They Marched Into Sunlight

by David Maraniss

  Their latest intellectual forum was Connections: The first sixties-style underground paper in Madison, Connections had begun publication the previous spring. Copies are archived at the Wisconsin State Historical Society, which has a vast collection of alternative newspapers, shepherded by the leading expert on that genre, James Danky.

  Boston, Tampa, Buffalo, Cincinnati: Warren Christopher papers, Urban Riots, August 11, 1967, LBJ.

  Many students who had headed south: The graduate schools at Wisconsin were bubbling with students who had been active in the civil rights movement. Bob Gabriner, the editor of Connections and a graduate student in history, had spent several summers organizing voting drives in rural western Tennessee. He made a return trip through the South in the summer of 1967 with his wife, Vicki Gabriner, recording oral histories of rural and otherwise unknown and unrecognized black civil rights participants. By the end of that summer, Gabriner said, he felt that the Black Power movement was pushing him away, so he turned more of his attention to the war.

  All summer long, a rumor had spread: Int. Robert Swacker, May 2, 2002; Crisis, newsletter of the Committee to End the War in Vietnam, vol. IV, no. 1, September 11, 2002.

  The military was not an institution: Ints. Paul Soglin, June 22, 2001, August 3, 2001, April 10, 2001.

  aboard the SS Patricia: List or Manifest of Alien Passengers for the United States Immigration Officer at Port of Arrival. Required by the regulations of the Secretary of Commerce and Labor of the United States under Act of Congress approved February 20, 1907. S.S. Patricia sailing from Hamburg November 8th 1912. Also, S.S. Patricia sailing from Hamburg June 2, arriving Port of New York June 16, 1905, Soglin papers.

  Paul’s father, Albert Soglin: Descriptions of Soglin’s early life from ints. Paul Soglin, June 22, 2001, August 3, 2001, April 10, 2002. Also Paul Soglin, Former UW Student, UW Oral History Project, interview by Laura Smail, December 21, 1977. In the late 1970s Smail conducted first-rate interviews with key figures of the antiwar years on campus, including most UW administrators and some student leaders; unpublished Soglin memoir, Soglin papers.

  An editorial in the Cardinal: Daily Cardinal, October 19, 1963.

  He gradually switched his concentration: Int. Paul Soglin, August 3, 2001; Mosse, Confronting History, 150–70; History Digest, January 1970; Williams, America in Vietnam, 1985; William Appleman Williams, Roots of the Modern American Empire: A Study of the Growth and Shaping of Social Consciousness in a Marketplace Society; William Appleman Williams letter to George Mosse, January 13, 1969, UW. Williams had left Madison for Oregon State. He had finished the manuscript of Roots of the Modern American Empire, as he told his former colleague Mosse: “I managed to finish the big book on the agricultural businessmen just as school started, and Random House is now inching it through the production process. It is big, some 800 typescript with footnotes, so it won’t be out till summer or early fall. I cast it very largely in terms of the development and shaping of social consciousness in a marketplace society, trying to show how the metropolis and the country came to a consensus on imperial marketplace expansion as a way of resolving economic and political difficulties. I think you will enjoy it a good bit.” For Mosse lecture on cemeteries, Mosse papers, UW.

  “One cannot understand one’s own history”: Mosse, Confronting History, 171–86.

  The “one rule,” Soglin recalled: Soglin interview, UW Oral History Project; also Soglin ints. with author, August 3, 2001, April 10, 2002.

  It was the draft that provoked: Ints. Jim Rowen, April 8, 2002; Paul Soglin, April 10, 2002; Robert Swacker, May 2, 2002; William Kaplan, March 28, 2001; Bob Gabriner, May 31, 2002; Evan Stark, July 16, 2002; Morris Edelson, May 10, 2002. Also transcript of Soglin interview, The War at Home papers, SHSW.

  “Please excuse the way”: Soglin letter to Harrington and response, Harrington file, UW.

  When the Dow Chemical Company visited: Capital Times, February 18–24, 1967; WSJ, February 17–25, 1967; Daily Cardinal, February 20–25, 1967; transcript of interview with Henry Haslach, The War at Home papers, SHSW; Ints. Paul Soglin, August 3, 2001; Art Hove, June 20, 2001; Joe Kauffman, June 19, 2001; Jack Cipperly, June 19, 2001; Ralph Hanson family papers; Robben Fleming papers, UW.

  “After the thing had kind of broke down”: Paul Soglin, Former UW Student, UW Oral History Project interview, December 21, 1977.

  Richard B. Cheney counted himself in that group: Int. Vice President Richard B. Cheney at his office in the White House, June 19, 2002.

  His wife, Lynne, was teaching: Int. Lynne Cheney, May 13, 2002, with follow-up e-mail correspondence.

