Daily News, February 21, 1968; “5 U.S. Deserters Press a ‘Recruiting’ Campaign,” New York Times, February 12, 1968; “U.S. Deserters Plan to Step Up Their Campaign in Europe,” International Herald Tribune, February 12, 1968; “American Deserters Talk about Their Motives,” Times, February 12, 1968. 17. All quotes from RITA/Act Press Conference, February 11, 1968, Film Reels/ DVD, ASR/IISG, Max Watts. 18. “RITA. . . ,” Act, 1/3; “Religious, Humanitarian or Political,” Act, 1/3. 19. Cornell Hiselman, for example, “started to formulate my own way of thinking” in exile when working with the other deserters and their sympathizers (RITA/Act Press Conference, February 11, 1968, Film Reels/DVD, ASR/IISG, Max Watts). Terry Klug stated that in exile he began to read political literature and develop his own perspective on the Vietnam War and American politics (van Parys, Les déserteurs, 250–251). 20. RITA/Act Press Conference. 21. “Figure it out,” Act, 1/1, emphasis original. The Call to Resist Illegitimate Authority affrmed that “every free man has a legal right and a moral duty to exert every effort to end this war,” the leafet “To American Soldiers in Europe” pointed out that the “Nuremb[e]rg Judgment places on you the duty to decide whether a war is right or wrong” (“A Call to Resist Illegitimate Authority,” 1967, in Gettleman, Franklin, Young, and Franklin, Vietnam and America, 308–309; “To American Soldiers in Europe,” 1966, in Prasad, War Is a Crime against Humanity, 377–378). 22. RITA/Act Press Conference, February 11, 1968, Film Reels/DVD, ASR/ IISG, Max Watts. 23. RITA/Act Press Conference. 24. RITA/Act Press Conference. 25. See, for example, “France Haven for Deserters,” Chicago Tribune, February 12 1968; “The World,” Los Angeles Times, February 12, 1968; “5 Deserters to Distribute Paper to GIs,” Washington Post, February 12, 1968.

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26. “5 U.S. Deserters Press a ‘Recruiting’ Campaign,” New York Times, February 12, 1968. 27. “RITA’s frst Act,” Newsweek, February 26, 1968, 39. 28. “Follows Desertion Trail of GIs,” Chicago Tribune, February 20, 1968; “U.S. Reporter Tracks down GI Deserters,” Chicago Tribune, February 21, 1968; “2 Deserters Tell Why: Peacenik Persecution,” Daily News, February 21, 1968. 29. “RITA. . . ,” Act, 1/3. 30. Act, 1/1 and 1/2. 31. “RITA. . . ,” Act, 1/3; Uniform Code of Military Justice, Ch. X, § 885, Art. 85, in: Manual for Courts-Martial. United States, 1968, Appendix 2. 32. “Where It’s At,” Act, 1/1 through 1/4. 33. Act, 1/1. In the following issues, the information was featured without the heading “helpful hints.” 34. See, for example, Act, 1/1 and 1/4, which featured the union’s list of demands and a registration form. On the ASU see Stapp, Up Against the Brass. The Committee for GI Rights was formed as a legal defense organization for servicemen in the context of military trials against Stapp and others in 1967 (Stapp, Up Against the Brass, 59–60; Terry H. Anderson, “The GI Movement and the Response from the Brass,” in Give Peace a Chance. Exploring the Vietnam Antiwar Movement, ed. Melvin Small and William D. Hoover (Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 1992), 97. 35. “RITA. . . ,” Act, 1/3. 36. “United we stand,” Act, 1/2. 37. “Flicker of Light,” Act, 1/2. Denman returned to military control in late April or early May (“Army Deserter to Paris Surrenders in Mich,” International Herald Tribune, May 3, 1968). 38. Besides the founding members, around a dozen of exiles and GIs contributed to Act until early 1969. 39. Act issues 1/2 and 1/3 featured Sartre’s address, issue 1/4 and those following printed “Miss Rita Act” as contact (“Addressing the Address Problem,” TORD 77.1; “Sartre’s Fink-Out,” TORD 77.6; “The New Rita Address,” TORD 77.8; all ASR/ IISG, Max Watts, Data DVD). 40. “Counterintelligence Study ‘R[evolutionary] P[rotest] M[ovements],” Assistant Chief of Staff for Intelligence, Department of the Army, [1969], NARA, NPMP, White House Special Files, Staff Member and Offce Files, John W. Dean III, Demonstrations & Domestic Intelligence, Box 78, Folder “Army”; “U.S. Military ‘Deserters’ in France,” Military Liquidation Section, U.S. Embassy, Paris, June 27, 1968, Attachment to Paris A-2455, July 25, 1968, NARA, RG 59, Central Foreign Policy Files 1967–1969, Political & Defense, Box 1663. 41. Baumholder Gig Sheet, 1, [1969]; “Danish Peace Chicks,” Overseas Weekly, July 13, 1969; Cortright, Soldiers in Revolt, 93, 331. Issues of Act can be found in several collections of participants of the European antiwar movement reviewed for this study, often along with RITA Notes and other materials from the group of activists around Thomas Schwaetzer in Paris. 42. “Statement of Purpose,” The Second Front, 1, [20 January] 1968. According to a text in The Second Front, 3, the frst issue had been published on January 20,

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1968 (“The Birth and Rebirth of the French Union of American Deserters and Draft Resisters,” The Second Front, 3, April 20, 1968, 14). 43. “Important: Help Is Available for the Asking,” The Second Front, 1, [20 January] 1968. 44. “Statement of Purpose.” The Second Front, 1, [20 January] 1968. See also the editorials of The Second Front, 2, February 19, 1968, and The Second Front, 3, April 20, 1968, 1. “Liberation” was used in the American protest movement, for example, in the names of Liberation magazine and Liberation News Service. Concerning the organizers’ background in the American SDS see van Parys, Les déserteurs, 251. 45. For example, the organizers of the International Vietnam Conference in West Berlin of February 1968 called for a “second revolutionary front against imperialism in its strongholds” (German original: “zweite revolutionäre Front gegen den Imperialismus in dessen Metropolen.” Final Resolution of the International Vietnam Conference in West Berlin, February 1968, in: Der Kampf des vietnamesischen Volkes und die Globalstrategie des Imperialismus. Internationaler Vietnam-Kongreß, 159). Martin Klimke describes the international outreach of the American SDS and the German SDS as a process of “building the [s]econd [f]ront” (Klimke, The Other Alliance, 75 ff.). 46. While in Paris, Burlingham used the alias Arlo Jacobs (Max Watts, “Buccaneers,” TORD 77.2, ASR/IISG, Max Watts, Data DVD; Committee on the Judiciary, The Weather Underground. Report of the Subcommittee to Investigate the Administration of the Internal Security Act and Other Internal Security Laws, Ninetyfourth Congress, First Session, January 1975, 53). On Burlingham’s activities as leader of SDS at Princeton, see “Princeton Students for a Democratic Society: Radical Activism in an Unlikely Place,” Daily Princetonian, May 12, 1966, and “Political Prep School, Princeton Style,” Harvard Crimson, February 25, 1967. Later in 1968, Burlingham returned to the United States, where he participated in the antiwar movement in New York, later joined the Weatherman faction of the SDS and worked for leftist publications, such as Ramparts in 1972 (“Where Have All the Radicals Gone?” Princeton Alumni Weekly, May 23, 1972, 10–12). 47. “Americans Abroad Plot US Dienbienphu,” Berkeley Barb, January 1968. See also “AOA Links up US Exiles,” Peace News, January 12, 1968. On Marshall Sahlins’s role in the PACS see the minutes of the steering committee (SHSW, PACS, Box 1, PACS Meetings, 1966–1968) and Journoud, “Les relations franco-américaines à l’épreuve du Vietnam,” 1114. 48. “The Intrepid Four Speak their Mind,” The Second Front, 2, February 19, 1968. A statement of the Intrepid Four printed with the text had been retranslated into English from a Soviet Tass news dispatch in French, which was distributed by French antiwar activists in France in early 1968. Untitled collection of documents on and from the American antiwar movement, Paris, [January] 1968, SHSW, PACS, Box 2, Resistance 67-68/Deserters 67-68. 49. “Questionnaire for Deserters and Draft Resisters,” The Second Front, 1, [20 January] 1968. 50. “The Intrepid Four Speak their Mind” and “Two GI’s from Pirmasens, Germany, Make It to France,” The Second Front, 2, February 19, 1968. 51. “Editorial,” The Second Front, 2, February 19, 1968.

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52. “French Say 2 AWOL GIs Ask Asylum,” Los Angeles Times, January 27, 1968; “Recent Information on Deserters in France,” Paris A-907, February 13, 1968, NARA, RG 59, Central Foreign Policy Files 1967–1969, Political & Defense, Box 1666. 53. “Lenny’s Story,” The Second Front, 2, February 19, 1968. James Everett alias Lenny had as a student at Emory University in Atlanta turned in his draft card as an act of protest against the war in Vietnam in October 1967 and subsequently confronted the draft authorities with the support of the ACLU. When he was reclassifed 1-A and eligible to be drafted, he escaped to Paris (“Guilty and Sentenced to 1-A,” Atlanta Constitution, November 20, 1967; “A Choice of Punishments,” Atlanta Constitution, December 14, 1967; Jeffrey A. Turner, Sitting In and Speaking Out. Student Movements in the American South, 1960-1970 (Athens: The University of Georgia Press, 2010), 232). 54. French Appeal, Attachment to “Message des déserteurs et insoumis Américains aux peuples d’Europe,” [February] 1968, SHSW, PACS, Box 2, Draft Resistance/All Groups/1967-1968. Quotes from the English version in “Documents of the Emergency Consultative Meeting, Stockholm, March 23-24, 1968,” SHSW, PACS, Box 2, Stockholm Conference 1966/1967/1968. The appeal was signed by over one-hundred sympathizers and pointed out the need for jobs, housing, and fnancial aid of the American exiles (“Note à l’attention de PACS et la FUADDR,” May 8, 1968, SHSW, PACS, Box 2, Resistance/French Support). 55. “Message des déserteurs et insoumis Américains aux peuples d’Europe,” [February] 1968, SHSW, PACS, Box 2, Draft Resistance/All Groups/1967-1968. Quotes from the English version of the statement, published jointly with the American Deserters Committee in Sweden (“A Message from American Deserters and Draft Resisters to the People of the World,” [Spring 1968], ARAB, Hans Göran Franck, Box 4.3.7 001). The pivotal Call to Resist Illegitimate Authority of 1967, for example, made reference to the U.S. Constitution (Gettleman, Franklin, Young, and Franklin, Vietnam and America, 308–309). See on newspaper reprints, for example, “Un appel des déserteurs et insoumis Américains réfugiés en France,” Le Monde, February 24, 1968; “Pour aider et soutenir les déserteurs et réfractaires Américains réfugiés en France,” L’Humanité, February 23, 1968; “Déserteurs et insoumis,” Réforme, March 16, 1968. 56. “The Birth and Rebirth of the French Union of American Deserters and Draft Resisters,” The Second Front, 3, April 20, 1968, 13–18. 57. Watts [Thomas Schwaetzer] to Michael [Michel] Vale and G[eorge] Carrano, Paris, 12 March 1968, ASR/IISG, Max Watts, Box “Alphabet - American Exile” (5); “Statement of the French Union of American Deserters and Draft Resisters,” The Second Front, 3, April 20, 1968, 25–26. 58. “The Birth and Rebirth of the French Union of American Deserters and Draft Resisters,” The Second Front, 3, April 20, 1968, 13–18. 59. “Another Point of View,” Act, 1/2. “Lifer” is the GI slang term for career offcers. 60. “Resistance in the United States Armed Forces. Discussion Notes for Ritas and Fritas, Fall 1968,” SHSW, Microflm P82-1950, emphasis original; “Join the Union,” Act, 1/4.

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61. In fact, Schwaetzer himself had left the United States to evade the draft during the Korean War for Israel, which he left for France—again to avoid military service (Max Watts, “From Respect to Rejection, But No(t Yet) Resistance,” TORD 86.33.1.4 and “Why, We, They, Them Are So Important, Here,” TORD 86.43.1.1, ASR/IISG, Max Watts, Data DVD). 62. “The Birth and Rebirth of the French Union of American Deserters and Draft Resisters,” The Second Front, 3, April 20, 1968, 13–18. 63. “Statement for the French Union of American Deserters and Draft Resisters,” The Second Front, 3, April 20, 1968, 25–26. 64. “The Oddest Play of the Paris Season,” Life (Atlantic), December 11, 1967, 79–82. 65. “The Birth and Rebirth of the French Union of American Deserters and Draft Resisters,” The Second Front, 3, April 20, 1968, 13–18. 66. Max Watts, “Pear shaped . . . ,” TORD 77.4, ASR/IISG, Max Watts, Data DVD. In particular in combination with a Newsweek article on the RITA press conference, with very similar description of Schwaetzer, he was easily identifyable (“RITA’s frst Act,” Newsweek, February 26, 1968, 39). 67. RITA/Act Press Conference, February 11, 1968, Film Reels/DVD, ASR/ IISG, Max Watts. 68. “Sartre’s Fink-Out,” TORD 77.6 and “The New Rita Address,” TORD 77.8, ASR/IISG, Max Watts, Data DVD; Perrin, G.I. Resister, 84 and 107. 69. Untitled Leafet (“You might ask who we are and what right we have to speak to you . . .”), [Bremen, Fall 1968], Anonymous Authors (“Members Workers-Student Action Committees,”) IISG, Ton Regtien, 202. 70. Journoud, “Les relations franco-américaines à l’épreuve du Vietnam,” 1150. 71. “9 déserteurs américains tiennent une conférence de Presse à Paris,” Combat, March 21, 1968 (French original: “véritables données”); “Paris Gives Refuge to 9 U.S. War Foes,” New York Times, March 21, 1968; “Begs Deserter Son: Face Music,” Chicago Tribune, March 21, 1968; “Resistance in France,” March 1968, Paris, SHSW, PACS, Box 2, Draft Resistance/All Groups/1967-1968. 72. “The Second Front and the French Movement,” The Second Front, 4, August 15, 1968, 19; Draft of “Statement Re PACS’ Position toward Draft-resisters and Army Deserters,” Ira Morris, President of PACS, April 11, 1968, SHSW, PACS, Box 2, Resistance 67-68/Deserters 67-68; Journoud, “Les relations franco-américaines à l’épreuve du Vietnam,” 1150. 73. “Statement of the French Union of American Deserters and Draft Resisters,” The Second Front 3, April 20, 1968, 25–26; “Resistance in France,” March 1968, Paris, SHSW, PACS, Box 2, Draft Resistance/All Groups/1967-1968; “Some U.S. Deserters in France Eager to Return,” New York Times, April 7, 1968; “La ‘résistance américaine’ en France,” Le Monde, April 13, 1968. On the anti-draft activities on April 3, 1968, in the United States see DeBenedetti, An American Ordeal, 215; Foley, Confronting the War Machine, 263. 74. Ingrid Gilcher-Holtey, Die 68er Bewegung. Deutschland, Westeuropa, USA (München: Beck, 2005), 80 ff. (German original: “überholt”). See for details Michael Seidman, The Imaginary Revolution. Parisian Students and Workers in 1968 (New York: Berghahn Books, 2004).

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75. “U.S. Military ‘Deserters’ in France,” Military Liquidation Section, U.S. Embassy, Paris, June 27, 1968, attachment to Paris A-2455, July 25, 1968, NARA, RG 59, Central Foreign Policy Files 1967-1969, Political & Defense, Box 1663. 76. Leafet for screening of Newsreel flms, FUADDR, The Resistance in France, Centre International Protestant, Paris, May 16 [1968], SHSW, PACS, Box 2, Resistance 67-68 – Deserters 67-68; “The Newsreel. Nine Films,” [1968]; “The Bread and Puppet Theatre,” leafet for FUADDR beneft show, Paris, May 13 [1968]; both SHSW, PACS, Box 2, Draft Resistance/All Groups/1967-1968. 77. Watts, Max, “American RITA GI’s in the Paris May of 1968,” GI Special, 6E4, May 2008; Perrin, G.I. Resister, 6 ff., 107. 78. “The Second Front and the French Movement,” The Second Front, 4, August 15, 1968, 19–20. 79. “A Statement of Solidarity to the Revolutionary Movement of French Students and Workers,” The Second Front, 4, August 15, 1968, 18. 80. “The Second Front and the French Movement.” 81. “France Is Cooler to U.S. Deserters,” New York Times, August 17, 1968. 82. Journoud, “Les relations franco-américaines à l’épreuve du Vietnam,” 1151–1152. 83. Perrin, G.I. Resister, 108–109. 84. “France Is Cooler to U.S. Deserters,” New York Times, August 17, 1968; “I’ve Had It,” The Second Front 1/1, May 8, 1968; Levine, Affaires non classées, 245. Warren Hamerman was listed as a contact for the action in Baltimore (“Press Statement,” announcing action of October 27, 1967 “to deface the draft records there with our blood,” SHSW PACS, Box 2, Draft Resistance/All Groups/1967-1968). 85. “Current Data on Military Absentees,” Stockholm 426, February 18, 1969, NARA, RG 59, Central Foreign Policy Files 1967-1969, Political & Defense, Box 1667; Perrin, G.I. Resister, 103, 114–116; Watts, US-Army-Europe, 64. 86. Coryell, who had only been a spectator of the FUADDR press conference at the Sorbonne, had to leave France in August 1968. Schwaetzer’s expulsion was realized in June 1969, when he was captured by plainclothes police after he had contested the order. He relocated eventually to Heidelberg, West Germany, where he organized and counseled oppositional GIs (Reston Jr., The Amnesty of John David Herndon, 62–63; Journoud, “Les relations franco-américaines à l’épreuve du Vietnam,” 1113, 1151–1153; Levine, Affaires non classées, 225–262; Temkin, “American Internationalists,” 257–261). 87. “Paris: Still Good for a French Leave . . .,” The Second Front 1/2, September 1968; “A Message to the Delegation of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam in Paris” and “A Message to the Delegation of the United States in Paris,” The Second Front, 4, August 15, 1968, 21. 88. “Paris: Still Good for a French Leave . . . .” 89. Act, 1/3 and 1/4, 1968, and 2/1, 1970. 90. “Eleven O’clock News,” The Second Front, 4, August 15, 1968, 26; “Paris: Still Good for a French Leave . . . .” 91. “Dear Friend,” The Second Front, Paris, August 13, 1968, SHSW, PACS, Box 2, Resistance 67-68 - Deserters 67-68; Larry Cox to Maria Jolas, September 8, 1968, SHSW, PACS, Box 2, Draft Resistance/All Groups/1967-1968.

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92. “Desertörflmens misstag,” Aftonbladet, May 2, 1969; Carl-Henrik Hermansson, CH Minnen (Stockholm: Arena, 1993), 256; Scott, Swedish Social Democracy and the Vietnam War, 141. Michael Foley refers to this special appeal of American deserters and war veterans in the context of the sanctuary movement in the United States (Foley, Confronting the War Machine, 309). 93. Bertil Svahnström to Richard Bailey, February 1, 1968, ARAB, SKfV, F 1: 8; “An Appeal to Fellow-Americans and Fellow-Servicemen,” Attachment to “Transmission of Intrepid Deserters Letter to US Servicemen,” Stockholm A-466, February 9, 1968, RG 59, Central Foreign Policy Files 1967-1969, Political & Defense, Box 1666. The appeal was distributed to international war opponents and to the Swedish press (Attachment to Bertil Svahnström to participants of Emergency Consultative Meeting of the Stockholm Conference on Vietnam (March 23–24, 1968), March 1, 1968, SHSW, PACS, Box 2, Stockholm Conference 1966/1967/1968; “An Appeal to Fellow-Americans and Fellow-Servicemen,” APOA, Privatbesitz/ Horlemann/Vietnam; “Till Redaktionsekreteraren,” SKfV, [1968], ARAB, SKfV, B1: 2; “Inträngande appell från Intrepids män,” Ny Dag, February 23–29, 1968). See on the presentation of the Intrepid Four at the annual meeting of the SKfV and on the appearance of Roy Ray Jones at the Vietnam rally at Sergels Torg “Aktuellt,” TV 1, January 24, 1968, SMDB; “Om Vietnam,” Collection of Speeches, February 21, 1968, Stockholm, SKfV, ARAB, Hans Göran Franck 4.03.14 003. 94. “Desertering från USA:s krigsmakt—ett kraftfullt stöd åt det vietnamesiska folkets kamp,” FNL i Sverige, 2 (1968), 14–15 (Swedish original in subtitle); “Avhoppare från US-army,” I-Bulletinen, 1 (January 1968), Private Collection Åke Kilander; “‘Vi vill inte delta i USA.s krig’” Ny Dag, January 19–25, 1968; “3 More Yanks Seek Asylum in Sweden,” Chicago Tribune, January 14, 1968. 95. Protocol, SKfV Executive Committee Meeting, November 10, 1967, ARAB, SKfV, A 1: 1; “Arbetsgruppen för stöd åt amerikanska Vietnamkrigsvägrare,” ARAB, SKfV, F 1: 8; “Appell för amerikanska Vietnamkrigsvägrare,” February 1968, ARAB, Hans Göran Franck, 4.03.14 003; “Ny kommitté tar hand om USAvägrarna,” Aftonbladet, January 21, 1968. 96. “Deserters Form Information Unit for Other GIs,” International Herald Tribune, January 19, 1968. 97. In different documents disparate dates of the inception of the ADC are listed, February 11 and 28. See, respectively, “Rapport från de förenade FNL gruppernas kommitté för USA-krigsvägrare,” [May 1968], RAS, DFFG A 5:1; “American Exiles in Sweden. A Short Political History,” Revolutionary Perspective, March 1972, 11, FBI, FOIPA, American Deserters Committee, 100-HQ-454113. 98. See for typical depictions of deserters as lazy youngsters, soldiers with problems to adjust to military discipline, misguided American boys without clear motives, defectors, propaganda pawns of communists and pacifsts, and alienated exiles, or reporting with a human interest approach not fully recognizing the self-identifcation of the deserters as war refusers and the political dimension of desertion in the context of the Vietnam War “3 More Yanks Get Refuge in Sweden,” Chicago Tribune, January 12, 1968; “U.S. Deserters: How Big a Problem Now,” U.S. News & World Report, January 22, 1968, 12; “For U.S. Military Deserters in Sweden, Satisfaction

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Outweighs the Hardships,” New York Times, January 31, 1968; “What Life Is Like in Sweden for U.S. Deserters,” U.S. News & World Report, February 19, 1968, 66–67; “Sweden’s ‘Hate America’ Campaign—Why,” U.S. News & World Report, March 18, 1968, 78–79; “Guest Editorial,” Chicago Tribune, March 25, 1968; “They Turned Their Backs on America,” Sunday Herald Traveler, March 31, 1968; “When a Man Forsakes His Country,” This Week Magazine (Sunday Herald Traveler), April 7, 1968. 99. Uniform Code of Military Justice, Ch. X, § 882, Art. 82 and § 904, Art. 104, respectively, in Manual for Courts-Martial (United States, 1968), Appendix 2; “Deserters in Sweden,” Stockholm 867, February 15, 1968, NARA, RG 59, Central Foreign Policy Files 1967-1969, Political & Defense, Box 1667; “Deserters in Sweden,” Stockholm 886, February 20, 1968, NARA, RG 59, Central Foreign Policy Files 1967-1969, Political & Defense, Box 1666; Lucinda Franks, Waiting Out a War. The Exile of Private John Picciano (New York: Coward, 1974), 113. 100. Lucinda Franks writes about ffteen, another report accounts for twenty-two deserters involved with the founding of the ADC (Franks, Waiting Out a War, 115; “American Exiles in Sweden. A Short Political History,” Revolutionary Perspective, March 1972, 11, FBI, FOIPA, American Deserters Committee, 100-HQ-454113). 101. Attachment to “Activities of American Deserters in Sweden,” Stockholm A-564, March 22, 1968, NARA, RG 59, Central Foreign Policy Files 1967-1969, Political & Defense, Box 1666; “Fellow Deserter,” May 9, 1968, and “Dear Fellow Deserters,” May 12, 1968, ADC, [Stockholm], ARAB, Hans Göran Franck, 4.3.7 001; “Dear Friend,” May 12, 1968, ADC, Stockholm, Attachment to “World Youth Festival: Materials Distributed by American Deserters at Press Conference,” Sofa A-616, August 10, 1968, NARA, RG 59, Central Foreign Policy Files 1967-1969, Political & Defense, Box 1514. 102. “For U.S. Military Deserters in Sweden, Satisfaction Outweighs the Hardships,” New York Times, January 31, 1968; “Conscience of a Deserter,” Washington Post, March 20, 1968; “Deserters in Sweden,” Ebony, August 1968, 120–122; “The Eleven O’Clock News,” The Second Front, 2, 19 February 1968; “Deserter Developments,” Stockholm 767, January 24, 1968, “Deserters in Sweden,” Stockholm 886, February 20, 1968, and “Admission of Deserters to Sweden,” Stockholm 1027, March 19, 1968, NARA, RG 59, Central Foreign Policy Files 19671969, Political & Defense, Box 1666; “Finnish Protests Regarding Vietnam including Visit to Finland of American Defector,” Helsinki A-419, May 9, 1968; “Speech Delivered by Robert Argento,” Attachment to “Status of American Servicemen in Sweden,” Stockholm A-664, May 14, 1968, NARA, RG 59, Central Foreign Policy Files 1967-1969, Political & Defense, Box 1667. 103. On Michel Vale, sometimes spelled Michael, and his role in the ADC see Hayes, American Deserters in Sweden, 69–70; Franks, Waiting Out a War, 115–117; Carl-Gustaf Scott, “Swedish Sanctuary of American Deserters During the Vietnam War. A Facet of Social Democratic Domestic Politics,” Scandinavian Journal of History 26, 2 (2001), 131n43; “Counterintelligence Study ‘R[evolutionary] P[rotest] M[ovements],” Assistant Chief of Staff for Intelligence, Department of the Army, [1969], NARA, NPMP, White House Special Files, Staff Member and Offce Files,

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John W. Dean III, Demonstrations & Domestic Intelligence, Box 78, Folder “Army.” On George Carrano see Franks, Waiting Out a War, 118; “Deserters in Sweden,” Stockholm 867, February 15, 1968, and “US AWOLees in Sweden,” Stockholm 2324, July 30, 1968, NARA, RG 59, Central Foreign Policy Files 1967-1969, Political & Defense, Box 1667; “Carrano Calls Light ‘Jingoistic,’ Defends S.D.S.” The Northern Light, November 23, 1965. On Sherman Adams see Sherman Adams, Mitt Amerika. En svart avhoppares memoarer (Stockholm: Prisma, 1980); “Det är han som ‘slåss’ mot Floyd före matchen,” Aftonbladet, September 13, 1968; “Vi lockas inte av USA-agenter,” Dagens Nyheter, March 16, 1968. 104. “A Statement of Purpose to the Swedish People,” ARAB, Hans Göran Franck, 4.3.7 001; “A Statement of Purpose of the American Deserters Committee,” SHSW, American Deserters Committee, Pam 98-2063. Quote from frst document. 105. “Declaration” (March 1968, ADC, Stockholm), ARAB, Hans Göran Franck, 4.3.7 001. 106. “A Statement to the People of the United States,” April 3, 1968, in Hayes, American Deserters in Sweden, 59–61. 107. “A Message from American Deserters and Draft Resisters to the People of the World,” [Spring 1968], ARAB, Hans Göran Franck, Box 4.3.7 001. 108. “A Statement of Purpose of the American Deserters Committee,” SHSW, American Deserters Committee, Pam 98-2063. 109. “A Statement to the People of the United States,” April 3, 1968, in Hayes, American Deserters in Sweden, 59–61. 110. “A Statement of Purpose of the American Deserters Committee.” 111. “A Statement to the People of the United States”; “Peace Now? Johnson’s Cop-out,” The Second Front 1/1, May 8, 1968. 112. “Declaration,” [March 1968, ADC, Stockholm], ARAB, Hans Göran Franck, 4.3.7 001; “To Our Vietnamese Brothers,” Letter to the DRV Delegation to the Paris Peace Talks, August 12, 1968, ADC, Stockholm, SHSW, American Deserters Committee, Pam 98-2063; “Speech Delivered by Robert Argento,” Attachment to “Status of American Servicemen in Sweden,” Stockholm A-664, May 14, 1968, NARA, RG 59, Central Foreign Policy Files 1967-1969, Political & Defense, Box 1667. 113. “A Statement to the People of the United States,” April 3, 1968, in Hayes, American Deserters in Sweden, 59–61. 114. “Declaration.” 115. “Peace Now? Johnson’s Cop-out,” The Second Front 1/1, May 8, 1968. Further examples of encouragements to American servicemen to consider desertion are John Toler, “An Open Letter to the American GI,” The Second Front, 3, April 20, 1968, 2–3; “Speech Delivered by Desmond Carragher on April [3], 1968, on Behalf of the American Deserters Committee,” NARA, RG 59, Central Foreign Policy Files 1967-1969, Political & Defense, Box 1667. Tapes produced by the ADC are preserved at the U.S. National Archives, for example of “A Message from American Deserters to the Guys Still in the Armed Forces” (NARA, RG 263, Sound Recordings of Monitored Foreign Broadcast Materials 1950-76, BV 1852). See on items about and probably from American deserters aired by Radio Berlin International (RBI), for example, the broadcast listings of June 29, July 1, and August 3, 1968, and of

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March 15 and 16, and May 26, 1969, DRA, RBI, Programm-Journal, Nordamerika Redaktion 4.9. 116. “Uncle Sam Needs You, Do You Need Him?” The Second Front 1/1, May 8, 1968. 117. The Second Front 1/1, May 8, 1968; “Desertion Campaign,” Frankfurt 8041, May 9, 1968, NARA, RG 59, Central Foreign Policy Files 1967-1969, Political & Defense, Box 1667. 118. “A Message from American Deserters to the Guys Still in the Armed Forces,” [1968], ARAB, Hans Göran Franck, 4.3.7 001. 119. “The World Is behind You: An International Call for Desertion,” The Second Front 1/1, May 8, 1968. 120. “The Swedish Scene,” The Second Front 1/1, May 8, 1968; “The Eleven O’Clock News,” The Second Front, 3, April 20, 1968, 19–20. 121. “Uncle Sam Needs You, Do You Need Him?” The Second Front 1/1, May 8, 1968. 122. “To Our Vietnamese Brothers,” Letter to the DRV Delegation to the Paris Peace Talks, August 12, 1968, ADC, Stockholm, SHSW, American Deserters Committee, Pam 98-2063. 123. “The World Is behind You: An International Call for Desertion,” The Second Front 1/1, May 8, 1968. Bailey further elaborated on his fear of destruction of the world through nuclear war (Richard Bailey, “A World to Lose,” The Second Front, 4, August 15, 1968, 9–11). 124. “A Statement to the People of the United States,” April 3, 1968, in Hayes, American Deserters in Sweden, 59–61. 125. “Uncle Sam Needs You, Do You Need Him?” The Second Front 1/1, May 8, 1968. 126. RITA/FRITA/A&A to Hans Göran Franck, Paris, January 20, 1968, ARAB, Hans Göran Franck, 4.03.14 003. 127. For the discussion of cooperation between the groups in Sweden and France and the communication problems on that matter, see Phil[lip Wagner] to Mike [Michel Vale], Paris, undated [Spring 1968]; Watts [Thomas Schwaetzer] to Matt [Mats] Widgren, Paris, 4 April 1968; Watts [Thomas Schwaetzer] to Michael [Michel Vale] and George [Carrano], Paris, April 4, 1968; all ASR/IISG, Max Watts, Alphabet/American Exile (5). 128. Watts [Thomas Schwaetzer] to Michael [Michel Vale] and G[eorge Carrano]. 129. “A Message from American Deserters to the Guys Still in the Armed Forces,” [1968], ARAB, Hans Göran Franck, 4.3.7 001. 130. The date of V-Day Europe was carefully chosen, as one leafet used during the campaign stated: “May 8, 1945, GI’s freed Europe. Now Free Yourselves” (“Größerer Maßstab,” Der Spiegel, 26, June 23, 1969, 80; “Desertion Campaign,” Frankfurt 8041, May 9, 1968, NARA, RG 59, Central Foreign Policy Files 19671969, Political & Defense, Box 1667). 131. The Second Front 1/1, May 8, 1968, and September 1/2, 1968.

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132. “Om Vietnam,” Collection of Speeches, February 21, 1968, Stockholm, SKfV, ARAB, Hans Göran Franck 4.03.14 003. The rally, organized by the SKfV, created tensions with the DFFG, who accused the former of co-opting the Vietnam issue. Pictures of Palme marching alongside Chan during the torchlight procession following the rally were printed in newspapers worldwide and came to symbolize Swedish opposition against the war in Vietnam (Salomon, Rebeller i takt med tiden, 177–179). 133. “Desertör vände åter Raskonfikt i Sverige,” Svenska Dagbladet, March 13, 1968; “Skrämdes desertören tillbaka till USA-armén?” Aftonbladet, March 13, 1968. 134. “A Deserter Sells Out: ‘Ray Jones Betrayed Us,’” The Second Front 1/1, May 8, 1968; “USA-desertören som lämnade Sverige försökte ta sitt liv,” Aftonbladet, April 4, 1968. 135. “This Week. The Deserters,” ITV, Post Production Script, Rediffusion Television, August 17, 1967, IISG, Ton Regtien 202. 136. After a report on Gibson’s involvement in the return of Roy Ray Jones in Aftonbladet, he denied such allegations and requested a correction by the newspaper and a reply by himself to be published (see correspondence of Gibson with Aftonbladet, GWU, Richard Gibson, Series 1, Box 12, Folder 3). Richard Gibson had previously been accused of being a provocateur and government agent when he had authored radical statements in the name of other members of the African American expatriate community in Paris of the late 1950s, jeopardizing their residence status and reputation (Jerry W. Ward and Robert J. Butler, The Richard Wright Encyclopedia (Westport: Greenwood Press, 2008), 148–149). 137. “Declaration of Roy Ray Jones III to the Aliens Commission,” Stockholm, May 9, 1969, ARAB, Hans Göran Franck, 4.3.7 001; “Vem är vem i avhopparkarusellen?” Aftonbladet, March 18, 1968. On William Russell see James B. Lloyd, Lives of Mississippi Authors, 1817-1967 (Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 1981), 398 ff. On Russell’s and Richard Gibson’s activities in Sweden see Hammarström, FNL i Sverige, 85–86; “Så opererar LBJ:s agenter i Sverige,” Tidsignal, 12/1968, 3–4; “CIA i Sverige. Spionverksamhet i lugn och ro,” Vietnam Bulletinen 6, 1 (1970), 18–19. 138. “GI Who Returned From Sweden Gets 4 Months,” Los Angeles Times, April 4, 1968. 139. Edward Sagarin, “The Research Setting and the Right Not to Be Researched,” Social Problems 21, 1 (1973), 61. At the hearings of a subcommittee of the Senate Committee on Armed Services on the American military absentees abroad, a spokesman for the Department of Defense denied direct involvement in facilitating the return of Jones, which would have rated as an interference into Swedish affairs. He admitted, however, that promoting encouragements of deserters to return through intermediaries was one of the strategies of the military authorities. Moreover, Army Assistant Judge Advocate General Colonel Harold Parker conceded that a pretrial agreement for a lenient sentence had been arranged for Jones (Committee on Armed Services, Military Deserters. Hearings before a Subcommittee on the Problem of Deserters from Military Service, Ninetieth Congress, Second Session, May 21–22, 1968, 26 ff.).

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140. “1st GI Bugout Returns to Unit,” Stars & Stripes, March 13, 1968; “Poisoned Relations,” Time, March 22, 1968, 33; “They Turned Their Backs on America,” Sunday Herald Traveler, March 31, 1968, 26–29; “Deserters in Sweden,” Ebony, August 1968, 120–122. 141. Military Deserters (Hearings), 26. 142. Committee on Armed Services, Treatment of Deserters from Military Service. Report of the Committee on Armed Services, Ninety-frst Congress, First Session, March 11, 1969. 143. “‘Vi lockas inte av USA-agenter,’” Dagens Nyheter, March 16, 1968; “Speech of Allan [sic] Cohen at Press Conference of American Deserters Committee” and Statement to Swedish Reporters by Bill Jones, 15 March 1968, Stockholm, ARAB, Hans Göran Franck, 4.3.7 001; “Här är beviset! Jag är inte alls någon USAspion!” Aftonbladet, March 16, 1968; “Amerikajournalist övertalade Jones att lämna Sverige,” Dagens Nyheter, March 15, 1968. 144. “Så opererar LBJ:s agenter i Sverige,” Tidsignal, 12/1968, 3–4; “Förföljelser av desertörerna efter avslöjandet av agenterna,” Tidsignal, 13/1968, 3–4; “USA-not överlämnas om kupp mot konsul utpekat tillbakavisar,” Svenska Dagbladet, March 19, 1968; “Consular Offcer Entrapment by Deserters,” Stockholm 1015, March 18, 1968, NARA, RG 59, Central Foreign Policy Files 1967-1969, Political & Defense, Box 1666; “American ‘Organizers’ of Deserters,” Stockholm 1159, April 2, 1968, NARA, RG 59, Central Foreign Policy Files 1967-1969, Political & Defense, Box 1667. 145. “Consular Offcer Entrapment by Deserters.” 146. “Studenterna rusade in och slet ifrån mig mina papper,” Aftonbladet, March 18, 1968 (Swedish original: “absolut inga handgripligheter”); “U.S. Aide and an Editor Jostled While With Deserter in Sweden,” New York Times, March 18, 1968. Similar reports appeared in the Chicago Tribune and the Los Angeles Times (“Rough Up [of] U.S. Aid[e] in Sweden; Steal Papers,” Chicago Tribune, March 18, 1968; “American Journalist William Russell Said He and a U.S. Consul Were ‘Pushed around,’” Los Angeles Times, March 18, 1968). 147. Excerpts of Noon Briefng, Department of State 132173, March 18, 1968, NARA, RG 59, Central Foreign Policy Files 1967-1969, Culture & Information, Box 396; “Vi angrep inte USA-konsuln!” Aftonbladet, 19 March 1968. 148. “Så opererar LBJ:s agenter i Sverige,” Tidsignal, 12/1968, 3–4. While American deserters applied for political asylum in Sweden, they only received residence permission on humanitarian grounds and thus held a status short of that of political refugees. 149. “CIA-folk på människojakt,” Ny Dag, March 29, 1968 (Swedish original: “människojakt”). 150. Franks, Waiting Out a War, 128; “Incident at July 4 Party at U.S. Embassy in Stockholm,” Department of State, EUR/SCAN, 10 September 1968, NARA, RG 59, Department of State, Bureau of European Affairs, Records Relating to Sweden 1957-1975, Box 3, Folder “POL 38-4 Special Papers on Deserters.”

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151. “The Eleven O’Clock News,” The Second Front, 3, April 20, 1968, 19–20; “U.S. Tries to Lure Deserters from Sweden,” National Guardian, June 22, 1968; Hayes, American Deserters in Sweden, 65. 152. Together with Tommy Hammarström and Mats Widgren of the DFFG deserter committee, the ADC held a press conference on the Jerum affair to present its perspective on the event and to assert the deserters’ claim for political asylum in Sweden (Aktuellt, SVT, March 21, 1968, SMDB, TB85-0004; “A Statement by Bill Jones on the Jerum Affair,” [March 21, 1968], ARAB, Hans Göran Franck, 4.3.7 001; “Förföljelser av desertörerna efter avslöjandet av agenterna,” Tidsignal, 13/1968, 3–4). 153. Among them were William Davidon and Scott Nearing from the United States, Martin Niemöller from West Germany, René Rognon from France, Yōtarō Konaka of the Japanese Beheiren, as well as representatives from Vietnam (List of Participants, Stockholm Conference on Vietnam, Emergency Consultative Meeting, March 23–24, 1968, SHSW, PACS, Box 2, Stockholm Conference 1966/1967/1968). 154. “Draft Agenda for Emergency Consultative Meeting,” March 23–24, 1968, ARAB, Hans Göran Franck, 4.03.14 003; “Rapport om Stockholmskonferensens marsmöte (Emergency Consultative Meeting) 1968,” ARAB, SKfV, A1: 1. Hans Göran Franck participated as an expert on the issue (Bertil Svahnström to Hans Göran Franck, March 10, 1968, ARAB, Hans Göran Franck, 4.03.14 003). 155. “Bertil Svanstrom’s [sic] Abuse of the ADC,” Attachment to “World Youth Festival: Materials Distributed by American Deserters at Press Conference,” Sofa A-616, August 10, 1968, NARA, RG 59, Central Foreign Policy Files 1967-1969, Political & Defense, Box 1514. 156. “Speech Delivered at Vietnam Conference March 2[3-24] by Bill Jones,” ARAB, Hans Göran Franck, 4.3.7 001. 157. This interpretation has been substantiated by historians See, for example, Salomon, Rebeller i takt med tiden, 168 ff.; Scott, Swedish Social Democracy and the Vietnam War, 92 ff. 158. The few AWOL Vietnam veterans who had previously come to Sweden had not been willing to participate in political activities there (“Deserters in Sweden,” Stockholm 1085, March 27, 1968, NARA, RG 59, Central Foreign Policy Files 19671969, Political & Defense, Box 1666; “Desertörer försvunna,” Svenska Dagbladet, May 28, 1968). 159. A detailed account on the men’s stays in Japan and the Soviet Union based on testimony by Phillip Callicoat, one of them, who returned to military control before eventually going back to Sweden, was presented to the Senate Committee on the Judiciary (Organized Subversion in the U.S. Armed Forces (Hearings), 48 ff.) See also Whitmore, Memphis, Nam, Sweden, 130 ff. and 150 ff. 160. See, for example, “Sadism Laid to G.I.’s by Six on Soviet TV,” New York Times, May 4, 1968; “GI ‘Deserters’ on Moscow TV,” Washington Post, May 4, 1968; “6 Defectors Accuse U.S. of Atrocities,” Chicago Tribune, May 4, 1968. For details of the statements and on the Soviet perspective on the six deserters see “Soviets Surface Six Vietnam Deserters,” Moscow A-1375, May 9, 1968, NARA, RG

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59, Central Foreign Policy Files 1967-1969, Political & Defense, Box 1667; “They Accuse. Interview with Six Americans Who Broke with U.S. Military in Vietnam” (Pravda, May 4, 1968), in: Current Digest of the Soviet Press 20, 18 (1968), 20–21. Some of their accounts of violence and combat experiences were disputed as false or exaggerated, for example in “GI Deserter Changes Tune on Moscow TV,” Chicago Tribune, May 27, 1968. 161. Ken Coates, Peter Limqueco, and Peter Weiss, eds., Prevent the Crime of Silence. Reports from the Sessions of the International War Crimes Tribunal Founded by Bertrand Russell (London: Allen Lane/Penguin, 1971), 249 ff. and 271 ff. 162. “Why I’m still Alive!” The Second Front 1/2, September 1968; Whitmore, Memphis, Nam, Sweden, 85–88. 163. “Desertörerna ‘kidnappade,’” Dagens Nyheter, May 28, 1968; “AWOLee Philip A. Callicoat,” Stockholm 2609, August 24, 1968, NARA, RG 59, Central Foreign Policy Files 1967-1969, Political & Defense, Box 1667; Organized Subversion in the U.S. Armed Forces (Hearings), 48 and 51–53; Whitmore, Memphis, Nam, Sweden, 144–146; Franks, Waiting Out a War, 118–119. 164. Bertil Svahnström to [Mikhail] Kotov, May 12, 1968, ARAB, SKfV, F 1: 8. 165. Telegram to SKfV, Moscow, received May 23, 1968, ARAB, SKfV, F 1: 8; Organized Subversion in the U.S. Armed Forces (Hearings), 55. 166. “Desertörerna ‘kidnappade,’” Dagens Nyheter, May 28, 1968. 167. “Desertion: The Rising Sun Route,” The Second Front, 3, April 20, 1968, 4. 168. “Polisen äntrade talarstolen,” Dagens Nyheter, April 4, 1968; “Deserters in Sweden,” Stockholm 1201, April 4, 1968, NARA, RG 59, Central Foreign Policy Files 1967-1969, Political & Defense, Box 1666. 169. “Kim Jin Suh [Kenneth Griggs]: A Statement to the People of the World,” The Second Front, 3, April 20, 1968, 5–6. 170. “Desertörer försvunna,” Svenska Dagbladet, 28 May 1968; “U.S. Deserters in Sweden Split,” New York Times, June 9, 1968. 171. “Sweden Stockholm Vietnam Deserters,” May 25, 1968, AP Image 10032513699 (printed, for example, in “Defectors in Sweden,” Kansas City Star, May 26, 1968); “Desertörerna ‘kidnappade,’” Dagens Nyheter, May 28, 1968; “Bertil Svanstrom’s [sic] Abuse of the ADC,” Attachment to “World Youth Festival: Materials Distributed by American Deserters at Press Conference,” Sofa A-616, 10 August 1968, NARA, RG 59, Central Foreign Policy Files 1967-1969, Political & Defense, Box 1514; Organized Subversion in the U.S. Armed Forces (Hearings), 55. 172. “Desertörerna ‘kidnappade’” (Swedish original: “hoppade av” and “kidnappade”); “Desertörer försvunna”; “Statement Made by Philip Callico [sic] at American Deserters Press Conference on May 31 1968,” Attachment to “World Youth Festival: Materials Distributed by American Deserters at Press Conference,” Sofa A-616, August 10, 1968, NARA, RG 59, Central Foreign Policy Files 1967-1969, Political & Defense, Box 1514; Organized Subversion in the U.S. Armed Forces (Hearings), 55.

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173. Terry Whitmore, “Vietnam? America? And Freedom!” The Second Front, 4, August 15, 1968, 3–6; Mark Shapiro, “The American Soldier in Vietnam: Refections,” The Second Front, 6, December 1968, 19–21. 174. “Deserters Facing Splits from 3 Sources,” National Guardian, July 6, 1968. 175. “Statement Made by Philip Callico [sic] at American Deserters Press Conference on May 31 1968,” Attachment to “World Youth Festival: Materials Distributed by American Deserters at Press Conference,” Sofa A-616, August 10, 1968, NARA, RG 59, Central Foreign Policy Files 1967-1969, Political & Defense, Box 1514. 176. “Statements at Press Conference, May 31st, Stockholm, Sweden,” SHSW, American Deserters Committee, Pam 98-2063; “AWOL Servicemen Apply for Residence in Sweden,” Stockholm 1509, May 6, 1968, NARA, RG 59, Central Foreign Policy Files 1967-1969, Political & Defense, Box 1667. 177. “Statements at Press Conference, May 31st, Stockholm, Sweden.” 178. “Bertil Svanstrom’s [sic] Abuse of the ADC,” Attachment to “World Youth Festival: Materials Distributed by American Deserters at Press Conference,” Sofa A-616, August 10, 1968, NARA, RG 59, Central Foreign Policy Files 1967-1969, Political & Defense, Box 1514. 179. “Desertering från USA:s krigsmakt—ett kraftfullt stöd åt det vietnamesiska folkets kamp,” FNL i Sverige, 2 (1968), 14–15; “Rapport från De Förenade FNL Gruppernas kommitté för USA-krigsvägrare,” RAS, DFFG, A5: 1; SÄPO-Report of October 25, 1968 (525), RAS, SÄPO, JWK, 10:13/2M S283 (Swedish original: “allt politiskt samarbete med personer som Bertil Svahnström måste anses uteslutet,” “så gott som en brytning med Franck, Svahnström o co,” “Franck har sökt pressa desertörerna till politisk passivitet”). 180. SÄPO-Reports of July 2 (401) and October 25 and 26, 1968 (525 and 518, respectively), RAS, SÄPO, JWK, 10:13/2M S283; reference to such allegations by Swedish antiwar activist John Takman in Thomas Lee Hayes to Jim Walch, March 4, 1969, ARAB, Jim Walch; “Desertörflmens misstag,” Aftonbladet, May 2, 1969; Hammarström, FNL i Sverige, 86–87; Hayes, American Deserters in Sweden, 68–69; Franks, Waiting Out a War, 135–137. The theory of an infltration of the deserter community was taken up later on, for example, in a Swedish documentary flm directed by Birgitta Bergmark, in the recollections by Swedish pacifst Åke Sandin, and in recent studies of the deserters in Sweden (Hell No, We Won’t Go (1997), SVT, SMDB, TV97-3076, 34:45; Åke Sandin, “Även då beljögs fredsaktivister” (1993), “Desertörer och ‘brunvänster’ nu och då” (2004), and “Svensk agent kontra rysk ekolog” (2010) (http​:/​/tu​​ffsan​​din​.b​​logsp​​ot​.co​​m​/201​​3​/08/​​aven-​​da​-be​​ljogs​​-fred​​sakti​​​viste​​r​ _13.​​html,​ http:​/​/tuf​​fsand​​in​.bl​​ogspo​​t​.com​​/2004​​/03​/d​​esert​​rer​-o​​ch​-br​​unvns​​ter​​-n​​u​-och​​-d​ .ht​​ml, and http:​/​/tuf​​fsand​​in​.bl​​ogspo​​t​.com​​/2010​​/02​/s​​vensk​​-agen​​t​-kon​​tra​-r​​y​sk​-e​​kolog​​ .html​, accessed March 2014); Scott, “Swedish Sanctuary of American Deserters,” 137n89; Erlandsson, Desertörerna, 108 ff.; Sweet, Operation Chaos, especially xii and 120–121. 181. Michel P. Richard, “Encounter with Deserters,” Sociological Symposium 5 (1970).

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182. The factor of generation is refected in a flm produced with ADC members in September 1968 by young Swedish flmmakers (Deserter USA (1969), directed by Lars Lambert and Olle Sjögren, SMDB, T02-0909). 183. Coates, Limqueco, and Weiss, Prevent the Crime of Silence, 379. “Eleven O’clock News,” The Second Front, 4, August 15, 1968, 26; “TUFF Historik,” History of the Tyresö division of the Swedish Peace and Arbitration Society (http​:/​/ww​​w​.tuf​​ f​.nu/​​om​-tu​​ff​/hi​​stori​​k​​-128​​02325​, accessed August 2013). 184. Der Kampf des vietnamesischen Volkes und die Globalstrategie des Imperialismus. Internationaler Vietnam-Kongreß, 159; “Rapport om Stockholmskonferensens marsmöte (Emergency Consultative Meeting) 1968,” ARAB, SKfV, A1: 1; Conférence Mondiale de Juristes pour le Vietnam, 146–147. “Beheiren International Conference Held 11-14 August 1968 in Kyoto, Japan,” Tokyo A-96, October 15, 1968, NARA, RG 59, Central Foreign Policy Files 19671969, Political & Defense, Box 1514. 185. Franks, Waiting Out a War, 134. Participation in conventions in West Germany was considered too dangerous by American deserters and their supporters in 1968. See, for example, Perrin, G.I. Resister, 91. 186. A Time to Live (1968), directed by Leonid Makhnach, 16:43. In a long report on the festival in East German magazine Neue Berliner Illustrierte, for example, the American deserters were featured prominently and acclaimed as representatives of the “conscience of the youth” of the world (“Das Gewissen der Jugend,” Neue Berliner Illustrierte, 34/1968, 18–21). 187. “Speech for Support of Vietnam Week in Finland,” April 1968, in American Deserters Committee, Untitled Collection of Speeches and Pamphlets, SHSW Pam 98-2063; “Finnish Protests Regarding Vietnam including Visit to Finland of American Defector,” Helsinki A-419, May 9, 968, NARA, RG 59, Central Foreign Policy Files 1967-1969, Political & Defense, Box 1667; “‘Third World’ and ‘Vietnam Solidarity Week,’” Copenhagen A-863, October 22, 1968, NARA, RG 59, Central Foreign Policy Files 1967-1969, Political & Defense, Box 1514. 188. “U.S. Radicals, Vietnamese Meet,” National Guardian, April 27, 1968 (by Ken Cloke). Cloke’s Manual on Draft Resistance, published in 1968, included a section on each political activity inside the military and desertion (Kenneth Cloke, A Pocket Manual on Draft Resistance, Guardian Pamphlet, 1968, pp. 21 ff.) See also Cortright, Soldiers in Revolt, 318. 189. “Speech at a Meeting of the World Council of Churches,” Bill Jones, Uppsala, July 17, 1968, The Second Front, 6, December 1968, 35–37; Norman Goodall, ed. The Uppsala Report 1968. Offcial Report of the Fourth Assembly of the World Council of Churches, Uppsala July 4–20, 1968 (Geneva: World Council of Churches, 1968), 64 and 260; Hayes, American Deserters in Sweden, 26–27; Hall, Because of Their Faith, 81. 190. Franks, Waiting Out a War, 132–133; “Deserters in Sofa Denounce ‘U.S. Aggression in Vietnam,’” New York Times, August 3, 1968; “American Delegation at Festival: American Deserters,” Sofa 1121, July 30, 1968, and “World Youth Festival: American Deserters,” Sofa 1157, August 5, 1968, NARA, RG 59, Central Foreign

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Policy Files 1967-1969, Political & Defense, Box 1514. On the broader encounters between East and West during the festival see Nick Rutter, “Look Left, Drive Right. Internationalisms at the 1968 World Youth Festival,” in The Socialist Sixties. Crossing Borders in the Second World, ed. Anne E. Gorsuch and Diane P. Koenker (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2013). 191. “Prosecution of Anti-War Propagandists Is Urged,” Washington Post, September 25, 1968; Committee on the Judiciary, Extent of Subversion in the “New Left.” Hearings before the Subcommittee to Investigate the Administration of the Internal Security Act and Other Internal Security Laws, Ninety-frst Congress, Second Session, January–September 1970, 280 and 613; Bruce Dancis, Resister. A Story of Protest and Prison during the Vietnam War (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2014), 188; Bernardine Dohrn, “Lessons for Leftists Old and New,” Monthly Review 58, 5 (2006). 192. A request for a meeting with American ambassador W. Averell Harriman in Paris was turned down by him (Hall, Because of Their Faith, 81). 193. A collection of articles, which appeared in the National Catholic Reporter, Christian Science Monitor, Commonweal, and other publications, was issued by CALCAV (“Deserters in Exile,” CALCAV, New York, 1969, TTU/VVA, 14511248025). 194. Foley, “Sanctuary! A Bridge Between GI and Veteran Dissent.” 195. “Delegation arrives in Stockholm for Visit with Vietnam War Resisters,” CALCAV Press Release, October 27, 1968, ARAB, Hans Göran Franck, 4.3.7 001; “Sexton faktasökare från USA,” Dagens Nyheter, October 28, 1968; “Amerikansk grupp för stöd åt ADC kommer till Stockholm” (October 1968), Svenska Friends of ADC, ARAB, Hans Göran Franck, 4.3.7 002; “Correlation Summary: Howard Zinn,” October 12, 1970, 18, FBI FOIA, Howard Zinn, 100-360217. 196. “Clergy and Laymen Concerned about Viet Nam, Information Concerning— Internal Security,” November 4, 1968, FBI FOIA, American Deserters Committee, 100-454957, 123419 ff. 197. Michael Novak, “Alive and Well in Paris. Negotiators and Deserters: Report from the Peace Front,” Commonweal, November 22, 1968; Richard John Neuhaus, “A Ministry to Forgotten Americans,” Christian Century, March 19, 1969 (both reprints in “Deserters in Exile,” CALCAV, New York, 1969, TTU/VVA, 14511248025). 198. Scott, “Swedish Sanctuary of American Deserters,” 26; Olof Ruin, Tage Erlander. Serving the Welfare State, 1946–1969 (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1990), 15. 199. “Avhoppare från USA fast för väskryckning-stölder,” Aftonbladet, September 10, 1968; “USA-desertörer utvisas för småstölder—hemma väntar 20 års fängelse,” Aftonbladet, October 9, 1968; “‘Ingen är lycklig över att ha desertörerna i landet,’” Aftonbladet, September 25, 1968; “More Americans Granted Residence in Sweden,” Stockholm 2065, July 2, 1968; “Military Absentees in Sweden,” Stockholm 3613, November 27, 1968, NARA, RG 59, Central Foreign Policy Files 1967-1969, Political & Defense, Box 1667. 200. “Diskussion med desertörer,” Aftonbladet, October 26, 1968; “‘Regeringen har svängt om avog mot USA-desertörer,’” Dagens Nyheter, October 28, 1968;

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“Amerikansk grupp för stöd åt ADC kommer till Stockholm”; “Till det svenska folket” (October 1968), Svenska Friends of ADC, ARAB, Hans Göran Franck, 4.3.7 002. 201. “Statement by Professor Harvey Cox for the American Delegation Visiting War Resisters,” CALCAV Press Release, October 27, 1968, ARAB, Hans Göran Franck, 4.3.7 001. 202. “A Statement to the American Deserters Committee from the American Movement,” The Second Front, 6, December 1968, 3. 203. “ADC-SDS,” The Second Front Review, 7 (Special Issue in Swedish), [February] 1969, 3–5; Franks, Waiting Out a War, 145 f. 204. “Editorial,” The Second Front, 6, December 1968, 4–5. See on the backgrounds of Huth and Bucklin “U.S. Deserters Split by Dissent in Sweden,” Los Angeles Times, January 26, 1969; “More Bullshit from the Brass,” The Second Front, [Spring 1969]; “Arrival of AWOLee Richard Dean Bucklin,” Stockholm 2393, August 7, 1968, NARA, RG 59, Central Foreign Policy Files 1967-1969, Political & Defense, Box 1667. 205. David M. Gracie, “Deserters,” The Witness, December 5, 1968 (reprint in “Deserters in Exile,” CALCAV, New York, 1969, TTU/VVA, 14511248025); Jerry Grey to the Leaders of Resist, London, December 27, 1968, ARAB, Jim Walch. 206. Deserter USA (1969), directed by Lars Lambert and Olle Sjögren, SMDB, T02-0909, 53:30; Hayes, American Deserters in Sweden, 64–65; Franks, Waiting Out a War, 128–129; Hammarström, FNL i Sverige, 86–87; Scott, “Swedish Sanctuary of American Deserters,” 137n89; Erlandsson, Desertörerna, 108 ff.; Sweet, Operation Chaos; Hell No, We Won’t Go (1997), SVT, SMDB, TV97-3076, 34:45. 207. See on the information fow between Swedish and U.S. authorities and its exposure in 1969 my elaborations in Chapter 3 and Scott, Swedish Social Democracy and the Vietnam War, 149. On other intelligence activity regarding desertion abroad see Organized Subversion in the U.S. Armed Forces (Hearings), 43 ff.; “U.S. Military ‘Deserters’ in France,” Military Liquidation Section, U.S. Embassy, Paris, June 27, 1968, Attachment to Paris A-2455, July 25, 1968, NARA, RG 59, Central Foreign Policy Files 1967-1969, Political & Defense, Box 1663; “Project 1663,” Agent Report on West German Antiwar Activists, April 30, 1968, RG 319, Security Classifed Intelligence & Investigative Dossiers—Impersonal File 19391976, Box 138; “Circular 175: Request for Authority to Negotiate and Conclude an Agreement between the U.S. and the FRG on Administrative Arrangements Relating to Monitoring of Mail and Telecommunications by the FRG on behalf of U.S. Armed Forces in the FRG,” Action Memorandum, Department of State, September 14, 1968, RG 59, Central Foreign Policy Files 1967-69, Political & Defense, Box 1655; Copy of The Second Front, 3, April 20, 1968, in FBI FOIPA, American Deserters Committee, 62-HQ-111181. 208. Untitled outline on the situation in exile and proposed actions, The Underground Railway, Robert Argento, Stockholm, [late 1968], ARAB, Jim Walch; “U.S. Deserters Split by Dissent in Sweden,” Los Angeles Times, January 26, 1969.

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209. The sympathetic reports by participants of the delegation created the basis for a more positive image of the absentees and an understanding for their plight, both among readers of the specifc publications, as well as in the longer-term through their distribution by CALCAV over the next years (“Deserters in Exile,” CALCAV, New York, 1969, TTU/VVA, 14511248025). 210. “Editorial,” The Second Front, 6, December 1968, 4–5. 211. “Han utsätts för psykisk terror i militärfängelset,” Aftonbladet, February 14, 1969; “‘Freedom’ at Fort Dix,” The Circle, October 23, 1969 (Marist College, Poughkeepsie NY); “Third World Panel,” Winter Soldier Investigation Testimony, Detroit, January 31 to February 2, 1971, The Sixties Project (http​:/​/ww​​w2​.ia​​th​.vi​​ rgini​​a​.edu​​/sixt​​ies​/H​​TML​_d​​ocs​/R​​esour​​ces​/P​​rimar​​y​/Win​​ter​_S​​oldie​​​r​/WS_​​32​_3d​​_Worl​​ d​.htm​​l, accessed January 2014). 212. RITA-FRITA Bulletins 13 and 14, January 1969, and Terry Klug to Overseas Weekly, January 15, 1969, SHSW Microflm P82-1950. 213. “Klug Acquitted!” Act, 2/2, 1970; “‘Freedom’ at Fort Dix,” The Circle, October 23, 1969 (Marist College, Poughkeepsie, NY); Martin Oppenheimer, ed. The American Military (Chicago: Transaction Books, 1971), 90–92. For further details see Joan Crowell, Fort Dix Stockade. Our Prison Camp Next Door (New York: Links, 1974), 63 ff. 214. “RITA’s frst Act,” Newsweek, February 26, 1968, 39. 215. “Deserter Policy Held Too Lenient,” New York Times, March 6, 1969; “Hill Hits Military for Unconcern over 53,357 Desertions in Year,” Washington Post, March 7, 1969; Military Deserters (Hearings); Treatment of Deserters (Report). 216. “Deserters: ‘A Refection of the General Permissiveness,’” New York Times, March 16, 1969. 217. “Desertions Rise in the Services,” New York Times, February 14, 1968; “190,000 Went AWOL During Last 2 Years,” New York Times, May 22, 1968; “Hill Hits Military for Unconcern over 53,357 Desertions in Year,” Washington Post, March 7, 1969. 218. See, for example, “The Newsreel 1968,” Film List including “Four Americans. The sailors who deserted from the USS ‘Intrepid’ tell who they are and why they had to desert,” SHSW, PACS, Box 2, Draft Resistance/All Groups/1967-1968; Statements of the Intrepid Four from Liberation magazine in Mitchell Goodman, ed. The Movement toward a New America. The Beginnings of a Long Revolution (Philadelphia/New York: Pilgrim Press/Alfred A. Knopf, 1970), 622–623. John Toler’s statement on his desertion in protest to the war is cut against footage of atrocities by U.S. troops in Vietnam (In the Year of the Pig (1968), directed by Emile de Antonio, 1:15:40; Douglas Kellner and Dan Streible, eds., Emile de Antonio. A Reader (Minneapolis/London: University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis/London, 2000), 38; Laura Browder, “The Meaning of the Soldier. In the Year of the Pig and Hearts and Minds,” in A Companion to the War Film, ed. Douglas A. Cunningham and John C. Nelson (Chichester: Wiley Blackwell, 2016), 356–370). John Toler is misspelled here as Towler and Toller, respectively. 219. Gardner, “The Future of Desertion,” 161.

