Hit & Stay (2013) - full transcript

What I can
talk about first

is how I came to be here.

and about the fact that they
didn't tell us anything.

They didn't tell us what it was

other than the source that I had

said this was going
to be a big story.

We knew that we were
going to be covering

some kind of a demonstration.

We didn't know what it was,

what the nature of it was, etc.

and had no idea what
we were doing out here.



At this point, there
were no big signs

screaming "draft board."

We didn't know what we had.

Again, there was a sense
that whatever was happening

was already underway and
that we'd better go quickly

or we were going to miss it.

We ran around,
somewhat out of breath,

around the side of the building,

and that's when the
cameraman, Bob Boyer,

turned on his camera
and you see the shaky

footage, and you see, I
believe it was John Hogan,

who actually lit the match
and started the fire.

When we first got there,

we had no idea what
we were looking at.



The first thing, obviously,
you spotted immediately,

was there were two
Catholic priests there.

Of course I recognized
Phil Berrigan immediately,

because he was a figure
of some importance

in the news in
Baltimore at the time,

and I recognized
his brother, Dan.

At the
height of the Vietnam War,

nine Catholics entered
this white frame

building in
Catonsville, Maryland.

It was a draft board.

The nine, some of
them Catholic priests,

seized Selective Service files.

They brought those files
out onto this parking lot,

and then burned them, with
the help of homemade napalm.

Of course,
the striking thing

about the Catonsville Nine,

this wasn't your usual
protest with scruffy

anti-war demonstrators,
young men

trying to avoid the draft.

The Catonsville
action was nine

Catholic lay people and clergy.

I think that reached
out to a community

beyond the conventional
anti-war activist.

It made the Catholic community,

no matter how
conservative, question,

because these were
priests and former nuns.

The idea
about a hit and stay

was to take responsibility
for the action.

It was to commit a
civil disobedience,

and that entailed
sticking around

and waiting to be arrested

and suffering whatever
legal consequences resulted.

This was new.

This was a new tactic.

That was the most
expressive, most mobilizing,

thing I've seen as far as

the anti-war movement
was concerned.

I had no idea that
anybody had in mind

that this was the
prototype of some series

of actions, and that I
would be in the next one.

It had a tremendous
catalytic effect.

The numbers in the streets
that we could sustain

from that moment on would
have been impossible

without actions like
the Catonsville Nine

and Baltimore Four.

My brother was
a perfect example.

He graduated from high school.

He was going to be a carpenter.

He wanted to get a job.

He had a girlfriend.

He wanted an old
Chevy car to have,

and wanted to just have
a regular old life.

He couldn't have
found Vietnam on a map

if you'd paid him
20 bucks, probably.

You were drafted,
well, you went.

It wasn't like he
voluntarily chose to say

yes, this is what I want to do.

Did he want to go?

I'm sure he didn't want to go.

Did he see that there
were choices and options?

I'm sure he didn't see there
were choices and options.

He was the average age
of the Vietnam casualty,

19-and-a-half years old,
completely cannon fodder.

When my brother was killed,

I remember in going to school,

I couldn't bring myself to
wear a "Bomb Hanoi" button.

I couldn't do that.

Nor was I...

had much of an understanding

about the Vietnam War.

When Kennedy
came into office,

I was at Fort Bragg
in the 82nd Airborne

in the Medical
Company, and he created

Special Forces.

People in my company
who wanted to make rank

were transferring
from the 82nd Airborne

over to Special Forces,
which was also at Fort Bragg.

Then they were going to Vietnam.

Kennedy invaded
South Vietnam in 1962.

That was after seven or
eight years of establishing

a Latin American style terror
state in the late '50s,

which had probably killed
70 or 80,000 people

by then, something like that.

But even then,
back in 1961 and '62,

guys coming back from
Vietnam said to me,

"They're winning the war.

"They're winning the war with-

"They're winning the war."

And this was before
large numbers of American

troops had been committed.

This was way before '64 and '65.

There was that feeling

in the early going,
the domino theory.

If Vietnam falls
to the Communists,

then other countries
will fall like dominoes

and Communism will spread its
tentacles around the world.

That seemed, at the
time, a very real thing.

Johnson, of course, was elected

in the landslide, and even
before the inauguration

he started the
bombing of Vietnam.

Once you start down that path,

it's pretty hard to
back away from it,

so instead, just a
little more escalation,

a widening of the war.

Before you know it,
instead of 3,000 dead,

it's 5,000 and 10,000 and 20,000

and it just gets harder
and harder and harder

to admit, oh, well,
I guess I'm wrong

and by the way, the
consequences of being wrong

are 20,000 people killed.

I believe
we are in such times

as make it
increasingly impossible

for Christians to obey
the law of the land

and to remain true to Christ.

At that
point, I was saying

this is a terrible war, we
shouldn't be fighting it,

what can we do about
it, feeling helpless,

and also feeling why
don't our Bishops,

why doesn't the Pope,

why doesn't the Catholic
church speak out?

As a woman
at age 20, I had been

watching all the
young men that I know

be drafted for the war,
and I was like safe.

There was nothing I could do.

But suddenly I could say
something with others

about the war that was
an alternative to war.

Anti-war
demonstrators protest

US involvement in
the Vietnam War

in mass marches, rallies
and demonstrations.

I think
that's one thing

is people look back
and think that, oh,

everyone was in
the peace movement,

everyone was against
the war then.

You could be in
places where everyone

was against the war, but
you were a little island.

You stepped into real America,

and it was a long
time before there was

a general consensus
against the war.

When you start
to watch the intensity

of the war building up
and Johnson not regarding

what the disposition
of the population was

as they viewed the war
and kept escalating,

it became clearer that
the peace movement

was being [unintelligible].

Johnson's greatest
statement used to be

that I don't care if
those hippy, long-hair

people walk with signs
from Maine to California,

I'm going to keep
going on with the war.

President
Johnson meanwhile

let it be known that the
FBI is closely watching

all anti-war activity.

Let us pray.

Our God of all
universes, our parent God

of all creation and
all human life itself,

we pray at this
graveside of an only son.

Forgive us for
turning your gifts

into weapons of mass
and mini destruction.

Point us away from
evil, from harmful games

and sport and human
interaction and relationships

that injure and even kill.

Inspire and empower us to
love as you love. Amen.

My name is Reverend
James L. Mengel.

I'm actually the third.

I was born just
over the hill here.

In a sense, I just offered
my body, a warm body,

and just went along with
whatever they planned,

and it ended up
the Baltimore Four.

The Baltimore
Four, four people.

Father Philip
Berrigan, Jim Mengel,

Tom Lewis and Dave Eberhardt.

I was doing an errand

and had the radio on in the car.

The radio announcer
spoke about these people

who had poured
blood on draft files

in Baltimore, Maryland.

The tone that the announcer
took was so dismissive,

as if this were
the craziest thing

in the world people could do.

I heard it and I thought,

I want to know more about
why they did what they did.

We went to the
clerks and told them

we wanted to look at the files.

We had experience
as draft counselors,

so they let us go back.

We had Mr. Clean
bottles under our coats,

which we had filled with blood.

We proceeded to the files
and doused them good.

The clerks were very agitated
and upset, of course.

We just sat and
waited until the guards came.

With the blood
pouring was to take

responsibility for the action,

after we poured the
blood on records.

We didn't try to escape.

We waited for arrest.

We used the trial as
an educational medium.

This was front-page news,

and that's what we wanted.

When I became
United States Attorney,

the last thing I expected
to be involved in

was this sort of prosecution.

There was white color
crime, there was corruption,

they were the things
that the US Attorney's

Office had historically
been doing.

The prosecutions that
involved protests of this sort

were extremely rare
in my experience.

There's a higher
law than the law

that precludes this.

We're obeying a moral law.

There's precedence for
this in American history.

So they wanted a
political trial.

We're not
talking about trials here

in the normal sense of the word.

Skill and examination
of witnesses,

objections that are appropriate.

This was theater.

This wasn't litigation
in the normal sense.

It was intended to be theater,

that's why they did it.

We agreed we were
guilty of what took place,

we felt it was for good purpose,

and was a lot less
violent and destructive

than what the military
was doing, and our nation.

All of that stuff
was just not relevant

to whether they intended to
pour blood on the records.

They did, they admitted
it, end of story.

That's the law.

The defense
attorney was saying

"Well, wait a minute, now.

"There couldn't have
been that much damage.

"Why didn't you just
clean off these files

"and carry on business?"

Oh, some of them were
absolutely illegible.

The guy says, "Well, so what?

"Why didn't you just
pull out duplicate copies

"for these people?"

The Colonel said, "Well, there
are no duplicate copies."

The attorney said,
"Well, what do you mean?