  If Cheney had no “moral”: Int. Vice President Cheney, June 19, 2002. In explaining his draft status, Cheney said: “I graduated from high school in 1959. I was eighteen and that’s when I registered for the draft. I was, in the early sixties, at various times either a student, which was 2-S, or 1-A, because I had a spotty academic career. I got kicked out of Yale twice. During those periods when I wasn’t in school, I was working full-time building power line transmission lines and would be reclassified 1-A during those periods. But this was the early sixties before the war had heated up. Got married in ’64, and in ’66 I went to Madison. And our first daughter was born in July of ’66. That shifted me to 3-A and I turned 26 in January 1967. So I was on the front edge. I never served. When I was 1-A back in the early sixties, they were taking older guys first. So I never served.”

  During the run-up to the election: Ints. Paul Soglin, April 10, 2002; Cathy Dietrich, May 5, 2002.

  When the new school year began: Daily Cardinal, September 18–29, 1967; ints. Paul Soglin, August 3, 2001; Robert Swacker, May 2, 2002.

  Chapter 8: Sewell’s Predicament

  Student problem? Sewell’s mind: Ints. William Sewell, August 10, 2000, September 15, 2000. Sewell, who died a year later, was physically active and retained his acute intelligence past his 90th birthday. He still reported to work at the Social Science Building virtually every day, to a book-crammed office with windows looking out on Lake Mendota.

  It was with this sensibility: Ints. Hal Winsborough, July 10, 2001; William Sewell, August 10, 2000.

  Vietnam teach-in on campus: Ints. William Sewell, April 10, 2001; Evan Stark, July 16, 2002; Robert Swacker, May 2, 2002; Daily Cardinal, April 1–3, 1965; The War at Home Papers, SHSW.

  Hershey was a relic: Int. William Sewell, September 15, 2000; Baskir, Chance and Circumstance, 17.

  Days after Japan surrendered: Int. William Sewell, September 15, 2000; The United States Strategic Bombing Survey, The Effects of Strategic Bombing on Japanese Morale, Morale Division, 1947.

  Sewell soon turned from one twentieth-century trauma: Sewell, “Infant Training and the Personality of the Child,” American Journal of Sociology, vol. LVIII, no. 2, September 1952.

  Since its founding in 1917: Capital Times, Special Monday section, July 5, 1971. The newspaper that day, in recognition of the U.S. Supreme Court decision allowing the New York Times and Washington Post to publish the Pentagon Papers, ran a full-page collage of twenty-seven antiwar editorials it had published since 1965, only a small portion of the total number.

  A defining point on the timeline: Vietnam Hearings, Voices from the Grass Roots: A transcript of testimony given at the hearing on the war in Vietnam conducted by the Hon. Robert W. Kastenmeier, Member of Congress, 2nd District, Wisconsin; also transcript of Babe Rohr interview, The War at Home papers, SHSW.

  Bill Sewell lived on the west side: Int. William Sewell, August 10, 2000; Personal Data and Professional Experience of William Hamilton Sewell, Fall 2000; “Students and the University,” William H. Sewell, American Sociologist, May, 1971.

  Sharp humor was Sewell’s favorite: Ints. Margaret Bright, July 19, 2001; Hal Winsborough, July 10, 2001; Robert Hauser, July 28, 2001; testimonials by family at Sewell funeral in Madison, June 28, 2001.

  Joseph Kauffman, the forty-six-year-old: Int. Joseph F. Kauffman, June 19, 2001.

  At the first spe
cial faculty meeting: Int. William Sewell, August 10, 2000; faculty minutes, February 23, 1967, UW.

  Chapter 9: “What a Funny War!”

  Clark Welch was in a spirited mood: Welch letter to wife Lacy, August 6, 1967.

  Life is all in the perspective: Greg Landon letter to parents, August 6, 1967.

  At the New York Times bureau: R. W. Apple, NYT, August 6, 1967, 1.

  From the day he started training Delta: Clark Welch letters to wife Lacy, August 15–September 25, 1967. Welch wrote his wife almost every day, sharing his war with her.

  Late on the afternoon: In addition to Welch letters, int. Clarence Barrow, October 15, 2000.

  And these soldiers of whom Welch was so proud: Mike Taylor letter to parents; Greg Landon letter to parents; Jackie E. Bolen letter to grandmother; Mike Troyer letter to parents, September 20, 1967.

  One night, as he was writing Lacy: Welch letter to wife Lacy, September 4, 1967.

  Welch was haunted: Ints. Clark Welch, January 28–February 8, 2002.

