JUNE 6, 1975 25 CENTS VOLUME 39/NUMBER 2:1

A SOCIALIST NEWSWEEKLY/PUBLISHED IN THE INTERESTS OF THE WORKING PEOPLE Eleven wounded

By Lupe Casares HIDALGO, Texas-Melon grower Chesley Miller declared "open season" on a group of striking farm workers here May 26, wounding eleven with pellets fired from an automatic shot­ gun. The shooting came as a strike against cantaloupe melon farms in Starr County spread to this and other parts of the Rio Grande Valley,' an important agricultural area adjacent to Mexico in the southernmost part of Texas. I was in the crowd of farm workers Eyewitness account when the murderous attack occurred, and this is how the day's events unfolded: · . At about 3:00 a.m. in the morning, myself, Benigno Pefia, and Jesus Luna, two others working with the UFW in this area, went to the interna­ MilitanVFiax Hermes tional bridge that spans the Rio Grande between Hidalgo and Reynosa in Mexico. We were there to encourage the several thousand Mexicans who cross Action program lor over each day to respect the UFW strike, which has been under· way since May 19 against growers in Starr County, just west of Hidalgo. At about 4:00 a.m. the workers from .Y. public unions Mexico started coming over. They were -See pages 4-6 Continued on page 3 Portugal: one year alter the coup -See magazine supplement inside In Brief

·DEMAND COPS ARREST BOSTON NAZIS: "Stop The commission's staff did a study that showed this kind Nazi attacks on prodesegregation forces." "Refusal to arrest of image-polishing advertising was increasing rapidly. The equals official complicity· with Nazi violence." "Equal staff also demonstrated that the FTC had the legal protection for all parties." So read the picket signs that authority to act in the area, a conclusion with which the THIS greeted' city workers and downtown shoppers in front of FTC cDncurred. Boston's city hall during lunch hour on May 23. Twenty Nevertheless, the commission decided to take a hands-off WEEK'S pickets were there to demand that Mayor Kevin White take stance on corporate-image advertisement, purportedly immediate action to arrest and prosecute the four uniformed because this "may involve substantial questions under the MILITANT Nazis who tried to break into the Boston So'cialist Workers first amendment." party campaign headquarters during a celebration on the 4 Action program for N.Y. evening of May 17. ANTILESBIAN RULING REVERSED: A Los Angeles municipal unions The picket line was joined by representatives of the SWP, area woman won reversal of a court order denying her the Young Socialist Alliance, the Political Rights Defense custody of her twv daughters because she is a lesbian. The 5 June 4 labor rally to protest Fund, and the National Student Coalition Against Racism. American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California won bank profiteering They distributed copies of an open letter to Mayor White a reversal for Lynda Mae Chaffin after the daughters, aged 6 N.Y.: front line of assault signed by a number of prominent Bostonians, including Dr. twelve and fifteen, ran away from their legal guardians to on unions, social services Salvador Luria, Dr. George Wald, Noam Chomsky, Massa­ live with their mother. The ACLU also presented evidence chusetts State Representatives Barney Frank and Elaine from three psychological experts that living with their 7 Freedom of press at­ Noble, AFL-CIO official Rexford Weng, Doug Butler of the mother would not be detrimental to the daughters. tacked in Portugal A. Philip Randolph Institute, and women's rights leader EDELIN CONVICTION UPHELD: Judge James Florence Luscomb. The letter linked the attack on the SWP 8 Palestinians face new McGuire has refused to reverse the manslaughter conviction campaign offices to right-wing violence and threats insti­ attacks in Lebanon of Dr. Kenneth Edelin for performing a legal abortion in gated by the racist antibusing movement. Boston. McGuire was the judge in the original trial, and his 9 Rallies mark week of Although a representative of the SWP campaign commit~ May 5 ruling upholding the conviction of the Black doctor support to Palestine tee had called the previous day to set up a meeting with the by an all-white jury came as no surprise. Edelin's attorney mayor, White was "not available" when a delegation 25 Campaigning with Willie is appealing the decision to a higher court. arrived. One of the mayor's aides did meet briefly with Mae Reid Norman Oliver, SWP candidate for mayor of Boston, and STRANGE CIRCUMSTANCE: Recently, a critic of the 26 Spartacist League thugs accepted a copy of the open letter to pass on to the mayor. Warren Commission's report on the assassination of attack S.F. forum President Kennedy used provisions of the Freedom of 27 Mass pressure pushes Information Act to obtain a previously suppressed tran­ script of a commission discussion of the possibility that Lee Laos to left New assault by rightist Harvey Oswald was an FBI agent. According to the 28 Black prison activists transcript, commission counsel J. Lee Rankin opened the murdered in Missouri terrorists at UCLA session by relaying a report from the attorney general of LOS ANGELES, May 27-Liquid Mace was thrown in the Texas that "the word had come out . . . that Oswald was 29 Why YWLL slanders entryway of the Latin American Studies Department at acting as an FBI undercover agent." antiracist coalition California State University at Los Angeles this morning. After stating that this information appeared to have The attack came several hours before a scheduled noon 32 White House authorized CIA­ originated with a member of the press, Rankin referred to meeting sponsored by the department to hear a report by Mafia hit men the difficulty of verifying the report. "I assume that the FBI two visitors to Cuba. The meeting itself proceeded without records would never show it, and if it is true, and of course, 2 In Brief incident, hearing Raul Ruiz and Charon D'Aiello, members we don't know." of the recent Raza Unida party delegation to Cuba. .. 10 In Our Opinion Rankin said that both he and Earl Warren agreed that "if The Mace attack on the Latin American Studies Depart­ that was true ... then you would have people think that Letters ment was the second in recent months. The previous one, on there was a conspiracy to accomplish this assassination, 23 La Lucha Puertorriq,uefia February 13, was made at a showing of the Cuban film that nothing the commission did, or anybody, could dissi­ Their Government Lucia. pate." At the noon meeting Ruiz announced the slated June 20 "You are so right," said Rep. Hale Boggs. 24 Great Society rally sponsored by the Political Rights Defense Fund to "Oh terrible," said former CIA Director Allen Dulles. By Any Means Necessary protest the ongoing wave of terrorist attacks in Los Angeles During speculation over why the FBI might have hired National Picket Line and urged participants in the meeting to support that rally. Oswald, our current president, who was a commission (See story, page 28.) member, displayed a characteristic sharpness of intellect. 11-22 International Socialist "'He was playing ball, writing letters to both elements of the Review IF THE SHOE FITS, CHANGE THE IMAGE: At a Communist parties. I mean, he was playing ball with the hush-hush meeting with 100 corporate moguls recently, Trotskyites and with the others," Ford noted. "This was a former Commerce Secretary Frederick Dent unveiled results strange circumstance to me." -Nelson Blackstock of a federally funded survey of public attitudes. The THE MILITANT findings are "disturbing top U.S. business executives and Ford administration officials," according to the May 14 VOLUME 39/NUMBER 21 Wall Street Journal: YOUR FIRST JUNE 6, 1975 "The study says that a 'great majority' of Americans CLOSING NEWS DATE-MAY 28 express negative attitudes toward the U.S. free-enterprise ISSUE? Editor: MARY-ALICE WATERS system .... 18% said big business was the chief culprit [for Managing Editor: LARRY SEIGLE inflation] in that it 'creates shortages, obtains political tax Business Manager: ROSE OGDEN Southwest Bureau: HARRY RING advantages and tends to be monopolistic.'" Washington Bureau: CINDY JAQUITH Still more alarming, "About half of those surveyed said the economic system requires more than minimal changes SUBSCRIBE Published weekly by The Militant Publishing ... the changes 'appear to be demands for action' on a wide Ass'n., 14 Charles Lane, New York, N.Y. 10014. Telephone: Editorial Office (212) 243-6392; Busi­ range of issues, from halting inflation and eliminating ness Office (212) 929-3486. Southwest Bureau: 710 unemployment to revising taxes, big business and welfare TO THE S. Westlake Ave., Los Angeles, Calif. 90057. programs." Telephone: (213) 483-2798. Washington Bureau: The problem, the study concluded, isn't the crisis of 1345 E. St. N.W .. Fourth Floor. Washington, D.C. MILITANT 20004. Telephone: (202) 638-4081. capitalism-it's that the public's economic knowledge is Correspondence concerning subscriptions or "incomplete and fragmentary." The answer? You guessed Municipal workers in New York and cities around the changes of address should be addressed to The it-the business executives decided to launch a three- to five­ Militant Business Office, 14 Charles L,ane, New country are facing layoffs, and we all face a deterioration York, N.Y. 10014. year advertising campaign, with $500,000 seed money, "to of the services we depend on. To find out how people are Second-class postage paid at New York, N.Y. help create a better understanding of the American fighting back and socialist answers to these problems, Subscriptions: domestic, $7.50 a ye