"If these files didn't exist,

"that the person who's
name is in the file

"would no longer exist in the
United States Draft Office?"

He said, "Yeah."

In other words, if I
burned this draft file

that that person, you
wouldn't know who it was

and you couldn't draft them?

He said, "Right."

Hello, I'm Marc
Steiner and welcome back.

It is Veteran's Day
and we are reflecting

on the notion of war and of
peace in our world today.

We're now joined in
the studio by two men,

one of whom was also
an Army veteran,

but where both men became
known to the world,

or at least part of the world,

they were members of
the Catonsville Nine.

So George Mische, Tom
Melville, welcome,

and good to have you
staying with us here

for the first part
of this program.

Thanks for having us.

You come out of a
part of the Catholic church,

both of you, that is
fighting for peace

and a different way of
looking at the world,

very much at odds
with the Vatican view

of where the Catholic church is

and where the world is.

And you were a priest
for a long time.

Yes, I was.

And I still am according
to Catholic doctrine.

Right, sorry, right.

I don't function
as one anymore,

so we use the word
former priest.

A brief history
of the Catonsville Nine.

Many people don't
know what that is

and who you all were
and what that moment was

in the middle of
the Vietnam War;

If you could explain that to us.

All nine of
us were Catholics.

All of us had
extensive backgrounds

either internationally
or nationally

in the ghettos of
America and Africa.

We also were no
longer draft eligible.

We felt that something
had to be done

in this country to jar
the protest movement

to say there was
something beyond

just marching down
the streets while

Lyndon Johnson
kept the war going.

Everyone came
from a different place

in their mind as to the
reason for their being there.

Mary Moylan
had participated in Africa

and saw the same kind
of thing occurring.

That's why she participated.

George Mische was
very interested

because he'd been in
the Dominican Republic.

In coming
back from Guatemala

was the sole focus at that time

of my participation in
the action at Catonsville.

As I saw what
the United State did

in Guatemala, I saw
that was a democratic

government we overthrew.

We felt
with the Vietnamese

almost like we felt
with the Guatemalan's

because it was a similar
kind of situation

where you're fighting
against peasants

in the countryside and
all they want is freedom

to work their land and
raise their families.

Our superior gave myself,

my brother, and this
nun who is now my wife,

Margarita, he gave
us tickets to fly

back to Maryknoll.

It was
specifically Maryknoll

who asked us to leave.

They were afraid of
the repercussions

of our being involved with this.

So we were told
to leave tomorrow.

We decided if our
vocation, our mission,

our dream of living in Guatemala

for the rest of our
lives was ending,

then we weren't going
to go back to Maryknoll

and be sent off to Hawaii
or Taiwan or South Korea

where we have other missions,

and that we would follow
up on what we had done.

I left Guatemala
at that time, too,

because my superiors sent
me out of the country

because I had known them

and some of the things they
had talked about doing.

When we had
the meting in our house

in Washington, deciding to
do the Catonsville action,

the Melvilles, of course,
and Hogan were living

with me and my wife in D.C.

People say
a lot of things

and I was so
dizzyingly in love...

Oh, yeah, yeah, oh,
honey, of course.

But when he told me
what he was going to do,

you know, there I am, eight
months pregnant with Danielle.

He said, "Shit."

I was, to put it mildly, upset.

They did the
action between the trial

for the Baltimore Four
and the sentencing

for the Baltimore Four.

The trial was
going on at that time,

and George told us about it.

We decided to go down,
then, to meet Phil Berrigan.

Phil was trying to
recruit more people than nine.

He felt the bigger the better.

We want a cross-section
of America.

I guess he felt that
this should be people

who are middle class,
fairly privileged,

well regarded by society.

That was his theme for
who should be acting

to commit civil disobedience.

- I
- was sitting at my desk

doing my work and
these two ladies

were in the with me,

and those two gentlemen
came up in the hall

outside there and I said,

"Yes, sir, may I help you?"

With that, then all
the rest of them came,

all of a sudden, quickly.

One man with the trash burner,

he went around to my
files and stood there

and started dumping files
into this trash burner.

I saw them coming
out of the building.

I saw them sort of tumbling out

and running around the
corner of the building.

They dumped them on the lot

and they threw this napalm
on and it went whoop,

like that, I mean,
it really exploded.

Everyone jumped back.

I would say it
was roughly in this area

to the rear, just
far enough away,

they were going to light a fire.

And then
they stood around.

They stood around and
Pat was interviewing them

and they were talking
amongst themselves

They were praying and waiting
for the Feds to show up.

We make our
prayer in the name

of that God whose name
is peace and decency

and unity and love.

We unite in taking our matches,

approaching the fire.

We're all a part of this.

While people
throughout the world,

and especially Vietnam
now, are suffering

from napalm, these
files are also napalmed

to show that the
[unintelligible]

Amen.

Napalm, which
was made from information

and from a formula
in the United States

Special Forces
Handbook published

by the School of Special
Warfare of the United States.

We all had a hand
in making the napalm.

It was used here today.

Napalm is a
very old weapon.

It goes back to the Byzantines.

It really came to
public attention

during the war in Vietnam,

the pictures of napalmed people.

That was the kind of
quintessential symbol of the war.

We were burning babies,
literally, in Vietnam.

That's why we wanted to come up

with something symbolic,
and also something

that would really
destroy the files.

Our church has
failed to act officially,

and we feel that as
individuals we're going

to have to speak out in
the name of Catholicism

and Christianity, and
we hope by our action

to inspire other people
who have Christian

principles or a faith
similar to Christianity

will act accordingly to stop
the terrible destruction

that America is wrecking
on the whole world.

We regret very
much, I think all of us,

the inconvenience and
even the suffering

that we brought to
these clerks here.

We sincerely hope
we didn't injure anyone.

Our Father,
who art in Heaven,

hallowed be Thy name.

Thy kingdom come,
Thy will be done,

on Earth as it is in Heaven.

We have chosen
to be powerless criminals

in a time of criminal power.

We have chosen to be
branded as peace criminals

by war criminals.

We'll take
them to the station.

Ready the
back of the paddy wagon.

One, two.

Four, five,
six, seven, eight, nine.

What would you
say is going to happen

to your office here?

Has this seriously
disrupted your service?

Yes, yes, it has

seriously disrupted it.

It really has.

It's going to take hours
and hours and hours

of intense hard
labor to reconstruct

and bring back all of these.

It's doing a great injustice
to the boys themselves

because many instances,
these boys have gone

to a lot of trouble to
get doctors' statements,

which cost them a lot of money.

These things are all
inside of these files.

It certainly was much more

of a news even than the
Baltimore Four had been.

Why that was so, I'm not sure.

Maybe the fact that there had
been this previous action.

Maybe that, I think Dan Berrigan

was more well-known than Phil,

and that may have been a factor.

If you're
going to get involved

with a movement and
there's priests involved,

back then in '68, they're
going to cover the priests.

Because before us,
at least in this century,

that kind of thing
had not happened.

But there was a
nonviolent explicit attack

upon property as an
attempt to vindicate

human life in the midst of, say,

the idolatries paid to property

and the absolute
cheapening of human life

that war spells.

Look, it was a
very courageous action,

and like other civil
disobedience...

Civil disobedience is a
tactic, it's not a principle.

The point of the tactic is,

I think, at least,

is to encourage others
to move a little farther.

So if we go this far,
maybe other people

will think about
it and be inspired

and they'll do a little
more than they're doing.

There were very mixed
reactions to Catonsville.

A lot of people were
totally mystified,

some scandalized, some
confused, some angry.

They felt perhaps
that pure principles

of nonviolence
had been violated.

We destroyed
property at Catonsville

and people got very,
very flustered over that.

They forgot about the
destruction of human beings,

but they say they got
violent over property

and they burned those papers.

But when property is destroyed,

and a lot of it
deserves to be destroyed

in order to illustrate
the way it is employed

to abuse and to kill
and maim human beings.

Not only
in this country,

but in the modern world,
we have this fetish

about property, about
things, much more

than we have about people.

People are more important
than pieces of paper.

People were being
burned and killed.

There was a sense
of immediacy about it,

that of course draft records
are hunting licenses.

Some property,
since it doesn't

bring anything good
for a human being,

that property might not
have a right to exist.

When it came
around to being,

to the trial period,
which was in late 1968,

in October, we had
reporters from Europe

and other places coming in.

It was a big news story.

We were about publicity.

We knew that this was drama,

this was not just politics.

This was politics as theater.

There was a
very, very big march

from Wyman Park right
down Howard Street.

At that time, Howard
Street was the main

shopping street in the city.

The only
thing I can tell you

in terms of numbers is
that once we got downtown

in front of City Hall, we
filled the War Memorial Plaza.

That plaza in front
of City Hall literally

was full of people.