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Chapter 3

Asylum and Exile

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Consolidation of the Swedish Sanctuary, Community Building, and Exile Culture

In the fall of 1968, the focus of activism by American deserters shifted from addressing the American public and promoting a new image of the deserter in the United States to the issue of asylum and their situation in European exile. In France, American deserters and their sympathizers toned down political activism following a summer of repressive measures against both groups. The support network was maintained, however, and American exiles and French activists returned to a more political positioning of their activities in the spring of 1969.1 Meanwhile, a number of the men had moved from France to Sweden, where the legal status and social situation seemed more secure, and where they enjoyed the freedom to publicize their perspective. Here, media reporting implied in early 1968, American deserters were given the status of political refugees, and this was communicated in the antiwar scene.2 However, this had been a false assumption, resulting from the routine processing of political asylum applications of absentees from the U.S. armed forces by the Swedish authorities and subsequent issuance of residence permits. When in the late summer and in the fall, some deserters were not allowed reentry into Sweden after traveling, others were convicted for theft and sentenced to expulsion from Sweden, and draft resisters were denied the same right of residence as the deserters, American war refusers realized that they had a special status with fewer privileges than political refugees. The matter prompted a new debate on desertion in the context of the Vietnam War, international and domestic principles of asylum, as well as the on the deserters’ motives. It mobilized new solidarity for the American military absentees within Sweden and on an international level. While American exiles never achieved a full status as political refugees, the campaigns succeeded in pushing the Swedish authorities to better defne the grounds for asylum for American war refusers and initiate social assistance measures. 145

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Next to the improvement of government programs for the American exiles in 1969 and the following years, they were to receive substantial support from the United States, frst through the work of a pastor on the ground, organized and funded by CALCAV, and later from the American National Council of Churches (NCC). Members of the American delegation visiting Europe in the fall of 1968 had recommended to send a clergyman to support the deserters in Sweden, offer them counsel in personal crisis, help them articulate their perspective to their families, and liberate them from the infuence of political groups. In 1969, Episcopal priest Thomas Lee Hayes took on the task to help individuals tackle the challenges of exile and come to terms with their action and its consequences. Beyond contributing to the consolidation of the exile community, Hayes became an advocate for the deserters and a passionate defender of their act of refusal, their motives, and perspectives, both toward the Swedish public and authorities and toward the United States. Upon his return there, he toured the country and published on the matter with the objective to garner sympathies for the war refusers among Americans, in hope for reconciliation and an amnesty. After the mission of Hayes ended, CALCAV and the NCC fnanced selfhelp initiatives of American exiles to consolidate and sustain the exile community in Sweden. Encouraged by Hayes and with the support of Swedish government agencies, social and religious organizations, and other activists, deserters themselves organized assistance for support of newly arrived absentees and men in precarious circumstances. These projects included drug prevention, support in fnding housing, and job training opportunities. At the same time, the programs aided deserters in raising their political consciousness, supported their decision to refuse participation in the Vietnam War, and nurtured an American exile identity. In early 1970, deserters who had already settled quite well in Sweden formed the Center to follow up on Hayes’s support work. Later in the year, the Swedish authorities approached the organizers and employed one of them as social worker. The American Exile Project was then initiated to continue such professionalized self-help as well as community building over the next years with two absentees in charge and the support of the Swedish branch of Young Men’s/Women’s Christian Associations (KFUK-KFUM). The Center became the framework for social and cultural activities, as well as for management and distribution of funds from the American NCC. They were vital for the exiles and fnanced Swedish language courses, study groups, creative writing and music workshops, publications, food, and community events. While never fully formalized as a constituency, the growing American exile community, reaching around fve hundred in 1971, participated in decision-making processes at the Center through steering committee

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elections and project proposals.3 The ADC reorganized and maintained its focus on political activism and schooling. All groups and initiatives contributed to a consolidation of the exile community during the early 1970s and helped individuals transition to a new life abroad. Exile publications played a crucial role in the deserters’ efforts to defend themselves and their action, to rally for solidarity, and to reach individual absentees to help them handle their situation. In the community building process, newsletters were a means of practical information for individuals such as housing, job training opportunities, and legal matters. They complemented the social work of the American Exile Project and functioned as an extended bulletin board of the Center to inform and integrate community members. The newsletters moreover substantiated organizing and decision-making processes through the publication of committee minutes, election announcements, and encouragements to participate. The newsletters also created a counterpublic space, in which American exiles articulated their thoughts and perspectives on their own situation and broader issues, including desertion, the Vietnam War, and American politics and culture.4 The production of these newsletters refected the growth of alternative media and an underground press within subcultures and protest movements at the time.5 This exile counterpublic brought about different types of prose, poetry, and cartoons, often infuenced by contemporary popular and countercultures.6 They provide unique insights into the minds of American war refusers, now more independent from the interpretation and expectations of others. Indeed, the ability to publish and control their own media was empowering for the American exiles. It allowed them to establish a community and offered individuals a platform to develop and share their own views. The counterpublic experience eventually prepared the deserters to position themselves with a stronger voice in the ongoing and coming debates on the Vietnam War and on amnesty for war refusers. POLITICAL OR HUMANITARIAN ASYLUM? Several incidents and developments created doubts among the deserters about the security of their Swedish sanctuary. In August 1968, ADC members Bill Jones and Mark Shapiro were refused reentry into Sweden when they returned from the World Youth Festival in Sofa, and two absentees convicted in October for theft and falsifcation of documents were to be deported after completed sentences. Moreover, asylum applications of American draft evaders and a deserter were turned down in late 1968 and early 1969, and many exiles sensed cooler or even hostile treatment by the Swedish authorities in

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general.7 Furthermore, the duration of the asylum for American military absentees had never been specifed, and deserters now worried that an end of the fghting in Vietnam would also end their right of residence in Sweden and expose them to the U.S. military and judicial authorities.8 Alarmed by these developments, American deserters and Swedish activists organized a campaign for full political asylum, both for military absentees and draft refusers from the United States. They also called for government programs to support the growing number of Americans to take on the practical challenges of living in Sweden. The campaign for political asylum was launched in October with a meeting at Stockholm’s Medborgarhuset, where ADC members, Swedish supporters, and members of the American delegation spoke to a full auditorium. Swedes, including prominent writers Sara Lidman, Göran Palm, and Jan Myrdal, announced the formation of the Swedish Friends of the ADC and called for new solidarity for the exiles.9 Deserters and their sympathizers attacked the Swedish government for having abandoned its humanitarian policy on American refugees. A leftist and staunch critic of the social democratic administration, Lidman suspected that the reception of American military absentees in Sweden had primarily been part of the social democrats’ strategy to mobilize young and left-leaning voters with strong opposition to the American intervention in Vietnam, which after their landslide victory in September had become superfuous.10 Indeed, the Swedish ambassador to the United States Hubert de Besche commented in September that he did “not believe that anyone is happy having them [the deserters]” in Sweden and that desertion was hardly a legitimate means to protest the war in Vietnam. His comments led Lidman to wonder whether this was truly his personal opinion or whether this actually refected the new government position on the American deserters.11 She asserted that instead most Swedes did oppose the Vietnam War and also supported the young American war refusers. It was therefore not a burden, but an “honor for Sweden” to host them. If the Swedish government “defended the right of the Vietnamese to live in peace,” Lidman argued, it must “at the same time defend the right of Americans to refuse to become murderers” and grant them political asylum.12 Bill Jones of the ADC accused the administration of having reversed its policy on the American deserters since the elections and now focused its efforts to have them leave the country. He reported on how the processing of applications for residence- and work permits by the Swedish authorities was now taking much longer and that individual absentees had even been told by a clerk to go back to their Army units. Moreover, the welfare payments for the deserters were not suffcient, Jones complained, and some were forced to steal food, risking their expulsion from Sweden. He appealed to the government to grant work permits quicker and allow the absentees “to do something

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concrete,” have a steady income, and to avoid psychological crisis in effect.13 Deserters traveled through Sweden to rally for public support for their plea for political asylum. They were eager to disprove claims by a staff member of the aliens commission that they were too young to have made a politically conscious decision to desert, and were thus ineligible for a status as political refugees.14 A special issue of The Second Front Review was published in Swedish with a collection of texts on the deserters’ claim to political asylum, the legal consequences of desertion according to American military law, and the social situation of the around two hundred American exiles in Sweden, of whom by late 1968 almost two-thirds had acquired residence permits.15 Furthermore, American deserters felt compelled to explain themselves against latent and explicit charges that they were not integrating into Swedish society enough, and therefore failed to learn the language and fnd work. A greater focus of Swedish immigration politics on assimilation was being discussed at the parliament at the time, and media reports on the American deserters focused on their ability or willingness to integrate, or lack thereof—with an innuendo intrinsic in the meaning of the Swedish term “anpassa” that this was primarily the foreigners’ own responsibility. The ADC explained and defended its efforts to support exiles to get along in Sweden and at the same time to sustain the deserters’ American identity, after an assessment of the situation in Dagens Nyheter had described its political activities as extremist and not benefcial to the process of integration of individuals in Sweden.16 Doubts among American deserters about their security in Sweden were so grave that an ADC delegation visiting a Third World meeting in Copenhagen earlier in October had explored possibilities for an alternative sanctuary in Denmark.17 An American deserter had been granted a limited residence permit there and was reported on by the press just before the arrival of the ADC members, who hoped that his case could serve as a precedent for others. Besides, the idea that Denmark could despite its NATO membership grant residence to American deserters was based on the experience of a number of men who had passed through the country on their way to Sweden without problems. Danish activists, whose support committee was listed on many desertion pamphlets distributed to American servicemen in Europe during 1968, appeared to be ready to push for a test case.18 Alternative sanctuaries for American war refusers were also discussed at the World Consultative Meeting of the Stockholm Conference on Vietnam held in December 1968. The event proposed solidarity with the growing resistance to service in the American military as a focus of international antiwar protest in the following year.19 A working group issued an appeal to the Swedish government to recognize American deserters and draft resisters as political refugees and called on the international antiwar movement to push

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for sanctuaries in other countries as well. Moreover, it requested the United Nations refugee and human rights commissions and the Council of Europe to place political asylum and amnesty for American deserters and draft resisters on their agendas in hope for an international framework to put pressure on national governments.20 In Sweden, the campaign gained particular momentum with the case of American draft resister Warren Hamerman, whose application for asylum in Sweden was rejected by the aliens commission several times since he had come to Sweden from Paris. France had expelled him in the summer of 1968 after his involvement in the May protests and in political organizing of American deserters and draft exiles. Before, the Swedish authorities had granted residence permits to a few draft resisters from the United States, but now chose to reject Hamerman’s application.21 This puzzled American exiles and Swedish sympathizers, as his previous actions in the United States, including participation in the protest of the Baltimore Four in October 1967, who had occupied the offces of the local draft board and poured blood on fles, seemed to qualify as political offenses and thus an unequivocal basis for political asylum.22 On the other hand, this record of radical activism both in America and in France led to a vote against Hamerman by some members of the aliens commission, who regarded the politicization of the deserters a potential threat to domestic order. For Swedish Vietnam War opponents, in contrast, Hamerman represented the radical American antiwar movement, and his political stance and previous activism made him a more unambiguous war resister than most military deserters, in the eyes of many. His plea thus mobilized additional support for the asylum campaign from prominent Swedish and international war opponents, such as writers Maria Wine, Peter Weiss, Jose Yglesias, and John Berger, sociologist Joachim Israel, theologian and future-bishop Ingmar Ström, and American activists Martin Kenner, Mark Rudd, Jerry Rubin, and Ralph Schoenman.23 Jimi Hendrix’s dedication of his concert in Stockholm in January 1969 to the American deserters was a particularly special symbol of solidarity with their plea for political asylum.24 By then, the campaign mobilized a broad spectrum of Swedish political, social, youth, and religious associations. A number of them addressed appeals to the new minister of the interior Eric Holmqvist, who received around twenty delegations on the matter during a protest week in February, culminating in a large protest march to the government buildings in Stockholm.25 Moreover, member of parliament C.H. Hermansson of the Left Party/Communists asked Minister Holmqvist in an interpellation at the Riksdag to take the initiative for a recognition of American deserters and draft resisters as political refugees in Sweden.26 Also members of the governing Social Democratic Party also endorsed the plea for a liberal asylum policy.27 Next to the political debate and the

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public campaign, individual cases were taken on by the offce of Hans Göran Franck, which worked out applications for residence permits to the aliens commission and issued appeals to King Gustaf VI Adolf and the legal ombudsman at the Riksdag.28 With the common objective to improve the situation of the American deserters in Sweden, the SKfV, the DFFG, and the ADC joined forces to push for political asylum, overcoming the divisions and conficts of the previous year.29 The campaign was accompanied by compassionate commentary in the Swedish liberal and left-leaning media, from acknowledgments of the need for an improvement of the American exiles’ social situation to explicit calls for full political asylum. Law student Lars Viklund published a long plea in Dagens Nyheter arguing that there was no proportionality given between the petty crimes committed by deserters in Sweden, which lead to their expulsion and prospective harsh punishment by the U.S. military authorities.30 The paper furthermore criticized the intransparent and arbitrary politics of the Swedish aliens commission, which had violated Swedish asylum law with its “absurd” rejection of Hamerman and another deserter from the U.S. Army in West Germany.31 Editor-in-chief of Dagens Nyheter Olof Lagercrantz observed that while recognition and acceptance of the war refusal of young servicemen was growing in the United States, the Swedish government appeared to be moving into the opposite direction with its new “unnecessary hard-line” toward the deserters and draft resisters. By early 1969, he conceded with Sara Lidman’s earlier claim that “it is an honor for us to welcome the American deserters” in Sweden and called for full political asylum for the men.32 Aftonbladet also seconded the asylum campaign and pointed out that greater political considerations consistent with the government’s opposition to the American involvement in Indochina had to be applied—not the same legal standards as for domestic draft resisters, as held by Swedish conservatives. The commentary of the paper furthermore identifed the young Americans with refugees from communist states in the East, such as those from the Czech Republic who had arrived in Sweden following the suppression of the Prague Spring of 1968, and argued that they deserved equal treatment.33 Appeals for a secure status for the American war refusers in Sweden were complemented with reports about prospective punishment of returnees to the United States, who, accordingly, faced prison sentences up to several decades or even the death penalty.34 Activists from different political and social organizations, from the SKfV to the DFFG, otherwise divided on many aspects of the war in Vietnam and Swedish politics, largely concurred in their assessment of the American exiles’ situation and their plea for political asylum. Surely, the DFFG declared

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once more that desertion was a strong act of support of the Vietnamese FNL, and in turn, solidarity with American exiles offered a “unique chance for the Swedish people to support the Vietnamese people in its struggle.” Otherwise, however, the organization’s deserter committee focused on the social and practical problems faced by American deserters in Sweden, which, it argued, would be resolved if full political asylum was granted. Accordingly, a vicious circle of insecurity and impediments to integration in Sweden was forcing many deserters to a precarious existence. Because of slow case-by-case decisions, newcomers had to wait long for residence permits. Without residence permits, an application for permission to work was not possible. Without work and dependent on social assistance, moreover, it was diffcult to fnd steady housing, and moving to another municipality required a new application for welfare payments. Most often little knowledge of Swedish added to the young Americans’ troubles. Finally, vocational training—needed by many deserters with working-class backgrounds and with limited previous education—was only provided for political refugees, not the Americans.35 The same applied to state-funds for university studies, the SKfV, Amnesty International, and the Working Group to Aid American War Resisters pointed out, thus excluding the war refusers from social advancement opportunities.36 Lars Viklund contended that criminal offenses committed by a small number of deserters, such as the theft of purses and minor drug peddling, which were cited by opponents of their reception in Sweden, had been caused by their precarious status, insuffcient welfare payments, and slow to hostile treatment by government authorities. Such petty criminal activity would cease with a policy of political asylum, he concluded.37 Sara Lidman even claimed that, due to its minimal social aid for the exiles, the Swedish government was deliberately forcing them to turn to crime. This way, it prolonged their existence on the margins of society and prevented their integration, eventually making them leave the country.38 These arguments also countered the images of American deserters as social misfts unable to adjust to military life and likewise failing to make a living abroad, as well as that of notorious offenders, which were promoted by the U.S. military authorities and transported, latently or explicitly, in media reports. Beyond the argument for a solution of the American exiles’ social situation through political asylum, Swedish activists cited the Swedish and international laws of asylum and pointed out the political character of desertion and its prosecution. According to the Geneva Refugee Convention desertion and draft evasion do not qualify for political refugee status; however, they do not lead to an exclusion from such recognition.39 Campaigners therefore argued that desertion and draft resistance were political offenses in the context of the Vietnam War, and prospective severe punishment of returned exiles in

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the United States was a form of political prosecution in consequence. Next to the provisions of Swedish and international asylum law, the offce of Hans Göran Franck made reference to the Nuremberg Principles and legitimized war refusal during the Vietnam War in the larger context of crimes against humanity.40 The SKfV, Amnesty International, and the working group affrmed the humanitarian grounds for asylum in Sweden, most importantly the threat to the young Americans’ lives through the prospect of combat, but argued that desertion and draft resistance must also be regarded as conscientious acts with a “clear political goal, to end the American war in Vietnam in the frst place.”41 According to Lars Viklund, they had acted against U.S. government policies and regulations, specifcally the continuation of the American intervention in Vietnam and military and conscription laws, which constrained young Americans’ individual freedom and forced them to act against their conscience.42 Member of parliament Hermansson stated that regardless of individually distinct motives for desertion or draft refusal, which, he conceded, were not always based on political grounds, the actions had general political signifcance in the context of the Vietnam War, suffcient for full political asylum in Sweden.43 Swedish advocates of political asylum for American war refusers furthermore agreed that potential prosecution of returning deserters and draft resisters in the United States qualifed them as political refugees, no matter whether they concretely had faced combat in Vietnam or other military service. They drew on the expertise of American lawyers and scholars on military and draft law, such as Joseph Sax of the University of Michigan, one of the American visitors in Sweden in October 1968, John Honnold of the University of Pennsylvania, Harrop Freeman of Cornell University, and Robert Bird of the American Friends Service Committee, with whom the offce of Hans Göran Franck corresponded on these issues.44 Besides prison terms up to fve years and hard-labor penalties, they pointed out the severe consequences of dishonorable discharges for military offenders, such as lifelong discrimination by government agencies, employers, and educational institutions.45 The pleas, however, lacked concrete examples for long prison sentences. In fact, the mild treatment of Roy Ray Jones by U.S. Army judges in the spring of 1968 and conviction of unauthorized absence rather than desertion was known to the Swedish public. And this case was cited by Swedish government representatives opposed to a recognition of deserters and draft resisters as political refugees.46 Consequently, Lars Viklund pointed out the more numerous prison sentences for American draft resisters with an average of over thirty months and estimated that military absentees convicted of desertion would receive punishment at least as harsh. In light of an assessment of the American intervention in Vietnam as a legal war effort, formulated in November

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1968 by a U.S. federal court in a trial of Army reservists’ refusal of service in the war, campaigners even feared that the maximum punishment for desertion in time of war, the death penalty, could be imposed.47 Lawyer Michael Kennedy of the National Emergency Civil Liberties Committee, who had served as a counselor for returnee Donald Williams, spoke as a witness in a court case against a deserter accused of narcotics possession and sentenced to expulsion from Sweden in January 1969, cautioned Swedish judges about possible capital punishment of American servicemen convicted of desertion.48 With regard to imprisonment and the consequences of bad discharges, the DFFG deserter committee accused the Swedish government of indifference to the young Americans’ future.49 While the DFFG considered an amnesty for deserters and draft resisters in the United States improbable, the SKfV, Amnesty International, and the working group appealed to the Swedish government to make a motion in the United Nations High Commission for Refugees for an amnesty for American Vietnam War refusers.50

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REFORM OF THE SWEDISH ASYLUM POLICY The Swedish cabinet debated political asylum, unresolved residence applications, and pending expulsions at the end of a week of rallies, visits by delegations, appeals, and broad media coverage in February 1969.51 Eventually, the Ministry of the Interior rejected the appeals for political asylum, upholding the original policy of asylum on a humanitarian basis for American war refusers, but added several amendments. First, the government stressed that the right of residence was not dependent on the duration of the United States’ war in Vietnam. The risk of service in a war was acknowledged as grounds for asylum, but in a broader sense than in previous times, and therefore individual circumstances were also to be considered for permission to stay in Sweden. Accordingly, the policy was expanded to include draft resisters. The rejections of residence applications by American draft refusers and deserters were therefore revoked and their asylum requests considered anew. Moreover, the Ministry of the Interior decided that expulsion orders were to be executed only for offenses of a “more serious nature,” a modifcation of the provisions of Swedish aliens law, but still stricter than those of political asylum. Pending deportation orders resulting from convictions for lesser offenses were canceled. The government also responded to the calls for an amelioration of the social situation of American exiles in Sweden and proposed faster processing of applications for residence and work permits, special language and vocational training programs, as well as an assignment of offcers for the particular concerns of the war refusers. These measures refected Swedish

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decision-makers’ view of American deserters as an immigrant group with unique diffculties and requiring special assimilation programs.52 The act of desertion or draft resistance did not qualify as grounds for political asylum for the Swedish cabinet, and prosecution in the United States did not rate as political persecution. A spokesman of the Ministry of the Interior argued that in a democracy such as the United States, citizens enjoyed the right to express their opinion by other means than illegal actions.53 The government regarded the American war refusers as victims of their country’s war and conscription policy, rather than as political actors and resisters. Minister Eric Holmqvist therefore maintained that their reception in Sweden was to provide them a refuge from the dangers of war, as the country had previously for French deserters from the Algerian War. Holmqvist rejected the argument of prospective harsh punishment in the United States with reference to the lenient treatment which American deserters returned from Sweden had received, thereby neglecting the lifelong consequences of less-than-honorable discharges.54 The Swedish government’s continuous denial to recognize American deserters and draft resisters as political refugees refected considerations regarding domestic and international politics. Sweden’s relations with the United States could not be further strained after the administration offcially declared opposition to the Vietnam War and received the deserters, which resulted in the recall of U.S. ambassador William Heath from Stockholm in the spring of 1968.55 Moreover, only in January 1969 had Sweden recognized the DRV, and in the fall of 1968 an information offce of the FNL had opened in Stockholm, the second in non-communist Europe next to Paris.56 The cabinet considered a refusal of political asylum and the focus on social assistance in Sweden a fair compromise that both met the needs of American exiles and at the same time was not detrimental to the already tense relations with the United States. Furthermore, decision-makers avoided creating a basis for deserters and draft resisters from other non-communist countries, who were not affected by an actual risk of service in a war, to apply for asylum in Sweden. Indeed, AWOL West German servicemen had come to Sweden in 1968, hoping for similar treatment as the Americans, but were not allowed to stay.57 Over one and a half months after C.H. Hermansson’s interpellation and one week after the policy reform had been adopted, Minister of the Interior Holmqvist explained in parliament that the new policy was designed to limit the Swedish sanctuary to American military absentees and draft refusers. The humanitarian principle of sanctuary regarded the safety from being harmed in the Vietnam War, rather than a general act of resistance to a foreign government or military conscription.58 The latter was of particular concern for Swedish domestic politics, where opposition to conscription had gained momentum

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with the New Left and Vietnam antiwar movements. A decision for political asylum for American deserters and draft refusers and thus their offcial legitimization would have provided Swedish antidraft activists with powerful arguments. The Swedish government curtailed the campaign for political asylum with the reformulation of its policy on American war refusers, at a point in time when protests were reaching a climax and mobilized a broad spectrum of social, political, and religious groups. Moreover, the cabinet had succeeded in deferring a parliamentary debate on the matter by answering advocates of political asylum only after the fact. Nevertheless, American exiles and Swedish supporters met the revised asylum policy with relief over the revocation of expulsions, the permission of residence for draft resisters, and the assurance of sanctuary beyond the American involvement in Vietnam. But they were disappointed over the denial of full political asylum, and in light of the vague wording, there were doubts about the actual legal implications and thus the Americans exiles’ longer-term security. Despite the policy’s limitations, the campaign and the renewed solidarity from Swedes marked a considerable success for the exiles and the ADC. The affrmation of the deserters’ Swedish sanctuary was crucial, not only on the ground in exile but also for the committee’s activities to mobilize opposition among fellow servicemen and encourage them to desert. The ADC’s newspaper The Second Front proudly reported on the successful campaign and the new broad solidarity in Sweden. The situation there was “even brighter” than before the policy reform, the paper claimed, with increased social assistance and “full rights of Swedish citizens (except, of course, voting).”59 To be sure, such exaggerations aimed to advertise Sweden to potential deserters and forestall negative reporting in the American media. The SKfV welcomed the reform and the practical improvements, but maintained that the actual effects could only be evaluated in the future and reiterated that political asylum with active social assistance would be the best solution for the American deserters and draft resisters.60 While the committee pointed out that “desertion often is a political act in itself,” the Swedish Friends of the ADC and C.H. Hermansson insisted that all deserters and draft resisters committed a political offense.61 Moreover, the Swedish Friends criticized that no unequivocal asylum criteria had been defned and that actual decision-making on residence applications remained with the aliens commission. They argued that the new phenomenon of war refugees required a formulation of binding principles on the legislative level. Specifcally, the criterion of a risk of war service was impossible to test without insight into U.S. military command procedures and thus allowed for continued arbitrary judgments.62 Member of parliament Hermansson doubted that the deserters’ sanctuary was equally secure as political asylum because it had not been

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specifed what amounted to a “more serious” offense, which would lead to expulsion. Instead, the vague wording still allowed for easier deportations than the regulations for political refugees, according to Hermansson.63 The DFFG considered the government’s refusal of political asylum a “punch in the face” of the broad Swedish antiwar movement, which had once more exposed the cabinet’s evasion of an unequivocal condemnation of the American war in Vietnam. Clearly, the DFFG were frustrated with the failure to force another change of policy, after they had claimed the recent recognition of the DRV by Sweden as a victory for themselves.64 The true power of U.S. military justice showed just a week after the Swedish policy reform. On March 6, 1969, Edwin Arnett was convicted of desertion and sentenced to four years of prison and hard labor, a dishonorable discharge, and forfeiture of all pay by a U.S. Army court-martial.65 Arnett had gone AWOL in Japan after serving in Vietnam in 1967 and 1968 and transferred to Sweden via the Soviet Union in the spring of 1968, where he made public statements on alleged atrocities by U.S. troops against Vietnamese civilians. In September 1968, he had requested assistance from the American embassy in Stockholm to return to the United States to voluntarily surrender to the military authorities there. After several months of pretrial confnement, he faced a court-martial on desertion charges in February and pleaded guilty to AWOL in hope for lenient treatment.66 According to an Army spokesman, the harsh punishment was meant to warn other U.S. servicemen of the consequences of desertion and deter further absences.67 The Arnett decision followed the recommendations of a subcommittee on military deserters of the Senate Committee on Armed Services, which called for such stringency in the treatment of military absentees and an end to the previously practiced leniency.68 The committee’s report of March 1969, based on extensive hearings held in 1968 and successive research, affected in particular the exiled men because it recommended the act of seeking asylum in a foreign country as a new criterion for an indictment of desertion. The committee contrasted the short prison sentence of Roy Ray Jones in the spring of 1968 with the harsher punishment of draft resisters at the time and with that of deserters from the U.S. armed forces during the Second World War, of which most committee members were veterans.69 However, it was Roy Ray Jones himself, whose experience in American civilian life brought to light the repercussions of less-than-honorable discharges and the mark of a deserter, notwithstanding the light prison sentence. After his release from the stockade, Jones and his family experienced discrimination and harassment and found it impossible to make a living in the United States, which led them to return to Sweden to apply for asylum once more in May 1969.70 The Arnett conviction, the Senate subcommittee recommendations, and the example of Roy Ray Jones therefore motivated the American exiles to continue to rally for a

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full status as political refugees in Sweden. Whether such evidence could have infuenced the Swedish government to grant American war refusers political asylum, if they had been known before the policy reform, remains speculative. After the decision, however, the cabinet appeared unwilling to change its course. In Sweden, the skepticism of American exiles and their supporters toward the policy reform turned into open protest when the labor board opened a language training center in Uppland, over one-hundred kilometers north of Stockholm, to qualify American deserters for job placements. Enraged about the concept and the interdiction of any political activity there, ADC members dubbed the institution “The New Stockade,” which like a prison would demoralize deserters through isolation and military-like discipline and make them consider returning to the United States, where they would be jailed in the real stockade. Although the program was to be voluntary, absentees complained about pressure and “blackmail” by offcers of the labor and social welfare boards, who threatened to withhold fnancial assistance from those who refused participation.71 The ADC and its Swedish Friends feared that absentees would be isolated at the camp and not beneft from the solidarity of the exile community and local supporters. Subsequent nationwide job placement would further scatter the deserters and separate them from their peers. Instead, organizers advocated for a combined job and language training program in the Stockholm area, better coordination between government agencies, and the inclusion of Swedish activist groups into such efforts.72 The ADC feared that its mission would be impeded by the camp, to politicize absentees, strengthen their voice in protest against the Vietnam War, and to maintain the exiles’ American identity. The committee accused the Swedish government of thus helping the U.S. military command to obstruct the growth of the desertion movement.73 Such allegations were fueled by an exposure by newspaper Expressen of how information on deserters had been passed on by the Swedish aliens commission to the U.S. authorities regularly since early 1968.74 The Department of Defense used this data for a study on the men in Sweden, published in April 1969, which described most of them as not motivated by political or moral considerations and many as having had previous disciplinary problems. This substantiated the military’s argument that there was no qualitative difference in desertion during the Vietnam era and other times.75 With sarcasm, Jan Myrdal commented in Aftonbladet that the Pentagon spokesman who had mentioned cooperation with the aliens commission to Expressen indirectly accused the involved Swedish offcers of a breach of confdentiality and the disclosure of secret information to a foreign power. He called for their prosecution and related their action to the time of the Second World War, when Sweden had submitted to requests for extradition of German refugees seeking

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sanctuary there.76 Publicly the American and Swedish authorities denied such exchanges. But as early as February 1968, an arrangement had been made between the U.S. embassy and Count Wilhelm Wachtmeister, then director of political affairs in the Foreign Ministry and future ambassador to the United States. On this basis, the aliens commission informally briefed the American post in Stockholm on the arrival of deserters and applications for asylum almost immediately. Following the exposure of this deal in 1969, the cooperation was limited to the Swedes handing information on the decisions on residence permits to the Americans at the time it was issued to the press.77 The flm Deserter USA had originally been planned as a high point of the campaign for political asylum, but was outpaced by the policy reform in February. It premiered belatedly in April with an updated section on the inadequate amendments and with statements by Warren Hamerman, John Ashley, and Bill Jones, once more appealing for recognition of deserters and draft resisters as political refugees.78 Although commercially unsuccessful and panned in the flm scene for its crude mixture of documentary elements and dramatized sections, Deserter USA was received positively in Swedish mainstream media and prompted commentators to support the continued plea for political asylum and for improved support programs for the exiles.79 Yet, the flm could not mobilize another broad campaign and was even detrimental for the status of the ADC and its relationship with the moderate Swedish antiwar movement, which had improved during the asylum campaign in the winter. The flm’s dramatization of the conficts of the spring of 1968 lead to new tensions between the deserters and the SKfV. In particular, the character Mr. Lundberg, an obvious parody of Bertil Svahnström, patronizing the deserters and hindering their organizing efforts, angered Swedish pacifsts and caused a setback of the reconciling process and cooperation in the plea for political asylum.80 Neither the new rigor of American authorities, the protests against the language training center, nor the flm Deserter USA resulted in a new mobilization for political asylum in Sweden, let alone a revision of the government policy. Indeed, the Ministry of the Interior had thwarted the campaign’s momentum in February. Its affrmation and expansion of the sanctuary for American war refusers and proposed improvements of their status were welcomed by many liberal and moderate Swedes, who considered further claims for political asylum unrealistic if not disproportionate.81 After the reform of February, continued rallying for political asylum thus was prone to be denounced as irrational and extremist. Conservative observers accused Swedish leftists of using the deserters and the asylum issue for their own attacks on the Swedish government and the United States. Another trope alleged that the deserters themselves had been spoiled by public attention and the broad sympathies with which they had been welcomed in Sweden,

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and were now blaming the government for their own problems. Instead of political asylum therefore, one commentator remarked, political pressure was needed to have them integrate and assimilate to Swedish society.82 Besides, conservatives opposed further advertisement of Sweden as a sanctuary for American war refusers. While complying with the country’s humanitarian tradition, they objected to an exploitation of the matter for political goals and expected both the deserters and their supporters to restrain publicity on their activities.83

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EXPULSIONS AND A NEW PLEA FOR POLITICAL ASYLUM Government spokesmen argued that with the February 1969 policy reform, the residence status of American deserters and draft resisters in Sweden had become practically as secure as that of political refugees, even in the case of criminal offenses. However, the defnition of what would fall under the criterion of a “more serious nature” as basis for a loss of this status was subject to interpretation. It turned out later in 1969 that this could include lesser crimes than those leading to the loss of full political asylum in Sweden. Then, several American deserters were convicted of selling narcotics and sentenced to prison sentences of over one year and expulsion to the United States upon release. Joseph Parra, one of them, became the frst American deserter to be deported from Sweden in late 1970 after unsuccessfully applying for a revision of his case. This alarmed American deserters and Swedish sympathizers, as it showed that the sanctuary was still conditional and not based on universal principles. Rather, it was subject to decisions by criminal courts or other government agencies. Parra was only one of around a dozen convicts sentenced to be expelled, and the revocation of their right of residence appeared a threat to the exiles’ security in Sweden in general. Moreover, in August 1970, four AWOL servicemen coming from U.S. military bases in West Germany were denied residence permits by the Swedish immigration authorities and forced to return.84 Another indication of how the Swedish government was taking a harder line on American deserters was that the authorities maintained that Vietnam posed no immediate danger for these men.85 In particular, deserters feared that the treatment of nonvoluntary returnees by military justice in the United States would be more severe than that of those who had turned themselves in. In the fall of 1970, American exiles in Sweden therefore launched a new campaign for political asylum, which culminated in a dramatic hunger strike but eventually failed to forestall Parra’s forced return to the United States and to bring about a reconsideration of their status in Sweden.

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An American from Louisiana with a Mexican background, Joseph Parra had served as a nineteen-year-old in Vietnam. After being wounded and hospitalized in Japan, he decided to go AWOL in July 1968. Beheiren’s deserter support network took him underground and assisted him to travel to the Soviet Union, from where he transferred to Sweden in September with three other Americans. They did not make political statements while in the Soviet Union, unlike those who had taken this route before.86 During military service in Vietnam, Parra had been acquainted with drugs, and in Sweden he continued to use narcotics. Although he felt “hassle[d]” by the Swedish authorities, he found little motivation to look for regular work and resorted to dealing drugs.87 In the fall of 1969, Parra was arrested and convicted of selling narcotics, including LSD, and sentenced to twenty-one months in prison and subsequent deportation from Sweden.88 The decision was based on the strict drug regulations introduced in Sweden in 1968, which Parra and others had either underestimated or not been aware of, not least regarding possible consequences on their residence status. In fact, they had allowed Swedish journalists to document their life in Sweden during the summer of 1969 and had carelessly spoken about drugs and used them in front of a camera. The resulting flm Jimmy aimed to draw attention to the diffcult situation of some deserters in Sweden, including young traumatized war veterans. But the countercultural lifestyle displayed by Parra and his peers contributed to an image of American deserters in Sweden as unable or unwilling to integrate into Swedish society and—not least—of drug users and even dealers.89 When Parra’s deportation was ordered in the fall of 1970 before completion of his prison sentence, American exiles and Swedish activists accused the government of violating the security of the deserters’ residence status asserted by the policy reform of February 1969. They argued that the humanitarian principle, on which the reception of deserters in Sweden was based, must be applied to convicted offenders as well. While the ADC, the DFFG, and a newly formed hunger strike committee launched a plea for political asylum, the SKfV advocated an amendment of Swedish aliens law to assure all recipients of residence permits exemption from expulsion and refrained from an explicit call for a status as political refugees for the war refusers.90 In contrast to the latter’s pragmatism and acceptance of the cabinet’s previous decision, the DFFG’s opposition to the government was further fueled by its refusal to revoke Parra’s deportation orders and continued denial of political asylum for American war refusers in general. To leftists, this was proof of a rightward turn of the Swedish social democratic administration and its submission to pressure from the United States, and thus a breach of the country’s neutrality. In April 1970, the new American ambassador Jerome Holland arrived in Stockholm after over one year’s vacancy of the post; in the summer Prime Minister Olof

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Palme visited the United States, and a hold on Swedish reconstruction aid to North Vietnam was regarded as proof of the government’s giving in to the Americans.91 The DFFG even accused the Swedish government of “serv[ing] U.S. imperialism” with its more restrictive policy against American deserters.92 Since the earlier campaign of the turn of 1968 and 1969, a new dimension had been added to the legitimization of desertion and draft resistance upon the revelation of war crimes committed by U.S. troops in Vietnam in November 1969. Deserters, the ADC and Swedish activists argued, thus not only had refused to serve in an illegal war but “resist[ed] participation in war crimes.”93 The DFFG accused Minister Holmqvist of tolerating the atrocities committed by Americans in Vietnam and challenged him on whether his general defense of conscription and military service as a civic duty was also valid in cases of war crimes.94 Joseph Parra appealed to King Gustaf VI Adolf to revoke the expulsion orders as his detainment was nearing an end. He asserted that he was no longer using drugs and was making efforts to fnd steady work. Moreover, he demonstrated his willingness to assimilate and integrate into Swedish society upon release by marrying Sonja Lundström, his Swedish fancée of over one year.95 However, a convicted drug offender, Parra neither could convince decision-makers nor did he make the ideal fgure to mobilize broad popular support for a new campaign for political asylum. In particular, his attitude and indifference to the strict Swedish drug law, documented by the flm Jimmy, subverted his efforts to gain sympathies. American deserters had in general become a target for blame in the context of an intense debate on drugs going on in Sweden since the death of two teenagers allegedly by narcotics in the late 1960s.96 Depictions of the drug problem as imported from abroad, reports on popular and countercultures in the United States, and drug offenses by American deserters in Sweden added up and made the latter easy scapegoats. Their assertions and those by sympathizers, as well as by Swedish social workers, that the Americans were no more involved with drugs than local youths, just like in other criminal offenses, seemed ineffectual against an increasingly negative image of the deserters in Sweden.97 In the public debate on drugs, culminating in the spring of 1970, American deserters personifed the Western subculture and, as supposed importers of alternative lifestyles, represented a threat to the Swedish youth. The few actual cases of convictions of exiles for drug peddling helped substantiate this logic.98 The immigration board denied Parra’s application for a renewed residence status, and the King dismissed his appeal.99 The ADC mobilized for daily picketing at the Ministry of the Interior and collected signatures in support of Parra and the general plea for political asylum for American deserters and draft resisters.100 Just as at the turn of 1968 and 1969, many Swedish war

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opponents and political and social organizations supported the American exiles’ cause and fled appeals with ministers of the interior Holmqvist and of justice Lennart Geijer, among them Sara Lidman, Peter Weiss, C.H. Hermansson, vicar Margit Sahlin, and Lars Viklund.101 A hunger strike to press for a deferment of Parra’s deportation from Sweden and that of others convicted of similar charges was started by over twenty American deserters, draft resisters, and an imprisoned American absentee’s German wife. The drastic action, which was undertaken at facilities of a church, received considerable attention by the Swedish media, in particular when two participants had to be treated in a hospital.102 Four of the strikers continued even beyond Parra’s deportation from Sweden on November 25, and endured for a total of twelve days. Members of the American Exile Project unsuccessfully appealed to the immigration service for a place for Parra in a drug rehabilitation program, and in turn tried to fnd a new sanctuary for him and contacted embassies of the Soviet Union, Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, Cuba, Algeria, China, and North Vietnam, also to no avail.103 The hunger strike committee and its supporters disputed that Parra’s small-scale drug dealing qualifed as a serious offense, justifying forfeiture of his residence permit. Rather, they explained it as a result of his service experience in Vietnam and the precarious stand of the deserters in Sweden.104 Countering the image of American deserters as drug peddlers and criminals, they presented them as victims of the circumstances of their challenging situation in exile, general insecurity, and insuffcient government programs for integration, which contributed to some young exiles’ turning to drugs and theft. The ADC added that “hostile” treatment by clerks in the Swedish social and labor boards and frustration with the bureaucracy led Parra and others to sell drugs for subsistence and reject government assistance.105 Moreover, campaigners charged the U.S. military for the spread of narcotics among GIs, pointing out that many young Americans were frst acquainted with drugs during military service, a matter publicized and debated in the United States and Europe at the time. The DFFG supposed that drug use was sanctioned and even promoted by American military leaders to make servicemen bear the hardships of war and enable them to commit atrocities.106 Parra’s mother was cited in Aftonbladet on how her son had never used drugs before he joined the military. Only in Vietnam he had been acquainted with narcotics, despaired about the war, its brutality, and his own situation.107 As during the frst campaign, the prospective punishment for war refusers in the United States was a strong argument against deportation and for political asylum. Beyond prosecution for unauthorized absence or desertion, deserters and supporters worried that Parra would be charged a second time by military authorities in the United States for the drug offenses committed in Sweden, as he had not been discharged and thus still was a member of the

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armed forces.108 In contrast to the earlier campaign, there now were precedents of harsh punishments of returned deserters in the United States, such as the case of Edwin Arnett. There were also speculations about a possible death penalty for Marine Corps Sergeant Jon Sweeney, accused of desertion in combat and aiding the enemy, who had shortly stayed in Sweden in August 1970 and been received by Bertil Svahnström and the SKfV. After Sweeney had gone missing during a mission in Vietnam in February 1969, he appeared in a North Vietnamese propaganda broadcast to American troops in 1970, in which he made antiwar statements.109 Although Parra had not spoken out against the war while in the Soviet Union, he had voiced dissent while in the military, had served in Vietnam, and had faced a return to the war zone upon recuperation from injuries in Japan before he went AWOL, like Arnett. Moreover, expertise among Swedish activists on U.S. military law had improved, and Lars Viklund expanded on different types of unauthorized absences and specifc punishments according to the Uniform Code of Military Justice, estimating that future treatment of military absentees in the United States would be severe.110 Furthermore, campaigners noted that as a Latino, Parra would be subject to discrimination by racist guards in military prison.111 They accused the Swedish government of ignorance and misinformation about American military justice, when a spokesman had suggested that Parra would not face harsh punishment in the United States and that previous returnees had mostly received lenient treatment. In contrast, Parra’s case was one without precedent, as he was the frst one to be deported from Sweden and would unlikely be treated as those who had surrendered voluntarily.112 The Swedish government upheld Parra’s deportation order on November 13, 1970.113 Petitions to Prime Minister Olof Palme and Minister of the Interior Eric Holmqvist by the ADC and the hunger strikers remained unanswered. Holmqvist told a delegation of American exiles and Swedish supporters that he had previously explained his position and referred to the government policy statement on asylum for American war refusers of February 1969.114 On November 25, police escorted Parra to Arlanda airport where he boarded a plane for New York without being able to say goodbye to his wife.115 Upon arrival in the United States, Parra was arrested by military police, after he almost escaped the attention of the offcers, and subsequently taken in custody at Fort Gordon, Georgia, to await a court-martial trial.116 His lawyer, Stanley Faulkner, a member of the National Lawyers Guild, who had previously represented the Fort Hood Three and brought their case before the U.S. Supreme Court, planned a political defense. But Parra decided to request a hearing before a military judge in lieu of a court-martial.117 In February, he pleaded guilty to the desertion charges and was sentenced to eighteen months in prison and hard labor and a bad conduct discharge.118 Although a term short of the maximum penalty of fve years in custody, the discharge and the loss

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of all pay and allowances made the decision a severe and consequential one for Parra to start a new life in the United States. American exiles and their supporters in Sweden continued campaigning to prevent the deportation of additional deserters from Sweden, accusing the government of indifference to the prospective punishment and lifelong consequences for returned absentees. Yet, the Swedish authorities did not give in and over the next months carried out most expulsions.119 Although the plea for political asylum was to remain a key element of Swedish leftist activism, the government’s principle of a right of residence for American war refusers on humanitarian grounds would never be amended. The case of Parra, however, had forged a new alliance between the American deserters and their Swedish supporters and contributed to a strengthening of the exile community. The ADC realigned in the fall of 1970 after some of the committee’s leaders had withdrawn from exile activism, among them Bill Jones, and its original mentor Michel Vale had left Sweden to support the GI movement in West Germany. Both had faced criticism for their leadership style and for their ambiguous role in the ADC’s relations with the SKfV and Bertil Svahnström.120 Reformed by deserters and draft resisters with a less dogmatic political stance and through its contribution to the organization of the Parra campaign, the ADC gained a new standing among the exiles as well as with Swedish activists. Beyond all personal solidarity with Parra and others imprisoned, the committee took a strong stand against the use of hard drugs in the community and denounced those who sold narcotics. Its understanding of drugs as a political means by governments to suppress dissent was inspired by American radical groups such as the Black Panthers and applied to the community of American exiles in Sweden. Not least the conviction of drug-peddling deserters, the ADC warned, led to new negative publicity for the exiles and would be further exploited by the “sensationalist press” to make the deserters “scapegoats for the real social problems of Sweden.”121 The Parra affair moreover motivated American exiles to strengthen their efforts for self-help and to support those deserters who had particular diffculties coping with their situation. A few days after Parra’s expulsion from Sweden, the Stockholm Conference on Vietnam held its World Conference on Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia. American exiles participated in the meeting and appealed to delegates to include their plea for political asylum into the resolutions, hoping for new support on an international level. The conference affrmed its prior solidarity with American war refusers and called on governments of sanctuary countries to improve the condition of American exiles there. However, an explicit mention of Sweden, a condemnation of the deportation of Parra and those pending, as well as a call for political asylum there were omitted in the

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text.122 According to the ADC, there had been a controversial debate on that matter with Bertil Svahnström at the meeting, who favored a moderate tone to avoid embarrassing Sweden as host of the conference. For the ADC, this new confrontation with the prominent pacifst proved how the Swedish political establishment had refrained from unequivocal protests against the American war in Vietnam and was conforming to the government’s rapprochement with the United States. Obviously, the previous conficts with the activist deserters still occupied Svahnström, and in particular as president of the Stockholm Conference he was easily provoked by the exiles, who were very upset by the recent deportation of Parra. On the other hand, the encounter with American activists at the conference, whose delegation was headed by David Dellinger and Lucille Berrien and included Parra’s future lawyer Stanley Faulkner, and their solidarity with the deserters in the confict with Svahnström, confrmed the exiles in their position and assured them of support and recognition by the movement back home.123 On the international level, the matter of political asylum for American deserters gained new momentum. The WRI complemented its practical efforts to support deserting American servicemen with a World Appeal for political asylum in 1971. The plea called on governments to offer sanctuary for U.S. servicemen who refused to participate in the Vietnam War, whether “for personal or political reasons,” and encouraged activists to push for asylum in their respective country and to support American war refusers. The appeal legitimized desertion on the basis of the “responsibility of individuals to refuse to obey illegal and unjust orders” defned in the Nuremberg Principles. It was endorsed by over two-hundred “world leaders,” internationally renowned scholars, intellectuals, writers, and artists, among them Hannah Arendt, Erich Fromm, Leonard Bernstein, Noam Chomsky, Norman Mailer, Linus Pauling, William Davidon, Benjamin Spock, Alfred Kastler, Claude Bourdet, Gunnar Myrdal, Mai Zetterling, Martin Niemöller, Ernst Bloch, Helmut Gollwitzer, Jürgen Habermas, Erich Kästner, Martin Walser, Alexander Mitscherlich, Vanessa Redgrave, Mikis Theodorakis, and Pier Paolo Pasolini.124 The WRI published a book on the American deserters both as a guide for AWOL servicemen and their supporters and as a means to document and explain the phenomenon to a broader public and substantiate the continued plea for asylum. Its title and cover photo of a prowar protestor referenced the slogan “America, love it or leave it,” used by conservatives to condemn draft and military refusers, and asserted that “they [the deserters] love it, but leave it,” forced by the war and the draft to go into exile to stay true to their conscience and American ideals.125 While the protest movement of GIs and Vietnam veterans was expanding at the time and became the focus of many war opponents, deserters remained special symbols of war resistance

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by U.S. servicemen and of dissent among the less-privileged members of the Vietnam generation. Soon the plea for asylum would make way for one for amnesty for American war refusers, with the deserters in exile as the visible segment of the mass of military absence offenders of the Vietnam War.

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AN EXILE MINISTRY The American delegation’s visit to Sweden in the fall of 1968 was of great signifcance not only for the self-confdence of American deserters and a sense of solidarity from the protest movement in the United States but also for the development of the situation in exile during the next years. Besides the recognition by American war opponents and the reports calling for sympathy and understanding, the most the consequential outcome of the visit was the recommendation by participants to commission a pastor to Stockholm to work with the exiles for a longer period. Some of the deserters had expressed to delegation members the need for “a worker” from the United States to be sent to Sweden to assist the exiles. The visitors had learned about the work of William Bloom in Paris prior to coming to Stockholm, who as chaplain to international students there also provided counseling for American exiles. They recommended to support Bloom’s efforts in France and considered a similar approach for Sweden.126 The CALCAV executive board therefore initiated a ministry to the American deserters in Swedish exile and commissioned Episcopal priest Thomas Lee Hayes to Stockholm in the spring of 1969. Although the deserters received some fnancial aid from other American protest groups, this mission was the most substantial project of practical solidarity with the exiles. Practical aid for deserters had been discussed with controversy among American war opponents, pacifsts, and radical leftists alike. Activists feared prosecution for aiding and abetting, and support for AWOL GIs in North America had been practiced largely in secret. CALCAV therefore set up a separate fund for the mission to the exiles in Sweden to not endanger the organization and to protect it from aiding and abetting charges.127 The CALCAV leadership’s decision to support military deserters thus marked a turn to a more radical position than many of its moderate members would approve, arguably more than its earlier support of civil disobedience, draft resistance, and amnesty for war refusers, which others have pointed out.128 The CALCAV project was also a fulfllment of the World Council of Churches’ Uppsala Report of 1968, which appealed to Christians to provide counseling not only for servicemen but also to support those who refused participation in the Vietnam War, as well as to push for a change in U.S. conscription law.129 In the end, CALCAV leaders argued, the exile ministry was not merely a

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challenge for their own organization but a “test” of the “responsibility of the American churches” as a whole.130 Another recommendation of the American delegation following its visit in France and Sweden in the fall of 1968 was to support the exiles in reconciling with their families, as well as to help them become more independent from the “rigid political posturings in which they are trapped.” Thus, depoliticizing desertion and exile and instead “underscor[ing] the ‘human side’” with a focus on the personal concerns of individual absentees would be in effect the mission’s “chief ‘political’ contribution” to Vietnam antiwar protest.131 This was in contrast to the efforts of leftists to emphasize the political signifcance of desertion and raise the young refusers’ political consciousness. After the election of Richard Nixon in November 1968, which exposed the deep divisions over the war in Vietnam, CALCAV promoted reconciliation among Americans, not least with the ultimate goal of amnesty for all war resisters, including “those who have been forced to desert” and had gone into “selfimposed exile.” The Sweden project thus complemented the larger objective of reconciling American society as a whole on a personal level with support for the particularly marginalized deserters to reconcile with their families.132 Thomas Lee Hayes, the man selected by CALCAV for the mission to Sweden, was a pastor and an activist. He participated in civil rights protests in Selma, Alabama in 1965, was executive director of the Episcopal Peace Fellowship, helped organize the protests of October 21, 1967 in Washington, and was asked by Joan Baez and Dave Harris to perform their wedding in 1968.133 Hayes completed studies both in theology and psychology before working as a minister in Pittsburgh.134 He was thus well prepared to take on the personal, psychological, and emotional matters of the young exiles, many of whom had grown up in a Christian environment, as well as to view them in a political context. As an American compatriot, he understood the biographies and mindsets of the exiles better than local sympathizers could and was able to provide counseling and moral support of a different quality. Moreover, at thirty-six, he fell between the Vietnam and the Second World War generations and the age groups of the deserters and their parents, which gave him a certain authority that would allow him to act as a mediator between them. Hayes was offcially commissioned to Sweden at a CALCAV demonstration for amnesty for draft resisters and deserters in Washington in February 1969. In front of the U.S. Department of Justice building, CALCAV cochairpersons Rabbi Abraham Heschel and Coretta Scott King, widow of the late Martin Luther King, and Richard John Neuhaus, CALCAV steering committee member and participant of the previous visit to Europe, placed their hands upon Hayes to commission him to his new task.135 Hayes pledged himself to the “ministry of reconciliation [t]o seek the release of those in prison for conscience’ sake, the return in freedom of those

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in hiding and abroad, and to work for the rebuilding of America in a world of enduring peace,” to both help deserters in exile and to prepare for their return to the United States through an amnesty.136 His mission in Sweden thus was to combine pastoral work with a contribution to the improvement of practical matters of exile life, as well as the role as a communicator between the deserters and America, their families, sympathizers, opponents, and the general public. He would serve as a “reconciler between victims and victimizers” of the Vietnam War, he told reporters before his departure.137 Thomas Lee Hayes arrived in Sweden in March 1969 together with his wife Janet and two daughters. His stay was planned for about one year to help the exile community consolidate and initiate self-help projects.138 The time estimated necessary by CALCAV for this work, “for the duration,” refected hopes that the American war in Vietnam would end soon.139 Hayes’s mission then would have covered the last year or so of exile before the deserters could return home, at best with an amnesty, as proposed by CALCAV. Following the visit in Sweden in the fall of 1968, Harvey Cox had initiated a cooperation between American and Swedish peace and church groups, such as the Free Church Council of Sweden, which was now to be realized with the arrival of Hayes and his work in Stockholm.140 He was supplied an offce with the International Christian Youth Exchange in Stockholm’s old town, and an apartment was provided for his family by a new Christian working group to support American war resisters in Sweden. Formed following Cox’ visit, the group focused on reorganizing practical aid for the American exiles, which its organizers found had been hampered by the political tensions between Swedish factions of the antiwar movement. Jim Walch, an American student living in Sweden since the mid-1960s and together with his Swedish wife Margareta among the founding members of the Christian working group, was employed part-time for deserter support work in early 1969 and assigned to act as an assistant to Hayes.141 In his introduction to the American exiles, Hayes outlined the goals of his mission as “pastor at large”—a pun on the status of the deserters as fugitives. They included helping the men to “make it” in Sweden and the exile “community [to] become [. . .] self-establishing,” to provide assistance to individuals in “develop[ing] a new style of life,” and to “interpret to the American people the implications of your actions, especially that you are political refugees.” Hayes thus recognized both the personal and the collective needs of everyday life in Sweden, as well as the deserters’ longing for recognition in the United States and the political signifcance of their action. He presented himself as open to the situation and perspective of the exiles, offering help, but not imposing it if not needed or welcomed. To reach the deserters, he used informal language and made references to their prevalent concerns, such as “harassment by the bureaucracy” in Sweden, their recent campaign for

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political asylum, and continued hopes for improvements of their status and situation. Moreover, he pointed out CALCAV’s merits in providing church sanctuary for “soldiers breaking with the Vietnam War-system” and creating coffeehouses for oppositional GIs in the United States. Himself “sensitive politically,” Hayes chose a quote from Frantz Fanon to motivate the young exiles to endure and to stay true to their decision to desert, as in the “absurd drama that others have staged round me” one had “to interrupt if necessary the rhythm of the world, to upset, if necessary, the chain of command” and to “stand up to the world.”142 At the center of the city, within walking distance of the central station, and staffed almost full-time by Jim Walch and Hayes, his offce became the primary contact for most newcomers and many of the American deserters already in Stockholm. Hayes and Walch collected information on legal and practical matters, contacts of Swedish supporters, offers for help, jobs and housing. When necessary, Hayes offered moral support, and spiritual counseling. Hayes’s mission was not apt to provide fnancial and material support, except in emergencies.143 Rather, his task was to help exiles proft from Swedish government programs, to assist them in fling applications, and to cooperate with local support groups. Hayes also became a mediator between American exiles and the Swedish social and labor boards, to which he communicated special needs of the deserters and proposed improvements. His independence from political factions gave him special authority and allowed him a greater scope of cooperation. At the same time, Hayes and Walch, who himself became a draft exile when he was classifed 1-A in May 1969, offered counseling with less political impetus than the ADC and the Underground Railway, whose members were far more politicized than most newcomers in Sweden and whose politics confused many of the latter.144 Hayes’s help for American deserters in practical matters often overlapped with his pastoral mission of spiritual counseling, “personal work,” and “simple human relations,” which according to him made up most of his work in Sweden, not least to help young men in personal crises or in reconnecting with their families.145 Thus hosting newly arrived deserters at his family’s home, amounting to “some 400 overnight guests” during his ten-month stay in Sweden, often included such pastoral work and moral support for the young men.146 Often, his family offered room for refection and discussion and shared dinner with deserters, which functioned as a “para-eucharist [. . .] fellowship meal” with readings both from biblical as well as political texts or letters from home. The company of an American family somewhat provided the exiles with a home away from home, complete with candy, peanut butter, and magazines from the United States. The Hayes’s apartment thus served as a “retreat house” for the deserters, where they could forget being in

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Sweden for some time.147 However, while this informal style of pastoral work cheered up many and motivated them to tackle the challenges of their new life, it also bore the danger of bringing about a “down-home syndrome” in some of the young men and make them dependent on Hayes, as he remarked self-critically.148 Sometimes mixed emotions were evoked among deserters during sessions of listening to new pop music records at the place of the Hayes’s, such as the Beatles album Abbey Road. The melancholic text of Golden Slumbers mirrored the deserters’ feeling of being locked up in exile away from their families, with all hopes for an amnesty and a return home gone after the Arnett ruling. The following Carry That Weight matched their realization that they would have to bear the burden and consequences of their war refusal and exile for long, and the weight of the Vietnam War on the shoulders of their generation as a whole.149 However, the loudly chanted vocals and the stomping rhythm of the chorus added a sense of defance and insolence to the tune, refecting the will of the deserters to stand up to their decision and hold out in exile. The tune’s lines matched the situation of the deserters so well that Hayes used them as a motto for his writings on the men in Sweden.150 Beyond Christian charity and his mission to act as a pastoral counselor for the deserters, Hayes took on the role of their advocate and representative. He addressed the Swedish authorities regarding the legal status of the men and formulated specifc improvements on the practical level. Moreover, he explained the motives and backgrounds of the deserters to the Swedish public and defended them against negative depictions promoted by the American authorities. Only a few weeks after his arrival in Sweden, Hayes appealed to the government to grant the men political asylum and reiterated the previous campaign’s central argument that with a permanent right of residence they were able to apply for long-term employment and substantially improve their social situation. He also called for Swedish language instructions for American deserters in the Stockholm area as well as accommodations there, and criticized the new language training camp, the idea of which was repellent to the men who had just escaped from military barracks. Responding to accusations that the American exiles were failing or unwilling to integrate in Sweden, he pointed out that they were ready to work and live in the country, but that they required a secure status and certain assistance in adjusting.151 Moreover, he countered the image of deserters as misfts, dropouts, and social deviants, purported by the U.S. Department of Defense, according to which most of them had deserted following offenses committed during their service in the military. The survey of the Pentagon on 116 absentees in Sweden published shortly after Hayes’s arrival, which was controversially discussed in the Swedish media and led to the exposure of cooperation

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between the Swedish and American authorities, maintained that ffty-six of them had deserted because of previous disciplinary problems and criminal activity, and only thirty-nine had acted out of protest against the Vietnam War, the motives of the other twenty-one not specifed.152 Hayes pointed out that while a number of deserters were not able to articulate themselves with “complete intellectual coherence,” they nevertheless all genuinely detested war and thus had acted in a moral, political, or religious way. Furthermore, he reexamined the fndings of the Department of Defense, which had been based on limited data from military units in Europe and the Swedish immigration authorities, and showed that these disciplinary problems and criminal activity were exaggerated. Besides, Hayes disputed the military’s conclusion that previous offenses within the military ruled out a later desertion in opposition against the Vietnam War, suggesting that such actions may already have been motivated by such dissent. Hayes maintained that either the Pentagon or the Swedish aliens commission “was lying,” implying that it was the former and affrming the more optimistic data of the latter on the American deserters.153 Hayes also acted as spokesperson for the deserters toward American journalists and researchers, and because he held the ideal that the men should speak for themselves, as a press representative.154 By 1969, many exiles had become weary of media interest from the United States and wary of outsiders in general. They were disappointed about depictions of themselves in the American press and disillusioned that they could achieve recognition and understanding in the United States through the media. It became diffcult for visitors to locate deserters for an interview, and Hayes acted as liaison for reporters he deemed trustworthy, while he strove to protect exiles from the investigations of others, as he feared much “potential for distortion” or that journalists would even collaborate with the U.S. government.155 One who benefted from Hayes’s “good offces” in getting in touch with deserters was Daniel Lang, who visited Sweden to interview exiles for a long article to be published in the New Yorker.156 In contrast, Michel Richard, a sociologist at the State University of New York in Geneseo met “stiff resistance” in Sweden and was rebuffed by individual deserters, the ADC as well as Hayes, when he pursued a study on the men and how they were treated as deviants from American society because of the political offense of desertion. While in fact he took an approach similar to that of the CALCAV delegates in late 1968 in going beyond the stereotyping of the deserters between “scoundrel[s]” and “hero[es]” and himself regarded the deserters “like the boy[s] next door,” the concept of political deviance was strongly rejected by Hayes. He condemned it as “frightening” and serving only to help the authorities study the deserters and develop countermeasures against war refusal. Richard’s fndings would thus beneft the military and moreover

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allow media commentators to substantiate a public image of the deserters as deviants in the end, Hayes reasoned.157 In American media reports on American deserters in European exile of the time, it was often Hayes who was quoted, partly because his mission attracted new attention among American observers, but also because he claimed responsibility to act as a representative of the absentees and took a strong stand in defending their decision and explaining their situation. Hayes responded to the depictions of the deserters as misfts unable to adjust neither to military discipline nor life in Sweden, misled and without clear motives, and even as un- or anti-American. He explained that the diffculties of many deserters to make a living abroad and cope with “technocratic Sweden” resulted from the limited education and youth of many of them, who came from the working and lower-middle classes and had “never thought the day would come when they would be in exile,” but only been forced to do so because of the draft and the war in Vietnam.158 He pointed out how the Swedish government had been short-sighted concerning the infux of American war refusers and the duration of their exile for too long, and made a strong case for political asylum for the men, which would ameliorate their situation. With new programs of the authorities, however, Hayes was optimistic that the deserters would succeed in Sweden and assured American readers that he saw “a lot of maturity, experience and growth developing” among the young men.159 Moreover, he emphasized that the deserters were similar to their colleagues back in the United States, “tough guys, mostly from the patriotic workingclass,” and specifed that a fourth of the exiles were married, some with children.160 Hayes rebutted charges against the deserters of being un-American and maintained that in fact their experience in the military had contradicted what they considered “truly American.” He affrmed that the Vietnam War had been the cause for many desertions, but asserted that to avoid fghting did not mean “skin-saving.” Most had come to their decision because of doubts about the United States’ objective in the war and after long consideration, according to Hayes, and there were Vietnam veterans who had gone AWOL to Sweden only after having served their tours in the war.161 Furthermore, the radical positions held by ADC members and presented by media reports as extremist were placed into context by Hayes, who also pointed out the “absolutely essential role” of the committee in practical and social matters of the deserter community.162 While Hayes mostly stuck to concrete issues of exile and the men’s backgrounds and their motives, he also offered a theological interpretation and vindication of the war refusers, who according to him had practiced “Biblical witness” by having “face[d] up to what they consider evil, regardless of danger,” which was evidence of how the “spirit” makes “contact with men through their conscience.”163

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A NEW PERSPECTIVE ON THE EXILED DESERTERS Upon his return to the United States from Sweden, Hayes stepped up his efforts to create understanding for the deserters among fellow Americans. He traveled the country for three months, gave talks, and spoke to the media. He also published several articles on the men and a book, which was for a long time the most comprehensive account of the Swedish sanctuary.164 With his unique experience in Sweden, he brought a new perspective on military absenteeism to the Vietnam debate, presenting the stories of individual deserters and refecting on the American and international debates on desertion and war resistance. He became a radical advocate of the men and not only rallied for compassion but vindicated them and defended their actions. Hayes admitted that the deserters and his own experience of working with them “have changed me; I think it is for good,” that he had undergone a process of “growth,” and he took a much more radical and political position than the CALCAV leadership had originally formulated for his mission.165 He defended the politicization of the men and affrmed the political signifcance of desertion, which the CALCAV visitors to Sweden had meant to limit, not least with the mission of Hayes. Following his own stay abroad, the latter argued, however, that “humanitarian kinds of help” could not be separated from the “development of political consciousness on the part of the men” and that his assistance was both “politically expedient, and humanly necessary.”166 In January 1970, Hayes gave his frst press conference in New York with CALCAV steering committee members Richard John Neuhaus and Rabbi Balfour Brickner, as well as Richard Killmer, who was working on a support project for draft-age Americans in Canada with the American NCC, inspired in part by Hayes’s ministry in Sweden.167 Hayes announced optimistically that the deserters were “making it” and “creating a life for themselves” in Swedish exile. He substantiated this with fgures from Kristina Nyström, the social worker responsible for the deserters in Sweden since the policy reform in 1969, which confrmed that a large majority of the men worked or were enrolled in Swedish classes, vocational training, university studies, and adult and folk high schools.168 Hayes accused the American authorities of giving false information about the deserters’ failure abroad, such as alleging a high crime rate, and offered relevant fgures from the Swedish government to balance the picture. With his assertion of the men’s ability to succeed in Sweden, Hayes countered the trope underlying such negative depictions of the deserters as prodigal sons who were unable to settle down abroad and would eventually return home, remorsefully.169 Likewise, Hayes maintained that the decision to go AWOL and into exile was not taken lightheartedly and argued that the men had “deserted from madness to sanity,” inverting the common assumption that desertion was

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an irrational act. Instead, he maintained that the United States’ involvement in Vietnam was irrational and had absurd effects on American society, in particular the younger generation.170 Hayes discussed grounds for desertions, many of which were prompted by orders for Vietnam, and stated that the refusers “have given us a new understanding of ‘conscience’” with their “life and death decision.” None of those he met in Sweden regretted his desertion, not least in light of the disclosure of the atrocities committed by American troops in Vietnam. They had not run away from service, but shown “the courage to say ‘no’ when it really counted.”171 At a talk in Chicago in February, Hayes pointed out that many of the exiles had previously fought in Vietnam, been “trained to be criminal killers,” and then chose to desert, when they realized that the “Vietnamese war is an atrocity.” All exiles in Sweden were unifed by the ideal not to kill and shared basic human values.172 Moreover, Hayes argued that the deserters’ backgrounds were typical of their generation and that they represented a cross-section of American society. He was concerned that the fndings of sociologist Michel Richard, who had visited Sweden in 1969, would serve to further marginalize them. At a symposium with Richard, Hayes accused him of not respecting the deserters’ refusal to be the subjects of his study and of violating the “right of a group not to be researched.” Sociologist and criminologist Edward Sagarin, who chaired the panel, seconded Hayes and criticized Richard’s work as potentially benefcial to the American authorities.173 In his book, published in 1971, Hayes even devoted a chapter on Richard and his attempt to study the deserters in Sweden and condemned his research approach as unsuitable for the case of the men. Accordingly, “despite his best intentions” and his personal refection on his experience in Sweden, Richard was in effect “working for the Pharaohs while there is a new Exodus afoot.”174 During his stay in Sweden, Hayes condemned depictions of American deserters as misfts, not least by the U.S. military authorities, which “prevent[ed]” many Americans “from seeing these fellows as real human beings who had made real choices.” He reiterated his critique and rebutted the Pentagon’s charges toward the deserters in Sweden in his book. An average length of twenty-two months of military service prior to desertion proved that the men were no dropouts, he argued, but rather had only acted after a longer process of considering their role in the Vietnam War. Moreover, he discovered that previous offenses of deserters, cited by military leadership as proof of their deviance, were not any different to the conduct of their fellow GIs still in the armed forces, such as the usual share of marijuana users. Hayes pointed out that in most cases such disciplinary issues had no parallel in the men’s civilian lives but had only come about in the context of the military system.175 With his experience and frst-hand reports, Hayes contributed to a change in the image of deserters within the Christian peace movement, in the United

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States and on an international level. Asked to contribute to a special edition on conscientious objection of Risk in early 1970, the youth journal of the World Council of Churches, Hayes challenged the editors’ concept and argued that the question of whether or not to oppose a war was “long past,” but that the issue of the time was “conscientious desertion as a matter of course.” Eventually, Hayes’s claim that “just men desert” became the motto of the issue, a radical vindication of desertion during the Vietnam War, not only in a moral and conscientious sense but also before a Christian concept of justice. Moreover, the editors recognized mass desertion from the U.S. military a “phenomenon of world-wide signifcance” and cited as basis for its legitimization the Uppsala Report of 1968, calling for spiritual counseling of war refusers and pressure against conscription laws, and the Second Vatican Council, which had condemned “blind obedience” to orders violating universal natural law, similar to the Nuremberg Principles.176 In his Risk article, Hayes appealed to American Vietnam War opponents to not “unconscionabl[y] turn our backs on those [the deserters] who have acted of similar convictions,” a reversal of the charge against deserters of forsaking one’s compatriots, but rather support them as “sons and brothers.” Prompted by one of the men in Sweden, he placed upon members of the American antiwar movement a “duty to remember” those underground and in exile. In fact, Hayes argued, all war resisters were “aider[s] and abettor[s]” of desertion, as their protests and critiques of the United States’ involvement in Indochina caused military servicemen to refect on their own role, and thus inspired the “massive revolt against this war inside the Army.”177 With his publications on the deserters in Sweden, Hayes tried to build a “bridge of communication” and establish a “new connection [with] the American public,” initiated through his mission in Sweden and with the goal of reconciliation and at best an amnesty for the war refusers.178 Hayes claimed the role as “interpreter to middle America” and an advocate for the deserters himself, although he maintained that “the deserters can be represented only by themselves [. . .] not by this writer [Hayes], not by any outside organization or interest, however sympathetic,” and ideally would speak “with their own lives” as “by their mere existence they are their message.”179 With his unique insight into the exile community, he felt authorized to respond to the many voices judging, speaking for, condemning, or endorsing the deserters, to explain their action and to help them communicate their own perspectives. Hayes’s book thus included original statements by exiles to “give them a chance to speak” so that in effect “they will authenticate themselves.” At the same time, he refected on the role of the individual in war, American ideals, faith, and patriotism. With its war in Vietnam, he lamented, the United States had turned from a sanctuary for dissidents from foreign lands into an “empire of interests around the globe run by a military-economic-ecclesiastical

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complex [. . .] from which men fee for refuge” now. The deserters symbolized this fundamental challenge to the self-conception of America, and Hayes argued that an “understanding of the quality of their resistance” was crucial for national reconciliation and an amnesty.180 Hayes explained how political organizing provided the deserters with a language to defend their actions, and that the at times radical terms were the result of the special circumstances of exile and the political inexperience of the men. In particular, the encouragement of others to desert—aiding and abetting being a second grave offense next to the actual unauthorized absence—affronted many Americans. Hayes excused it as a means for keeping up morale in exile, by creating a positive means of self-assertion through calling on others to do the same, and by redefning the mark of deserter as something to be “genuinely proud” of.181 Hayes not only targeted conservative Americans but also radical war opponents, many of whom had supported draft resistance and now promoted the GI and veteran movements, while ignoring or marginalizing the deserters. Hayes defended desertion as a legitimate way of refusal and the only option for many members of the Vietnam generation, and cited American GI movement activist Fred Gardner on how desertion and opposition inside the military were not exclusive of one another but rather “two aspects of the same movement and re-inforce[d] one another.”182 As proof, Hayes presented the “new unity” of American exiles in Europe, who had overcome the conficts over desertion and RITA, supported oppositional GIs in West Germany, and considered themselves part of the larger protest movement of young Americans affected by the war and military conscription.183 The major trope of Hayes’s defense of the deserters in Sweden and the strongest argument in his call for reconciliation and amnesty was their American identity and claim to American ideals. Many of them were “sons and brothers of middle America” and “heirs of the silent majority,” who “d[id] not question their Americanism.” They had not left their home deliberately nor given up their identity as Americans, were not “stateless,” “men without a country,” or “un-American,” but rather victims of the limited choices of their generation in time of war, forced to go into exile, most upholding the hope to return home. Hayes argued that instead some values of the postwar era contradicted the American tradition, not least the “unquestioning obedience” expected from young men from “small-town America” to become good soldiers. He argued that the very accusations against the deserters of “disloyal[ty] and treason,” dissent and resistance against authority, had in fact been crucial virtues in American history, from the Pilgrims’ “infdelities to the mother churches” to the struggle for independence from England. Hayes found among the deserters a “remarkable ability to remember and to practice, under stress, the very principles and loyalties they are alleged to deny but, in

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fact, have absorbed in family, in school and in the nation.” This made them “essential conservators of American tradition.”184 Thomas Lee Hayes’s book was the most comprehensive account on the exiles in Europe, supplementing the more numerous publications on draftage Americans in Canada.185 Readers from the social sciences considered his writing too sympathetic with the exiles and “self-indulgent,” and found that he failed to answer what truly distinguished deserters from their peers who served.186 This had been the critical question that was posed both by scholars and journalists since the frst desertions had been publicized. But Hayes argued instead that the refusers were typical members of their generation, who had taken another one of the limited options offered to them under the Vietnam dilemma. Theologians, in turn, less sensitive about the indeed sometimes sermon-like text, criticized Hayes for having absorbed GI slang and leftist jargon as well as for his lack of self-criticism.187 Among American exiles in Sweden, the book was also received with ambivalence. One of them expressed disappointment that no free copies were given to the men in Sweden and refused to review the book in the exile newsletter, if he had to pay for it.188 Another deserter criticized “what’s his name[’]s” publication for categorizing deserters and draft resisters into working and middle class, respectively, and pointed out that there were opposite examples among the men in Sweden, thus rejecting Hayes’s interpretations like those of other outsiders before.189 Nevertheless, in the debate on amnesty the book was to play an important role, was included in many literature lists of the movement to represent the case of the exiles in Sweden, and became an often-cited reference in contemporary publications.190 Hayes himself, however, withdrew from activism and moved with his family to a winery on the Hudson River, where he was trained as a winemaker. Hayes’s own version of the back-to-the-land movement, which followed the years of protest and revolt in many Western countries, meant a turn from working in the metaphorical vineyard of Christian community to the actual process of cultivating grapes.191 COMMUNITY BUILDING One of the objectives of Thomas Lee Hayes’s mission in Sweden was to initiate and assist community-building efforts among the American exiles with the goal of self-organization. By the end of 1969, Hayes found that he had “worked ourselves out of a job” and that the exile community was able to sustain itself with the help of government programs, local supporters, and Jim Walch, who was employed as a counselor for some time after Hayes’s departure.192 Nevertheless, many of the still growing number of American

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deserters in Sweden continued to struggle with their new life and with coming to terms with the consequences of their action. They had trouble fnding housing and work or job training, and some were drawn into the drug scene and several arrested, among them Joseph Parra. In April 1970, around a dozen American deserters, draft resisters, and their girlfriends and wives formed the Center, a community forum and meeting place, network to pool resources for practical help and for mutual aid in personal crises, and not least an alternative for those drifting and hanging around on the streets of Stockholm.193 In a way, the self-help initiative was a response to the negative press in Sweden at the time on deserters and their real or alleged involvement in the drug scene and in crime, with the goal of proving that only a minority actually committed such offenses and that the community succeeded in preventing others from doing so. Inspired and encouraged by the efforts of Hayes during 1969, the Center was organized and run by American exiles themselves. They complemented the political activism of the ADC with a focus on practical matters and selfhelp. Among them were the initiators of the Underground Railway, which had in late 1968 promoted the same but had lost momentum in the context of the asylum campaign and during the mission of Hayes, who had taken on many of these issues.194 Next to funds from CALCAV for the time after his departure, the Center was supported fnancially by the Swedish Temperance Society and provided with a storefront locale in Södermalm.195 Open every day, the Center provided counseling and information both for newcomers and for those already living in Sweden for some time and offered a place to meet and read books and magazines from the United States. Deserters arriving in Stockholm were instructed on how to apply for asylum in Sweden, received information on the obligatory interview with the Swedish police, and were brought in touch with local lawyers. For men already longer in Sweden, the Center explained matters concerning their legal status and ways to upgrade the renewable permits into permanent residence after twenty months in the country.196 Next to legal matters, the Center pooled housing and job offers and assisted exiles in obtaining health insurance and medical aid, often in cooperation with Swedish sympathizers, including medical student Sköld Peter Matthis, DFFG activist since the movement’s early days.197 Moreover, the Center organizers encouraged all Americans to pursue Swedish language training, so they could apply for vocational training, university studies, and fnd work beyond menial jobs, and arranged writing circles for those more advanced.198 The Center provided an open environment for cultural activities as well as socializing, which the community had been lacking. It set up a library with English-language books and American magazines, among them popular publications such as the Rolling Stone next to political literature and underground