2 ... striking larm workers gunned down Continued from page 1 one of the owners of El Texano. From excited to learn that something was there, we went back to the melon farm, being done about the miserable condi­ where we picketed for the rest of the tions they face. After discussions were day because Miller still had a small, held, they decided to strike all the group of people working for him. farms in the area. There were police cars everywhere­ Workers were saying, "Let's go to the county sheriffs, cops from various farms and pull everybody out,'' and, towns - and the word went around "We can do it!" Over a period of that even the Texas Rangers, the several hours, 3,000 workers gathered notoriously racist elite state force, were by the bridge and none had gone to the coming, although they never did put in fields. an appearance. But there was only one pickup trUck available. The crew leaders, who also Melons stopped had trucks, refused to let the farm Nevertheless, because of our picket workers use them to go picket the ·line, trucks full of melons sat in the hot ranches. sun until about 5:30 in the afternoon. At about 9:00 a.m. wo~d spread that Usually, melons are moved into stor­ some workers were in the fields ·at El age immediately after being harvested Texano ranch, which is near the because heat damages them. bridge. Some 200 of us went from the On Wednesday, May 28, organizers bridge to El Texano to talk with those and supporters of the UFW went to the in the fields about joining the strike. three main bridges that mexicanos use The workers in the fields were split to come to work in the valley. These up into different crews, and it took a are here in Hidalgo; in Progreso, which while to get to talk to all of them. But Militant/Joseph Ryan is about twenty miles east of here; and within an hour we had pulled everyone Shooting of eleven farm workers is most recent incident in long history of violent in Brownsville, about fifty miles east. out on strike and were walking back to attacks aimed at crushing efforts to organize farm workers union. Since most of the workers come from the bridge at the· border along a dirt Mexico, the bridges are the best place road. striker from Reynosa who had worked road we were on is his property, there to talk to the compaiieros. So far, the Then suddenly we saw Miller coming at Miller's ranch for five years, was hit are no signs posted on that road receptivity to the UFW has been toward us very fast in a pickup truck. with fifteen shotgun pellets in the leg. indicating it is private, and it is used tremendous. Many have signed union He drove into the crowd and almost Jesus Luna, who works for the UFW's by the public. cards. Mexican workers have been the ran _over several people, but we all Also, Miller opened fire without any backbone of the strike, making up jumped to the side of the road. office in this area, was hit in the head. Ismael Ibarra, also from Reynosa, warning, but the law says you can about three-fourths of the total number suffered an eye injury. Eight others only use force against trespassers after of strikers. Fired without warning having asked them · to leave and When we went to the bridge in the He went past us for a few yards, were also treated. After visiting the hospital, ten of the having warned them. And we were morning we thought we would just. stopped, opened the door, and stepped inform people about the strike in Starr eleven went to Justice of the Peace ·leaving, going back to the bridge. out with an automatic shotgun. With­ That night the union also had a County and win their support. We Dario Garcia of McAllen to ffie aggra­ out any warning, he began firing, news conference, which drew -300 believed we would have to wait until wounding eleven workers. vated assault charges against Miller, people and was widely covered by later to pull everyone out. But it just The wounded lay bleeding in the since the cops who had been on the newspapers on both sides of the happened that people were ready. road. We scattered to avoid getting hit, scene had refused to initiate. any ac­ border. There was also a meeting of The field hands are not afraid but refused to leave the wounded. tion. fifty farm workers in Starr County. because of what Miller did; they are Miller was near the wounded people, Garcia signed ten warrants for the On Tuesday, May 27, many more determined to win a victory. The fact threatening to shoot anyone who got rancher's arrest. Miller turned himself people joined the strike. A rally was that so many people are on strike close. in later that afternoon and was quickly held at a parking lot near the bridge, makes us think we are strong enough Despite pleas to let us get the released on $15,000 bond. and then 700 marched to the house of to do it. wounded to doctors, Miller would not Miller told a television reporter he let anyone approach. Miller yelled, "If had "opened season" on us because we you come near here, I'll kill you bas­ had come into his fields, "trying to run tards." off my workers." Finally, I had to run all the way back to the bridge to call ambulances. 'I shot 'em' Then I returned to the road. Asked if he had been shooting at someone, Miller said, "No, I haven't When the police arrived, they went been shooting at them, I shot 'em. The first to talk to Miller, then came back police told me I was in my rights." and talked with the workers. Although "They were carrying those red flags. we told them what had happened they They'll be easy to recognize. The leader refused to arrest Miller. They did not ran at me with a club and I shot him even disarm him. full-face with my shotgun," Miller But we were able to get to the added, in a reference to Jesus Luna, wounded and took them in pickup who had tried to disarm him. trucks to the nearest hospital in Miller also told reporters he would Militant/Sylvia Zapata McAllen, Texas. shoot farm workers again if they went SWP presidential candidate Peter Camejo (right) visiting Hidalgo County UFW office At the hospital, the injured were into his fields. last March. Upon learning of shooting, Camejo sent message calling it 'an outrage' treated and released. Juan Reyes, a Although Miller has claimed that the and pledging 'fullest solidarity' to strikers. UFW Iawver explains strike background By Jose Perez flooding the public road where the up with the wages and conditions." standing firm because they want union Jim Harrington, attorney and picketing was taking place, claiming He noted that cantaloupe is one of conditions and a union contract. spokesperson for the United Farm their irrigation system was malfunc­ the relatively better-paying harvests Asked about plans for the future, Workers office in Hidalgo County, told tioning. Union organizers countered by because field hands can get up to sixty Harrington responded: "We're not the Militant in a telephone interview getting to the workers before they had or more hours of work a week. With intimidated. We're going to continue that the union is planning a major arrived at the ranch. many other harvests the average picketing and keeping people out of the organizing campaign in that area and Many of the farm workers in this number of hours a week is more like fields." that the strikes undertaken so far are border area who permanently live in twenty to thirty. He added that pressure on the just initial steps in the drive. the United States migrate north during "The fact that they're walking out of growers will intensify quickly because He explained that in 1966, the the summer. Most of the cantaloupe is a relatively good crop," he said, "is the cantaloupe harvest has to be ranchers and the special elite state harvested by Mexicans who have indicative of their feelings." completed within the next two to three . police force called the Texas Rangers government permits to .cross the border The official minimum wage _rate for weeks or the fruit will rot. had violently broken a strike centered to work. These workers are the majori­ field labor is set by state law at $1.80 The UFW's middle-term goal in the at La Casita farm in Starr County. ty of those now on strike. an hour. However, growers often break area, he said, is to have a series of well­ Since that time there had been no Talking about the response the that law by intimidating farm workers, organized strikes in the fall. Eventual­ major effort to organize workers. UFW has received iii the first week of and they usually get away with paying ly the union hopes to have all farms in However, on May 19 the UFW kicked its organizing campaign, Harrington as little as $1.30 an hour. the valley under contract. off a new unionization drive in the Rio said, "We viewed this as an organizing Now, Harrington reported, growers Harrington reported that the union Grande Valley by once again throwing step. at this point; We never really trying to break the strike are offering is asking for support to its Texas up picket lines around La Casita thought it would skyrocket into a at least $2.10 an hour, and some have organizing campaign. Food and checks ranch, which was in the middle of its general strike as it has." gone as high as $2.50, a previously made out to the Texas Strike Fund can cantaloupe harvest. Other farms in The union lawyer added, "This unheard-of rate. But the higher wages be sent to: United Farm Workers, Starr County have also been struck. indicates the support that the union offered haven't lured the farm workers Route 1 Box 149 B, Alamo, Texas La Casita bosses responded by has and the fact that the people are fed back into the fields, he said. They are 78516.