I remember speaking to it.

To my knowledge
it was the first time

that the Baltimore police
broke out riot gear.

It was very intimidating,
it was very real,

but there was also
a sense that they

were between the
counter-demonstrators

and the demonstrators,
so there was a level

on which you could be
grateful for them being there.

And I
could knock the hell

out of you right now.

I didn't
say you couldn't.

You wouldn't
believe that, would you?

I was
very, very concerned

that there not be incidents,

there not be violence,

that police and the
marshals not overreact.

I've always been very
proud of the fact

that there were
no, zero, arrests

during the entire
week of the protests.

It was surprising
how many people came

and more or less
lived in Baltimore

throughout the trial.

There was a kind of
festival atmosphere almost.

The trial, of
course, was by definition

unusual in the sense
that the defendants

admitted every
element of the charge.

That's not what happens
in criminal cases.

What these folks wanted
to do is to demonstrate

to the public the
reasons, the motive,

for their conduct, and
indirectly to try the war.

They had a right, they said.

They were asking
to be acquitted.

This wasn't just...

They pleaded not guilty.

There's a concept called
jury nullification.

It's what Kunstler
actually sought to argue

to the jury, to tell
the jury to disregard

the judge's instructions,
which were, in effect,

if these elements are
met, they're guilty.

We refused
to do anything

with the jury selection.

We just said you charged
us, it's your trial,

you pick who you want.

If I recall right,
there was one juror

who was black, all
the rest were white.

When they presented their
case we made no objections.

We let them do
whatever they wanted.

Judge Thompson
was more tolerant,

more liberal you can say,

in permitting the
defendants to explain

why they did what they did.

There was always
the sense they can talk,

and they can talk,
and they can talk,

but we know what the outcome
of this is going to be.

He knew from the get-go they
were going to be convicted.

On the last
day of the trial

I was in the room when
the verdict was delivered,

so I heard, I believe
it was Tom Melville's

brother, stand up and
say, "Ladies and gentlemen

"of the jury, you've just
found Jesus Christ guilty."

The Federal
sentence was 24 months

and because I behaved myself,

I got out after 18 months.

I had a two year sentence,

which was then
reduced to one year,

and then on the one
year with good time

and all that stuff,
it's a little over nine

months that I served in prison.

I've often said in giving

talks to people that
were considering

doing some kind of
civil disobedience

and being worried
about prison, I'd say,

"Listen, if you're
a nun or a priest,

"you've been
through the convent,

"you've been through
the seminary,

"it's perfect training
for being in prison."

We had a big
farewell party the night

before they were to report.

We said goodbye and all,
and they just led us on.

Then, of course, when we went
to the court in the morning,

most of the folks weren't there.

We, naively, thought
they must be coming,

they must be coming.

Then it dawned on us,
they're not coming.

When it came time
to turn ourselves in,

we decided to
continue the action,

take some more risk
by going underground.

Let them try and catch us.

Mary Moylan
knew that we were

going to do that and said, "I
think I'm going to join you,

"but do you mind if I go
under with the women?"

because she wanted to
show that the women

were as good of
revolutionaries in the sense

as the men, and I thought
it was a great idea.

Did you spend
any time underground

or avoid turning
yourself in after-?

No. I did not.

I was newly married
and I wanted to have

that over with, go to
jail, and get it over with.

I had been celibate long enough.

They got Phil
and George and Dave

fairly quickly, but it
took a while to get Dan,

and they never got Mary,
and they were looking

for Mary because they
were here many times,

not only here at this
house looking for her,

but our neighbor as well.

I shall not seek,

and I will not accept,

the nomination of my party

for another term
as your president.

Not only am
I not religious

but I find religion
to be distracting

and kind of a bummer.

These folks are different
for a lot of reasons.

One is because they
carry out their politics

and their faith and their
moral principles in action.

It's the action that makes
their principles come to life.

I think the Catonsville
Nine opened up the options

of what people were willing
to do and it made people

really reflect on the killing
that was going on abroad

and what a person
or a group could do.

Between the trial
of the Catonsville Nine

and the time the group
went underground,

Phil especially, and
George, Dan to a degree,

went to retreats,
meetings, recruiting,

organizing more actions.

With people
like Mische around,

especially in the second trial,

it was about every
time you have a trial

you organize another action.

At least another action,
one other action.

I took off,
decided not to stay at home

in D.C. but to go out and
keep the ball rolling.

I went through a whole
series of cities meeting

with people with the idea
of getting to New Jersey

in August of 1968 to decide
how to carry this on.

Quite a few
of the participants

of what was later to be
the Milwaukee 14 action,

were at that retreat.

I was turned on by
the idea of a small group

of folks doing a disciplined,
public, scary event.

I just really liked
the idea of it.

The step from
descent to resistance

is a very great step.

Everything up to that
point from letter-writing

to visiting Congressmen, that's
a pretty clear continuum.

But then to step into
the area of resistance,

say through a burning
of draft cards

and receiving draft cards,

that's a much
tougher step to take.

The question
was when I would be

involved in the movement.

I remember talking to
somebody in the seminary,

a priest, and he said,
"How do you see your

"life in the upcoming years?"

I said, "I'll
eventually be in jail."

He said, "Oh,
that's interesting."

In Milwaukee,
there was electricity here.

I met with all kinds of groups,

and finally Mike [Cullen] says,

"Have you decided where
the next action should be?"

I said, "That's for people
to decide themselves."

It began to seem
like maybe there should be

an action in Milwaukee
because there were nine

draft boards for the
whole city on one floor

of one office building downtown.

It would be a chance
to take out the files

of all the city draft boards.

It might actually stop the
draft in one American city.

We had 14
people, from different

parts of the country,
who decided on a day,

and committed
civil disobedience.

We had gotten together
on Labor Day weekend

for the first time
and this action

was not much more than
three weeks later.

We ran
out of the building

with all our files and threw
them at a war memorial.

They
burned draft records

to protest the Vietnam War,

and became known as
the Milwaukee 14.

It
was a dramatic action.

It was a kind of
theater, a moral theater,

and like any piece of theater,

it catches
everybody's attention.

They
entered Milwaukee's

Selective Service Office,
dragged out the files,

and torched them, right
there, on Wells Street.

After the flames, they
hugged, sang hymns.

No one ran; all were arrested.

Fire engines
got there pretty quick.

It was a good sized blaze.

Hallowed be Thy name.

We love
all of you gentlemen

who are putting out the fire.

We have done this
because we love America.

and believe America
has done wrong

in the last days in Vietnam.

The [unintelligible]
years we've lost 27

or 26,000 American men.

We've lost 100,000-

May those
young men whose files

were burned here
never go to war.

The amazing
part about it all is

we could have
disappeared and nobody

would have found us again.

They would have always wondered
who it was that did it,

but instead of running,
we decided to stay.

The police were very kind.

They didn't treat us if
we were dangerous people.

We were completely cooperative.

This is part of
what we were doing.

We'd come to be
arrested for impeding

the operation of the
Selective Service System.

Our trial
was a state trial

and we were charged
and convicted

with burglary, arson and theft.

We felt that we had

much more [breath]
without a lawyer.

We had Bill Kunstler as
our lawyer, and said,

"Well, Bill, we're going
to handle this on our own."

Basically it was
more so that we could

talk because it was much
more difficult to shut up

the defendant than it was
a lawyer or a witness.

We already knew we
were going to jail.

were convicted of
arson and burglary,

and each did just
about a year in jail.

Today, March 22, 1969,

in the Washington office
of the Dow Chemical Company

we spill human blood,

it was our own,

and destroy files
and office equipment.

By this action, we condemn you,

the Dow Chemical Company,

and all similar
American corporations.

In your mad pursuit of profit,

you and others like you,

are causing the psychological

and physical
destruction of mankind.

Our action was the
first to venture into

the military industrial
complex issue of the war.

Dow made napalm, nerve gas,

and defoliants that
were used in Vietnam.

We wanted to show
that the corporations

are making a lot of
money on the Vietnam War.

We were
across the street

wondering what's going on here,

and suddenly we're seeing
windows being shattered

and documents being thrown
out into the street.

We went up into the
building and got inside

and saw ransacked offices, etc.

We committed
five Federal felonies.

That was my little
claim to fame,

to be the first nun
in the United States

to commit a Federal felony.

My understanding
is that the so-called

hit and stay, or the
stand-around actions

that followed, resulted in
at least tens of thousands

of draft files being destroyed.

There were over
100 draft board actions

in this country,
and the Director

of the Selective
Service acknowledged

that these actions
had really undercut

their ability to operate.

The
culmination, in my mind,

was in Chicago
when the Chicago 15

went into the ghettos of
the South Side Chicago

and burned up to half
a million draft files,

because Vietnam was
mainly being popped

by blacks and Latinos
in this country

while white kids could
go to college and-

At least
wealthy white kids.