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newspapers. They also organized workshops on American culture and politics, thus providing for both entertainment and a means to maintain and raise political consciousness. The Center also reorganized relations between the exile community and the Swedish and American public and media. Its initiators were ready to answer journalists about the new project, but stressed that individual deserters would not individually speak unless they expressed an interest in meeting reporters. The general suspicion toward outsiders and the media was prevalent in the organizers’ assurance to fellow exiles that “[we] will not disturb the operation of the Center for the sake of the press” and that they “will not let the press disturb you while you are in the Center.”199 The Center was frst organized by veteran exiles who had successfully found ways to make a living in Sweden and now volunteered to assist others in a more precarious situation or in emergencies. That their work was rather effective was noticed at the Swedish immigration board, and in the summer of 1970 the agency’s director Kjell Öberg decided to turn to “help for self-help” and to employ one of the men as an offcial counselor to succeed Kristina Nyström, whose assignment as social worker for deserter matters was ending.200 In September, Herb Rains, who deserted from the U.S. Army Reserve in Hawaii after he had been called for duty in 1968 following the Pueblo Incident, took on the job for two months. In November Desmond Carragher, a British-born deserter from the U.S. Army in West Germany living in Sweden since the spring of 1968, and Robert Argento took over as counselors on a part-time basis.201 The new American Exile Project was fnanced by the Swedish immigration board and backed by KFUK-KFUM, which managed and transferred the funds and salaries. The organization also provided an offce at its headquarters in central Stockholm, which was easy to reach for exiles and newcomers, and whose staff assisted in Swedish written matters.202 The American Exile Project in Stockholm continued until March 1975. From the spring of 1973 on, Bob Janson, a deserter who arrived in Sweden in 1972, held the job as peer counselor.203 In Malmö, where the second largest number of American deserters lived, Herb Washington, a Black Army deserter from a unit in West Germany in the summer of 1968, was engaged for the same task. A smaller community with a larger share of Blacks in a city with less support groups and structures, deserters in Malmö experienced particular diffculties, not least racist treatment by government agencies and in everyday life. Moreover, through the proximity of the city to the Danish capital Copenhagen across the Öresund, the issue of drugs and their import to Sweden was debated with particular intensity there, not without latent or explicit accusations against the American deserters.204 Herb Rains moved to Malmö in 1971 and joined Washington to coordinate the counterpart of the American Exile Project and the Center there.205

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Deserter self-help was professionalized to a considerable extent with the formation of the American Exile Project. The peer counselors became brokers between the American exiles and the Swedish government institutions, formulating the special needs of the young Americans, improving relations with the labor and social boards, as well as the police. For example, the American Exile Project engaged in making measures of the Swedish labor board more effective through individualized language courses, job training programs, and integration of deserters in vocational schools. They argued that the young Americans with varying levels of education and often little practical job-skills required different measures than other immigrant groups with members from older age groups. In turn, they inquired with exiles on which type of training and support was needed, and encouraged commitment to training programs to substantiate their proposals to the labor board.206 Next to the placement of job requests for deserters in Swedish newspapers by the American Exile Project and the Center, Americans were provided with information and assistance in fnding job and training opportunities. They were also given instructions on special features of the Swedish system with a potential to help them bridge the education gap, such as adult high schools and folk high schools.207 The American Exile Project printed information kits for deserters and draft resisters in Sweden, helped in fling applications for government support and provided instructions for issues such as the recognition of American driving permits, a simple, nevertheless crucial matter for deserters because truck driving and courier service jobs were an important feld of work for unskilled foreigners.208 Moreover, a fund for men in immediate emergency was established, a concept which the Underground Railway, organized by Robert Argento and others, had already proposed at the turn of 1968 and 1969.209 For those exiles in Swedish prisons the project collected American literature and magazines, offered counseling for reintegration after release, or in case of expulsion to the United States legal support via the Military Law Project of the National Lawyers Guild, as for Joseph Parra.210 The American Exile Project also advised Americans who were more settled in Sweden on tax issues, family benefts, university funding, permanent residence status and Swedish citizenship, thus promoting longer-term integration into Swedish society.211 Furthermore, together with the Center, the American Exile Project functioned as a contact network of the exile community and guaranteed that mail was delivered to individuals. Because of the diffcult housing situation addresses often changed, and the project and Center therefore maintained a database, passed on letters, and announced undeliverable mail via community newsletters and bulletin boards.212 Finally, the American Exile Project strove to improve the public image of the American exiles in Sweden and to counter media depictions of drug users and social misfts. A press-kit with facts and statistics about the deserters and their Swedish sanctuary was compiled

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in cooperation with Stockholm University and the School of Journalism and widely distributed, and the project workers represented the exile community in press conferences and interviews, not least to counter negative images of the exiles in the media.213 For example, when Jimmy was aired on television in the spring of 1971, Herb Rains and Desmond Carragher participated in a debate program following the flm. They explained the circumstances and backgrounds that could lead to precarious exile existences and maintained that a majority of the deserters were successful in making a living in Sweden.214 When the American Exile Project took on practical and legal matters, the Center became a community forum and a new association of the American draft-age expatriates in Sweden. After activities had stagnated in late 1970, the Center was offered fnancial support through a cooperation of the American NCC, the Swedish Ecumenical Council (SEN) and the Division of Inter-Church Aid, Refugee and World Service of the World Council of Churches.215 The collaboration had been initiated by the SEN in the fall of 1970, when its leadership approached the American NCC on that matter, already engaged in assistance to American war refusers in Canada. A cooperation to beneft the American exiles in Sweden was to follow up on the mission of Thomas Lee Hayes and the funds provided by CALCAV after his departure.216 Richard Killmer, now the director of the Emergency Ministry for U.S. Draft-Age Emigrants to Canada, and NCC deputy secretary-general David Hunter visited Sweden in the spring of 1971 to participate in a conference of the SEN, the Swedish immigration board, local and regional labor boards, offcials of the penitentiary system, and representatives of the exile community to plan a new assistance program for the American war refusers.217 The NCC leadership, skeptical of independent exile groups themselves, welcomed the offer of the SEN to channel its funds to the deserters and draft resisters in Sweden and thereby complement its efforts for their peers in Canada, where it had initiated the Emergency Ministry in early 1970, also in cooperation with Canadian churches.218 Moreover, in the summer of 1971, the SEN engaged Barry Winningham, an American Episcopal priest, as pastor for the exile community and belated successor of Hayes. A draft refuser himself, he had come to Sweden in 1967 after fnishing a master’s degree in divinity at Yale and pursued doctoral studies in theology in Uppsala. His tasks included mediating between the deserters and the Swedish and American churches as well as individual spiritual counseling, including support for exiles in prison. Winningham also contributed to cultural activities of the community, in particular by mentoring writing workshops and literary circles. He was closer in age to the deserters than Hayes and was more a participant in the exile community than a pastor as person of authority.219

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The new support from the United States and the Swedish churches allowed the exiles to consolidate the Center and pursue a variety of projects. At the same time, it prompted discussions on the community’s dependence on established organizations, on leadership and representation of the exiles, and the use and distribution of the funds. Community building continued to be a process of debate and gradual development of organizational structures, and their transformation. Crucial factors were now the fow and distribution of funds, participation and representation, the development of the community, as well as the changing political contexts in Sweden and the United States, particularly regarding the Vietnam War. The number of American deserters and draft resisters in Sweden grew to around fve hundred in 1971, and until the end of the U.S. military involvement in Indochina AWOL servicemen would continue to “trickle” into Sweden.220 A growing number of exiles relocated to Canada during these years, some returned to the United States, and of those remaining in Sweden, many came to settle down. As a result, the need for support programs and community activities developed from the self-help initiative of the original Center in 1970, the professionalized social work of the American Exile Project, and the Center as a network for mutual support through cultural and social activities, to an immigrant “club” in the mid-1970s.221 A series of community meetings in the spring of 1971 came to the decision to employ one exile as a coordinator of the Center to help establish its organization and procedures.222 Bruce Beyer, a twenty-two-year-old draft resister and former counselor for the Buffalo Draft Resistance Union who came to Sweden in 1970, took on the task for several months and helped consolidate the Center as a complement to the work of the American Exile Project.223 Participatory organizational structures were developed based on general meetings and elections of a steering committee to coordinate activities and to decide on the allocation of funds. Intense debates on representation and organization, not only regarding the role of the Center but also the position of the ADC, surfaced considerable confict among the exiles, not least concerning the use of money and arguably prompted by the new availability of fnancial means from the American and Swedish churches. For example, the coordinator’s salary was contested, who was inevitably confronted with “suspicion and envy,” no matter how effective his work, according to Bill Schiller, a draft refuser and one of the newsletter editors.224 Some viewed the channeling of the funds from the NCC via the SEN and the decisions on their distribution by a committee of exiles with skepticism. They were concerned about the benefts of particular projects for individual exiles and the community, which only appealed to certain groups, such as study circles on radical politics or other special interest events. In light of the immediate and practical needs of deserters abroad, some assumed that

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individuals should receive the money themselves to improve their situation.225 Moreover, that the money came from American churches and was administered by Swedish Christians made some exiles uncomfortable, among them Jews and men who had come to reject religious institutions, as this placed them into the unwanted role of “Church youth club members” or “Children of God.”226 Sister Love, an exile collective in Gothenburg eager to maintain its independence and libertarian ideals, even refused the funds. The group, whose name refected its function as a support network and haven for individuals in need, was also very political, collected money to support the DFFG, and proposed to donate their share of funds from the churches to war victims in Vietnam.227 Nevertheless, over the next two years a Center steering committee of around ffteen managed the fnances of the exile communities in Stockholm and Malmö, and to a lesser extent Uppsala. This was done often in cooperation with the American Exile Project and with the participation of members of the exile community through general meetings and elections of offcers.228 In 1973, after the Paris Peace Accords and the end of the Swedish reception of American war refusers, the leadership of the NCC reconsidered its fnancial support for the draft-age Americans in Sweden. To assess the situation, Richard Killmer visited Stockholm in December, and after consultations with the SEN and representatives of the exiles it was agreed to continue the funding. This enabled exiles to continue the American Exile Project in Stockholm and Malmö as well as Center activities.229 As replacement of the Center steering committee, a new fnancial board was set up with representatives of the SEN, KFUK-KFUM, and one American exile from each Stockholm, Uppsala, Malmö, and Gothenburg.230 However, funds from American churches were not transferred to the same extent and with the same regularity as before, and by the turn of 1974 and 1975, this “umbilical cord” of the American exile community in Sweden to their mother country was cut off when the fnancial support ended.231 By then, the size of the exile community in Sweden had diminished to around 250, and fewer were in need of support from a community network. Many had relocated to Canada, and during this time some exiles took President Gerald Ford’s conditional offer to move back to the United States. In Sweden, an American Exile Club was formed and fnanced with membership fees and newsletter subscriptions, besides occasional donations from the United States and some support from Swedish municipal immigration boards.232 With diminished need for mutual support, the new expatriate association focused on cultural activities and political debate, not least regarding the bicentennial of the Declaration of Independence of the United States in 1976 and a critical discussion of American history as well as the debate on amnesty for war refusers.233

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EXPATRIATE CULTURE During the early 1970s, the Center developed into a hub of cultural and political activities, and was thus a crucial factor in the consolidation of the community of draft-age Americans in Sweden. It contributed to an improvement of the living situation of many exiles both as an extension and complement of the support programs of the American Exile Project, as well as through fnancing a variety of projects.234 With funds from the NCC and support from the SEN and local churches and organizations, the Center provided the infrastructure for community activities, such as rooms and printing machines, and contributed to the realization of arts and crafts workshops, writing circles, video productions and music recordings, political study groups and symposia. Also, the Stockholm Stars, a basketball team formed by a dozen American exiles in January 1972 and participating in Swedish leagues with growing success, was backed by the Center and received fnancial support. With their name boasting both athletic self-confdence and their American identity, the Stars to some extent took the role of community representatives toward the Swedish public, and the typical American sport functioned as a means for collective identifcation for other community members, who attended the games as fans.235 The central element of community activities became the Alternative Stomach, a weekly food gathering, sometimes with a thematic debate, live music, flm screenings, or sometimes simply socializing, initiated in the fall of 1972 and continuing until the end of 1974. Funds from the American Exile Project and the Center paid for food and other expenses, as well as for some time a salary for John Toler as coordinator. A venue was provided at the youth facilities of the Immanuel Church in Stockholm and later at those of KFUK-KFUM, both located in central Stockholm. With cheap food, free to those in need, the Alternative Stomach attracted many exiles who otherwise did not participate in study circles or discussion groups, and thus integrated them into the community.236 Apart from the social events, regular meetings at the Alternative Stomach also served to announce and carry out organizational matters, such as committee elections, or to discuss the positions to be represented by exile delegates in the amnesty debate. At the Alternative Stomach, many exiles were reached and invited to participate in these processes.237 The regular gatherings at the Alternative Stomach helped many to survive the long Swedish winters, when up to forty meals were served each time. During the summer, the frequency of events was reduced, and picnics were organized instead.238 Often, American exiles’ partners, wives, and sometimes children attended the events. Other American expatriates living in Sweden also offered their support to deserters, such as feminist activist Rita “Rainy” Creighton, who sometimes cooked food at the Stomach and contributed to

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newsletters, and Candi Martin, an American student affliated with the ACLU, who provided counseling on military legal issues, in particularly in the context of the debate on amnesty and concerning options for returning to America.239 At the Alternative Stomach, American identity was refected and practiced over food and the celebration of American holidays. For example, it held parties and dinners on the occasion of Groundhog Day, Halloween and Thanksgiving, with pumpkin pie, turkey, and corn bread.240 Food moreover refected many exiles’ consciousness about healthy and sustainable lifestyles, growing among the young generation and progressive groups in Europe and North America at the time. American food was reinterpreted at the Alternative Stomach with vegetarian ingredients, for example, beet burgers with brown sauce and fritini hamburgers, and cooking instructions were published in the newsletters. Also, Graham bread was made at a workshop, a traditional American recipe ftting the concepts of whole-grain bakery and health food.241 As an extension of the Alternative Stomach, a food collective was initiated in cooperative style to provide sustainable ingredients and staple foods at low prices, including rice, lentils, buckwheat four, muesli, and other vegetarian products, such as fritini mixes and Tartex spreads.242 Meetings at the Alternative Stomach frequently featured concerts by individuals, such as rag time and blues guitarist Tom Thomason, who had come to Sweden from France after he had gone AWOL from his U.S. Army unit in West Germany in late 1967, and bands formed by exiles, such as the blues band The Wedge. Like the basketball team, artists and music groups served collective identifcation of the American exiles in Sweden, and their American backgrounds and skills were an invaluable basis for their authenticity and success with Swedish audiences. The Center helped fnance recordings and provided the space and a sympathetic audience for newcomers to try out their music.243 Moreover, there were “community entertainment night[s],” open sessions of “people making the music,” and some nights on American and Swedish folk music were directed by Izzy Young, former promoter of the New York folk music scene and mentor of the young Bob Dylan, who had relocated to Stockholm in 1973.244 Such interactive music making was a crucial element of community building as well as a means for exiles to practice and articulate their American identity, including political songs as well as popular and traditional American music. With Izzy Young as caller, some meetings even featured square-dancing, something typical of conservative Middle America and surely practiced with considerable irony by the exiles, who had escaped from the conformity of this part of the American mainstream and had become the target of its polemics against dissenters.245 Typical American leisure activities also were part of the picnics of the Alternative Stomach, where exiles played softball and fag-football, however in a nonconformist way and commented on with humor and irony.246

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EXILE COUNTERPUBLIC A crucial component of the development and sustainment of the exile community were newsletters, printed and distributed more or less regularly. Following the frst such publication Internal Hemorrhage by the Underground Railway in 1969, the Paper Grenade was produced by the ADC from 1970 on. American War Resister in Sweden became the community paper in 1971, and renamed American Exile Newsletter in 1972 continued until 1977. Via the newsletters, the Center and the American Exile Project announced events and offered information to Americans in Sweden unable or unwilling to participate in community activities in person. The mimeographed papers printed and updated addresses of Swedish and American supporters, who provided a number of services including legal counseling, both concerning the status in Sweden as well as American draft and military law, housing assistance, job offers and training opportunities, medical aid and advice on health insurance. The newsletters served to reach deserters whose whereabouts were not known, for example, when undeliverable mail arrived the Center, the American Exile Project, the ADC, or elsewhere. They were also a crucial means for participation in organizing and the legitimization of representatives, as elections were announced in the papers, and candidates invited and introduced. Moreover, the publication of committee records, including decisions on fnancial matters such as funding of projects, assured accountability of the offcers and transparency of proceedings. Sometimes, debates on community politics, organizing, the distribution of funds, as well as the purpose of the publications themselves, were continued in the newsletters.247 The newsletters also provided the American exile community in Sweden an alternative public or counterpublic space and marked a turn to internal communication. Many exiles were frustrated with the mainstream media and disillusioned with outsiders’ depictions and explanations of themselves, but felt the need for articulation and debate, for which the newsletters offered an outlet.248 Promoted as a “means for keeping our identity, reaffrming our refusal to grease the war machine and strengthening our ties with fellow war-resisters around the world,” the newsletters served as a space for selfexpression and individual and collective reconciliation with the consequences of desertion, as well as for maintaining and expanding the exiles’ political consciousness.249 In this counterpublic, which was limited more or less to American exiles and their sympathizers, individuals could share what was on their minds, independent from outsiders’ judgments, while not entirely private and with certain conventions. Over time, this counterpublic space was expanded through contacts with other exile groups in Europe and Canada and activists in the United States, and through the exchange of publications across these contexts.

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A number of contributions to newsletters dealt with life in exile and relations with Swedish society and within the exile community. Some refected personal struggles of coming to terms with desertion and its consequences, often presented with artistic transformation such as prose, poetry, or cartoons. Otherwise, the meaning of desertion and war resistance—the dominant theme of deserters’ statements, journalists’ questions, and antiwar activists’ interests in 1967 and 68—found little refection in the publications. That they had acted legitimately had become common sense among American deserters and draft resisters in Sweden; and the names of the publications refected their self-identifcation as critical factor in the malfunctioning of the U.S. military, as political speakers, war resisters, and exiles. When the debate on amnesty gained momentum in the United States, they were once more prompted to defend their action toward the American mainstream public and within the amnesty movement, and the newsletters served for the internal discussion of the matter. In general, the texts dealt with immediate implications of the deserters’ action, their situation in exile and the question of a return home. Often, they addressed broader issues of American and international politics, society and culture, the Vietnam War, as well as protest and liberation movements. Writings published in the safety of the newsletter counterpublic differed from statements directed toward the broader public. The latter often appeared somewhat armored, as deserters shunned personal weaknesses, emotions, and doubts in fear of exploitation and in an effort to counter negative images. Texts written for an exile community public allowed for a more open articulation of individuals’ thoughts and feelings, if often with metaphors, allusions, and other stylistic elements. Creative writing therefore became an important means of coming to terms with the act of desertion and its consequences, as well as the Vietnam War, American society, culture and politics in general. Beginning in 1969, poetry and prose texts were published in the newsletters, and after the initiation of the Center, deserters and draft resisters formed a literary circle mentored by Barry Winningham. Its programmatic name “Exile” referred to their own situation and also alluded to expatriate writers in literary history, not least the Americans in Paris during the interwar period. Texts were presented at the Alternative Stomach, and an audience beyond the American exile scene was reached at public poetry readings, one of them attended by a hundred people at the Museum of Modern Art in Stockholm, and by publicizing in the Swedish alternative and underground press. One avid exile poet even made the Stockholm subway a stage for his recitations.250 Often autobiographical, exile poems, prose, and cartoons dealt with conficts between deserters and their families, between the Vietnam and elder generations, and the meaning of desertion in the context of the Vietnam War. Roland Dean Brown, for example, refected in “Excuses” on his inability to

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fulfll others’ demands, neither those of his parents, although a well-behaved child, nor as a military serviceman those of his superiors. He had come to Sweden in 1968 via the Netherlands and France after going AWOL from his U.S. Army unit in West Germany in 1967 as an eighteen-year-old, when he had learned about his assignment to be trained for Vietnam. He now pondered how he would be “the prodigal son returning to a house of hate,” if he decided to go back to the United States, a stark contrast to the conciliatory welcome of the loving and forgiving father in the alluded biblical story.251 Such animosity facing deserters in the United States, both in public discourse and within family relations, was taken on by Bill Tilford, who wished to “fght the fre of hatred with the water of love” despite all the frustrations of exile and the heteronomy experienced by the Vietnam generation as a whole, not least through the draft.252 The selective service system and the long arm of the American authorities was the theme of a prose piece by an unidentifed exile, who received a warrant for arrest from Chicago after escaping the draft in 1966 and spending several years in exile. In an imagined conversation he asks the clerk who had processed his case whether she “sniggered” about those who had failed to “make it” in exile. Toward the clerk—and the Americans she represents—he goes on to defend deserters and draft resisters, as “your disapproval can’t change [that] there’s no blood on these many hands [of the refusers]. No fngerprints of ours on guns at Pinkvilles. No ears foating in souvenir jars,” alluding to the atrocities committed by American soldiers in Vietnam.253 Richard Weber, who had come to Sweden in 1969, admitted in a poem that his act to desert had been an evasion of directly confronting military leaders and facing the consequences of resistance, but nevertheless consistent with his realization that “even livin’ there [in the United States] / Is a crime / Of violence.”254 A common trope in creative texts by exiles was one of how the lives of average young Americans were interrupted by the Vietnam War and the draft, similar to that of earlier statements by deserters in the mainstream media, such as the Intrepid Four at the turn of 1967 and 1968. A cartoon by Billy Boy, a pen name of Bill Boyd, dealt with growing up in the United States during the 1960s, a process untimely halted by the military draft. The protagonist tells of how he and his peers experienced a worry-free youth marked by average experiences from playing sports, going to church, entering college, joining a fraternity, to getting a car, as well as growing long hair, consuming alcohol and marijuana, and participating in protest demonstrations. The draft ended this, and they faced the dilemma of the Vietnam generation to either enter the military and serve in the war, or to violate conscription laws, face prosecution, or fee abroad. Then, for the frst time, the protagonist broke with his average American life and acted differently than his friends, “said fuck them” and escaped to Sweden.255

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Also in a cartoon, Ed Fitzgerald, a former art student and rejected applicant for conscientious objector status, refects on the dreams of his childhood and youth, from fying space ships to chasing girls. He was drafted as a twenty-two-year-old in 1969 and deserted from the Army frst to Canada and then Sweden, where he was able to continue his studies. His story’s hero meets a girlfriend, but his carefree life is suddenly ended by the draft. So he escapes to Sweden and tries to subsist as a dishwasher. When a monster kidnaps his girlfriend, the protagonist remains indifferent and proudly presents his Stockholm subway pass, a mocking twist on the basic needs for survival in the deserters’ precarious existence in exile.256 Richard Weber versifed the catch-22 situation American deserters found themselves in. No matter whether one had gone AWOL as a result of having been an outsider or whether the limited choice of war service or exile had turned an average youth into a dissenter, all deserters were labeled deviants anyway—“You’re here / Because you’re queer [. . .] You’re queer / Because you’re here.” The term “queer” in its original sense of deviance from the norm may simply have served Weber as a rhyme. However, it may well refer to homosexuality and the opportunity to come out in exile, or the labeling of deserters with derogatory stereotypes of unmanliness and cowardice.257 Many contributions dealt with the challenges of exile life, from relations with Swedes, the diffcult quest of fnding a job, loneliness and doubt, to the dangers of drug use. Richard Weber played on the original meaning of “to desert” in another text, where the exile himself is left alone and feels “so deserted” in Sweden.258 The need for belonging and the situation of being without a home is the theme of a poem by Irving Rubin, whose protagonist “lay on borrowed beds [. . .] torn by loneliness and fear.”259 Former Yale student, unsuccessful draft resister, and Army deserter William Males, who had come to Sweden in the spring of 1969, wrote a surrealist refection on the threat of passivity in exile, the danger of being broken, and the deserters’ wish to “stand for something” and longing for recognition.260 In another allegoric tale, Males discussed the false promises of drugs, distrust among exiles, and fear of infltration of the community by the CIA. Hallucinating on LSD, his protagonist meets the fairy Sister Love, whom he frst suspects to be an American agent but who then fulflls his wishes for literature to comprehend his situation as deserter, money to survive, and for a “lawyer that really looks after me—like Wallenberg has.” Sister Love, who helps the protagonist get down from the trip, turns out to be the “guiding spirit of the U.S. exile community,” an allegory to the community center in Gothenburg, with its library, legal counseling, and emergency fund for American exiles.261 Moreover, the somewhat inapt reference to Raoul Wallenberg, the famous Swedish diplomat who had saved thousands of Hungarian Jews from the Germans during

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the Second World War, refects the deserters’ identifcation as a discriminated group forced into exile as well as their disappointments with Swedish society and the insuffcient political measures to support them. Other contributions to the exile newsletters dealt with relations between the deserters and Swedes on various levels including interpersonal relations, the bureaucracy, and politics. The everyday experience of American exiles and their diffculties in encounters with Swedes are symbolized in references to the latter’s alleged staring, which the former were not used to, for example in a cartoon by Larry Cornett on passengers in the Tunnelbana who “stare . . . only to freak you out.”262 This experience may have been the result of a combination of cultural differences and exile paranoia, from locals’ actual gazing at foreigners, non-whites, and non-conformists, to American exiles’ fear of being under surveillance as fugitive absentees and in constant danger of apprehension.263 The outsider role of the American exiles in Sweden and cultural misunderstandings are also alluded to in a poem by Parker F. Smith, who had deserted from the Navy Reserve after being activated in early 1968, and symbolized by a silver winter hat made from Orlon. In the piece, the American protagonist underestimates the Swedish winter, and in need of warm headgear buys the overpriced Orlon hat without consideration of what would be fashionable and comfortable. Only when he is wearing it walking the Stockholm streets, he realizes that most Swedes have real fur hats, most in brown, which makes him stick out the more—in addition to his self-consciousness as a foreigner and deserter—and increases his feeling of being stared at.264 The Swedish bureaucracy and the diffculties for young Americans to fnd work in exile inspired a satirical piece on a deserter’s visit at the labor offce by Bill Boyd, writing as Billy Boy, where he is offered no employment beyond dishwashing. The text, complemented with fctional classifeds with absurd jobs offers such as “String Puller” and “Tape Licker,” connected the diffcult situation in exile with service in the Vietnam War, which the deserters had evaded, and concluded with the cynical comment that “if it isn’t Vietnam, then it’s arbetsförmedlingen in Sweden”—the war “slaughters bodies and souls” and “in Sweden the system slaughters souls.” In the end, the exiles had to be “durable” and fght the system anyway.265 Exiles were frustrated with the failed plea for full political asylum in Sweden, loss of sympathies in Swedish society, conservative Swedes’ view that the American exiles should abstain from political activism, and the government’s alleged complicity with the United States. These complaints motivated a cartoon by an unknown artist on a bourgeois Swede’s hypocritical stand toward foreigners and Swedish neutrality. Demanding that the American deserters “keep their mouths shut and behave,” he introduces “some of my best friends” who are foreigners, one character depicting Uncle Sam and another a German

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Nazi—a bitter take on Sweden’s ideal of neutrality in international politics, which had not been fully adhered to during the Second World War and that was contested during the Vietnam War as well.266 The violence of the actual war, the brutalization of American society, the burden placed on the Vietnam generation to fght it, as well as the indifference faced by returning veterans were also addressed in writings by exiles. Tom Horne had experienced both the war as well as “Vietnam withdrawal symptoms” upon returning to the United States, before he deserted to Sweden in 1971, desperate to “take a stand” and be heard, be it by deserting or by being caught. The confrontation of Vietnamese rural society with the high-tech U.S. military forces had left a deep impression on him, which he processed in his poetry. For example, in one piece an idyllic scene of the peaceful life of a Vietnamese farmer’s family suddenly ends, when an American bomber plane attacks, a “metal eagle/drop[ping] its deadly eggs.”267 In a short story, “S.” dealt with war veteran “Lenny” returning to the United States, traumatized by the war experience and unable to adjust to civilian life. However, Lenny is not only a war victim but at the same time personifes the American perpetrator, whose involvement in atrocities is symbolized by cut-off ears preserved in a bottle. His parents’ jokes about them, in turn, stand for the indifference among many Americans about both the Vietnamese victims and the war veterans.268 Micah Russell, an Army deserter who had arrived in Sweden in the summer of 1968 as a nineteen-year-old, put his grim view of the world, a “bloodstained sphere,” into the words of a poem about the funeral of an American soldier killed by napalm. The text deplores the routine processing of the case by the bureaucrats in Washington and the mother’s “pride” in that her “son has passed our test,” implying that parents were sacrifcing their sons for the nation at war. An angel of peace, “tor[n] down and raped” by “angry dogs” symbolizes the powerlessness of war opponents against “a statesman’s lies” as well as that of the exploited Vietnam generation toward their teachers, who functioned as “mindless tools [. . .] to teach them how to die.”269 Someone writing as “the undone soldier,” a pun on the fgure of the unknown soldier as well as his own desertion and interrupted military career, condemned President Nixon for his “cold-blooded murders” and warned him that in light of the unfolding Watergate affair Americans would not much longer let themselves be “fooled by your slippery TV caricature.”270 American deserters and draft resisters developed a critical perspective on American popular culture while living abroad, especially its commercialization and export. In reviews and comments published in their newsletters, exiles addressed American consumer culture and lifestyle and its international dissemination, in particular how they experienced it in Sweden. They discussed flms and television series, clothing and jeans, hotel chains, and McDonald’s

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restaurants as facets of an American “inva[sion]” and global dominance.271 This refected their own coming to terms with American culture and their identity as well as their concern with U.S.-Swedish economic and political relations.272 Moreover, as representatives of the ‘other America’ in Sweden, a role both attributed to them by Swedish sympathizers and claimed by themselves, the exiles were in competition about the image of their home country abroad and were sometimes irritated by Swedish fans of U.S. mainstream culture.273 They felt the need to enlighten young Swedes about the true nature of American consumer culture and its function in the expansion of U.S. imperialism. In personal relations with Swedes and at public events they strove to present a critical view of the United States, and in contributions to the newsletters they discussed the image of America in Sweden, and not least the presence of American commercial and cultural products there. One exile made the matter the subject of his academic research and applied for a scholarship to study American cultural imperialism in Sweden.274 The passionate commentary refects their concern with developments in the United States, the political, cultural, and economic position of their home country in the world, as well as their belief in and fear of the power of popular culture, in particular television and flm, to infuence people. Reviews published in the exile newsletters of American flms and television programs shown in Sweden at the time criticized their messages about the Vietnam War, and concepts of race, class, and gender. Gerry Condon, who as a Green Beret had refused orders to Vietnam in 1968 and deserted in 1969 to evade prosecution frst to Canada and then to Sweden, argued that in the series Julia and the Flip Wilson variety show African Americans served to entertain a white audience and helped to maintain the existing “class system which is based on oppression” of Black men and women.275 The character of Black middle-class member Julia, the widow of an offcer killed in Vietnam, Condon fnds exemplary of how a woman’s “identity and [. . .] respect are derived from that of [her] husband,” in her case his heroic death in the war. Moreover, the series transports a wrong image of the Vietnam War and the role of soldiers in it, according to Condon, when Julia teaches her son about how GIs were “brave and strong” and “deserv[ed] honor,” and when his late father’s fellow Vietnam veteran becomes his new role model, telling him stories about the jungle war against “Charlie.” The Flip Wilson show, Condon argued, was “whitewashing propaganda” paid for with “white money” to maintain the status quo of race relations and thwart emancipation movements. Wilson thereby represented an “alternative black voice to guilty white America—so eager and pleased to hear something besides [black resisters] Cleaver and the Jacksons,” as well as to international and Swedish viewers. While Wilson claimed to be apolitical, Condon argued that his show in fact promoted the

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conservative and reactionary message that pleas against racist structures were unsubstantiated and that there was “no need to buck this system.”276 Likewise, Herb Washington criticized the African American producers of Shaft for their primarily commercial interest and “tokenism for proft.” Shaft, a “black James Bond or ‘Bogie’ [Humphrey Bogart],” Washington argued, was “dangerous to the Black man’s struggle for freedom,” because he and other fctional flm characters of this kind did not offer solutions to the real “plight of Black people” and therefore made bad role models. Instead, Washington called for flms about contemporary and historic Black leaders, with “truth [as] the guiding light” in their production, such as Malcolm X, Bobby Seale, Angela Davis, Nat Turner, and Denmark Vesey.277 A new look at American history by flmmakers of the time was welcomed by exiles abroad, such as the sovereign role as “decider of his fate” of the Indian protagonist Old Lodge Skins in Little Big Man, which stood in contrast to the abundance of the Wild West movies shown during the childhood of the deserters. William Males’, himself an Oklahoma native where the flm is set, considered Old Lodge Skins a “personifcation of a culture that is superior to the white man’s,” a view refecting his own and many other exiles’ disappointment with the American mainstream and their sympathies with emancipatory movements of the time, not least the American Indian Movement and the African American freedom struggle.278 Many more contributions to the newsletters show the exiles’ identifcation with larger social change and concern with political developments in the United States, beyond the Vietnam War, antiwar protest, and the question of amnesty. With original texts and reprints from other publications, the newsletters covered the emancipatory movements of African Americans, American Indians, Puerto Ricans, and other minorities, as well as the protests of migrant farm workers in the United States.279 Moreover, some exiles developed their own thoughts about radical politics and revolutionary change, including the prospects of socialism in America.280 The newsletters therefore functioned to continue the discussion of study circles and to make the materials available to others. While these themes and solidarity with liberation movements were quite typical of politically conscious groups in Western societies, American exiles were particularly concerned with the protest movement among U.S. servicemen and veterans. Coverage of the larger GI movement and its development in the United States and Europe in the newsletters, including AWOL and desertion, reaffrmed their own decision and refected their identifcation with their peers. The community also subscribed to GI newspapers and made them available for its members at the Center and the American Exile Project. In turn, exiles shared their own newsletters with GI organizers and contributed to publications of the movement.281

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The exclusive endorsement of desertion as the most consistent form of war resistance, promoted by the ADC in 1968, was abandoned when American exiles learned about the growing opposition among U.S. servicemen and its signifcance for antiwar protest. Nevertheless, deserters did not give up their self-affrming stand on their own act of refusal, but came to consider it part of this larger movement. They regarded exile a critical alternative, which had to be sustained as refuge for oppositional servicemen facing prosecution or service in the war zone. It appears that toward the antiwar public, in particular in Sweden, deserter activists went on to defend desertion as the ultimate form of war resistance for a longer time than within the exile community and its counterpublic. For example, in 1969, the ADC promoted desertion and criticized the concept of the ASU as “at best dubious opportunism” in a contribution to a Swedish symposium on American imperialism and in a book based on the event. At the same time, its newsletter Paper Grenade reported sympathetically on Isaac Barr, a Black GI and ASU member, who was sent to Vietnam allegedly as punishment for his organizing activities, and the protests of soldiers at Fort Jackson.282 The rejection of GI activism in statements to Swedish audiences was both a remnant of the dichotomy between RITA and desertion of 1968, and refected as well a certain fear among deserter activists to lose political relevance and thus support from the Swedish New Left. Over time, however, the deserters came to more self-confdently claim the role as representatives of the larger servicemen’s movement in a Swedish and international context.283 The awareness among deserters in Sweden of the protest movement of American servicemen and their identifcation with it was promoted by contributions to the community newsletters. For example, American War Resister in Sweden welcomed the protests of “revolutionary sailors” of aircraft carrier USS Coral Sea in 1971 as “[g]ood [n]ews,” placed it in line with the historic mutinies on the Bounty and the Potemkin, and endorsed the disobedience of orders by GIs in Vietnam as a “new and chilling blow to Nixon and the war-hawks.”284 The newsletters also covered sabotage actions by Navy sailors against aircraft carriers and the desertion of Vietnam-bound crewmembers in resistance to the “genocide now being perpetrated in Southeast Asia” in 1972, proof both of the radicalization of oppositional U.S. servicemen as well as of desertion still being a legitimate and effective form of refusal.285 Moreover, texts from the American antiwar and GI movement press were featured, for example, on the trial of Marine Corps private David Osborne, one of the initiators of the Movement for a Democratic Military (MDM), and on the perspective of retired Marine Corps colonel Robert Heinl, a veteran of the Korean and the Second World Wars, on the American armed forces being “in

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a state approaching collapse.” Heinl’s essay on the crisis of the U.S. military, published in the Armed Forces Journal in 1971, was a critical and often-cited text on the signifcance of the GI movement, not least because of its particular credibility through its author’s standing in the defense community.286 Besides, the exiles in Sweden followed the development of the GI movement in Europe and informed about the efforts of The Next Step, an activist group formed in West Germany by former ADC mentor Michel Vale and others to mobilize opposition among American servicemen in Europe. Moreover, they reported on Forward, a GI organizing project in West Berlin, and its efforts to fght “unconstitutional orders” and to provide legal support for servicemen.287 Similar developments in European armies were covered as well, which affrmed the exiles’ own action and strengthened their sense of being part of a larger movement. A strike of several hundred Swedish servicemen and their efforts to form a soldiers’ union in 1972, for example, were reported on as if they were fellow “GIs” and “brothers” in the struggle against the “pigs” of the military leadership.288

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CONCLUSION The campaign for political asylum for American deserters in Sweden added another facet to the debate on the legitimacy of desertion during the Vietnam War. War refusal was discussed in the framework of international asylum law and Swedish domestic politics, specifcally regarding Vietnam as well as in more general terms. Desertion itself did not qualify for a political refugee status and was therefore interpreted as a political offense against a government recruiting young men to fght in an illegal war. Moreover, the deserters from the United States were compared with political dissidents from the East, with Swedish government representatives pointing out the difference between democratic and communist states, and proponents of political asylum claiming equal treatment of the refugees from either context. This way, American deserters and their special status in Sweden became part of debates on dissidence and human rights in the Cold War, Swedish neutrality in international relations, as well as the country’s domestic politics, in particular concerning military conscription. The continuing question of political asylum also mobilized new solidarity for American deserters in the international peace movement and created awareness of their plight at a time when the process of Vietnamization and the issue of the return of American prisoners of war (POWs) came to dominate the Vietnam debate. The struggle for political asylum and to prevent expulsions from Sweden involved controversies on race and class as well as on the counterculture of the 1960s and 1970s. The debate on expulsion orders against American

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deserters for criminal offenses, who despite amendments to their residence status never enjoyed the same protection as political refugees, concerned the men’s racial, ethnic and social backgrounds, and the role of these in their recruitment into the military and their lives in exile. Proponents of political asylum pointed out the discriminatory mechanisms of the draft system in the United States and excused the diffculties of deserters in trying to make a living abroad with the disadvantaged circumstances under which they had grown up. Their special status in Sweden kept or pushed them into a similar position, supporters argued, and only with a full status as political refugees and thus easier integration into the job market the men could succeed in their new lives. Based on analogous assumptions, critics of an upgrading of the deserters’ asylum in Sweden maintained that young Americans from underprivileged ethnic and social groups would generally face diffculties abroad and thus needed special programs to assist them, rather than full political asylum. Moreover, opposition to further improvements of the sanctuary was motivated by the perspective to limit the infux of young Americans from such backgrounds to Sweden. Not least, conservative Swedes projected on the young Americans a fear of counterculture, involving drugs and the deterioration of social order, and accused the deserters of contributing to its spread among Swedish youths. Like many of their age group, American exiles abroad indeed adopted countercultural practices of the 1960s and 1970s. This included music and arts, as well as models of organizing, self-help, community building, and identity politics. However, far beyond the negative subcultural image purported of American deserters, elements of alternative lifestyle and activism were crucial for the building and consolidation of an exile community among the war refusers. Approaches to self-help and mutual solidarity of deserters to help newcomers cope with the consequences of desertion and life in exile were informed by contemporary political organizing, such as draft counseling and the GI coffeehouse movement in North America and antiwar activism in Europe. Within the exile community and its counterpublic space, different modes of debate, representation, and decision-making were tried out, like in many other circles and scenes of young Americans and Europeans of the time. Cultural activities and political debates in the exile community refected contemporary arts and music and political discourse and featured specifcs resulting from the experience of the war, desertion, and exile. Beyond their inspiration from and linkage to the broader American and international counterculture of the 1960s and 1970s, the war refusers were in particular concerned with social and political developments in the United States and the country’s position in international relations. As representatives of the ‘other America’ they felt a responsibility to engage in such debates abroad. Moreover, they connected

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with American exile groups in other countries and participated in a larger community and counterpublic of Vietnam War refusers, through correspondence, newsletter exchanges, and the relocation of individuals, forming the basis for discussion and cooperation in the debate on amnesty. With the mission of Thomas Lee Hayes, American war opponents aimed to assist deserters in exile as well as to promote reconciliation between the Vietnam and older generations, both on a family and on a societal level, to mobilize understanding and compassion for an eventual amnesty for all war refusers. While practical help and personal counseling during Hayes’s stay in Sweden were invaluable for many individual absentees and for the exile community as a whole, his role as a spokesperson toward the American public was ultimately of greater effect, both regarding family relations as well as the position of the exiles in the Vietnam debate. Hayes defended and explained the deserters’ action as a legitimate response of young Americans to the draft and military service in Vietnam, and thus strove to overcome their separation from other groups of their generation, from those who served to those who refused and resisted. With his own age falling between the generations of draft-age Americans and their parents, Hayes acted as an intergenerational mediator, and as a pastor and relatively independent from political factions, he took on the role as communicator between the exiled deserters and the American public, invoking both American ideals and the Christian principle of reconciliation. He thus brought a new perspective on the exiled deserters to the American Vietnam debate and positioned them for the upcoming struggle for amnesty.

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NOTES 1. American exiles in France formed an American Deserters Committee of their own, which was endorsed by a number of French lawyers and prominent war opponents, who had early on participated in solidarity work for deserters from the U.S. armed forces in their country, such as Nicole Dreyfus, Jean-Jacques de Felice, Jean-Paul Sartre, Laurent Schwartz, Claude Bourdet, and Pierre Vidal-Naquet (“Communiqué de l’A.S.D.A.E.” and “L’ADC: Notre Lutte,” The Second Front Review. Edition française, 1, [1969]). The improved situation of the deserters in France was described by Larry Cox, a draft exile and participant of the PACS and support activities for deserters, and William Bloom in an exchange with activists in Sweden (Larry Cox to Jim Walch [early 1969] and William Bloom to Jim Walch, January 20, 1969, ARAB, Jim Walch). 2. See, for example, “Deserters and Resisters Are Safe in Sweden and France,” The Second Front, 1, [January 20] 1968; “A Statement by Bill Jones on the Jerum Affair,” [March 1968], ARAB, Hans Göran Franck, 4.3.7 001; “Asylum Expected in Sweden for 4 U.S. Sailors,” New York Times, January 3, 1968; “Seventh Deserter from U.S. Forces Seeks Political Asylum in Sweden,” Globe and Mail, January 5, 1968;

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“Conscience of a Deserter,” Washington Post, March 20, 1968; Abbie Hoffman, Steal This Book (New York: Pirate Editions, 1971), Section Canada, Sweden & Political Asylum. 3. Anita Andersson, Mötesplats. Invandrare och fyktingar i KFUK-KFUM (Stockholm: KFUK-KFUMs Riksförbund, 1983). 4. On the construction and function of counterpublics in movements for recognition of marginalized groups see S. Laurel Weldon, When Protest Makes Policy. How Social Movements Represent Disadvantaged Groups (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2011), 12–16; Christina R. Foust, Amy Pason, and Kate Zittlow Rogness, eds., What Democracy Looks Like. The Rhetoric of Social Movements and Counterpublics (Tuscaloosa: University Alabama Press, 2017), 2 ff. 5. See on the broader underground press and specifcally GI movement publications Ken Wachsberger, ed. Voices from the Underground. Insider Histories of the Vietnam Era Underground Press (Tempe: Mica Press, 1993); John Campbell McMillian, Smoking Typewriters. The Sixties Underground Press and the Rise of Alternative Media in America (New York: Oxford University Press, 2011); Lewes, Protest and Survive; Derek W. Seidman, “Paper Soldiers. The Ally and the Underground Press during the Vietnam War,” in Protest on the Page. Essays on Print and the Culture of Dissent Since 1865, ed. James L. Baughman, Jennifer RatnerRosenhagen, and James P. Danky (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 2015); Richard van Ess, Der Underground war amerikanisch. Vorbilder für die deutsche Undergroundpresse (Tübingen: TVV, 2019). 6. See for a discussion of poetry and literature in the context of the exile of draft refusers and deserters in Canada Rachel Adams, “‘Going to Canada.’ The Politics and Poetics of Northern Exodus,” Yale Journal of Criticism 18, 2 (2005). 7. “Avhoppare från USA fast för väskryckning-stölder,” Aftonbladet, September 10, 1968; Göteborgs Rådhusrätt, B 985 1968, October 8, 1968, ARAB, Hans Göran Franck, 4.3.7 001; “USA-desertörer utvisas för småstölder—hemma väntar 20 års fängelse,” Aftonbladet, October 9, 1968; “Två USA-avhoppare fck fängelse för stöld,” Svenska Dagbladet, October 9, 1968; “Desertör får inte stanna i Sverige,” Aftonbladet, January 17, 1969; “Current Data on Military Absentees,” Stockholm 426, February 18, 1969, NARA, RG 59, Central Foreign Policy Files 1967-1969, Political & Defense, Box 1667; “Two Are Refused Visas,” New York Times, August 16, 1968. 8. Indeed, the Swedish government had not worked out a framework for the treatment of the American deserters living in the country after the end of the war in Vietnam, as Minister of the Interior Johansson conceded to a delegation of young social democrats in October 1968 (“P.M. ang. SSU-uppvaktning hos inrikesminister Rune Johansson den 23/10 1968,” Bertil Torbrand, ARAB, Hans Göran Franck, 4.3.7 001). 9. “Till det svenska folket,” Swedish Friends of the American Deserters Committee, Stockholm, [October 1968], ARAB, Hans Göran Franck, 4.3.7 002; “Diskussion med desertörer,” Aftonbladet, October 26, 1968. 10. This has also been suggested by Scott, Swedish Social Democracy and the Vietnam War, 141.

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11. “Ingen är lycklig över att ha desertörerna i landet,” Aftonbladet, September 25, 1968 (Swedish original: “jag tror inte att någon är lycklig över att ha dem”). 12. “Desertörerna är en heder för Sverige,” The Second Front Review, 7 (Special Issue in Swedish), [February] 1969, 3–5 (Swedish original: “en heder för Sverige,” “Vi kan inte försvara vietnamesernas rätt att läva ifred utan att samtidigt försvara amerikanernas rätt att slippa leva som bödlar”). 13. “‘Regeringen har svängt om avog mot USA-desertörer,’” Dagens Nyheter, October 28, 1968 (Swedish original: “någonting konkret att göra”). 14. “Sara Lidman: Regeringen vill kasta desertörerna ur landet,” Aftonbladet, October 28, 1968; “Swedish Govt Pledges Special Deal!” The Second Front, [Spring 1969]; Franks, Waiting Out a War, 151. 15. The Second Front Review, 7 (Special Issue in Swedish), [February] 1969. 16. “Nu anpassar sig desertörerna – men några av dem vill inte,” Dagens Nyheter, November 10, 1968; “Desertörernas situation,” Dagens Nyheter, November 27, 1968. See also reports on criminal offenses committed by American absentees in Sweden at the time, for example, “Två USA-avhoppare fck fängelse för stöld,” Svenska Dagbladet, October 9, 1968. 17. Franks, Waiting Out a War, 151–152; “‘Third World’ and ‘Vietnam Solidarity Week,’” Copenhagen A-863, October 22, 1968, NARA, RG 59, Central Foreign Policy Files 1967-1969, Political & Defense, Box 1514; “Till det svenska folket,” Swedish Friends of the American Deserters Committee, Stockholm, [October 1968], ARAB, Hans Göran Franck, 4.3.7 002. 18. “American ‘Deserters’ in Scandinavia: Jon Karl Schou,” Copenhagen A-904, November 19, 1968, NARA, RG 59, Central Foreign Policy Files 1967-1969, Political & Defense, Box 1664. 19. Information Letter 3, Stockholm Conference on Vietnam, December 1, 1968, ARAB, Hans Göran Franck, 4.03.14 004. 20. Documents, World Consultative Meeting “Vietnam 69 - International Mobilization,” Stockholm, December 13–15, 1968, ARAB, Hans Göran Franck, 4.03.14 004; “American Deserters,” War Resisters’ International, [London, 1969], SHSW, Pamphlet Collection. 21. “Angående ansökan om politisk asyl av amerikanske medborgaren Warren J. Hamerman,” The Second Front Review, 7 (Special Issue in Swedish), [February] 1969, 16–21; “Amerikan försvann spårlöst när han inte fck asyl i Sverige,” Aftonbladet, January 7, 1969; “Skrivelse till inrikesministern överlämnad vid uppvakting den 20.2.69,” SKfV, ARAB, Hans Göran Franck, 4.3.7 001. On previous granting of residence permits to American draft refusers in Sweden see “More Americans Granted Residence in Sweden,” Stockholm 2065, July 2, 1968, and “Military Absentees in Sweden,” Stockholm 3613, November 27, 1968, NARA, RG 59, Central Foreign Policy Files 1967-1969, Political & Defense, Box 1667. 22. “Press Statement,” announcing action of October 27, 1967 “to deface the draft records there with our blood,” SHSW, PACS, Box 2, Draft Resistance/All Groups/1967-1968. 23. “Politisk asyl åt amerikanska Vietnam-krigsvägrare,” Announcement, Dagens Nyheter, February 19, 1969; “Upprop till stöd för den amerikanske

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Vietnamkrigsvägraren Warren Hamerman,” The Second Front Review, 7 (Special Issue in Swedish), [February] 1969, 21–22; “Upprop för desertörerna,” Tidsignal, February 6–12, 1969, 2. An expulsion order against Hamerman was adjourned by the aliens commission in January 1969 (“Amerikan får stanna/UK uppsköt beslutet/ Fängelse för desertör,” Dagens Nyheter, January 15, 1969). 24. Mark Clague, “‘This Is America.’ Jimi Hendrix’s Star Spangled Banner Journey as Psychedelic Citizenship,” Journal of the Society for American Music 8, 4 (2014), 452. 25. “I dag stormas inrikesministern av uppvaktningar ‘Ge desertörerna från USA politisk asyl,’” Aftonbladet, February 19, 1969; “Regeringslöfte: USA-desertörer får det bättre,” Dagens Nyheter, February 19, 1969. 26. “Interpellation i Riksdagen,” C.H. Hermansson (VPK), January 14, 1969, The Second Front Review, 7 (Special Issue in Swedish), [February] 1969, 22–23. 27. “Ge politisk asyl,” Aftonbladet, February 14, 1969. 28. See, for example, documents concerning draft resisters Edward Middleton and William Woodkey in ARAB, Hans Göran Franck, 4.3.7 001 written by Franck’s assistant Bertil Torbrand. 29. “Protokoll från sammanträde med Arbetsgruppen för stöd åt Vietnamkriegsvägrare den 8 februari 1969,” ARAB, Hans Göran Franck, 4.3.7 001. 30. “Politisk asyl åt desertörer,” Dagens Nyheter, February 9, 1969. 31. “Sekretesskommissionen,” Dagens Nyheter, February 10, 1969; “En ung amerikan,” Dagens Nyheter, February 12, 1969 (Swedish original: “absurt”); “Desertörer i strykklass,” Dagens Nyheter, February 15, 1969. See for a similar argument “Nya UK-fadäser,” Aftonbladet, February 13, 1969. 32. “Motroten,” Dagens Nyheter, February 9, 1969 (Swedish original: “onödig hårdhet” and “Det är en heder för oss att vi fått ta emot dem”). 33. “Stöd desertörerna,” Aftonbladet, October 29, 1968; “Ge politisk asyl,” Aftonbladet, February 14, 1969. 34. “Han kan få 10 års fängelse i USA för desertering om han blir utvisad,” Aftonbladet, February 4, 1969; “USA-desertör återvände/Dömdes till straffarbete,” Dagens Nyheter, February 8, 1969; “Han utsätts för psykisk terror i militärfängelset,” Aftonbladet, February 14, 1969; “USA-fyktingen som gömmer sig i Sverige hotas av 48 års fängelse,” Aftonbladet, January 8, 1969; “Om jag utvisas riskerar jag fängelse i 60 år,” Aftonbladet, February 19, 1969; “Domen står fast mot USAdesertör/’Dödsstraff hotar,’” Dagens Nyheter, January 25, 1969; “USA-desertör som väntar dödsstraff har rymt igen,” Aftonbladet, February 13, 1969. 35. “Desertörernas sociala situation,” DFFG Desertörskommitté, The Second Front Review, 7 (Special Issue in Swedish), [February] 1969, 11–13, quote on page 11 (Swedish original: “att visa sin solidaritet med vietnamkrigsvägrarna har det svenska folket en unik möjlighet att stödja Vietnams kämpande folk”). 36. “Skrivelse till inrikesministern överlämnad vid uppvakting den 20.2.69,” SKfV, ARAB, Hans Göran Franck, 4.3.7 001. See on the debate over student loans “‘Politiskt avslag’ på studiemedel till USA-desertör,” Dagens Nyheter, October 30, 1968; “Strid om studiemedel till desertör i Lund,” Svenska Dagbladet, November 7, 1968.

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37. “Politisk asyl åt desertörer,” Dagens Nyheter, February 9, 1969. Viklunds Text was reprinted by the ADC in The Second Front Review, 7 (Special Issue in Swedish), [February] 1969, 15–16. 38. “Desertörerna är en heder för Sverige,” The Second Front Review, 7 (Special Issue in Swedish), [February] 1969, 3–5. 39. Zimmermann, The 1951 Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees, 430–431; Niebergall-Lackner, Status and Treatment of Deserters, 177 ff. 40. “Politisk asyl,” [Offce of Hans Göran Franck, 1968/1969], ARAB, Hans Göran Franck, 4.3.7 001. 41. “Skrivelse till inrikesministern överlämnad vid uppvakting den 20.2.69,” SKfV, ARAB, Hans Göran Franck, 4.3.7 001 (Swedish original: “omotiverad och orättvis,” “ett klart politiskt syfte, främst att söka stoppa USA:s krig i Vietnam”). 42. “Politisk asyl åt desertörer,” Dagens Nyheter, February 9, 1969. 43. “Interpellation i Riksdagen,” C.H. Hermansson (VPK), January 14, 1969, The Second Front Review, 7 (Special Issue in Swedish), [February] 1969, 22–23. 44. See correspondence in ARAB, Hans Göran Franck 4.3.7 001. 45. “Skrivelse till inrikesministern överlämnad vid uppvakting den 20.2.69,” SKfV, ARAB, Hans Göran Franck, 4.3.7 001; “Politisk asyl åt desertörer,” Dagens Nyheter, February 9, 1969. 46. For example, by the press offcer of the aliens commission Gösta Johansson and Minister of the Interior Holmqvist (“Fakta om desertörerna,” Dagens Nyheter, February 20, 1969; Riksdagsdebatterna, 26 (1969), Andra Kammaren, Stockholm: Riksdagens förvaltningskontor, February 28, 1969). 47. “Politisk asyl åt desertörer,” Dagens Nyheter, February 9, 1969; “Skrivelse till inrikesministern överlämnad vid uppvakting den 20.2.69,” SKfV, ARAB, Hans Göran Franck, 4.3.7 001; “Vietnam War is Legal, U.S. Judge Rules, New York Times, November 27, 1968. 48. “USA-jurist: Desertörer riskerar dödsstraff om de skickas tillbaka,” Aftonbladet, January 23, 1969; “Domen står fast mot USA-desertör/’Dödsstraff hotar,’” Dagens Nyheter, January 25, 1969; “Desertering och militärlagar,” The Second Front Review, 7 (Special Issue in Swedish), [February] 1969, 6–8. 49. “Desertörernas sociala situation,” DFFG Desertörskommitté, The Second Front Review, 7 (Special Issue in Swedish), [February] 1969, 13. 50. Skrivelse till inrikesministern överlämnad vid uppvakting den 20.2.69,” SKfV, ARAB, Hans Göran Franck, 4.3.7 001. 51. See, for example, “Motroten,” Dagens Nyheter, February 9, 1969; “Politisk asyl åt desertörer,” Dagens Nyheter, February 9, 1969; “Ge politisk asyl,” Aftonbladet, February 14, 1969; “Desertörer i strykklass,” Dagens Nyheter, February 15, 1969; “I dag stormas inrikesministern av uppvaktningar ‘Ge desertörerna från USA politisk asyl,’” Aftonbladet, February 19, 1969; “Regeringslöfte: USA-desertörer får det bättre,” Dagens Nyheter, February 19, 1969; “Ge dem trygghet!” Expressen, February 20, 1969. 52. “Komuniké,” Inrikesdepartementet, February 21, 1969, including English translation, ARAB, SKfV, F 1:8.

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53. “Från regeringen . . . ,” The Second Front Review, 7 (Special Issue in Swedish), [February] 1969, 9–11. 54. Riksdagsdebatterna, 26 (1969), Andra Kammaren, Stockholm: Riksdagens förvaltningskontor, February 28, 1969. 55. “Svårt ge ny form av asyl/UD fruktar USA-vrede,” Dagens Nyheter, February 21, 1969. See also Scott, Swedish Social Democracy and the Vietnam War, 144–145. 56. “FNL:s nyhetsbyrå öppnad i Stockholm,” Dagens Nyheter, October 30, 1968. 57. “Bundeswehrsoldat nach Schweden desertiert,” Frankfurter Rundschau, February 24, 1968; “Västtyske desertören tillåts inte stanna,” Svenska Dagbladet, August 8, 1968. 58. Riksdagsdebatterna, 26 (1969), Andra Kammaren, Stockholm: Riksdagens förvaltningskontor, February 28, 1969. 59. “Swedish Govt Pledges Special Deal!” The Second Front, [Spring 1969]. Later, the paper informed in a more differentiated way about the situation in Sweden (“Better Deal from Swedish Gov’t,” The Second Front, [Summer 1969]). 60. “The Legal Status of the American Deserters in Sweden,” SKfV, [1969], ARAB, Hans Göran Franck, 4.3.7 001. 61. “The Legal Status of the American Deserters in Sweden”; Riksdagsdebatterna, 26 (1969), Andra Kammaren, Stockholm: Riksdagens förvaltningskontor, February 28, 1969; “Upprop,” Swedish Friends of the American Deserters Committee, Stockholm, [1969], ARAB, Jim Walch. 62. “Upprop.” 63. Riksdagsdebatterna, February 28, 1969. 64. “Fördöm USA:s krig i Vietnam. Politisk asyl åt Vietnamkrigsvägrare,” Stockholm, [March 1969], ARAB, Jim Walch (Swedish original: “slag i ansiktet”). On the Swedish recognition of the DRV, see Möller, Sverige och Vietnamkriget, 162 ff. 65. “G.I. Who Deserted from Vietnam Gets 4 Years,” New York Times, March 7, 1969; “Domen mot desertören,” Dagens Nyheter, March 8, 1969. 66. “GI Deserter Comes Home from Sweden,” Chicago Tribune, September 15, 1968; “Army Defector Who Fled to Sweden Goes on Trial at Fort Dix,” New York Times, February 26, 1969; “Rights Issue Raised In ‘Deserter’ Case,” Washington Post, March 1, 1969. 67. NBC Evening News, March 6, 1969, Vanderbilt TV News Archives, 444958. After a review of the Arnett case, his term was reduced to three years in July (“Deserter’s Term Reduced,” New York Times, July 10, 1969). 68. Treatment of Deserters (Report), 31–33. 69. Military Deserters (Hearings), 57 ff.; Treatment of Deserters (Report), 14 ff. 70. “USA-desertör tvingad hem av hot och påtryckningar,” Dagens Nyheter, May 13, 1969; “Förste USA-desertören tillbaka i Sverige för att söka asyl,” Aftonbladet, May 13, 1969. 71. “USA-desertörerna vägrar åka till utbildningsläger,” Aftonbladet, April 24, 1969; “The New Stockade” and “Deserters Getting Blackmailed,” The Paper Grenade, 4 [1969]. The cover page of the newsletter showed a cartoon from the American underground press on riots in U.S. military prisons, captioned “this is not the Presidio/this is the AMS [labor board] camp near Uppsala.”

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72. “The New Stockade”; “Upprop,” Swedish Friends of the American Deserters Committee, Stockholm, [1969], ARAB, Jim Walch. 73. “The New Stockade.” 74. “Vi vill berätta sanningen om desertörerna i Sverige,” Expressen, April 15, 1969; “What Else Would You Expect” and English translation of Expressen article, The Paper Grenade, 4 [1969]. 75. Hayes, American Deserters in Sweden, 79–80. 76. “Brott i UK?” Aftonbladet, April 17, 1969. Myrdal referred to chapters 19 section 9 and 20 section 3 of the Swedisch Penal Code regarding crimes against the security of the Realm and malfeasance in offce. 77. See on the agreement, the fow of information, and the changed practice in response to the exposure of the arrangement U.S. Embassy Stockholm to Department of State, [Overview on U.S. Deserters in Sweden], April 9, 1969, NARA, RG 59, General Records, Bureau of European Affairs/Offce of Northern European Affairs, Records Relating to Sweden 1957-75, Box 3; “New Deserters in Sweden,” Stockholm 837, February 7, 1968, NARA, RG 59, Central Foreign Policy Files 1967-1969, Political & Defense, Box 1666; Stockholm 2222, [Arrival of American Deserters], July 18, 1968; “Statement on Military Absentees in Sweden Attributed to Pentagon,” Stockholm 970, April 15, 1968; “Call for Investigation of Aliens Commission Based on Alleged Pentagon Statement,” Stockholm 996, April 17, 1968; “Statement on Military Absentees in Sweden Attributed to Pentagon,” Department of State 60786, April 19, 1969; “Cooperation between Aliens Commission and Embassy on Military Absentee Matters,” Stockholm-1036, April 21, 1969; all NARA, RG 59, Central Foreign Policy Files 1967-1969, Political & Defense, Box 1667. 78. Deserter USA (1969), directed by Lars Lambert and Olle Sjögren, SMDB, T02-0909, 1:33:51. 79. “En viktig flm om desertörerna,” Dagens Nyheter, April 17, 1969; “Krig och politik hör ihop,” Svenska Dagbladet, April 17, 1969; “Deserter USA,” Aftonbladet, April 18, 1969; “Deserter USA,” Chaplin, 2/1969, 52–54; “Deserter USA,” Chaplin, 4/1969, 151; “Deserter USA,” Variety, May 14, 1969, 32. When the movie was later screened in the United States, reviews were negative, not least due to the fact that the flm was then outdated and did not refect the current debate on desertion and GI resistance. See, for example, “Film: Two on Deserters,” Village Voice, November 27, 1969; “The Screen: ‘Deserter U.S.A.’ Tells of Soldiers in Sweden,” New York Times, November 25, 1969. 80. The flm and its embarrassing depiction of the SKfV and Svahnström upset the leadership of the committee, and a heated exchange between Åke Sandin, an antiwar activist and the frst host of the Intrepid Four in Sweden, and the ADC on the flm followed its screening (“Protokoll fört vid sammanträde med Svenska Kommitténs för Vietnam AU, den 28 april 1969”; “Protokoll fört vid Svenska Kommitténs för Vietnam styrelse-sammanträde, den 28.4.1969,” ARAB, SKfV, A1: 2; “Desertörflmens misstag,” Aftonbladet, May 2, 1969; “Deserter USA – vems misstag?” Aftonbladet, May 16, 1969; “Desertörerna och deras vänner,” Aftonbladet, May 29, 1969). 81. Scott, Swedish Social Democracy and the Vietnam War, 144–146.

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82. “Desertörerna – vänsterns offerlamm?” Svenska Dagbladet, May 20, 1969. 83. “Regeringen och desertörerna,” Svenska Dagbladet, February 23, 1969. 84. “2 Deserters Sentenced in Germany,” Washington Post, November 18, 1970; “Swedish Stand Changing on U.S. Deserter,” Los Angeles Times, November 18, 1970. 85. “Deserter Deported from Sweden,” Jim Walch, Stockholm, November 29, 1970, ARAB, Jim Walch. 86. “Four US Deserters Arrive via Moscow,” Stockholm 2910, September 18, 1968, NARA, RG 59, Central Foreign Policy Files 1967-1969, Political & Defense, Box 1667; Kelman, “Protesting the National Identity,” 197. 87. Jimmy (1971), directed by Anders Ribbsjö, aired May 16, 1971, TV 2, SMDB, TB85-0004, 8:10, 16:05. 88. “Swedish-ousted G.I. Apprehended Here,” New York Times, November 27, 1970. 89. Jimmy (1971), 8:10, 16:05, 50:30, 52:00. 90. “Deportation och Joseph Parra” and “Vad händer Joseph Parra i USA?” Politisk asyl åt Vietnamkrigsvägrare, Stockholms Forskningskollektiv, Stockholm, [1971], 25 and 31–32; “Statement for Release, November 21, 1970”; “Uttalande av de strejkande mot utvisning av Vietnamkrigsvägrare,” Stockholm, November 15, 1970; “Svenska regeringen försöker överlämna Vietnamkrigsvägrare till USA’s krigsrätt,” American Deserters Committee, Stockholm, [November 1970]; all ARAB, Jim Walch; “Motion,” [Offce of Hans Göran Franck, Stockholm, November 1970]; “Protokoll fört vid Svenska kommitténs för Vietnam AU-sammanträde, 17.11.1970”; both ARAB, Hans Göran Franck, 4.03.14 004; Letter to the Minister of Justice of November 18, 1970, in “Uttalanden gjorda av Svenska kommittén för Vietnam under verksamhetsåret 1970,” SKfV, ARAB, Hans Göran Franck, 4.03.14 005. 91. “Amerikanskt tryck stoppar svensk hjälp till Vietnam,” Svenska Dagbladet, March 29, 1970; “Deserter Deported from Sweden,” Jim Walch, Stockholm, November 29, 1970, ARAB, Jim Walch; Scott, Swedish Social Democracy and the Vietnam War, 182 and 197; Möller, Sverige och Vietnamkriget, 247 ff. 92. “Regeringen kastar ut Vietnamkrigsvägrare,” DFFG, [Stockholm, November 1970], ARAB, Jim Walch (Swedish original: “regeringen tjänar USA-imperialismen”); “Vietnamkrigsvägrare: Utrikespolitik och Flyktingspolitik,” FNL i Sverige, 1, 1969; “Vad händer Joseph Parra i USA?” Politisk asyl åt Vietnamkrigsvägrare, Stockholms Forskningskollektiv, Stockholm, [1971], 31–32, ARAB, Jim Walch. 93. “Regeringen kastar ut Vietnamkrigsvägrare”; “Brådsmande,” American Deserters Comittee, [Stockholm, November 1970], ARAB, Jim Walch (Swedish original: “vägran att medverka till krigsförbrytelser”); “Uttalande av de strejkande mot utvisning av Vietnamkrigsvägrare,” Stockholm, November 15, 1970, ARAB, Jim Walch. 94. “Regeringen kastar ut Vietnamkrigsvägrare.” 95. “Till Konungen,” Joseph Parra, Norrtällje, November 10, 1970, ARAB, Jim Walch.

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96. Jimmy (1971), directed by Anders Ribbsjö, aired May 16, 1971, TV 2, SMDB, TB85-0004; “Olustig knarkdebatt,” Aftonbladet, October 26, 1968; “Nytt knark från USA,” Dagens Nyheter, November 28, 1968; “Narkotikasmitta,” Dagens Nyheter, November 30, 1968; “Knarkhandel är mord,” Dagens Nyheter, December 7, 1968; “Narkotikaspärrar,” Dagens Nyheter, December 9, 1968; “Hård svensk linje för internationell narkotikakontroll,” Svenska Dagbladet, January 18, 1969. See on the negative image of American deserters in Sweden in this context Erlandsson, Desertörerna, 127 ff.; Scott, “Sweden Might Be a Haven,” 219–220. 97. Social worker Kristina Nyström and others spoke on the matter. See Rapport, aired November 14, 1970, SMDB, TB85-0004; Daniel Lang, Patriotism without Flags (New York: Norton, 1974), 61; Franks, Waiting Out a War, 183–186. 98. See “Gamla Bro central för LSD-langning,” Svenska Dagbladet, March 26, 1970; “Desertörerna,” Svenska Dagbladet, March 28, 1970; “Nytt LSD i Stockholm,” Svenska Dagbladet, April 1, 1970; “Desertör med LSD riskerar förvisning,” Svenska Dagbladet, April 2, 1970; “Polisen har avslöjat narkotikans vägar,” Svenska Dagbladet, April 3, 1970; “Fängelse i 3,5 år för LSD-lagning,” Svenska Dagbladet, April 4, 1970; “Rådd ange rädsla för Vietnam,” Svenska Dagbladet, April 12, 1970; “Desertörer och brott,” Svenska Dagbladet, April 25, 1970; “Desertör med LSD utvisas,” Svenska Dagbladet, April 29, 1970. American exiles published a statement to counter such accusations and to clarify reasons for drug use among deserters (“Varför knarkar USA desertörer?” Svenska Dagbladet, May 21, 1970). 99. “Statement for Release, November 21, 1970,” ARAB, Jim Walch. 100. “Svenska regeringen försöker överlämna Vietnamkrigsvägrare till USA’s krigsrätt,” American Deserters Committee, Stockholm, [November 1970]; “Brådsmande,” American Deserters Comittee, [Stockholm, November 1970]; both ARAB, Jim Walch. 101. “Uppvaktning av Holmqvist om förvisningen av Parra,” Politisk asyl åt Vietnamkrigsvägrare, Stockholms Forskningskollektiv, Stockholm, [1971], 27, ARAB, Jim Walch; Letter to the Minister of Justice of November 18, 1970 in “Uttalanden gjorda av Svenska kommittén för Vietnam under verksamhetsåret 1970,” SKfV, ARAB, Hans Göran Franck, 4.03.14 005; “Statement of the Strike against Deportation of American War-Resisters,” Stockholm, [November 1970], ARAB, Jim Walch. 102. “23 amerikaner hunger-streijkar i Stockholm,” Aftonbladet, November 19, 1970; “Vi kan inget göra om han vill dö!” Expressen, November 23, 1970; “Hungerstrejkande fickan också i fara,” Aftonbladet, November 24, 1970; “I går åt McMillion lunch på sjukhuset – men hans kamrater fortsätter svälta,” Aftonbladet, November 24, 1970; “Hungerstrejkande förd till sjukhus/Var nära kollaps,” Dagens Nyheter, November 23, 1970. 103. “Låt min son stanna i Sverige,” Aftonbladet, November 24, 1970; “Parra förpassad ur landet/Strejken på Krum fortsätter,” Dagens Nyheter, November 26, 1970; “Deserter Deported from Sweden,” Jim Walch, Stockholm, November 29, 1970, ARAB, Jim Walch; Franks, Waiting Out a War, 184–185. 104. “Uttalande av de strejkande mot utvisning av Vietnamkrigsvägrare,” Stockholm, November 15, 1970, ARAB, Jim Walch.