THE MILITANT/JUNE 6, 1975 3 How to stoP- Beame's axe Action program for N.Y. public unions By Ray Markey less crude but no less scurrilous, against police brutality and racist NEW YORK-There is a crisis in denounce "arrogant civil service un­ discrimination; New York, an emergency that de­ ions" who they claim "tum thumbs • college and high school students, mands the attention of every union down on budget economics essential to who have already taken to the streets member in th~s city. the city's survival." to protest cutb~cks; Our problem is not how Mayor The city's survival? No! The only • parents groups like those in Com­ Abraham Beame can get more loans, survivors of Beame's plan will be the munity School District One who are or whether the state legislature in banking profiteers. fighting for better schools, bilingual Albany will pass his new tax package, City hall says there is "no money" to programs, ami a voice in their chil­ or what secret deals he can make to provide services, keep us all on the job, dren's education; "save" the city budget in a way that and honor our contracted wage raises. • unemployed youth, tenahts, welfare satisfies the bankers. But they have $2 billion available off recipients-in short, everyone who the top of city revenues next year for agrees with us that human needs Ray Markey is a member of "debt service"....,...tax-free interest pay­ should be put before the profits of the AFSCME Local1930 and a delegate ments to the banks and wealthy bond­ banks. to the District Council 37 delegate holders. A public appeal to all these forces to assembly. · This scandalous giveaway to the join the June 4 rally would strengthen No, the emergency for working rich takes up 17 percent of the city it both by swelling its numbers and by , people is this: how to stop the wealthy budget. It is twice the amount the city making it broadly representative of the rulers of this city from driving down pays for the entire public hospital working people of this city. The pro· the living standards of all of us by system. tests that have already occurred in this slashing wages and wiping out vital This "debt service" is now listed as city, as well as the inspiring mobiliza­ social services. ·the first priority in the city budget. tion for jobs on April 26 in Washing­ That is their avowed aim. City hall We say it should be last. ton, D.C., are signs of what is possible. is pressing ahead with layoffs and "We regard it as profits versus drastic cutbacks to balance the budget people," said Victor Gotbaum, execu­ on the backs of working people. tive director of American Federation of Beyond June 4 State, County and Municipal Employ­ We should be looking beyond June 4 ees District Council 37; in calling for to what other action we can take to What is at stake stop the layoffs. The jobs and wages of city workers the June 4 rally on Wall Street. That is I believe serious consideration are on the line-that's obvious. precisely the issue. The New York Times, shamelessly should be given to organizing a city­ So are the futures of thousands of wide conference of all the groups young people who will be denied a turning the victim into the criminal, affected by the cutbacks. The purpose decent education in the city's public claims that "38,000 workers ... will would be to discuss our mutual prob­ schools and universities, and with it have to walk the plank because of the lems and goals and begin to forge an any hope ftlr a better life. refusal of their fellows to share the work or to postpone for one year a alliance for common action. promised 6 per cent pay raise. By and Urgently needed is a vast education· large, the ousted workers will be the al effort to counter the lies in the mass newest hired, many of them black, media, to explain that there is a Puerto Ricans and women." realistic alternative to layoffs, and to If they care so much about the plight put forward our proposals. A broad, of Blacks, Puerto Ricans, and women, united conference of the labor move· why not declare a moratorium on all ment and our allies among all the interest payments to the banks and to oppressed could begin this process. . the millionaires who own municipal It could authoritatively call for a bonds? gigantic, united demonstration by the American Teacher working people of New York to save Students and teachers protest cutbacks That would more than fill the budget in city university system. gap for this year and next and avert and improve the quality of life in our any layoffs whatsoever. city-a mass demonstration that If there has to be "austerity," then would tap the immense reservoirs of anger against the cutbacks and bring necessarily be somewhat limited by the let if fall on those who can afford it­ midweek date and the short notice on not on city workers making $8,000 or hundreds of thousands of people into the streets. which it was called. And as we saw on $9,000 a year; not on minorities, the April 26, a mass march can be far poor, the sick, the unemployed, and the That is the kind of action that will be MilitanVFiax Hermes more successful as a show of force and elderly. required to stop Beame's plans. April 26 mobilization for jobs in Participation in the June 4 rally will militancy than a rally alone. Washington, D.C., showed willingness If the New York Times and the of workers to take action. banks and corporations it speaks for Powerless? are so "economy minded/' why don't The city's bosses try to drum into our they advocate terminating all war heads the notion that we are power· So are the well-being and the very spending right now? Why shouldn't we less. Here's how the New York Times lives of the sick who must depend on take the $100 billion that the govern· put it in a May 22 "news analysis:" public health care. ment spends each year for instruments "The union's stance is to protest So are the incomes of working of death and destruction and divert it loudly while knowing they cannot stop women who will be forced to quit their to meet the burning needs of the people layoffs should they be imposed. . . . jobs as public day-care facilities are of New York and other cities around The position of the unions is essential­ closed down. the country. ly passive in the face of city action. All these people and more have a Under the budgetary exigencies, they stake in fighting together with the A social movement can do little else." municipal unions against any cut­ The threatened cutbacks and layoffs This is poison, intended to sap our backs or layoffs. are more than just a bread-and-butter will and undermine our determination But "divide and conquer" is an old issue for the municipal unions-they to fight for what is just. tactic, and this is precisely how the are a social crisis affecting every We do face powerful enemies: the city bosses are now seeking to impose working person in New York City. banks, stockbrokers, slumlords, and their ruthless "austerity plan." They To stop them will take more than corporation executives. They have the aim to exploit every possible division just routine union methods of collective money, the mass media, and the among their victims-public employees bargaining-it will take a social move­ bought-and-sold politicians in city hall, versus workers in private industry, ment that can involve all the victims Albany, and Washington. employed versus unemployed, unions of Beame's "austerity plan." Our strength lies in our numbers and versus the communities-in order to pit The forces potentially on our side in our strategic position as the people worker against worker and stymie any include the overwhelming majority of who keep this city running. resistance to their schemes. people in New York City: We all remember what happened to Day after day the mass media chum • other unions, especially those like this city when the bridge operators, in out propaganda branding city employ­ the hospital workers and distributive conjunction with a strike by District ees as the culprits in the "budget workers (District 65) with a tradition of Council 37, exercised their right to crisis," portraying us as overpaid and involvement in struggles for social withhold their labor. We remember underworked, as parasites living it up justice; how powerful strikes by the transit on the taxes of our fellow workers. • organizations of Black and Puerto workers in 1966 and the sanitation "If they [the unions] had any con­ Rican workers, such as Fight Back in workers in 1968 proved that the city cern other than bleeding New York for Harlem and· Black Economic Survival cannot ride roughshod over their just bigger salaries and fringe benefits, the in Brooklyn; demands. city wouldn't be in its present fix," • community groups from the The stakes today are even higher. jeers the union-hating Daily News in ghettos, where the reductions in city Fragmented, we can only lose. an editorial entitled "Okay, Abe, sWing services are hitting the hardest; City spends twice as much on interest Together, we have the power to truly the ax." • the Chinese groups that have payments to the rich as on entire "save New York City"-not for the The New York Times editors, usually recently staged big demonstrations · hospital system. banks, but for the working people.