  The assignment was to patrol: Ints. Jim Shelton, March 13, 2000, April 29, 2000; Michael Arias, June 2, 2001; Letter of Appreciation, September 18, 1967, from Col. Seibert to Lt. Col. Allen: “Your constant movement and the ability of your units to cover so large an area was largely responsible in keeping Viet Cong activities to a minimum. This contributed immeasurably toward the success of the recent election in Duc Tu and Cong Thanh districts”; James A. Snow letter to Terry Allen Sr., October 23, 1967, Allen family papers.

  when the phrase was coined: Maclear, The Ten Thousand Day War, 157. Maclear quoted DePuy as saying, “It was an unfortunate choice of words.”

  DePuy often used Thunder Road: Browne, The New Face of War, 60–61, excerpts from transcript of press conference given October 6, 1964, in Saigon by Brig. Gen. William E. DePuy, operations officer of the U.S. MACV. Browne, writing in 1964, concluded his “Ambush” chapter with a perceptive look backward and forward: “The history of the Indochina War shows the French never found an adequate solution to the ambush problem. Even after the Viet Minh shifted gears from guerrilla warfare to full-scale mobile warfare, their basic operating pattern remained the ambush, on a huge scale. One after another, French regimental combat teams were hacked to pieces simply moving from one place to another, and this kind of thing continued right up to the end of the war. The ambush appears to me to be a key element in the new face of war. I think the Free World faces the choice of living with this fact, or dying with it.”

  the First Division had been searching: Sigler, Vietnam Battle Chronology; DePuy interview notes, October 7, 1977, at his Virginia home; George L. MacGarrigle, CMH; MacGarrigle, Taking the Offensive; also First Infantry Division Unit Histories, March, 1968; United States Military Assistance Command, Vietnam, Command History 1967, vol. 1, prepared by the Military History Branch, Office of the Secretary, Joint Staff, MACV, MHI.

  The other side was fully aware: Ints. 1st Regiment commander Vo Minh Triet, January 30, 31, February 7, 2001; Col. Ta Minh Kham interview with James Zumwalt, 1995.

  the military rhetoric from Hanoi: Article by Brig. Gen. Vuong Thua Vu, Hanoi Domestic Service, November 1967, translated by Central Intelligence Agency. CIA Files, RG 263, NA.

  liberation forces were holding: Su Doan 9, Hanoi; also int. Robert DeStatte, January 15, 2002.

  In the special intelligence estimates: Special Intelligence Estimate for 1st Division to Discuss Destruction of the 271st Regiment and Its Logistical Support Base, October 1967, MHI.

  The young soldiers of Delta Company: Greg Landon letter to parents; September 27, 1967; Mike Troyer letter to parents, October 1, 1967; Jack Schroder letters to wife Eleanor, September 18, 24, 1967.

  “the 1st Infantry Division has got quite”: Clark Welch letter to wife Lacy, September 29, 1967.

  On the night of October 4: Account of Delta Company activity in first days of Shenandoah II based on letters home from Clark Welch, Mike Troyer, Jack Schroder, Mike Taylor, Greg Landon, Michael Arias, and Ray Albin. Also ints. George Burrows, March 15, 2001; Ray Albin, January 23, 2001; David Laub, March 5, 2001; Michael Arias, March 11, 2001; Douglas Ikerd, May 26, 2001; Santiago Griego, May 28, 2001; Mike Troyer, August 21, 2001.

  Chapter 10: Guerrilla Theater

  First stop, Minneapolis: Contact list, Commedia Dell’Arte Tour, Fall/Winter 1967, San Francisco Mime Troupe Papers, archived at the Wisconsin State Historical Society. The tour schedules were mimeographed and distributed to members of the troupe.

  Davis, who founded the troupe: Int. Ronald G. Davis, May 8, 2002; Davis, The San Francisco Mime Troupe, the First Ten Years.

  “The greatest error”: Draft of Davis “platform” for the S.F. Mime Troupe, April 1967, SHSW.

  The main play for the Midwest: L’Amant Militaire, S.F. Mime Troupe papers, SHSW. “Adaptation may be a misleading term for the relation of our commedia shows to their originals,” Davis wrote in the publicity papers for the tour. “We do not usually set ourselves the task of translating an author’s intentions; rather, we exploit his work to suit our own; using what we can and discarding the rest, writing in new scenes and characters, to say nothing of new emphases.”

  Before leaving for the Midwest: Ints. Ronald G. Davis, May 8, 2002; Morris Edelson, May 10, 2002.

  In his first appearance before the faculty: Faculty minutes, October 2, 1967, UW.

  The dean of student affairs began: Ints. Joseph F. Kauffman, June 19, 2001; Jack Cipperly, June 19, 2001; Art Hove, June 20, 2001; Joel Skornicka, August 13, 2001; Hanson family papers; Scotton Report.

  One student who seemed approachable: Int. Robert Swacker, May 2, 2002; Scotton report, UW; “Meetings with Anti-Dow Coordinating Committee,” Memorandum from Peter Bunn to Kauffman, November 1, 1967, appended to Scotton Report.