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105. “Regeringen kastar ut Vietnamkrigsvägrare,” DFFG (Stockholm, November 1970); “Svenska regeringen försöker överlämna Vietnamkrigsvägrare till USA’s krigsrätt,” American Deserters Committee, Stockholm, [November 1970] (Swedish original: “fendlig”); both ARAB, Jim Walch. 106. “Regeringen kastar ut Vietnamkrigsvägrare.” 107. “Låt min son stanna i Sverige,” Aftonbladet, November 24, 1970. 108. “Svenska regeringen försöker överlämna Vietnamkrigsvägrare till USA’s krigsrätt”; “Vad händer Joseph Parra i USA?” Politisk asyl åt Vietnamkrigsvägrare, Stockholms Forskningskollektiv, Stockholm, [1971], 31–32; both ARAB, Jim Walch. 109. “Desertör hotas av dödsstraff,” Aftonbladet, November 5, 1970. The arrangement of Sweeneys transfer to Sweden had been made by Svahnström with the information offce of the Provisional Revolutionary Government of the Republic of South Vietnam (PRG) in Stockholm. The original plan to present Sweeney to the public in Sweden on the occasion of the PRG’s frst anniversary in June 1970 failed due to a delay of his transfer. Eventually, Sweeney’s parents few to Stockholm and convinced him to return to the United States with them at the end of August. One year later, Sweeney was acquitted of all charges and honorably discharged, after testifying that he had been left behind by his unit and that he had been forced by a North Vietnamese guard to make antiwar statements. Accordingly, he pretended to have changed sides and was able to convince the North Vietnamese to release him to Sweden. See Gary D. Solis, Marines and Military Law in Vietnam. Trial by Fire (Washington: History and Museums Division, U.S. Marine Corps Headquarters, 1989), 221 ff.; “Protokoll fört vid Svenska kommiténs för Vietnam AU-sammanträde den 24.8.1970,” ARAB, Hans Göran Franck, 4.03.14 001; “Protokoll fört vid Svenska kommiténs för Vietnam AU-sammanträde, 9.9.70”; “PM ang John [sic] M Sweeneys hemresa,” Bertil Svahnström, Stockholm, September 10, 1970; both ARAB, Hans Göran Franck, 4.03.14 004; “American in Hanoi Says He’s Deserter,” New York Times, July 11, 1970; “Self-Described Defector Back in U.S.,” New York Times, September 1, 1970; “Sgt. Sweeney: Turncoat or Innocent Victim?” The Washington Post, December 10, 1970; “U.S. to Try Ex-POW on Aiding Hanoi: Marines to Try Ex-POW On Charge of Aiding Foe,” Washington Post, May 15, 1971; “Long Island Marine Faces Trial As First to Aid Foe in Vietnam,” New York Times, May 15, 1971; “Marine Who Was Held by Hanoi Found Not Guilty of All Charges,” New York Times, August 12, 1971. Recordings of Sweeney’s statements, for example, of July 6 and 13, 1970, can be found at NARA, RG 263, Sound Recordings of Monitored Foreign Broadcast Materials 1950-76, BV 156 and -157. 110. “Vad händer Joseph Parra i USA?” Politisk asyl åt Vietnamkrigsvägrare, Stockholms Forskningskollektiv, Stockholm, [1971], 31–32, ARAB, Jim Walch. Viklund probably drew on the “Memo on Desertion, AWOL and Missing Movement,” published by the National Lawyers Guild and distributed in the international antiwar movement, not least through the booklets on the American war refusers of the War Resisters’ International (“American Deserters,” War Resisters’ International, [London, 1969], 8 ff., SHSW, Pamphlet Collection; Prasad, They Love It but Leave It, 58 ff.).

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111. “Statement for Release, November 21, 1970,” ARAB, Jim Walch. 112. “Överdrivna uppgifter om straff för desertör,” Dagens Nyheter, November 25, 1970; “Brev från Joseph Parras advokat,” Politisk asyl åt Vietnamkrigsvägrare, Stockholms Forskningskollektiv, Stockholm, [1971], 33, ARAB, Jim Walch. 113. “U.S. Deserter Loses Plea,” New York Times, November 15, 1970. 114. “Uppvaktning av Holmqvist om förvisningen av Parra,” Politisk asyl åt Vietnamkrigsvägrare, Stockholms Forskningskollektiv, Stockholm, [1971], 27, ARAB, Jim Walch; “Deportation: Action and Reaction,” The Paper Grenade, February 1971. 115. “Hon fck inte ens se sin man,” Aftonbladet, November 25, 1970. 116. “2 GIs Reported AWOL Return from Sweden,” Los Angeles Times, November 26, 1970; “Swedish-ousted G.I. Apprehended Here,” New York Times, November 27, 1970. 117. “Brev från Joseph Parras advokat,” Politisk asyl åt Vietnamkrigsvägrare, Stockholms Forskningskollektiv, Stockholm, [1971], 33, ARAB, Jim Walch; Stewart, “A New Kind of War,” 169 ff. The Supreme Court denied a rehearing of the case, however. Faulkner had also published on the issue of the legality of the American war in Vietnam. See, for example, Stanley Faulkner, “The War in Vietnam. Is It Constitutional?” Georgetown Law Journal 54, June 1968, 1132–1143. 118. “Gl Deserter Sentenced to 18 Months,” Los Angeles Times, February 13, 1971; “First GI Deported by Sweden Gets 18 Months at Hard Labor,” Atlanta Constitution, February 13, 1971. 119. “Piloter och vietnamkrigsvägrare,” Aftonbladet, December 11, 1970; “Deserter Deported by Sweden,” Los Angeles Times, December 2, 1970; Sveriges Socialdemokratiska Ungdomsförbund (SSU) to Jim Walch, Stockholm, December 16, 1970; “Utvisniningar,” List of Expelees, [Jim Walch, 1970/71]; both ARAB, Jim Walch; “Political Asylum,” The Paper Grenade, February 1971; “Report on Activities of Military Absentees: Magnus Mitchell,” Stockholm A-275, August 6, 1971, NARA, RG 59, Subject Numeric Files 1970-73, Political & Defense, Box 1839; Ambassador Jerome Holland to Senator James Allen, Stockholm, October 29, 1971, NARA, RG 59, General Records, Bureau of European Affairs/Offce of Northern European Affairs, Records Relating to Sweden 1957-75, Box 4. 120. “Dissolution Statement of the American Deserters Committee,” Stockholm, October 1970, ARAB, Hans Göran Franck, 4.3.7 002; “Desertörerna och deras vänner,” Aftonbladet, May 29, 1969; Federal Bureau of Investigation, Washington, June 18, 1970, FBI FOIPA, American Deserters Committee, 100-454957; Hayes, American Deserters in Sweden, 66–68; Franks, Waiting Out a War, 183; Hammarström, FNL i Sverige, 86–87. 121. “Editorial II: On Drugs and the Community,” The Paper Grenade, February 1971. 122. Information Letter 5, Stockholm Conference on Vietnam, December 20, 1970, ARAB, Hans Göran Franck, 4.03.14 005. 123. “Deportation: Action and Reaction,” The Paper Grenade, February 1971; “An Appeal from the ADC to the American Delegation of the Stockholm Conerence on Vietnam,” Stockholm, November 30, 1970, ARAB, Jim Walch.

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124. “Nations Pressed to Aid Deserters,” New York Times, October 12, 1971; “More than 200 World Leaders Ask Governments to Give Refugee Status to U.S. Deserters,” Presse Release, War Resisters’ International, London, October 12, 1971; “Letter to Peace Movements and Movements for Social Change throughout the World,” War Resisters’ International, London, November 11, 1971; both ARAB, Hans Göran Franck, 4.03.14 005. 125. Prasad, They Love It but Leave It. 126. “Thomas Lee Hayes Goes to Sweden,” Issues and Actions, CALCAV, April 1, 1969, TTU/VVA, 14511248033; “Report on Amnesty Education-Action Program,” Issues and Actions, CALCAV, [December 1968], TTU/VVA, 2150711061; Richard John Neuhaus, “A Ministry to Forgotten Americans,” Christian Century, March 19, 1969, and Michael Novak, “Alive and Well in Paris. Negotiators and Deserters: Report from the Peace Front,” Commonweal, November 22, 1968 (both reprints in “Deserters in Exile,” CALCAV, New York, 1969, TTU/VVA, 14511248025); Hayes, American Deserters in Sweden, 27; Hall, Because of Their Faith, 81–82. Also, other American visitors to Sweden recommended practical and fnancial support of the American exiles there. See, for example, Jerry Grey to the Leaders of Resist, London, December 27, 1968, ARAB, Jim Walch. 127. Hayes, American Deserters in Sweden, 35. 128. Hall, Because of Their Faith, 55 ff.; DeBenedetti, An American Ordeal, 195. 129. Goodall, Uppsala Report, 64. 130. Richard John Neuhaus, “A Ministry to Forgotten Americans,” Christian Century, March 19, 1969 (reprint in “Deserters in Exile,” CALCAV, New York, 1969, TTU/VVA, 14511248025). 131. “A Ministry to Forgotten Americans”; “Report on Amnesty Education-Action Program,” Issues and Actions, CALCAV, [December 1968], TTU/VVA, 2150711061. 132. “Report on Amnesty Education-Action Program.” 133. “Easy Ridin’ Amerika: The View from Sweden,” Win 6, 5 (March 15, 1970), 14; “War Foes to Try to Shut Pentagon,” New York Times, August 29, 1967; “Sacraments: Plighting of Protest,” Time, April 5, 1968. 134. “Thomas Lee Hayes Goes to Sweden,” Issues and Actions, CALCAV, April 1, 1969, TTU/VVA, 14511248033. 135. “Mrs. King, Clerics Talk Peace With Kissinger,” Washington Post, February 6, 1969; “Thomas Lee Hayes Goes to Sweden”; Hayes, American Deserters in Sweden, 37. 136. Hayes, American Deserters in Sweden, 25. 137. “Clergyman Seeks to Aid GI Deserters in Sweden,” Christian Science Monitor, March 27, 1969; Hayes, American Deserters in Sweden, 36. 138. “Cleric Will Help Deserters in Sweden,” New York Times, March 19, 1969. 139. Hayes, American Deserters in Sweden, 34. 140. Richard John Neuhaus, “A Ministry to Forgotten Americans,” Christian Century, March 19, 1969 (reprint in “Deserters in Exile,” CALCAV, New York, 1969, TTU/VVA, 14511248025); Hayes, American Deserters in Sweden, 38. 141. “Why I am Here” and “Address List,” Internal Hemorrhage, March 28, 1969; “Protokoll fört vid konstituerande sammanträde me arbetsgruppen för stöd åt amerikanska Vietnamkrigsvägrare in Sverige,” Stockholm, December 21, 1968; Jim

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Walch to William Bloom, January 18, 1969; William Bloom to Jim Walch, January 20, 1969; Jim Walch to Swedish Ministry of the Interior, Department of Immigrant Affairs, February 18, 1969; Jim Walch to Thomas Lee Hayes, February 26, 1969; Thomas Lee Hayes to Jim Walch, [March 1969]; all ARAB, Jim Walch. 142. “Why I am Here”; Frantz Fanon, Black Skin, White Masks (London: Pluto Press, 1986), 197, 78. 143. “Why I am Here.” 144. Hayes, American Deserters in Sweden, 76; Lang, Patriotism without Flags, 62; “Notice of Classifcation,” Selective Service System, Milwaukee County Local Board 46, May 28, 1969, ARAB, Jim Walch. 145. Hayes, American Deserters in Sweden, 75–76. 146. Hayes, American Deserters in Sweden, 11. 147. Lang, Patriotism without Flags, 60–61; Hayes, American Deserters in Sweden, 75–76; Franks, Waiting Out a War, 161; Richard McSorley, Peace Eyes (Washington: Center for Peace Studies, 1978), 44. 148. Hayes, American Deserters in Sweden, 185. 149. The Beatles. Complete Scores (Milwaukee: Hal Leonard, 1993), 326–328 and 143–146. 150. Thomas Lee Hayes, “Walking on Water,” Risk 6, 3 (1970), 17; Hayes, American Deserters in Sweden, 43, 55. 151. “Någon måste ljuga om desertörerna,” Dagens Nyheter, April 22, 1969. 152. Hayes, American Deserters in Sweden, 79–80; “Military Deserters Who Change Their Minds and Return Home Are Given Widely Different Treatment,” New York Times, May 1, 1969. 153. “Någon måste ljuga om desertörerna” (Swedish original: “ljuger” and “fullständig intellektuell stringens”); Franks, Waiting Out a War, 158–159. Hayes reiterated his critique of the fndings of the Department of Defense later on (Hayes, American Deserters in Sweden, 84 ff.). 154. See, for example, Letter to the Editor, Thomas Lee Hayes, Amex-Canada, October 3, 1969. This role was described by Hayes himself and others (Hayes, American Deserters in Sweden, 120 ff.; Lang, Patriotism without Flags, 64 ff.; McSorley, Peace Eyes, 43). 155. Hayes, American Deserters in Sweden, 120. 156. “Out of It,” New Yorker, May 23, 1970, 42–68. The text was included in Lang’s collection of essays on the Vietnam War and its impact on the lives of Americans (Lang, Patriotism without Flags, quote on page 59). 157. Richard, “Encounter with Deserters,” 64–65; Hayes, American Deserters in Sweden, 127–137; “The Deserter as a Political Deviant,” SUNY Research Foundation Application, Michel P. Richard, June to August 1969, ARAB, Jim Walch. Richard’s publications on the deserters in Sweden turned out more refections on the role of the scientist and his subjects than research articles, for which he had failed to obtain suffcient data. See also Michel P. Richard, “American Deserters in Stockholm,” Interplay 3, 12 (1970). 158. “American Deserters in Sweden,” Boston Globe, November 16, 1969.

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159. “American Minister Aiding Deserters,” Eugene Register-Guard, September 29, 1969. 160. “American Deserters in Sweden,” Boston Globe, November 16, 1969. 161. Lang, Patriotism without Flags, 59, 64–66. 162. “American Minister Aiding Deserters,” Eugene Register-Guard, September 29, 1969. 163. Lang, Patriotism without Flags, 60. 164. “Minister to Deserters Reports,” News from CALCAV, January 6, 1970, ARAB, Jim Walch; Hayes, American Deserters in Sweden, 155; Hall, Because of Their Faith, 84. Hayes’s key publications were Thomas Lee Hayes, “Easy Ridin’ Amerika: The View from Sweden,” Win 6, 5 (1970); Hayes, “Walking on Water”; Hayes, American Deserters in Sweden. 165. Hayes, “Walking on Water,” 17; Hayes, American Deserters in Sweden, 183. 166. Hayes, “Walking on Water,” 26–27. 167. Hall, Because of Their Faith, 85. 168. A folk high school (Swedish: folkhögskola) is an institution for young-adult education, often offering room and board, with a general curriculum, particularly useful for learning about Swedish society, culture, and politics. 169. “Minister to Deserters Reports,” News from CALCAV, January 6, 1970, ARAB, Jim Walch; Hayes, “Easy Ridin’ Amerika,” 27–28. See on Kristina Nyström’s data on the American war refusers in Sweden “Deserter Activities,” Stockholm A-805, December 20, 1969, NARA, RG 59, Central Foreign Policy Files 1967-1969, Political & Defense, Box 1667. 170. “Former Director of Episcopal Peace Fellowship Visits War Deserters,” Episcopal News Service, January 23, 1970 (http​:/​/ww​​w​.epi​​scopa​​larch​​ives.​​org​/c​​gi​-bi​​n​ /ENS​​/ENSp​​ress_​​relea​​se​.pl​​​?pr​_n​​umber​​=83​-5​, accessed May 2016). 171. “Minister to Deserters Reports.” 172. “Priest Backs Deserters on Viet Stands,” Chicago Tribune, February 21, 1970. 173. Hayes, American Deserters in Sweden, 132 f. The discussion inspired Sagarin to an essay on the responsibility of researchers toward their subjects, in which he maintained that the American military authorities profted from research such as Richard’s in their efforts to “score a propaganda victory” against the deserters, who were out of reach of their legal means in Swedish exile (Sagarin, “The Research Setting and the Right Not to Be Researched,” 52–64, quote on pages 60–61). 174. Hayes, American Deserters in Sweden, 127 ff., quote on page 137. 175. Hayes, American Deserters in Sweden, 78 ff., quote on page 85. 176. Introduction, Risk 6, 3 (1970), 4, and front- and back cover. 177. Hayes, “Walking on Water,” quotes on pages 28 and 24. 178. Hayes, American Deserters in Sweden, 35, 26, 10, 171 ff. 179. Hayes, American Deserters in Sweden, 10, 23, 136; Hayes, “Walking on Water,” 28 (emphases original). 180. Hayes, American Deserters in Sweden, 111–112 and 155.

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181. Hayes, American Deserters in Sweden, 55 ff., quote on page 58. 182. Gardner, “The Future of Desertion,” 162. The text was originally published in May 1970 in the GI movement publication Hard Times. On Gardner’s central role in the GI coffeehouse movement, see Parsons, Dangerous Grounds, 15 ff. 183. Hayes, American Deserters in Sweden, 74–75. On an integrated perspective on desertion and GI opposition in Europe, see, for example, pamphlets published of the ADCs in Paris and Stockholm and the discussion of the larger movement in community newsletters in Sweden below (“Two GIs in the Struggle,” American Deserters Committee, [Paris, 1969]; “GIs. You Can Stop the War Machine,” The Second Front International, [1969]; both ASR/IISG, Max Watts). 184. Hayes, American Deserters in Sweden, 23–24, 18, 59–62, 33–34, and 158–159. 185. For example, Williams, The New Exiles; Richard L. Killmer, Robert S. Lecky, and Debrah S. Wiley, They Can’t Go Home Again. The Story of America’s Political Refugees (Philadelphia: Pilgrim Press, 1971). 186. Thomas R. Linden, “Review [untitled],” Political Science Quarterly 88, 2 (1973), 306. Linden also discussed the publications on draft resisters and deserters in Canada by Roger Williams, and Richard Killmer and others (Williams, The New Exiles; Killmer, Lecky, and Wiley, They Can’t Go Home Again). 187. James F. Bresnahan, “Review [untitled],” Journal of the American Academy of Religion 41, 2 (1973). 188. “Short Reviews,” American War Resister in Sweden, November 1971. 189. “Letters,” American Exile Newsletter, February 1973. 190. See, for example, “Amnesty Bibliography,” Amnesty Center, Ann Arbor, Michigan, January 26, 1972; “Amnesty or Exile? Utilization Guide,” National Council of Churches, New York, [1973]; “Literature List,” CALC, Spring 1973; all IISG, WRI, USA/The Vietnam War/Deserters and Resisters I. 191. “An Episcopalian Priest Becomes Winemaker in High Tor Vineyard,” New York Times, February 20, 1972. 192. “U.S. Deserters Forsake Activism for Quiet Life,” Washington Post, May 3, 1970; Hayes, American Deserters in Sweden, 185; McSorley, Peace Eyes, 44. 193. “Rapport,” Robert Argento and Desmond Carragher to KFUKs och KFUMs Riksförbund, Stockholm, March 1971; “Ang. prästtjänst för amerikanska desertörer och krigsvägrare,” Svenska Ekumeniska Nämnden to Lutherhjälpen, June 3, 1971; both ARAB, Jim Walch; Hayes, American Deserters in Sweden, 186. 194. “The Center,” The Paper Grenade, August 1970; Untitled outline on the situation in exile and proposed actions, The Underground Railway, Robert Argento, Stockholm, [late 1968], ARAB, Jim Walch; “U.S. Deserters Split by Dissent in Sweden,” Los Angeles Times, January 26, 1969. 195. “Rapport”; Hayes, American Deserters in Sweden, 186; Franks, Waiting Out a War, 183; Hall, Because of Their Faith, 84. 196. “The Center” and “Registration, Interview and Dialogue with Police,” The Paper Grenade, August 1970. 197. “Do You Need . . . ?” The Paper Grenade, August 1970 and September/ October 1970; Salomon, Rebeller i takt med tiden. Other supporters of the deserters,

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often since the frst arrivals in 1967 and 1968, listed here include Eva Rubin, Johan Asken, Bengt Söderström, Hans Göran Franck. 198. “The Center,” The Paper Grenade, August 1970. 199. “Announcements,” The Paper Grenade, February 1971; “The Center.” 200. “Desertör blev kurator,” GT Söndagstidningen, March 21, 1971 (Swedish original: “hjälp till själv-hjälp).” Margareta Edgren came to Center to discuss this matter with the American exiles (“The Center”). 201. John Cooney and Dana Spitzer “Hell No, We Won’t Go!” in Oppenheimer, The American Military, 134; Barbara W. Bright, “An American Deserter in Sweden,” ICWA-Report, May 26, 1970, Institute of Current World Affairs (ICWA) Publications Archive (www​.icwa​.org), accessed May 2010; “Do You Need …?” The Paper Grenade, September/October 1970; “Announcements,” The Paper Grenade, February 1971. 202. Andersson, Mötesplats, 60–65; “Rapport,” Robert Argento and Desmond Carragher to KFUKs och KFUMs Riksförbund, Stockholm, March 1971; “Ang. prästtjänst för amerikanska desertörer och krigsvägrare,” Svenska Ekumeniska Nämnden to Lutherhjälpen, June 3, 1971; both ARAB, Jim Walch; “Center and NonCenter,” American War Resister in Sweden, February 1972; “Desertör blev kurator,” GT Söndagstidningen, March 21, 1971. 203. “American Exile Project,” American Exile Newsletter, April 1973; “From the American Exile Project,” American Exile Newsletter, March 1975; “Reaction to the Pardon Runs Gamut From Joy to Outrage,” Washington Post, January 22, 1977. 204. Andersson, Mötesplats, 65; “Causes and Conditions of American Deserters in Malmö,” Malmö, May 28, 1971, ARAB, Jim Walch; “US AWOLees in Sweden,” Stockholm 2324, July 30, 1968, NARA, RG 59, Central Foreign Policy Files 19671969, Political & Defense, Box 1667; Robert G. Weisbord, “Scandinavia. A Racial Utopia?” Journal of Black Studies 2, 4 (1972), 480–481. 205. “Center Malmö,” American War Resister in Sweden, November 1971; “Center Report,” American War Resister in Sweden, January 1972. 206. “American Exile Project,” American Exile Newsletter, January 1973. 207. “Pearls from the Offce of Rob & Dez,” American War Resister in Sweden, November 1971; “More Pearls from the Exile Project,” American War Resister in Sweden, January 1972. 208. “Pearls from the Offce of Rob & Dez”; “New Stuff from the American Exile Project,” American Exile Newsletter, October 1972; “American Exile Project.” 209. Jerry Grey to the Leaders of Resist, London, December 27, 1968; Untitled outline on the situation in exile and proposed actions, The Underground Railway, Robert Argento, Stockholm, [late 1968]; both ARAB, Jim Walch. 210. “Rapport,” Robert Argento and Desmond Carragher to KFUKs och KFUMs Riksförbund, Stockholm, March 1971, ARAB, Jim Walch. 211. “More Pearls from the Exile Project,” American War Resister in Sweden, January 1972.

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212. “Do You Need . . . ?” The Paper Grenade, August 1970; “Letters for Deserters,” The Paper Grenade, September/October 1970; “Pearls from the Offce of Rob & Dez,” American War Resister in Sweden, November 1971; “Center Report” and “More Pearls from the Exile Project,” American War Resister in Sweden, January 1972; “New Stuff from the American Exile Project,” American Exile Newsletter, October 1972; Photograph of Bulletin Board at the Center, ARAB, Jim Walch. 213. Andersson, Mötesplats, 64. “New Stuff from the American Exile Project”; “Desertör blev kurator,” GT Söndagstidningen, March 21, 1971. 214. “Film om USA-desertör följs upp med en debatt,” Skaraborgs Läns Tidning, May 15, 1971; “Ingen talar om desertörerna som klarar sig bra i Sverige,” Dagens Nyheter, May 16, 1971. 215. “Center and Non-Center,” American War Resister in Sweden, February 1972; “Ang. prästtjänst för amerikanska desertörer och krigsvägrare,” Svenska Ekumeniska Nämnden to Lutherhjälpen, June 3, 1971; “Rapport,” Robert Argento and Desmond Carragher to KFUKs och KFUMs Riksförbund, Stockholm, March 1971; both ARAB, Jim Walch. 216. “Ang. prästtjänst för amerikanska desertörer och krigsvägrare”; Hall, Because of Their Faith, 84–85. 217. “Ang. prästtjänst för amerikanska desertörer och krigsvägrare.” 218. “Center Report,” American War Resister in Sweden, January 1972. 219. “Ang. prästtjänst för amerikanska desertörer och krigsvägrare”; “Rapport,” Robert Argento and Desmond Carragher to KFUKs och KFUMs Riksförbund, Stockholm, March 1971, ARAB, Jim Walch; Andersson, Mötesplats, 64; Barry Winningham, Saint Crazyhorse. An American Expatriate Novel with Swedish Scenes and Rebel Poems (Pasadena: Victor J. Burner, 1993), 1 ff., 49 ff., 67 ff.; “American Draft Dodgers in Sweden during the Vietnam War,” Vestkusten, May 15, 1993, 9. 220. “What Happens to Center-fnanced Projects?” American Exile Newsletter, October 1973; Andersson, Mötesplats, 62. 221. “Charter of the American Exile Club,” American Exile Newsletter, March 1975. 222. “Rapport,” Robert Argento and Desmond Carragher to KFUKs och KFUMs Riksförbund, Stockholm, March 1971, ARAB, Jim Walch. 223. “Center Report,” American War Resister in Sweden, January 1972; “Bruce Beyer, Fugitive, Seeks to Keep U.S. Aware of War,” Buffalo Courier-Express, October 20, 1977. 224. “Should We Axe the Coordinator?” American War Resister in Sweden, February 1972. 225. “Community Confict,” American War Resister in Sweden, February 1972. 226. “The Exiles and the Church,” American Exile Newsletter, December 1973; “The New Deal: Pro,” American Exile Newsletter, December 1973. 227. “The Exiles and the Church.” Funds were therefore held back by the SEN (“Storm the Committee Meeting,” American Exile Newsletter, September 1974; “Minutes Taken at the Meeting of KFUK-M Riksförbund, Swedish Ecumenical Council, and Representatives of American War Resisters in Sweden,” Stockholm, September 18, 1974, American Exile Newsletter, October 1974).

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228. See, for example, “Center Report,” American War Resister in Sweden, January 1972; “Center General Meeting,” American War Resister in Sweden, Supplement, February 1972; “Minutes of the Center General Meeting, November 28, 1972,” American Exile Newsletter, December 1972; “Minutes from General Meeting, 20th March 1973,” American Exile Newsletter, April 1973; “Minutes from General Center Meeting, June 12, 1973,” American Exile Newsletter, Summer 1973; “General Notes of Center General Meeting, October 17, 1973,” American Exile Newsletter, November 1973; “What Happens to Center-fnanced Projects?” American Exile Newsletter, October 1973; “Proposal submitted by the Newly Formed Uppsala Exiles Project to the Center for American Exiles Steering Committee,” American Exile Newsletter, November 1973. 229. Richard Killmer to Bill Schiller, August 23, 1973, and “Notes from the Center,” American Exile Newsletter, October 1973; “General Notes of Center General Meeting, October 17, 1973,” American Exile Newsletter, November 1973; “Center Meeting at the Stomach, December 4, 1973,” American Exile Newsletter, December 1973; Untitled, [Meeting of KFUK-M Riksförbund, Swedish Ecumenical Council, and Representatives of American War Resisters in Sweden], American Exile Newsletter, April 1974. 230. “The New Deal: Pro,” American Exile Newsletter, December 1973; “Minutes of First Finance Committee Meeting” and “Protokoll fört vid sammanträde med KFUK-KFUMs riksförbund och Svenska Ekumeniska Nämnden samt repr. för amerikanska krigsvägrare i Sverige,” American Exile Newsletter, June 1974. 231. “This Is It!” American Exile Newsletter, January 1975; “Response: The Exile Project, the Church, and Us,” American Exile Newsletter, September 1974; “This Is Your Last Free Copy of the American Exile Newsletter!” American Exile Newsletter, February 1975. 232. “Charter of the American Exile Club,” American Exile Newsletter, March 1975. Concerning donations from individuals and groups in the United States, such as the Indiana SANE, and fnancial support from Swedish local authorities, see, for example, “Letters,” American Exile Newsletter, December 1974; “Letters,” American Exile Newsletter, April 1975; “Flash!” American Exile Newsletter, May 1975. 233. See, for example, “Our Answer to the Bi-centennial Bullshit,” American Exile Newsletter, January 1976; “The American Revolution Continues,” (reprint from July 4th Coalition), American Exile Newsletter, April 1976. 234. At the Center, exiles were informed about programs of the American Exile Project and were offered additional support, such as emergency loans, help for men in prison, Swedish language workshops, job and housing offers via community newsletters and bulletin boards, resources and information on cheap commodities, clothing exchanges, as well as informal and spontaneous mutual support among participants. See Franks, Waiting Out a War, 183; “A Fact Sheet for Deserters and Resisters on Sweden,” 1972; Photograph of Bulletin Board at the Center; both ARAB, Jim Walch; “What’s Happening in Malmö?” January 1972, ARAB, Hans Göran Franck, 4.3.7 001; “The Center,” American Exile Newsletter, October 1972; “What’s Been Going Down at the Stomach,” American Exile Newsletter, February 1973. Also, see the

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frequent announcements of the American Exile Project and regular classifeds in the newsletters. 235. “On the Court,” American Exile Newsletter, October 1972; “Financial Report of the Center, July 1, 1971–June 30, 1972,” American Exile Newsletter, October 1972; “Stockholm Action,” American Exile Newsletter, April 1974; “Minutes of First Finance Committee Meeting,” American Exile Newsletter, June 1974; “Stockholm Stars Big Hit on Road,” American Exile Newsletter, February/March 1974. The team was the subject of a documentary flm produced by draft exile Ted Weisberg and shown at the Alternative Stomach (“Alternative Stomach,” American Exile Newsletter, April 1974). Audiences in the United States learned about the basketball team through an AP report in early 1974 (“Deserters Become Overseas Basketball Heroes,” The Morning Record, January 18, 1974; “Deserters Not Outcasts in Basketball,” Florida Today, January 20, 1974). 236. “Alternative Stomach Is Opening Soon,” American Exile Newsletter, November 1972. On fnancing and organization of the Alternative Stomach, as well as its function for community building in the context of the Center see “Center Steering Committee Meeting, November 1, 1972,” American Exile Newsletter, December 1972; “Center Steering Committee Meeting, December 6, 1972,” American Exile Newsletter, January 1973; “Money and Stomach,” American Exile Newsletter, February 1973; “Minutes from Center Steering Committee, June 6, 1973,” American Exile Newsletter, Summer 1973; “Response: The Exile Project, the Church, and Us,” American Exile Newsletter, September 1974. On activities at the Alternative Stomach, see, for example, “Alternative Stomach,” American Exile Newsletter, January 1973; “What’s Been Going Down at the Stomach,” American Exile Newsletter, February 1973; “Alternative Stomach,” American Exile Newsletter, November 1973; “Alternative Stomach,” American Exile Newsletter, April 1974. 237. For example, at the Alternative Stomach exiles were informed about the fnancing of projects and the management of funds, or they discussed political matters and the representation of the community, not least in the debate on amnesty in the United States (“Alternative Stomach,” American Exile Newsletter, February 1973; “Center Meeting at the Stomach, December 4, 1973,” American Exile Newsletter, December 1973; “Alternative Stomach,” American Exile Newsletter, February/March 1974). 238. “Center Steering Committee Meeting, December 6, 1972,” American Exile Newsletter, January 1973; “Looking for Frisk Luft,” American Exile Newsletter, May 1973; “American Exile Project,” American Exile Newsletter, Summer 1973; “Alternative Stomach,” American Exile Newsletter, June 1974. 239. “Alternative Stomach,” American Exile Newsletter, June 1974; “Military Counseling,” American Exile Newsletter, February 1973; “Military Counseling,” American Exile Newsletter, March 1973. 240. “Center Report,” American War Resister in Sweden, January 1972; “Sister Anna’s Yummy Corn Bread,” American Exile Newsletter, November 1972; “All Saints Day Vigil,” American Exile Newsletter, October 1976; “Talking Turkey,” American Exile Newsletter, November 1976.

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241. “Beet Burgers with Stomach’s Vegetable Brown Sauce,” American Exile Newsletter, February 1973; “Grahams Bread,” American Exile Newsletter, December 1972. 242. “Cheap(er) Food,” American War Resister in Sweden, November 1971; “Food Collective,” American Exile Newsletter, February 1973; “Alternative Stomach,” American Exile Newsletter, April 1973; Andersson, Mötesplats, 64–65. 243. “Alternative Stomach,” American Exile Newsletter, January 1973; “Alternative Stomach,” American Exile Newsletter, April 1973; “Alternative Stomach,” American Exile Newsletter, February/March 1974; “Comment,” American Exile Newsletter, February/March 1974; “Watergate Blues,” American Exile Newsletter, May 1973; “Alternative Stomach,” American Exile Newsletter, April 1974; “Protokoll fört vid sammanträde med KFUK-KFUMs riksförbund och Svenska Ekumeniska Nämnden samt repr. för amerikanska krigsvägrare i Sverige,” American Exile Newsletter, June 1974. On Thomason’s absence in Europe see “Paris Gives Refuge to 9 U.S. War Foes,” New York Times, March 21, 1968; “Data on U.S. Military Absentees Known or Believed to Be in France,” Military Liquidation Section, U.S. Embassy, Paris, Attachment to Paris A-2116, May 9, 1968, NARA, RG 59, Central Foreign Policy Files 1967-1969, Political & Defense, Box 1667; “First GI Deserter from Sweden Returns,” Boston Globe, October 6, 1974. 244. “What’s Been Going Down at the Stomach,” American Exile Newsletter, February 1973; “Alternative Stomach,” American Exile Newsletter, April 1973; “General Notes of Center General Meeting, October 17, 1973,” American Exile Newsletter, November 1973; Izzy Young and Scott Barretta, The Conscience of the Folk Revival. The Writings of Israel “Izzy” Young (Lanham: Scarecrow Press, 2013), xxxix–xl. 245. “Locale Report,” American Exile Newsletter, June 1975; “Amnesty Hoedown,” American Exile Newsletter, October 1975. On prowar country music and references to war refusers in songs such as Merle Haggard’s Okie from Muskogee see Joseph A. Fry, The American South and the Vietnam War. Belligerence, Protest, and Agony in Dixie (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 2015), 334 ff. 246. “Sports Report,” American Exile Newsletter, November 1973. 247. “American Exile Newsletter,” (Editorial), American Exile Newsletter, October 1972; “To the Staff of the Newsletter,” American Exile Newsletter, March 1974; “This Is Your Last Free Copy of the American Exile Newsletter,” American Exile Newsletter, February 1975. 248. Exemplary for the disappointment with mainstream media is an article on the ADC in Look magazine of 1968. A photographer and a reporter spent several days with deserters in Stockholm in the summer, who apparently enjoyed the attention of the makers of this widely distributed magazine and placed high hopes in the article. However, the text appeared only several months later, and it turned out with a focus on Bill Jones as a charismatic leader of the ADC, presented as a radical group engaged in extremist activities. Moreover, of the many photos of a wide variety of situations of exile life and deserter activism a few were selected showing Jones as speaker and on a full-page portrait, and a group of deserters resembling a street gang

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or rockband at best. Along with this report on the deserters as curious fgures on the Swedish political stage led by Bill Jones, another article in the issue on an AWOLee underground in Berkeley drew a much more sympathetic image of a Vietnam deserter and his motives and perspectives. The ADC wrote a response to the magazine, insisting on its collective ideals and claiming to belong to the broader American antiwar movement, however, without succeeding in prompting a follow-up article to clarify their perspective (“Deserter in Stockholm,” Look, October 15, 1968, 34–37; “AWOL in Berkeley,” Look, October 15, 1968, 32–34; “A Letter to Look Magazine,” The Second Front, 6, December 1968, 9–10; Look-Job 68-3840 with contact sheets of July 1968, LOC, Look Collection). The gang-like image was also printed to illustrate a text pointing out the militancy and anti-American politics of the ADC in “A Rude Awakening for U.S. Deserters, U.S. News & World Report, October 28, 1968, 62–64. See also on the frustration among deserters with the mainstream media Lang, Patriotism without Flags, 58. 249. “To Our Readers . . . ,” American Exile Newsletter, Summer 1973. See also the editorials of the American Exile Newsletter of November, and December 1973, January, February–March, and October 1974. 250. Franks, Waiting Out a War, 194. “Report from the Clergy,” American War Resister in Sweden, November 1971; “Voice from the Vatican,” American War Resister in Sweden, January 1972; “The Center,” The Paper Grenade, August 1970; Photograph of Bulletin Board at the Center, undated, ARAB, Jim Walch; “Dear Reader,” American Exile Newsletter, January 1973. 251. “Excuses,” American War Resister in Sweden, November 1971; “New AWOL Arrival,” Stockholm 2037, June 28, 1968, NARA, RG 59, Central Foreign Policy Files 1967-1969, Political & Defense, Box 1667; “Parable of the Prodigal Son,” Luke 15:11-32. An artikel on Brown’s desertion and experience in France was published by one of his Dutch supporters Frits Eisenloeffel shortly after his transfer to Sweden to call attention to the diffcult situation of American deserters in Europe (“De vlucht van deserteur Brown,” Algemeen Handelsblad [supplement], July 6, 1968). The papers of Eisenloeffel include notes on Brown (IISG, Frits Eisenloeffel, 64). 252. “I Am Myself,” American War Resister in Sweden, January 1972. 253. “A Message from Olga,” American War Resister in Sweden, February 1972. 254. “Variation on a Theme by Feiffer – Or: You Too Can Be the 10 millionth Rider on the Tunnelbana and Win 400.000 Kronor,” American War Resister in Sweden, November 1971. 255. Untitled, American War Resister in Sweden, November 1971. 256. “When, Where, How Did He Meet the Horrible Gritch,” American War Resister in Sweden, November 1971; “The Exile of Eddie Fitzgerald,” Boston Globe, July 20, 1975. 257. “Hi There, Olle!” American War Resister in Sweden, January 1972. 258. “Variation on a Theme by Feiffer – Or: You Too Can Be the 10millionth Rider on the Tunnelbana and Win 400.000 Kronor,” American War Resister in Sweden, November 1971. 259. “For Marie Anne,” American War Resister in Sweden, January 1972.

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260. “The Inferno,” American War Resister in Sweden, November 1971. William Males wrote here using the alias The Phantom. See information on the contributors from Gothenburg in this issue. 261. “Sister Love,” American War Resister in Sweden, January 1972. 262. “T-Bana,” American War Resister in Sweden, January 1972. See also for another reference on staring “Sister Love” in the same issue. 263. See, for example, Deserter USA (1969), directed by Lars Lambert and Olle Sjögren, SMDB, T02-0909, 1:15:57; Hayes, American Deserters in Sweden, 64–65; Franks, Waiting Out a War, 128–129. 264. “Parker Smith,” Washington Post, February 2, 1969; “Admission of Deserters to Sweden,” Stockholm 1027, March 19, 1968, NARA, RG 59, Central Foreign Policy Files 1967-1969, Box 1666; Parker F. Smith, “Me and My Orlon,” in Franks, Waiting Out a War, 195–196. 265. “A Day at Arbetsförmedlingen,” American War Resister in Sweden, January 1972. 266. “I Love Foreigners,” American War Resister in Sweden, November 1971. 267. “The Garden of Eden,” American War Resister in Sweden, November 1971; Franks, Waiting Out a War, 202 ff. 268. “Rubie’s Boy,” American War Resister in Sweden, February 1972. 269. “Words Born of Bondage,” The Paper Grenade, September/October 1970; Stockholm 2222, [Arrival of American Deserters], July 18, 1968, NARA, RG 59, Central Foreign Policy Files 1967-1969, Political & Defense, Box 1667. 270. “Hey Nixon,” American Exile Newsletter, May 1973. 271. “A Country Can Be Invaded in Many Ways,” American Exile Newsletter, November 1975; “Swedish Nightmare,” American Exile Newsletter, December 1975; “The Price Is Right?” American Exile Newsletter, June 1976. 272. See, for example, “U.S.A. and Sweden Re-establish Relations,” (Cover), American Exile Newsletter, June 1974; “A Page of History,” American Exile Newsletter, November 1975; “The Price Is Right?” American Exile Newsletter, June 1976. 273. See, for example, “Swedish Nightmare,” and “Victory for Whom?” American Exile Newsletter, November 1976. 274. “Center Steering Committee Meeting, Oct 4, 1972,” American Exile Newsletter, November 1972. 275. “Green Beret Deserter Still Free and Fighting for Amnesty,” Amex-Canada, May–July 1975, 21. 276. “Flip & Julia. Paint It Black,” American War Resister in Sweden, November 1971. See on the complicated relationship of the struggle for civil rights and freedom and American popular media Christine Acham, Revolution Televised. Prime Time and the Struggle for Black Power (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2004), specifcally on the Flip Wilson Show and Julia 54 ff. and 110 ff., respectively. Eldridge Cleaver was one of the leaders of the Black Panther Party and author of a key text of Black radicalism of the 1960s, Soul on Ice. Convicted for alleged theft, George Jackson spent over ten years in prison and was and killed in an attempt to escape, and became a symbol of injustice against Blacks by the U.S. authorities and

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of resistance to it. His younger brother Jonathan was killed, when he staged a raid on a courthouse to press for the release of George and others from the Soledad prison (Jama Lazerow and Yohuru Williams, eds., In Search of the Black Panther Party. New Perspectives on a Revolutionary Movement (Durham: Duke University Press, 2006), 1 ff.; Lee Bernstein, America Is the Prison. Arts and Politics in Prison in the 1970s (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2010), 51 ff.). 277. “Shaft,” American War Resister in Sweden, January 1972. 278. “Short Reviews,” American War Resister in Sweden, November 1971. 279. See, for example, on the African American movement “This Is No Longer Crime. This Is Revolution,” The Paper Grenade, September/October 1970; “Angela Davis Speaks from Prison,” (reprint from The Guardian), The Paper Grenade, February 1971; “American People on the March,” American War Resister in Sweden, November 1971; “Battle in Baton Rouge,” American War Resister in Sweden, February 1972; “Angelo Herndon,” American Exile Newsletter, November 1973; “The Black Nation Thesis and Racism,” American Exile Newsletter, February/ March 1976. On the American Indian movement see “Wounded Knee Defense Offense Committee,” American Exile Newsletter, September 1975; “The American Revolution and the Native Americans,” American Exile Newsletter, June 1976; “Native Americans Organizing,” American Exile Newsletter, December 1976; “Survival School,” American Exile Newsletter, January 1977. See on Puerto Rico “Culture – Apart or Part of Struggle?” American Exile Newsletter, December 1972; “Puerto Rico,” American Exile Newsletter, April 1976; “Puerto Rico (Part Two),” American Exile Newsletter, May 1976; “Solidarity Campaign with the Independence of Puerto Rico,” American Exile Newsletter, June 1976; “Ford’s Last Farce,” American Exile Newsletter, January 1977. And on the farm workers movement see “United Farm Workers,” American Exile Newsletter, November 1972; “Don’t Just Boycott Ford’s Amnesty – Boycott Grapes,” American Exile Newsletter, December 1974; Untitled Text on United Farm Workers, American Exile Newsletter, January 1975; “The Boycott Is Still on!” American Exile Newsletter, February 1977. 280. See, for example, “Can Marxism Work in America?” American War Resister in Sweden, January 1972; “Keeping Identity,” American War Resister in Sweden, February 1972. 281. “Publications Available,” American Exile Newsletter, May 1974; “New Publications,” American Exile Newsletter, November 1975. 282. “En antiimperialistisk strategi. Desertering kontra motstånd inom USA:s krigsmakt” in Olle af Geijerstam, Om förenta staternas imperialism (Stockholm: Rabén & Sjögren, 1969), 128–137, quote on page 134 (Swedish original: “i bästa fall tvivelaktig reformism”); “Brass Kidnap Black GI to Vietnam,” The Paper Grenade, 4 [1969]. 283. For such representations see, for example, “Fourth of July Demonstration 1970,” The Paper Grenade, August 1970; “Successful Mass Meeting Held in Stockholm,” American War Resister in Sweden, January 1972. The ADC adopted the support of the GI movement into its program (“ADC Statement: Setting the Record Straight,” American War Resister in Sweden, February 1972).

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284. “First the Bounty, Then the Potemkin, and Soon the Coral Sea” and “The October Boys,” American War Resister in Sweden, November 1971. 285. “Sailors Resist,” American Exile Newsletter, December 1972. See on these protest activities by U.S. crewmen Cortright, Soldiers in Revolt, 110 ff. 286. “Revolutionary GI Charged with Desertion,” (reprint from The Green Machine) The Paper Grenade, February 1971; “The Collapsing Army,” (reprint from The Great Speckled Bird), American War Resister in Sweden, November 1971; Heinl Jr., “The Collapse of the Armed Forces,” 30–37; Cortright, Soldiers in Revolt, 3. See on the GI organizing group Movement for a Democratic Military (MDM) Seidman, “The Unquiet Americans,” 159n51. 287. “The Military: The Working Class Organizes,” “Where We Stand,” and “The Last Step,” The Paper Grenade, August 1970; “Berlin Business,” American Exile Newsletter, May 1973; “American and German Activists Fired from US Exhibition in Berlin,” American Exile Newsletter, November 1973. 288. “Stockholm, November 30, 1972,” American Exile Newsletter, December 1972. See on servicemen’s movements developing in Western militaries at that time David Cortright and Max Watts, Left Face. Soldier Unions and Resistance Movements in Modern Armies (New York: Greenwood Press, 1991), specifcally on Scandinavia 128 ff.

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Amnesty

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Deserters and the Debate over Clemency, Exoneration, and Vindication of Vietnam War Resisters

A standard question to American deserters in Europe 1967 and 1968 was whether they wanted to return to the United States one day. In practically all cases, the young men maintained that they had not left their home deliberately, but only traveled abroad to evade orders for Vietnam or prosecution by the military authorities. Often, they expressed their hope for a return to the United States in statements and declarations to assert their identity as Americans and point out their forced exile. Some announced they would eventually go back to participate in revolutionary change in America. With the growing numbers of draft-age Americans in exile, there were soon calls for an amnesty after an end of the Vietnam War. Sympathizers included them in statements to legitimize the young Americans’ resistance, and appeals for political asylum for deserters abroad were often linked with a plea for amnesty. In 1968, before CALCAV turned to supporting deserters in Europe, the organization initiated an amnesty education project as a crucial element of its efforts to reconcile Americans and overcome the divisions over the Vietnam War. During the presidential campaign of the same year, Eugene McCarthy proposed a form of amnesty for draft refusers after the war, but lost the nomination to Hubert Humphrey at the National Convention of the Democratic Party. The stiff sentence against returnee Edwin Arnett in early 1969 and the recommendations of the subcommittee of the Senate Armed Forces Committee for harsh punishment of deserters ended many exiles’ hopes for an easy return home for the time being. With no end of the war in sight, American deserters and their supporters focused on improving their situation in exile, and making it abroad became the motto and motivating force of the absentees. While the general 223

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question of a return to America was never forgotten, it was seldom addressed in the exile counterpublic. In fact, the personal wish of individuals to be able to go home seemed taboo in this context, and it appears that the voluntary return to the United States by some was considered a betrayal to the efforts of the others to succeed in exile. With the beginning of the race for the presidential election in 1972, however, the amnesty issue became part of the national political debate in the United States, and in turn, confronted the American war refusers in exile.1 In 1971, Democrat George McGovern was asked to explain his position on amnesty, and the matter became an important theme of his campaign, mobilizing support in particular among students, liberals, and war opponents. McGovern’s initial proposal for an amnesty for all who “have refused to participate in the Vietnam tragedy” developed into a conditional solution with a case-by-case assessment of draft resisters and a requirement of alternative service, excluding deserters. Later in the campaign, McGovern toned down the issue as he had come to deem it too controversial. In fact, his opponents dismissed him as the candidate of “acid, abortion, [and] amnesty,” scaring off many moderate and more conservative potential voters. President Nixon’s reply in the debate was a simple, but defnite “no” and “never” to an amnesty, and Vice President Spiro Agnew insisted that all refusers would have to “pay a penalty before receiving a pardon.”2 The electoral campaign once more exposed the divisions about the Vietnam War in American politics and society, including the question of the treatment of war refusers. Nevertheless, the race brought these issues to the highest political level and prompted Americans and their leaders to think about possible solutions. In the United States, pardons and clemencies had traditionally been issued by presidents rather than by Congress, from George Washington’s pardon for Pennsylvanian insurrectionists involved in the Whiskey Rebellion in 1795, Thomas Jefferson’s pardon for deserters returned to duty in 1807, Abraham Lincoln’s pardons for Confederate soldiers and returned Union deserters during the Civil War, to those issued to participants of the secession by his successor Andrew Johnson during the Reconstruction era. In the twentieth century, presidential measures included the restoring of full civil rights of draft law violators of the First World War after completion of their prison terms by Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1933, Harry S. Truman’s case-by-case review and pardon for draft resisters of the Second World War in 1946, and his restoring of civil rights of convicted peacetime deserters of the postwar years in 1952.3 During the early 1970s, for the frst time since the congressional amnesty act of 1898 for former Confederates, Senators and members of the House of Representatives claimed the right of Congress to grant amnesty and proposed a number of bills.4 These initiatives for amnesty policies refected growing antiwar opposition among legislators as well as

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efforts to reclaim a stronger position for Congress in the American political system, after it had allowed an expansion of presidential power during the years of escalation of the United States’ involvement in Indochina. Congressional bills on the treatment of draft and military offenders of the Vietnam era proposed a variety of solutions, from limited pardons with the provision of alternative service to a universal and unconditional amnesty. Edward Koch, Democratic representative from New York, who in 1969 was the frst member of Congress to visit American exiles in Canada, introduced the frst amnesty bill in 1971, which would allow draft evaders and deserters to apply as conscientious objectors to a specifc war rather than war in general. The latter provision had excluded many during the Vietnam War from achieving this status. A bill proposed in 1972 by Ohio’s Republican Senator Robert Taft Jr. proposed a conditional amnesty for draft resisters, but not for military deserters. Bella Abzug, Democratic representative from New York, in contrast, included the latter in her bills for universal and unconditional amnesty for all war opponents of the Vietnam era.5 Although eventually none of these and following bills was passed into law, the congressional debate on amnesty eventually led Presidents Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter to formulate their own clemency and pardon programs. Moreover, congressional hearings on the matter provided a forum of debate on amnesty. Not only representatives of military and civilian authorities, and of organizations opposed and sympathetic to an amnesty took part, but also members of the Vietnam generation—among them deserters from Europe—could articulate their positions on an unprecedentedly high political level there. The history of the American war in Vietnam and its effects on politics and society in the United States went far beyond the end of the offcial involvement of military forces with the Paris Peace Accords in early 1973, not least for the deserters in exile. The cease-fre agreement gave rise to new hopes for a return home and an amnesty, but at the same time ended the basis for the humanitarian asylum offered by Sweden and the right of residence in France. Although many succeeded in making a life for themselves in Europe or Canada after relocating there, they were still in limbo as their legal situation as fugitive members of the U.S. armed forces remained unresolved. With congressional bills failing to be passed into law, presidential policies were to decide the case of the many thousands of war refusers of the Vietnam generation, proclaimed by the leaders of the postwar years as critical elements of their efforts to overcome the divisions of the Vietnam era and achieve national reconciliation. In 1974, Gerald Ford pardoned Richard Nixon from possible crimes committed while president and shortly after offered clemency to draft evaders and deserters, on the condition that they fulflled alternative service and reaffrmed their allegiance to the United States. Jimmy Carter implemented the

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fnal policy on the war refusers in 1977, a special program of the Department of Defense for deserters and military offenders to upgrade their discharges and clear their records. Although the measure restored full citizenship rights for many deserters and allowed them to return to the United States, it was far less comprehensive than Carter’s blanket pardon for their colleagues who had evaded the draft, and left the authority over military absentees with the armed forces. Moreover, both presidential policies covered a much smaller number of draft and military offenders than proposed by amnesty activists and experts. Neither Carter nor Ford vindicated the deserters and draft refusers and their act of resistance as legitimate in the context of the American war in Vietnam. A critical question of the discussion was how the different groups of war refusers were to be treated once the United States would end its engagement in Indochina. Deserters were marginalized in the debate, both by amnesty opponents who used the old shirker and turncoat images to discount their plight, as well as by liberals and amnesty advocates who did not regard desertion a legitimate form of war resistance, unlike draft refusal, or who deemed a universal and unconditional amnesty unattainable and thus sought a more realistic compromise. The amnesty debate thus marked a new dimension of the struggle for recognition of the deserters, yet the more consequential than previous episodes. It was not simply about an acknowledgment of their act of refusal, but about their relief from legal charges and whether they could have a future in the United States. Moreover, the debate on amnesty was part of the general postwar process of coming to terms with the American war in Vietnam, including an appraisal of opposition and protest. The efforts for a vindication of the deserters thus were also a struggle for their place in the history of the Vietnam War—at a time when for many Americans national reconciliation meant to leave behind and forget the uncomfortable facts of the era. With the new momentum of the debate on amnesty in the early 1970s, American activists turned to the deserters in exile as visible examples of the thousands of men underground in the United States and many more discharged under less-than-honorable conditions, and mobilized them to participate in the campaign for amnesty. It was then individual deserters, who opened the debate for the plight of their peers by returning to the United States and confronting military justice. At the same time, exiles controversially discussed the best moment to voice a plea for amnesty—before or after an end of the war—individual interests and collective political consequences, deserters’ dependence on or independence from American sympathizers, the meaning of amnesty as forgiveness or vindication, as well as its signifcance in the larger Vietnam debate, not least the question of responsibility for the war and atrocities. American deserters from Europe came to play a critical

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role in the amnesty debate, as returnees challenging the military authorities, spokesmen for the exiles and the military offenders underground, and as movement organizers in the United States.

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THE RETURN OF JOHN DAVID HERNDON FROM FRENCH EXILE American deserters in European exile were frst integrated into the new debate on amnesty of the early 1970s by activists of the Citizens’ Commission of Inquiry on the U.S. War Crimes in Vietnam (CCI). The group had previously organized hearings with veterans to expose atrocities committed by U.S. forces in the war, partly in cooperation with the Winter Soldier Investigation and with the Nuremberg Principles as key reference.6 In the fall of 1971, CCI organizers Michael Uhl, a disabled Vietnam veteran, and Tod Ensign, a lawyer, sought for a new focus and decided to pick up the amnesty issue and bring deserters to the center of the debate. Through their contacts in the international antiwar movement, they learned about deserters in European exile, who contemplated a return to the United States and were looking for assistance in arranging their legal defense. Besides practical help for individual men, Uhl and Ensign sensed that the matter also had the potential for broader antiwar protest. Like many other war opponents in the early 1970s, they were struggling to keep up the level of antiwar mobilization. U.S. casualties and atrocities committed by Americans had been major factors in the rise of opposition and war-weariness. However, through the withdrawal of American troops under the Vietnamization program fewer Americans and their relatives and friends were directly affected by the war. The United States was focusing instead on aerial warfare, which was more abstract and quite successfully presented by the Nixon administration and military leaders as precise and effective. Returning deserters, Uhl and Ensign hoped, would help create new public awareness for both the impact of the American war policy on the Vietnam generation and for the ongoing military operations in Indochina.7 In February 1972, Uhl and Ensign launched Safe Return to push for ways for military absentees to end their exile or underground existence and return to American society with minimal punishment, at best through a full amnesty.8 The network’s name alluded to a traditional farewell to soldiers, “Godspeed and a safe return,” that was also issued to many GIs departing to Vietnam, including by the fight crews of Pan American jets bringing U.S. troops to Indochina.9 Moreover, the safe return, not only of servicemen but also of the American POWs had become a central factor in President Nixon’s Vietnam policy and rationale for continuing the war until their

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release.10 Uhl and Ensign thus adapted a term from a military context and from a prominent theme of the Vietnam debate for their new antiwar project, with a twist, to be sure. It was not the place from where the deserters would return, which was unsafe and dangerous as in the case of soldiers and POWs. It was their former home, to where they wanted to return but where they faced the threats of military justice, imprisonment, less-than-honorable discharges, and societal animosity. With Safe Return, Uhl and Ensign would publicize the case of deserters with an individual returnee as a “stand-in for a large class of similarly effected others.” As in the CCI hearings, they would “provide a forum or event where a member of an authentic group could articulate in his own words [. . .] how the war was related” to his personal situation and experience, previously involving the witnessing or committing of atrocities, now regarding desertion and exile.11 By giving a voice to an individual deserter, attention would be drawn to the thousands of his peers in exile, underground in the United States, or struggling under the consequences of less-thanhonorable discharges. Moreover, Safe Return integrated deserters into the larger Vietnam generation of GIs, veterans, and draft refusers. In particular, it placed deserters near the former two groups by referring to them as “selfretired veterans,” a term frst used by RITA activists in France earlier to replace the negative term deserter.12 Safe Return thus understood desertion as one result of the generation’s confrontation with the war and the military, including combat experience, physical and psychological traumatization, death, conficts of conscience, exile, underground, and punishment by civilian and military authorities. Drawing on CCI’s wide network of supporters in politics, activist organizations, and antiwar circles, as well as media contacts, Safe Return created a new setting for American deserters to become visible in the United States and to present their perspective.13 Despite the organizers’ legal expertise and the great potential for solidarity, returning to the United States as an individual deserter was very dangerous. While Safe Return claimed to minimize the risks for the returnees, the core of its strategy was to challenge military justice and to dramatize deserters’ returns through the imminent danger of harsh punishment. In contrast to previous public appearances of American deserters, which had always taken place in the safety of sanctuary and out of reach of the U.S. authorities, an absentee would now surrender himself to them, facing imprisonment and the long-term consequences of a non-honorable discharge. This concept required either a deserter willing to act as a martyr, or one so fed-up with his situation in exile that he was ready to turn himself in anyway, but could be convinced to make his decision benefcial to the larger cause of amnesty. The latter was the case, when Safe Return was contacted by American draft resister Joe Hefin in late 1971, who was engaged in the

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Paris exile community and informed them that a U.S. Army absentee was considering to return to the United States from France and required counsel and assistance.14 John David Herndon served in Vietnam for ffteen months between 1966 and 1968 and went AWOL to France from West Germany after he received orders for a second tour in 1970. Although he had a girlfriend and was supported by the network of the former PACS and the sympathizers of RITA, he did not succeed in settling down in Paris, learning to speak French suffciently, and making a living there. In a letter from Tony Clay of the Quaker Center to the foreigners’ offce requesting specifc support for several American exiles, Herndon was described as someone in need of regular employment to stabilize his life. Following temporary jobs in Paris and stays in southern France as a harvest hand, he was working in the warehouse of a textiles factory at the time and was planning to get married and become a stepfather, according to the request.15 However, when Herndon ended what would be his last job in France, he began to drink, and the relationship with his girlfriend deteriorated.16 Not only Herndon’s personal situation was at a low point in early 1972, but many of the other deserters in Paris also lived in precarious circumstances and were dependent on the help and sympathies of others. This concerned practical matters such as housing and work, as well as the emotional and human challenges of exile. Often, deserters sought support from women, who according to the American exile newsletter Zéro, provided “warmth and communication,” helped “defne our thoughts,” and were a “constant in an environment renowned for its hostility, criticism, and xenophobia.”17 With his relationship in crisis and the loss of this constant, and without the stability of a job, Herndon turned to Joe Hefin to discuss his thoughts about returning to the United States. Soon after, Uhl and Ensign of Safe Return visited Paris in March and encouraged Herndon to become the frst deserter to test the U.S. military authorities, offering to arrange his legal defense.18 For Safe Return, Herndon’s record of service in Vietnam was invaluable for generating sympathy among Americans. He exemplifed young men of the white working class in the United States, who often had no real chance for social advancement and a career, except in the military.19 However, Herndon’s hopes for such opportunities in the Army had been scattered through disappointments with his superiors, duty assignments, and promotion practice, and not least through the war in Vietnam. Born in the Appalachian Mountains in 1947 and raised in Baltimore as a son of a truck driver, he joined the military to be trained as a paratrooper in 1966, eventually reaching the rank of sergeant. At the end of ffteen months of service in Vietnam he was wounded and awarded a commendation medal. Herndon had only shortly been deployed as a paratrooper, which caused him great frustration because

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of the loss of prestige and of extra pay for a longer tour. He therefore reenlisted in 1969, hoping to be trained for the Green Berets, but was assigned to a regular Army unit. With three more years of service ahead and with physical and mental traumas from the war, the readjustment to military life was diffcult for Herndon, both stateside and after his transfer to West Germany. From there, he went AWOL to France for several months, returned to military control, and was court-martialed and issued a bad-conduct discharge, which was suspended however. When after four months in the stockade he learned about his new orders for deployment to Vietnam in August 1970, he escaped to France once more and this time stayed there.20 Over time, John David Herndon developed considerable political consciousness, and in France became involved in exile organizing and antiwar activities, ranging from public statements on his motives to desert and on the war in Vietnam, counseling newly arriving deserters, to encounters with prominent fgures of the movement, including writer Mary McCarthy and Jane Fonda.21 Such activities and statements demonstrated Herndon’s ability and willingness to speak as a war opponent and affrmed Safe Return in its decision to choose him for a frst test case. On the other hand, the records of his actions and positions could incriminate him and serve as evidence in a possible court-martial, as a basis for charges of communicating with the enemy and soliciting desertion.22 During his stay in France, Herndon was valued by activists for his personal experience of the war, especially his service as a POW guard. The latter became an important theme of the Vietnam debate, in particular when the return of the American POWs had been made a central demand of the United States at the Paris peace negotiations. The reports on the conditions in POW camps in the North could be qualifed, antiwar activists hoped, with frst-hand information on inhumane treatment of North Vietnamese and FNL prisoners by the South Vietnamese and U.S. forces. For an issue of RITA/Act, Herndon was thus interviewed on his experience as a guard at the military prison camp in Bien Hoa and on the situation of Vietnamese captives, held there in numbers nearly doubling the facility’s capacity. Asked about whether there were “tiger cages” at the camp, the use of which had been disclosed by American press reports in 1970, he told of “the box,” a small transport container in which prisoners were placed as punishment.23 An extended version of the interview was published by French communist daily L’Humanité to juxtapose the discussion of the return of the American POWs at the peace negotiations in Paris with the treatment of Vietnamese captives, a front-page teaser citing Herndon on the use of the so-called boxes in Bien Hoa. A question implying the use of torture by American personnel at the camp Herndon could not satisfy, but he stated that he had witnessed such interrogations by South Vietnamese rangers during his service in the feld.