4 June 4 N.Y. labor rally 'Protest banks profiting off city's misery' By Andy Rose backs that include firing some 14,000 NEW YORK, May 28-"0n June 4th city workers; closing schools, hospi­ we say, 'Enough! We've given up tals, and libraries; and reducing gar­ enough, we want someone else to start bage collection and other services. giving now!' Be sure you're there! It's After these cuts, he says the budget our biggest priority today." is still $641 million in the red. If new That is the conclusion of a leaflet taxes and state aid are not approved to issued by District Council 37, Ameri­ close this gap, Beame says 38,000 more can Federation of State,. County and employees will have to be laid off. Municipal Employees, calling for par­ Beame was turned down by city ticipation in a rally against layoffs of unions when he proposed they accept city workers and cutbacks in city wage cuts to make up the deficit. services. On top of that, the city is about $1 The rally will be held outside the billion short of cash to meet expenses First National City Bank offices at 111 between now and June 30. Most of this Wall Street on Wednesday, June 4, money is needed to pay off the banks beginning at noon. for earlier high-interest loans. "Let's have a tremendous, unified, So far the banks have refused to citywide show of strength-from all provide new loans, and state and our unions at the June 4th rally," the federal officials have refused to pro­ leaflet urges. vide either loans or the new aid ...~~(: The action is sponsored by the MilitanVFiax Hermes requested-until Beame makes still Municipal Labor Committee, a coali­ National Student Coalition Against Racism banner at April 26 jobs demonstration in more cuts in the budget. tion of city unions that includes Washington, D.C. NSCAR is mobilizing students for June 4 protest in New York. On May 23, Beame ordered plans District Council 37, Teamsters, Com­ drawn up for still another $341 million munications Workers, Sanitationmen, · in cutbacks. Uniformed Firefighters, and others. Daily News explaining the purpose of banks from implementing these racist The delegate assembly of District "The bankers are trying to put the the rally and pointing to the swollen cuts by demonstrating on June 4. Council 37 met on May 27 and dis­ burden of this crisis on the backs of profits of the bat:tks. Spot announce­ "The Student Coalition says: No to cussed plans for the June 4 rally and workers," says District Council 37 ments on radio are also planned. racist cutbacks and layoffs. Not one the union's response to the new Executive Director Victor Gotbaum. Support for the rally has also come penny to the bankers at the expense of . threats. The rally will protest the fact that the from the New York Student Coalition Black and Puerto Rican Youth." banks, which collect millions of dollars Against Racism, which is distributing The student coalition is distributing Delegates unanimously approved a · in interest .... n city bonds, "are profiting a leaflet "urging high school students, this leaflet at early morning rallies resolution· rejecting any further in­ off the city's misery." college students and unemployed outside high schools, at the City fringement of contract terms as a way "This union," Gotbaum states, "can­ youth to turn out in massive numbers College SEEK dormitory, and at Har­ of balancing the city budget. Gotbaum not and will not tolerate a policy where for the June 4 demonstration." lem Youth Corps and other centers explained that the union had made the Rockefellers and the banks extort The student coalition leaflet states: where young people apply for summer such concessions earlier in the year, their pounds of flesh from city workers. "Already over 250,000 Black and jobs. . but found they only whetted the city We will resist layoffs with all our Puerto Rican Youth cannot find sum­ Meanwhile, frantic negotiations con­ administration's appetite to demand might." mer jobs. And what will happen upon tinue behind closed doors between more. The Wall Street protest is seen as a high school graduation? Jobs will be Mayor Abraham Beame, state legisla­ When asked if District Council 37 follow-up to the April 26 demonstration more and more difficult to find espe­ tors, federal officials, and the top would still uphold its earlier policy for jobs held in Washington, D.C., cially for Black and Puerto Rican bankers, with a May 29 deadline that no layoffs were acceptable either, which drew some 60,000 workers, Youth and with the elimination of the (already postponed three times) for Gotbaum insisted that was the case. · about half of them from New York SEEK Program and open admissions unveiling the city's 1975-76 budget. If the union stands firm on these City. the City Colleges will also be closed to The main elements of the "budget positions, a major confrontation be­ The unions have placed advertise­ us. crisis" are as follows. tween the unions and city hall· seems ments in the New York Times and "We must stop Mayor Beame and the Beame has already announced cut- unavoidable in the weeks ahead. The socialist solution to cutbacks. layoffs The following statement on the campaigning for the following mea­ payments to the rich. "Debt service" lands and waterways. New York City "budget crisis" sures: takes up $37 billion in the federal Top priority should be given to was issued May 28 by Peter Came­ 1) Halt all U.!S. military spend­ budget and $2 billion in the New York rebuilding the ravaged ghettos and jo and Willie Mae Reid, Socialist ing. Both the White House and Con­ City budget. There should be a com­ constructing needed facilities in the Workers party candidates for pres­ gress refuse to provide the massive plete moratorium on these payments so Black, Puerto Rican, and Chinese ident and vice-president in 1976. financial aid needed in New York lind long as the needs of the poor are communities, with all funds and pro­ other cities, but they pour out $100 unmet. grams controlled by those communi­ The Socialist Workers party believes billion a year for the Pentagon. These two steps alone would provide ties. that every person has the right to a The worldwide military apparatus of plenty of funds to create useful jobs All jobs should be at union-scale job, an adequate income, a secure the United States has no other purpose and vastly increase social services. wages, not the starvation minimum retirement, and such essential social than to police the world for U.S. 3) Launch a massive, emergency now paid for public service positions. services as education and medical care. corporate interests-spying, subver­ public works program to provide ·4) Shorten the workweek with The wave of cutbacks and layoffs in sion, counterrevolutionary wars like in millions of jobs. These should not be no cut in pay. When the corporations New York and other cities is part of an Vietnam, and propping up client dicta­ degrading make-work schemes, but say there is not enough work for all-out assault against these basic _ torships from Spain to South Korea. useful projects to meet society's needs: everyone, that which is available human rights, an attempt to roll back These mammoth expenditures for building low-cost housing, more and should be spread out among all who even the modest level of services now war-not "unreasonable expectations" better schools, child-care centers, medi­ need jobs. But this must not be done­ available. by working people-are the primary cal facilities, and efficient public trans­ like present "four-day-week" The Socialist Workers party is com­ cause of inflation and of the crushing portation, and cleaning up polluted Continued on page 30 pletely opposed to any cutbacks, any burden of taxation. layoffs, or any reductions in wages The social waste represented by the and benefits of public employees. war budget is so vast it almost defies comprehension. A few comparisons We wholeheartedly support the June will illustrate what this society's re­ 4 rally on Wall Street called by New sour~es are being used for: York municipal unions to protest the The $840 million approved May 20 banks' demands that the working by the House of Representatives for people of New York pay for the city's partial research and development costs budget crisis. of the B-1 bomber would more than Our supporters are helping to mobi­ cover the New York budget deficit for lize support for this and other anticut­ next year. back demonstrations in their unions, The price tag for just one C-5A on the campuses, and in the communi­ transport plane at $62 million would ties. We believe that only such inde­ about match this year's cut in the City pendent actions by working people can University of New York budget. stop the assault on our standard of The initial construction funds for a living. Trident submarine ($560 million) To resolve the present crisis of would pay the entire CUNY budget for inflation, unemployment, and cut­ almost a year. Money spent this year by federal government for 8-1 bomber alone would more than backs, the Socialist Workers party is 2) Halt all government interest cover New York's deficit.