As long as you
could get into college

you got your draft deferment.

They hit 34
draft boards all in one

South Side Selective
Service complex.

They burglarized the draft
board over the weekend,

but still stood around.

Beaver 55 did
a raid on the Dow

Chemical plant in
Midland, Michigan

with magnets to erase
computer data tapes

that purportedly included
the formula for napalm.

The Boston Eight
was the first time

to hit multiple
buildings in one night.

John [Galvani]
and I were assigned

to watch the Copley
Square Building,

and we were assigned to
make a accurate record

of the light patterns
in the building.

We did weeks
and weeks and weeks

of casing of those draft boards

in order to figure out
ways of getting in and out.

During the
Copley Square action,

I realized that
the entire evening

with John [Galvani], we were
watching the wrong building.

We drew maps of
each of the offices.

We knew where the
files were located

and where the different
parts of the cross reference

system were kept,
and we meant to do

a very careful, complete,
comprehensive job

of making those draft
boards inoperable

and unable to
function in any way.

We had agreed that
we were going to surface

a week later at the
Moratorium in Washington D.C.,

and we invited
the press to that,

and the FBI were there as well.

They joked with us, but did
not attempt to arrest us.

On the [We
the People] action

is a real turning point as
far as youth being involved.

Youth were taking it over.

Priests and nuns
were becoming scarce.

The youth that were
involved may or may not

have had any
religious connection.

The whole
state of Delaware

was supposed to be
taken out in one night.

The decision was made that
we would hang platforms

above the acoustical
ceiling in the bathrooms.

[And] sat up
there for quite a while.

We knew when
the janitor left

and we walked in and
we started our action.

We had with us
a bunch of inflatable

swimming pools,
kids' swimming pools.

And then we rushed
to get wastepaper cans,

water, fill them up,
pour in the bleach,

and then started
dumping filed into them.

The New Haven action
was a clear hit and run.

The folks who
were in the building

took a lot of files out.

And the records
were returned to the men

with a letter and said,
"Here's your record.

"You're no longer on record.

"It's up to you.

"We hope you make
the right choice."

We decided
it would be good

if they were mailed
from different cities

up and down the coast.

Vandals invaded
two draft board offices

in Elizabeth and
Union City, New Jersey

early this morning.

We planned and we
decided not to get arrested.

I as scared shitless.

They destroyed
thousands of 1A files

and painted anti-war
slogans on the walls.

And I believe
about 300 people signed

the statement saying that
they were responsible

for the Hoover
Vacuum conspiracy,

and we sent that to the FBI;

and never heard back from them.

We went to Vietnam,
not to destroy freedom,

but to defend it.

We went to Vietnam,
not as an aggressor,

but to stop aggression.

History will record
that the American effort

in Vietnam was a good cause,

honorably undertaken,
and honorably ended.

You think
there's still work

for the anti-war movement?

I would say
there's perhaps

more work than
there ever has been.

Phil Berrigan
had been an officer

in the military; he was
used to leading many.

He'd gotten a battlefield
commission in infantry.

Phil still, in my
experience of him,

and I had known him well
for a number of years,

tended to operate
like an officer.

I'd been in the military,
and I was familiar with that.

Phil would kind
of get in your face

about doing an action like this.

It was leadership skills.

You challenge people
to do something,

to rise to the occasion.

Well, it's
kind of inevitable

in a celebrity-run
culture that people

will be picked out and
identified as leaders,

but, yeah, it's a
negative factor.

I certainly
never thought of them

as leaders, so to speak.

That's the media.

It's a great story.

Two priests, brothers,
resisting the war.

One was in the Army,
all this kind of stuff.

There's a lot of us
that did probably

more actions than Dan
Berrigan ever did.

I don't know about Phil

because he was always
doing something.

But the media loves that stuff,

so they'll pick someone as
the leader, so to speak,

and run with it.

Phil had always laid
onto us this big message

that if you're really
serious, capital S,

about resistance, capital R,

you will not get married.

He would encourage
a layman to stay single.

I thought he put
me into a rational,

logical box where
I had no response

other than to say,
"Sure, I'll do this."

My experience with
Phil was quite the opposite;

that he was skeptical
of my participation

because of my youth.

He questioned
me pretty thoroughly

when we first met
because he was concerned

that I wasn't ready for jail.

But of course it
made sense from Phil's

point of view that if you
really wanted to spend

the rest of your life
off and on in prison,

resisting, then of
course, obviously,

you wouldn't want to be
married and have children.

He wasn't saying
what it God telling you?

He wasn't saying God.

He was implying it
because what's the only

right thing to do in
these circumstances,

and that would be what
God would want you to do.

It was a kind
of macho challenge

and indeed most of
the people responding

to this in the early
actions, not all but most,

were men.

It's hard to recount now

how stifling the
atmosphere was at that time

for women coming up with
anything on their own.

When women stepped out
and tried to do something

that was self-identified,
there was resistance to it,

and that was certainly
true with ours as well.

We decided that it
would be important

to try and do something
that was distinctively

women against the war,
against the Vietnam War.

What the women
did in New York

in the Women Against
Daddy Warbucks

was an experiment
in using something

other than fire to
destroy draft records.

We knocked out,
as we used to say then,

13 draft boards that
encompassed all of northern

Manhattan, the Bronx
and parts of Queens.

They were actually
the first ones

that came up with
the delayed standby.

We went into
the draft boards

on the night of July
1, and then we appeared

in Rockefeller Center July 3.

Having
summoned, invited,

anybody who wanted, police,
newspaper reporters,

television reporters, etc.

Because a
lot of corporations

are headquartered in
Rockefeller Center,

we decided that
would be a good place

to appear and to
have it be an event.

One of them
began tossing in the air

what appeared to be torn
strips of draft records.

It was then the Federal
agents moved in.

The confetti was a different
kind of thing than fire.

Pat Kennedy, as
soon as she was there,

was immediately grabbed
by about 10 FBI agents

who lifted her up in
the air and carried her

horizontal out through
the crowd, or tried to.

Before it
was over, six women

were arrested by the FBI.

There was a Grand
Jury that was summoned.

The investigation, our
lawyers came to believe

the purpose of the Grand
Jury was to subpoena

me and give me immunity
in order to get access

to the larger draft
board community.

As a result, I made a
decision to disappear

for a while and not be findable

in terms of a Grand
Jury subpoena.

It was a
refreshing action.

It came right
toward the beginning

of that era of the
women's movement,

so there were a lot of women

around the country
that loved it.

How
many kids did you

kill today, Empire USA?

How many kids did you
kill today, Empire USA?

Pots of gold are in your grip.

You pray they'll
never, ever slip.

You're sending more
soldiers again and again

To make sure the
wars will never end.

How many kids did you
kill today, Empire USA?

I'm Joan Nicholson
and I took part

in the New York Eight action.

They raided several
draft boards in Queens

and several draft
boards in the Bronx.

There was not an arrest
as they did the action.

They did what they
came to call surfacing.

They were having
a press conference

and they knew the Feds
were going to be coming.

They started to talk
with one of the attorneys

who came, and he said,
"Well, why don't you

"just sort of say you
claim responsibility

"and not say you actually did it

"and don't answer any questions

"about did you do it or not?"

We were taken sort
of into custody, I guess,

apprehended by a Bronx,
I guess it was a DA,

and then a bit later we were
called before a Grand Jury.

They wanted to know who
had been in which place.

Since they couldn't
determine who had been where,

nothing ever happened.

That was very nice.

That, I think,
completed the evolution

from standby actions, which
took place on weekdays

during normal business
hours in broad daylight

where people stood by
and waited for the police

to arrest them, to this
format of surfacing later,

often without evidence,
as a way of, perhaps,

thwarting government
prosecution.

There's no question
that you're not just

kind of politically,
in terms of the priests

and the nuns and the
rest of us, being willing

to do this and the
publicity that came with it.

That was a very important piece

of what this movement was about,

but it also had a
practical impact

in terms of physically
impeding the ability

of Selective Service to
meet its quota, it appears.

During the
time he was in hiding,

Father Berrigan changed
his location often.

He stayed with 37
different families

in 10 eastern and
Midwestern cities.

Father Dan,
you've been underground

for some time now.

What's it like to be underground

in the United States of America?

Well, I'd say that
it looks as though it could

go on forever, it
looks good enough,

looks useful enough
for the movement.

I'd say there
were, what, four months

that we looked for
Dan everywhere.

He was everywhere and
available to everyone

except the FBI.

Probably so
far as I'm concerned,

the one hero of the
entire movement,

the person with the
perspective, the knowledge,

the ability to do the
organization was John Grady.