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Regarding the conduct of U.S. forces, he described how civilian casualties were deprived of their identifcation documents to make them countable as “confrmed [enemy] kills,” in one case experienced by Herndon himself during the Tet Offensive, when he accidentally shot a “little girl” who ran in panic onto the street as he was returning fre from a hotel across the American quarters in Saigon.24 Also encouraged and assisted by RITA, Herndon authored an open letter to Nguyen Thi Dinh, deputy commander of the South Vietnamese People’s Liberation Armed Forces, in May 1971. Then, a spokesman of the delegation of the Provisional Revolutionary Government in Paris announced that GIs opposed to the war would be spared by the FNL fghters and that American deserters in Vietnam would be welcomed to join their forces, or assisted to travel to asylum countries.25 The letter was reprinted by French communist weekly Rouge, lauding Herndon as representative of the growing opposition among American servicemen, and by Vietnamese propaganda media. Herndon expressed the American exiles’ gratitude for such mercy on GIs, which, in turn, encouraged them to further their own activities to mobilize dissent among their peers still in the army. Here too, Herndon was a valued spokesman for RITA to promote their effort to “fght [. . .] together with the Vietnamese people to end this war now” and to authenticate this solidarity with his own story of how he had come to understand that many South Vietnamese supported the FNL in hope for national independence, when he had talked to civilians in Vietnam.26 Besides, he participated in distributing information on the French sanctuary for U.S. servicemen through the channels of the deserter support network as well as via the military-oriented newspaper Overseas Weekly, which published a letter by Herndon and a fellow exile explaining the legal situation for American war refusers in Europe and calling for protest and resistance, similar in style to previous Act information sheets.27 For Herndon’s surrender to the American authorities, Safe Return planned the widest publicity possible, with television coverage at the Paris airport by CBS correspondent Peter Kalischer, who had covered American deserters in Europe since the appearance of Dick Perrin and the Intrepid Four in late 1967, and his arrival and arrest in the United States.28 Moreover, they engaged journalist James Reston Jr. to chronicle the story of Herndon’s return. Son of the infuential James “Scotty” Reston of the New York Times and brother of Richard, who had interviewed the Intrepid Four in Moscow in late 1967, Reston had himself served as an Army intelligence offcer and published a novel inspired by this experience as a critique of American policy in Southeast Asia.29 Uhl and Ensign knew him from the investigations of war crimes committed by U.S. troops in Vietnam, which he had supported and reported on sympathetically, and he had come to advocate universal

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and unconditional amnesty.30 The documentation of John David Herndon’s case therefore not only promised to be of great value for Safe Return and the amnesty campaign, but also was attractive to Reston to promote his own career, who negotiated a book contract with McGraw-Hill for the project. Reston joined Uhl and Ensign on their trip to Paris, where he conducted interviews with Herndon and other exiles as well as participants of the Paris support network for American deserters, and would accompany him when he was to return to the United States.31 Safe Return originally had envisioned to have Herndon land in Washington, DC, which would have brought the amnesty issue to the nation’s capital as well as his home state of Maryland, whose new Democratic Congressman Parren Mitchell was sympathetic to the matter. But since there was no direct fight scheduled from Paris in that timeframe—necessary to ensure the safety of Herndon from being arrested until he entered the United States—Safe Return decided to have him fy to New York. Moreover, the strategy to keep the return secret from the U.S. authorities failed, because Herndon himself had been in contact with the American embassy in Paris to sound out alternatives for going home and limiting his prospective punishment.32 Nevertheless, Herndon’s arrival at John F. Kennedy Airport on March 20, 1972, turned out rather dramatic. Military police allowed him to speak to his parents for fve minutes, their frst reunion in several years, before they escorted him away to Brooklyn Navy Yard. Beyond asserting that he had returned voluntarily and was “determined to fght for an honorable discharge,” he could not speak to the press, unlike in Paris before boarding, when he had called for a universal amnesty for all war refusers and claimed that he had been “right” in “refusing to participate further in the war in Vietnam” as one who had served and been wounded there. In New York, Herndon’s father, a veteran of a tank battalion in the Second World War, expressed understanding for his son’s desertion, citing President Nixon on that servicemen should not be reassigned to Vietnam after completion of a one-year tour of duty. Accordingly, his son’s second deployment had been illegal. Moreover, he pointed out that John had enlisted and not been drafted, as he “had always wanted to go into the Army like his father,” thus preempting possible accusations of cowardice and shirking. Although Herndon’s father did not advocate a blanket amnesty for deserters and draft resisters, his statement was symbolic for reconciliation between the generations of the Second World- and the Vietnam Wars, at least on a family level.33 Steve Young, covering the arrival for CBS, learned from military sources that Herndon was to be transferred to a stockade in South Carolina, which would have put him out of reach of Safe Return and his lawyers.34 They mobilized infuential supporters, including Democratic Senator Mike Gravel of Alaska and Democratic Representative Bella Abzug of New York,

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to protest these plans and intervene with the Department of Defense. Moreover, they appealed to the U.S. District Court in Brooklyn to ban Herndon’s transfer out of the New York area. They succeeded, and Herndon was brought to the stockade at Fort Dix, New Jersey, instead.35 Before that, Abzug met with Herndon and his parents, demanding he be released from handcuffs, and announced a new amnesty bill for him and others “who have suffered from their refusal to participate” in “an illegal and immoral war.” Along the offcial line on military absentees, U.S. Army spokesmen, in turn, described Herndon as a serviceman with repeated disciplinary problems and expressed doubts about the sincerity of his motives to desert.36 Next to the claim that Herndon had already been discharged by courtmartial in West Germany in 1970 and therefore, although not notifed then, was not subject to military jurisdiction anymore, lawyers Harold Weiner and Tod Ensign prepared a defense on the basis of the Nuremberg Principles, thus carrying on the agenda of the previous war crimes hearings of CCI. According to Weiner, the U.S. Army had “breached its enlistment contract” with Herndon, because it “violat[ed] its own rules, by not distinguishing between combatants and non-combatants” and requiring its subjects to do so themselves. Thereby military decision-makers in Vietnam were responsible for “exactly the thing that they tried people for in Nuremberg” after the Second World War and further violated other international laws and treaties, such as the Geneva Conventions.37 With their strategy to not defend Herndon based on his individual circumstances but on the Nuremberg Principles, his lawyers raised the general amnesty issue, proposed a vindication of Vietnam War refusers, and thus made the case relevant for the larger group of deserters. Herndon refused an individual assessment, which would have meant a denial of the larger political signifcance of his desertion, and argued that “I don’t need to be forgiven by this government—the question is will I forgive them?” Safe Return rallied for support for Herndon, whom they dubbed a “political prisoner” and a POW of the U.S. military for his refusal to participate in what added up to “U.S. war crimes” in Vietnam, “‘search & destroy,’ free-fre zones, bodycounts, and routine torture.”38 After the stipulation by the district court in Brooklyn and with a writ of habeas corpus, Weiner and Ensign aimed to keep Herndon’s case before civil courts to ensure that their defense would be heard and that the media would be allowed to cover the trial.39 In April, however, military leaders cut short the Herndon campaign by releasing him on the basis of his previous bad-conduct discharge and preempted a further dramatization of the case in court.40 The immediate release from prison, an unexpectedly lenient treatment by the Army judges, would avoid possible public outrage about harsh punishment of Herndon, despite the bad-conduct discharge, and this

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way take the momentum out of protests by Herndon’s defense and Safe Return. The decision on Herndon, which was reviewed at a high level at the Department of Defense, differed substantially from the treatment of Edwin Arnett two years earlier, who had been sentenced to four years in prison and issued a dishonorable discharge, after a history of Vietnam service and exile in Europe similar to that of Herndon.41 In 1969, the military authorities’ strategy had been to make an example of Arnett to deter further desertions and to implement the recommendations by the congressional subcommittee. Now, the objective was to limit the growth of the movement for amnesty and sympathies for war refusers among Americans, and a scandalization through a severe penalty for Herndon was to be avoided. The bad-conduct discharge without additional confnement seemed suffcient to this end, as the longerterm consequences of less-than-honorable discharges were often overlooked by contemporaries and diffcult to convey by amnesty proponents, and here too did not result in substantial public criticism of the decision. Efforts of Herndon and his lawyers to have his case reviewed by the military authorities for a discharge upgrade were not successful.42 Michael Uhl and Tod Ensign claimed the release of Herndon as a “small, but important victory for Safe Return,” achieved through their publicity campaign and the resulting pressure on the military authorities. They were confdent, not least because of the handling of the case by high-ranking members of the Department of Defense, that the Herndon decision had set a precedent for future treatment of returning deserters by the military authorities.43 Moreover, Herndon encouraged proponents of a universal amnesty and an equal treatment of deserters and draft resisters. The Boston Globe commented that the case of “Herndon is or should be what amnesty is all about,” a relief for the young Americans from the working class, who were excluded from the proposals by liberal politicians for an “amnesty for America’s elite” and marginalized by the “middle-class bias” of the antiwar movement.44 With the momentum of this frst coup Safe Return was eager to continue to rally for a universal and unconditional amnesty for war refusers and to integrate Herndon into its efforts. Without prospects of a regular job, he was ready to join the campaign. For several months, he spoke at rallies of the Spring Mobilization, “Armed Forces Day” at Fort Dix, at GI coffeehouses and antiwar veteran meetings.45 As an actual returned deserter he added new authenticity to the Safe Return campaign and was the highlight at its fund-raising events. Most importantly, Herndon’s example as an American deserter from exile in need of amnesty brought a new dimension to the broadening debate in the United States, which had reached a frst climax in February 1972, shortly before his arrival in New York, when a subcommittee of the Senate Committee on the Judiciary chaired by Senator Edward Kennedy claimed Congress’ authority to propose amnesty legislation.46

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While applauded by antiwar and amnesty activists and accepted as “one of us” by GI organizers, Herndon also faced Americans opposed to amnesty, for example when he appeared on a call-in show of a North Carolina radio station.47 In contrast to the sympathetic audiences he had previously encountered, the listeners channeled their anger about young Americans’ war refusal onto him, and the host was clearly siding with them. After Herndon had told his story of military service, the war, and exile, listeners, who were almost exclusively against a pardon, confronted him with negative images of the deserter, the Cold War dichotomy of good and evil, as well as traditional concepts of patriotism and civic duty. His claim to American citizenship and a right to return to the United States was rejected by callers, who according to the “love it or leave it” principle regarded his decision to go abroad fnal, and doubted that he was prepared to fght and defend his country at all. Stuck with the rigid distinction between deserters and soldiers, most did not comprehend that Herndon had completed a tour in Vietnam before going AWOL, but accused him of cowardice and failure to fulfll his duty to serve. One of them, a veteran of the Second World War, maintained that he himself did not have the “chance to run and hide” then, implying the heroism of his own versus the Vietnam generation’s lack of it. Some even called Herndon a traitor, whose action was “play[ing] into the hands of the Communists,” and suspected that his supporters had been backed by Moscow.48 Herndon rebutted these accusations with the confdence of “a guy that’s been there, and a guy that’s left, and a guy that’s come back,” someone who had spent over one year in Vietnam, had been wounded there, had lived in exile in Paris, and who was convinced that he had been right and was now entitled to return to the United States to fght for amnesty. Reston, who accompanied Herndon to the radio studio, was astonished about John’s standing abilities as well as the humor with which he responded to these attacks.49 By the fall of 1972, however, Herndon’s energy began to fade, and the organizers of Safe Return came to believe that he did not really have an activist’s “staying power, nor the aptitude” necessary to continue working with the group, and went on to plan new deserter surrenders.50 After these strenuous months as a fgurehead of the Safe Return campaign, Herndon took on the challenge of a life as a Vietnam veteran with a less-than-honorable discharge and went on to live in his hometown Baltimore, working at a hospital.51 Although John David Herndon ended his personal involvement in the amnesty campaign, his legacy as the frst returnee to push for an amnesty for Vietnam deserters persisted. Safe Return used a UPI photo with him handcuffed to a military policeman after his arrest in New York on its fyers, the most dramatic illustration of the campaign for a long time.52 Most importantly, Herndon’s story was preserved by James Reston Jr. and thus entered the amnesty debate once more and with broader reach, when his book

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was published in the spring of 1973 with excerpts preprinted by newspapers beginning in January.53 With its details about Herndon’s service, exile, and surrender, as well as references to the issues of desertion, war refusal, and exile in general, the book helped to mobilize understanding and sympathies for deserters, at a time when discourse on amnesty was turning into an “anti-AWOL-act,” as Robert Musil warned in The Nation, himself a former U.S. Army captain, GI activist, conscientious objector, and now associate secretary of the Central Committee for Conscientious Objectors (CCCO), an organization offering draft and military counseling.54 The end of the United States’ war in Vietnam in early 1973 made the question of its treatment of war refusers imminent. President Nixon and his spokesmen once more trivialized the signifcance of desertion, played down the numbers of exiles to a “few hundred,” and denounced absentees as “malingerers, opportunists, criminals and cowards,” who deserved punishment and “must pay the penalty.”55 Moreover, with the return of the American POWs from Vietnam, who were welcomed back as heroes and paraded by Nixon, and his insistence that an amnesty would be an “insult to the memories” of those who had served, been wounded and imprisoned, or died in Vietnam, the strategy to split the Vietnam generation found yet another high point.56 In addition, amnesty advocates contributed to the marginalization of deserters. Most proposals by liberal politicians, such as Democratic Representative Edward Koch, focused on a relief for draft refusers and excluded military absentees. They were backed by press commentary, such as the “sharp distinction” between draft resisters and deserters insisted on by the New York Times, crediting the former for having “helped convince the nation it was wrong to pursue the war in Southeast Asia” and recommending that the motives for desertions should be assessed by the military authorities.57 In this context, Reston’s book, and Herndon’s example, prompted a new perspective on the American deserters of the Vietnam War and brought their plight back into the amnesty debate. In the New York Times Book Review, Thomas Alder, a lawyer and publisher of selective-service- and military-law journals, acknowledged that “deserters almost always become the blunted victims of war” and therefore regarded the publication “very timely” to bring the matter into the discussion. Herndon’s example, accordingly, added a new quality to the statistics on desertion and evinced that “something more serious than a rash of common criminality” had been taking place in the military during the Vietnam War. Alder extended his review into a critique of not only Vice President Agnew’s call for a “particularly hard and tough” treatment of military offenders but also liberal politicians who had passed over deserters in their amnesty proposals, as well as fellow journalists’ bias against deserters.58 Thomas Cottle of the Education Center of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology anticipated that the book would become an “important landmark

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of the amnesty question.” In the Boston Globe and the Washington Post he noted how Reston’s “compelling, thoughtful, compassionate account” inspired him to a differentiated view of the Vietnam-era deserters, who had not acted because they were “weak or bad or frightened,” but because they “could not reconcile their individual morality with the apparent morality of the government, the military and the war.” An individual’s example, like Herndon’s, to confront the “machinery of war” and to experience exile, retribution, and forgiveness, was possibly the “only way that the issue of amnesty can be addressed,” he concluded.59 Writing several months later under the impression of the Watergate scandal, Edgar Friedenberg, professor of education in Nova Scotia and editor of the book The Anti-American Generation, which discussed young Americans’ struggles over identity and ideals and included an article on exiled deserters, maintained that Herndon’s experience of a new life as an amnesty activist marked a “partial victory” of the “freaks and resisters who have found higher ground [. . .] not only morally, but perhaps politically as well” over the “Haldeman[s] and Ehrlichman[s]” who now “are dead, politically. And unshriven.” He discussed Reston’s book on Herndon together with an account on the murder of civil rights leader Robert Spike. Despite their very different biographies, Herndon and Spike both stood for the “catastrophic effects on the lives of Americans of opposition to American policy,” according to Friedenberg, either concerning racism or the war in Vietnam. The example of Herndon, whose case he summarized in particular detail, was invaluable for those Americans, Friedenberg asserted, “who, like myself, have grown sick at heart hearing popular tales of the great acquiescence of American youth in the political climate of the Seventies” and reassured them that the “resistance, it seems, is alive, no longer naïve, and very angry.”60

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AMERICAN DESERTERS IN SWEDEN AND AMNESTY Before John David Herndon was chosen for Safe Return’s frst test case, the committee also discussed the matter with Gerry Condon, one of the most active members in Sweden’s exile community at the time. As a Green Beret, Condon had refused orders to Vietnam and evaded military prosecution by going into exile, which made him an ideal candidate for Safe Return to demonstrate the political consciousness of American deserters and their determination to resist the military authorities. However, after consulting with fellow ADC members Condon decided to continue to focus on exile activism, not without advising Uhl and Ensign to be more explicit toward potential returnees about the risks of surrendering to the U.S. authorities.61 In fact, many deserters at this time viewed the amnesty question skeptically.

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The ADC in Stockholm warned in January 1972 that the new discussion had been launched by the “war-profteering establishment as a ploy to cover up the [. . .] continuation of U.S. aggression in Indochina” and was part of the “‘winding-down-the-war’-myth” of Vietnamization. The committee insisted that “there is nothing criminal about our refusal to participate in genocide” and criticized that the concept of amnesty in the sense of offering a “second chance and forgiveness” would affrm their criminalization, rather than vindicate them. This way, proposals of conditional amnesty, in effect, justifed the “government’s [own] criminal policies.” Moreover, the division into different categories of war refusers and specifc conditions for each group served to undermine and divide “our collective resistance,” ADC leaders argued, once more struggling for recognition as part of the larger American antiwar movement.62 In consequence, the ADC decided that amnesty could only be discussed after the end of all war actions, just like the issue of the POWs ought to be. The priority of its activism thus remained to “end the war now” according to the seven-point plan of the Vietnamese negotiators in Paris, and the committee called on all “humanitarian Americans” concerned with the “repatriation of war exiles” to devote themselves to bringing the war to an end frst.63 Like the ADC in Sweden, at the turn of 1971 and 1972, American exile groups in Canada found the amnesty debate “ludicrous” as it “obscure[d]” the expanded U.S. aggression in Indochina and thus “serve[d] to mask Nixon’s escalation of the war.” All proposals under discussion at the time were conditional or involved “punitive strings” for returnees, and were therefore rejected by the exiles in a joint statement in January.64 Thus, while concurring with Safe Return’s ultimate goal of universal unconditional amnesty, the perspective of Americans in Canadian and European exile on the point in time for action was incompatible with the former’s strategy. Many exiles also did not trust a newly formed stateside activist group, such as Safe Return, to succeed in infuencing a debate led on a high political level and in the mainstream media, where the deserters had often failed. Following the Kennedy hearings in February 1972 and the return of John David Herndon in March, the attitude of American exile groups toward the debate on amnesty began to change. At the time, the leadership of Amex, the most infuential American exile organization in Canada, was in a process of realignment. Members critical of the amnesty movement withdrew, and Dee Knight, a draft refuser, and Jack Colhoun, a deserter, turned to participate more actively in the amnesty debate and bring in the perspective of the exiles. Amex-Canada magazine, which was widely distributed among draft-age Americans in Canada and Europe, was to devote large sections on the matter and thus inform and mobilize exiles for the cause in the following.65 Moreover, Amex organized a conference on amnesty with exile groups

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and delegates from the movement in the United States in July. A number of American activists would eventually not attend the meeting as they chose to focus on intensifying antiwar protests in the United States in response to a new American air offensive in Vietnam. Still, Michael Uhl, Tod Ensign, and John David Herndon of Safe Return, Henry Schwarzschild of the ACLU, and Jack Smith of Vietnam Veterans against the War (VVAW) joined the exiles in Toronto, among them Gerry Condon who had in the meantime relocated to Canada from Sweden.66 Activists from the United States and exiles agreed on demanding an amnesty for deserters and draft refusers without conditions such as alternative service, the full restoration of civil rights of those convicted of desertion and other offenses related to the war in Vietnam, and the release of those imprisoned for such actions, as well as the erasure of relevant records. The conveners further planned to expand the campaign in the United States and to integrate the exiles in Canada and Europe and their perspective better into stateside activities.67 Next to the return of John David Herndon, this new alliance of American organizations and exiles in Canada inspired Americans in Europe to reconsider their position on the amnesty campaign, and some of them began to promote the cause among deserters in Sweden and France. Lewis Simon, who had deserted from the Army in late 1968, and George Carrano initiated a new group in Sweden, Up from Exile. They adapted the demands formulated at the Toronto meeting and contacted Amex and Safe Return to discuss collaboration.68 Simon spoke personally with Amex organizers in Canada, when he traveled there in the summer for a reunion with his parents on safe ground, who visited from New York. In the fall, Uhl and Ensign of Safe Return went to Sweden to discuss their strategy with the exiles and encourage their participation in the campaign. Safe Return, Amex, and Up from Exile then cooperated to push for exile interests and the plight of deserters in the amnesty debate. 69 However, while Amex already announced that the exiles in Sweden had changed their perspective on amnesty and were now supporting the cause, the issue was still openly debated there in the fall of 1972. In October, the Center held a large meeting, and a special committee was formed to draft a position paper on amnesty to represent the exile community.70 The committee reasserted the ADC’s position that the “humanitarian concern for the return of war exiles” expressed by amnesty proponents in the United States served the Nixon administration as a “cover-up for the continuing of the war” and for “preempting of the issue to restrict the scope and content of a future amnesty.” It also held on to the suspicion that the debate on amnesty had been initiated to promote the “‘the war is over’ myth,” along with reduced draft calls and demands for the release of American POWs. The authors insisted that frst the military and political issues of the confict in Indochina had to be settled, before both the case of the POWs and the question of an amnesty for

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war resisters could be addressed; any earlier pardon proposal was a “decoy.” The conditional amnesty bills in Congress were criticized for “adulterat[ing] amnesty into a matter of redemption and penance” and for their class-biased favoring of draft resisters over deserters and veterans with less-than-honorable discharges. Apart from that, the Center committee condemned the “de facto amnesty” for the “military and corporate and political leaders” responsible for the war, whom it considered “war criminals in the truest sense.” Thus, while the committee did call for an eventual universal and unconditional amnesty, it was still concerned frst with the war in Vietnam and its consequences, and demanded full sovereignty for the Indochinese peoples, a judiciary review of the American intervention and war crimes, as well as reparation payments by the United States.71 The Center’s position paper claimed to represent the American exile community as a whole but was challenged by ACLU affliate Candi Martin as well as Lewis Simon and George Carrano, who wanted Up from Exile to become the new voice of the deserters in Sweden. They argued that the perspective of the Center was “most self-defeating,” and that it was crucial for the exiles to enter the debate on amnesty immediately and to make their plea heard because the “power structure” and the “establishment will have the issue in its pocket by the time the war is over.” They pointed out that the amnesty issue did not distract from the actual fghting, but rather had the potential to “dramatize and concretize those basic issues, such as America’s imperialist foreign policy, the class discriminatory nature of the draft, and ruling class responsibility for the war.” Simon, Carrano, and Martin therefore endorsed the strategy of Safe Return and consented to the demands formulated in Toronto in July, linking the appeal for amnesty with the call for a full withdrawal of the United States from Indochina.72 Therefore, the disagreement among the exiles concerned the point in time for action only—before the end of the war or after—which nevertheless was weighing heavily then. Moreover, the pessimism of the Center’s position paper indicates the wariness of the exiles toward the American political establishment and the mainstream media and their fear of being exploited or lost in the debate. They were suspicious of stateside organizations, both the liberal and established ACLU as well as the new Safe Return committee with its ambivalent surrender strategy, and skeptical about whether their amnesty demands were realistic and could mobilize a broad movement among Americans at all. The organizers of Safe Return were nevertheless determined to include the deserters in Sweden into their campaign. At the Democratic National Convention of 1972, they had staged the surrender of Tommy Michaud from the underground in the United States, a Marine Corps deserter and a Vietnam veteran, to pressure candidate George McGovern on the amnesty issue.

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However, the case failed to achieve the publicity Safe Return had hoped for and to impact the presidential race.73 Michael Uhl and Tod Ensign visited Sweden afterward to fnd new deserters to participate in their campaign and advertised their efforts to mobilize “mass support” in “Middle America,” especially by involving the parents of deserters and draft resisters. They also explained their defense strategy for individual returnees, which in the case of Michaud invoked the Nuremberg Principles and drew on testimony from members of his unit about atrocities in Vietnam, which he in effect had avoided participation in.74 The engagement of activist exiles was crucial for Safe Return to authenticate its campaign and claim to represent the men. They championed Up from Exile, who as newcomers in the amnesty debate appeared more willing to follow Safe Return’s lead than the organizers of Amex. Eventually, Uhl and Ensign were able to persuade many exiles in Sweden to reconsider their skepticism toward participation in the amnesty debate before an end of the war.75 In November, amnesty opponent Richard Nixon defeated George McGovern in the presidential election and disappointed many war opponents’ hopes for a withdrawal of the United States from Vietnam. That McGovern’s proposal for a pardon for draft resisters had also failed, however, was considered by Up from Exile not a setback but a moment for American “radicals” to “get back to the basic job of building a deeper and broader movement” for amnesty, including deserters, and leave “personality politics and electionyear opportunism” behind. They were eager to fght the marginalization of deserters by those amnesty advocates who were ready to accept a solution for draft refusers and declared to now “occupy center-stage” in a “unifed front” for universal unconditional amnesty.76 By early 1973, the American exiles in Sweden were arriving at a certain consensus on the amnesty question. The Center steering committee, including both Simon and Carrano, members of the ADC, and others from different cities in Sweden, held several discussion meetings and agreed to join the amnesty campaign before the end of the war. They still linked their call for universal unconditional amnesty with the demands for a withdrawal of the United States from Indochina, to be sure, as well as the caveat that the matter was vulnerable to serve to “cover up” continued U.S. military operations and to distract from the actual responsibility of “all those political, corporate and military leaders,” who were already enjoying a “de facto amnesty.”77 In the following, Up from Exile claimed from the ADC and the Center the role of representatives of the community to the outside, mobilized support from fellow exiles in Sweden and France, and began a close collaboration with Safe Return, which culminated in the return of Lewis Simon to the United States to challenge the military authorities once more at the end of the year.

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EXILE CONFERENCE ON AMNESTY IN PARIS A conference organized with Safe Return and Amex to bring together exiles and activists from Europe and North America was the frst engagement of Up from Exile in the amnesty campaign outside Sweden. After Nixon’s victory, the groups agreed it was crucial to fnd common ground for the plight of the deserters in exile and underground in the United States.78 They assumed that the Nixon administration would issue some form of limited amnesty for draft refusers after the end of the war with the objective to promote a “public mood that the war is really over” and make it “seem like past history.” By excluding deserters, Nixon would “obscure the scope” of war refusal and “ignore the vast numbers of servicepeople who fully deserve amnesty for their resistance,” next to the absentees around half a million veterans with less-thanhonorable discharges.79 The exile conference focused on deserter exiles as well as those underground in the United States to overcome their marginalization and the “distortion” of their position in the American media. Because of editors’ and reporters’ sympathies for draft resisters, not deserters but the latter had acted “almost exclusively” as “interpreters” and “spokesmen for the exile communities” in the public debate on amnesty, the organizers argued.80 They chose Paris for the conference, hoping to attract greater attention from the media for the case of the deserters. Besides the city’s signifcance in the Vietnam debate as the site of the peace negotiations, which were still going on during the planning process, Paris promised to allow a focus on deserters without draft resisters dominating the meeting, as they feared they would in Canada. While a location there would have been much easier to reach for American delegates, the deserters living in Europe held particularly high hopes in the meeting. Up from Exile considered it a “crucial juncture” to take an “important step” to “enter upon the center of the amnesty stage.”81 The conference announcement called for the United States to return to a politics of reconciliation and presented amnesty as an American tradition. It referenced amnesties and pardons in American history, which had made the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries an “era of reconciliation,” when dissidents and deserters were relieved from lifelong consequences of prosecution and punishment. The twentieth century, in contrast, deviated from this tradition and was described as a “punitive era.” Accordingly, President Truman had pardoned only ten percent of war resisters of the Second World War, despite the support for a pardon by sixty percent of the veterans.82 With a new spirit of reconciliation and unity, invitations for the Paris conference were extended to a wide spectrum of American individuals and groups involved in the amnesty and Vietnam debates, including war veterans, servicemen, draft resisters, politicians, church leaders, and gold star parents. They represented not only the Vietnam generation but larger segments of American

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society affected by the confict in Indochina. In particular, the support for the conference by parents of American war casualties was a powerful symbol of the amnesty cause and national reconciliation because it refuted the logic of amnesty opponents that a pardon for draft evaders and military deserters would dishonor those who had served and died in Vietnam. Patricia Simon, founder of Gold Star Parents for Amnesty whose son David had been killed in Vietnam in January 1968 a few days after his nineteenth birthday, was to participate in the Paris conference along with Robert Ransom, father of Robert Jr. (“Mike”), who died in the war in May of the same year at twenty-three. In New York, Mike’s mother Louise, activist of Clergy and Laity Concerned (CALC) and one of the most vocal participants of the amnesty movement, argued at the press conference to announce the meeting in Paris that deserters and draft resisters were the “other victims of the war,” and accused those who “discredit[ed]” them of “dishonor[ing] the dead” themselves.83 Moreover, delegates from VVAW and American activeduty servicemen from West Germany planned to attend the conference and expressed solidarity with the deserters, who allegedly had betrayed them. The participation of the Southern Conference Educational Fund, an important African American organization involved in the amnesty movement, refected the concern for Black deserters and veterans with less-than-honorable discharges, often victims of racial discrimination in the armed forces and by military justice.84 The conference was further supported by Episcopal Bishop Paul Moore of New York, who expressed his regret about Nixon’s refusal to grant amnesty and his hope that the campaign would pressure Congress to pass favorable legislation. Also, Representative Bella Abzug of New York endorsed the meeting when she reintroduced her bill for universal amnesty.85 In addition to American personalities, the conference organizers planned to bring in European intellectuals to gain recognition for the amnesty cause and the deserters, among them Jean-Paul Sartre, Claude Bourdet, Daniel Mayer, and Madeleine Rebérioux. Moreover, German writer Heinrich Böll and former French prime minister Pierre Mendès-France were invited as keynote speakers.86 Before the conference was to take place, the Paris Peace Accords were signed on January 27, 1973, and with the cease-fre agreement the United States’ military engagement in the Vietnam War ended. This brought new momentum to the amnesty debate over the following months, and Paris as the site for the new positioning of the American exiles in the campaign seemed a smart choice, as it would draw particular attention to the amnesty event. Moreover, a conference of the previously warring parties and observing nations was to convene in Paris at the end of February to ensure the implementation of the accords.87 But the city’s exposed standing in Vietnam politics proved fatal for the amnesty activists, when the French authorities

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banned their meeting at short notice. Four days before the opening session, police came to the organizers’ hotel in Paris and presented them with an interdiction order signed by a high-ranking offcial of the Ministry of the Interior next to the chief of the police. They were stunned since there had been no indication of such a move in advance and asked former PACS leader Maria Jolas to confrm the content of the letter written in French, who advised them to comply.88 The French authorities explained that the amnesty meeting was banned because, frst, none of the organizing groups were registered in Paris, and second, it “posed a threat to the good atmosphere” and public order during the upcoming Vietnam conference. Specifcally, this concerned “one of the invited nations,” obviously the United States, whose delegates could be irritated by the amnesty event.89 The amnesty activists and their French sympathizers suspected that the United States had pushed for a ban of the meeting, the planning of which its services had been monitoring, in fact. The French authorities’ offcial explanation regarding the public order seemed a guise for the actual motives, as the amnesty conference was to be held one week prior to the peace convention, and there were no public rallies planned, but rather closed sessions at a hotel.90 French observers were also confounded by the sudden decision, and Le Monde exposed the government’s fimsy reasoning by publishing a large section of the original text of the interdiction notice. The communist party’s newspaper L’Humanité criticized President Georges Pompidou for yielding to American diplomatic pressure and evading any confrontation with President Nixon.91 An American correspondent inquired at the U.S. embassy in Paris and learned that the United States had indeed pressured France. According to a diplomat, the Americans regarded the French hosting of the amnesty event a breach of neutrality.92 Implicit or explicit, it appears the United States threatened to cancel its participation in the Vietnam conference. This would have jeopardized the very purpose of the convention to bring together the parties of the Vietnam confict in Paris to ensure the realization of the provisions of the peace agreement. For France’s claim to the role as mediator in the peace process and thus a new strong position in international relations, the success of the conference and participation of the United States were critical. In a way, the ban seemed a return to repressive measures following the revolt of May 1968, when a Vietnam conference organized by the PACS was barred and eventually the committee itself ordered to dissolve. More recently, French authorities had been more tolerant, for example the World Assembly for Peace and Independence of the Peoples of Indochina was allowed to take place in Versailles in early 1972, although it too was considered an irritation to the United States and its delegation to the Paris peace negotiations.93 Upset by the developments, the organizers of the amnesty conference notifed American delegates in New York and recommended that they canceled

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their trip to Europe.94 In Paris, French sympathizers announced a press conference to protest the interdiction, which was subsequently prohibited. Daniel Mayer, president of the French Human Rights League, took the delegates, journalists, and television crews from the conference hotel to the center of his organization, where as host he was sovereign and more independent from government interference.95 At this “solemn protest demonstration” Mayer criticized the bans of the amnesty meeting and the press conference an impediment to free speech. Claude Bourdet charged the French government of giving in to U.S. pressure, which he argued was another facet of France’s complicity in the war in Indochina, besides its reluctance to condemn continued American aerial attacks there.96 Claiming to speak for a “majority of Europeans,” Jean-Paul Sartre argued that with the end of the American involvement in Vietnam and a quasi-acknowledgment by a number of decision-makers that it had been a mistake, now had come the chance for a universal and unconditional amnesty for the one million American deserters, draft resisters, veterans with less-than-honorable discharges, and convicted war opponents. He defended the deserters’ “revolutionary” act as politically signifcant, even if not “articulately expressed in words,” and condemned those who supported a pardon for draft resisters but not deserters as classbiased. Sartre argued that a “recogni[tion of] the citizen’s right not to obey an unjust order” and “not to participate in an imperialist war,” no matter whether facing the draft or already a member of the military, would “enhance American democracy.”97 At the protest press conference, Howard De Nike, member of the LMDC in Heidelberg, and Stephen Rothstein, a U.S. Air Force captain from the base at Bitburg, West Germany, spoke on behalf of active-duty servicemen. De Nike read out a statement by oppositional American soldiers in West Germany and West Berlin, which acknowledged that war refusers and antiwar GIs had saved many lives. The text asserted that American casualties in Vietnam were equally victims of American military and political leaders as Vietnamese who were killed, displaced, or poisoned. Some of the GI authors had planned to come to Paris themselves, but shortly before had been reassigned to the United States. De Nike suspected this had been a measure to prevent them from participating as their European tours still had several months to go.98 Appearing in uniform, Captain Rothstein reported on growing sympathies among U.S. servicemen for an amnesty for deserters and draft exiles. He called on military personnel to join them and to neutralize the tactic of amnesty opponents to play off deserters and soldiers against each other. Citing Henry David Thoreau on the higher value of the rights and freedoms of the individual over the law in America, Rothstein argued that an amnesty would not weaken the United States but rather reconcile the nation, which

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had a unique “capacity for love and compassion, and a freedom no other country can equal.”99 Despite the interdiction of the offcial amnesty conference, American delegates nevertheless decided to hold a meeting of their own. Lewis Simon told reporters that they planned to move to another European country for this, a maneuver to mislead authorities. A secret meeting was instead arranged in Paris with the help of former PACS activist Susan George and other American expatriates.100 A resolution was drafted there, representing a broad spectrum of the Vietnam generation and the various contexts of protest and exile. Among the participants were Lewis Simon, George Carrano and Charles Rougle from Sweden, a deserter living there since 1969, from London draft resister Fritz Efaw, and Steve Cobb, a deserter living in France. For the Canadian exiles spoke Dee Knight, Jack Colhoun, Larry Svirchev, and Gerry Condon. Veterans and active servicemen were represented by Ed D’Amato and John Musgrave of VVAW, and Stephen Rothstein.101 They rebutted President Nixon’s downplaying of the numbers of men in need of amnesty, citing his claim that there were only a “few hundred” in exile. Instead, it maintained that there were sixty- to one-hundred thousand in Europe and Canada, as well as around two-hundred thousand underground in the United States. The conveners demanded a universal and unconditional amnesty without alternative service, punitive measures, or case-by-case decisions for all draft and “military resisters (so-called ‘deserters’).” This new term was to equate their refusal with that of draft resisters, to integrate them into the larger group of oppositional military servicemen, and last but not least to avoid the negative connotations of the term deserter. Moreover, the appeal included all who had been convicted or imprisoned for opposition to the war, civilian and military, as recipients of an amnesty, as well as the over half a million veterans with less-than-honorable discharges—the most comprehensive approach to universal unconditional amnesty. Not their actions were dishonorable and criminal, as claimed by amnesty opponents, the resolution argued. Rather, military and political leaders and decision-makers had “violated the honor that should surround service to one’s country,” the U.S. constitution, and international law. A full amnesty would not only “truly mark an end to the US government’s disastrous policy” in Vietnam, the conveners argued but also “serve to prevent all such future wars.”102 Tod Ensign organized a press conference in New York with some of the remaining delegates to protest the French ban of the amnesty meeting and the American diplomatic intervention. Patricia Simon of Gold Star Parents for Amnesty maintained that the American pressure on France resulted from President Nixon’s realization of “how rapidly the international amnesty movement is growing” and his fear that “it will get out of hand.” Simon called on other mothers and fathers who had lost a son in Vietnam to not let

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Nixon claim to speak for them and use the example of their sons to denounce amnesty. In particular, she hoped that women and gold star mothers would support amnesty, as for “men like Nixon [. . .] masculinity is still identifed with force and violence,” and thus it was more diffcult for them to accept that deserters and draft refusers had done the “right and moral thing.”103 The failed conference left the deserters and their supporters with ambivalent feelings. The ban had prevented the personal meeting of European exiles and amnesty activists from the United States, which the former had euphorically expected and had placed high hopes into for their integration into the American amnesty movement. Moreover, the leadership claimed and decisions made by Michael Uhl and Tod Ensign were criticized, in particular by Amex participants, who accused them of too much publicity in advance, the choice of Paris, as well as of having used the exiles for the advancement of Safe Return rather than really answering to their concerns.104 Nevertheless, the banning of the event created the more public attention in the United States, in particular with the publication of Sartre’s statement in the American press, and motivated activists to continue to rally for amnesty.105 That the conference caused the United States to take such a “desperate measure” and use diplomatic pressure on France, “reveal[ed] the administration’s fear of the amnesty issue” as it “concretizes the whole question of criminal responsibility for the war,” and boosted the self-confdence of Up from Exile, Safe Return, and Amex as political players. Moreover, the repressive action, Simon and Carrano were sure, mobilized additional sympathies for the deserters in exile.106

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FAMILIES FOR AMNESTY AND THE RETURN OF EDDIE SOWDERS With the end of the American war in Vietnam, the position of the deserters in the amnesty debate was once more contested. Safe Return was determined to bring the plight of the deserters into the debate, and the participation of absentees in the campaign was invaluable for this objective. As a committee organized by exiles themselves, Up from Exile was an authentic reference and proved the deserters’ own interest in amnesty, their commitment to activism, and capability to formulate political demands. They were crucial to counter the image of misfts, social deviants, and dropouts drawn by amnesty opponents and latently if not openly shared by many Americans, including war opponents and liberals. For Safe Return, besides, Up from Exile was a more manageable partner than Amex, which was more established and had stronger relations with other groups in the United States. Tensions between Safe Return and Amex about claims to representation and

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leadership surfaced during and in the aftermath of the failed amnesty conference in Paris. With growing self-confdence, Up from Exile thus promoted the objective of Safe Return among exiles in Sweden and France.107 In the spring of 1973, Safe Return launched the next phase of its campaign for amnesty under the motto Families of Resisters for Amnesty (FORA) and integrated Up from Exile into the program.108 It was initiated on New Year’s Day with reference to the separation of exiled sons from their families during the holiday season and a pledge to end the “agonizing” of such “broken families” through winning an amnesty. FORA was to broaden the reach of the movement with the help of parents and other family members of deserters, draft resisters, veterans with less-than-honorable discharges, and convicted or imprisoned war opponents.109 The strategy was inspired by the campaign for the return of American POWs from Vietnam, which had successfully mobilized support among average Americans during the last years of the war, and Safe Return hoped to “reach many of the same Americans.”110 Family members of American servicemen imprisoned in Vietnam, wives and children, parents and siblings had generated sympathies among many. It was therefore diffcult for critics of the POW campaign to expose how the Nixon administration employed the matter for legitimizing its continuation of military operations in Indochina, and as a strategic means in the peace negotiations. The POW issue was also cited by amnesty opponents, who argued that an exoneration of draft evaders and deserters would dishonor the sacrifces of the war prisoners and their families. Although all accounted-for American captives were released under the Paris Peace Accords and returned to the United States in the spring of 1973, amnesty opponents were able to continue to play this card, because the matter of personnel missing in action (MIA) was linked to the POWs, implying that MIAs could still be held as prisoners in Vietnam. As a result, the POW/MIA chapter was never closed and became one of the most persistent myths of the Vietnam War.111 With the help of war refusers’ families, the Safe Return organizers were convinced they could spread the message that both POWs and draft and deserter exiles deserved a safe return home. After all, they argued, many members of the Vietnam generation had become victims of the war and the draft system in different ways and degrees and, if still alive, should all unify to demand government compensations. In contrast to the deserters themselves, whose action and its consequences separated them from their colleagues, their parents shared the grief over a son’s absence with those of POWs. Moreover, they could not as easily be blamed as their fugitive sons and could thus generate empathy among Americans “by virtue of their equal sincerity.”112 In particular, fathers who had fought in the Second World War had a special moral authority, such as Abe Simon, father of Up from Exile organizer Lewis. They had most often been surprised and

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shocked by their sons’ action and had, if at all, undergone a long process of reconciliation. In addition, parents often faced harassment themselves because of the desertion of their sons, both through offcial investigations and within their communities. What these families had achieved, Safe Return envisioned with FORA, American society and the different generations would have to bring about on a larger level to overcome the divisions created by the Vietnam War. Next to grassroots organizing of refusers’ parents and families in their communities, Safe Return also directed the FORA campaign to the national political level. Congresswoman Bella Abzug helped arrange hearings in Washington, DC, in May, which were attended by members of Congress besides relatives of deserters, draft resisters, veterans with less-than-honorable discharges, and persons convicted for antiwar activities.113 In contrast to previous hearings on amnesty, the organizers pointed out, this was the frst time that testimony was presented exclusively by war resisters and their families. These hearings made the matter much more concrete, as it demonstrated the consequences of the absence of such a policy for war refusers and their families, still separated after the offcial end of the American involvement in Vietnam. Strategically, the date of the hearings was chosen to coincide with the reception of returned POWs at the White House and to protest how the Nixon administration exploited their case.114 Ernest Gruening, former Democratic senator from Alaska and one of the only two members of the Senate to have voted against the Gulf of Tonkin resolution in 1964, told parents of deserters and draft resisters “your sons are the true heroes of this war,” not the returned prisoners.115 Moreover, the unfolding Watergate affair was commented on by Abzug at the hearings. She noted the irony in National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger’s appeal for compassion for those involved in the scandal, when at the same time the administration was refusing to consider any amnesty proposal and thus denied the war resisters and their families’ compassion.116 The family members participating in the hearings represented a wide spectrum of the young Americans in need of amnesty, estimated at close to one million by Abzug and Safe Return. They ranged from convicted and imprisoned war and draft resisters, Black veterans with undesirable discharges resulting from racism in the military, to deserters and draft exiles in Europe and Canada. Abzug and Safe Return emphasized the similarities of the groups, rather than their differences; not least the fact that a considerable share of the deserters had previously served in the war exposed the separation of veterans and war refusers as a tactic of amnesty opponents to undermine solidarity. Moreover, some families included deserters and draft refusers, as well as combat veterans, one with two sons who had served and two who had refused. Their examples demonstrated the thin lines of distinction between the different effects of and reactions to the Vietnam War and the draft system.117

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Among the fathers were several veterans of the Second World War.118 Their testimony exemplifed the reconciliation between the generations and offered a differentiated assessment of civic duty and military service, and causes and conduct of war at different times. Abe Simon recounted how he frst had been “steaming” about Lewis’s “evad[ing] his duty and [. . .] running away.” His other son told of how his parents tried to persuade Lewis to return from Sweden before they began to understand his motives.119 John Picciano Sr., also a veteran of the Second World War and father of a deserter, had visited Sweden to convince his son to come back. However, after intense discussions he had come to comprehend his decision and that a return without an amnesty was no option for him. In a letter read out at the hearings, John Jr. explained how his limited options as a member of the working class had pressured him into the military. His family could not afford college, which would have allowed him to evade the draft with a student deferment. Classifed as draftable, he had been turned down by employers, a typical problem of many young working-class men, and decided to enlist in the Army.120 As a high point of the hearings, Army deserter Eddie Sowders stepped out after three years of hiding underground in the United States, with a short stay in Canada, and appealed for amnesty for himself and his peers, before surrendering to the authorities.121 Before this, his mother, widow of a veteran of the Second World War and parent of eight, explained how there had been few options for her son’s career besides the military. Eddie Sowders then stood up and presented his motives to desert. He recalled how he had been convinced of the United States’ mission to defend South Vietnam from communist aggression, when he joined the Army in 1966. Working at a hospital in Vietnam, he learned about the war’s brutality, the effects of napalm on civilians, and Americans’ racist attitudes toward the Vietnamese, and came to doubt that his country was actually helping them. He argued that racism and the readiness to kill had been instilled in young Americans through “lies and deceptions” by the same political and military leaders, who were now labeling him and many other deserters and resisters “criminals” and denying them amnesty.122 What was planned as a dramatic moment, at best a capture from the session room with Sowders being dragged away by military police, did not turn out quite as spectacular. Recorded next to television crews by the team of flmmaker Peter Davis, the scenes were commented on with some irony on how Sowders had to even wait for offcers to come and arrest him. Nevertheless, Sowders’s surrender contributed to the public attention for the hearings and the deserters in general, also in the longer run. In Davis’s documentary Hearts and Minds, he exemplifes individual war refusal, and he is shown how he meets his mother for the frst time after a long time in hiding and explains his decision to turn himself in.123 Following his arrest, Sowders’s action was

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publicized by Safe Return and FORA as symbolic move to counter the depiction of deserters as “‘cowards,’ ‘criminals,’ and ‘underachievers’” by the government and military leaders. Sowders’s experience as an Army medic in Vietnam was crucial for his credibility, and a fyer calling for his release from military prison featured a picture of him at a hospital in Vietnam as well as a portrait in uniform. Moreover, the leafet bore as headline a crossedout “Deserter” and a “Resister!” above in red ink.124 This way, Safe Return asserted the resistant character and effect of desertion during the Vietnam War and claimed the same recognition for them in the amnesty movement as draft evaders, whose refusal was often defended as war resistance there.

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THE RETURNS OF RICHARD BUCKLIN AND LEWIS SIMON FROM SWEDEN In the spring of 1973, an exile from Sweden decided to return to the United States via Canada. An Army draftee from Denver, Richard Bucklin had left his unit in West Germany in August 1968 for Stockholm, where was involved in the ADC and community activities. He had no intentions to act in an amnesty test case and therefore did not discuss his plans with Up from Exile or Safe Return. Instead, he contacted Amex in Toronto for advice on how to go about to obtain an administrative discharge from the Army.125 However, in July a proposal worked out by a National Lawyers Guild attorney to the military authorities in Fort Carson, Colorado, failed to have him discharged as an undesirable under the condition of not publicizing the case. Now underground in the United States, Bucklin decided “after a lot of soul-searching” to confront a court-martial and make himself an example for the amnesty campaign.126 He thus became the frst deserter from Sweden to challenge military justice for the cause of amnesty. Prior to turning himself in to the Denver police in October, he announced that he wanted his case and possible conviction to “mean something, to have an effect” to “make the American people aware of the plight of all war resisters,” although he did not “particularly want to become a martyr.”127 Convinced of the justice of his and others’ demand for a universal and unconditional amnesty, Bucklin was ready to serve the prospective prison sentence and guaranteed that there would be “no begging” by him for individual lenient treatment. Moreover, he asserted the legitimacy of his war refusal and that he had been “correct in following the demands of his conscience.”128 He explained that he had only learned after entering the military to “understand what was happening both to me and the country,” a “kind of corruption [. . .] best personifed by offcers” who would “bomb anything, kill anybody, follow any order.” Although he had not been on orders to Vietnam, he wanted

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to “resist and make a positive statement” and “deny them the use of my body, my labor.”129 At the same time, Bucklin took a more human perspective on returning to America from exile, which often was suppressed in statements by deserters in the debate, and conceded that his motivations did not only concern the cause of amnesty. For him, the surrender would allow him to reconcile with his estranged mother, who had never comprehended his decision to go AWOL, and to come home to the United States, which he still “love[d]” and found the “greatest country in the world.”130 Vietnam Veterans against the War/Winter Soldier Organization (VVAW/ WSO), the Rocky Mountain Military Project, a GI counseling organization in Colorado, and the National Lawyers Guild set up a defense committee for Richard Bucklin, and Rudy Schware and Jeff Goldstein served as his attorneys.131 This way, the Safe Return strategy to publicize deserters’ surrenders as test cases for amnesty was adapted by other groups of the growing movement for universal unconditional amnesty in the United States. Moreover, the following campaign for Bucklin was supported by the National Council for Universal and Unconditional Amnesty (NCUUA), the new broad alliance of the movement formed in the spring of 1973.132 The Bucklin case thus brought the plight of the deserters onto the agendas of participating organizations, many of whose members had still been holding reservations toward military absentees and their unorthodox form of war refusal. While Bucklin became a protagonist of the amnesty campaign despite his original plan to avoid this, Lewis Simon of Up from Exile had contemplated surrendering as part of the FORA campaign and discussed this with Safe Return.133 He was not under pressure to leave Sweden, but in contrast, had settled well since his desertion during the Christmas holidays of 1968, had continued his studies, and married a Swede in 1972. A participant of exile organizing and community building for several years and one of the proamnesty leaders in Sweden, he was motivated to concretize his efforts by becoming a test case himself. Although he had originally joined the Army “for self-interest,” he had developed deep convictions against the Vietnam War. In particular, through his studies of Eastern linguistics in Hawaii, which he completed with a master’s degree before enlisting at twenty-four, and his friendship with Asian colleagues there, he was appalled by the racism against the Vietnamese promoted in military training.134 Simon had not served in Vietnam and thus lacked the special credibility of previous returnees as war veterans. Consequently, Eddie McNally, a GI who had been living semi-underground in the New York area since his desertion after returning from Vietnam in 1969, was chosen by Safe Return to join Simon and complement his moral and political prowess with his own war experience. After four years of hiding, McNally increasingly feared discovery by the FBI, not least since he had enrolled in college in the fall of 1973,

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and contacted Safe Return for assistance to turn himself in and to organize his legal defense.135 Next to McNally’s credibility as Vietnam veteran, Uhl and Ensign decided on his participation for legal-tactical considerations, as kind of an “insurance policy” for Simon. They believed that McNally would receive lenient treatment like Herndon and Sowders, who had also been war veterans, and thus hoped that Simon would be dealt with on similar terms.136 Safe Return and Up from Exile planned to have Simon and McNally surrender shortly before Christmas as high point of the broader FORA campaign to “Bring ‘Em Home for XMas,’ 1973,” an adaptation of the Vietnam antiwar movement’s well-known slogan calling for the return of GIs from Vietnam. The event was to fulfll FORA’s original pledge to end the separation of the exiled sons from their families in a symbolic move to for a general amnesty. At Christmas and Hanukkah, traditional holidays for family reunions, at many tables a son was missing, who was abroad, in jail, or hiding underground.137 Christmas cards were printed and sold to raise funds for the campaign and to create seasonal compassion with exiled deserters and their families. The cards bore the image of a candle, designed from the slogan “Bring ‘Em Home,” as well as the typical phrasing of seasonal wishes, however, specifcally calling for universal unconditional amnesty, “May this Holiday Season see the Safe Return of all resisters—in exile, underground or in prison.”138 In the Christmas campaign, a prominent role of mothers of deserters enhanced the previous war-veteran credibility of fathers and father-son reconciliation with the element of motherly love. In a FORA press conference in San Francisco in late October, two mothers of deserters expressed their wish to be able to welcome their sons home for Christmas and appealed for support for unconditional amnesty. In addition to Marjorie Swartz, mother of an absentee in Canadian exile, who had previously participated in the hearings with Bella Abzug and now was a FORA activist, Mexican American Emily Leyva spoke. She was the mother of twenty-four-year-old John, who had deserted from West Germany to Sweden in the fall of 1969 after experiencing discrimination in the Army and with whom she had had no direct contact since.139 The surrender of Lewis Simon and Eddie McNally in December was staged in the form of a family reunion. Beforehand, Safe Return/FORA had announced the event as a “Christmas homecoming” and the “most important amnesty activity of the year,” but without disclosing the deserters’ return.140 Only the New York Times were informed at short notice and exclusively publicized the surrender on the same day.141 Lewis Simon, his pregnant Swedish wife Fia Magnusson, his father Abe, Eddie McNally, his fancée Robin Hefferin, and his mother Clara shared the rostrum at the well-known Village Gate nightclub in Manhattan, and many other relatives and friends were

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present at the reunion. A large banner read “Welcome Home Ed & Lew,” as did the icing on an oversized cake.142 Dozens of journalists were there, television cameras captured the very emotional meeting, and news programs covered it that evening.143 Simon and McNally, swaying between being moved, excited, and nervous, made statements on their motives to surrender to the military authorities, reassuring themselves with references to the mass of others affected by the repercussions of refusal and resistance and linking the question of amnesty to that of accountability for American illegal actions in Vietnam. Simon said that he was “coming back as a representative of all of us in exile and underground in the states and everyone who is in need of amnesty.”144 While many others had returned individually and received harsh punishment, he felt the need to publicize the matter by his own example and bring Americans to consider amnesty. Furthermore, he maintained that with the publication of the Pentagon Papers, the exposition of illegal military action in Indochina, and Watergate it became clear “that the American people had been lied to for years.” Now, leaders would “have to think twice before they start pointing the fnger at us, calling us criminals, just because we refused to kill.”145 Simon asserted that Vietnam War deserters had acted legitimately and “won’t accept any kind of amnesty that brands us as criminals and then would whitewash the people who set this whole terrible machine into motion.”146 McNally stated that they were “not alone,” but had a “crowd of people behind us” and 600,000 others had their “arms on my shoulders,” and that he was “doing this for everybody.” Convinced of this larger signifcance of his step, he was ready to surrender to military control and once more leave his loved ones. In contrast to the agitated returnees, Lewis’s father Abe Simon spoke calmly and made a solemn statement on how his son and many other refusers had “taken a proper step of making the people at home realize just how illegal and immoral this war was,” and declared that “these boys have a great future, not only for themselves, for the country, but for all of us.”147 FBI agents surrounded the Village Gate during the press conference, and after the brief encounter with their friends and relatives, Simon and McNally kissed their partners good-bye under tears and exited the building.148 Offcers rushed from the crowd gathering on the sidewalk and pulled the deserters into cars, which under shouts of support and weeping sped off into the snowy streets. The deserters were taken to the armed forces police detachment at Brooklyn Navy Yard before they were transferred for confnement to Fort Dix, New Jersey.149 The stark contrast between the emotional family reunion and the arrest had been well staged by Safe Return, and this time the dramatic scenes were publicized in the media. Reports were quite sympathetic, not least in light of the atmosphere of the holiday season and the dramatically ended family reunion. The Boston Globe, for example, commented on

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Christmas Eve that while “we expect no Christmas amnesty or pardon [. . .] we think that now that the fghting has ended in Vietnam and the prisoners are home, it is time for all Americans to think about the means of healing this sore and old wound.” Furthermore, the paper rejected the playing off of different groups affected and victimized by the Vietnam War against each other, and concluded that “it helps no one, living or dead, to prosecute those who obeyed their honest convictions,” as in the end “everything about the illegal war was unfair.”150 In Sweden, Lewis Simon’s fellow exiles followed his return to the United States with ambivalence. There was uncertainty and fear about the response of the military authorities, and there were doubts about the prospects of the surrender strategy of Safe Return and the amnesty campaign in general. On the other hand, they saw the potential of Simon’s return for the cause of amnesty and as a precedent for the deserters in exile.151 The American Exile Newsletter featured a press photo of Simon and McNally at their homecoming reunion on its cover, and an editorial pointed out the signifcance of their bold step. Accordingly, their public appearance had countered President Nixon’s efforts to downplay the case of the war refusers and their demand for an amnesty. Moreover, Simon proved that the image of the exiles as “traitors and social misfts” was wrong, as he had successfully established himself in Sweden and came back to the United States “neither defeated nor sorry or broken as an exile.” Instead, he challenged the authorities and “face[d] the killers themselves on American soil,” to call for an amnesty for himself and his peers. The editors hoped that through the example of Simon and themselves, Americans would learn to accept that they had been “not morally wrong in refusing to fght an immoral war” and that the “next generation will also refuse murder for the sake of a President’s arrogance and prestige.” At the same time, they expressed concern on how the military authorities would treat Simon and other returnees, in particular with regard to their political position and outspokenness.152 Safe Return/FORA followed up the homecoming reunion and surrender of Simon and McNally with an intensifed campaign for their release from military prison with honorable discharges. Simon’s father and McNally’s mother appealed to Americans to write their Congresspeople to have them push for leniency for their sons.153 A fyer was headlined with “Deserters” overwritten with “Resisters!”—similar to the leafet to mobilize support for the defense of Eddie Sowders—and featured long statements by Simon and McNally on their backgrounds and motives to join the military, to desert, and to return to call for amnesty. The two were introduced to represent the circa one million Americans, who had resisted the war and faced legal consequences, and as examples for those who had refused to “execute the [. . .] criminal policies” of the United States in Vietnam.154

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Simon countered allegations that most deserters had acted imprudently and without clear motives, and the view that the exiles had deliberately left behind their home and given up their American identity and citizenship. He asserted that his decision to go AWOL had in fact not come lightly, but that he underwent a long process of “personal anguish.” He learned from veterans returning from Vietnam about their “horrible ordeal” and “dehumanized existence” in Vietnam with body counts, search-and-destroy missions, and widespread drug use. Despite a relatively safe assignment, he was unable to suppress his growing dismay about the war and eventually decided to leave for Sweden. He argued nevertheless that he had been “forcibly separated” from “my country,” where “just about every legal, moral and political principle which we value in America has been trampled upon” by the governments of the Vietnam era.155 McNally, on the other hand, told his story from a tough and diffcult youth in Brooklyn, service in Vietnam and drug use, to his work as a counselor for addicts and his recent engagement—resembling a typical American narrative of a rebirth experience and the will to succeed. Like many young Americans from disadvantaged social strata, he had little options but to enlist in the military. When he was seventeen years old, a judge offered him to join the Army to be exempted from a conviction of theft. Training as an ordnance repair specialist motivated him at frst, but a reassignment to West Germany frustrated him as his skills were not needed there and where he was demoted to cleaning duty. An Army incentive to mobilize volunteers for Vietnam with a free trip home at Christmas of 1967 promised to end the monotony. However, when he experienced the “horror of Vietnam duty,” McNally began to reconsider his role as a soldier and question the war objectives, and he began using drugs, including heroin. After returning to the United States, he could not cope with the tedium of military life and went AWOL. Living underground he was able to overcome his heroin addiction, found work as an antidrugs counselor, and even enrolled in college, which he suspected had brought him back in sight of the authorities.156 Only a few weeks after the Christmas reunion, hopes for lenient treatment of Simon were shattered when Richard Bucklin was convicted of AWOL by a court-martial and sentenced to ffteen months at hard labor with a badconduct discharge. As Simon’s profle and history of desertion and exile were similar to Bucklin’s, he and the organizers of Safe Return worried over how military justice would assess his case, and earlier doubts and fear he had suppressed during the planning process, became real.157 Although not a conviction of desertion and short of the maximum AWOL penalty of two years and a dishonorable discharge, the sentence against Bucklin was a strong statement by the military to the deserters at large and a ruling satisfying amnesty opponents. At the same time, the judges avoided making him a martyr of the

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amnesty cause. The court had not allowed Bucklin’s lawyers Rudy Schware and Jeff Goldstein to address the broader issues of amnesty and the legality of the war at the trial. Moreover, prominent war opponents and amnesty activists who had planned to speak as witnesses were barred from the hearings, among them Jane Fonda and Benjamin Spock.158 Nevertheless, Bucklin’s case was publicized by amnesty proponents. At a press conference on the day before the trial Patricia Simon of Gold Star Parents for Amnesty made a strong statement on behalf of him and the war refusers in general. She rebutted the claim of amnesty opponents for punitive measures against deserters as a compensation for the parents of sons who died in the war. Instead, Simon and fellow gold star parents believed that a universal and unconditional amnesty in fact would stand as a “living memorial to all the young dead soldiers who leave us the task of giving meaning to their deaths” and help American society to overcome the divisions of the Vietnam era. Richard Bucklin himself became a fgurehead of the NCUUA amnesty campaign as representative of the white working class drafted against his conscience into the Army, next to Robert Johnson, an African American imprisoned for draft resistance since late 1969. Both, the committee pointed out, deserved “our thanks” for their acts of refusal and antiwar protest, rather than “our forgiveness,” and therefore unconditional amnesty.159 After his release from Fort Leavenworth, Bucklin became frst an organizer and then a staff member of the NCUUA.160 While Eddie McNally was quickly discharged in February 1974 as expected by Safe Return, albeit with bad-conduct papers, Lewis Simon, was kept in the military stockade and faced a court-martial on desertion charges. The key argument of Army prosecutors was that Simon had been apprehended by the military authorities in New York and had not surrendered voluntarily as it had been planned to limit the indictment to AWOL. He thus could not disprove an intent to stay away permanently, one of the criteria for a conviction of desertion.161 For the forthcoming trial, Tod Ensign and Harold Weiner prepared Simon’s defense, and Safe Return mobilized prominent supporters to make the case as political and public as possible. Benjamin Rosenthal, Democratic Congressman from New York, and former U.S. Attorney General Ramsey Clark expressed their solidarity with Lewis Simon and protested the military’s treatment of the case. Moreover, Safe Return approached Telford Taylor, former chief counsel for the prosecution at the Nuremberg war crimes trials after the Second World War and an opponent of the Vietnam War, to support the defense.162 Lewis Simon was held for three months in pretrial confnement, during which he was placed several times in solitary confnement, and was denied visits by his lawyers. Ensign criticized such harassment and suspected that it was a reaction to Simon’s open opposition to the war and his exchanges with other inmates on this matter.163

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From the Fort Dix stockade Lewis Simon wrote an open letter, which was published as an op-ed in the New York Times in February. Next to an explanation of his motives along the lines of his previous statements, now unabridged and toward a broader audience, the text refected his distrust in military justice, which had already “adjudged [him] guilty” in advance, and his fear that the deserters would fall victim to the general process of forgetting of the war in Vietnam and the divisions of American society. Although there was now a certain consensus among Americans that the intervention in Vietnam had been a mistake and a “universal denunciation of our war policies” had been conceded “even by the [war’s] architects themselves,” Simon lamented that the deserters and draft resisters were not recognized for their early realization about this, but “daily prosecuted, imprisoned, or branded with a ‘bad’ discharge.” He argued that they had in fact “refus[ed] to carry out illegal policies” and were now made scapegoats for the Vietnam War, while those responsible were not identifed as the “real criminals.” In consequence, the treatment of war refusers by the authorities was unfair because “the same military and civilian commanders who conducted the war in Vietnam are prosecuting me and tens of thousands” others “rather than admitting that they themselves are responsible for the destruction of Indochina and the thousands of American casualties.”164 Another opportunity to further publicize the case of Simon opened in March, when Safe Return was invited to participate in hearings on amnesty before a subcommittee of the Judiciary Committee of the House of Representatives, initiated and chaired by Democratic Representative Robert Kastenmeier of Wisconsin. Henry Schwarzschild, director of the ACLU amnesty project, suggested to have Eddie Sowders testify at the hearings, however, Uhl and Ensign aimed at bringing Simon into the spotlight while he was awaiting trial.165 To have a deserter who was imminently affected by military justice call for universal unconditional amnesty on this level was critical, when six of the seven bills under discussion, except that by Bella Abzug, proposed conditional and limited pardon policies. When the committee offcially invited Simon as witness, however, the Department of Defense refused to allow him to leave the stockade and appear at the hearings in Washington.166 Military leaders maintained that his testimony could infuence his upcoming courtmartial, a point that Simon and Safe Return regarded groundless, as this legal principle normally applies to plaintiffs to not incriminate themselves and usually is not cited by judicial authorities. However, the congressional committee refrained from issuing a subpoena to force the military to release Simon temporarily, and in place of his son, Abe Simon agreed to testify and read out a statement by Lewis.167 As in his previous declarations, he explained the genesis of his objection against the Vietnam War and his conscientious decision to go AWOL and into exile. Moreover, he expressed his personal wish

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to return to Sweden to join his wife for the birth of their frst child in the summer, and to travel legally to the United States to meet his family later on.168 Abe Simon stated his own position on amnesty and recounted his personal reconciliation with his son’s decision, which had taken him several years. He argued that only through the young war refusers’ actions, Americans had come to realize their government’s errant Vietnam policy, and asserted “these boys brought home to us the message of actually what was going on.” Specifcally, he took a stand for the deserters in Sweden, who were “sincere in their opinions” and “took the only step that was open to them in the Army [: the] complete disassociation from this evil” in Vietnam, which “took more courage [. . .] than to submit to what they thought was not proper.” He pointed out that their desertion was specifcally a response to the illegitimate intervention in Vietnam and that they “would never hesitate [. . .] in the defense of their country” if it were attacked. Abe Simon specifcally addressed members of his own generation, in particular fellow veterans of the Second World War, who were speaking out against amnesty at the hearings. Himself a veteran of “more than 3 years in European operations” and a member of Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW) for ffteen years, he said, “I almost feel I should be in the group [of VFW spokesmen] that was here before me.” Originally he had held a similar position on Vietnam War refusers as them, but his son’s action made him “change completely.”169 Abe Simon’s testimony impressed media observers. He, the “hero” of the Second World War turned amnesty “radical” who “ple[d] for [his] [d]eserter [s]on” stood as a symbol of reconciliation of the generations of the Second World War and the Vietnam confict. His own war experience, not least in a tank unit during the famous Battle of the Bulge of the turn of 1944 and 1945, gave him a special authority to defend the Vietnam war refusers and seemed to make up for his son’s lack thereof.170 Two weeks later, Lewis Simon faced an Army court-martial at Fort Dix. He was convicted of AWOL and sentenced to seven months at hard labor and a bad-conduct discharge, with no deduction of his three-month pretrial confnement. The ruling shocked Simon, his fve-months pregnant wife Fia, his parents, and his supporters.171 While the military leadership tried to minimize publicity for the trial, Safe Return and lawyer Harold Weiner had intended to bring the general amnesty issue before the court. Simon and his counsels chose a defense based on conscientious war refusal, however, this time without an explicit reference to the Nuremberg Principles. Simon explained how he, like thousands of others, came to oppose the war, and that his conscience left him no moral alternative but to seek refuge in Sweden. Former Attorney General Ramsey Clark appeared as witness and made a strong appeal for amnesty, arguing that the United States “government need[ed] not be afraid of people who act [on] their conscience,” but instead profted from these citizens. Clark had acted on this principle while still in offce, when he had proposed impunity

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for war resisters Benjamin Spock and William Sloane Coffn.172 The military judges found that Simon had acted intentionally and noted his conscientious motives, but argued that these were at best mitigating. Otherwise, the court avoided any discussion of the war in Vietnam or the broader amnesty question but concluded the trial in a routine fashion.173 Simon’s fellow exiles in Sweden received the news of the tough sentence as “grim for many of us,” which together with the still longer term of Richard Bucklin “confrm[ed] that the military apparently feels much greater thirst for revenge,” than many of them had anticipated.174 The ambivalent outcome of Simon’s confrontation with the military authorities justifed many deserters’ skepticism toward the amnesty movement. Nevertheless, their community newsletter acclaimed Simon’s “sacrifce for the beneft of all of us here in exile and at home” as an important move to publicize the need for an amnesty, which at the same time “made it harder for the nation to easily forget that the war in Indochina is not over,” the latter an essential part of the amnesty plea of the exiles in Sweden.175 After Simon was transferred to the military prison at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, American sympathizers and his peers in Sweden sent him letters of solidarity and appealed to military leaders for lenience and a reduction of his sentence. Simon himself refrained from further protest statements from jail, disillusioned about the strategy of Safe Return and his role as test-case returnee and fearing that this would make his situation even worse.176 An appeal by ACLU lawyer Marvin Karpatkin to Army Judge Advocate General George Prugh was fnally successful, and Simon was allowed to end his confnement in July, arriving in Stockholm just twenty-four hours before the birth of his daughter. Back in Sweden, he withdrew from the frontlines of amnesty activism and turned to his new life as a father and to continue his studies.177 The organizers of Safe Return were themselves disenchanted with how they had failed to create greater publicity and solidarity for the amnesty cause. Upset by the outcome of Simon’s trial, Michael Uhl and Tod Ensign decided soon after to abandon the strategy of deserters’ surrenders and to consider different approaches.178 In fact, their underestimating of Army leaders’ rigor exposed a crucial contradiction in the concept of Safe Return. With the surrender of a deserter from exile or underground they aimed to publicize and dramatize the threat of military justice for a mass of young Americans, while at the same time they appealed for lenient treatment of the individual returnee. It was a dangerous tactic, thus, to have a fugitive absentee publicize his motives to desert and then plead for AWOL upon voluntary surrender. The quick discharges for war veterans Herndon and McNally relieved them from confnement, but prevented public indignation about the military’s harsh treatment of its dissenters. In contrast, the factual leniency of military justice made the continued call for amnesty sound obsolete to

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many Americans. The consequences of less-than-honorable discharges were diffcult for amnesty advocates to explain and communicate, unlike long periods of confnement in the military stockade. The tough sentences issued to Richard Bucklin and Lewis Simon did dramatize the issue and created much outrage among amnesty activists, arguably mobilizing new support for the campaign. Still, media observers were not moved enough by the rulings to condemn military leaders—apparently the sentences of roughly one year were not considered too long and drastic. In fact, compared with often longer jail terms for draft resisters, the decisions on military absentees seemed lenient to many, including moderate amnesty advocates. Moreover, Safe Return did not really succeed to turn the trials of returnees into political and public ones. The military authorities restricted access of the media and witnesses, and furthermore stopped many of the lawyers’ initiatives to bring the broader dimensions of the Vietnam War and amnesty before the courts. After all “military justice is to justice as military music is to music,” journalist Robert Sherrill remarked on the Vietnam era citing French statesman Georges Clemenceau; and thus deserters were dealt with in compliance to the Uniform Code of Military Justice and according to a military understanding of individual rights and freedoms, not that of civilian lawyers and even less according to the agenda of amnesty advocates.179 Nevertheless, like no other form of action, the return of American deserters from the underground and from exile brought the plight of the mass of military absence offenders to the public mind and into the amnesty debate. Moreover, the examples of individual absentees created public awareness about the situation of military offenders in general, when campaigners addressed their numbers and informed about the extent of the GI movement, dissent, and insubordination in the military during the Vietnam War. Next to the book on the surrender of John David Herndon, a number of publications contributed to the mobilization of sympathies, or at least understanding, for the deserters among the American public. First in a series of press articles and in 1974 as a book, Lucinda Franks covered the exile community in Sweden with a focus on John Picciano.180 She pointed out the human dimension and personal consequences of war refusal, exile, and the need for an amnesty in unprecedented detail, while also explaining the politicization of the exiles and defending their at times radical positions. Daniel Lang included a long piece on deserters in exile into his collection of essays on Americans who protested the war in Vietnam and refused participation in it, and whose action he defended as “patriotism without fags.”181 Next to Thomas Lee Hayes’s and Reston’s accounts, as well as Terry Whitmore’s memoir of 1971, these publications added the plight of deserters in Europe to the growing list of books on war refusal, exile, and amnesty. Beyond the American Vietnam War, the deserters also inspired refections on war refusal in a broader and historical

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perspective. Marcel Ophüls included the examples of Eddie Sowders and Lewis Simon as young men who acted according to the human “memory of justice” and the Nuremberg Principles in his flm investigation into antiwar resistance in Germany during the Second World War, in France during the Algerian War, and in the United States during the Vietnam War.182 Moreover, desertion, exile, and the need for amnesty also inspired popular fction, such as the movie Two People by Robert Wise, starring Peter Fonda and Lindsay Wagner, which premiered in 1974. While set as a romantic drama and thus missing the quantitative dimension of desertion of the Vietnam era and reproducing one of the typical images of desertion in the arts, the flm was welcomed by some exiles as a means to reach middle-class Americans. With its Hollywood compatible plot and mainstream distribution, the flm won wider audiences in the United States than independent productions on American deserters of the time, such as Summer Soldiers and A.W.O.L., both of 1972, which were more experimental and did not address the question of amnesty explicitly.183 Moreover, in the spring of 1974, desertion was brought to the attention of Americans in a historical perspective with a television flm on the case of Eddie Slovik, who in early 1945 became the only deserter from the U.S. armed forces to be executed since the Civil War. The flm critically addressed how American democracy and its military authorities dealt with deserters, and thus alluded to this imminent question of the Vietnam debate. At the same time, the Vietnam War and the confrontations of draftage Americans with the generation of the Second World War prompted such a new assessment of the latter, which had been glorifed as the ‘good war’ in the postwar era. Although the achievements of the American victory were not disputed, not least the Nuremberg Principles now serving opponents of the Vietnam War as an important reference, the military system and the effects of war on the individual were now considered more critically. Besides the Slovik case, the matter was also treated in 1970 in a flm adaptation of Joseph Heller’s Catch-22, whose satirical take on the military and its response to a deserter received great acclaim among the Vietnam generation.184 GERALD FORD’S CLEMENCY Less than two weeks after his inauguration as president in August 1974, Gerald Ford announced plans for a conditional amnesty for deserters and draft resisters as a crucial part of his efforts for national reconciliation and to “[bind] the nation’s wounds” after the divisions of the Vietnam years. He did so before a convention of the VFW—clearly a negative audience—and asserted that dissension was a crucial element of public discourse in a democracy, but should not “descend into angry discord” as the Vietnam debate often had and

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the amnesty question was threatening to.185 Ford affrmed his opposition to an unconditional pardon, but warned of “revenge” against those “few citizens” who had “committed the supreme folly of shirking their duty at the expense of others.” Rather, he proposed, they should be offered “mercy” and given the chance to “come home” if they “want to work their way back.”186 With requiring the men to “earn” their “reentry” through alternative service and an act of contrition, a compromise inspired by proposals by Melvin Laird, Secretary of Defense during the Nixon administration, and Republican Senator Robert Taft Jr., Ford aimed to allow draft resisters and deserters to reintegrate without affronting those opposed to amnesty too much. The president instructed Attorney General William Saxbe and Secretary of Defense James Schlesinger to work out an assessment of the matter by September.187 Ford was immediately criticized by both advocates and opponents of an amnesty for Vietnam War refusers. Commander Ray Soden of the VFW rejected any form of clemency and argued that those who violated the law must face the American judicial system, from draft resisters and deserters to Richard Nixon, as there should be “no difference in our system for bugging in or bugging out.” American Legion national commander Robert Eaton agreed that it was not the president or Congress, but rather the courts, which held the authority to decide on the treatment of draft and military offenders. For different reasons, Gerry Condon, previously deserter-exile in Sweden and now one of the editors of Amex and spokesman for the exile community in Canada, stated that he and his fellow war refusers found Ford’s proposal “totally unacceptable” and not apt to bring about reconciliation, the objective claimed for his presidency. With the provision of alternative service, the president would “extract one more pound of fesh” from the resisters whose lives had already been upended.188 In an op-ed for the Los Angeles Times, Condon also criticized the exclusion of veterans from the proposed program, who had already been discharged with less-than-honorable papers. At around a half-million they made up the largest group of Americans in need of amnesty and would be left as “second-class citizens” because of their “life sentences” for offenses, most of which were military-specifc and would not have been liable to prosecution in a civilian context.189 Along similar lines, exiles in Sweden condemned the required act of contrition and alternative service, which they considered a punitive measure, and reiterated their call for universal unconditional amnesty. Like earlier during the debate, some suspected that the proposal was another means to have Americans believe the war in Indochina was over and to cover up continued U.S. military assistance there.190 Any hopes in the program and potential willingness for compromise among amnesty proponents and exiles were frustrated when, on September 8, President Ford issued a full pardon for his predecessor Richard Nixon for

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any criminal offenses he may have committed while in offce. The prospect of a clemency program for draft resisters and deserters then seemed a farce, and its early announcement appeared to have served Ford only as a means to preempt public outrage about his treatment of Nixon.191 The editorial of the American Exile Newsletter in Sweden now denounced Ford’s clemency plan as a “publicity-stunt” to “outrun” the criticism for his pardon of Nixon and to emerge as “reconciliatory Father,” while glossing over continued American support to warring parties in Indochina. At least, the editors argued, the amnesty movement had succeeded in not letting the president “pardon [the] real criminals without taking up the issue of the war resisters.”192 In another article for the Los Angeles Times, Gerry Condon condemned Ford for his “cynical attempt to play off Nixon’s very real criminality against our conscientiously caused legal jeopardy.” According to Condon, the deserters and draft resisters were “bitter and upset at this ironic turn of events,” although their long exile had “often left [them] to laugh at the utter absurdity of it all.” Now, however, they were disillusioned and realized that “total amnesty will never come.” If nothing else, Condon pointed out, Watergate was a lesson to be learned by Americans about their country’s political system.193 One week later, President Gerald Ford presented his program of clemency for draft and military offenders of the Vietnam War. He noted the “great losses” suffered by the United States in the war and by those who had served, been wounded, died, or listed as MIA, before he addressed the “thousands of our countrymen” who had violated the Selective Service Act or the Uniform Code of Military Justice and whose “status remains unresolved” over one year after the American withdrawal from Vietnam. While he asserted that their acts did “not require [to] be condoned” and that desertion and draft refusal were “serious offense[s],” Ford argued that “reconciliation among our people” did necessitate an “act of mercy to bind the Nation’s wounds and to heal the scars of divisiveness.” In this spirit, he offered draft and military offenders to “earn return to their country, their communities, and their families” by fulflling a period of alternative service and renewing their allegiance to the United States.194 In his “commitment to justice and mercy” Ford thus integrated the war resisters into the group of those who had been most affected by the Vietnam War, overcoming the dichotomy between veterans and refusers drawn by amnesty opponents. He invited them to return as compatriots, however without vindicating their illegal actions. The provision that the refusers make up for the military service they had evaded, the president believed, could serve as a middle ground for both amnesty advocates and opponents.195 Ford made reference to the efforts of previous presidents for national reconciliation, Harry S. Truman’s pardon for draft refusers after the Second World War and with much greater historical weight Abraham Lincoln’s pledge to restore the