THE MILITANT/JUNE 6, 1975 5 N.Y.: front line of nationwide assault on public workers, social services By Dick Roberts which it must repay the debts. New York is caught ful economic advancement for ghettos or their A concerted effort is being made by the capitalist in a dizzying upward spiral of interest rates on residents. " . . . the decay of the central city media and politicians to blame the high costs of municipal bonds. But this is the center of a national continues-its revenue base eroded by the retreat of New York municipal services on the working people storm. industry and white middle-class families· to the of this city. Residents, they say, expect "too much" suburbs, its budget and tax rate inflated by rising from the city government, and the municipal 'New Economic Policy' costs and increasing numbers of dependent citizens workers get paid too well and work too little. The current world economic crisis did not catch and its public plant, schools, hospitals and correc­ But the financial crisis in New York is taking the rulers of this country by surprise. To a large tional institutions deteriorated by age and long place while the United States is in its most extent, in fact, it is a consequence of the deliberate deferred maintenance," the Kerner commission deepgoing economic slump since the Great Depres­ intensification of world trade and financial warfare stated. sion. by the American multinational monopolies since Since this process could not be easily reversed, the In reality, the enormous financial problems of the the late 1960s. commission advocated electing Black city officials, city are a direct result of the national and The main outlines of this offensive became clear especially mayors, to cool the situation. "As leader international economic crisis. in 1971 when Richard Nixon announced the "New and mediator, [the mayor] must involve all those They are also problems facing working people Economic Policy." NEP represents not only an groups-employers, news media, unions, financial and minorities in all the major cities in the United escalated drive by U.S. monopolies to capture world institutions and others-which only together can States, problems rooted in the contradictions of the markets. It is also an escalated attack on the bridge the chasm now separating the racial ghetto capitalist economic system and in the racist American working class. from the community," Kerner's report declared. character of American society. The main intent of the owners of U.S. industry is And so the ruling class put forth Black Democrat­ · to build a trade-war machine. They want to further ic party mayors-in Cleveland, Gary, Newark, Los World crisis retard American wage increases in comparison to Angeles, Detroit. But since 1968, all of the condi­ In the most immediate terms, New York is faced those of foreign workers and to "trim" the labor tions the ghettos rose up against-deteriorating with a sharp decrease of tax payments relative to force on the job so that production can be sped up housing, racist and unequal education, inadequate mounting expenses and debts that it must repay. and productivity increased. Their purpose is to health care, rotten mass transit, few and lousy The sharp fall off of tax payments in the last few i_mprove their competitive position on the world jobs:...-.have worsened. months is a direct result of the decline in the market in relation to their capitalist rivals in The 1974-75 downturn finds whole sections of American economy. Europe and Japan. cities (New York's South Bronx, the north and east In fact, world capitalism is in its sharpest One aspect of their master plan now being sides of St. Louis, and the east side of Detroit are downturn since the 1930s. A May 21 report by the implemented in New York is cutting back college some examples) that are literally wastelands. Organization for Economic Cooperation and Devel­ education and increasing the student population in Unemployment levels reach to 50 and 60 percent. opment, comprising the twenty-four major capitalist trade schools. Peter Peterson, Nixon's top economic In every case, not only New York, the city halls nations, finds that world capitalist output will show adviser in 1971, spelled this out: respond to the crisis in the same way, by slashing services and firing workers. Eileen Shanahan gives some examples in the May 26 New York Times: • Cleveland-1,120 city workers laid off, 10 percent of the total. • Milwaukee-The city's director of the budget predicts "massive layoffs" of municipal workers next year. • Detroit-"Some 1,980 workers, 10 per cent of the city payroll, will have been laid off between February and the end of the fiscal year, June 30. In addition, the city is trying to cut its payrolls by another 1,200 by not filling vacancies." This is Black Democratic Mayor Coleman Young's territo­ ry. • Buffalo-layoffs totaling 16 percent of the payroll have been made during the last four years. • Boston-The city has reduced payrolls by 10 percent during the last two years. Test case One of the things that distinguishes New York from this list is that so far the percentage of layoffs is considerably less-as of May 26, one-half of 1 percent. This fact is a clue to why New York is so pivotal in the ruling-class drive against workers: New York is a stronghold for public-employee unions, which have made pace-setting gains in wages and benefits. In 1966, the city transit workers tied up the a decline of 3 percent in the first half of 1975, the "The mis-match of technical skills to opportuni­ subways in a strike that helped to break the biggest decline ever recorded by the organization, ties and what might be the current and perhaps national "wage-price guidelines" of the Johnson which was set up in 1948. continuing excess supply of college graduates is administration. New York Times correspondent Clyde Farns­ compounded by an apparent shortage of appropri­ In 1970, New York postal workers brought the worth wrote from Paris that "industrial production ate vocational training in high schools. . . .'' . vital mail of U.S. corporate headquarters to a halt. in the O.E.C.D.'s five largest countries-the United Thus the free tuition and open-admissions policy Nixon ordered in the National Guard. States, West Germany, Japan, France and Italy­ of the City University of New York, won through Gains have been won by New York workers over would show a drop of 10 to 20 per cent, with ' struggle by students and the Black arid Puerto the decades that go beyond most other American unemployment doubled to 14 million.'' Rican communities, is viewed by the ruling class as cities. There is a free university system. Hospital Declining production means greater joblessness, a wasteful frill that must be cut back. care, although woefully inadequate, is available to especially in a city that has a high proportion of Beame's attacks on the SEEK (Search for the poor. There is some public assistance available oppressed minorities, who are in fact the last hired Education, Elevation and Knowledge) program, for to the hundreds of thousands who need it. and first fired. example, which provides special help to college It is these social necessities that the ruling class New York unemployment is two percentage students from poverty backgrounds, is part of this wants to strike down. Drastically reducing the points above the natiqnal average. It stands at 11.5 offensive. social welfare system that is more advanced than in percent, the highest in the city for the post-World many other places would set back the working-class War II period. As more and more workers lose jobs, struggle everywhere. and as corporations are consequently able to sell Cities in crisis And defeating the New York public unions would fewer and fewer goods, personal and corporate The assault against American labor takes place weaken and demoralize public-workers unions incomes decline. Tax payments decline. within the context of the crisis facing the ghettos everywhere. The other side of the immediate fiscal crisis is and barrios in cities across the country. Here it is The monopolists want to soften up the workers of that the expenses of the city are rising because of useful to recall the conclusions drawn by America's New York to bolster the world profit drive of their inflation, the rate of which. in New York is among rulers following the 1966-68 Black ghetto upris­ monopolies, right in the international headquarters the highest of any U.S. metropolitan center. ings. These were spelled out in the 1968 Report of of finance capital. But the roots of inflation are in deficit spending the National Advisory Commission on Civil Disor­ That is their game. by the federal government with its massive, and ders, headed by Illinois Governor Otto Kerner (who It gives plenty of good reasons why the municipal rising, war budget and in monopoly pricing by U.S. subsequently landed in jail for taking graft in a workers of this city and all their allies should multinational firms. racetrack scheme). plunge ahead in the struggle against Beame's Inflation drives up both the prices of services that The important thing about Kerner's report was cutbacks and against the bipartisan forces of the city must purchase and the interest rates at that it virtually excluded any prospect of meaning- capitalist rule Beame is fronting for.

6 A bad omen Freedom of the press attacked in Portu------.. The following article is from the News Analysis section of Inter­ continental Press.