  Who would issue the warning?: Ints. William Sewell, August 10, 2000; Joseph Kauffman, June 19, 2001; Daily Cardinal, October 11, 1967.

  When Paul Soglin read it: Ints. Paul Soglin, August 3, 2002; Percy Julian, August 24, 2001; Robert Swacker, May 2, 2002.

  The report was a remarkable document: Officer’s Report. Madison Police Department, Special Assignment, October 13, 1967, “Attention: Chief of Police, re Dow Plans.”

  Wilbur Emery, the recipient: Ints. Tom McCarthy, August 8, 2000; Al Roehling, August 17, 2001; Otto Festge, July 6, 2001; Jim Boll, August 9, 2001.

  He had come onto the force: Int. Tom McCarthy, August 8, 2000.

  Hanson took over: Hanson papers, unprocessed. In the summer of 2001, a few years after Hanson’s death, his widow, Lucille Hanson, told the author that she had “some of his papers” in her garage. The papers were stored in six boxes. They included documents, letters, a scrapbook, newspaper clippings, and a partial autobiographical manuscript.

  six-point plan on police guidelines: Dow Placement Interviews and Police Operations, University of Wisconsin, Madison Campus, October 17–20, 1967, Ralph E. Hanson, Director, Department of Protection and Security, October 12, 1967, appended to Scotton Report.

  Chapter 11: Johnson’s Dilemma

  American and allied forces were in the field: Office of Information, United States Military Assistance Command, Vietnam, release number 289-67, October 15–16, 1967. MHI.

  Readers of the New York Times: Taylor, NYT Magazine, October 15, 1967.

  From aide William Leonhart: Leonhart Memos, October 13, 1967, NSF File, LBJ.

  Every few months in 1967: Gallup Poll Index, 1967.

  “Avast, belay”: Telegram October 2, 1967, Ellsworth Bunker to wife, LBJ.

  Locke responded to the urgent plea: “For the President from Ambassador Locke, Subject: Measurements of Progress in South Vietnam,” Saturday, October 7, 1967, LBJ.

  “like an ox bone stuck”: Liberation Radio commentary, October 15, 1967, CIA files, RG 263, box 48, NARA.

  He had closed September: Public Papers of the President of the United States, LBJ, 876–81.

  On the evening of October 3: “Notes of the President’s Meeting with Sec
retary Rusk, Secretary McNamara, Mr. Rostow, CIA Director Helms, and George Christian,” Tom Johnson notes, Box 1, LBJ.

  The same group, minus Helms: “Notes of the President’s Meeting with Secretary McNamara, Secretary Rusk, Walt Rostow, George Christian, Cabinet Room, October 4, 1967,” Tom Johnson Notes, box 1, LBJ.

  Douglass Cater, another White House: Memorandum to the President from Douglass Cater,” Wednesday, October 4, 1967, 4:50 P.M., Office Files of Douglass Cater, box 17, LBJ.

  Life magazine, once a pillar: “Life Rumored Ready to Shift War Stand,” NYT, October 10, 1967.

  latest analysis from General Giap: Int. Huu Mai, Giap’s longtime associate, Hanoi, February 4, 2002; “Pacification Foiled, Gen. Giap Declares,” Hedrick Smith, NYT, October 10, 1967, 1. Reports followed in the Washington Post and other major American newspapers over the following week.

  local Viet Cong officials had been lectured: Military Assistance Command, Vietnam, intelligence report, October 1967, MHI.

  Speaker John W. McCormick: NYT, October 12, 1967.

  “a little stronger chemical”: “Notes of the President’s Meeting with Secretary McNamara, Secretary Rusk, Walt Rostow, President’s Office,” October 5, 1967, Tom Johnson Notes, box 1, LBJ.

  Dirksen was talking primarily: Washington Post, October 10–15, 1967, daily coverage of Senate debate on the war.

  pushing hard for a United Nations role: Mansfield letter to President Johnson, October 9, 1967, Mansfield File, LBJ.

  memorandum to the White House: “Memorandum for the President. From: Senator George McGovern. Subject: Vietnam,” October 12, 1967, LBJ. While McGovern pushed for a bombing halt, another future Democratic presidential candidate, Sen. Walter Mondale of Minnesota, remained supportive of the White House position, while lamenting how difficult it was to hold his ground. In an October 12 memo to Secretary Rusk, National Security Adviser William P. Bundy wrote that Mondale had called him that morning. “Mondale went on to expound at length on the difficulties of liberal senators like himself who were still standing fast against public and easy endorsement of the UN solution or stopping the bombing in return for talks. He noted that, with Gene McCarthy and others such as Percy taking these easy avenues, it was increasingly putting him and others like him on the spot. He said that he was losing support in Minnesota from peace groups and others who had strongly supported him in the past—which was not critical for him since he does not come up in 1968—but was typical of the problems many others faced.”