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Union of his second inaugural address in 1865, with the wording to “bind up the nation’s wounds” used verbatim by Ford. Furthermore, a “restoration of the essential unity of Americans” was necessary for a return to the democratic culture of argument and dissent, according to Ford, where “honest differences of opinion do not descend to angry discord and mutual problems are not polarized by excessive passion.”196 Following the pardon of Nixon to restore the honor of the presidency and citizens’ trust in the institution, the war-refuser clemency was therefore Ford’s second measure to realize his objective to reconcile Americans. According to the program, unconvicted draft offenders of the period between August 4, 1964, and March 28, 1973—the dates of the Gulf of Tonkin incident and of the departure of the last American troops from Vietnam, respectively—were to contact a U.S. Attorney, reaffrm their allegiance to the United States, and agree to fulfll civilian service for a maximum of twenty-four months. Military absentees at large, administratively listed as deserters, of the same time frame were required to report to an authority of their military service branch, profess their loyalty under oath, and pledge to the same alternative service requirements. Absentees would frst receive undesirable discharges, which ended their status as fugitives immediately. After completion of alternative service, the papers would be upgraded to clemency discharges, a new supposedly neutral category, which nevertheless identifed recipients as military offenders and did not entitle them to veteran benefts. Furthermore, Ford established a nine-member Presidential Clemency Board to review the cases of applying convicted draft and military offenders and decide on their eligibility.197 Former Senator Charles Goodell, one of the most vocal opponents of the war in Vietnam in the Republican Party, was named chair of the Clemency Board, and among the members were Vernon Jordan, president of the African American civil rights organization National Urban League, and Father Theodore Hesburgh, president of the University of Notre Dame, a war opponent and amnesty advocate.198 They represented leniency and compassion for the war offenders and disadvantaged social groups, next to the military men and the legal experts on the board. Alternative service was to be administered by the Selective Service System, a rather ironic fact for the war refusers as this institution had implemented military conscription during the war. Around 15,500 draft offenders, 12,500 military absentees at large, and 660 deserters convicted or awaiting trial were at frst announced to be eligible to apply for relief from charges; the around 500,000 veterans with less-than-honorable discharges for which amnesty advocates claimed a solution as well were excluded. Although many of them accounted for the half a million desertion incidents during the Vietnam War, a large number of them had been convicted or discharged for other offenses.199 Since the Ford program concerned only

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those offenders not yet discharged, it arguably served to help the U.S. military to clear these cases and thereby end the period of dissent of the Vietnam years, after it had been reorganized as an all-volunteer force in 1973.200 While both amnesty advocates and opponents rejected the president’s plan, American media commentators mostly regarded Ford’s policy a fair compromise. The Christian Science Monitor “applaud[ed]” his move and deemed the requirements as an appropriate means for “balancing the scales” between the refusers and those who had accepted the consequences of alternative service or prison for conscientious objection and draft resistance, as well as those who had served.201 The Atlanta Constitution commended Ford’s “rough genius” to not give in to either side of the amnesty debate but work out a “sensible and moderate” policy and “decent method of satisfaction or reconciliation,” which the majority of Americans would accept.202 Also, the Chicago Tribune maintained that the “fair plan” and the compromise of “justice and pragmatism” would fnd public support, affrmed by a Harris survey soon after the proclamation.203 Less enthusiastically, the Washington Post acknowledged the “reasonable balance” achieved by Ford and noted that after the “unfair” pardon of Nixon, a “just as unfair” full amnesty for war refusers would have been a “second wrong,” which could not have “redeemed the frst one.” Nevertheless, the editorial objected to the obligatory loyalty professions, which it called “futile and feudal,” resembling Old Europe rather than American democratic ideals and modern liberalism, and regarded alternative service as suffcient proof of the participants’ commitment.204 In contrast, the commentator of the Boston Globe expressed “disappointment” with the conditional clemency, when the president “could so easily pardon” his predecessor “after leading the nation to the brink of chaos,” but deemed it “better than nothing at all.”205 While the New York Times agreed with the latter, its columnist Tom Wicker found that “evenhanded prosecution under the law would be fairer” and predicted that Ford’s “bad” and “complex plan” would “keep the passions and animosities of the war [. . .] alive for years to come,” instead of reaching reconciliation. Through the involvement of different authorities, there could not be true justice for all participants, and the provisions violated the principle of due process as well as the abolition of “involuntary servitude” by the Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution, accordingly.206 Some speculated that Ford’s early announcement of his clemency plans had served to compensate for his unpopular full pardon of Nixon. The president immediately denied such allegations and deemed it necessary to testify before a congressional subcommittee to assert his integrity in October.207 Often the commentary on the Ford clemency program refected a bias in favor of draft refusers and against military deserters, already evident in the previous debate on amnesty. There was wide consensus that desertion required

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harsher treatment than draft resistance, and that those who had committed the latter had been motivated by more honorable and conscientious motives. The New York Times, for example, found that Ford’s clemency program did not adequately distinguish between draft resisters and military absentees, unjustly burdened both groups with the same provisions of alternative service, and did not include the option of pardons for draft refusers, which had previously been issued by some courts.208 Moreover, although the Ford administration had noted the roughly 500,000 incidents of desertion, most commentators did not consider the drastic discrepancy between the number of those eligible and the mass of military offenders not entitled to receive clemency because they had already been discharged.209 Apparently, there was still reluctance or disbelief among media observers regarding the sheer extent of desertions in the context of the Vietnam War, despite these offcial fgures published now and since the late 1960s. Another indicator for a bias against military absentees was the so-called “deserter loophole,” discovered by reporters soon after the clemency program had been offcially introduced. Accordingly, deserters who surrendered to the military were able to evade alternate service after being discharged, and there seemed to be no legal means for the authorities to force them to fulfll this obligation, an option unavailable to their draft-refuser peers.210 The media were quick to argue that this way a major element of the requirements to make up for unfulflled military service and to earn one’s reentry into the United States could be circumvented. As a result, those “who opposed the war on principle” and had “followed the call of their conscience,” which an editorial in the New York Times only attributed to the draft refusers, were unfairly disadvantaged.211 In their claims that the Ford program favored deserters, however, commentators overlooked the severe consequences of undesirable discharges for the future lives of those thus marked for a lifetime, as many others had in their assessments of punishments of military offenders before.212 Over the duration of the clemency program, it would turn out that few returning deserters were to choose this uncertain road, that they were not immune to prosecution by the military, and that draft evaders were generally treated more leniently by the judicial authorities concerning the amount of alternative service to be completed than deserters were by the military. OPPOSITION TO FORD’S CLEMENCY OFFER AND THE RETURN OF GERRY CONDON American exile spokesmen in Sweden and France rejected the conditions for relief of the clemency program. Desmond Carragher regarded the provisions

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of alternative service “punishment not amnesty” and rejected the required affrmation of allegiance, as this would mean an “admission of guilt.”213 William Males argued that the program in effect offered no broad relief but was “good only for the very tiny minority who would go back anyway.”214 Members of the exile community in Stockholm presented the American ambassador with a letter of protest to be sent to Washington, in which they condemned the clemency program as “totally inadequate and unsatisfactory” and claimed that their refusal to serve in Vietnam had already been a “very real service in the very best interests of the United States.” They argued that not their own, but the allegiance of the political and military leaders was “under serious question,” both “for their ordering the massive deaths of human beings” in Indochina and “for tricking American youths into sacrifcing lives and limbs for an unjust cause.” The protest reiterated the exiles’ demand for a punishment of the architects of the American war in Vietnam and refected the disillusionment of many members of the Vietnam generation.215 With their “almost unanimous [. . .] reject[ion]” of Ford’s “phoney amnesty” the exiles in Sweden not only asserted their call for universal unconditional amnesty but claimed historical signifcance for their own action as a precedent for the “next generation of young would-be soldiers” to “be even more sharp in their yelling ‘Hell, no!’”216 While most reactions to the clemency program were made in a serious tone and marked by determination to boycott it, cartoons in exile newsletters sardonically commented on the alleged deal made between Ford and Nixon, and the full pardon for “those who kill” and the prospect of “2 years servitude” for “those who have refused to kill.”217 An open letter to Gerald Ford by William Males inverted the question of amnesty and guilt as well as the authority to grant it. He ironically offered the president a “chance to work your way back into the democratic community” after his pardon of Nixon, mocking the wording of Ford’s announcement of the clemency plans in August.218 American deserters in Europe joined forces with exiles in Canada for a unifed response to the Ford clemency. A meeting in Toronto in late September, originally planned to elect a new exile representative to the NCUUA, attracted roughly two hundred deserters and draft resisters from various countries of exile as well as amnesty activists from the United States.219 Gerry Condon, one of the organizers, argued that the “right and responsibility of citizens to resist an unjust war,” which the refusers had claimed and defended, would be subverted by an acceptance of the conditional clemency.220 The fnal resolution of the conference declared a “whole-[hearted] reject[ion of] the concept of punitive repatriation,” reiterated the call for universal unconditional amnesty for draft refusers, deserters, veterans with less-than-honorable discharges, and other war opponents, and demanded full veteran benefts

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for all who had served in the war. The resolution proposed single-type discharges for all veterans, a model previously introduced by VVAW/WSO, as an alternative to the new clemency discharges. Furthermore, it called on those eligible for clemency to boycott the Ford program, unless they were ready to challenge it as part of the continued amnesty campaign.221 At frst, a looser boycott was under discussion among exile activists. However, the stand of the majority was radicalized when they learned about the plans of the American NCC to invest a large sum into a counseling network for war refusers in exile and in the United States, who contemplated participating in the Ford program. Many conveners found this to be an encouragement of exiles to submit to the punitive conditions, and as a result even a proposal to include a section into the boycott resolution that returnees were not to be stigmatized was overruled.222 Many American groups advocating amnesty shared the opposition against the punitive character of the Ford program. Most importantly, the NCUUA declared its solidarity with the conference and announced new campaign activities for universal unconditional amnesty.223 Also, the CCCO asserted that a boycott was inevitable to prevent an acceptance of the Ford program by the American public as the fnal measure of relief for Vietnam war refusers, which would subvert any further campaigning for a real amnesty.224 Moreover, Veterans for Peace placed a full-page ad in the New York Times, protesting the pardon for Nixon and the “phony ‘amnesty’ for resisters” and calling for a “full and immediate amnesty” for all war refusers and military offenders. Moreover, instead of the new other-than-honorable clemency discharges, the organization demanded an upgrading of all discharges to honorable and appealed to Congress to take action and counter the president’s policy.225 Safe Return opposed the Ford program for its “vindictive and punitive” character and supported the boycott, but now shifted its campaign focus from deserters to returning draft exiles. After the U.S. military had been turned into an allvolunteer force, Safe Return argued, the prosecution of draft resister William Meis for his refusal to participate in the clemency program could better be publicized and condemned as a witch-hunt against protestors of the bygone era of military conscription.226 The editors of the American Exile Newsletter and community representatives in Sweden, such as the American Exile Project, called on exiles to participate in the boycott and engage in the continued amnesty campaign with letters to politicians, friends, and relatives to mobilize broader support for their cause. Here and for answering American journalists, they were advised to assert their legitimate action to refuse participation in the Vietnam War and point out their opposition to the Ford clemency, which aimed to have Americans forget their nation’s illegal war instead of vindicating deserters and draft resisters.227 The will to boycott the Ford program was strong among

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exiles, and American activists encouraged them, such as Daniel Berrigan when he visited Stockholm in the fall.228 Nevertheless, the considerations of individuals to return to the United States—those “who quite simply just want to go home”—which had previously been suppressed in community discourse were more openly addressed, now that an offcial program of clemency made their repatriation possible, if at the price of alternative service.229 Even though exile activists, including those involved in the American Exile Project, strongly criticized the Ford program and supported the boycott, they fulflled their responsibility for their peers who wanted to go back and counseled them on the new opportunity. The project and the newsletters outlined program regulations, published documents, forms and provisions, and updated exiles on the practice and development of its implementation. Moreover, they advised those thinking of participating to be cautious about the disclosure of personal information when they called the U.S. authorities to inquire about their eligibility, in order not to incriminate themselves. Besides, they suggested consulting a legal representative to take on the matter back home, and to consider alternative ways to return outside the clemency program, drawing on materials of the NCUUA and the CCCO.230 The boycott was more a political statement than a renunciation of a personal interest for most of the exile activists, who were settled in Sweden and not in desperate need to travel to the United States. They mostly tolerated returnees and refrained from branding them publicly. However, when one deserter came back to Sweden after he had undergone the clemency process and reported on Swedish television how easy and benefcial the Ford program was, he was denounced as a “scab” and an “irresponsible opportunist,” and attacked for his betrayal and “defance of the community decision” for a boycott that he had originally supported.231 With the end of the clemency program nearing, amnesty advocates mobilized to push for a more comprehensive solution. One tactic was to have exiles enter the United States on the ffteen-day grace period granted to returnees and to personally rally for amnesty.232 Draft resister Steve Grossman from Canada was the frst to use this strategy in late 1974, and in early February 1975, Gerry Condon surfaced in Washington, DC to begin a speaking tour of the United States.233 In 1969, Condon had been sentenced in absentia to ten years in the military stockade and a dishonorable discharge for his refusal of service in Vietnam, later reduced to two years and a badconduct discharge, and now risked arrest. However, he believed that his capture would dramatize the amnesty issue further, and thus either development would beneft the cause.234 After he entered the United States from Canada with a false ID, Condon was introduced as a surprise guest by former attorney general Ramsey Clark and returned POW and Marine Corps veteran Edison Miller to a meeting of families of war resisters and Vietnam casualties

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in Washington organized by the NCUUA, continuing the previous concept of FORA. Condon, who as a Green Beret refused orders to Vietnam in 1968 and spent several years in Swedish and Canadian exile, told the audience that if arrested, he was ready to fght for amnesty in court. If not, he would travel the United States to protest the Ford program and rally for the cause of universal unconditional amnesty.235 The press reported of parents moved to tears by Condon, as he represented their sons’ generation to them, a peer of both those in exile or in jail as well as those killed in the war. Fathers and mothers of exiled draft refusers and deserters, and gold star parents, among them Patricia Simon and Robert Ransom, lauded Condon as a “kindred soul,” who was “perfect” to become the new fgurehead of the amnesty movement.236 Also present at the convention, which was followed by meetings with Senators and Representatives of the exiles’ home states, were the parents of Dick Perrin, one of the frst deserters to go public in Europe in 1967. Dick now lived in Canada and had largely withdrawn from exile activism. His father Rene, a veteran of the Second World War, and his mother Betty, a nurse in a VA hospital, had previously not been engaged in politics, but now became amnesty activists themselves, after a long process of reconciliation with Dick’s decision.237 From Washington, Gerry Condon few to Los Angeles for his next appearance of what was planned as a speaking tour of seven weeks, but in the end amounted to over four months. He visited approximately ffty cities, spoke at protest rallies, college campuses, on radio shows, testifed at congressional hearings, and met with high school students and veteran groups, flling the roles of both draft-age American in need of amnesty as well as organizer.238 A highlight was Condon’s presentation at a rally of 50,000 in New York City’s Central Park to celebrate the end of the war in Vietnam on May 11, 1975, when he was introduced to a cheering crowd by gold star mother Louise Ransom and head of Americans for Amnesty, which she had initiated in 1973.239 In March, Gerry Condon attended the last press conference of Clemency Board chairman Charles Goodell before the application period expired and confronted the former senator on his previous opposition to the Vietnam War and his present loyalty to President Ford and current U.S. military aid to Cambodia and Vietnam. Condon demanded a real amnesty, and Goodell threatened that he would be arrested before journalists calmed the heated exchange.240 In April, Condon was invited to testify at the hearings of a subcommittee of the Committee on the Judiciary of the House of Representatives chaired by Robert Kastenmeier to assess the effects of the clemency program. There, he explained his own development from the son of an Irish Catholic family, his father and uncles veterans of the Second World War and former or active policemen, and a Green Beret to a war opponent and deserter, and presented the position of the exiles on amnesty.241

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Condon cited the Nuremberg Principles and “human morality” as basis for his and others’ desertion, and asserted their “unalienable right to resist unjust wars.” Encouraged by many sympathetic Americans he met during his United States tour, including war veterans, he called on the president to recognize the broad acceptance of an amnesty and extend it to the around one million Vietnam-era military offenders and civilian war resisters. Condon made a particularly strong case for the many Vietnam veterans, often from racial and ethnic minorities, who frst “bore the brunt of fghting” in the war, had received less-than-honorable discharges, and were now struggling in civilian life, but were excluded from Ford’s clemency program as well as new amnesty bills under discussion. That he had not been arrested after the end of the grace period, Condon suggested, resulted from the authorities’ efforts to avoid a scandalization of his case, as a well-known deserter facing punishment would have further benefted the amnesty campaign.242 Moreover, during the extended periods of application of the clemency program, Condon’s arrest would have subverted the advertisement for participation.243 After its expiration, the longer Condon was free and continued his tour, the more publicity and protests a court-martial would have caused, for which LMDC lawyers Howard De Nike and David Addlestone prepared a defense strategy.244 An arrest of Condon planned by the authorities at Tougaloo College in Mississippi, where he was to speak in late April, was called off after the NCUUA had learned about this and a sympathetic reporter of the New York Times had inquired with the Pentagon on the matter, demonstrating the great potential for publicity for Condon’s case. In June, the Army judiciary decided to drop Condon’s pending jail sentence, and he received a bad-conduct discharge.245 Gerry Condon’s return to the United States marked a new stage in the amnesty campaign and the position of the NCUUA. Condon was not only a charismatic speaker for the deserters and military offenders, but a determined activist, and by the summer he joined the national offce of the organization in New York. He thus impersonated the shift toward the more radical demand for universal unconditional amnesty, on which the coalition had originally been founded but which was not taken as an irrevocable objective by all members, some of whom would accept a liberal compromise legislation.246 The leftist faction in the NCUUA had been occupied by Amex and the VVAW, and the latter’s withdrawal in the summer of 1975 opened the way for Condon to take on an important role in the organization. Before, his tour of the United States had brought new energy to the movement on several levels, motivated grassroots organizing, drew the attention of the local and national media, and confronted political decision-makers.247 His standing as fgurehead of the amnesty campaign is documented by a pamphlet published by the NCUUA in the spring, which featured a portrait of the handsome young

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Condon in his Green Beret uniform and referred to the young Americans in need of amnesty as “the Gerry Condons” of the Vietnam generation.248 In the wake of the Ford clemency program, a reorganization of the amnesty movement was crucial to maintain consciousness among Americans on the matter, in particular in light of the presidential election year 1976. The formerly exiled deserters played a critical role in this process, not least with Condon and Richard Bucklin as members of the NCUUA national offce.249

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OUTCOMES OF THE CLEMENCY PROGRAM Participation in the clemency program had begun slow in the fall of 1974, and with the deadline for applications approaching in January 1975, only three percent of eligible deserters and draft resisters had registered, of 10,115 military absentees still at large, 90,000 convicted military absence offenders, and 13,222 draft offenders, eventually qualifying for relief or a review of their cases. The Ford administration thus extended the program twice and increased advertising for it, with announcements in the media and letters to parents of war refusers. Applications, in particular by convicted offenders, rose considerably until the new expiration of the program at the end of March, six and a half months after its inception in September 1974. By then, a total of around 19,000 military and almost 2,600 draft offenders had applied for a clemency, for each group just over nineteen percent of all eligible. The highest rate of returnees were fugitive military absentees, over half of whose 10,115 eligible eventually applied for a clemency. Most of them had lived within the United States, and only a very small share had returned from Canadian or European exile. The prolongation of the program and advertising were in particular successful in reaching eligible convicted military absence offenders and draft refusers, and over ninety-fve percent of applications from these groups were fled from January to the end of March.250 Next to the lack of government information, the focus of media reports on fugitives and the men in Canadian and European exile and their prominent role in the amnesty debate had contributed to an unawareness of their own eligibility among many offenders living in the United States. For absentees and draft refusers at large, on the other hand, the increased participation more likely resulted from a fear of missing the possibly last chance for relief, rather than their being fully convinced by the regulations and conditions. That the clemency had reached less than one-ffth of those eligible was not deemed a failure by the Presidential Clemency Board in its concluding report on the Ford program, neither the limitation of eligibility to a much smaller number of members of the Vietnam generation than those proposed by amnesty advocates. Instead, the board acclaimed President Ford’s “courageous” and “wise” realization of

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his clemency as a middle ground between the demands of amnesty advocates and opponents and as “cornerstone for national reconciliation” after the war in Vietnam, and expressed “confden[ce] that history will regard this program as a success” when the task of reviewing over 15,000 applications from convicted draft and military refusers was completed in September 1975.251 Viewed with certain skepticism by some observers early on, the practice of the different agencies involved in the clemency process resulted in diverging amounts of alternative service requirements for military absentees and draft refusers, and convicted members of both groups. Military absentees and draft refusers at large were confronted with much higher service requirements than their convicted peers who had their cases reviewed by the Presidential Clemency Board, which offered much greater leniency. Although issued by separate agencies and on the basis of military and civilian laws, respectively, the high service amounts required by the Joint Alternate Service Board of the military departments and by the judicial authorities were in effect more similar for the two groups of war resisters than the decisions of the Clemency Board—not without irony as the latter claimed greater fairness in its treatment of applicants. However, its practice was based on a distinction between military and draft offenders and the principle that the latter deserved greater leniency than the former. Incidentally, although very severe, the decisions by the military and judicial authorities therefore came closer to the concept of equal treatment for all war refusers, subsumed under the amnesty movement’s claim for universality. The much lower requirements demanded from applicants to the Clemency Board, in turn, approximated the calls for a relief from conditions.252 Besides legal and military-judicial principles, the Presidential Clemency Board based its leniency policy on social, economic, and psychological assumptions on the young Americans, resulting in further distinctions between the groups. In its assessment of draft and military absence offenses, the board adhered to the concept that the latter were the more serious variety and that the former were more likely the result of conscientious convictions. This is refected in its defnitions of mitigating and aggravating circumstances. For draft offenders, there were several options for a mitigating explanation of a refusal as based on conscientious or political motives and opposition against the war. Military offenders, in contrast, ran the risk of having their long-term absence or evasion of service in Vietnam interpreted as aggravating factors, such as extended AWOL, missing overseas assignment, or selfsh motivation, instead of as conscientious refusal to participate in the controversial war.253 Under these circumstances, a draft offender was more likely to cite antiwar opposition than a military absentee, when both were motivated to achieve the most lenient decision by the Clemency Board on their case.254

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Furthermore, the defnition of opposition to the war offered by the board was a rather narrow and schematic one of “objection to all war” or “political[,] moral or ethical objection.” The committee made little effort to arrive at a new defnition of refusal in the context of the Vietnam War beyond the cases of absences by returned war veterans because of transition problems and postcombat stress, and offenses attributed to the lowering of recruitment standards and the resulting enlistment of unft personnel. Racist structures and discriminatory assignment and promotion practice in the military, wide drug use and inadequate narcotics policies, various forms of opposition against the war, as well as general dissent and rebelliousness among young Americans all intensifed during the Vietnam War and can to a large extent be understood as warrelated causes for offenses. However, under the board’s principles, they mostly fell under aggravating circumstances for military offenders, as they did under military regulations.255 Participants of the clemency program even reported that military clerks would not even recognize explicit antiwar motives. One returnee from Sweden, Ed Fitzgerald, told his former fellow exiles of how an Army offcer ticked off “personal reasons” as basis for his desertion, although he had cited opposition to the military and the war. Only upon Fitzgerald’s insistence, the offcer would note “war resistance” in the discharge records.256 Based on data acquired from applicants, the Presidential Clemency Board offered broader conclusions on the characteristics of the draft and military offenders of the Vietnam era. In its report to the president, the board emphasized distinctions between the two groups and presented draft refusers as rather typical of their age group, coming from “stable middle-class families,” and often motivated by conscientious opposition to the war in Vietnam. Military offenders, in contrast, were described as less intelligent, less educated, less articulate than the former, and with a higher share of minority groups. Less than fve percent had acted on the grounds of antiwar opposition, accordingly. Furthermore, sixty percent, or elsewhere even “most,” of absentees had grown up in “broken homes,” the report claimed. However, with a look at the board’s own statistics these conclusions appear unsubstantiated and the differences between the war refusers exaggerated. In fact, the commission noted for 67.7 percent of military applicants no evidence for family instability, very similar to the 75.8 percent of draft offenders and far from the alleged discrepancy.257 Such an error and misinterpretation indicate the board members’ bias in favor of draft evaders and against military absentees, presuppositions based on categories of race and class, as well as their grasping to psychological and social concepts to explain military desertion, rather than to further investigate the complex circumstances of the Vietnam War and the variety of servicemen’s dissent that had led to record numbers of military absences. Yet, with its unique sample of Vietnam-era military offenders, the conclusions of the

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report of the Presidential Clemency Board had a strong impact on the image of the Vietnam-era deserters in general, as mostly not politically conscious and not signifcantly different to those of other eras. Subsequent studies drew on the fndings of the board and its data on clemency program participants and have been infuential on scholarship on the Vietnam War since.258 Some members of the Presidential Clemency Board acknowledged that the clemency program of President Ford had failed to reach four-ffths of those eligible for participation and moreover had excluded the bulk of Vietnam-era military offenders. Before the completion of the fnal report, Vernon Jordan criticized the limitations of the Ford program and called for an amnesty for all Vietnam veterans.259 Theodore Hesburgh found that true reconciliation could not be achieved with the program, and regarded it a frst move toward a “practical, comprehensive resolution” to reach “equity and justice” for Vietnam offenders.260 With funds from the Ford Foundation headed by former National Security Advisor McGeorge Bundy, Hesburgh initiated a Vietnam Offender Study and asked Lawrence Baskir, general counsel and chief executive offcer of the Presidential Clemency Board, and William Strauss, director of planning for the board and director of the staff of its fnal report, to analyze the data accumulated during the clemency program and to conceive a new amnesty proposal. This way, Hesburgh hoped to keep the matter in the debate and in particular the presidential race of 1976. Amnesty activists, nevertheless, refused any cooperation in the study because of the participation of Clemency Board members and in particular the role of Bundy as sponsor, who during the Kennedy and Johnson administrations had been one of the planners of the American involvement in Vietnam. Moreover, they criticized the author’s resolve to abstain from assessing the nature and legal basis of the war.261 Before their amnesty study was published in January 1977, Lawrence Baskir and William Strauss presented key fndings before the election in 1976 to inform both Gerald Ford and Democratic candidate Jimmy Carter.262 They called for “moral leadership” from the president as basis for national reconciliation, as well as a “more compassionate attitude” of the American public toward the young men. Baskir and Strauss argued that like “the dead, the missing, the physically or psychologically wounded, the unemployed veteran” these “fugitive or punished offenders, and all their families” were “victim[s]” of the war, after all. They proposed a relief program without the provision of alternative service, with a blanket pardon for around 250,000 draft offenders and general discharges for the same number of military offenders, with a case-by-case review of those convicted by court-martial as well as of those who absented themselves in Vietnam or to evade service there. Not eligible were servicemen who had deserted in a combat context and men with felony records. Veterans’ benefts were to be granted

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only to war veterans, those with injuries resulting from service, and those with a substantial previous military service record. Therefore, while including many more military offenders than the Ford clemency, the proposed program made relief more diffcult for soldiers who had refused service in Vietnam than for those who had evaded the draft for the same reasons. Moreover, while the latter would have their records sealed, the general discharges were to leave released servicemen identifable as former military offenders. Baskir and Strauss proposed that the president should initiate such a program and Congress should approve his proposal, thus involving the two branches of government, which had been contending for authority to grant amnesty.263 A central observation of Hesburgh, Baskir, and Strauss was that the politicization of the amnesty question both by its advocates and opponents had led to a deadlock, which they further elaborated in a second book. While identifying the polemics of President Nixon and his staff, their critique focused on the amnesty campaign and in particular the war refusers in exile. They argued that the demands of the latter for a vindication of war resisters and an acknowledgment of the decision-makers’ guilt had prevented an earlier compromise. A minority of politicized draft refusers and deserters in exile had dominated the debate, Baskir and Strauss found, and had thus radicalized the matter to an extent not benefcial for the mass of their colleagues in the United States, who were much more in need of amnesty. The former, accordingly, had mostly settled abroad, and their rallying for amnesty served as a continuation of their own Vietnam antiwar protest, at most as solidarity for those who had not made it in exile.264 The very brief overview of the debate in the frst book by Baskir and Strauss makes no mention of the amnesty movement in the United States, which involved a wide range of social, religious, and political groups, nor their collaboration with exiles and the participation of returned war refusers in the campaign. The authors’ ignorance of activists such as Gerry Condon and amnesty organizations as Safe Return and the NCUUA, the latter only mentioned very briefy in their second book, is particularly unfortunate, as the fgures on the mass of offenders and their needs presented in their proposal were largely congruent with the perspective of amnesty activists.265 Moreover, with the one-sided focus of their critique on exile activists, Baskir and Strauss disregarded, at best underestimated, the power of amnesty opponents and their efforts to prevent a fair compromise for the Vietnam offenders, not least in Washington. For all amnesty bills failed to be passed, and, as we will see later, Congress eventually succeeded in substantially restricting the benefts of the relief programs of Presidents Ford and Carter for military offenders and deserters.

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JIMMY CARTER’S PARDON FOR DRAFT REFUSERS During the presidential race of 1976, both Jimmy Carter and Gerald Ford rarely commented on the question of amnesty. Ford was vulnerable on the matter because of the ambivalent outcome of his clemency program and opposition to this policy by conservative voters. Thus, after the Clemency Board’s fnal report Ford treated the issue as a closed case. Jimmy Carter had originally been opposed to an amnesty of any kind, but came to argue by the spring of 1976 that it was “time to get the Vietnamese war over with” and that he would “just like to tell the young folks who did defect to come back home with no requirement.” Carter meant draft refusers in exile, to be sure, and he shunned to include deserters and veterans with less-than-honorable discharges. Himself a graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy and subsequently an offcer for seven years, he expressed his “great appreciation” for those who had answered the call for duty and served in Vietnam. He maintained that among average Americans in the South, Black and white, “defecting from military service is almost unheard of,” and that the means to evade the draft by “hid[ing] in college” or go into exile had not been available to them.266 At the Democratic National Convention to nominate Carter as presidential candidate in New York in July 1976, proponents of universal and unconditional amnesty strove to bring the case of the deserters to the foor. Echoing Patricia Simon’s plea of the Bucklin trial, Louise Ransom called for “total amnesty” as a “ftting memorial to the sacrifce of my son” who had been killed in Vietnam.267 The case of military absentees was debated controversially, and eventually the convention reached a compromise to be included in the Democratic platform, suggesting to treat deserters on an individual basis. This was to ensure that no one who may have endangered other servicemen through his desertion would be included in a pardon, as Carter insisted. These cases amounted to only 0.1 percent, columnist Mary McGrory pointed out, but this traditional image of desertion in the war zone nevertheless weighed heavily in the debate.268 In effect, the compromise thwarted the efforts for a universal and unconditional amnesty, and the wording on the “deserters to be considered on a case-by-case basis” left room for interpretation from a blanket pardon to their exclusion from an exoneration program.269 American exiles in Sweden and France had euphorically followed the nomination of Fritz Efaw as a candidate for vice president, who returned from British exile and was introduced by disabled Vietnam veteran Ron Kovic to the convention. Although a draft resister, they felt that Efaw represented the exiled deserters well on such an important platform.270 Facing Ford in a presidential debate in September, Carter asserted that he did not advocate a vindicating amnesty, which meant “what you did was right,” but rather a pardon stating “whether it’s right or wrong, you are

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forgiven.” He made clear that his proposal only referred to draft refusers and criticized Ford for having exonerated three times more deserters than draft evaders with his clemency.271 The short exchange at the debate, and a terse section in Carter’s campaign bulletin, where he argued on the same terms and advocated a case-by-case treatment of deserters, demonstrate his refusal to treat the two groups of war refusers on more equal terms.272 With this distinction he believed he could avoid losing too many conservative votes, assuring the national convention of the American Legion that the pardon plan had been his “single hardest decision,” and nevertheless promote his objective to “heal our country” and to overcome the “damage, hatred and divisiveness of the Vietnam War.”273 Carter’s pardon proposal created new media interest in the exiled deserters, whose status would soon be fnally decided on by the old or new president after the election. Although publicity was necessary for the promotion of their inclusion into a relief program during this last stage of the amnesty debate, the experience of a decade of ambivalent representation in the American mainstream media made the men cautious. The American Exile Newsletter advised exiles to be careful about what they told American reporters. For example, “statements about how well one has it now in Sweden can be used to twist original meaning around” and could convey that they in fact did not long to return home, but were factual émigrés and radicals using the amnesty issue to campaign against the U.S. government.274 Depictions such as in a Time magazine article of January 1977 fueled such wariness, which referred to the ADC as a cadre group engaged in an “almost professional crusade,” illustrated with a wire photo of stereotypical bearded activists in an offce. The exile newsletter reprinted the text and picture with added cartoon-style question marks to expose its inaccuracy and mock the wrongly placed photo of persons unknown in Sweden. Next to the clipping, the newsletter advertised a new amnesty flm with exclamation marks, which was created by the exiles themselves and was to show the true picture.275 Another wire photo and its multiple use in the media demonstrates how images of deserters were selected for illustrating articles more than for accurate documentation, and how one picture could be utilized to communicate different messages in different contexts and at different points in time. This photo published during the presidential campaign in 1976 had been taken by Sven Erik Sjöberg for Dagens Nyheter at the offce of the ADC in Stockholm eight years earlier. It showed several exiles working at a big table before a blackboard with their agenda and political slogans, and in the foreground a man resting his head in his hand. It had originally been captioned in 1968 on how the deserters’ offce provided room for discussion, the production of leaflets, and a library, and was a social place to overcome homesickness. In 1976, however, the man in the foreground served the Chicago Tribune to illustrate

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how desperately the deserters were longing for a pardon from President Ford or his challenger Carter.276 Here, and in the Time magazine article, two dominant images of deserters were promoted—men in precarious exile hoping for forgiveness so they could come home, on the one hand, and political radicals using the plea for universal unconditional amnesty for their anti-government protest, on the other. Furthermore, the contest over the image of the deserter in the American public was not only fought out in the news media but also in popular culture. A high point of public discourse on the amnesty question was the 1976 Christmas Day episode of the television show All in the Family, for the script of which Patricia Simon of Gold Star Parents for Amnesty had been consulted. However, not a deserter was chosen for the protagonist role as she had proposed to create sympathies for those excluded by Carter, but the episode dealt with a draft resister and his return home, thus failing to broaden the debate.277 Another popular culture project alarmed the exiles in Sweden in late 1976, when they learned of plans by Sammy Davis Jr. to produce a motion picture on a Black deserter in Sweden, who gets involved in the occupation of the U.S. embassy by a leftist terrorist group. This plot marked the exiles as extremists if not violent villains and threatened to set back their efforts for generating sympathies in mainstream America. When Davis visited Sweden in early 1977 to advertise the project, they organized to prevent the Swedish Film Institute from funding the flm, drawing on support of their old allies of the DFFG and the SKfV, including lawyer Hans Göran Franck. An appeal to the institute, the actors’ union, and personalities of the arts to decline Davis’s application was successful, and the exiles celebrated their victory against the American show star and his “obscene exploitation and defamation” of the deserters.278 Although skeptical of whether Carter would expand his pardon plans to military offenders and deserters, exiles in Sweden and France were ready to use all possible efforts to make their case heard, beyond his victory in November. They were aware of many Americans’ yearning for an end of the Vietnam debate and sensed that the new president’s decision would be the last one on the question of amnesty. They placed high hopes in their own amnesty flm, which featured statements of individual exiles and was distributed by AMEX, the NCUUA and CALC in the United States. They wrote appeals to American politicians once more, and picketed the U.S. embassies in Paris and Stockholm, where they addressed their plea to the new ambassador to Sweden David Smith.279 There was a mix of hope and cynicism about reports on Carter’s deliberations to extend his pardon to military offenders, which an editorial of the exile newsletter in Sweden took for another publicity move of the president-elect to “[heal] the nation’s wounds and [end] the guilt complexes.” In fact, military offenders and

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deserters were included in a proposal by Lawrence Baskir and William Strauss, as noted above, which was presented to Carter by Theodore Hesburgh and McGeorge Bundy.280 On the other hand, some believed that Gerald Ford would turn his own pledge for national reconciliation into a pardon for all Vietnam draft and military offenders before he would leave offce, now independent from electoral strategic considerations. In line with the fndings and recommendations of Baskir and Strauss, Ford indeed chose to relieve around seven-hundred deserters who had been wounded in combat or had received decorations for valor during service in Vietnam, and ordered the upgrading of their discharge papers to honorable on his last day in offce.281 In December, a delegation of amnesty activists came nearest to the new president, when they were received by Charles Kirbo, an Atlanta lawyer and one of Carter’s closest advisers, entrusted with working out his pardon policy together with lawyer David Berg.282 Eager to push Carter to expand his plans to include deserters, Father Hesburgh initiated the meeting. The group included Gerry Condon, Ron Kovic, Louise Ransom, former POW Edison Miller, disabled Vietnam veteran Jim Credle, and Rowena Whitmore, mother of Terry still in Swedish exile, and thus once more represented the various groups of the Vietnam generation most affected by the war.283 After a long process of rapprochement with her son Terry, Rowena Whitmore was another deserter parent to plea for amnesty, the more compelling because he was a decorated veteran of the war. Moreover, as a Black Southerner from Memphis, Terry Whitmore disproved Carter’s claims about these members of the Vietnam generation and his disregard for their potential for dissent and resistance. However, although Kirbo listened to the group’s demands and assured them how “overwhelmingly compassionate” Carter was with the Vietnam generation, he insisted that no measure was to “jeopardiz[e] the military” and the “national interest.” A conservative, a veteran of the Second World War, and himself not an opponent of the war in Vietnam, Kirbo had been carefully chosen by Carter to deal with the amnesty question and to appease criticism.284 On January 21, 1977, his second day as president and as his frst offcial act, Jimmy Carter proclaimed a “full, complete and unconditional pardon” to Americans who had committed offenses against the Military Selective Service Act between August 1964 and March 1973 and thus restored their “full political, civil and other rights.” The proclamation and the executive order to implement it explicitly excluded draft offenders who had used force or violence, and did not at all address military offenders, deserters, and veterans with less-than-honorable discharges. Eligible draft refusers living abroad were allowed reentry into the United States. Without offering fgures on either group, the president’s press secretary announced that regarding deserters and other military offenders a study would be initiated to assess options

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for discharge upgrades. The worst discharge records, dishonorable and bad conduct, however, were not to be reviewed, according to the White House.285 Over three years after Ford’s clemency proclamation, the blanket pardon for draft refusers exposed once more the deep divisions over the Vietnam War and its legacy, and reactions demonstrated that many Americans would never accept an amnesty. Protests by conservatives were heavier than in 1974, as there were no conditions required from draft offenders for a full relief from charges. Senator Barry Goldwater condemned Carter’s policy as “the most disgraceful thing a President has ever done” and Republican chairman Bill Brock called the pardon a “slap in the face to all those Americans and their families who did their duty.”286 A majority in the Senate opposed Carter’s pardon, including a number of Senators who usually supported liberal positions. However, a resolution disapproving the policy, proposed by twelve Senators of both parties, did not win the necessary vote of sixty.287 A number of Democrats in Congress supported the new president, such as Edward Kennedy, who considered the pardon a “major, impressive, and compassionate step toward healing the wounds of Vietnam,” and George McGovern, who found the policy a “compassionate and courageous frst step.” But most conservatives regarded the pardon as an insult to veterans, as a subversion of the principle to obedience to the law, and as a threat to national defense.288 On the state and local level, indignation about the pardon policy as an infringement on American values and civic ideals was expressed in the symbolic protest of fying the fags at half-staff by many state governments, public institutions, and associations, not least veteran organizations. Leaders of the latter strongly criticized the president. An American Legion spokesman threatened to expel Jimmy Carter from the organization, and VFW executive director T. Cooper Holt regarded January 21, 1977 as “one of the saddest days in the history of our country, even surpassing the Watergate days.” Hurt in their honor, some veterans decided to return their medals to the U.S. government to express their disdain for the pardon.289 Furthermore, a class-bias in Carter’s decision was criticized, which once more favored the youngsters from the more privileged segments of American society, after working-class youths had born the weight service in Vietnam and members of the “upper classes” had been able to evade the draft. While similar in analysis to that of advocates of universal unconditional amnesty, such criticism from conservative veterans, to be sure, insisted on fairness through punishment for draft refusers or at least conditions for a relief from charges, instead of proposing an equal pardon for military absentees.290 The question of fairness was also debated in the press, both to restrict the pardon and require conditions from draft and military offenders as in Ford’s clemency program, or to extent the blanket solution to the latter. A comment in the Christian Science Monitor ironically suggested that Carter had

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been inspired by the pardons for secessionists from his native South after the Civil War. It maintained that only with a case-by-case review of draft and military offenders and a requirement of alternative service, a “sense of ultimate justice” could be achieved. Also favoring Ford’s concept, the Chicago Tribune suggested that Carter’s pardon had been conceived “to appease a liberal Democratic constituency that wasn’t all about his candidacy anyway” and to win the election, and would not bring about national reconciliation. The Boston Globe instead considered the pardon a “good [b]eginning” and a “politically courageous” act, however, lamented that it “did not go far enough” and left deserters and other military offenders to the assessment of the Department of Defense, although they were “victims of the war as much or more as the draft evaders” and had been “right” to refuse participation in this “unjust war.” The Washington Post pointed out that by excluding military offenders from the pardon, the class and racially discriminatory practice of military recruitment during the war was repeated. The New York Times commended Carter’s policy as a “sensible and compassionate attempt to close the book on a dismal chapter in American history,” however, warned of the still widespread believe that amnesty meant a “bonanza for those who deserted their brave comrades in arms.” To end such myths, the commentator recommended to follow the proposal of Baskir and Strauss of a comprehensive pardon and pointed out that many military offenders were Vietnam veterans themselves.291 The ADC in Sweden considered the pardon an “insult to the millions of Americans who actively resisted the war of aggression against the people of Indochina.” The editors of the American Exile Newsletter commented dryly that the Presidential proclamation offered “zero for the deserters.”292 The pardon, issued so quickly after Carter’s inauguration, served to end the Vietnam debate and the coming to terms with violations of international law and to thus “de-politicize war resistance,” with the objective to have Americans “forget all about the bloodshed in Indochina,” accordingly. That “not a thought of the real guilt and responsibility for the mutilation and destruction of Vietnam” had been articulated by the new president was proof of how “the entire nation moves further away from the guilt and confusion over the Vietnam question.” Alluding to Carter’s friendly character, which had made him popular during the electoral race, the newsletter warned that he was going to “smile the nation into a coma, forgetting the lessons of the Vietnam War.” According to the text, the legacies to be remembered were the ability of a people with a cause for national independence to defeat a overwhelming technological military power, on the one hand, as well as the potential of war resistance, when “the little guy in or out of uniform can still say no to a rich man’s war for prestige and proft.”293 Lewis Simon concluded that although Carter “seemed to be a more honorable person” than Nixon and

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Ford, his denial of an equal pardon for deserters demonstrated that he was not willing to offcially acknowledge that the American war in Vietnam had been a mistake.294 The American exile organization Zéro in Paris denounced the case-bycase approach for military offenders proposed by the Carter administration as a strategy to divert from the question of the actual responsibility of the war. An assessment of the personal motives and consciousness of individual servicemen was “misleading,” in particular as not all of them were “articulate of those reasons.” Instead, Zéro offered an ex-post vindication of all war refusers of the Vietnam era, as the “recent course of history has born out the rightness of their stand against the greatest American disaster of our era.” Zéro framed its continued demand for universal unconditional amnesty and a single-type military discharge into the larger context of American democracy as well as the United States’ standing in the world. Accordingly, amnesty would function as a “substantive and progressive political act” of reconciliation, both on a national and international level. Within the United States, it would “reinforce the democratic ideal whereby the people have the right to seek effective means of checking unrepresentative policies” and thus would mean a “renewal of the democratic tradition in America,” echoing Jean-Paul Sartre’s earlier plea. On an international level, an amnesty for young Americans would “meaningfully signify to Europeans, peoples of the Third World and all other nations that the U.S. government is no longer interested in creating ‘Vietnams’ in other parts of the world,” and that it was willing to deal with responsibilities for the wars in Indochina, pay reparations, and recognize the new South East Asian governments.295 Exile activists in Europe and Canada feared that the unity of all war refusers and military offenders, which was the core of their argument for universal unconditional amnesty and a construct they had time and again defended against amnesty opponents as well as proponents of conditional pardons, would now fall apart when one group was exonerated and the others still faced charges. At a meeting held just over one week after President Carter’s pardon proclamation in Toronto, over three hundred exiles from Canada, France, and Sweden declared that they were still in accord in their demand for universal unconditional amnesty. The conveners, among them deserters Steve Kinnaman and David Minugh and draft refuser Joe Stewart from Sweden and from France deserters Tom Nagel and George Kazolias, agreed that Carter’s distinction between deserters and draft resisters was artifcial and class and racially biased, serving to split the Vietnam generation. Instead, in new solidarity, draft resisters would make use of their new mobility won through the pardon and return to the United States to mobilize for an amnesty for their deserter and military offender peers.296

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The delegates from Sweden and France called President Carter a “selective redeemer” and compared the discriminatory effects of his pardon policy to those of the draft system during the war. They emphasized their proximity to other military offenders and integrated their own act into the larger “soldiers’ revolt” of the Vietnam era, thereby avoiding the term desertion and using disobedience and AWOL instead. Next to universal and unconditional amnesty, they called for a single-type honorable discharge for all veterans, a new GI bill of rights, greater liberties for servicemen, and the replacement of the military legal system with civilian justice, refecting demands previously promoted by the ASU and the MDM.297 The exiles now cited Swedish and French military reforms on these matters, successfully pushed for by soldiers organizations in these countries, who had originally been inspired by the American GI movement and now seemed ahead of it in realizing such demands. The representatives from France and Sweden further legitimized resistance and refusal with references to American ideals and principles of international law, which had often been cited during the decade-long debate over desertion. They affrmed the “responsibility [. . .] to refuse to commit or be accomplices to war crimes,” laid down at the Nuremberg war crimes trials, the right of nations to political and economic self-determination, and “our traditional values of liberty and independence.” Kinnaman, Minugh, Stewart, Nagel, and Kazolias self-confdently claimed that their refusal was in line with resistance in American history and would stand precedent for opposition to “future wars of aggression.” While motivated by the victory of the Vietnamese people to struggle on, the exiles were disillusioned with the entanglement of politics and business interests, referring to the Carter administration as a “recycled version of the war governments,” with a number of men still or back in power, who had been part of the Johnson administration and involved in decisions on the American intervention in Vietnam.298 The fnal resolution of the conference followed the same arguments and condemned the limited pardon of President Carter for its class and racial discrimination, although the different groups had “all opposed or were victimized by the same unjust war,” including deserters, veterans, and civilian resisters. It called for universal unconditional amnesty for all war resisters, the upgrading of all other-than-honorable discharges to honorable, as well as the introduction of a single-type discharge for the future. Moreover, the conference connected the question of amnesty to international politics and the legacy of the Vietnam War, called for political and economic independence for all nations, and issued demands to the new U.S. administration to normalize relations with Indochinese nations and to fulfll the provisions of the Paris Peace Accords. Gratitude was extended to countries that had offered sanctuary to American war resisters, including France and Sweden, and appreciation was expressed to Americans who had supported and aided

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deserters and draft resisters inside the United States or to leave the country, risking prosecution themselves. Next to amnesty and discharge upgrades, the conference called for democratic rights for U.S. servicemen, as well as the right to refuse orders and oppose wars of aggression. Finally, American and international sympathizers, and in particular the draft refusers now free to travel, were urged to continue to rally for amnesty.299

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SPECIAL DISCHARGES FOR MILITARY OFFENDERS In contrast to the pardon for draft refusers, which was implemented by executive order, the creation of a program for military offenders fell under the authority of the Department of Defense and the military, instructed by the president to develop a system to review discharges and unresolved absence cases of the Vietnam era. As in the clemency program of his predecessor Gerald Ford, thus, the authority of military justice over its subjects remained untouched. On March 28, 1977, one day short of the fourth anniversary of the departure of the last U.S. troops from Vietnam, not Carter or the White House, but Secretary of Defense Harold Brown announced the president’s approval of a Special Discharge Review Program (SDRP) for military offenders. It would theoretically cover 432,000 veterans of the Vietnam era from August 1964 to March 1973 with less-than-honorable discharges, undesirable and general, as well as clemency discharges issued under the Ford program. This included almost 70,000 discharged deserters who had not participated in the Ford program, over 100,000 men who had received undesirable discharges for offenses other than desertion, and some 260,000 with general discharges (under honorable conditions), among them Carter’s son Jack. Moreover, around 4,500 absentees still at large were eligible for non-dishonorable discharges. According to the Pentagon, the program was to fulfll the “spirit of forgiveness and compassion” under which President Carter had entered offce to “bind up the divisions of the Vietnam era” and already had pardoned draft refusers. Each upgrading of discharges was to be understood as an “act of forgiveness.”300 Under the program quasi-blanket upgradings of discharges were to be issued for men who had completed a tour of duty in Indochina, war veterans who had been wounded or decorated before their desertion, men who had completed a tour of duty elsewhere, men who had fulflled two years of satisfactory service, as well as participants of the Ford clemency. The provisions excluded servicemen who had deserted from a combat zone and men who had been involved in criminal intent or violence, as well as some two thousand men with dishonorable discharges and over 28,000 with bad-conduct discharges, which had been issued based on court-martial convictions. According to

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the regulations, the military authorities were to take into consideration the social background and education level of servicemen, whether conscience had motivated offenses, personal stress, good citizenship record after discharge, as well as extenuating circumstances of drug or alcohol use.301 This way, some of the issues previously brought forth by the antiwar and amnesty movements were acknowledged, in particular the factors of class and race in military recruitment and the draft system, including its indirect effects on young Americans to enlist, and the phenomena of military dissent, resistance, and desertion. Next to the loss of the stigma of bad discharge papers, not least to fnd employment in the United States and the freedom to travel there for those staying abroad, discharge upgrading to honorable conditions entitled participants to government benefts. Discharged servicepeople, as well as widows of deceased offenders, would receive veteran benefts, such as education allowances under the GI Bill, disability compensation, pensions for low-income veterans, and low-interest loans from the VA.302 In general, American media commentators welcomed the solution for Vietnam-era deserters and military offenders, which complemented the pardon of draft refusers and fulflled the second of Carter’s campaign promises on the Vietnam generation and national reconciliation. According to the Boston Globe, Carter had gone far beyond his predecessor in the process of “putting the war behind us,” and the New York Times noted that despite certain weaknesses of the plan the president had “gone a long way” to overcome the Vietnam legacy “as a domestic social wound.”303 Together with the pardon for draft refusers, the job creation plans of the Labor Department for a half million unemployed veterans, and improvements in services of the VA for Vietnam-era servicepeople, the SDRP added to an “impressive performance” of the Carter administration, the Washington Post found.304 Nevertheless, many criticized the continued distinction of the two groups, draft evaders versus deserters and military offenders, which seemed to repeat the discrimination of the draft system. Evidently, among journalists of the large newspapers, the discriminatory character of military recruitment had become common sense, and commentators agreed about the similar effects of the Carter policies. For example, a Boston Globe commentary criticized the “troubling distinctions” between deserters and draft refusers and asserted that desertion outside the war zone had never put in danger any fellow servicemen and in effect was no different than draft evasion.305 With the military authorities in charge of the program, doubts were raised about whether Carter’s “spirit of forgiveness and compassion” could really be achieved by the review boards, not least in light of opposition by veterans’ organizations, a “martial mentality” among offcers, and possible “bureaucratic delay.” The president was called on to observe the administration of the program and consider “whether wisdom and compassion may not require him to broaden

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it.” Moreover, commentators cited the class backgrounds and low education level of deserters and military offenders, in particular those who remained in the United States, and were skeptical about whether these men were capable of mastering the application process and overcoming possible bureaucratic obstacles to have their discharges upgraded.306 Opponents of a Vietnam amnesty criticized Carter for the SDRP, although with somewhat less public outrage than against his pardon in January. In part, the fewer public attacks on the program can be explained by Carter’s own limited presence on the matter, which he had conceded to the Pentagon. Furthermore, the program was not a blanket pardon as the previous proclamation for draft refusers, the military authorities were still in charge, and its scope and effects were yet to be seen. Nevertheless, it was intensely discussed within the leadership of veteran organizations such as the American Legion and the VFW.307 The Fleet Reserve Association, representing enlisted personnel of the Navy, the Marine Corps, and the Coast Guard, called the SDRP “a travesty” of the discharge review system, and the leadership of the American Legion announced it would watch the implementation of the program closely.308 The most substantial opposition came from amnesty opponents in Congress, who positioned themselves against the program and developed legislative means to limit its benefts for deserters and military offenders. In contrast to the executive order implementing the draft-refuser pardon in January, Congress was now in a position to act on the president’s policy, not least through its power over fnances. In April, a bill sponsored by Republican Senator Strom Thurmond of South Carolina proposed to bar veterans with discharges upgraded under the Carter program from government benefts. Their entitlement, he argued, had been acquired under lower standards than that of other veterans and meant a “reckless and uninhibited dishing out of benefts to those not entitled to them.”309 Before this and around ten other bills to amend the discharge review program and restrict its benefts for military offenders were to be voted on, Congress prohibited the Department of State and its posts in exile countries from using government funds to advertise the program to deserters living abroad. With likewise limited publicity from the Pentagon, in effect, many of those eligible to have their discharges upgraded would not even hear about the program before it would end in early October, even within the United States, observers feared.310 American exiles in Sweden and France frst reacted with ambiguity and skepticism to the announcement of the SDRP by the Carter administration. That the president had initiated the program was considered a “fantastic partial victory” of the amnesty movement and the efforts of the exiles, which had “forced the new rulers in Washington to deal with us once again” and “to go much further than Ford.” Still, members of the community in Sweden

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found the SDRP “just acceptable though not adequate” and regarded it as a “basis for a continued struggle” for those groups of war resisters and military offenders who had still not been offered relief.311 They regarded the exclusion of veterans with bad-conduct and dishonorable discharges discriminatory, and in effect the “white middle-class resistance [was] rewarded” by Carter’s pardon while the “black and working-class resistance [was] punished.” The American Exile Newsletter reported that “thousands” of deserters and military offenders were “turning their backs” to “this fraud of Carter’s” and hundreds of thousands of bad paper veterans were “angry” for being excluded. Some deserters in exile reacted to the program like they had to the Ford clemency, citing the old slogan of the antidraft movement “hell no” and ready to organize a “unifed response” and a boycott. For some, the SDRP along with the previous pardon primarily served Carter to “close the book on Vietnam” by ending the debate on war refusal of the era. That the administration did so little to promote and advertise the program was proof to them, that it had been a mere political move to achieve national reconciliation after the controversial and dividing war.312 Beyond the political dimension of the SDRP, exiles discussed the proposed practice of discharges. The program would offer much greater relief than the Ford clemency, if the provisions were fulflled, and by 1977 the individual interest to clear one’s record and be able to travel freely was not a taboo anymore, as earlier in the debate. Nevertheless, the provisions, in particular the promise of friendly treatment by military offcials and quick processing, were viewed with caution. After all, how could deserters trust the very military authorities, which had previously prosecuted their peers?313 Some even feared that the coverage of travel expenses served as a “trap” to lure them back and bring them before military justice, and one pamphlet showed Jimmy Carter as the Uncle Sam of the iconic recruitment poster, wanting the deserters back. They were therefore advised to frst inquire about one’s eligibility before traveling to the United States and insist on a written document to confrm this, without revealing the time and place of their original AWOL and any other information that could incriminate them.314 Because of the limited promotion of the SDRP by the U.S. government and the media abroad, exile groups informed absentees via their own newsletters and placed newspaper ads to reach those not involved in community activities, who might otherwise not have learned about the new options before the deadline in October. Still, the deserters were not “marching home” in great numbers, and by July, only six percent of those eligible had applied.315 A few exiles from Sweden and France chose to fnd out themselves how the upgrade program worked. After completing the process, Steve Kinnaman dispersed most doubts and skepticism he had held before, and confrmed that

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deserters were in fact treated well by the authorities and benefted from the discharge upgrades. Kinnaman reported how he was quite nervous arriving at Fort Benjamin Harrison, as he entered military facilities for the frst time since going AWOL several years before. However, the compound where the discharge processing took place was off-limits to regular personnel, a provision to avoid confrontations and harassment, and offcers had been specially assigned for the program and acted “friendly and sympathetic[ally],” according to Kinnaman. He had to fll in documents, was offered a meal, and his travel expenses were reimbursed. While he had to undergo a physical examination, he did not have to get a haircut and wear a uniform, which would have symbolized the military’s power over him until he was discharged. In the end, the process took only seven hours and was “fast and painless . . . nearly a joke.”316 Kinnaman therefore encouraged his fellow exiles to take part in the discharge program themselves, before it was to end in October and the normal regulations of military justice were to be applied again. Notwithstanding, he expressed solidarity with those excluded by Carter and called for a continued fght against imperialism.317 Like Kinnaman, George Kazolias returned to the United States from Paris to “test the waters” for himself and the other American deserters living in France. He and fellow members of Zéro came to pragmatically regard the program the best option for exiled deserters and at least a “partial success in the struggle for amnesty.” By September, they knew that a full amnesty would never be achieved, and that Carter’s policy offered the last chance for relief for military absence offenders of the Vietnam War.318

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CONGRESSIONAL BACKLASH AGAINST RELIEF FOR WAR REFUSERS The limitation of funds for advertising the SDRP and the introduction of bills to amend and restrict it by conservative legislators in April foreshadowed a consequential congressional backlash against the amnesty programs of President Carter, and also his predecessor Gerald Ford. In June hearings were held by the Committee on Veterans’ Affairs of the Senate and by a subcommittee of its counterpart at the House of Representatives on both discharge review policies. A number of bills were discussed, several of them proposing amendments to limit the benefts of special discharge upgrades.319 Republican Representative John Hammerschmidt of Arkansas regarded Carter’s new “give-away criteria” as “ludicrous” for entitling “non-performers” automatically to the same benefts as regularly discharged veterans. His bill, supported by the VFW, proposed that program participants were obliged to

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apply individually to the VA for benefts under the normal standards. As noted above, a similar proposal had been introduced by Senator Strom Thurmond.320 In contrast, Democratic Representatives Thomas Downey of New York and Robert Kastenmeier of Wisconsin suggested extending the right to discharge reviews and upgrades to all veterans in their bill, not just of the Vietnam era. They argued that the reasons for less-than-honorable discharges had been the same at all times, except for those resulting from an unprecedented extent of drug use during the Vietnam era. They proposed a new category of limited honorable discharges, which removed the stigma from offenders but would not condone their acts and would make confdential information on the original circumstances accessible to the relevant authorities.321 While offering the option of practically quasi-honorable discharges and acknowledging the complexity of the situation, Downey and Kastenmeier underrated the special circumstances of military service during the Vietnam War, the pressure and discrimination of the draft system, war-related dissent, racial and social confict, and war refusal through desertion. Although not as bluntly as Senator Thurmond, who warned of “favoritism” for the offenders of the Vietnam era, they thus contributed to a negation of the war’s exceptional character, not just concerning its conduct and international law but also regarding the quality and extent of military dissent and desertion.322 The subcommittee of the House of Representatives presented itself as a “committee of veterans for veterans,” made up almost completely of participants of the Second World War, and their merits as soldiers were noted with considerable vanity during the hearings. They thus marked yet another confrontation between the generations of the ‘good war’ and the Vietnam confict on conscription and military discipline, and the ideals of civic duty, patriotism, bravery, and manliness. Concretely, the committee’s objective was about the preservation of military discipline and the sovereignty of military justice. At the same time, its members and witnesses were concerned with American society and values, which many feared were in danger not least through the “general permissiveness” of the time. For them, this had been a major cause both for public disorder as well as the deterioration of military discipline. While they could not roll back the liberalization of society and culture and the change in values, committee members were determined to prevent the Carter administration to “destroy our whole military system” by issuing deserters and dissenters a “free ticket” to disobey orders without punishment.323 Although congressional hearings are a means to assess certain issues and relevant legislation proposals in the most open way as possible, after the frst session seven of eleven committee members announced their

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support for an amendment of President Carter’s discharge review policy and to restrict veterans benefts for participants.324 During the hearings at the House and in the Senate, the deep rift between the generations was evident, not only between war refusers and the older generations but also between the latter and veterans who had served in Vietnam. Senator Thurmond’s warning of a preferential treatment of Vietnam offenders over those of other times was turned into a blanket punishment of all veterans with less-than-honorable discharges.325 Although these would include combat veterans and men wounded in Vietnam, House committee chairman Ray Roberts, a Democrat, insisted that the SDRP needed to be limited to secure the future of the military system.326 Not a committee member but speaking as a witness, Democratic Representative John Murtha, himself a veteran of the Vietnam War, criticized this failure of differentiation among military offenders, leaving even decorated soldiers without relief for bad discharges, which they had received for offenses committed after their tours. He explained the unprecedented fgures of absences and offenses with the lack of moral support among Americans for returning veterans and the resulting psychological problems. Often his peers felt “embarrassed and ashamed” coming home, and unlike the veterans of the Korean and Second World Wars were not received as heroes. With a limitation of the discharge upgrade program, Murtha argued before the plenary of the House, congresspeople were once more “slapping the man in the face who has served in combat, been wounded,” after they had during the Vietnam War sat in “air-conditioned offces telling these soldiers what to do.”327 Murtha’s critique refected a strong sense of betrayal among Vietnam veterans, not only by the antiwar movement as revisionist narratives suggest, but by the political establishment and the Second World War generation.328 Gerry Condon appeared before the House subcommittee both as representative of the NCUUA as well as a deserter and military offender with a badconduct discharge, thus not eligible for an upgrade under the Carter program. The hearings and the proposed bills were part of “a wave of reaction against the political gains our movement has already won” and of an “ongoing disgrace of a government which cannot afford to learn the lessons of its military defeat in Southeast Asia,” according to Condon.329 They were emblematic of a post-Vietnam debate on the backs of the victims of the war, among whom Condon counted all affected in a wider sense by the draft, the war, and the consequences of military service, those who fought the war. Who w[ere] injured. Who died. Who went to jail. Who went into exile or underground. Who got less than honorable discharges. Who killed [the]msel[ves]. Who got hooked on drugs. Who w[ere] forced to steal to

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survive. Who [are] locked up now. Who ha[ve] no job[s]. Whose kids are going to have to deal with the next war.330

He thus made a strong case for unity among members of the Vietnam generation, who had been “all deceived and manipulated by the same Government in its pursuit of the patently unjust Vietnam War,” and countered the playing off of “veteran against resister and veteran against veteran” by amnesty opponents and through the specifc policies of the Carter administration. By dividing the war resisters, the policymakers were “diverting attention from the real criminals, those who planned and perpetrated the Vietnam War and are busy laying the groundwork for the next war,” and with their “reactionary bills” were “seek[ing] further to vilify and scapegoat” the “poor and ethnic American minorities” for the “failure of America’s imperialistic policy in Indochina.”331 With passionate rhetoric and substantial arguments, Gerry Condon criticized the Carter administration, the military discharge system, the bills to limit veterans’ benefts, as well as the treatment of Vietnam veterans by Congress in general. Condon regarded the SDRP itself insuffcient to relieve military offenders and deserters of the Vietnam era and pointed out its class and racially discriminatory character. In particular, he criticized the exclusion of those discharged through courts-martial and administrative discharges, holding bad-conduct and dishonorable papers. Although apparently systematic according to discharges, this was in fact not fair, he argued, as the original decisions had often been taken arbitrarily by commanding offcers, which had also been acknowledged by the Carter administration.332 Moreover, Condon pointed out the racism intrinsic to the military discharge system, which had previously been explained by Vernon Jordan as member of the Presidential Clemency Board under the Ford administration. Accordingly, nonwhite men were often given administrative less-than-honorable discharges for minor offenses, which would have not been prosecuted in civilian life, and which in many cases had been provoked by racial discrimination. Instead of complicated discharge upgrades, Condon called for a “nondiscriminatory single-type discharge,” previously proposed by the VVAW, the NCUUA, and others, which existed in many Western countries and was not as irrational as amnesty opponents thought, he argued. Condon clarifed that he did not call for veterans’ benefts for men who had deserted during basic training. He also pointed out that veterans who had committed criminal offenses would not be relieved of these felony records by an amnesty for military offenses, responding to those who feared a free ride for criminals.333 Beyond deserters and military offenders, Condon claimed to speak for all Vietnam veterans and accused Congress of denying them necessary assistance and benefts. He cited John Murtha on the lack of understanding

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congresspeople showed regarding the realities of the war in Vietnam, and argued that they failed likewise to assess the situation of veterans readjusting to civilian life. While they now claimed to protect the honor and privileges of those who served, Condon argued, the same representatives and senators had denied improvements of VA hospitals to help veterans with “war-related drug addiction” and “psychological wounds,” and were responsible for previous reductions and withholdings of veterans benefts. Next to his confrontation of the political establishment Condon also criticized veteran organizations. The VFW and American Legion, he argued, opposed relief programs for Vietnam veterans to secure their own privileged position in American society. According to Condon, these established associations were in fact detached from the realities of the Vietnam generation, and he promoted alternative organizations such as the Coalition of Veterans for Human Rights in California instead.334 Despite his plea for a larger group of Vietnam veterans and his concrete criticism of the SDRP and the proposed bills, committee members focused on Condon’s own desertion, posed the standard questions on civic duty and patriotism, challenged his authority to speak as representative of the NCUUA, and questioned the participation of veterans in the antiwar and amnesty movements. Olin Teague, committee member and Democratic representative from Texas, who was introduced as a hero of the Second World War holding “many more decorations than his chest would support,” questioned Condon whether the United States should have a military at all. Chalmers Wylie, Republican Representative of Ohio, also a decorated World War II veteran “familiar with the sound of bullets,” asked him whether he agreed with the necessity of defense against the Soviet Union. Condon affrmed both and stated, “I and many other people who resisted the Vietnam War would have no qualms about defending this country from a bona fde attack.” Asked how he would have acted as a company commander in Vietnam, Condon answered that he would have “avoid[ed] ending up being another Lieutenant Calley,” the offcer held responsible for the massacre at My Lai, and cited the Nuremberg Principles on the individual soldier’s “responsibility to refuse to obey orders he considers to be illegal or immoral.” Moreover, Condon was cornered on his political views and exposed as a leftist, admitting that he “believe[d] in socialism” and asserting that he considered the American war in Vietnam “almost inevitable as an outgrowth of capitalist expansion.” That he held a “high regard for the American people” and “for many of my friends who served in Vietnam and many who did not,” and that he valued American ideals and democracy despite his criticism of government policy, committee members would not accept.335 Like often before, when deserters struggled to be heard, this fnal confrontation between war refusers and conservatives in the amnesty debate manifests the deep divisions in American society about

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the Vietnam War and the persistence of old concepts of desertion and war resistance. When the SDRP ended in October 1977, President Carter signed a bill into law, which effectively was to deny veterans’ benefts to military offenders and deserters who had participated in the program. His proposed relief for military offenders as part of his objective for reconciliation, therefore, was reduced to an upgrade of discharges and a restoration of participants’ civil rights. Carter expressed concerns about the provisions of the bill and conceded that long-term absentees who had participated in his discharge program and were now denied veterans’ benefts were treated unequally to those who had received discharge upgrades through other procedures. Amnesty proponents, who had hoped the president would veto the bill, protested his giving into conservative legislators and disputed his claim that the law would eventually lead to an “equitable and compassionate attitude” toward veterans with less-than-honorable discharges among Americans.336 Many deserters living abroad had participated in the SDRP and now enjoyed at least the freedom from prosecution and to travel to the United States or move back there. However, the bill and the end of Carter’s relief program, to which only nine percent of those eligible had applied, left many thousands of bad paper veterans of the Vietnam era in a precarious situation and deprived them of the opportunity to eliminate the stigma of their discharges and make their way in civilian life.337

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CONCLUSION The long struggle for recognition of American deserters exiled in Europe culminated in the long debate over amnesty for the war refusers of the Vietnam generation. The critical issue was whether desertion had been a legitimate action or at least a condonable one in the context of the Vietnam War. Opponents rejected any relief proposal as it would justify such a grave offense and endanger the functioning of the military in the future. For radical amnesty advocates, a policy would have to fully vindicate the deserters and appraise their action as a just protest against an illegal war. Disillusioned with the political establishment in the United States and with considerable self-confdence as dissidents who had made it in exile, deserters frst abstained from the amnesty debate. Legislation proposals only offered conditional and limited solutions and frustrated the exiles’ insistence on their complete rehabilitation. Instead, deserter groups demanded a comprehensive effort of coming to terms with the war in Vietnam and measures to hold political and military decision-makers responsible for it, as a basis for a plea for amnesty.