The government of the Armed Forces Movement took a major step toward "institutionalizing" a populist military . dictatorship May 20 when it took advantage of a Communist party power grab to silence Republica, the Lisbon daily most closely linked to the Socialist party leadership. The paper had been a center of conflict between the two reformist parties for some time. The Communist party-controlled printers union re­ fused to print two articles in the May 2 edition criticizing the CP-dominated union federation Intersindical for try­ ing to exclude the SP from participat­ ing on an equal footing with followers of the Stalinists in the May Day · demonstration. On May 19, the printers union ousted the editor, Raul Rego, an SP minister in the first provisional government. The new editors published a statement saying: "We reject partisan devia­ Lisbon postal workers discuss issues in strike last year. Attack on freedom of press is a blow against right of working class as a whole to freely hear and discuss political ideas. · tions." Rego refused to leave his office, and a Socialist party mass demonstra­ tion surrounded the building. The purge of Socialist employes in the state SP offensive in the mass media is also preparing ~ democratic cover for inter­ government then ordered the paper radio and television system." linked to an offensive in the journalists vention. shut down and sent troops to evacuate The information media were singled union. It was equally obvious that the Even more dangerous is the possibil­ the premises. Clashes occurred be- out as one of the three areas for an · CP intended to preserve its bureaucrat­ ity that the Stalinist tactics will offensive by the SP after its April 25 ic positions in the unions at all cost. provoke sections of the workers and A challenge to freedom of the press, electoral victory. In the period since This was what led the Stalinists to poor masses to -draw anti-Communist similar to the current one in the fall of the old regime, the CP has provoke a sectarian clash with the SP conclusions and thus promote the Portugal, occurred in Mexico in used its apparatus plus its privileged in the May Day demonstration. development of a mass base for coun­ 1938. For an article by Leon Trotsky position as the military's most reliable The Stalinist Intersindical leaders terrevolution. on that situation see the political agent to win overwhelming apparently feared that the SP contin­ In the most favorable of possibilities, International Socialist Review, our predomin~mce in the press and broad­ gents would take the occasion to the Communist party is still working monthly magazine supplement, in casting. protest the military government's con­ for an ungrateful master. While the CP has been encouraged to take a hard this issue. Furthermore, the CP has used its firmation of Stalinists in posts seized influence in the mass media in a crude by them in the union movement. line against the SP by the tacit support and arbitrary way. Popular resentment Of the pro-Moscow Stalinist parties, of the military government, the gener­ tween the military and the SP demon­ against tendentious Stalinist reporting the Portuguese CP has earned a als themselves have been using this strators, in which the troops fired into has been on the rise for some time. The reputation as the most dogmatic in conflict to discredit political democracy the air. Portuguese people remember too well Western Europe. It is the only one on in general and to win acceptance for a It is not yet clear what provoked this what a "directed press" sounds like. the continent other than the "exterior" paternalistic military regime that move by the CP-controlled union. Le Greek CP that has driven out the would "stand above parties." Monde's correspondent mentioned the CP & SP compete liberal wing that exists in most of the The Communist party itself seems coverage given May 16 to the return of In his news conference May 5, _ others. The tens of thousands of new finally to have recognized this danger. an AOC (Alian~;a Operaria following the May Day clashes be­ recruits that have flooded into the In a speech published May 19, CP Camponesa-Workers and Peasants tween the CP and the SP, Socialist party since April 25, 1974, have been General Secretary Alvaro Cunhal Alliance) delegation from China. The party leader Mario Soares told repor­ trained in a "tough" sectarian spirit warned the military that it would be "a CP has said on several occasions that ters that his party intended to cut reminiscent of the Stalinist parties in grave error" -to condemn political it regards this Maoist group allied with "minority" forces down to size in the their ultraleft "third period." parties as such. the SP as "counterrevolutionary." press; the unions; and in the local However, material factors also pro­ AOC was one of the groups banned by government bodies, where the Movi­ mote sectarianism on the part of much Military tightens grip the military government from partici­ mento Democratico Portugues, the CP of the CP membership. Since April In fact, the crisis coincided with an pating in the Constituent Assembly democratic front for the "progressive 1974 the CP has been virtually the assembly of the Armed Forces Move­ elections. petty bourgeoisie," has gained many government party. As the only appara­ ment where key leaders advocated The other Lisbon daily identified positions. tus for mass organization, it has setting up transmission belts directly with the SP, Jornal Novo, published Of these three areas, the unions were offered a path to advancement for subordinate to the military. Both the an article in late April claiming that obviously the most important and thousands of new members in many officers and the imperialist press had Peking had recognized AOC as the potentially the most explosive. It is in areas of the society. Obviously they an interest in presenting this as a official Maoists because of their alli­ this field that CP dominance is the would react violently against any force "soviet" structure. For the imperialists ance with the SP. The author claimed strongest and it is here also that the that threatened such perspectives, this is another argument for interven­ that the Chinese leaders realized that CP has proved most useful to the even without specific directives from tion if the mass movement "goes too the SP was the only effective alterna­ military government. It has not hesi­ the party leadership. far." For the military it provides tive to the pro-Moscow party. a tated to denounce strikers as "provo­ demagogic left cover for consolidating The New York Times editors said cateurs" and "agents of fascism," and Resentment against CP the kind of mass apparatus necessary that the move against Republica came even to mobilize its members to break At the same time, because of the role to enforce the "labor discipline" Portu­ "after Mr. Rego had published a secret strikes in order to defend the govern­ it has played as the main political guese capitalism needs to weather the Communist party document that urged ment's economic policy. instrument of the military government, world economic crisis. the military to carry out yet another On the other hand, the Socialist the CP has tended to become the focus For its purposes, the military can party obviously cannot make good its of resentment among widening sec­ also exploit the neoanarchist propa­ claim to be the best political trans­ tions of the population. Its unprinci­ ganda of the CP's ultraleft satellites, mission belt for the government unless pled policy of class collaboration and which have made a fetish of "grass it can win a strong organized base in subordination to the bourgeois military roots organization" abstracted from the unions. In Portuguese conditions, a regime has put it in the position of polltical democracy and general politi­ purely electoral party is at a great taking responsibility for repression, cal solutions. The prime example is the disadvantage. The Socialist party censorship, and austerity, without centrist Movimento da Esquerda So­ demonstrations May 2 were designed holding the real power in the society. cialista (MES-Movement of the- So­ to show that the SP was not a normal Its subordination to the government ci~list Left), which has combined Social Democratic party but a "mass and its~ goal of serving as the privi­ promoting "organs of direct democra­ party" able to mobilize tens of thou­ leged political partner of the regime cy" with support for the populist sands -of persons in the streets. Even has led it to split the working class and military junta. such limited shows of force, however, drive the SP ranks, infuriated by Trust in military "saviors" is com­ can quickly get out of hand, as the Stalinist methods, toward the right. mon to all opportunist currents in confrontation at the Republica offices These tactics have also enabled the Portugal. The correct road is, among has again shown. voice of U.S. imperialism, the New other things, to consistently defend It was obvious after the May Day York Times, to present the conflict as democracy, including freedom of the Portuguese Stalinist leader clashes that the Intersindical congress one between an "anti-Communist ma­ press. Thit! is one of the key requisites Cunha!. Military regime is using scheduled for the end of May would jority" and a Communist "minority!' in struggling for the political indepen­ Communist party to help restrict entail a major confrontation between imposing its control by intrigue and dence and unity of the workers and democratic rights of working class. the two reformist workers parties. The infiltration. The Times, of course, is poor masses.

THE MILITANT/JUNE 6, 1975 7 ~glosive situation Palestinians face new attacks in Lebanon By David Frankel For the second time in less than two months, major fighting has broken out inside Lebanon. The current clashes are a continuation of fighting that began April 13 when a busload of Palestinians returning from a political rally was ambushed by members of the right-wing Phalangist party. As many as 300 people were killed before the April battles between right­ wing Christian and left-Wing Moslem gi-oups finally ended. In the latest fighting about 50 have been killed so far. The Phalangist party has long demanded the suppression of the Palestinian movement in Lebanon, which it sees as a dangerous left-wing influence. The Phalangist militia has provoked frequent clashes with the Palestinians, hoping to touch off intervention by the army and the crushing of the guerrilla groups along the lines of the massacre carried out in U.S. troops invading Lebanon in 1958. Will Washington give a repeat performance? September 1970 by Jordan's King Hussein. The Lebanese bourgeoisie, however, 'play off Jews against Arabs in order to our refugee camps. But if they want a by nuclear weapons into Beirut. ~ows that such an assault would maintain its control of Palestine, the showdown · we can destroy their Since then Israel has repeatedly almost certainly provoke an all-mit French did the same with Christians property-which is what hurts the made clear that it believes it holds the civil war, the outcome of which would and Arabs in Lebanon. Proportional Phalangists the most." decisive vote on what regime shall rule be far from certain. The Palestinians representation of religious groups in The fragility of the communal and in either Jordan or Lebanon. alone number some 300,000 in a government, reflecting the communal class relations currently existing in But it is precisely Amencan imperi­ population of less than three million. conflicts encouraged by the imperial­ . Lebanon can be seen by the fact that alism and its Israeli junior partner They are concentrated in big refugee ists, was written into law. the taking of a census would provoke a that are the primary cause of the camps and organized in their own The religious divisions also reflect major political crisis-perhaps even problems that we are seeing in Leban­ militia formations. political and class differences. The civil war. The last census, taken in on. It was the U.S. invasion in 1958 Furthermore, the Palestinians are poor peasants and workers, and the 1934, put the population at roughly that preserved a system that can only strongly supported by the majority of impoverished Palestinian refugees, are half Moslem and half Christian. The be kept going with the help of new the Lebanese people. During the April mostly Moslems. The urban middle governmental posts are apportioned on foreign interventions. And it was the fighting, trade unions favoring the class and the section of the population the basis of that census, although by Israeli victory in 1967 that gave rise to Palestinians carried out general strikes engaged in commerce is mainly Chris­ now Lebanon is 60 percent Moslem. the very Palestinian radicalization in Tripoli and Sidon. tian. It is clearly only a matter of time that is prompting new threats of The Palestinian struggle against This division was reflected in a until this system breaks down. What Zionist aggression. Israeli oppression has combined with statement by one Palestinian quoted will happen when it does? The danger that the fighting in long-standing grievances within Le­ by Juan de Onis in the April 18 New The last · time, following the Iraqi Lebanon- will escalate is real, and if it banon to form an explosive situation. York Times. The Palestinian said, revolution in 1958, President Eisen­ does it may well prove the first act ofa Just as the British Empire tried to "They can kill our people and rocket hower ordered 5,000 marines backed up general Middle East war.