I met John in '68 at
the Catonsville Nine trial.

One of the things I
remember about figuring out

what John had been
doing with the actions

before he and I had
been talking about

doing New York Eight,
Mike Dougherty,

who was in the DC Nine action,

Mike Dougherty's throwing
these documents out

of it looked like a fourth
story office in Dow Chemical.

The guy who's collecting
the papers on the ground,

on the street, is John Grady.

John was very
important as to a catalyst,

as to insight, as to ideas.

He really had
a very steady vision

in one direction, and
that was serving the poor

and looking at their
plight and so on.

He died just two months
before Phil did in 2002.

He was very close
to Phil, so I'm sure

Phil was in communication
with John all the time.

He certainly
became a source

for logistics for
subsequent actions.

He filled that
void, there's no doubt.

In my junior
year of high school

I was arrested with some
folks at the Boston Army Base

where we were
passing out leaflets

urging people to not take
part in the Vietnam War

and to resist the
draft and stuff.

I was sentenced to 20
days in jail for that

while I was still
in high school.

When we heard of the
Catonsville Nine,

we thought, "Hey,
what a great idea!"

I was first involved
in the Boston Two,

myself and Frank [Famia]
raided the draft board

in the Customs House
Tower in Boston.

Frank and I were both
given an indefinite

zero to six years under
what was then called

the Youth Corrections Act.

By the time
Suzie got out of prison,

there had been this evolution
that we talked about

away from standby actions.

Suzie, in considering
and contemplating

her next draft board action,

wanted to learn about
casing and advance planning

and cross-reference system.

My involvement
with the Rhode Island

Political Offensive for Freedom,

or RIPOFF, which
was very clever,

it was as a helper, someone
who was not going to be

surfacing with Jerry and David.

We went into
the Rhode Island

Selective Service complex,

it housed four
local draft boards,

and the Rhode Island
state headquarters.

We now know that
those draft boards

never drafted again.

Then on the following Friday,

Dave [Chaws] and I
held a press conference

in downtown Providence.

We distributed a
statement to the press

that was carefully
worded to say we claim

responsibility for this
draft board action.

We did not say we did
it or we were there.

Jerry Elmer
and David [Chaws]

were both arrested as planned.

None of those of us
who had lend a hand

during the action
were arrested for it.

The FBI had
expressed skepticism

that was reported
in the press, saying

those two guys couldn't be
the only people responsible.

It was much too
professional a burglary

for it to be just these kids.

We, of course, took that
as a great compliment.

You have to remember
that Dave and I

were both 18 years
old at the time,

doing a major burglary of
a Federal office complex

was something that
required a bit of doing.

This was not a
Catholic left action.

The two people who surfaced

were a couple of Jewish
kids from New York.

Yes, it had the benefit
of Catholic left training

in more ways than one.

One was my experience came
from the Boston Eight action,

and that clearly was a
Catholic left action.

And, as you say correctly,
Art Melville helped us

with planning and
he was a priest

in the middle of
the Catholic left.

Decourcy and I were
the ones that originated

the planning for the
Flower City Conspiracy.

We had the idea of, hey,
let's do a draft board

action right here in Rochester.

As things
progressed in 1970,

that was Kent State,
that was the invasion

of Cambodia, people being
killed at Jackson State,

we started discussing
doing a draft board action

at the four draft
boards in Rochester,

and then along the way
of that discussion,

we started expanding
our look at the US

Attorney's Office, which was
prosecuting the draft cases

of the people who were
resisters, and at the FBI,

which we felt was very
responsible for trying

to repress the movement
for social change.

It was J.
Edgar Hoover's FBI.

They were clearly
acting on behalf

of the war-making government.

There was all kinds of
illegal surveillance

against totally
legal activities.

This was the
first time an FBI office

had ever been hit and
their idea was that they

didn't want to
destroy the files,

they wanted to make them public.

The reason
we did the action

at the US Attorney's
Office was that there

was a very strong
person within our group

who had actually been in prison,

and she saw the kind of
racial and class realities

of the prison system,
how it discriminated

against people of
color and poor people,

low income people, and she
wanted to make a statement

that that's part of
the problem, too.

Four large
urban draft boards

plus the FBI office
plus the Assistant US

Attorney's Office, we needed
a lot of people power.

There was Suzie
Williams, Decourcy Squire,

Wayne [Bonekemper],
Joanie Nicholson,

Jane [Myerding], Ted
Glick, Joe [Gilchrist],

and Frank Calahan.

That's the way it
looked after we were done.

Kind of in the
middle of the night,

might have been Decourcy,
I remember coming

and telling me and other people,

that there were police
coming up to the front door,

checking the door to see
if anybody had broken in.

We realized they were doing
it like on the half hour,

so we called back to our people

who were going to
be picking us up

and we told them,
look, you should plan

to come like 5:15,
because they're checking

the doors every half hour.

It was 5:15, maybe
5:20 when these cars

were literally
turning the corner

to come down to pick us up.

The police got there
early and checked

the doors, and they saw
everybody crouching down

right by the door
waiting to be picked up,

and that was it.

We got arrested.

They were actually
knocking on the door

and saying, "This is
the police, let us in."

Are they nuts?

Of course we weren't
going to let them in.

They knew that we
were doing the action.

The knew when, where, etc.

Despite it, we got
into the building,

we were in there for five hours.

The four draft
boards were successfully

burglarized, the
files were destroyed,

the draft boards were
rendered inoperable.

Perhaps they
thought they were keeping

watch and just didn't
keep watch enough.

The trial
was a big deal.

It was a big deal
certainly for Rochester.

It was front page news every
day of the trial's two weeks.

We were not
charged with burglarizing

the FBI office because they
did not want to talk about

what it was that we had been
taking from the FBI office.

They got that all
back and we didn't get

to publish any of it so, I-

That was very sad.

We had a hung jury,
9-3 for conviction.

They ended up coming
back with guilty

with a recommendation
of leniency

on all six of the felony counts.

We're convinced that
that's why we ended up

getting a year to
a year-and-a-half

rather than maybe 5-10 years.

We were certain that's
what we were going to get,

at least, given
that it wasn't just

Selective Service, it was
FBI, it was US Attorney.

We have a visitor.

For reasons that
will become obvious

with a little reflection,
it was not possible

to anticipate his arrival
amongst us in advance.

I understand
that you've got

something planned for tomorrow.

Do you want to tell
us what that is?

Well, it's a very
simple little project.

Tomorrow for the first
time since I went

underground, I'm going
to preach in a church,

in an urban church.

I want to be with a group
of worshiping Christians,

not necessarily Catholics,

and I want to refer
to the New Testament,

and I want to relate
it to what we have done

and to invite people
in as practical

and simple and direct
a way as I know,

to consider this, even though
they are shocked by it.

To present on an
ordinary Sunday morning

to fellow Christians the
scandal of one who lives

outside the law, the
added scandal of one

whose brother, also a
priest, is in Federal prison,

the first political
prisoner in our history

who was a priest.

Do you sympathize
with Father Berrigan's

act of burning draft
files and then running

away from his jail
sentence and appearing

in situations like this
in the underground?

Oh, I see that-

I didn't quite understand
the facts in the case.

That is why he-

In other words, he
should be in jail,

is that the idea?

That's
right, he's got a jail

sentence hanging over him.

I can
understand his point of view,

thinking it is right to
do those kind of things,

but personally, I
wouldn't do it myself.

- I
- do not sympathize

with the burning of draft cards.

I think that's very un-American.

His
is the kind of heroic

witness that I wish I
had the courage to do,

but which seems so very removed

from the kind of thing
that a person can do

and still function in
middle class society.

Apparently drove
J. Edgar Hoover crazy,

that here's this guy
making fun of us,

giving anti-war speeches,
and we can't catch him.

The anti-war
movement, I think,

hurt our war effort, and
maybe even caused casualties

and certainly, I think,
lengthened the war,

because our enemies,
the Viet Cong, the NVA,

they saw, wait a minute,
there's people in America

that aren't supporting this war,

so maybe if we just hang
in there long enough,

we'll get what we want.

I felt, we're at war,
it was a honorable war,

to keep an allied nation
free from Communism.

Because we didn't stick
in there long enough,

they became a Communist nation.

I wasn't crazy about
the anti-war people.

I am a former Marine
and a retired FBI agent.

I retired from the FBI in 1998.

I was with the FBI for 30 years,

a little bit over 30 years.

Media, Pennsylvania.

The FBI had a
resident agency there,

which was out of the
Philadelphia field office.

What happened is one morning

the guys came into the office

and the guy turned
the key on the door

and the key kept going
around and he said,

"I think they got
into our nickers."

Opened the door and sure enough,

the place had been burglarized.