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Nevertheless, it was individual absentees from European exile who at different stages of the amnesty debate voiced the perspective of deserters and other military offenders. With their surrender to the authorities and their test of military justice, returnees brought the matter back to the United States, prompted observers from the media and politics to take note of their plight, and thus made it diffcult for them to continue to marginalize the exiled war refusers and play down their demands. The frst returnees were encouraged by experienced American activists, who also managed the process from the surrender to the defense before the military authorities, as well as support for the men in prison and upon release. There was a dilemma intrinsic to the strategy to have deserters challenge military justice to push for a recognition of desertion as a legitimate act of war resistance, and at the same time to minimize the consequences for individual returnees. If the refusal had been a conscious act, the absentee could be convicted of desertion. If he denied this and pleaded guilty to AWOL, the signifcance of his individual case for the broader debate would be limited and possibly subvert the general claim for vindication. As exiled deserters and draft resisters involved themselves in the amnesty debate and organized toward this end, they were able to build on the return experiences of their peers. Eventually, deserters were able to prominently voice their perspective in politics and the mainstream media and make leading commentators and legislators listen to their arguments. From subjects of the debate who depended on American activists’ advocacy, absentees themselves became key players in the amnesty movement and contributed to a broadening of the scope of the discussion. A universal and unconditional amnesty would have treated all forms of protest and refusal the same, in that they were all condoned or vindicated, regardless of the original political, moral or legal motives for the act. Then, all different categories of offenders would have equally been relieved from the effects of the Vietnam War on their young lives. Nevertheless, the distinctions within the Vietnam generation was a critical theme of the amnesty debate, which was never resolved and eventually became manifest in the presidential relief programs.338 Conservatives and also many liberals insisted on a differentiation between draft offenders, deserters, and other military offenders, as well as a separation of refusers from veterans, who had served in the war, and POWs. Distinctions among the various kinds of offenders often correlated with categories of class and race, in a way resembling the mechanisms of the military conscription system, with draft refusers coming mostly from white middle-class backgrounds and military offenders often from disadvantaged social and ethnic groups. Concepts of what constituted a legitimate or exonerable offense, which were discussed among liberal politicians and in the media, corresponded to these divisions, with draft evasion the most pardonable form and desertion the least.

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Proponents of a universal and unconditional amnesty struggled to convince politicians and media commentators of the proximity of these groups, in spite of examples of individuals who belonged to two or more categories. President Ford proposed a clemency program for all different groups of offenders, thus overcoming these distinctions in principle. In practice, however, they remained manifest in specifc regulations of eligibility and the different government and military agencies entrusted with the policy’s implementation. President Carter made a much clearer distinction between draft and military offenders and relieved the former with a blanket pardon, and left the latter to be assessed by the military authorities. This way, he sharpened the separation of draft and military offenders in an uncompromising fashion, which many believed had been overcome since the beginnings of the amnesty debate. Carter failed to resolve substantial conficts and fault lines in American society and within the Vietnam generation, leaving many young men from the working class and ethnic minorities burdened both with the consequences of service in the war as well as those of offenses committed in response to it.

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NOTES 1. For example, an issue of Newsweek ran a cover story on the matter in January 1972 (“Amnesty for the War Exiles?” Newsweek, January 17, 1972). 2. Gordon L. Weil, The Long Shot. George McGovern Runs for President (New York: Norton, 1973), 99 ff.; Kasinsky, Refugees from Militarism, 242–244; Hagan, Northern Passage, 154–155. On McGovern’s image as holding liberal views on drugs, birth control, and legal relief for war refusers see Paul F. Boller, Presidential Campaigns. From George Washington to George W. Bush (Oxford/New York: Oxford University Press, 2004), 339. 3. Baskir and Strauss, Reconciliation after Vietnam, 111–113. 4. See on the debate of these initiatives Committee on the Judiciary, Selective Service and Amnesty. Hearings before the Subcommittee on Administrative Practice and Procedure, Ninety-Second Congress, Second Session, February 28–29 and March 1, 1972. 5. Kasinsky, Refugees from Militarism, 241–243. 6. Michael Uhl, Vietnam Awakening. My Journey from Combat to the Citizens’ Commission of Inquiry on U.S. War Crimes in Vietnam (Jefferson: McFarland, 2007), 141 ff.; Hunt, The Turning, 45. 7. Michael Uhl, Safe Return. Defending Deserters during the Vietnam War (Self-published at veteranscholar​.co​m, 2007, accessed July 2015), 14 ff. 8. “New Committee Announces Plan to Support and Defend Vietnam Veterans and Other ‘Deserters’ Who Will Be Returning to U.S. from Exile,” Safe Return, New York, January 1972, ARAB, Hans Göran Franck, 4.3.7 002; “New Group Formed to Return Deserters,” Amex-Canada, March–April 1972, 7.

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9. William H. Powell, A Taste of War. An Infantry Platoon Leader’s Recollections of a Year in Vietnam (North Charleston: CreateSpace, 2006), 18; Robert Alan Chapin, Orphans of the Morning (Bonita Springs: December Press, 2007), 14–15. 10. H. Bruce Franklin, M.I.A. or Mythmaking in America. How and Why Belief in Live POWs Has Possessed a Nation (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1993), 48–49; Michael J. Allen, Until the Last Man Comes Home. POWs, MIAs, and the Unending Vietnam War (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2009), 14–16. 11. Uhl, Safe Return, 167. 12. “New Committee Announces Plan to Support and Defend Vietnam Veterans and Other ‘Deserters’ Who Will Be Returning to U.S. from Exile,” Safe Return, New York, January 1972, ARAB, Hans Göran Franck, 4.3.7 002; “POWs,” Act, undated [after April 1971]. 13. Uhl, Safe Return, 168–169. 14. Reston Jr., The Amnesty of John David Herndon, xvi; Uhl, Safe Return, 19 ff. 15. Tony Clay to Conseiller des affaires étrangères Paris, [Spring 1971], SHSW, Gibault, 2. 16. “Army Deserter Back from Paris,” New York Times, March 21, 1972; Reston Jr., The Amnesty of John David Herndon, 5. 17. “Interview with Annette – Another View of ‘The Amnesty of John David Herndon,’” Zéro, Autumn 1973. 18. Uhl, Safe Return, 54 ff. 19. Reston Jr., The Amnesty of John David Herndon, 9–10; Uhl, Safe Return, 61 ff.; Appy, Working-Class War, 44 ff. The “enourmous credibility” of veterans in antiwar movement has often been noted, for example, by Lembcke, The Spitting Image, 67. 20. “Army Deserter Back from Paris,” New York Times, March 21, 1972; “‘Test Case’ Deserter Returns, Wins Bid to Stay in N.J. Area,” Washington Post, March 25, 1972; “Army Deserter Back from Paris,” New York Times, March 21, 1972. On Herndon’s experience in the military and in Vietnam see Reston Jr., The Amnesty of John David Herndon, 10 ff. 21. Reston Jr., The Amnesty of John David Herndon, 79 ff.; Uhl, Safe Return, 72. 22. See Uniform Code of Military Justice, Ch. X, § 882, Art. 82 and § 904, Art. 104, respectively, in Manual for Courts-Martial (United States, 1968), Appendix 2. 23. Emerson, Winners and Losers, 343 ff. See on the treatment of Vietnamese prisoners by the United States in general Robert Doyle, The Enemy in Our Hands. America’s Treatment of Enemy Prisoners of War from the Revolution to the War on Terror (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 2010), 269 ff. 24. “POWs,” Act, undated [after April 1971]; “Un Américain témoigne,” L’Humanité, August 6, 1971. At the time, L’Humanité also reported on the role of the return of American POWs at the peace negotiations at the time (“Le porte-parole du G.R.P.: ‘Il dépend de Nixon que les prisonniers américains passent Noël en famille,’” L’Humanité, July 2, 1971). On Herndon’s experience of service in Vietnam and this shooting incident see Reston Jr., The Amnesty of John David Herndon, 18 ff.

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25. “N’attaquez pas les soldats ou groupes de soldats américains qui sont opposés à la guerre,” L’Humanité, April 27, 1971; “Vietcong Appeal to G.I.’s to Desert,” New York Times, April 27, 1971. 26. “An Open Letter to Madame Nguyen Thi Dinh,” John Herndon, Paris, May 1, 1971, ASR/IISG, Max Watts; “Les GI’s écrivent à madame Dinh,” Rouge, May 10, 1975; “End the War Now!” South Vietnam in Struggle, May 20, 1971; “Clandestine Liberation Radio in English,” NARA, RG 263, Sound Recordings of Monitored Foreign Broadcast Materials 1950-76, BV 262-263. The letter was distributed by RITA Act as RN 100, as well as in German translation (“Vietcong Orders: Don’t Shoot Anti-War GI’s!” RITA Act, [June 1971]; “Vietcong befehlt: Nicht auf amerikanische Truppen schießen, die gegen den Krieg sind,” Kommunikations-Büro P. Jaensch, Wiesbaden, [June 1971]; both ASR/IISG, Max Watts). 27. “Deserters Blamed for 8-Balls,” Overseas Weekly, July 11, 1971. 28. Uhl, Safe Return, 67 f; Reston Jr., The Amnesty of John David Herndon, 26 ff.; Safe Return to Max [Thomas Schwaetzer], June 8, 1972, ASR/IISG, Max Watts. 29. James Reston Jr., To Defend, To Destroy (New York: W. W. Norton, 1971). Reston served between 1965 and 1968. 30. “Is Nuremberg Coming Back to Haunt Us?” Saturday Review, July 18, 1970, 14–17, 61; “Vietnamize at Home,” New York Times, April 10, 1971; “A Proposal to the President. Vietnam Amnesty,” The New Republic, October 9, 1971, 21–22; “Reconciliation, Not Retribution. Universal Amnesty,” The New Republic, February 5, 1972, 15–16; Uhl, Vietnam Awakening, 171. 31. Not least, James Reston contacted Maria Jolas, former president of the PACS to learn about the deserter network and for contacts with other American activists and exiles (James Reston Jr. to Maria Jolas, April 16, 1972, SHSW, PACS, Box 7, Bisc. en préparation; Reston Jr., The Amnesty of John David Herndon, 55). 32. Reston Jr., The Amnesty of John David Herndon, 26–28 and 45–47; Uhl, Safe Return, 57–58 and 98–100. 33. “Vietnam Veteran Flies Home to Face Court-Martial,” Daily News, March 21, 1972; “Army Deserter Back from Paris,” New York Times, March 21, 1972; Reston Jr., The Amnesty of John David Herndon, 109–110. 34. “Soldier Trying to Test Desertion Law Is Kept from Lawyers, They Say,” The Sun (Baltimore), March 22, 1972; Reston Jr., The Amnesty of John David Herndon, 119. 35. Untitled Report on the Return of John David Herndon, Safe Return, James Reston Jr., [May 1972], ASR/IISG, Max Watts. 36. “‘Test Case’ Deserter Returns, Wins Bid to Stay in N.J. Area,” Washington Post, March 25, 1972; Uhl, Safe Return, 80–81. Abzug’s War Resisters Exoneration Act (H.R. 14175, March 29, 1972) called for a universal unconditional amnesty for all who had violated the law through nonviolent antiwar protest (Congressional Record, April 21, 1972, 13894). 37. “‘Test Case’ Deserter Returns, Wins Bid to Stay in N.J. Area,” Washington Post, March 25, 1972; “Nuremberg and Amnesty,” Boston Globe, March 26, 1972.

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38. “P.O.W. – Fort Dix,” Safe Return, [March 1972], ASR/IISG, Max Watts. 39. “‘Test Case’ Deserter Returns, Wins Bid to Stay in N.J. Area.” 40. “War Deserter Set Free, Returns to Middle River,” The Sun (Baltimore), April 12, 1972; “Antiwar GI Discharged as Deserter,” New York Post, April 12, 1972; “What Amnesty Should Be All About,” Boston Globe, April 28, 1972. 41. “‘Self-retired’ Vets – Bring All the Boys Home,” Boston After Dark, May 9, 1972; Untitled Report on the Return of John David Herndon, Safe Return, James Reston Jr., [May 1972], ASR/IISG, Max Watts. 42. Uhl, Safe Return, 92–94. 43. “‘Self-retired’ Vets – Bring All the Boys Home,” Boston After Dark, May 9, 1972. 44. “What Amnesty Should Be All About,” Boston Globe, April 28, 1972. 45. Safe Return to Max [Thomas Schwaetzer], May 24, 1972, ASR/IISG, Max Watts; Reston Jr., The Amnesty of John David Herndon, 138–139; Uhl, Safe Return, 94–95. 46. Selective Service and Amnesty (Hearings). 47. “Amnesty and Class,” (reprint from Camp News), American Exile Newsletter, March 1973. 48. Reston Jr., The Amnesty of John David Herndon, 141–145, quotes on page 142. 49. Reston Jr., The Amnesty of John David Herndon, 143, 145. 50. Uhl, Safe Return, 96–97. 51. “Author Answers Amnesty Question: Yes,” Waukesha Daily Freeman, April 6, 1973. 52. The photo had been published by the Washington Post in its report on Herndon’s return (“‘Test Case’ Deserter Returns, Wins Bid to Stay in N.J. Area,” Washington Post, March 25, 1972). Next to materials of the Herndon campaign, Safe Return printed the picture, for example, on a fyer distributed at the second inauguration of Richard Nixon and on a proposal for an amnesty conference to be held in Paris in early 1973 (“P.O.W. – Fort Dix,” Safe Return, [March 1972]; “Free John Herndon,” Reprint of Washington Post Article of March 25, 1972, [Safe Return, March/April 1972]; both ASR/IISG, Max Watts; “International Conference of Exiles for Amnesty. A Proposal,” Safe Return, AMEX, Up from Exile, [late 1972], ARAB, Hans Göran Franck, 4.3.7 002; “Amnesty . . . Now? While the War Continues? The Demand for Amnesty Must Be Raised Now! . . . Even as the War Continues!” Safe Return, AMEX, Up from Exile, reprint in American Exile Newsletter, February 1973). 53. See, for example, “Deserter vs. Public. Alone against Angry Voices,” Cincinatti Enquirer, January 21, 1973. 54. Robert K. Musil, “The Truth about Deserters,” The Nation, April 16, 1973, 495–499. 55. “The Amnesty Numbers Game,” Chicago Tribune, March 20, 1973; “The ‘Facts’ on Exiles,” New York Times, February 20, 1973 (by Nixon’s adviser Patrick Buchanan); “Nixon, Restating Opposition to Amnesty, Stresses Punishment,” New York Times, February 1, 1973.

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56. “Nixon Says Hanoi Aid Won’t Cut Domestic Funds,” Boston Globe, March 3, 1973; “Agnew Restates White House’s Amnesty Stance,” Washington Post, March 7, 1973. 57. “Buckley on Amnesty,” The New York Times, February 20, 1973. See on different amnesty proposals Kasinsky, Refugees from Militarism, 242 ff. 58. “The Amnesty of John David Herndon,” New York Times Book Review, March 18, 1973. 59. “On the Issue of Amnesty,” Boston Globe, April 8, 1973; “Prisoner of War,” Washington Post, April 1, 1973. Quotes from the Boston Globe article. Similarly, in the Christian Science Monitor Robin Wright maintained that the “most valuable aspect” of the book was that it added to the amnesty debate the “human dimension” of the situation of many military absentees and called on Americans to “acknowledge all the victims of the war” (“After Vietnam, Conficts of Conscience and Duty,” Christian Science Monitor, February 21, 1973). 60. “Survivors,” New York Review of Books, September 20, 1973, 40–42; John Cooney and Dana Spitzer, “Hell No, We Won’t Go!” in Edgar Z. Friedenberg, ed. The Anti-American Generation (Chicago: Transaction Books, 1971), 253–273. 61. Uhl, Safe Return, 28–30, 162–163; Reston Jr., The Amnesty of John David Herndon, xix. Reston’s inaccurate depiction of Condon as inapt to act as a test case candidate because of drug use has been revised by Uhl and explained as the result of a misunderstanding. Notwithstanding, the publication of this impeded a collaboration between Safe Return and Condon later on in the amnesty campaign. See on Gerry Condon “Green Beret Deserter Still Free and Fighting for Amnesty,” Amex-Canada, May–July 1975, 21; Moser, The New Winter Soldiers, 78. 62. “On Amnesty: Position Paper on Amnesty,” ADC, January 1972 in American War Resister in Sweden, February 15, 1972. 63. “On Amnesty: Position Paper on Amnesty.” 64. “On Amnesty: Statement Signed by Canadian Groups,” Montreal Council, Toronto Anti-Draft Programme, Winnipeg Committee to Assist War Objectors, Amex, Vancouver Committee to Assist War Objectors, Calgary Committee on War Immigrants in American War Resister in Sweden, February 15, 1972. See also Kasinsky, Refugees from Militarism, 244–245; Hagan, Northern Passage, 143. 65. Jack Colhoun, “War Resisters in Exile. The Memoirs of Amex-Canada,” Amex-Canada, November–December 1977, 25–27. See, for example, “Special Report: Amnesty/Repatriation,” several articles on the issue in Amex-Canada, January–February 1972; “Your Responses to the Amnesty Debate,” “The Kennedy Hearings,” “A New Amnesty Bill,” and other contributions and reprints in AmexCanada, March–April 1972; “Amnesty Notes,” “Amnesty News,” “Refections on Amnesty,” and other articles on the matter in Amex-Canada, March–April 1972, July–August 1972, and September–October 1972. 66. “International Report,” Amex-Canada, July–August 1972, 6–7. 67. “Amnesty Activists Gathered July 3,” Amex-Canada, July–August 1972, 31, 34; Colhoun, “War Resisters in Exile,” 28. 68. “Up from Exile Report,” American Exile Newsletter, November 1972.

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69. “International Report,” Amex-Canada, July–August 1972, 6–7; Colhoun, “War Resisters in Exile,” 29; Uhl, Safe Return, 114–115. 70. “Amnesty Activists Gathered July 3,” Amex-Canada, July–August 1972, 31, 34; “Position Paper on Amnesty and Repatriation” and “Center Steering Committee Meeting,” October 4, 1972, American Exile Newsletter, November 1972. 71. “Position Paper on Amnesty and Repatriation,” American Exile Newsletter, November 1972. 72. “Towards a Grassroots View of Amnesty,” American Exile Newsletter, November 1972. 73. “Marine Deserter Seized Trying to Turn Himself in on Convention Floor,” New York Times, July 14, 1972; “Antiwar Marine Given Year Term,” New York Times, September 21, 1972; “Tom Michaud Gets Five Months and Bad Conduct Discharge,” Amex-Canada, November 1972, 38–39. Michaud was sentenced to one year at hard labor with a dishonorable discharge, which was reduced to fve months and a bad-conduct discharge based on a pretrial agreement. 74. “Up from Exile Report,” American Exile Newsletter, November 1972. 75. Uhl, Safe Return, 156 ff. 76. “Up from Exile Report: The Amnesty Movement after the Election,” American Exile Newsletter, December 1972. 77. “Center Position on Amnesty,” American Exile Newsletter, February 1973. See on the debate and different perspectives of American exiles in Sweden “Thoughts about Amnesty,” American Exile Newsletter, February 1973; “Friends,” ADC, Stockholm, February 13, 1972, ASR/IISG, Max Watts. 78. “International Conference of Exiles for Amnesty. A Proposal,” Safe Return, AMEX, Up from Exile, [late 1972], ARAB, Hans Göran Franck, 4.3.7 002; Internal Conference Proposal in Uhl, Safe Return, 173–175; “Exile Conference on Amnesty Planned for Paris” and position papers by participating groups, Amex-Canada, January– February 1973, 36 ff.; “Down But Not Out in Paris,” Amex-Canada, March–April 1973. 79. “International Conference of Exiles for Amnesty. A Proposal”; “Nixon Softening on Amnesty Forecast by Spokesman for Safe Return Committee,” Boston Globe, February 2, 1973. 80. “International Conference of Exiles for Amnesty. A Proposal.” 81. “Up from Exile Report,” American Exile Newsletter, February 1973. 82. “International Conference of Exiles for Amnesty. A Proposal.” 83. “Amnesty Strategy Parley Set for Paris,” New York Times, February 6, 1973. In September 1972, CALCAV was renamed CALC to refect the organization’s concern with issues beyond the Vietnam confict, then coming to an end. 84. “International Conference of Exiles for Amnesty. A Proposal.” 85. “Bella Abzug Announces She Has Reintroduced Universal Amnesty Bill,” Offce of Congresswoman Abzug, February 5, 1973, reprint in American Exile Newsletter, March 1973; “Amnesty Campaign for Antiwar Exiles Starts,” Los Angeles Times, February 6, 1973; “Amnesty Strategy Parley Set for Paris,” New York Times, February 6, 1973. 86. Uhl, Safe Return, 164, 181, 215.

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87. See on the International Conference on Vietnam Edmund Jan Osmanczyk, Encyclopedia of the United Nations and International Agreements (New York/ London: Routledge, 2003), 2647–2649. 88. “Paris Bans Meeting of U.S. Amnesty Seekers,” Los Angeles Times, February 18, 1973; “Up from Exile Special Report on Amnesty Conference,” American Exile Newsletter, March 1973; Uhl, Safe Return, 222–225. 89. “La préfecture de police interdit une réunion organisée par de déserteurs américans,” Le Monde, February 20, 1973 (French original: “serait de nature à trouble la bonne atmosphère” and “un pays invité”). 90. “La conférence des déserteurs pourrait se tenier en Suède,” Le Monde, February 21, 1973; “La ‘querelle de l’amnistie’ risque de diviser l’Amérique,” Le Figaro, February 21, 1973. 91. “La préfecture de police interdit une réunion organisée par de déserteurs américans”; “Sur pression de l’ambassade U.S.: Le gouvernment français interdit la conférence sur l’amnistie des soldats américains insoumis,” L’Humanité, February 20, 1973. 92. “France Yields to U.S., Bars Amnesty Parley,” Chicago Daily News, February 19, 1973. U.S. intelligence services had been following the planning of the meeting (“Up From Exile, Stockholm, Sweden,” January 17, 1973, FBI FOIPA, American Deserters Committee, 100-454113). The fles of the American embassy and the State Department yield no information on the genesis of the banning of the conference (“GOF Bans Deserters Conference,” Paris 4030, February 20, 1973, NARA, RG 59, Subject Numeric Files 1970-73, Political & Defense, Box 1839). 93. Günter Wernicke, “The World Peace Council and the Antiwar Movement in East Germany,” in America, the Vietnam War, and the World. Comparative and International Perspectives, ed. Andreas W. Daum, Lloyd C. Gardner, and Wilfried Mausbach (Cambridge/New York: Cambridge University Press, 2003), 317–318. 94. Uhl, Safe Return, 225. 95. “Exposé de M. Daniel Mayer, Président de la Ligue des Droits de l’Homme,” Paris, February 19, 1973, SHSW, PACS, Box 2, Amnystie Internationale. 96. “La conférence des déserteurs pourrait se tenier en Suède,” Le Monde, February 21, 1973; “Exposé de M. Daniel Mayer, Président de la Ligue des Droits de l’Homme”; “Up from Exile Special Report on Amnesty Conference,” American Exile Newsletter, March 1973. 97. “Jean-Paul Sartre Writes to America about Amnesty,” Amex-Canada, March–April 1973, 51; “Sartre on Amnesty: An Enhancement of Democracy,” Los Angeles Times, March 25, 1973. 98. “Down But Not Out in Paris,” Amex-Canada, March–April 1973, 48, 50; De Nike, Mission (Un)essential, 152–155. 99. “Issue of Amnesty,” Stars & Stripes, April 11, 1973; Uhl, Safe Return, 233. 100. “La conférence des déserteurs pourrait se tenier en Suède,” Le Monde, February 21, 1973; “Amnesty Conference May Shift to Scandinavia,” Copenhagen 297, February 20, 1973, NARA, RG 59, Subject Numeric Files 1970-73, Political & Defense, Box 1839; Uhl, Safe Return, 229–230. On the activities of Susan George in

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the PACS and deserter aid in Paris see Max Watts, “Buccaneers,” TORD 77.2, ASR/ IISG, Max Watts, Data DVD. 101. “Down But Not Out in Paris,” Amex-Canada, March–April 1973, 48, 50; “Up from Exile Special Report on Amnesty Conference,” American Exile Newsletter, March 1973; “What ever happened to Charley Rougle when he got out of the Army?” Safe Return, [Spring 1973], ASR/IISG, Max Watts. 102. “Statement of Delegates of Exiles, Active Duty GIs, and Veterans to a Working Session on Amnesty, Europe, February 19–21, 1973,” American Exile Newsletter, March 1973. 103. “Grieving Mom Backs Amnesty,” New York Post, February 20, 1973. 104. “Down But Not Out in Paris,” Amex-Canada, March–April 1973, 46, 48. 105. See, for example, “U. S. Exiles Hit Action,” Chicago Tribune, February 18, 1973; “Paris Police Ban Conference Of U.S. ‘Exiles for Amnesty,’” New York Times, February 19, 1973; “US Urged Canceling of Amnesty Meeting,” Boston Globe, February 20, 1973; “Sartre on Amnesty: An Enhancement of Democracy,” Los Angeles Times, March 25, 1973; “Sartre on Amnesty,” New York Review of Books, April 19, 1973. 106. “Up from Exile Special Report on Amnesty Conference,” American Exile Newsletter, March 1973; “Amnesty and Exile,” Translation of Interview from Politique Hebdo with Lewis Simon in American Exile Newsletter, April 1973. 107. See, for example, “Up from Exile Amnesty Report,” American Exile Newsletter, April 1973; “Up from Exile Amnesty Report,” American Exile Newsletter, Summer 1973. The new role of Up from Exile at the turn of 1972 and 1973 did not emerge without confict among the exiles in Sweden. See, for example, Max [Thomas Schwaetzer] for RITA Act to ADC, April 6, 1973, ASR/IISG, Max Watts. 108. See for details Uhl, Safe Return, 262 ff. 109. “Parents Push for Amnesty with New Organization,” Amex-Canada, January– February 1972, 27. 110. “Families of Resisters for Amnesty. A Strategy for Building a Mass Movement,” Amex-Canada, January–February 1972, 43. Safe Return and FORA even produced bracelets with the name of a war refuser to be worn by supporters, just like those of the POW campaign (“FORA. Families of Resisters for Amnesty,” Information Leafet, FORA/Safe Return, [Spring 1973], ASR/IISG, Max Watts). 111. See Franklin, M.I.A. or Mythmaking in America; Allen, Until the Last Man Comes Home. 112. “Families of Resisters for Amnesty. A Strategy for Building a Mass Movement.” 113. Bella Abzug to Safe Return, April 20, 1973, TTU/VVA, 14511753008. 114. “Announcement of Abzug Ad-Hoc Congressional Hearings on Unconditional Amnesty,” FORA, [Spring 1973], TTU/VVA, 14511753014; “Up from Exile Amnesty Report,” American Exile Newsletter, May 1973; “Amnesty Panel Hears Deserter, Who Then Surrenders to Police,” New York Times, May 25, 1973. 115. “War Resisters’ Families Pay Price in Pain,” Atlanta Constitution, May 25, 1973.

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116. “Amnesty Panel Hears Deserter, Who Then Surrenders to Police,” New York Times, May 25, 1973. The New York Times had commented on this irony, too (“The Watergate Tragedy,” New York Times, April 26, 1973). 117. Kay and Ben Israel, who participated in the hearings, had four sons affected by the war and the draft, one a resister exiled in Canada, one a Navy veteran and deserter, and two war veterans. Ben Israel himself was a veteran of the Second World War (“Announcement of Abzug Ad-Hoc Congressional Hearings on Unconditional Amnesty,” FORA, [Spring 1973], TTU/VVA, 14511753014). 118. “Announcement of Abzug Ad-Hoc Congressional Hearings.” 119. “War Resisters’ Families Pay Price in Pain,” Atlanta Constitution, May 25, 1973; Uhl, Safe Return, 287–288. 120. “War Resisters’ Families Pay Price in Pain”; Franks, Waiting Out a War, 215–216; Appy, Working-Class War, 44 ff. 121. Sowders had earlier published his story under a pseudonym in the New York Times (“Two Wanderers in No-Man’s Land,” New York Times, February 28, 1973). 122. “I, Like Many GIs, at One Time Supported the War,” Amex-Canada, July– August 1973, 6–7; “Army Deserter Turns Himself in during Hearing,” Boston Globe, May 25, 1973. 123. “Deserter Finds It Tough to Surrender on the Hill,” Washington Post, May 25, 1973; NBC Evening News, May 24, 1973, Vanderbilt TV News Archives, 470436; Hearts and Minds (1974) directed by Peter Davis, 51:50. Eddie Sowders was released without a court-martial and without further confnement, however, with an undesirable discharge, a success claimed by Safe Return and FORA. In the following Sowders became an organizer with Safe Return. See “Up from Exile Amnesty Report,” American Exile Newsletter, Summer 1973; Uhl, Safe Return, 371 ff. 124. “Deserter – Resister!” Safe Return, Representative Documentation, Safe Return, veteranscholar​.co​m, accessed October 2015. 125. Jack Colhoun, “War Resisters in Exile. The Memoirs of Amex-Canada,” Amex-Canada, November–December 1977, 37–38. 126. “For Love of U.S., GI Faces Prison Term,” Los Angeles Times, October 5, 1973. 127. “Disposition of Richard Bucklin,” Richard Bucklin Defense Committee, October 16, 1973, FBI FOIPA, VVAW, HQ 100-448092; “War Objector Surrenders After AWOL Stint,” Atlanta Constitution, October 5, 1973. 128. “Up from Exile Amnesty Report,” American Exile Newsletter, November 1973; “For Love of U.S., GI Faces Prison Term.” 129. “A War Resister Is Home,” The Veteran, November 1973. 130. “For Love of U.S., GI Faces Prison Term.” 131. “A War Resister Is Home”; “Up from Exile Amnesty Report,” American Exile Newsletter, November 1973. 132. Kasinsky, Refugees from Militarism, 85–86. 133. Uhl, Safe Return, 367–369. 134. “2 Army Deserters of Vietnam War Plan to Invite Arrests Today,” New York Times, December 19, 1973; “2 Deserters Give In Here to Stress Plea for Amnesty,” New York Times, December 20, 1973.

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135. “2 Army Deserters of Vietnam War Plan to Invite Arrests Today”; “Deserters? Resisters!” Safe Return, January 1974, IISG, WRI, 409. 136. Uhl, Safe Return, 385–386. 137. “Urgent Memo,” Safe Return, [Fall 1973], Representative Documentation, Safe Return, veteranscholar​.co​m, accessed July 2015. 138. “Bring ‘Em Home. Christmas ‘73,” Christmas Card [late 1973], Representative Documentation, Safe Return, veteranscholar​.co​m, accessed July 2015; “Home for Christmas Amnesty Cards Call,” Daily News, October 26, 1973. 139. “‘Home by Yule’ for Evaders,” San Francisco Examiner, October 20, 1973; “Up from Exile Amnesty Report,” American Exile Newsletter, November 1973; “More Military Absentees Granted Residence,” Stockholm A-779, December 10, 1969, NARA, RG 59, Central Foreign Policy Files 1967-69, Political & Defense, Box 1667; Uhl, Safe Return, 377–378. 140. Invitation to Christmas Homecoming, Safe Return and FORA, December 19, 1973, and “Resisters Surrender at Christmas Reunion,” Amnesty Report (Safe Return/ FORA), Winter 1974, Representative Documentation, Safe Return, veteranscholar​.co​ m, accessed July 2015. 141. “2 Army Deserters of Vietnam War Plan to Invite Arrests Today,” New York Times, December 19, 1973. 142. “2 Deserters Give In Here to Stress Plea for Amnesty,” New York Times, December 20, 1973; Rapport, TV 2, December 22, 1973, SMDB. 143. “Resisters Surrender at Christmas Reunion,” Amnesty Report (Safe Return/ FORA), Winter 1974, Representative Documentation, Safe Return, veteranscholar​ .co​m, accessed July 2015; NBC Evening News, December 19, 1973, Vanderbilt TV News Archives, 468272. 144. NBC Evening News, December 19, 1973; “2 Deserters Give In Here to Stress Plea for Amnesty.” 145. Rapport, TV 2, December 22, 1973, SMDB. 146. “2 Deserters Give In Here to Stress Plea for Amnesty.” 147. NBC Evening News, December 19, 1973; Rapport, December 22, 1973. 148. Rapport, TV 2, December 22, 1973, SMDB. 149. “2 Deserters Give Up in New York,” Washington Post, December 20, 1973; Uhl, Safe Return, 393–394. 150. “Welcome home, Ed & Lew,” Boston Globe, December 24, 1973. 151. “Comment,” American Exile Newsletter, February–March 1974. 152. Cover and “One Year After . . . and the Exiles,” American Exile Newsletter, January 1974. 153. Uhl, Safe Return, 394. 154. “Deserters? Resisters!” Safe Return, January 1974, IISG, WRI, 409. 155. “Deserters? Resisters!” 156. “Deserters? Resisters!” 157. “Bucklin Is Given 15-Month Prison Term in AWOL Case,” Rocky Mountain News, January 9, 1974; Uhl, Safe Return, 405–406. 158. “GIs Continue the Struggle,” The Veteran, February 1974.

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159. “Richard Bucklin and Robert Johnson Refused to Help Kill People, So the Government Put Them in Prison,” NCUUA, [1974], TTU/VVA, 14512937025; CBS Evening News, January 7, 1974, Vanderbilt TV News Archives, 231182. 160. See, for example, Materials on Family Convocation, NCUUA, February 1–3, 1975, TTU/VVA, 14512937015; “Re: Import of the ‘Justice Department 4,400’ list and resolution of individual cases in relation to continued amnesty work,” NCUUA, March 18, 1975, TTU/VVA, 14512937051. 161. Uhl, Safe Return, 410–414. The New York Times had reported that Simon and McNally had been “apprehended” (“2 Deserters Give In Here to Stress Plea for Amnesty,” New York Times, December 20, 1973). 162. Taylor’s critical contribution to the Vietnam debate was Taylor, Nuremberg and Vietnam. 163. Uhl, Safe Return, 411–413; Committee on the Judiciary, Amnesty. Hearings before the Subcommittee on Courts, Civil Liberties, and the Administration of Justice, Ninety-third Congress, Second Session, March 8, 11, and 13, 1974, 401–402. 164. “Ft. Dix: Awaiting Trial,” New York Times, February 7, 1974. 165. Uhl, Safe Return, 423. 166. Amnesty (Hearings), 400–401. 167. “Pentagon Bars Jailed Deserter From House Testimony on Amnesty,” New York Times, March 8, 1974; Uhl, Safe Return, 429, 437. 168. Amnesty (Hearings), 404. 169. Amnesty (Hearings), 402 ff. 170. “A Hero’s Plea for Deserter Son,” New York Post, March 12, 1974; “Amnesty Proponents Plan New Drive,” Washington Post, March 4, 1974; “A Father’s Move into Radicalism over Amnesty,” Boston Globe, March 24, 1974. 171. “Army Deserter Convicted as A.W.O.L. at Fort Dix,” New York Times, March 19, 1974; Uhl, Safe Return 422. 172. Uhl, Safe Return, 428–433, quote on page 432. 173. “The Nation,” New York Times, March 24, 1974. 174. “From the Congress Hall to the Stockade . . .,” American Exile Newsletter, April 1974. When Simon returned to the United States, William Males had suggested that because of his intelligence and good contacts in the amnesty movement, he would be able to reach a lenient treatment by the military authorities, and warned others not as prepared as Simon of probable stiff sentences (“Gothenburg 4,” American Exile Newsletter, January 1974). 175. “From the Congress Hall to the Stockade . . ..” 176. Uhl, Safe Return, 447–448; “Lew in Leavenworth,” American Exile Newsletter, May 1974. 177. “From the Congress Hall to the Stockade . . ..” 178. Uhl, Safe Return, 435–438. 179. Robert Sherrill, Military Justice Is to Justice as Military Music Is to Music (New York: Harper & Row, 1970), 2. 180. Franks, Waiting Out a War.

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181. Lang, Patriotism without Flags, 57 ff. 182. The Memory of Justice (1976), directed by Marcel Ophüls, 1:45. Others were inspired by the example of the American Vietnam deserters to study desertion in general and in other contexts. See, for example, van Parys, Les déserteurs, 20–21; Scheurig, “Desertion und Deserteure,” 42–43. 183. “Last Tango in Exile” and “A Real Deserters’ View of Two People,” AmexCanada, May–June 1973, 37–39; Jeremy M. Devine, Vietnam at 24 Frames a Second. A Critical and Thematic Analysis of over 400 Films about the Vietnam War (Jefferson: McFarland, 1995), 87–88, 93. 184. Bodnar, The “Good War” in American Memory, 42–45; Beidler, “The Good War and the Great Snafu”; Pinsker, “Reassessing Catch-22.” 185. Baskir and Strauss, Chance and Circumstance, 211. 186. “Remarks to the Veterans of Foreign Wars Annual Convention,” Chicago, August 19, 1974, in Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States. Gerald Ford. August 9 to December 31, 1974 (Washington: U.S. G.P.O., 1975), 25, emphasis original. 187. “Amnesty Arouses Deep Emotions; Can U.S. Give It?” Atlanta Constitution, August 25, 1974; Baskir and Strauss, Chance and Circumstance, 210–211. 188. “VFW, Resisters Assail Proposal,” Boston Globe, August 20, 1974. 189. “Only Unconditional Amnesty Is Acceptable,” Los Angeles Times, September 4, 1974. 190. “General Meeting on Amnesty” and “The Media’s Amnesty,” American Exile Newsletter, September 1974. 191. Baskir and Strauss, Chance and Circumstance, 211; “VFW, Resisters Assail Proposal,” Boston Globe, August 20, 1974. 192. “War Resisters vs. Ford in the Amnesty Ring,” American Exile Newsletter, September 1974. 193. “Outrage, But No Surprise: How the Pardon Looks to U.S. Exiles in Canada,” Los Angeles Times, September 17, 1974. 194. “Proclamation 4313, Announcing a Program for the Return of Vietnam Era Draft Evaders and Military Deserters,” September 16, 1974, in Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States. Gerald Ford. August 9 to December 31, 1974, 138–140. 195. “Proclamation 4313.” 196. “Remarks Announcing a Program for the Return of Vietnam Era Draft Evaders and Military Deserters,” September 16, 1974, in Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States. Gerald Ford. August 9 to December 31, 1974, 136–137. 197. “Proclamation 4313.” 198. “Clemency Unit Headed By Goodell,” Washington Post, September 17, 1974; “Establishing a Clemency Board to Review Certain Convictions of Persons Under Section 12 or 6 (j) of the Military Selective Service Act and Certain Discharges Issued Because of, and Certain Convictions for, Violations of Article 85, 86, or 87 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice and to Make Recommendations for Executive Clemency with Respect Thereto,” Executive Order 11803, September 16, 1974, UCSB/APP (http​:/​/ww​​w​.pre​​siden​​cy​.uc​​sb​.ed​​u​/ws/​​?​pid=​​23895​, accessed August 2016).

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199. Committee on the Judiciary. Clemency Program Practices and Procedures. Hearings Before the Subcommittee on Administrative Practice and Procedure, Ninety-third Congress, Second Session, December 18-19, 1974, 12; “White House Details Clemency Program Operation,” Washington Post, September 17, 1974. 200. See on the reorganization of the armed forces in general Bailey, America’s Army. 201. “Amnesty with Justice,” Christian Science Monitor, September 17, 1974. 202. “Why Ford Will Get Amnesty Through,” Atlanta Constitution, September 17, 1974; “Good Compromise,” Atlanta Constitution, September 18, 1974. 203. “A Fair Plan for Clemency,” Chicago Tribune, September 19, 1974; “Most in US Support Ford Amnesty Plan,” Boston Globe, September 19, 1974. 204. “The Vietnam ‘Amnesty’ . . .,” Washington Post, September 18, 1974. 205. “The Clemency Gesture,” Boston Globe, September 17, 1974. 206. “Clemency for Some,” New York Times, September 18, 1974; “‘Amnesty’ But Not Generosity,” New York Times, September 17, 1974. 207. “Ford: Nixon Pardon Suggests Guilt,” Boston Globe, September 17, 1974; Ford: ‘To Heal the Nation . . . Was the Top Priority,’” Washington Post, September 17, 1974; “Clemency for Some”; Mark J. Rozell, The Press and the Ford Presidency (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1992), 69 ff. 208. “Clemency for Some.” 209. “White House Details Clemency Program Operation,” Washington Post, September 17, 1974. 210. “U.S. Concedes Amnesty Plan Has Loophole for Deserters,” Washington Post, September 19, 1974; “Amnesty Loophole Exists, U.S. Admits,” Los Angeles Times, September 19, 1974; “Deserters Given Chance to Avoid Civilian Service,” New York Times, September 17, 1974. 211. “Loophole for Deserters,” New York Times, September 20, 1974. 212. ACLU lawyer David Addlestone cited in “Deserters Given Chance to Avoid Civilian Service”; William A. Pearman, “Social Implications of the Clemency Discharge,” Journal of Political and Military Sociology 4, 2 (1976). 213. “Veterans Critical,” Washington Post, September 17, 1974. 214. “Exile Leader Calls It Punitive,” Boston Globe, September 17, 1974. 215. “Group of Deserters in Sweden Reject Clemency Program,” Stockholm 4196, September 20, 1974, Public Library of US Diplomacy, wikileaks​.or​g, accessed April 2013; “Boycott Ford’s Phoney Amnesty,” American Exile Newsletter, October 1974. 216. “Boycott Ford’s Phoney Amnesty.” 217. Cover, American Exile Newsletter, September 1974 and Cover with cartoon by Andrews (Daily World), American Exile Newsletter, October 1974. 218. “Open Letter to Gerald Ford” and “Minutes Taken at the Meeting of KFUK-M Riksförbund, Swedish Ecumenical Council, and Representatives of American War Resisters in Sweden,” Stockholm, September 18, 1974, American Exile Newsletter, October 1974. 219. Jack Colhoun, “War Resisters in Exile. The Memoirs of Amex-Canada,” Amex-Canada, November–December 1977, 41; “General Meeting on Amnesty,”

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American Exile Newsletter, September 1974; “Toronto Conference,” American Exile Newsletter, November 1974. 220. “War Resisters’ First Reactions Negative,” Christian Science Monitor, September 18, 1974. 221. “Conference Resolutions,” American Exile Newsletter, November 1974; “Amex Speech at ‘Week of Concern’ Demonstration,” prepared by members of Amex and Steve Kinnaman of the ADC in Sweden, Amex-Canada, November– December 1974, 23. See for proposals of single-type discharges “Editorial,” Winter Soldier, April 1974; “Demand a Single-Type Discharge!” Amex-Canada, November– December 1974, 32; Emerson, Winners and Losers, 335; Hunt, The Turning, 178; Gerald Nicosia, Home to War. A History of the Vietnam Veterans’ Movement (New York: Crown Publishers, 2001), 309–311. 222. Jack Colhoun, “War Resisters in Exile. The Memoirs of Amex-Canada,” Amex-Canada, November–December 1977, 41–42; “Toronto Conference,” American Exile Newsletter, November 1974. 223. “War Resisters’ Conference Rejects Ford Amnesty Plan,” Washington Post, September 22, 1974; “Toronto Conference,” American Exile Newsletter, November 1974; Colhoun, “War Resisters in Exile,” 43. 224. “Amnesty, Repatriation & Earned Re-Entry,” CCCO, [Fall 1974], IISG, USA, 6.6 Peace Movement, CCCO. 225. “Full Pardon for Nixon – Phony ‘Amnesty’ for Resisters,” Veterans for Peace, New York Times, October 13, 1974. 226. “Exile Leader Calls It Punitive,” Boston Globe, September 17, 1974; “Jail Term Risked by Draft Evader,” New York Times, October 1, 1974; Kasinsky, Refugees from Militarism, 261; Uhl, Safe Return, 517 ff. 227. “Boycott Ford’s Phoney Amnesty,” American Exile Newsletter, October 1974; “Keep Boycotting!” American Exile Newsletter, November 1974; “What If They Gave an Earned Re-Entry Program and Nobody Came . . .?” American Exile Newsletter, February 1975. 228. “Keep Boycotting!” The strong self-confdence about the boycott and its impact is also evident in “Don’t Turn Yourself In – Turn Yourself On to the Amnesty Boycott Victory Celebration,” American Exile Newsletter, December 1974. 229. “General Meeting on Amnesty,” American Exile Newsletter, September 1974. 230. “Concerning President Ford’s Earned Re-Entry Program,” “Announcing a Program for the Return of Vietnam Era Draft Evaders and Military Deserters,” reprint from White House Press Secretary, September 16, 1974, and “Enlisted Statement – Request for Discharge for the Good of the Service,” American Exile Newsletter, October 1974; “Keep Boycotting!”; “An Editorial Concerning the Re-Entry Program,” American Exile Newsletter, December 1974; “Have You Heard the Joke about President Ford’s Clemency Program?” NCUUA, [Fall 1974], TTU/ VVA, 14512937020; “Amnesty, Repatriation & Earned Re-Entry,” CCCO, [Fall 1974], IISG, USA, 6.6 Peace Movement, CCCO. 231. “Which Side Are You on?” American Exile Newsletter, December 1974. According to the American Exile Newsletter, returnee Tom Thomason even offered the U.S. embassy in Stockholm to serve as counselor for deserters considering

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participation in the clemency program. Probably Thomason evaded alternative service after he received undesirable discharges by returning to Sweden, as he had told reporters when he entered the United States (“First GI Deserter from Sweden Returns,” Boston Globe, October 6 , 1974). 232. “White House Details Clemency Program Operation,” Washington Post, September 17, 1974. 233. “What If They Gave an Earned Re-Entry Program and Nobody Came . . .?” American Exile Newsletter, February 1975; “Re: Gerry Condon’s Southern Tour,” NCUUA, April 21, 1975, TTU/VVA, 14512937030; Jack Colhoun, “War Resisters in Exile. The Memoirs of Amex-Canada,” Amex-Canada, November–December 1977, 43–44. 234. “Memo to Key Contacts,” NCUUA, January 13, 1975, TTU/VVA 14512937007; “Green Beret Deserter Still Free and Fighting for Amnesty,” AmexCanada, May–July 1975, 21. 235. “GI Parents Find Gerry a Kindred Soul,” Boston Globe, February 3, 1975. 236. “GI Parents Find Gerry a Kindred Soul”; “A Former Green Beret Who Didn’t Go Surfaces – Defantly,” Washington Star-News, February 3, 1975. 237. “Parents Stand by Sons Who Shunned War,” Washington Post, February 3, 1975; Perrin, G.I. Resister, 140 ff. 238. “Green Beret Deserter Still Free and Fighting for Amnesty,” Amex-Canada, May–July 1975, 21; “Such Strained and Cosmetic Leniency,”Boston Globe, March 29, 1975. Condon’s return was reported on by many alternative media, next to mainstream publications. See, for example, “Ex-Green Beret ‘Surfaces.’ Announces Non-Cooperation with Clemency Program,” Liberation News Service, February 12, 1975; “A Green Beret Who Wouldn’t Go,” Berkeley Barb, February 14–20, 1975; “Ex-Green Beret on Shamnesty,” Great Speckled Bird, May 21, 1975. 239. “Green Beret Deserter Still Free and Fighting for Amnesty.” 240. “Such Strained and Cosmetic Leniency.” 241. Committee on the Judiciary, The Presidential Clemency Program. Hearings before the Subcommittee on Courts, Civil Liberties, and the Administration of Justice, Ninety-fourth Congress, First Session, April 14 and 17–18, 1975, 169–173. 242. The Presidential Clemency Program (Hearings), 171–172. 243. “Such Strained and Cosmetic Leniency.” 244. “Should the Gerry Condons Have to Live with the President’s ‘ClemencyPunishment’?” NCUUA, [Spring 1975], UMB, Richard Perrin, IV. 245. Joan Morrison and Robert K. Morrison, From Camelot to Kent State. The Sixties Experience in the Words of Those Who Lived It (New York: Times Books, 1987), 128; De Nike, Mission (Un)essential, 154–155; “Vietnam War Resister Has Advice for Iraq Troops,” Mail Tribune, October 12, 2007 (http​​s:/​/m​​ailtr​​ibune​​.com/​​ archi​​ve​/vi​​etnam​​-war-​​resis​​ter​-h​​as​-ad​​vice-​​f​or​-i​​raq​-t​​roops​, accessed August 2018). 246. “An Open Letter to NCUUA. Universal and Unconditional Amnesty – Nothing Less,” Gerry Condon, Sandy Rutherford, Amex-Canada Editorial Board, Vietnam Veterans Against the War/Winter Soldier Organization, Dee Night of NCUUA National Offce et al., [Spring 1975], TTU/VVA, 14510555020.

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247. Jack Colhoun, “War Resisters in Exile. The Memoirs of Amex-Canada,” Amex-Canada, November–December 1977, 47–49. 248. “Should the Gerry Condons Have to Live with the President’s ‘ClemencyPunishment’?” NCUUA, [Spring 1975], UMB, Richard Perrin, IV. The image was also reprinted in other publications, such as “Ex-Green Beret ‘Surfaces.’ Announces Non-Cooperation with Clemency Program,” Liberation News Service, February 12, 1975; “A Green Beret Who Wouldn’t Go,” Berkeley Barb, February 14–20, 1975; “Ex-Green Beret on Shamnesty,” Great Speckled Bird, May 21, 1975. 249. “Memo to: Steering Committee and Contacts,” NCUUA, June 23, 1975, TTU/VVA 14512937031. 250. “Ford Mercy for Exiles Is Strained,” Boston Globe, January 6, 1975; “Clemency Plan Extended,” New York Times, February 2, 1975; Presidential Clemency Board. Report to the President (Washington: U.S. G.P.O., 1975), xi– xiv, 69. 251. Presidential Clemency Board. Report to the President, xiii and xxiv–xxv. 252. For returned absentees, the U.S. military authorities issued amounts of nineteen to the maximum of twenty-four months to nearly 78 percent of participants. Less than four percent were obliged to fulfll one to six months. After initially 1,700 draft offender cases had been dropped due to a review ordered by the Attorney General, the judicial authorities required nineteen to twenty-four months from over 62 percent of applying draft refusers, less than seven percent were relieved from any service requirement (Committee on the Judiciary, Report on the Presidential Clemency Program. Subcommittee on Courts, Civil Liberties, and the Administration of Justice of the Committee on the Judiciary, Ninety-fourth Congress, First Session, August 1975, 5–9). The Presidential Clemency Board, on the other hand, proposed pardons without service requirements to over 80 percent of applying draft offenders and circa 36 percent of military offenders. Durations of alternate service amounted to one to six months for over 77 percent of draft offenders and to four to nine months for close to 60 percent of military absence offenders, with only very few over thirteen months in both groups (Presidential Clemency Board. Report to the President, 123–124). There is no indication of corresponding differences in the offenses of unconvicted and convicted absentees and draft refusers, which would explain such a discrepancy between the amounts of service proposed by the military and judicial authorities, and the Clemency Board, respectively. It was instead the result of the latter’s vision to assess Vietnam era war refusal with broader understanding of its context, the role of “chance and circumstance” in the system of military conscription, and the personal and social situations of applicants, and in turn to implement greater leniency as part of national reconciliation after the war (Presidential Clemency Board. Report to the President, iii, xv–xvi and xxiv–xxv). 253. Presidential Clemency Board. Report to the President, xviii–xix and 290 ff. 254. Figures of reasons given by participants of the Ford program show that during a preliminary interview almost half of them stated motives related to the Vietnam War, while in the application to the board only one-third did so and instead referred to personal and family-related circumstances (Bell, Characteristics of Army Deserters, 38).

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255. Presidential Clemency Board. Report to the President, 252 and 290. See on the lowering of military recruitment standards under Project 100,000 Appy, WorkingClass War, 31–33. 256. “The Exile of Eddie Fitzgerald,” Boston Globe, July 20, 1975; “My Life in Exile,” Washington Post, March 30, 1975. Eventually, Fitzgerald was issued an undesirable discharge and no offer to fulfll alternative service and thereafter receive clemency papers (“Eddie’s Oddessy [sic],” American Exile Newsletter, January 1976). 257. Presidential Clemency Board. Report to the President, xv–xvi, 244 and 52. 258. See D. Bruce Bell and Thomas J. Houston, The Vietnam Era Deserter. Characteristics of Unconvicted Army Deserters Participating in the Presidential Clemency Program (Arlington: U.S. Army Research Institute for the Behavioral and Social Sciences, 1976); Bell and Bell, “Desertion and Antiwar Protest”; Shils, “A Profle of the Military Deserter”; Baskir and Strauss, Reconciliation after Vietnam; Baskir and Strauss, Chance and Circumstance. 259. “Amnesty Plan Ends with Few Signed Up,” New York Times, April 1, 1975; “Full Amnesty Is Urged by Clemency Panelist,” Stars & Stripes, July 29,1975. 260. Baskir and Strauss, Reconciliation after Vietnam, viii, ix. 261. “Re: Non-cooperation with Ford Foundation Research on Amnesty,” NCUUA, January 23, 1976, TTU/VVA, 14512937050; “Amnesty – Study It or Declare It,” Boston Globe, November 17, 1975. 262. On their suggestions to Jimmy Carter see Roessner and Bier, “Pardon Me, Mr. Carter,” 89. 263. Baskir and Strauss, Reconciliation after Vietnam, xiii, 4 ff. and 49 ff. 264. Baskir and Strauss, Reconciliation after Vietnam, 13–14, 22–23; Baskir and Strauss, Chance and Circumstance, 206 ff. 265. Baskir and Strauss, Chance and Circumstance, 225. 266. “Jimmy Carter. The Candidate on the Issues,” Washington Post, March 21, 1976. 267. “Excerpts from Louise Ransom’s Speech,” Amex-Canada, October– November 1976, 10. 268. “Amnesty: The Quality of Mercy Is Measured,” Boston Globe, January 15, 1977. 269. 1976 Democratic Party Platform, July 12, 1976, UCSB/APP (http​:/​/ww​​w​ .pre​​siden​​cy​.uc​​sb​.ed​​u​/ws/​​?​pid=​​29606​, accessed August 2016); “Amex Interview: Carter’s Top Issue Aide,” Amex-Canada, October–November 1976, 12–14; Baskir and Strauss, Chance and Circumstance, 229; Roessner and Bier, “Pardon Me, Mr. Carter,” 91–92. 270. “Ron Kovic’s Speech,” Amex-Canada, October–November 1976, 10. Efaw, however, chose to decline the nomination and instead faced the courts on his draft refusal case. 271. “Presidential Campaign Debate,” September 23, 1976, in Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States. Gerald Ford. July 10, 1976 to January 20, 1977 (Washington: U.S. G.P.O., 1979), 2290–2291. 272. “Jimmy Carter on Vietnam Pardon” in Jimmy Carter Presidential Campaign Materials, MNHS (http​:/​/ww​​w2​.mn​​hs​.or​​g​/lib​​rary/​​fnda​​ids​/0​​0697/​​pdfa/​​00697​​​-0015​​0​ -7​.p​​df, accessed August 2016).

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273. “Presidential Campaign Debate”; “Legionnnaires Boo Carter on Pardon for Draft Defers,” New York Times, August 25, 1976; “Mr. Carter Speaks Out,” New York Times, August 26, 1976. 274. “Amnesty Conference, January 29–30, Toronto,” American Exile Newsletter, November 1976. 275. Clipping from Time magazine in American Exile Newsletter, January 1977; “Pardon: How Broad a Blanket?” Time, January 17, 1977. 276. “Kriget förenar dem,” Dagens Nyheter, November 10, 1968; “Amnesty and the Candidates,” Chicago Tribune, October 21, 1976. 277. Correspondence with Producers of All in the Family, July–December 1976, UMB, Gold Star Parents for Amnesty, Box 4, Folder “299 All in the Family”; Jack Colhoun, “War Resisters in Exile. The Memoirs of Amex-Canada,” Amex-Canada, November–December 1977, 63; Hagan, Northern Passage, 180–181. 278. “Swedish Note,” American Exile Newsletter, November 1976; “Terrorist Sammy” and “The Sammy Davis Film,” American Exile Newsletter, February 1977; “Sammy Davis i Sverige – igen,” Aftonbladet, February 12, 1977; “Vidrig exploatering, förtal av krigsvägrare,” Dagens Nyheter, February 24, 1977; “Sammy Davis har stulit mitt liv,” Aftonbladet, February 25, 1977; “Sammy Davis Film ‘Postponed’ . . . Indefnitely?” American Exile Newsletter, March–April 1977. Davis, one of the American artists who had entertained U.S. troops in Vietnam to boost morale, had been inspired by the actual occupation by West German terrorists of their nation’s embassy in Stockholm in 1975. The plot of An Eye for an I, he developed with journalist Henry Sidoli, who wrote the frst script, and Swedish director Gunnar Hellström, who was to produce the flm. 279. “Our Voice on Amnesty to Be Heard in Canada, USA,” American Exile Newsletter, November 1976; “Amnesty: The View from Sweden,” American Exile Newsletter, January 1977; “New Boys in Town,” American Exile Newsletter, June 1976. 280. Baskir and Strauss, Chance and Circumstance, 229; Baskir and Strauss, Reconciliation after Vietnam; Roessner and Bier, “Pardon Me, Mr. Carter,” 93. 281. “No Surprises from Carter,” American Exile Newsletter, January 1977; “Ford Clemency Offcials Ask Major Amnesty Plan,” Atlanta Constitution, January 16, 1977. 282. Berg proposed a universal upgrade for military offenders who had served in Vietnam, however, Carter was reluctant to this. Kirbo held a racial bias against these GIs, who often came from minority groups, Berg noted, and was therefore not willing to follow his and Theodore Hesburgh’s advice (David Berg, Run, Brother, Run. A Memoir (New York: Scribner, 2013), 230–231). 283. “Amnesty Forces Make Their Case to Carter,” Boston Globe, December 11, 1976; “10,000 Affected Now,” New York Times, January 22, 1977. 284. “Amnesty Forces Make Their Case to Carter,” Boston Globe, December 11, 1976; “Early Drafts of the Pardon Went Too Far, Kirbo Says,” Atlanta Constitution, January 26, 1977. 285. “Executive Order Relating to Proclamation of Pardon,” Executive Order 11967, January 21, 1977 and “Presidential Proclamation of Pardon,” Proclamation

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4483, January 21, 1977 in Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States. Jimmy Carter. January 20 to June 24, 1977 (Washington: U.S. G.P.O., 1978), 5–6. “10,000 Affected Now,” New York Times, January 22, 1977; “Reaction to Pardon Runs the Gamut,” Christian Science Monitor, January 24, 1977. 286. “10,000 Affected Now,” New York Times, January 22, 1977. 287. “Draft Pardon Foes Fail To Obtain Senate Vote,” Washington Post, January 25, 1977; “Carter Pardon Plan Opposed in Senate,” Los Angeles Times, January 20, 1977. 288. “Reaction to Pardon Runs the Gamut,” Christian Science Monitor, January 24, 1977; “Reaction to the Pardon Runs Gamut From Joy to Outrage,” Washington Post, January 22, 1977; “Mathis, McDonald Hit Pardon as a ‘Mistake’ and a ‘Mockery,’” Atlanta Constitution, January 22, 1977. 289. “Group Wants Carter Ousted From Legion,” New York Times, January 25, 1977; “10,000 Affected Now,” New York Times, January 22, 1977; “Georgia VFW Opens Drive to Amend Carter’s Pardon,” Atlanta Constitution, January 24, 1977; “Discards Medals in Pardon Protest,” Chicago Tribune, January 6, 1977. 290. “After Vietnam, a War of Emotions,” New York Times, April 3, 1977; “ProAmnesty Groups Offer Praise But Assert That Plan Is Too Limited,” New York Times, January 22, 1977; “Reaction to the Pardon Runs Gamut From Joy to Outrage,” Washington Post, January 22, 1977. 291. “The President’s Pardon,” Christian Science Monitor, January 24, 1977; “Carter amnesty took courage,” Chicago Tribune, January 30, 1977; “Mr. Carter’s pardon,” Chicago Tribune, January 25, 1977; “Carter’s First Act: A Good Beginning,” Boston Globe, January 22, 1977; “The Other Military Offenders: Will Carter Extend the Pardon?” Washington Post, February 13, 1977; “The Facts Still Speak, for Amnesty,” New York Times, February 21, 1977. 292. “Carter förolämpar desertörer,” Dagens Nyheter, January 22, 1977 (Swedish original: “förolämpning mot de miljontals amerikaner som i handling to avstånd från USA:s angreppskrig mot Indokinas folk”); “No Surprises from Carter,” American Exile Newsletter, January 1977. 293. “The Carter ‘Pardon-Amnesty: What It Accomplishes,” American Exile Newsletter, February 1977; “No Surprises from Carter,” American Exile Newsletter, January 1977. 294. “Carter förolämpar desertörer” (Swedish original: “Carter verkar vara en mer hederlig person”). 295. “Statement to the Press. Universal and Unconditional Amnesty,” Zéro, Paris, January 1977, SHSW, Gibault, 16. 296. “Deserters Call Carter Plan Too Little, Too Late and a Sham,” Washington Post, February 1, 1977; “Draft Evaders and Deserters Meet in Toronto,” Toronto 273, January 31, 1977, Public Library of US Diplomacy, wikileaks​.or​g, accessed August 2015. 297. Moser, The New Winter Soldiers, 88. 298. “Joint Statement of Sweden and France,” American Exile Newsletter, February 1977.

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299. “Response to President Carter’s Pardon by the International Conference of War Resisters and Veterans Held in Toronto,” NCUUA, January 29–30, 1977, in American Exile Newsletter, February 1977. 300. “Carter Approves Better Discharges,” Atlanta Constitution, March 29, 1977; “Carter Authorizes Pentagon to Review 432,000 Discharges,” New York Times, March 29, 1977; Baskir and Strauss, Chance and Circumstance, 232. 301. “Carter Approves Better Discharges”; “Carter Authorizes Pentagon to Review 432,000 Discharges.” 302. “‘Upgrading’ of Discharges Could Bring Benefts to Many Veterans,” Washington Post, April 11, 1977. 303. “Carter and Deserters,” Boston Globe, April 5, 1977; “Mr. Carter Spoke Softly, Effectively on Discharges,” New York Times, April 3, 1977. 304. “Those Who Served (Cont.),” Washington Post, April 11, 1977. 305. “Carter and Deserters.” 306. “On Discharging a Vietnam Duty,” New York Times, April 5, 1977; “Carter and Deserters”; “Those Who Served (Cont.)”; “Mr. Carter Spoke Softly, Effectively on Discharges,” New York Times, April 3, 1977. 307. Committee on Veterans’ Affairs, Upgrading of Discharges under Special Programs Implemented by Former President Gerald Ford and President Jimmy Carter. Hearings before a Select Subcommittee of the Committee on Veterans’ Affairs, Ninety-ffth Congress, First Session, June 20–21 and 27–28, 1977, 53. 308. “Carter Authorizes Pentagon to Review 432,000 Discharges,” New York Times, March 29, 1977. 309. “Thurmond Bill Bars Benefts for Upgraded Deserters,” Los Angeles Times, April 30, 1977. 310. “Ex-Gls Don’t Salute Carter Review Plan,” Atlanta Constitution, July 3, 1977. 311. “The Carter Program . . . Or, a 7-Hour Discharge,” American Exile Newsletter, September 1977; “Returnees Get Quick Flush” and “NCUUA Still Swinging,” American Exile Newsletter, Summer 1977. 312. “Some Details on Carter’s ‘Pardon,’” American Exile Newsletter, March– April 1977; “Carter’s Deserter Package,” American Exile Newsletter, May 1977; “The Carter Program . . . Or, a 7-Hour Discharge.” 313. “Returnees Get Quick Flush”; “Ex-Gls Don’t Salute Carter Review Plan,” Atlanta Constitution, July 3, 1977. 314. “The Carter Program . . . Or, a 7-Hour Discharge”; “Carter’s Deserter Package”; “Uncle Jimmy Wants You,” Amex/Canada and Zéro, Paris, [1977], SHSW, Gibault, 2. 315. “Ex-Gls Don’t Salute Carter Review Plan.” 316. “The Carter Program . . . Or, a 7-Hour Discharge.” 317. “The Carter Program . . . Or, a 7-Hour Discharge.” 318. “Ex-Gls Don’t Salute Carter Review Plan”; “Urgent Meeting,” Zéro, Paris, September 1977, SHSW, Gibault, 2. 319. Committee on Veterans’ Affairs, Eligibility for Veterans’ Benefts Pursuant to Discharge Upgradings. Hearing before the Committee on Veterans’ Affairs,

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Ninety-ffth Congress, First Session, June 23, 1977; Upgrading of Discharges (Hearings); “Bills Would Deny Benefts for Upgraded Discharges,” Washington Post, June 1, 1977. 320. “‘Bad Paper’ Discharges,” Washington Post, June 6, 1977. 321. “‘Bad Paper’ Discharges.” 322. Eligibility for Veterans’ Benefts (Hearing), 172. 323. Upgrading of Discharges (Hearings), 78 and 81; “Deserters: ‘A Refection of the General Permissiveness,’” New York Times, March 16, 1969. 324. “Upgrading Vietnam Discharges Chills ‘40s Vets in House,” Washington Post, June 21, 1977. 325. Eligibility for Veterans’ Benefts (Hearing), 172. 326. Upgrading of Discharges (Hearings), 81. 327. Upgrading of Discharges (Hearings), 217 ff., quote on page 221; “Vietnam: An Instant Editorial,” Washington Post, June 21, 1977. 328. See on these issues from different perspectives Lembcke, The Spitting Image; Bernard G. Burkett and Glenna Whitley, Stolen Valor. How the Vietnam Generation Was Robbed of Its Heroes and Its History (Dallas: Verity Press, 1998), 47 ff. 329. Upgrading of Discharges (Hearings), 143 ff., quotes on pages 158 and 145. 330. Upgrading of Discharges (Hearings), 145. 331. Upgrading of Discharges (Hearings), 158, 146. 332. “Upgrading Vietnam Discharges Chills ‘40s Vets in House,” Washington Post, June 21, 1977. 333. Upgrading of Discharges (Hearings), 144 ff., quote on page 158. 334. Upgrading of Discharges (Hearings), 146–148. 335. Upgrading of Discharges (Hearings), 78, 81, 158–159, and 170–172. Condon’s authority as a representative of the NCUUA was affrmed to the committee by Barbara Webster, a member of the organization’s national offce (Upgrading of Discharges (Hearings), 162). 336. “Veterans Benefts Statement on Signing S. 1307 into Law,” October 8, 1977 in Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States. Jimmy Carter. June 25–December 31, 1977 (Washington: U.S. G.P.O., 1978), 1757–1758; “Upgraded Veterans Face Aid Loss in Bill Signed by President,” New York Times, October 9, 1977. 337. Barry W. Lynn, “Carter and the Veterans,” The Nation, December 24, 1977, 678–682; “Amnesty and Discharges,” The Veteran, Spring 1979; David Shichor and Donald R. Ranish, “President Carter’s Vietnam Amnesty. An Analysis of a Public Policy Decision,” Presidential Studies Quarterly 10, 3 (1980), 445–446. 338. This has also been pointed out in earlier studies of the Ford- and Carter programs for legal relief. See Shichor and Ranish, “President Carter’s Vietnam Amnesty,” 445–446 and 448; Plaxton, “To Reconcile a Nation,” xxii.