PartY. Building Fund Socialist fund makes right-wingers burn By Barry Sheppard wanted to participate anyway, and in Saigon and in Washington, D.C. ery, imperialism"-sounds more like The first checks are beginning to that is the kind of spirit required to Your response will help determine an indictment of capitalism than of the come into the Party Building Fund, as make a campaign like this a success. what that decision will be." Obviously, SWP. the scoreboard below indicates. This Two European supporters who have he wrote this before the Vietnamese "Classism, classicide." It is capital­ fund has been launched by the Social­ been living in the United States but succeeded in finally kicking out Wash­ ism that is a class-divided society. We ist Workers party to provide a way for are scheduled to go back, sent in $100, ington and its puppets, and it doesn't didn't do it, we just found it that way. you to put your tax rebate to work for with a note, "You do a good job." appear that his appeal had much In fact, we don't think this is the best socialism. Another sent in a dollar with the impact on the process. way to organize society. If by "classi­ This special fund will help build the explanation, "Each according to his In looking over his indictment of the cide" Schwarz means the creation of a SWP and aid its work in all areas of abilities." All these . pledges add up, SWP, a number of things occurred to new society free of classes and class the class struggle. For socialists, no­ and it looks like we'll hit in the vicinity me. I was a bit puzzled by the charges antagonism, we plead guilty. thing could be more important. of $40,000 by pulling all our efforts of "idolatry," coming as they do just together. . after those of "atheism" and "material- Since we announced this fund in the ism." Scoreboard ·Barry Sheppard is the national Militant some weeks ago, other groups "Spiritual infanticide" I find confus­ organization secretary of the thought we had hit on a good idea. A ing. Perhaps he is alluding to the Area Pledged Collected Socialist Workers party. Militant reader sent us a form letter SWP's well-known position in favor of Atlanta $3,000 $135.00 sent out by Fred Schwarz, leader of the the right of women to control their own Boston 1,865 The fund is a one-shot operation, and "Christian Anti-Communism Cru- bodies, including the right to abortion. Brooklyn 3,700 100.00 for it to work, supporters have to send sade." "Cannibalism." Maybe the good Mr. Chicago 2,500 in their rebate or that part of their This letter, designed to raise funds Schwarz got mixed up here. SWP Cleveland 2,000 rebate they can afford as soon as they for this extreme right-wing outfit, leader Evelyn Reed pas recently pu­ Denver 715 get the check in the mail. Branches of begins, "Dear Friend, PUT YOUR blished a book, Woman's Evolution, Detroit 200 the Socialist Workers party who are TAX REBATE TO WORK FOR SO- which does take up cannibalism, but Houston 2,100 869.75 collecting the rebates in their cj,ties CIALISM. This is the caption of an from the point of view that the sup­ L.A. (Central-East) 1,385 373.80 should make sure that all supporters article in the MILITANT of April18. It pression of cannibalism was a milest­ L.A. (West Side) 3,000 who have made ·pledges to the fund appeals to supporters of the Trotskyist one in the development of humanity. Lower Manhattan, N.Y. 5,000 1,250.20 understand this. Communists to donate all or part of Milwaukee 820 Every contribution counts and every their tax rebate to the Socialist Work­ Or maybe he garbled reports from Oakland/Berkeley 2,500 one helps. While some can give the full ers Party. Of course, the 'socialism' to Cambodia, where there was cannibal­ Philadelphia 1,000 amount of their rebate, others can send which they refer is that enforced by ism during the last days of the war­ Pittsburgh 900 a few dollars. M.B. from Tacoma, communist dictatorship and charac­ but on the part of Lon Nol's soldiers, Portland, Ore. 730 50.00 Washington, sent in five dollars, with terized by war, dictatorship, monopoly, Schwarz's side.· So starved were these St. Louis 1,200 a note, "I'm sorry, this is all I can slavery, classism, classicide, cannibal­ soldiers because their "leaders" · were San Diego 425 afford, but use it, give them hell!" ism, imperialism, atheism, material­ hoarding the grain the United States San Francisco 1,400 A retired supporter from Friars ism, spiritual infanticide, and idola­ was flying in that they would eat Twin Cities 1.500 Pdint, Mississippi writes, "I am send­ try." revolutionary soldiers they killed. Upper West Side, N.Y. 3,000 111.50 ing you $2 donation for the fight for He signs off, "With Christian love," Some ate one of their commanders Washington, D.C. 2,200 citizen privacy against the FBI." Like after appealing to his supporters to who had refused to feed them for General 750.75 many others who have sent in smaller turn their rebates in to him, because, weeks. donations, he does not get a rebate but "The day of decision is drawing near "War, dictatorship, monopoly, slav- Totals 41,140 3,641.00

8. 'U.S. out of· Mideast' Rallies mark week of solidari with Palestine By Ike Nahem Vietnamese Students and the Group of NEW YORK-May 15 is traditional­ Khmer Residents in the U.S. were ly marked by Arab communities as the greeted with standing ovations. Anoth­ anniversary of the seizure of Palestini­ er high point in the rally was the an land and the establishment of the appearance of Ricardo Alarcon, the Israeli state in 1948. This year the Cuban ambassador to the United Na­ Palestine Liberation Organization tions .. (PLO) called for an international week Alarcon stated: "Today the Palestini­ of solidarity with Palestine around this an people are not isolated and will not date. be again. In 1975 it is not the Palestini­ In New York City a May 15 rally of an people but the Zionist state that is 300 at Columbia University was fol­ isolated. It is not the struggles of the lowed by a demonstration of 800 on oppressed that are declining but the May 18 at the United Nations. The imperialist system itself, witnessed by actions focused on the demands of self­ the heroic victory in Vietnam." determination for Palestine and free­ The final speaker was Saadat dom for political prisoners in Israeli Hassan, the permanent observer of the and Jordanian jails. PLO to the United Nations. He reaf­ Jim Zeghbui, a professor at the firmed the PLO's goal of a democratic, University of Pennsylvania, gave a secular Palestine to replace Israel, well-documented account of repression saying: "We pledge to the young in Is.rael to the Columbia meeting. He Israelis and Jews who are questioning May 18 march to Israeli embassy in New York City. Protesters demanded self­ described the plight of some 14,000 and breaking with the racist ideology determination for Palestine and freedom for Palestinian political prisoners. political prisoners in Israeli jails and of Zionism that together with you we the destruction of more than 19,000 will march toward our goal." Palestinian homes in the territories The May 18 demonstration included occupied by Israel after the 1967 a spirited march to the Israeli embassy out of the Middle East!" "Palestine is The demonstration was called by the Mideast war. Zeghbui concluded with a to the UN, followed by a rally at Dag Arab!" and "Palestine yes, Israel no!" May 17 Committee, a coalition of all statement of solidarity with Prof. Hammarskjold Plaza. Chants in Arab­ Some of the many signs and banners Arab student groups in the area and Israel Shahak, who is under attack for ic and English were continually picked read, "Israel Out of Arab Land," "Free some American political groups. his defense of human rights inside up by the entire crowd. Among the Palestinian Political Prisoners in Is~ The May 17 action was preceded by Israel. most popular were, "Vietnam, Pales­ raeli, Jordanian and Syrian Jails," meetings on three Northern California Representatives of the Union of tine; one struggle, many fronts!" "U.S. and "End U.S. Aid to Israel." campuses during the week of May ,5-10 At the rally representatives of vari­ at which Peter Buch spoke. Buch, a ous groups read messages of solidarity. member of the Socialist Workers party The action was initiated by the Pales­ and a nationally known authority on tine Information Committee and en­ the Middle East, spoke to ninety dorsed by many other organizations, students at California State University including the Socialist Workers party at San 'Francisco, seventy-five at and Young Socialist Alliance. Fresno State, and eighty at City College of San Francisco.

SAN FRANCISCO-Two hundred people marched down Market Street WASHINGTON, D.C.-An overflow from the Embarcadero Plaza to the audience of 500 heard Dr. Clovis Federal Building here May 17 in Maksoud of the Arab League at support of Palestinian self­ Georgetown University here on May determination. 11. The meeting, which was held in Wafa Darwaza, director of the Arabic, was sponsored by the Arab "Voice of Palestine" radio program, Students Association at Georgetown. was the main speaker at the action. A Palestinian cultural evening at All Taking note of the victory in Vietnam, Souls' Church on May 15 was attended he said: "The day will come when the by 250 people. It was initiated by the Zionists and the imperialists will find Middle East Research and Information themselves in complete isolation in the Project. Greetings were given by a Middle East, as they did in Southeast representative of the Socialist Workers Socialist Workers party supported Palestine solidarity week activities Asia." party.