Media,
Pennsylvania is a town

outside of Philadelphia,
where, as it turned out,

the FBI counterintelligence
program was located.

This was the program, it's
referred to as Cointelpro,

which is short for Counter
Intelligence Program.

We would take a
group, like the Ku Klux Klan,

maybe the Black Panther
Party, maybe the Weathermen,

and we would figure
they're going to do

something against this country,

we want to disrupt this group,
make them less efficient.

They were after
unions, they were after

all the people that were
looking out for the poor,

working class people,
and middle class.

For instance,
we investigated

on college campuses,
because some of the people

who were being
investigated for the whole

national security
thing, you know,

anti-war groups and so on.

We had to find out who
they were, and so on.

These were various
groups who were left-wing,

were anti-war, were anti-racist,

and were doing things
around the country

to organize people to
stop the war in Vietnam.

The US government
set about to kill,

infiltrate, play dirty
tricks, create violence

among different people, spread
rumors from one to another.

The FBI was spending
considerably more time

on radical leftist
groups, anti-war groups,

then he was on organized crime.

So basic, we had to
talk to a lot of people,

basically investigate a
lot of innocent people

to determine some people

who were actuary
involved in something.

One day there
was a big, bulky package

in the mail and I opened it
and didn't know what I had.

There was a cover
letter from the Citizens

Commission to
Investigate the FBI.

They were FBI files; they
were copies of files.

Media, Pennsylvania
was the moment

at which those files
were brought out

and shown to the press,
so the secret plan

of the government was exposed.

When CBS, ABC and
NBC all got the hot document

which said that Hoover
sent out this letter

to all the FBI offices
in the United States,

to all the agents telling
them that the role

of the FBI agents in
the field is to make

every person in America
believe there is

an FBI agent behind
every mailbox.

When that it, that
was the beginning

of the turnaround in the
Congress and the public

about Hoover
becoming discredited.

It became almost a
personal thing for Mr. Hoover.

They broke into my FBI office.

Who did media?

I don't know; nobody knows.

A lot of people know.

[A little] insane.

People know
and I've heard names,

but nobody talks about it.

Grady did media,
well, nobody knows

who did media, but a lot-

I think that Grady did media.

They had a pretty good
idea who had done this,

but they had no evidence.

I think the FBI
thought Grady did Media too.

Sure, but they
couldn't pin it down on him.

It was front page
news for a long time

until the Pentagon
Papers were released

by the New York Times,
and that took us

right off the papers completely,

because the Pentagon
Papers was a bigger story.

You're talking
the fall of 1970.

Catonsville Nine and
Baltimore Four are in prison.

They're serving their time.

With all the
different ways people

tried to influence
the United States

to realize the folly of this war

and the cruelty of this war

and the murder this
war was causing,

no effect.

There were tons
of conversations

about how do you return the war

to the front pages of-

and the front, the consciousness
of the American people.

The legal
machinery of the Unites States

government began to
move today in the kidnap

conspiracy case that
involves Henry Kissinger,

one of President
Nixon's Chief advisers.

The indictments were
disclosed last night

and they also charged that
the accused conspirators

planned to blow up the
heating ducts of several

Washington buildings, all
as a means of protesting

against the Indo-China
war and forcing

the government to
bring it to an end.

The indictment said the
Reverend Philip Berrigan,

now in a Connecticut
prison for destroying

draft records, was the
leader of the conspiracy.

Most of those
who knew Anthony Scoblick

a former priest, and
Fathers Neil McLaughlin

and Joseph Wenderoth, were
surprised at their arrests.

They appeared briefly in
Federal court at Baltimore,

then were taken to be
arraigned at Harrisburg,

Pennsylvania, where
indictments were handed down.

What they
hoped for, I think,

more than anything
else was to accuse

our movement of violence,
and thereby discredit it.

To attribute to
kidnapping and bombing

to priests who have
neither the philosophy

nor the resources to
support such activity

must spring from the
desperation of men

who have decided
to stop at nothing

in order to crush the
anti-war movement.

Phil was determined
to have the movement

move on in directions
that we were discussing.

One of those tings about
that he wanted so dearly

to go into those tunnels to
find out what it was like.

Phil Berrigan went down

into heating tunnels
in Washington.

Phil did the talking
and I walked along with him.

We actually got into
a room with a large

amount of computers and
we were looking to see

whether there were connections
to the heating tunnel

system as a way to be able
to break into that building

later and cause some
damage to those computers.

What Phil wanted to do
was to blow up heating tunnels.

Charge was true.

They never got to
the point of actually

going further than that.

One of the
conversations we had

was a conversation,
could you do something

like a citizen's arrest of
a high government official

and film and them
answering hard questions

and release that.

You don't have that
conversation long before

you say, no, you're compelling
somebody else's freedom

and therefore it's
not non-violent.

You can't do it.

End of conversation.

Not saying it
wasn't talked about

or approached, but
it was no, period.

That was it.

Of course, how it got
back to J. Edgar Hoover

in December, well,
that's obvious.

The letters.

Just, stupidly,
letters I wrote to Phil

about some of the things
people were talking about,

not realizing they were
always monitoring his mail,

but also, no matter how subtly
you tried to say something,

they're going to try to
make something out of it.

When the revelation
came out of what they

were really about,
that was the shocker.

That was across the board.

Especially when
you're sitting back

and knowing that the
government knows more about

their relationship than we do.

Basically love
letters in disguise

were being passed back and forth

with a kind of anti-war,
resistance overlay.

I think more than anything else

they were just love letters.

And the fact that
they were talking about

actions that were being planned

was a slap in the
face of all of us.

Like that one
line I'll never forget,

"Stringfellow is part
of bro's next move."

Well, you know what
that meant, right?

Because Dan was
underground at the time.

Next thing we know the
Feds are at Stringfellow's

place on Block
Island arresting Dan.

That's where they got it from,

but she said a lot of little
things in those letters.

Do you have
comment, Father, at all?

Good to be here.

What were
doing out on Block Island?

Well, I was writing
and reading and meditating,

exactly what I'll
be doing in jail.

What are
your future plans?

Resistance.

Probably all that
Liz was trying to do

was to convince Phil that
we were still thinking

creatively about
things we could do.

But when you think
creatively and you put it

in writing and you send
it to the FBI, basically,

believe it or not they
take it seriously!

Capsulizing
the whole case,

it started with Boyd
Douglas, who was an inmate

doing a study
release at Lewisburg,

at Bucknell University.

He was recruited by Phil
Berrigan to take letters

from he to Liz McAlister and
back from McAlister to him.

They caught him at
it, so he agreed to be

and informant for us.

Boyd did
hoodwink Philip Berrigan.

Philip was always so suspicious

of a number of things
that it surprised me

that he became so tight
with Boyd Douglas.

He desperately wanted to
communicate with Elizabeth

and so in some ways it was
one of a self-fulfilling

prophesy that if you get
somebody who's volunteering

to take letters in and
out, that you tell yourself

that somehow he's
somebody to be trusted,

because he wanted to
be able to communicate.

I used to warn
Phil over and over,

this is a setup.

This is wrong, don't
talk to this guy,

don't send letters out to him,

because doesn't it seem
kind of crazy to you

that of 3,000 inmates,
a lot of people

had a lot of college in
them, that they select

one guy who was a
two-bit hustler,

and that they're sending
him out to Bucknell?

He struck me as just being

a very affable,
likable, friendly guy.

you could talk to about
anything; intelligent.

It was very much like having
a conversation with you.

No offense.

No ominous or
anything about him.

He specifically gave us

the information about a break-in

in Rochester ahead of time,

and they arrested
a bunch of them.

That was directly as a
result of what Boyd told us.

The indictment came
down against eight people

and everybody laughed at it.

There were editorials in
papers all over the country,

and editorial cartoons
all over the place.

Knowing
that most Americans

are united against that war,

the ■has embarked
on a most tragic

and outrageous
course, to stigmatize

millions of morally
dedicated opponents

of our military
involvement in Indo-China

as violent and deranged people.

As we'll get into, I was
a member of the Camden 28.

I was born and raised
on a small farm,

one of ten kids, very
low-key working-class life.

Significant event in
our family that I think

was one of the seeds of
much of the rest of my life

was when my brother was drafted

and subsequently
killed in Vietnam.

That kind of was the
beginning of the process

that jelled for my
eventual finding my way

towards the draft
board community

and the Catholic left
and that sort of thing.

There were some fits and starts.

I think at one point,
then, it became clear

that the FBI was kind
of snooping around.

People were
seriously talking about

abandoning it, and they'd
been working a long time

on pulling something off.

Some other people
were saying we got to

get out of here, the
Feds are on to us.

A Franciscan
brother came to me

and told me about a
plan action and asked

if I would like to
be a part of it.

That's Mike Giocondo?