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Conclusion

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History, Memory, and Activism

During the American involvement in the Vietnam War, traditional concepts of military desertion and images of the deserter were substantially challenged. At the focus of the debate were absentees from the U.S. armed forces, who frst appeared in the public eye in Europe and Japan in 1967 and who sought sanctuary in France and Sweden, as well as Canada. As the frst and for a long time the most visible among the mass of military offenders of the Vietnam era, they strove to explain their action with the objective to gain recognition by war opponents and understanding among ordinary Americans, and to obtain an amnesty. By the end of the 1970s—after they had been offered legal relief by Presidents Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter, however conditional and far less benefcial than that granted to draft evaders—their plight fell victim to postwar revisionism and amnesia. Their cause was lost to efforts to restore the functioning of the military and to rebuild the political self-confdence of the United States, paired with a general weariness over the divisions about the Vietnam War and the desire among many Americans for a return to normal. Only a few years after the Carter administration’s discharge review program for military offenders of 1977, Myra MacPherson lamented in her extensive account on the Vietnam generation how the deserters’ war refusal and struggle to achieve an amnesty had been widely forgotten among Americans and, indeed, was suppressed and marginalized in the collective memory of the war.1 The refusers’ history, nevertheless, was recorded by herself and other chroniclers of the impact of the Vietnam War on young Americans, such as Gloria Emerson, David Cortright, and Lawrence Baskir and William Strauss. Moreover, it has been preserved in the historical records of the mass numbers of military absence offenses and documents of the debates on war refusal. In turn, responding to revisionist narratives of the 1980s, students of the Vietnam War and antiwar protest have noted facts on desertion and GI 319

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dissent, and more recently, former deserters recounted details of individual experiences in their autobiographical writings. This study, with its reconstruction and analysis of various facets and perspectives of the debate on desertion during the Vietnam War, offers a new assessment of the matter and contributes to its recognition in historiography and in public discourse on the war and its memory. The specifc case of the American deserters of the Vietnam War stands as an example for how a group and an issue, otherwise marginalized or precluded to a restricted institution as the military, can enter broader debates and prompt a reassessment of their position and their action, if an interplay of structural circumstances and discursive contexts create favorable conditions. Crucial for the (re)discovery of such marginalized and forgotten stories and subjects are an open approach to settings, historical agents, and levels of discourse, as well as a sensitivity to sometimes subtle developments and scattered indications of the issue in the sources and in scholarship. At the same time, my narrative exemplifes the impediments to the resignifcation of a term and an action, and the persistence of traditional concepts and images, in particular of marginal groups and deviant behavior. Despite the condensed and intensifed debate and efforts for change at a certain point in time, this process can be disrupted once the conditions and contexts, which had once catalyzed it, end or turn into negative ones. Setbacks and backlashes, however, are typical symptoms of struggles for recognition, which nevertheless may be reactivated and gain new momentum later on and in other contexts. Critical for the genesis and development of the debate on desertion during the Vietnam War were the international setting in which the deserters appeared, the transnational dimension of the Vietnam debate, international media channels and alternative communication networks, and a new concern with and awareness of the responsibility of the individual soldier in war as a legacy of the Second World War. These factors add on to the broader developments in American politics and society of the 1960s, which generated dissent among the young generation and mobilized antiwar protest, such as the controversial justifcation of the United States’ involvement in Vietnam and its conduct in the war, the escalation of draft inductions and discriminatory effects of military conscription, as well as conficts in ethnic, generational, and social relations. In these settings and contexts, deserters from the U.S. armed forces became agents and subjects of the transnational circuitry of American history. They spoke as members of the Vietnam generation and representatives of military refusal, and became the targets of projections of conficting images and interpretations of their own action and more generally of young Americans and their response to the war. In these roles, the deserters contributed substantially to the international and American Vietnam

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debates and the controversy over military conscription, laying new claims to American ideals, humanitarian principles, and a basic right to war refusal. The debate on desertion by U.S. servicemen took off outside North America, frst at the triennial conference of the War Resisters’ International in 1966 and with the following European desertion campaign, and second when American deserters appeared in Europe and Japan in 1967 and sought sanctuary. The turn of antiwar activists to focus on U.S. troops stationed abroad refected their concern with the role of the individual soldier in war, both in the contemporary campaigns against national liberation movements in the Third World and in reference to the Second World War. The Nuremberg Principles, once developed by the United States and its allies as a result of the war crimes trials against German and Japanese leaders and promoted as a framework for international relations, became a critical reference for the legitimization of war refusal in the new armed conficts of the postwar era, of which the war in Vietnam from the French intervention to the U.S. engagement was regarded as exemplary. In Europe, in particular in West Germany, and in Japan, the concept had special signifcance and appeal for war opponents, where the legacies of the Second World War were omnipresent—obvious, latent, or suppressed—and where efforts to come to terms with the war were reactivated in the 1960s. This study has shown how the Nuremberg Principles time and again served as a reference frame for American deserters and their supporters in Europe, Japan, and in North America, sometimes explicitly, often implicitly, and in combination with other concepts. From the frst debate on desertion and war resistance in 1966 to the last phase of the struggle for amnesty in 1977, the claim to the Nuremberg Principles for legitimizing and vindicating desertion was a powerful and durable one, as it could not be discredited as un-American or ideologically motivated. After all, it linked desertion to the broader Vietnam debate, in which the legacy of Nuremberg was prominent, and it related soldiers’ war refusal in the Vietnam War to the discourse on war resistance in a wider sense, in other contemporary contexts and in a historical perspective. My fndings indicate that this new perspective on desertion, and in particular for the American deserters to claim a voice in this debate, was only possible in an international setting. AWOL U.S. servicemen frst publicized their motives and position on the Vietnam War in Europe and Japan in 1967, where they felt safe from prosecution by the American authorities and met the interest and sympathy of war opponents. The latter supported them both morally and practically in escaping the military, explaining their action, and in fnding sanctuary, and thus altered the conditions of a foreign environment, where desertions were otherwise very diffcult, into a relatively friendly one. In Japan and West Germany, where U.S. forces had been stationed since the Second World War and where now troops were deployed to and from

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Vietnam, war opponents eager to fnd concrete means of activism turned to organizing underground aid for deserters, establishing travel routes to asylum countries, and informing American servicemen about available options to evade serving in the war. With the appearance of American deserters in 1967 and the legalization of their status in France and Sweden, they and their plight gained unprecedented visibility and attention in both international and American publics, and they strove to employ the mainstream media and the channels of the international antiwar scene to explain their motives and present their perspective on the Vietnam War. Although a minority among the large numbers of military absence offenders of the Vietnam era, most of whom went underground in the United States using familial and social structures to hide from the authorities, the deserters in exile long remained the most visible and vocal ones and thus stayed in the focus of the international and American debates on Vietnam, war resistance, and amnesty. The debate on desertion was a complex one, and the perspective of American deserters themselves was often contested. Unprecedented attention by international and American media and previously unknown opportunities to speak invited the new war refusers to hope for approval, understanding, and solidarity. But individuals, who were inexperienced and naive in their encounters with journalists and sympathizers, and exile groups, adapting strategies for communication and activism from protest movement organizations, were often frustrated with their depiction in reports and commentary. The absentees, their action, and their motives were subject to interpretation from different sides, which ranged from accusations of defection and support for the enemy, the trivialization as misguided youths and misfts unable to adjust to military order, to attributions as victims of the American draft system and social and ethnic discrimination, heroic war resisters, and supporters of the Vietnamese struggle for independence. The contested position of the military deserters, in particular in the American public, exemplifes the deep rifts in society and politics about the Vietnam War, the dilemma of the young generation, and the legitimacy of war resistance. More than other forms of protest and refusal, the act of desertion found little acceptance among many Americans, and it also took time and detours—not least via the example of the deserters exiled abroad—for antiwar activists in the United States to endorse the men and their plea for recognition, support in exile, and amnesty. This study reconstructed how American deserters entered alliances with European and American groups to promote their cause, not without frictions and conficts, and how mentors and brokers contributed to their establishment in exile and communicated their perspective to audiences in the United States. Disappointments and frustrations in their efforts to gain recognition in the American public and to prompt a positive redefnition of the term deserter, as well as existential necessities in exile led the absentees to focus

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on improving their situation, individually by seeking opportunities to make a living abroad and collectively through initiatives for self-help and community building. Nevertheless, many exiles maintained political consciousness about their action and its consequences, the Vietnam War, and American politics, specifcally as war refusers and at the same time refecting the broader politicization of their generation. With great self-confdence and considerable experience of organizing and activism American deserters entered the debate on amnesty, forged new alliances, and pushed for the vindication of military absentees and military offenders in general. While time and again they met the reluctance of many Americans to comprehend their action, they reached new dimensions in their struggle for approval and amnesty, not least through drastic confrontations with military justice, and eventually achieved recognition in legislative proposals and presidential policies. By the early 1970s, the extent of the crisis in the U.S. armed forces and the record fgures of AWOL and desertion were apparent. Military observers were alarmed and pushed for the creation of an all-volunteer force, and war opponents were confdent that the mobilization of dissent inside the military contributed to the failure of the United States in Vietnam. Beyond all efforts to interpret and legitimize desertion and war refusal, the action itself, not least evident in the fgures, often spoke louder than words. Statistics forced political and military leaders to respond and made it diffcult for them to downplay the import of desertion. War opponents and amnesty advocates cited statistics to demonstrate the gravity of the matter and the imminence of a solution. At the same time, the action of individual American deserters and groups of exiles must not be underestimated when assessing the signifcance of desertion during the Vietnam War. The decision to go AWOL and stay away, the choice to publicize this step, the claim to legitimacy, the efforts to organize and make it in exile, as well as the confrontation of military justice were critical in creating awareness about the plight of dissenting U.S. servicemen and in mobilizing further opposition among the ranks. Beyond the record numbers, these actions marked the new quality of desertion during the Vietnam War and prompted a substantial debate on war refusal and a reassessment of the dimensions of servicemen’s dissent. Notwithstanding these developments, we learned how the inclusion of the issue of desertion in congressional and presidential politics also led to a more passionate resistance against legal relief for deserters and a vindication of their action. Conservative congresspeople were determined in limiting the benefts of programs introduced by Presidents Ford and Carter for military deserters. Their obstinacy in combating any justifcation of desertion in the context of the Vietnam War led them to force through a policy, which effectually harmed a great number of Vietnam veterans holding less than honorable discharge papers. Although the military absence offenders were a legacy of

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the era of conscription and required appropriate treatment according to the circumstances of their induction and service during the Vietnam War, political and military leaders strove to protect and further the independence and sovereignty of the new professional military, introduced in 1973. Key objectives of the end of the draft and the creation of an all-volunteer force were to shield the armed forces from public opinion, limit the infuence of politics, and prevent the import of opposition into the military. This was clearly a consequence of the oppositional movement among U.S. servicemen and the record fgures of desertions of the Vietnam era.2 The concept of an independent military informed the passionate opposition to an amnesty for the deserters and other offenders and thus hindered a fairer process of coming to terms with the specifc circumstances of the United States’ war in Vietnam and its effects on young Americans. Only a few years after the fnal stroke of the amnesty debate, when President Carter signed into law the bill ending the discharge review program for military offenders, this late culmination of the Vietnam controversy was largely forgotten. Desertion and war refusal seemed “arcane” issues “from another century,” wrote Myra MacPherson when she took on the role of belated chronicler of the “haunted generation” to preserve its history.3 By then, the United States had completed the transformation of its military into a professional volunteer force and was meeting new challenges in foreign relations. To prepare for further crises and the next (and last) phase of the Cold War it invested in technological armament and reintroduced compulsory draft registration, which President Carter frst proposed for both men and women.4 These political efforts to overcome the supposed ‘Vietnam syndrome’ went along with the discursive process of mending the divisions and rifts deepened by the confict, with revisionist explanations of the war and its impact, and in popular cultural narratives.5 American foreign policy of the post-Vietnam years, especially that of President Ronald Reagan, appeared to be a return to the principles of the Cold War with the priority of readiness for national defense and a, not merely rhetorical, confrontation of the United States with the Soviet Union. The Vietnam War was thus left as a mere deviation or at most a mistake in a longer history of American foreign relations and military strategy. After the end of the bipolar confrontation, Reagan’s successor George H.W. Bush would then proclaim that with the United States’ victory in Iraq, the “Vietnam Syndrome” had been “kicked [. . .] once and for all,” and many Americans “seem[ed] thrilled to have exorcised the ghosts of Vietnam.”6 The restoration of such national self-confdence came at the cost of a distorted image of the relations of U.S. servicemen and veterans of the Vietnam War with the antiwar movement. One of the frst motion pictures on the war and its impact on the Vietnam generation constructed the image

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of a “victim-veteran,” symbolizing how the American fghting men had been betrayed on the home front and thus were doomed to lose the war—an American version of the stab-in-the-back myth.7 In this narrative, the blame is put on the antiwar movement as well as the media, which allegedly had failed to support the government and the military in the war effort. Although in such readings it is mostly antiwar activists who exemplify the hostile environment to which Vietnam veterans return, deserters would make the quintessential betrayers of GIs in this logic. In fact, in the lore of the Vietnam War, deserters appear as a mysterious pair of a white and a Black GI, who joined the forces of the Vietnamese FNL to fght the Americans.8 Postwar narratives, furthermore, depict former deserters as renegades and criminals, who are chased down by protagonists, often policemen and detectives who were themselves Vietnam veterans or, in one case, a veteran of the Second World War and gold star father, who had lost a son in Vietnam.9 This way, the honor of Vietnam veterans was to be restored by protagonists, who fought themselves for what the government and the liberal media had deprived them of. The fact that deserters were not more often assigned the role of scapegoats for the failure in Vietnam and the diffcult return of veterans arguably results from the two groups’ proximity. The lines between combat veteran, GI, AWOLee, military dissenter were fowing and often overlapped, and thus the confrontation of soldiers from the working-class with their privileged colleagues—draft evaders or student activists—makes for an easier dramatization. In a rare case of a deserter as a protagonist in a 1980s flm, the issue is reduced to the intergenerational confict of father and son, the former a veteran of the Second World War and the latter returning from exile in Paris after many years to see his father once more before he would die. The larger dimension of the son’s war refusal and his generation’s plight, however, is almost lost in the confrontation of the two characters, led more by personal motives and masculine pride than the broader implications of the Vietnam War. And in another flm, the issue of desertion is framed within a Cold War setting, when an African American Vietnam deserter and tap dancer living in the Soviet Union encounters a Russian ballet dancer who is returned to Leningrad after escaping to the West. Although an allusion to the relationship of the two superpowers during the 1980s, the narrative echoes the appearance of AWOL American servicemen in the Soviet Union in 1967 and 1968 and reproduces the image of the Vietnam deserter as Cold War defector.10 Despite such distortions and neglect of the actual dimensions of desertion and GI opposition against the Vietnam War in American politics and popular memory during the postwar years, opponents of new military campaigns of the United States could still draw on these precedents. In fact, in the era of an all-volunteer force, historical examples of soldiers’ opposition and desertions made invaluable references and were compatible with present instances

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of dissent, in contrast to draft resistance. Moreover, the solidarity between war opponents and dissenting servicemen of the Vietnam years was cited to counter political rhetoric to split antiwar activists and soldiers during the Persian Gulf War, and legal counseling networks as well as critical veterans organizations, both initiated during the Vietnam era, intensifed their work. AWOL servicemen and women were among the frst to speak out against the allegedly “popular war” against Iraq in late 1990, and the military tried to rid itself from the dissenters by offering discharge deals.11 During the more controversial missions of the United States in Afghanistan and Iraq following the terrorist attacks of September 2001, oppositional soldiers left their units to avoid deployment or reassignment to the war and in objection to their government’s neglect of international law and humanitarian principles. Some of them publicized their motives and sought asylum in Canada, and also in Europe.12 The precedents of the Vietnam War were again critical references for such actions as well as for mobilizing support and solidarity for these men and women. A reissue of David Cortright’s account of the soldiers’ revolt of the Vietnam War was widely circulated in this context, and new interest in Vietnam-era resistance has arguably been inspired by these developments and the historical references cited by activists.13 With its focus on the most marginalized members of the Vietnam generation and their struggle for recognition, this study adds the critical case of the deserters to the debate—the prodigal heroes of the Vietnam War.

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NOTES 1. MacPherson, Long Time Passing, 333 ff. 2. Seidman, “The Unquiet Americans,” 265–267; Bailey, America’s Army, 3 ff. and 36–37. 3. MacPherson, Long Time Passing, 354. 4. Jaclyn Stanke, “Carter, the Soviet Union, Détente, and SALT II,” in A Companion to Gerald R. Ford and Jimmy Carter, ed. Scott Kaufman (Chichester: Wiley Blackwell, 2016); Michael V. Paulauskas, “Reagan, the Soviet Union, and the Cold War, 1981-1985,” in A Companion to Ronald Reagan, ed. Andrew L. Johns (Chichester: Wiley Blackwell, 2015); Chambers, The Oxford Companion to American Military History, 182. 5. On the origin and uses of the term ‘Vietnam syndrome,’ see Spencer C. Tucker, ed. Encyclopedia of the Vietnam War. A Political, Social, and Military History (Oxford/New York: Oxford University Press, 1998), 1291–1292. See on the memory culture on the Vietnam War in the United States of the 1980s Hixson, “Viet Nam and ‘Vietnam’ in American History and Memory,” 46 ff.

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6. Carl Mirra, “The Mutation of the Vietnam Syndrome. Underreported Resistance during the 1991 Persian Gulf War,” Peace & Change 36, 2 (2011), 262; “War Introduces a Tougher Bush to Nation,” New York Times, March 2, 1991. 7. Jerry Lembcke, “From Oral History to Movie Script. The Vietnam Veteran Interviews for Coming Home,” Oral History Review 26, 2 (1999), 66. See also August Carbonella, “Where in the World Is the Spat-Upon Veteran? The Vietnam War and the Politics of Memory,” Anthropology Now 1, 2 (2009); Keith Beattie, The Scar that Binds. American Culture and the Vietnam War (New York: New York University Press, 1998), 21 ff. 8. Milton J. Bates, The Wars We Took to Vietnam. Cultural Confict and Storytelling (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1996), 61 and 67; Vince Gotera, Radical Visions. Poetry by Vietnam Veterans (Athens/London: University of Georgia Press, 1994), 159–160. A similar narrative on deserters fghting for the Vietnamese can be found in The Invaders by Walter Kempley (New York: Dell, 1976). 9. See, for example, Wolf Lake (1978), Deserters (1983), and the Magnum, P.I., episode Thicker than Blood (1981). See, respectively, Lanning, Vietnam at the Movies, 352 and 202; Scherer, “Magnum, Hawke und Al. Der Vietnamveteran in den Serien von Donald P. Bellisario,” 215. 10. Proud Men (1987) and White Nights (1985) in Lanning, Vietnam at the Movies, 148 and 350. 11. Mirra, “Mutation of the Vietnam Syndrome,” 263 and 271; “Conscientious Objection in Operation Desert Storm,” Peace Review 18, 2 (2006). 12. See, for example, Peter Laufer, Mission Rejected. U.S. Soldiers Who Say No to Iraq (White River Junction: Chelsea Green, 2006); Sarah Lazare, Buff WhitmanBradley, and Cynthia Whitman-Bradley, eds. About Face. Military Resisters Turn against War (Oakland: PM Press, 2011), 18 ff.; Nan Levinson, War Is Not a Game. The New Antiwar Soldiers and the Movement they Built (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 2014), 54 ff.; Niebergall-Lackner, Status and Treatment of Deserters, 189 ff. 13. David Cortright, “Iraq and Afghanistan Wars Reawaken Military Protest,” in Waging Peace in Vietnam. U.S. Soldiers and Veterans Who Opposed the War, ed. Ron Carver, David Cortright, and Barbara Doherty (New York: New Village Press, 2019), 157–160. The inspirational role of contemporary soldiers’ protests for new Vietnam research has also been observed in Seidman, “The Unquiet Americans,” 26–27. Moreover, David Zeiger, director of Sir! No Sir! (2006), a documentary flm on the GI movement of the Vietnam era, noted that Iraq antiwar activism prompted him to realize this project, that he had been planning since his own involvement in GI organizing during the Vietnam War (“Sir! No Sir! An Interview with David Zeiger,” Mother Jones, September 1, 2005, https​:/​/ww​​w​.mot​​herjo​​nes​.c​​om​/po​​litic​​s​/200​​5​/09/​​ sir​-n​​o​-sir​​-inte​​rv​iew​​-davi​​d​-zei​​ger, accessed December 2017). The front cover of Cortright’s book was carried in poster size at an antiwar rally in the United States in 2007, for example (photograph of demonstrators, frontpage, Süddeutsche Zeitung, January 29, 2007).

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Bibliography

ARCHIVAL COLLECTIONS AND DIGITAL DATABASES U.S. National Archives, College Park (NARA) • RG 59, Department of State • RG 263, Central Intelligence Agency • RG 319, U.S. Army Staff • NPMP, Richard Nixon Presidential Materials Project

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Library of Congress, Washington, DC (LOC) • Look Magazine Photo Collection • Motion Picture, Broadcasting & Recorded Sound Division • Foreign Affairs Oral History Collection of the Association for Diplomatic  Studies and Training (www​.l​​oc​.go​​v​/col​​lecti​​ons​/f​​oreig​​n​-aff​​airs-​​oral-​​ histo​​ry) • United States–Russia Joint Commission on POWs and MIAs and the Defense POW/Missing Personnel Offce Joint Commission Support Division Archival Documents Databases (Task Force Russia/TFR, lcweb2​.loc​ .gov​/frd​​/tfr) Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) • American Deserters Committee (fle obtained through FOIA request) • Howard Zinn (fle at FBI Online Database, The Vault, vault​.fbi​.g​ov, accessed October 2011)

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Wisconsin Historical Society, Madison (SHSW) • Paris American Committee to Stop War • Michèle Gibault • Pamphlet Collection • Paris American Committee to Stop War • Underground Newspaper Microflm Collection • GI Press Collection Online (content.wisconsinhistory.org) University of Massachusetts Boston, Archives and Special Collections (UMB) • Richard Perrin • Gold Star Parents for Amnesty Texas Tech University, Lubbock (TTU/VVA) • Virtual Vietnam Archive (vva​.vietnam​.ttu​​.edu) Vanderbilt TV News Archives (accessed at LOC) • Television broadcasts on American deserters George Washington University, Washington, DC, Special Collections (GWU) • Richard T. Gibson University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB/APP) • The American Presidency Project, Online Database (presidency​.ucsb​.​edu) Public Library of U.S. Diplomacy (wikileaks​.o​rg)

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• Records of the Department of State Institute for Advanced Technology in the Humanities, University of Virginia at Charlottesville • The Sixties Project, Online Database (www2​.iath​.virginia​.edu​/si​xties) Minnesota Historical Society (MNHS) • Carter/Mondale position papers, 1974–1976 (http:​/​/www​​2​.mnh​​s​.org​​/libr​​ ary​/f​​i ndai​​ds​/00​​697​_P​​​oliti​​cal​.x​​ml)

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Safe Return, Representative Documentation (veteranscholar​.c​om) • Documents of Safe Return and Families of Resisters for Amnesty Arbetarrörelsens Arkiv och Bibliotek, Stockholm (ARAB) (Labour Movement Archives and Library) • Hans Göran Franck • Svenska kommittén för vietnam, Laos och Kambodja (Swedish Vietnam Committee) • Jim Walch (reviewed before transfer to ARAB) Riksarkivet, Stockholm (RAS) (Swedish National Archives) • De förenade FNL-gruppernas arkiv (Swedish United FNL-Groups, DFFG) • Säkerhetspolisen/SÄPO (Swedish Security Service) Svensk mediedatabas (SMDB) (Swedish Media Database) • Television broadcasts on American deserters Internationaal Instituut voor Sociale Geschiedenis, Amsterdam (IISG) (International Institute of Social History)

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• War Resisters’ International • USA – Peace Movement • Ton Regtien • Frits Eisenloeffel • Brünn-Harris-Watts Collection/Archiv Soldatenrechte (ASR/IISG, reviewed before transfer to IISG) Freie Universität Berlin, APO-Archiv (APOA) (Archives of the Extra-Parliamentary Opposition in West Germany) • Collections of German SDS committees and members Hamburger Institut für Sozialforschung (HIS) (Archives of the Hamburg Institute for Social Research) • Rudi Dutschke • Karl Dietrich Wolff

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Deutsches Rundfunkarchiv, Potsdam (DRA) (German Broadcasting Archive) • Records of Radio Berlin International • Records of Der Schwarze Kanal (sk​.dra​​.de) NEWSPAPERS AND PERIODICALS

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United States Atlanta Constitution Atlantic Boston Globe Chicago Tribune Christian Science Monitor Daily News/Sunday News Ebony International Herald Tribune Jet Liberation Life Look Los Angeles Free Press Los Angeles Times The Nation National Guardian The New Republic New York Post New York Review of Books New York Times New York Times Book Review Newsweek Overseas Weekly Ramparts Sunday Herald Traveler Time U.S. News & World Report Washington Post

Great Britain Peace News The Times War Resistance

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Germany Berliner Extra-Dienst Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung Frankfurter Rundschau Neue Berliner Illustrierte Der Spiegel Süddeutsche Zeitung

Sweden Aftonbladet Arbetet Dagens Nyheter Expressen Ny Dag Svenska Dagbladet Tidsignal

France L’Événement Le Figaro L’Humanité Lecture pour Tous Le Monde Le Nouvel Observateur Paris Match

Soviet Union

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Pravda and Izvestia in Current Digest of the Soviet Press Furthermore, newspaper and magazine clippings from smaller publications, many of which were included in archival collections or were reprinted in other documents, have been referenced.

PROTEST MOVEMENT AND EXILE PUBLICATIONS Publications from exile groups and protest movement organizations have been located in the following collections and databases, which are indicated in abbreviation following publication names.

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Amherst College, Archives and Special Collections (AC) Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), File on American Deserters Committee Independent Voices, Open Access Alternative Press Collection, voices​.revealdigital​ .​com (IV) International Institute for Social History, Amsterdam (IISG), Library, USA – Peace Movement, Ton Regtien and Brünn-Harris-Watts Collections John F. Kennedy Institute for North American Studies, Berlin, Library (JFKI) Kungliga Biblioteket (Swedish National Library), Stockholm (KB) Labour Movement Archives and Library (ARAB), Library, Collections of Hans Göran Franck and Jim Walch London School of Economics, Library (LSE) Safe Return, Representative Documentation, veteranscholar​.c​om (VS) State Historical Society of Wisconsin (SHSW), Collections of PACS and Michèle Gibault, Pamphlet Collection, GI Press Collection Online, content​.wisconsinhistory​.​org Swedish National Archives (RAS), DFFG Archives University of Massachusetts Boston, Archives and Special Collections (UMB), Richard Perrin Vietnam Veterans against the War, Online Database, www​.vvaw​.org​/veteran (VVAW) Act (UMB, SHSW) The Ally (SHSW) American Exile Newsletter (ARAB, IV) American Exile Newsletter (ARAB, SHSW) American War Resister/Resistor in Sweden (ARAB, AC) Amex-Canada (JFKI) Amnesty Report (VS) Baumholder Gig Sheet (IISG) Berkeley Barb (IV) The Bond (SHSW) Boston After Dark (VS) FNL i Sverige (RAS, AK) Great Speckled Bird (IV) Internal Hemorrhage (ARAB, KB) New Left Notes (JFKI) PACS News (IISG) South Vietnam in Struggle (IISG) The Paper Grenade (RAS, IISG, ARAB, LSE) The Second Front [Sheet Newspaper] (IISG, RAS, ARAB) The Second Front/The Second Front Review [Brochure] (IISG, ARAB, FBI) The Veteran (VVAW) Vietnam Bulletinen (RAS) Where It’s At (IISG) Winter Soldier (VVAW) Zéro (SHSW)

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GOVERNMENT PUBLICATIONS Committee on Un-American Activities. Subversive Infuences in Riots, Looting, and Burning, Part 3, Ninetieth Congress, First Session, 28–30 November 1967, Washington: U.S. G.P.O., 1967. Committee on Armed Services. Military Deserters. Hearings before a Subcommittee on the Problem of Deserters from Military Service, Ninetieth Congress, Second Session, 21–22 May 1968, Washington: U.S. G.P.O., 1968. Committee on Armed Services. Treatment of Deserters from Military Service. Report of the Committee on Armed Services, Ninety-frst Congress, First Session, 11 March 1969, Washington: U.S. G.P.O., 1969. Committee on the Judiciary. Extent of Subversion in the “New Left”. Hearings before the Subcommittee to Investigate the Administration of the Internal Security Act and Other Internal Security Laws, Ninety-frst Congress, Second Session, January– September 1970, Washington: U.S. G.P.O., 1970. Committee on the Judiciary. Selective Service and Amnesty. Hearings before the Subcommittee on Administrative Practice and Procedure, Ninety-Second Congress, Second Session, 28–29 February and 1 March 1972, Washington: U.S. G.P.O., 1972. Committee on Internal Security. Investigation of Attempts to Subvert the United States Armed Services. Hearings before the Committee on Internal Security, Ninety-second Congress, First and Second Sessions, 20–22 and 27–28 October, 9–10, 16 and 18 November 1971, 2–3 and 9–10 May, 1 and 20 June 1972, Washington: U.S. G.P.O., 1972. Committee on the Judiciary. Amnesty. Hearings before the Subcommittee on Courts, Civil Liberties, and the Administration of Justice, Ninety-third Congress, Second Session, 8, 11, and 13 March 1974, Washington: U.S. G.P.O., 1974. Committee on the Judiciary. Clemency Program Practices and Procedures. Hearings Before the Subcommittee on Administrative Practice and Procedure, Ninety-third Congress, Second Session, 18–19 December 1974, Washington: U.S. G.P.O., 1975. Committee on the Judiciary. The Presidential Clemency Program. Hearings before the Subcommittee on Courts, Civil Liberties, and the Administration of Justice, Ninety-fourth Congress, First Session, 14 and 17–18 April 1975, Washington: U.S. G.P.O., 1975. Committee on the Judiciary. Report on the Presidential Clemency Program. Subcommittee on Courts, Civil Liberties, and the Administration of Justice of the Committee on the Judiciary, Ninety-fourth Congress, First Session, August 1975, Washington: U.S. G.P.O., 1975. Committee on the Judiciary. Organized Subversion in the U.S. Armed Forces. Hearings before the Subcommittee to Investigate the Administration of the Internal Security Act and Other Internal Security Laws, Part 1: The U.S. Navy, Ninety-fourth Congress, First Session, 25 September 1975, Washington: U.S. G.P.O., 1975. Committee on the Judiciary. The Weather Underground. Report of the Subcommittee to Investigate the Administration of the Internal Security Act and Other Internal Security Laws, Ninety-fourth Congress, First Session, January 1975, Washington: U.S. G.P.O., 1975.

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Committee on Veterans’ Affairs. Eligibility for Veterans’ Benefts Pursuant to Discharge Upgradings. Hearing before the Committee on Veterans’ Affairs, Ninetyffth Congress, First Session, 23 June 1977, Washington: U.S. G.P.O., 1977. Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States. Gerald Ford. August 9 to December 31, 1974. Washington: U.S. G.P.O., 1975. Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States. Gerald Ford. July 10, 1976 to January 20, 1977. Washington: U.S. G.P.O., 1979. Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States. Jimmy Carter. January 20 to June 24, 1977. Washington: U.S. G.P.O., 1978. Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States. Jimmy Carter. June 25 to December 31, 1977. Washington: U.S. G.P.O., 1978. Presidential Clemency Board. Report to the President. Washington: U.S. G.P.O., 1975. Uniform Code of Military Justice, Ch. X, § 885, Art. 85, in Manual for CourtsMartial (United States, 1968), Appendix 2. Erfahrungsbericht über die Beobachtungen der Ämter für Verfassungsschutz im Jahre 1968. Bonn: Bundesministerium des Innern, 1969. The German Criminal Code. A Modern English Translation. Oxford/Portland: Hart, 2008. Riksdagsdebatterna, 26 (1969), Andra Kammaren, Stockholm: Riksdagens förvaltningskontor. Data om invandrare. Levnadsförhållanden. Stockholm: Statistiska Centralbyrån, 1981.

FILMS

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A Time to Live (1968), directed by Leonid Makhnach, DVD. Deserter USA (1969), directed by Lars Lambert and Olle Sjögren, SMDB. Four Americans/Four American Soldiers (1967), Newsreel/Third World Newsreel, DVD. Hearts and Minds (1974), directed by Peter Davis, DVD. In the Year of the Pig (1968), directed by Emile de Antonio, DVD. The Memory of Justice (1976), directed by Marcel Ophüls, DVD.

INTERNET PUBLICATIONS Bright, Barbara W., “An American Deserter in Sweden,” ICWA-Report, 26 May 1970, Institute of Current World Affairs Publications Archive (www​.icwa​.org), accessed May 2010. In Pictures: The Dialectics of Liberation, Stills from Film Documentation by Peter Davis on the Conference of July 1967, London, https​:/​/50​​.roun​​dhous​​e​.org​​.uk​/c​​ onten​​t​-ite​​ms​/di​​alect​​ics​-l​​ibera​​​tion-​​pictu​​res, accessed November 2017. Males, William, Work in Progress. Refections of an American Deserter. Selfpublished at williammales​.blogspot​.c​om, accessed July 2017.

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Roth, Karl Heinz, “Die Nordroute der ‘Underground Railway.’ Hilfe für GIs auf der Flucht nach Skandinavien,” SDS/APO 68 Hamburg, 2020, https​:/​/sd​​s​-apo​​68hh.​​de​/ wp​​-cont​​ent​/u​​pload​​s​/202​​0​/08/​​GI​-​No​​rdrou​​te​.pd​​f, accessed September 2020. Sandin, Åke, “Även då beljögs fredsaktivister,” “Desertörer och ‘brunvänster’ nu och då,” and “Svensk agent kontra rysk ekolog,” self-published at tuffsandin​.blogspot​ .c​om, 1993, 2004 and 2010, accessed March 2014. TUFF Historik, History of the Tyresö division of the Swedish Peace and Arbitration Society, http:​/​/www​​.tuff​​.nu​/o​​m​-tuf​​f​/his​​torik​​-​1280​​2325, accessed August 2013. Uhl, Michael. Safe Return. Defending Deserters During the Vietnam War. Selfpublished at veteranscholar​.co​m, 2007, accessed July 2015. van Ingen, June. Against the Army. Self-published at againstthearmy​.blogspot​.c​om, 2011–2013, accessed October 2015. Watts, Max, “American RITA GI’s in the Paris May of 1968,” GI Special, 6E4, May 2008, http:​/​/www​​.alba​​srah.​​net​/e​​n​_art​​icles​​_2008​​/0508​​/GI​%2​​0Spec​​ial​%2​​06E​ 4_​​06050​​8​.htm​, accessed August 2009.

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PRINT PUBLICATIONS Acham, Christine. Revolution Televised. Prime Time and the Struggle for Black Power. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2004. Adams, Geoffrey. The Call of Conscience. French Protestant Responses to the Algerian War, 1954-1962. Waterloo: Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 1998. Adams, Rachel. “‘Going to Canada.’ The Politics and Poetics of Northern Exodus.” Yale Journal of Criticism 18, 2 (2005): 409–433. Adams, Sherman. Mitt Amerika. En svart avhoppares memoarer. Stockholm: Prisma, 1980. Allen, Michael J. Until the Last Man Comes Home. POWs, MIAs, and the Unending Vietnam War. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2009. Allison, William Thomas. Military Justice in Vietnam. The Rule of Law in an American War. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2007. Anderson, Terry H. “The GI Movement and the Response from the Brass.” In Give Peace a Chance. Exploring the Vietnam Antiwar Movement, edited by Melvin Small and William D. Hoover, 93–115. Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 1992. Andersson, Anita. Mötesplats. Invandrare och fyktingar i KFUK-KFUM. Stockholm: KFUK-KFUMs Riksförbund, 1983. Andrews, William. Dissenting Japan. A History of Japanese Radicalism and Counterculture, from 1945 to Fukushima. London: Hurst, 2016. Appy, Christian G. Working-Class War. American Combat Soldiers and Vietnam. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1993. Arnold, Heinz Ludwig, and Franz Josef Degenhardt. Väterchen Franz. Franz Josef Degenhardt und seine politischen Lieder. Reinbek: Rowohlt, 1975. Avenell, Simon Andrew. Making Japanese Citizens. Civil Society and the Mythology of the Shimin in Postwar Japan. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2010.

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Bailey, Beth L. America’s Army. Making the All-Volunteer Force. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2009. Baker, Kevin. “Stabbed in the Back! The Past and Future of a Right-Wing Myth.” Harper’s, June (2006): 31–42. Baskir, Lawrence M., and William Strauss. Chance and Circumstance. The Draft, the War, and the Vietnam Generation. New York: Knopf, 1978. ———. Reconciliation after Vietnam. A Program of Relief for Vietnam-Era Draft and Military Offenders. Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1977. Bates, Milton J. The Wars We Took to Vietnam. Cultural Confict and Storytelling. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1996. Bau, Ignatius. This Ground Is Holy. Church Sanctuary and Central American Refugees. New York: Paulist Press, 1985. The Beatles. Complete Scores. Milwaukee: Hal Leonard, 1993. Beattie, Keith. The Scar that Binds. American Culture and the Vietnam War. New York: New York University Press, 1998. Beidler, Philip D. “The Good War and the Great Snafu.” Georgia Review 52, 1 (1998): 62–84. Bell, D. Bruce. Characteristics of Army Deserters in the DoD Special Discharge Review Program. Alexandria: U.S. Army Research Institute for the Behavioral and Social Sciences, 1979. Bell, D. Bruce, and Beverly W. Bell. “Desertion and Antiwar Protest. Findings from the Ford Clemency Program.” Armed Forces & Society 3, 3 (1977): 433–443. Bell, D. Bruce, and Thomas J. Houston. The Vietnam Era Deserter. Characteristics of Unconvicted Army Deserters Participating in the Presidential Clemency Program. Arlington: U.S. Army Research Institute for the Behavioral and Social Sciences, 1976. Berg, David. Run, Brother, Run. A Memoir. New York: Scribner, 2013. Bernstein, Lee. America Is the Prison. Arts and Politics in Prison in the 1970s. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2010. Bock, Hans-Michael, and Tim Bergfelder. The Concise Cinegraph. Encyclopaedia of German Cinema. New York: Berghahn Books, 2009. Bodnar, John E. The “Good War” in American Memory. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2010. Boggs, Vernon W. “From Heroes to Villains: The Case of U.S. Military Deserters in Sweden.” National Journal of Sociology 1, 2 (1987): 237–250. Boller, Paul F. Presidential Campaigns. From George Washington to George W. Bush. Oxford/New York: Oxford University Press, 2004. Boyle, Richard. The Flower of the Dragon. The Breakdown of the U.S. Army in Vietnam. San Francisco: Ramparts Press, 1972. Braley, Russ. Bad News. The Foreign Policy of the New York Times. Chicago: Regnery Gateway, 1984. Bresnahan, James F. “Review [untitled].” Journal of the American Academy of Religion 41, 2 (1973): 317. Bröckling, Ulrich, and Michael Sikora, eds. Armeen und ihre Deserteure. Vernachlässigte Kapitel einer Militärgeschichte. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1998.

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Browder, Laura. “The Meaning of the Soldier. In the Year of the Pig and Hearts and Minds.” In A Companion to the War Film, edited by Douglas A. Cunningham and John C. Nelson, 356–370. Chichester: Wiley Blackwell, 2016. Burkett, Bernard G., and Glenna Whitley. Stolen Valor. How the Vietnam Generation Was Robbed of Its Heroes and Its History. Dallas: Verity Press, 1998. Carbonella, August. “Where in the World Is the Spat-Upon Veteran? The Vietnam War and the Politics of Memory.” Anthropology Now 1, 2 (2009): 49–58. Carver, Ron, David Cortright, and Barbara Doherty, eds. Waging Peace in Vietnam. U.S. Soldiers and Veterans Who Opposed the War. New York: New Village Press, 2019. Chafets, Ze’ev. Devil’s Night. And Other True Tales of Detroit. New York: Random House, 1990. Chambers, John Whiteclay, ed. The Oxford Companion to American Military History. Oxford/New York: Oxford University Press, 1999. Chapin, Robert Alan. Orphans of the Morning. Bonita Springs: December Press, 2007. Churchill, David Stewart. “When Home Became Away. American Expatriates and New Social Movements in Toronto 1965-1977.” Doctoral Dissertation, University of Chicago, 2001. Cismaru, Alfred. Boris Vian. New York: Twayne Publishers, 1974. Clague, Mark. “‘This Is America.’ Jimi Hendrix’s Star Spangled Banner Journey as Psychedelic Citizenship.” Journal of the Society for American Music 8, 4 (2014): 435–478. Coates, Ken, Peter Limqueco, and Peter Weiss, eds. Prevent the Crime of Silence. Reports from the Sessions of the International War Crimes Tribunal Founded by Bertrand Russell. London: Allen Lane/Penguin, 1971. Conférence Mondiale de Juristes pour le Vietnam. Bruxelles: Editions de l’Association Internationale des Juristes Démocrates, 1968. Cortright, David. Soldiers in Revolt. GI Resistance during the Vietnam War. Chicago: Haymarket Books, 2005, frst published 1975. Cortright, David, and Max Watts. Left Face. Soldier Unions and Resistance Movements in Modern Armies. New York: Greenwood Press, 1991. Crowell, Joan. Fort Dix Stockade. Our Prison Camp Next Door. New York: Links, 1974. Curry, G. David. Sunshine Patriots. Punishment and the Vietnam Offender. Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1985. Dancis, Bruce. Resister. A Story of Protest and Prison during the Vietnam War. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2014. Davey, Eleanor. Idealism beyond Borders. The French Revolutionary Left and the Rise of Humanitarianism, 1954-1988. Cambridge/New York: Cambridge University Press, 2015. Davis, Belinda. “A Whole World Opening Up. Transcultural Contact, Difference, and the Politicization of New Left Activists.” In Changing the World, Changing Oneself. Political Protest and Collective Identities in West Germany and the U.S. in the 1960s and 1970s, edited by Wilfried Mausbach, Belinda Davis, Martin Klimke, and Carla MacDougall, 255–276. New York: Berghahn Books, 2010.

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De Nike, Howard J. Mission (Un)essential. Contemplations of a Civilian Lawyer in Military Court. Berlin: Harald Kater, 2002. DeBenedetti, Charles. An American Ordeal. The Antiwar Movement of the Vietnam Era. Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 1990. Dellinger, David T. From Yale to Jail. The Life Story of a Moral Dissenter. New York: Pantheon Books, 1993. Der Kampf des vietnamesischen Volkes und die Globalstrategie des Imperialismus. Internationaler Vietnam-Kongreß. Berlin: Internationales Nachrichten- und Forschungsinstitut, 1968. Devine, Jeremy M. Vietnam at 24 Frames a Second. A Critical and Thematic Analysis of over 400 Films about the Vietnam War. Jefferson: McFarland, 1995. Dohrn, Bernardine. “Lessons for Leftists Old and New.” Monthly Review 58, 5 (2006): 43–48. Döring, Jörg, Felix Römer, and Rolf Seubert. Alfred Andersch desertiert. Fahnenfucht und Literatur (1944-1952). Berlin: Verbrecher Verlag, 2015. Doyle, Robert. The Enemy in Our Hands. America’s Treatment of Enemy Prisoners of War from the Revolution to the War on Terror. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 2010. Dräger, Marco. “Monuments for Deserters!? The Changing Image of Wehrmacht Deserters in Germany and Their Gradual Entry into Germany’s Memory Culture.” In Traitors, Collaborators and Deserters in Contemporary European Politics of Memory, edited by Gelinada Grinchenko and Eleonora Narvselius, 31–57. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2017. Duffett, John, ed. We Accuse! A Report of the Copenhagen Session of the War Crimes Tribunal. London: Bertrand Russell Peace Foundation, 1968. Dunne, Matthew W. A Cold War State of Mind. Brainwashing and Postwar American Society. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 2013. Dunnigan, James F., and Albert A. Nof. Dirty Little Secrets of the Vietnam War. New York: Thomas Dunne Books, 1999. Ebert, Jens. “Verräter, Helden, Außenseiter. Deutsche Deserteure im politischen und literarischen Diskurs nach 1945.” In Krieg und Nachkrieg. Konfgurationen der deutschsprachigen Literatur (1940-1965), edited by Hania Siebenpfeiffer and Ute Wölfel, 25–38. Berlin: Erich Schmidt, ‎2004. Ege, Moritz. Schwarz Werden. “Afroamerikanophilie” in den 1960er und 1970er Jahren. Bielefeld: Transcript, 2007. Ellison, Mary. “Black Music and the Vietnam War.” In Vietnam Images. War and Representation, edited by Jeffrey Walsh and James Aulich, 57–68. Basingstoke: Macmillan Press, 1989. Emerson, Gloria. Winners and Losers. Battles, Retreats, Gains, Losses, and Ruins from a Long War. New York: Random House, 1976. Erlandsson, Johan. Desertörerna. Stockholm: Carlssons, 2016. Ernst, John, and Yvonne Baldwin. “The Not So Silent Minority. Louisville’s Antiwar Movement, 1966-1975.” The Journal of Southern History 73, 1 (2007): 105–142. Etzemüller, Thomas. 1968 – Ein Riss in der Geschichte? Konstanz: UVK, 2005.

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Wernicke, Günter. “The World Peace Council and the Antiwar Movement in East Germany.” In America, the Vietnam War, and the World. Comparative and International Perspectives, edited by Andreas W. Daum, Lloyd C. Gardner and Wilfried Mausbach, 299–319. Cambridge/New York: Cambridge University Press, 2003. Westheider, James E. Fighting on Two Fronts. African Americans and the Vietnam War. New York: New York University Press, 1997. ———. The Vietnam War. Westport: Greenwood Press, 2007. Wette, Wolfram. “Deserteure der Wehrmacht rehabilitiert. Ein exemplarischer Meinungswandel in Deutschland (1980–2002).” Zeitschrift für Geschichtswissenschaft 52, 6 (2004): 505–527. ———, ed. Deserteure der Wehrmacht. Feiglinge, Opfer, Hoffnungsträger. Essen: Klartext, 1995. ———. Die Wehrmacht. Feindbilder, Vernichtungskrieg, Legenden. Frankfurt a.M.: S. Fischer, 2002. Whitmore, Terry. Memphis, Nam, Sweden. The Story of a Black Deserter. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 1997, frst published 1971. Williams, Roger Neville. The New Exiles. American War Resisters in Canada. New York: Liveright Publishers, 1971. Winningham, Barry. Saint Crazyhorse. An American Expatriate Novel with Swedish Scenes and Rebel Poems. Pasadena: Victor J. Burner, 1993. Wittner, Lawrence S. One World or None. A History of the World Nuclear Disarmament Movement through 1953. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1993. ———. Resisting the Bomb. A History of the World Nuclear Disarmament Movement, 1954-1970. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1997. Wolff, KD. “Amis und Naner – Mit Amerikanern in Hessen seit 1945.” In Amerikaner in Hessen. Eine besondere Beziehung im Wandel der Zeit, edited by Gundula Bavendamm, 198–204. Hanau: Cocon-Verlag, 2008. Wolff, Tobias. In Pharaoh’s Army. Memories of the Lost War. New York: Knopf, 1994. Wynn, Neil A. “The ‘Good War.’ The Second World War and Postwar American Society.” Journal of Contemporary History 31, 3 (1996): 463–482. Young, Ernest P. “A Note on Beheiren.” Bulletin of Concerned Asian Scholars 1, 2 (1968): 6–7. Young, Izzy, and Scott Barretta. The Conscience of the Folk Revival. The Writings of Israel “Izzy” Young. Lanham: Scarecrow Press, 2013. Young, Marilyn B. The Vietnam Wars. 1945-1990. New York: Harper Perennial, 1991. Ziemann, Benjamin. Violence and the German Soldier in the Great War. Killing, Dying, Surviving. London/New York: Bloomsbury Academic, 2017. Zimmermann, Andreas, ed. The 1951 Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees and Its 1967 Protocol. A Commentary. Oxford/New York: Oxford University Press, 2011. Zinn, Howard. You Can’t Be Neutral on a Moving Train. A Personal History of Our Times. Boston: Beacon Press, 1994.

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Index

Abendroth, Wolfgang, 35 Abzug, Bella, 225, 232–33, 243, 249, 253, 258 Adams, Sherman, 99 Addlestone, David, 272 Adrian, Günter, 34 Agnew, Spiro, 224, 236 Agronsky, Martin, 44, 46 Aiken, George, 52 Alder, Thomas, 236 Algerian War, xx–xxi, 4, 6–7, 15–16, 19, 54, 155, 262 Ali, Muhammad, 10–11, 24 All in the Family (TV series), 280 Alternative Stomach, 185–86, 188 Amalric, Jacques, 9 American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), 33, 186, 239–40, 245, 258, 260 American Deserters Committee (ADC), 79, 98–104, 106–21, 124, 147, 148– 49, 151, 156, 217–18n248 American Exile Project, 146–47, 163, 180–85, 187, 194, 269–70 American Friends Service Committee, 153 American Legion, 49, 263, 279, 282, 288, 294

American Servicemen’s Union (ASU), 48, 80, 195 Amex, 238–39, 241–42, 247, 251, 263, 272, 280 Ammann, Walter, 35 Amnesty International, 7, 97, 109, 152–54 Andersch, Alfred, xxi Anderson, Craig, xiii, 36, 40–42, 44 Anderson, Otis, 89 Andropov, Yuri,38 Arendt, Hannah, 166 Argento, Robert, 99, 120, 180–81 Armfeld, Louis, 5–7, 9–12, 15, 17, 31, 80 Arnett, Edwin, 109, 157, 164, 171, 223, 234 Arp, Merle, 106–7 Ashley, John, 99, 101, 159 Atkins, Thomas, 105 A.W.O.L. (flm), 262 Baez, Joan, 168 Bailey, Richard, xiii, 36–37, 40–41, 44, 46, 99, 101–2, 120 Ball, George, 24 Barilla, John, xiii, 36, 40–41

353

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Baskir, Lawrence, 276–77, 281, 283 Beatles, The, 171 Beheiren, 36–38, 40–41 Berg, David, 281 Berger, John, 150 Bernstein, Leonard, 166 Berrien, Lucille, 166 Berrigan, Daniel, 270 Berrigan, Philip, 96 Beyer, Bruce, 183 Bien Hoa, 230 Bird, Robert, 153 Black Panther Party, 26, 122 Bloch, Ernst, 29, 166 Bloom, William, 117, 167 Boetes, Otto, 3, 12 Böll, Heinrich, xxi, 243 Bourdet, Claude, 3, 166, 243, 245 Bourron, Paul, 10 Boyd, Bill, 189, 191 Braley, Russ, 14, 85 Bransten, Thomas, 17 Braunschweig, Hansjörg, 32 Bread and Puppet Theater, 95 Brickner, Balfour, 174 Brock, Bill, 282 Brown, Harold, 286 Brown, Roland Dean, 188 Bucklin, Richard, 119, 121, 251–52, 256–57, 260–61, 273, 278 Bundy, McGeorge, 276, 281 Burlingham, Robert, 88, 92–93 Bush, George H.W., 324 Callicoat, Philip, 109, 111 Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, 19 Canned Heat, 27 Carmichael, Stokely, xviii, 11, 26, 47–50, 52 Carragher, Desmond, 180, 182, 267–8 Carrano, George, 99, 102, 106, 239–41, 246–47 Carter, Jack, 286 Carter, Jimmy, 286–93, 295, 297, 319, 323–24

Catch-22 (book), xxi Catch-22 (flm), 262 Center (for American Exiles), 146–47, 179–88, 194, 239–41 Central Committee for Conscientious Objectors (CCCO), 236, 269–70 Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), 34, 39, 93, 112–13, 190 Chomsky, Noam, 117–18, 166 Citizens’ Commision of Inquiry on the U.S. War Crimes in Vietnam (CCI), 227–28, 233 Civil rights movement, xviii, 8, 11, 14, 51,53, 168, 237 Clark, Ramsey, 257, 259, 270 Clarté, 32, 113 Clay, Tony, 229 Cleaver, Eldridge, 193 Clemenceau, Georges, 261 Clemency Programm (Gerald Ford), 265–73, 277, 286, 288–90 Clergy and Laymen Concerned about Vietnam (CALCAV, from 1972 CALC), 116–17, 121, 146, 167–69, 172, 174, 179, 182, 223, 243, 280 Cloke, Ken, 115, 118 Coalition of Veterans for Human Rights, 294 Cobb, Steve, 246 Coffn, William Sloane, 260 Cogley, John, 117 Colhoun, Jack, 238, 246 Collectif Intersyndical universitaire, 90 Collier, Barnard, 41 Committee for GI Rights, 48, 86 Committee for State Security of the Soviet Union (KGB), 38, 42 Committee of 100, 3, 18–19, 21 Committee on Armed Services (U.S. Senate), 105, 157, 223 Committee on the Judiciary (U.S. House of Representatives), 258, 271 Committee on the Judiciary (U.S. Senate), 234 Committee on Veterans’ Affairs (U.S. House of Representatives), 290–94

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Index

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Con Thien, 109 Condon, Gerry, 193, 237, 239, 246, 263–64, 268, 270–73, 277, 281, 292–94 Cornett, Larry, 191 Coryell, Schofeld, 96 Cottle, Thomas, 236 Coutin, André, 15 Cox, Harvey, 117–18, 169 Cox, Larry, 96 Credle, Jim, 281 Creedence Clearwater Revival, xix Creighton, Rita “Rainy ”, 185

355

Eisenhower, Dwight D., xxi Elvis Presley, xvii Ensign, Tod, 227–29, 231–34, 237, 239, 241, 246–47, 253, 257–58, 260 Episcopal Peace Fellowship, 168 Ermacora, Felix, 35 Everett, James, 90

D’Amato, Ed, 246 d’Astier, Emmanuel, 9 Davidon, William, 166 Davis, Angela, 194 Davis, Peter, 250 Davis, Rennie, 118 Davis Jr., Sammy, 280 de Besche, Hubert, 148 de Felice, Jean–Jacques, 4, 6, 32, 94 De förenade FNL–grupperna (DFFG), 32, 97–98, 107–13, 119, 121, 151, 154, 157, 161–63, 179, 280 de Gaulle, Charles, 3, 6 Degenhardt, Franz Josef, 34 de Gramont, Sanche, 16 Dellinger, David, 38, 71n167, 116, 118, 166 De Nike, Howard, 245, 272 Denman, Ralph, 86, 94 Deserter USA (flm), 120, 159 Dohrn, Bernardine, 116, 118 Dotson, Jim, 99, 106–7 Downey, Thomas, 291 Dreyfus, Nicole, 4, 6, 29, 32, 94 Duncan, Donald, 109 Dunn, Dennis, 117 Dunn, Marjorie, 117 Durham, Michael, 14, 43 Dutschke, Rudi, 22 Dylan, Bob, 186

Families of Resisters for Amnesty (FORA), 248–49, 251–53, 255, 271 Fanon, Frantz, 170 Faulkner, Stanley, 164, 166 Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), 252, 254 Fernandez, Richard, 116 First World War, xxii, 26, 224 Fitzgerald, Ed, 190, 275 Flanders, Ralph, 50 Flechtheim, Ossip Kurt, 29 Fleet Reserve Association, 288 Fonda, Jane, xvi, xix, 230, 257 Fonda, Peter, 262 Ford, Gerald, xiv, xxv, 225–26, 262, 265, 268, 276, 278–81, 284, 297, 319, 323 Fort Dix Thirty–Eight, 122 Fort Hood Three, xvi, xxvii, 20–21, 23–24, 48, 164 Franck, Hans Göran, 7, 29, 32, 99, 113, 151, 153, 280 Franks, Lucinda, 261 Free Curch Council (Sweden), 169 Freeman, Harrop, 153 French Human Rights League, 245 French Indochina War, xx, 3, 24, 28, 89 French Union of American Deserters and Draft Resisters (FUADDR), 90–92, 94–96, 101 Friedenberg, Edgar, 237 Friends of Resisters inside the Army (FRITA), 30–31 Fromm, Erich, 166 FTA Show, xvi, xix Fulbright, J. William, 25, 50

Efaw, Fritz, 246, 278

Gardner, Fred, 124, 177

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Gaye, Marvin, xix Geijer, Lennart, 163 Geneva Accords, 29 Geneva Conventions, 233 Geneva Refugee Convention, 152 George, Susan, 246 Gibson, Richard, 105 Gold Star Parents for Amnesty, 246, 257, 280 Goldstein, Jeff, 252, 257 Goldwater, Barry, 282 Gollwitzer, Helmut, 29, 166 Goodell, Charles, 265, 271 Gracie, David, 117 Graham, Gregory, 3–5, 17 Griggs, Kenneth, 109–10 Grizzard, Vernon, 116 Grossman, Steve, 270 Gruening, Ernest, 249 Habermas, Jürgen, 166 Håkanson, Björn, 26 Hale, Edward Everett, 44 Hamerman, Warren, 96, 150–51, 159 Hammar, Bo, 106–7 Hammerschmidt, John, 290 Harlem Progressive Labor Club, 26 Harris, Dave, 168 Hayden, Tom, 118 Hayes, Thomas Lee, 117, 121, 146, 167–79, 182, 198 Hearts and Minds (flm), 250 Heath, William, 155 Hefferin, Robin, 253 Hefin, Joe, 228–29 Heinl, Robert, 195–96 Heintzelman, David, 51 Heller, Joseph, xxi, 262 Henderson, Phillips, 51–52 Hendrix, Jimi, 150 Hermansson, C.H., 150, 153, 156–57, 163 Herndon, John David, 229–35, 237–39, 253, 260–61 Hesburgh, Theodore, 265, 276–77, 281 Heschel, Abraham, 168

Hess, John, 14, 85 Hidaka, Rokurō, 37 Hiselman, Cornell, 9–13, 15–17, 24, 43, 80, 82, 84, 96 Holland, Jerome, 161 Holmqvist, Eric, 150, 155, 162–64 Holt, T. Cooper, 282 Honnold, John, 153 Horne, Tom, 192 Huie, William Bradford, xxi Humphrey, Hubert, 223 Huth, Rod, 119, 121 Inouye, Daniel, 105 International Association of Democratic Lawyers, 29 International Christian Youth Exchange, 169 International Union of American Deserters and Draft Resisters (IUADDR), 102–3, 110 International Vietnam Conference, 28, 115 In the Year of the Pig (flm), 124 Israel, Joachim, 150 Jacobs, Paul, 117 Janson, Bob, 180 Janss, Edwin, 117 Jefferson, Thomas, 224 Johansson, Ingemar, 99 Johansson, Rune, 42 Johnson, Andrew, 224 Johnson, Lyndon B., 50, 52, 77, 100, 109, 276, 285 Johnson, Robert, 257 Jolas, Maria, 4, 244 Jones, Bill, 99, 101, 108–12, 116, 147–48, 159, 165 Jones, Roy Ray, xiii, 7–8, 11–13, 17, 31, 97, 99, 103–5, 123, 153, 157 Jordan, Vernon, 265, 276, 293 Julia (TV series), 193 Kalischer, Peter, 43–46, 48, 231

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Index

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Kampagne für Demokratie und Abrüstung (KfDA), 25, 32 Karpatkin, Marvin, 260 Kastenmeier, Robert, 258, 271, 291 Kastler, Alfred, 6, 94, 166 Kästner, Erich,166 Kazolias, George, 284–85, 290 Kennedy, Edward, 234, 238, 282 Kennedy, John F., 276 Kennedy, Michael, 154 Kennedy, Robert, 50 Kenner, Martin, 117–18, 150 KGB. See Committee for State Security of the Soviet Union Killmer, Richard, 174, 182, 184 King Gustaf VI Adolf of Sweden, 151, 162 King, Coretta Scott, 168 King, Martin Luther, xviii, 168 Kinnaman, Steve, 284–85, 289–90 Kirbo, Charles, 281 Kissinger, Henry, 249 Klett, Werner, 34 Klug, Terry, 80, 82–83, 86, 122 Kmetz, Joseph, 109 Knight, Dee, 238, 246 Koch, Edward, 225, 236 Korean War, xvii, 4, 109, 195, 292 Kotov, Mikhail, 110 Kovic, Ron, 278, 281 Kristliga Föreningen av Unga Kvinnor och Unga Män (KFUK–KFUM), 146, 180, 184–85 Lagercrantz, Olof, 151 Laird, Melvin, 263 Lang, Daniel, 172, 261 Lawyers’ Military Defense Committee (LMDC), 33, 245, 272 Leibowitz, Mary Jo (van Ingen), 4, 7, 10, 15, 23–24, 30, 96 Lenz, Siegfried, xxi Levy, Howard, xxvii, 21, 24, 48 Leyva, Emily, 253 Leyva, John, 253 Lidman, Sara, 148, 151–52, 163

357

Lincoln, Abraham, 224, 264 Lindner, Michael, xiii, 36, 41–42 Lundström, Sonja, 162 Magnusson, Fia, 253 Mailer, Norman, 166 Males, William, 190, 194, 268 Marcuse, Herbert, 29 Martin, Candi, 186, 240 Martin, Key, 48 Martinsen, Peter, 109 Matthis, Sköld Peter, 179 Mayer, Daniel, 243, 245 McCarthy, Eugene, 50, 52, 223 McCarthy, Mary, 230 McGovern, George, 224, 240–41, 282 McGrory, Mary, 278 McNally, Eddie, 252–57, 260 McNamara, Robert, 13, 19, 24 Meis, William, 269 Mendès-France, Pierre, 243 Mengel, James, 96 Michaud, Tommy, 240–41 Miller, Edison, 270, 281 Minugh, David, 284–85 Mitchell, Parren, 232 Mitscherlich, Alexander, 166 Moore, Howard, 117 Moore, Paul, 243 Mossmann, Walter, 34 Mouvement contre l’armenment atomique, 90 Mouvement de la paix, 6, 32, 90 Movement for a Democratic Military (MDM), 195, 285 Murtha, John, 292–93 Musil, Robert K., 236 Musrave, John, 246 Myrdal, Gunnar, 97, 104, 114, 166 Myrdal, Jan, 148, 158 Nagel, Tom, 284–85 National Council for Universal and Unconditional Amnesty (NCUUA), 252, 257, 268–73, 277, 280, 292–94

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Index

National Council of Churches (NCC), 146, 174, 182–85, 269 National Emergency Civil Liberties Committee, 154 National Lawyers Guild, 164, 181, 251–52 National Liberation Front (FNL), 18, 22–24, 29, 32, 46, 48, 77, 98, 112– 13, 116–17, 151–52, 154–55, 157, 184, 230–31, 325 National Mobilization Committee, 116–17 National Vietnam Committee (France), 6, 32 Neuhaus, Richard John, 117, 168, 174 Newsreel, The, 95, 124 Nguyen Thi Dinh, 231 Nguyen Tho Chan, 104 Niemöller, Martin, 166 Nixon, Richard, 168, 192, 195, 225, 227, 232, 236, 239, 241–42, 244, 247–49, 263–66, 268–69, 277, 283 Nono, Luigi, 26 North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), 3, 6, 20, 30–31, 34, 86, 149 North Vietnam (DRV), 11, 96, 104, 116, 164, 230 Novak, Michael, 117 Nowell, Albert, 117 Nuremberg Principles, xx, 5, 19–21, 29, 34–35, 54, 83, 94, 115, 153, 166, 176, 227, 233, 241, 259, 262, 272, 285, 294, 321 Nyström, Kristina, 174, 180

Palme, Olof, 97, 104, 162, 164 Paris American Committee to Stop War (PACS), 4, 6, 9, 32, 81, 89, 95–96, 229, 244, 246 Paris Peace Accords, 184, 225, 243, 248, 285 Paris Peace Negotiations, 95, 116, 230, 242, 244, 248 Parra, Joseph, 160–66, 179, 181 Pasolini, Pier Paolo, 166 Patterson, Floyd, 99 Pauling, Linus, 166 Peace Corps, 80, 85 Percell, William, 47 Perrin, Betty, 49, 271 Perrin, Rene, 49, 51, 271 Perrin, Richard (Dick), xiii, 15, 46–53, 77, 80–85, 91, 93, 95, 96, 231, 271 Perrin, Ronald, 48, 50–51 Peter, Paul and Mary, xxi Picciano, John Jr., 250, 261 Picciano, John Sr., 250 Pottle, Pat, 18 Prasad, Devi, 32 Presidential Clemency Board (Gerald Ford), 265, 271, 273–76, 278, 293 Prisoners of war (American), 227–28, 230, 236, 238–39, 248–49, 255, 270, 281 Prisoners of war (Vietnamese), 230 Provos, 3, 16, 18, 30, 32 Prugh, George, 260

Öberg, Kjell, 180 Ochs, Phil, 114 Oda, Makoto, 37 Ophüls, Marcel, xxi, 262 Osborne, David, 195

Radio Moscow, 38 Rains, Herb, 180, 182 Ransom, Louise, 271, 278, 281 Ransom, Robert Jr. “Mike ”, 243 Ransom, Robert, 243, 271 Reagan, Ronald, 324 Rebérioux, Madeleine, 243 Redgrave, Vanessa, 166 Regtien, Ton, 7, 17, 23, 33, 47 Reischauer, Edwin, 37

Paley, Grace, 117 Palm, Göran, 148 Pardon for draft refusers (Jimmy Carter), 225–26, 278–86

Quakers, 3, 16, 32, 122, 229

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Index

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resist, 117 Resistance inside the Army (RITA), 46, 48, 79–87, 90–96, 102, 122, 177, 195, 228–31 Reston, Richard, 41–43 Reston Jr., James, 231–32, 235–37, 261 Richard, Michel, 172, 175 Riksdag (Swedish parliament), 150–51, 153, 155–56 Roberts, Ray, 292 Rocky Mountain Military Project, 252 Rognon, René, 6, 90 Roosevelt, Franklin D., 224 Rosenthal, Benjamin, 257 Rothstein, Stephen, 245–46 Rougle, Charles, 246 Rubin, Irving, 190 Rubin, Jerry, 150 Rudd, Mark, 150 Russell, Bertrand, 21, 31, 40, 109 Russell, Micah, 192 Russell, William, 105–7 Safe Return, 227–35, 237–42, 247–61, 269, 277 Sagarin, Edward, 175 Sahlin, Margit, 163 Sahlins, Marshall, 89 Samas, David, 24 Samkalden, Ivo, 2 Sartre, Jean–Paul, 6, 29, 35, 81, 93–94, 243, 245 Satō, Eisaku, 37 Sax, Joseph, 117, 153 Saxbe, William, 263 Schiller, Bill, 183 Schlesinger, James, 263 Schmidt, Alfred, 96, 125n5 Schoenman, Ralph, 150 Schurmann, Franz, 117 Schwaetzer, Thomas, 4, 7, 10–12, 14– 15, 24, 30–31, 47, 81–82, 85, 92–94, 96, 102, 131n86 Schware, Rudy, 252, 257 Schwartz, Laurent, 6, 29

359

Schwarzschild, Henry, 239, 258 Seale, Bobby, 194 The Second Front, 79, 88 Second Vatican Council, 176 Second World War, xv, xvii–xviii, xx–xxii, 1, 3–5, 10, 13, 17, 19–21, 27, 46, 49–50, 54, 103, 105, 124, 157–59, 168, 190–92, 224, 232–33, 235, 242, 248, 250, 257, 259, 262, 264, 271, 281, 291–92, 294, 320–21 Seeger, Pete, 20 Shaft (TV series), 194 Shapiro, Mark, 109, 147 Sharlet, Jeff, 117, 121 Sheen, Martin, xxi Shero, Jeff, 16 Sherrill, Robert, 261 Shoup, David, 25 Shull, Lewis, 105 Simon, Abe, 248, 250, 258–59 Simon, Lewis, 239–41, 246–47, 252–62, 283 Simon, Patricia, 243, 246–47, 271, 278, 280 Slovik, Eddie, xxi, 262 Smith, David, 280 Smith, Jack, 239 Smith, John Discoe, 39 Smith, Parker F., 191 Smokey the Bear, 27 Smythe, Tony, 21–22, 124 Socialistische Jeugd (SJ), 3, 32 Soden, Ray, 263 Southern Conference Educational Fund, 243 Soviet Peace Committee, 38, 45, 110 Sowders, Eddie, 250, 253, 255, 258, 262, 305n123 Sozialistischer Deutscher Studentenbund (SDS, West Germany), 22–26, 29, 32–33 Special Discharge Review Program (SDRP, Carter administration), 286–90, 292–95

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Spike, Robert, 237 Spock, Benjamin, 166, 257, 260 Stapp, Andy, 48, 86 Stathos, Harry, 13 Steppenwolf, xix Stewart, Joe, 284 Stockholm Conference on Vietnam, 28–29, 97, 108, 115, 149, 165–66 Stop It, 89 Strauss, William, 276–77, 281, 283 Ström, Ingmar, 150 Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), 116 Students for a Democratic Society (SDS, USA), 16, 23, 88, 116–19 Suh, Kim Jin. See Griggs, Kenneth Summer Soldiers (flm), 262 Supreme Court, 164 Sutherland, Donald, xix Svahnströhm, Bertil, 42, 97, 99, 103, 108–14, 164–66 Svenska Ekumeniska Nämnden (SEN), 182–85 Svenska Kommittén för Vietnam (SKfV, Sweden), 32, 38, 42–43, 97–98, 104, 107–11, 113–14, 121, 151–54, 156, 159, 161, 164–65, 280 Svirchev, Larry, 246 Swartz, Marjorie, 253 Swedish Friends of the ADC, 148, 156, 158 Swedish Temperance Society, 179 Sweeney, Jon, 164, 207n109 Taft, Robert Jr., 225, 263 Taylor, Telford, xx, 257 Teague, Olin, 294 Tet Offensive, 27–28, 77, 231 Theodorakis, Mikis, 166 Thomason, Tom, 186 Thoreau, Henry David, 245 Thurmond, Strom, 288, 291 Tilford, Bill, 189 Toler, John, 99, 120, 124, 185

Index

Truman, Harry S., 224, 242, 264 Tsurumi, Shunsuke, 37 Turner, Nat, 194 Two People (flm), 262 Uhl, Michael, 227–29, 231–32, 234, 237, 239, 241, 247, 253, 258, 260 Uncle Sam, 26, 82, 101, 191, 289 Underground Railway (exile group), 120–21, 170, 179, 181, 187 Union Nationale des Étudiants de France (UNEF), 3, 32 United States Army Europe (USAREUR), 13, 33, 105 Up from Exile, 239–42, 247–48, 251–53 U.S. Campaign, 27, 33 Vale, Michel, 99, 106, 111, 113, 165, 196 Vesey, Denmark, 194 Veterans Administration (VA), 49, 271, 287, 291, 294 Veterans for Peace, 269 Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW), 259, 262–63, 282, 288, 290, 294 Vian, Boris, xx–xxi Vidal-Naquet, Pierre, 6 Vietnam Information Group, 3, 18 Vietnam News Agency, 40 Vietnam Veterans against the War (VVAW, VVAW/WSO), 239, 243, 246, 252, 269, 272, 293 Viklund, Lars, 151–53, 163–64 Voice of Vietnam, 11 Wachtmeister, Wilhelm, Count, 159 Wagner, Lindsay, 262 Wagner, Philip, 80, 82–85, 94, 96 Walch, Jim, 169–70, 178 Wallenberg, Raoul, 190 Walser, Martin, 166 War Resisters’ International (WRI), 3, 7, 18–25, 32, 34, 83, 124, 166 War Resisters’ League (WRL), 18

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Index

Woods, Walter, 112 World Assembly for Peace and Independence of the Peoples of Indochina, 244 World Conference of Lawyers for Vietnam, 29, 115 World Council of Churches, 116, 167, 176, 182 World Federation of Democratic Youth, 32, 115 World Youth Festival, 115–16, 147 Wuerth, George, 80, 82–86, 96 Wylie, Chalmers, 294 X, Malcolm, 194 Yglesias, Jose, 150 Yoshikawa, Yuichi, 37, 41 Young, Ernest, 37–38, 40, 114 Young, Izzy, 186 Young, Steve, 232 Young Lords, 122 Youth against War and Fascism, 48 Zetterling, Mai, 166 Zinn, Howard, 37, 71n167, 117

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Washington, George, 224 Washington, Herb, 180, 194 Watergate scandal, 192, 237, 249, 254, 264, 282 Watts, Max. See Schwaetzer, Thomas W.E.B. Du Bois Clubs of America, 116 Weber, Richard, 189–90 Webster, Charles, 117 Weiler, Heinrich, 35 Weiner, Harold, 233, 257, 259 Weiss, Peter, 29, 150, 163 Weissman, Maryann, 48 Whitmore, Rowena, 281 Whitmore, Terry, 109, 261, 281 Wicker, Tom, 266 Williams, Donald, 99, 104, 111, 122, 154 Wilson, Flip, 193–94 Wilson, John, 117–18 Wilson, Terry, 89, 91 Wine, Maria, 150 Winningham, Barry, 182, 188 Winter Soldier Investigation, 122, 227 Wise, Robert, 262 Wolff, Frank, 33 Wolff, Karl Dietrich (KD), 33

361

Glatz, Paul Benedikt. Vietnam's Prodigal Heroes : American Deserters, International Protest, European Exile, and Amnesty,

Copyright © 2021. Lexington Books. All rights reserved. Glatz, Paul Benedikt. Vietnam's Prodigal Heroes : American Deserters, International Protest, European Exile, and Amnesty,

About the Author

Copyright © 2021. Lexington Books. All rights reserved.

Paul Benedikt Glatz works as a school teacher and independent scholar in Berlin, Germany. The basis for this book, a doctoral dissertation in history, was defended at Humboldt-Universität in Berlin in January 2019. Americans, and GIs in particular, have been on Benedikt’s mind since his early childhood, with U.S. Army facilities present in his hometown Bad Kreuznach and frequent convoys and maneuvers in the countryside and woods, which were otherwise his and his friends’ playground. After a high-school exchange year in Arkansas, and after he completed a history project on the Americans in his German hometown, he decided to focus on the United States in his university studies in Bonn and Cologne, and later Berlin. It was as a Fulbright exchange student in Madison, Wisconsin that Benedikt frst learned of the GI movement during the Vietnam War. The documents of deserters and activist servicemen in West Germany, which he discovered there, would eventually inspire this book.

363

Glatz, Paul Benedikt. Vietnam's Prodigal Heroes : American Deserters, International Protest, European Exile, and Amnesty,

Copyright © 2021. Lexington Books. All rights reserved. Glatz, Paul Benedikt. Vietnam's Prodigal Heroes : American Deserters, International Protest, European Exile, and Amnesty,