Mike Giocondo.

Initially I said no.

Then I thought
about it and I said

well, at least I
could meet the people.

I think Mike was
actually complaining

to Bob just as friend to friend,

oh, I'm involved in this action

and they're thinking
about cancelling it.

We've put so much time
and effort in to it.

That's when Bob, I think,
basically volunteered

himself and said, "Oh, I can
help you guys with that."

I met Bob Hardy
and he was an uplifting

strong bull of a guy, and
give you a big bear hug.

I liked him a lot.

When Bob came, the
action was kind of rejuvenated.

He always had
ropes, he had tools,

he had hammers, he had
this, he had know-how.

Bob was making
sure that we had

better drawings than
the draft board.

Always seemed to
have enough money to loan,

because it takes money
to pull these things off.

He was giving
credible moral support

to the group.

People really
started to feel very good

again about the action
and the action coming off.

Add to that the fact that
the Feds had disappeared,

it's like, wow,
we're cruising now!

It doesn't get much
better than this.

Camden was a
five-story building.

The boards were up on the
fifth floor, in the back.

How do we get to them?

How do we get in them?

How do we get the stuff out?

Grady was a very
strong personality.

He definitely had a
leadership role in Camden.

This is when he came
up with the binoculars

and the maps and the
division of labor

and all this sort of thing.

I don't think people
had any idea how good

he became in organizing
actions and whatever.

There were
eight people inside,

so how many would you
need on the outside?

A few car drivers
and truck drivers

and somebody back
at the headquarters

taking some radio and
walkie-talkie stuff.

Then all of a sudden,

I just heard this loud
noise of footsteps.

That's when the whole
building lit up at once

and they just came
out of the woodwork.

Freeze, you're
under arrest.

One of the FBI guys
marches into the office

And they had
us all flat on the ground

and hands behind our back
and handcuffed and all that.

He goes, "One, two,
three, four, five, six,

where's what's-his-name,
where's Couming, where's Doyle?

Rosemary Riley was there,
arrested, and she turns

and says, "There's an
informer in the group."

As we looked
around, we realized

there was one person missing,
and that was Bob Hardy,

so it was clear to
all of us right away

who had turned us in.

As it was, I
was the only person

in the office that day.

Get a knock on the door.

Tells me who he
is, he's Bob Hardy.

He didn't know what to do.

He didn't want to do this.

He didn't think it was right
to break in the draft board,

but he didn't want to get
his friends in trouble.

He was hopeful that the FBI
would nip this in the bud

and that his
people, his friends,

would get probation
or something,

or not really charged
with anything real heavy.

But, as things went
on, it became apparent

that the Justice
Department wanted to have

an actual break-in and arrest
people during the break-in.

We made hay out of
that during the trial,

because the first time somebody
just tore the first file,

they could have arrested all
of us on the same charges.

That's it.

And they waited for us to
destroy hundreds of files?

I said, "Well,
who are the other people

"in the group?"

He said, "Well, there's
the leader of the group.

"I don't know his name,
but I can find that out."

Arranged for a way for me to-

He was working like
a carnival booth

at a fair or carnival
or something,

so that night, I went
over and he handed me

a piece of paper that
said, "The leader

"of the group is
John Peter Grady."

I go back, send in my teletype,

and it's like the
pinball machine.

This is the guy!

It was obvious
that the Feds

believed that John
Grady was behind Media

and maybe other people.

They wanted to
catch those people

and they were hoping
that we would go

in the FBI office in
this building in Camden,

which was just up the
hallway from the draft board.

Buffalo happened on
the same night as Camden.

Right before we
were getting ready

to go into the
Camden draft board,

I think I finally just
turned to somebody and said,

"You know, isn't it ironic
that after all this time

"of fits and starts
and ups and downs,

"that Buffalo's happening
at the same night we are?"

Shortly after that, Bob
Hardy made some comment

like, you know, I have
to go and call Peg.

From the way we understand it,

he called the FBI and said,

"There's something
happening up in Buffalo."

We went after
the draft board

records with a vengeance.

You know, one of the
boards we went in

and we removed all
the 1s and all the As

from the typewriters so that no,

no one should be
classified as a 1A

and a target for being
shipped to Vietnam.

So, symbolic things like that.

The trial
eventually happened

about a year later
in the spring of '72.

We had great lawyers.

Dear God, you go through
the list of lawyers,

Paul [Edward], New York City;

Ramsey Clark, former
Attorney General, good God;

Leonard [Boudine],
Constitutional lawyer.

There were about 31
people who were subpoenaed

from all over.

That was part of it.

It was like they
went pick, pick,

pick, pick, pick, pick, pick.

This case was
extremely dangerous.

The people could still be
in prison, practically.

We were these very
threatening people.

I remember one comment
of the prosecutor:

"These people are
a greater threat

"to the security of this nation

"than is organized crime."

He said that in open court.

The policemen
would say would it were so.

It's not so.

The Berrigan
brothers never rose

to that prominence,
I guarantee you.

I often said,
if they had known

how little attention
we were paying to them,

they would have been hurt,

because they were very
paranoid about us.

We had all our criminal
cases to work on.

We weren't bothered
with chasing after them.

We all agreed
that we wouldn't talk

We would plead the
Fifth or we would do

whatever we had
to do not to talk

to the Justice Department
about what we did or didn't do

or what we heard or didn't hear.

The only thing
we had was the letters

themselves, and
Boyd's testimony.

At the close of
the prosecution's case,

I stood up and
said three things,

none of which were particularly
appropriate legally.

I said the defense insists
upon their innocence,

that they oppose this
war and always will,

and the defense rests.

Oh my God,
the press just ran

out of the room.

We're like saying
what's going on?

One by one, then Paul
[Edward] and Leonard [Boudine]

said the same thing.

The defense rests, the defense
rests, the defense rests.

So there was no
defense witness called.

There was no defense
evidence put in.

This is like
Central Pennsylvania,

all white jury,
conservative area,

and it was 10-2 for acquittal,

so it was obvious that they
just didn't have a case.

As a trial, it
kind of fizzled out,

but it also, that
kind of procedure,

sort of demoralized
us, if anything.

It had nothing to do,
ironically, with the FBI

or whatever, it was the
behavior of our own people.

When the Harrisburg
indictments happened,

that definitely led to a
whole kind of soul searching

and a closer look
at whether we should

be continuing these and
are there other options?

I was put
off, I was shocked.

I was holding Phil up as a
model, as a celibate priest.

That was one of the reasons
why I was continuing

to stay in the Jesuits
and be a celibate priest.

Internally, amongst
the Catholic left itself,

which was a small
group and everybody

sort of knew everybody else,

nobody knew about the
letters going in and out

except Elizabeth and Philip
and Boyd Douglas and the FBI.

The secrecy of the
letters going in and out

upset everyone.

The handwriting
was on the wall.

They, in just political
genius, that's what it is,

figured out a way,
and they did it.

They just went, sliced
it right in half.

Right in half; it's
interesting, isn't it?

During when all
of this is going on,

Bob Hardy's son climbed
a tree in Camden,

fell out of the tree, fell
across a spiked fence,

was impaled across it.

Mike Giocondo
stopped by the hospital,

Gene Dixon sto-

These are people
that he turned in.

And he was
surprised that so many

of the Camden 28
community came out

to the funeral and
stuff like that.

We were all there.

It was like a wedding,
because the Feds

were on one side and
we were on the other.

He might have felt
is God punishing me for get-

Because this happened
after the arrest,

and of course the Camden
28 hung around him.

He kind of took a
different spin on things

after a certain time.

I've always made no bones
about being a Christian man,

being born again
in Christ as well.

I've been that since 1961.

That's always led me in my walk.

I started thinking about
that and I thought,

well, I think I better put
something down on paper.

Now we found
out, of course.

he was going to the
Feds for the money

and they were giving it to him.

Basically they were saying
keep this action going.

Don't let this thing stop.

If they need
anything, let us know.

We'll supply it.

And they did.

That's why he says
in his affidavit

that this action could
not have come off

without me and the FBI.

It was a tremendous
turning point

because suddenly their star
witness was our witness.

He said, oh, it wouldn't
have happened without me.

It wasn't entrapment
because they recruited him.

They bragged about already
having done these things.

The group was kind
of split down the middle.

Some of us did not want
to play on his role

in it being an informant
and giving us so much help.

We put the Vietnam
War on trial, clearly,

and then we also put
the FBI on trial.

Then, of course,
you had someone like

Professor Howard Zinn
coming up virtually

quickly, but very clearly
telling the whole history

of civil disobedience in the US

from the Boston Tea
Party all the way

through the Camden 28.

Then he went on to talk
about the Pentagon Papers.

He went through this
period where he started

giving like a litany
of what the American

people had been
told about the war

and what the Pentagon
Papers said about the war;

and what the American
people had been told

about why we were there and
what the Pentagon Papers

said about why we were
there; and what the American

people had been told about
the progress of the war

and what the
Pentagon Papers said.

It keeps coming
back over and over

tin, oil and rubber.

That's why we're there.

Betty Good is sitting
in the courtroom by the time.

She had lost a son, Bob's
brother, in that war.

It was
something that she needed

to hold onto for herself,
that her son died nobly,

that her son died
for good things,

that her son died for democracy,

that her son died for people.

She said as she
listened to Howard,

she realized that
he really did die

for tin and rubber and
oil, really nothing.

If we're trying to save
Vietnam from the Communists,

we weren't trying
to save the people.

We were trying to save
the tin, rubber and oil

from the Commies,
and that's all.

She told Bob she wanted to
take the stand the next day.

My mom came in
there and just absolutely

blew them away from the heart

with what it's
like to lose a son.

You could see her
just getting worked up

and righteously angry.

The one point I remember
is that she finally

turned to the jury and
like a stern middle-aged

woman that she was
who had gone through

this horrible, horrible...

and she just put her
finger out and said,

"It's our fault.

"We're the ones
who let them come

"and take our kids
10,000 miles away,

"and we're the ones
that didn't say anything

"and it's our fault."

I mean, she was pissed
and she was looking,

and the jury's
kind of like, whoa!

She was just take no prisoners.

Then she'd kind of compose
herself and apologize.

She just -

This stuff came out.

There wasn't a tear in her eye,

but there was a tear in
everybody else's eye.

She just had this golden moment

of this coming together,

and she just spoke
from the heart.

I think that
jury for the most part

every one of them was
opposed to the war

by the time we
finished the trial.

and every one of
them were sympathetic

to what we had done.

Without a
doubt, John Grady's

persistence in bringing
up jury nullification,

I believe, had its role.

I remember
being in the hallway

while we were getting ready
to go in to hear the verdict,

and I think it was 48
years that they were facing

if they were found guilty.

I remember that moment,
just sort of standing

by myself at the
edge of the hallway

with a crowd of people
around just thinking

"48 years, wow."

When they came in,
and the jurors came in

and the verdict came out,
they were reading the verdict,

and it was said, called
out Buckalew's name.

And then he said first count,

which was destruction, I think,

and not guilty.

I said, "Holy shit!"
[unintelligible], "Holy shit!"

I said, "Hold it, now, hold it.

"They still can get
us on conspiracy."

The second count was
the conspiracy thing

and they said,
"Not guilty." Man.

I will
believe that we shall overcome-

I thought it
would be a hung jury.

I didn't know any of the
people except my son,

and they're the most
beautiful people in the world.

I have to go back and
convert my husband.

Not only my husband,
but my family.

My husband's a good fellow,

but he was too
afraid to come today,

because he was afraid, you know,

the verdict would be bad.

It was a break,
and everybody admitted it.

So it was a
violation of the law.

But I'll tell you what
they did was nullify

the law when they acquitted.

The judge,
appointed by Nixon,

the judge allows the
defendants to bring in

all the witnesses they want,

and the jury finds
them not guilty

even though they're
caught red handed.

When the verdict is announced,

everybody in the
courtroom stands up

and sings "Amazing Grace,"

including the
members of the jury.

Then the foreman of
the jury throws a party

for the defendants.

We've been having
guilty, guilty, guilty

for five years for
opposing this war,

and we finally got a not guilty.

The people understood.

This is
how things change

in the course of several years

in the course of a
growing consciousness

on the part of the
public which affects

things that happen
in a courtroom.

The
Selective Service System

said today there
have been 271 attacks

on draft board
offices this year.

They said well,
the Selective Service

is under attack and
we're not getting

the right type of people who
are going into the service,

so let's go to an
all volunteer army.

They studied it and Nixon
announced it, I think, in 1972.

He saw tactically
that you would do better

to have a professional army

that did its drafting
through economic hardship,

which is what we've
had ever since.

This is part of an
ongoing series of events

commemorating the 40th anniversary
of the Catonsville Nine.

At Andrews Air
Force Base there's

an Andrews Air Force
Joint Forces open house.

At that open house,
families come

and little kids are
taught how to be soldiers

for tomorrow, and
play games with guns.

There'll be a bus, take
a bus to the FedExField

where shuttle buses
will take people

to Andrews Air Force
Base, where people

will serve witness there.

Reagan
[unintelligible] from 1968, Dave.

Looks like
you're on the picket line.

Let's close
the ranks over here.

The history
of these actions,

Catonsville and the others,

is very, very important
for the entire

war movement today.

It says something
to GIs who would

be violating the rules
if they deserted,

or they refused to serve,

if they refused to go to Iraq.

I think that history
would give some legitimacy

to young men who decide
not to join the military,

and give some legitimacy
to people protesting,

occupying buildings,
occupying the offices

of Senators and Congressmen;

acts of civil
disobedience to express

opposition to the war.

So if the anti-war
movement didn't stop

the Vietnam War, what
difference did it make?

Of course it contributed
to the end of the war,

but the main result
is that it took

the people's discontent
and it turned it

into a conscious discontent.

That was something that
hadn't existed before.

And, it's existed ever since.

It never went away.

It's a testimony
to the human spirit

that the game is not over,

that the warlords have not won,

that humanity will
continue to resist.

We just have to
decide individually

which side are we on.

We can't stay on the
sidelines, basically.

The idea of
Catonsville was to say

that anybody could
do what we could do,

what we did there.

When you start to
mythologize stuff,

then everybody wants
to come up and touch

your seam and your
hem of your garments,

and then have a fantasy
that I can't be like that.

That's not what it was about.

This was a call,

I hate to use the
term call to arms,

so call to action.

That's what Catonsville
was meant to be.

Not to have some
glorification of nine people.

That's a
half a peace sign.

Thank you for the
half a peace sign.

The Baltimore Four
and the Catonsville Nine

means something to me,
simply because when I think

about them, I have to say,
"What am I doing now?"

How, in some way or
another, am I resisting?

What am I doing with my life?

Am I challenging the state?

Am I challenging
transnational corporations?

Am I looking at the
structural violence

and structural sin that's
going on in this country

that's humiliating
so many human beings

on this planet and
impoverishing so many?

When young people,
for instance, sometimes

ask me, "How do you get
started in all of this?"

I say, "Well, find the
nearest soup kitchen."

That's the place to begin
to kind of rub shoulders

with some of the
people whose hearts

are open to the world
in an immediate area.

What kind of
power do we each have?

We're not in the ruling class,

we're not in the White House,

but we have power to
make a moral statement,

we have power to make
a political statement,

and we have power
to use our own lives

to affect change.

You have to have
some kind of faith

that society changes every time

you go out there and
do that demonstration.

You might not see it,
but there is change.

That's how things change.

You'll run into
someone at some point

who will say, "I remember
when that action happened,

"when that
demonstration happened.

"I was only nine years old.

"It convinced me to become
an anti-nuke activist"

or whatever.

But still, we live
in one of the greatest

countries in the world and
we still have the freedom

to resist, and so we should.

What the heck?

If you didn't have the free-

Look at those people
in the Mid-East.

None of them have
the freedom to resist

and they're doing it.

Look at the faces
of these young people.

Look at the faces
of these young people.

Look us in the eye!

They are not hateful.

They are not hateful.

Let us pray together
for peace and justice.

Let us pray together
for peace and justice.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Our father
would counsel people

who didn't live in
the Mid-Atlantic

that there is a mini
Pentagon in your backyard.

The military industrial
complex is in every

congressional district.

Come to the
Pentagon, be with us,

but stay at home, too, and
start a campaign there.

You have to put
your body on the line.

It's not enough
to have good ideas

and sit on your couch.

That doesn't actually
make you either

an active citizen or
an engaged dissenter

or even a moral person.

The trick is, how do
you take your morality

to the streets?

Opposition to aggression

is far higher now than
it was in the 1970s.

You constantly read
that there's no protest

over Iraq like there
is over Vietnam.

That's got the story backwards.

The Iraq War's the first
war in Western history

that I can think of
where there was massive

protest before it was
officially launched.

We kill and be killed,

and then we have to come
to the table and settle it.

Why not come to the table first?

Why not use diplomacy
instead of the military?

Think of the resources
that are wasted

while schools and
other social agencies

are pleading for funds.

It's insane, it's insane.

The people who carry
this kind of thing on

are a danger to
themselves and others,

and that's the
definition of insanity.

We put people in
institutions for that.

There's not such
thing as a just war.

War corrupts everybody
who engages in it.

You start out as the good
guys, they are the bad guys,

soon you are the bad guys also.

Everybody becomes bad in war.