Issue is P-atient care LA. doctors walk out, demand better conditions By Walter Lippmann improvements in hospital care. Spot- cians, and clerks has meant that to immediate change have been re- LOS ANGELES-"This is just the lighting specific demands .to correct doctors have had to take over many solved." beginning. Believe me, this is just the some of the worst abuses in patient nonmedical tasks, thus reducing the Dr. Chilombo said that the doctors beginning." care, the strike won broad community time left for patient care. would refuse the 5 percent and would These were the words with which support. , Dr. Bettie Cox, a resident in internal place the money in a special patient- one leader of the doctors' strike at Conducting a militant picket line, medicine, pointed to another aspect of care fund. Martin Luther King County Hospital the young doctors and interns stood the problem-the frequently callous The strike was supported by a described the aftermath ofth,eir action. firm in the face of a ruthless strike- attitudes of some hospital employees. number of community groups, as well The seven-day strike by interns and breaking effort by the all-white Los She said that unnecessary deaths had as by nonstriking workers within the residents was an unusual and impres- Angeles County Board ·of Supervisors. occurred because some staff refused to hospital. Nurses, technicians, and sive one. Laying their careers on the By the end of the week's shutdown, provide care, saying they were "on ward clerks brought food, picketed, line, the mainly Black young doctors thirty-eight of the doctors were de- break." and printed materials for the doctors. went out on strike not simply for dared fired. The doctors had demanded an 80- Support also came from the Amen- another few cents an hour but to win Finally, an agreement was reached hour (!) workweek. At present they can Civil Liberties Union of Southern changes in the miserably inadequate . whereby all the firings were rescinded often work 100-120 hours per week. California, NAACP, Urban League, medical care at this hospital, which and it was agreed to establish a public Since the residents and interns provide Medical Committee for Human Rights, was built following the Watts uprising body to investigate conditions at the the primary medical care at the hospi- Southern Christian Leadership Confer­ of 1965. hospitals, weigh the remedies proposed tal, they point out that they obviously ence, United Farm Workers union, and . Originally, 1,200 residents and in- by the doctors, and bring back recom- cannot provide their best efforts while members of several large county work- terns at the three Los Angeles County mendations. A problem with this, being on call for such long periods. ers unions. hospitals were slated to walk out May however, is that the commission ap- County ufficials and the commercial The Charles R. Drew Medical Socie- 7. The walkout was averted at the pears weighted in favor of the hospital press tried to make it appear that the ty, representing Black physicians in other two hospitals when the members administration responsible for the doctors were striking mainly for higher Los Angeles, declared their support. of the Joint Council of Interns and present disgraceful conditions. pay. This would not have been unjusti- Dr. Chilombo summed up the conclu­ Residents voted to accept a 5 percent Following the walkouts, the Militant fied since their countywide bargain- sions many have drawn from the increase in patient-care funds and a 5 interviewed doctors at the hospital. Dr. ing association had accepted a 5 experience: "What we need is a deter­ percent pay increase. Karamo Chilombo, a pediatric doctor ·percent wage increase this year while mined struggle in the Black communi- However, doctors and interns at in training, recounted numerous exam- most county workers were getting 7 ty to continue the fight for quality Martin Luther King Hospital voted ples of inadequate patient care that percent. patient-care and health-care delivery. overwhelmingly to reject the agree- motivated the doctors' action. Dr. John Flowers, a striking resi- The community ought to have some ment, and 120 of the 130 interns and Long waiting times are a major dent, comr.tented, "We will definitely decision-making role in the running of residents declared a strike. Their key problem. Lack of supportive staff, such not accept any pay increases until all the hospital. Until that happens, it will demands focused on urgently needed as messengers, nurses, medical techni- patient-care problems that are subject be business as usual around here."

THE MILITANT/JUNE 6, 1975 9 In Our Opinion Letters

N.Y. budget politics Learning from history quality of remaining young forever. And because he helped assemble a new Buck-passing is a skill highly developed, through constant Last week, a variety of demonstrators descended generation to carry on after the old­ practice, by American capitalist politicians. It is getting an simultaneously on the California state timers passed away, he is, like Joe Hill, extra workout during the New York City "budget crisis." capitol in Sacramento. In addition to "a man who never died." President Ford's refusal to aid the city displays "a level of several thousand United Farm · Jesse Smith arrogance and disregard for New York that rivals the worst Workers demanding passage of a farm New York, New York days of Richard Nixon and his gang of cutthroats," declares labor bill, there were several hundred New York Governor Hugh Carey. · doctors, nurses, and hospital workers "Have they no heart? Have they no understanding of our demonstrating on the malpractice insurance issue. Finally, there was a Good combination problems? Must a city riot?" group of railroad workers Enclosed is my check for $9.50- Mayor Beame waxes no less eloquent: "It's incredible to me demonstrating for improved $7.50 is to extend my own subscription, that the president of the United States thinks more about the unemployment compensation. and $2.00 is to buy two two-month stockholders of Lockheed or Penn Central than the eight A report in the Los Angeles Times subscriptions for my sister and for a million people of our city." commented: "Ironically, the railroad friend. It's a good show, and the audience, if gullible, leaves men, the doctors and nurses were I can't believe that I never read the convinced that it's the Republicans, not the Democrats, who are representing some of the same people · Militant before I was given a gift who only a few years ago were subscription about a month ago. My responsible for the vicious cutbacks in New York City. sneering at student demonstrators and actions and beliefs had always tended But those forces now considering how to fight the cutbacks peace marches." -toward socialism, but the papers I and layoffs-first and foremost the New York public workers The reporter quoted a state policeman: found were either too radical or not unions-would do well to give this charade a closer scrutiny. "I guess they found out it works." enough so, and so I read them but When Beame and Carey went to Washington to seek aid for o.c. never wholly agreed. the city, the unions might ask,. why did they go to Ford? His Los Angeles, California With the Militant now, however, I antilabor record and reactionary philosophy offered no grounds read it and say, "Right on!" What a pleasure it is to find such a to expect help. combination of agreement, intelligent Why didn't they go to their Democratic colleagues in Meaningful news writing, and news one doesn't always Congress? There the Democrats command a solid majority­ Please accept my subscription and otherwise hear of important actions "veto-proof,'~ as the preelection appeals termed it. It should be also my very meager contribution. I around the country. the most pro-labor Congress ever, since 70 percent of the AFL­ believe wholeheartedly in your Sue Grossman CIO-backed condidates were elected last fall. endeavors. Please continue to print the Madison, Wisconsin It is Congress that appropriates the money, and they have the meaningful news of our world. power to pass any aid to New York they might choose. R.S. But Congress didn't come up with a penny to maintain social Tonawanda, New York services in New York. They were too busy adopting a $32 billion Dangerous devices A recent front-page article in the weapons appropriation for the Pentagon, up 27 percent from Daily Oklahoman gives you an idea of last year. what we're up against in prison. As for jobs, the Wall Street Journal summed up the record Note from Australia The comrades of the Socialist Headlined "Warden Seizes Inmates' recently: "Democrats have largely ignored the exhortations of Workers League here like the new Typewriters," the story begins, "All inmates' typewriters have been seized AFL-CIO President George Meany and others for huge new International Socialist Review format spending to pull the economy out of the recession. The in the Militant. Many previous ISR at the Oklahoma State Penitentiary recommended budget resolution cleared by the House and subscribers have taken out Militant after it was discovered that some were subs now. being used for correspondence with Senate ... is strikingly close to the President's current wish." what prison officials termed Carey's record is no better. He has pledged to veto any state Dave Holmes Sydney, Australia Communistic and other subversive aid to New York City until an alleged state budget deficit is organizations. erased! He just refused to grant a modest 6 percent wage "Warden Richard A. Crisp confirmed increase for state employees, and he plans state layoffs Tuesday that as many as 25 to 35 comparable to those in New York City. typewriters previously permitted as "No wage increases-that seems to be the wave of the future Bill Kilt part of inmates' personal property had The May 23 Militant ran a tribute to been confiscated in recent weeks and 'of the liberal Democrats," American Federation of State, Bill Kitt, who died April 21. Readers stored elsewhere. County and Municipal Employees leader Victor Gotbaum told a might be interested in a personal "Crisp said the action came after May 27 delegate assembly of District Council 37. remembrance of Bill by one of the some letters advocating overthrow of Referring to Carey's backstabbing of public employees, younger activists he helped recruit to Oklahoma's penal system were Gotbaum added, "Now somebody is going to stand up and say, the Young Socialist Alliance and the intercepted." 'Vic, but we supported him.' So my answer is, maybe we aren't Socialist Workers party. To prove his point, the warden "said so bad off when we back a loser.'' When I knew him in San Diego from some of the typed letters were It's a pretty lame answer. 1969 to 1971, Bill was already in his addressed to subversive groups as far late sixties and his health was starting away as New York, Chicago and Los The entire policy of supporting Democratic party politicians to falter. But he played a role in almost Angeles. is nothing but an obstacle to the struggle against the cutbacks. everything. There is one episode that "But they [the typewriters] have been This struggle is a political one, not just economic. To wage it stands out in my recollection. turned into a dangerous mechanical effectively the unions need their own political representatives: When the May 1970 campus antiwar device, said Crisp, who became warden working men and women who will be accountable to labor upsurge hit, the San Diego YSA had on Nov. 1 after a long military police alone, not phony "friends" whose real loyalty is to corporate just a handful of members. It couldn't career.... profits and the profit system. possibly handle every emergency task "He . . . charged that some of the in that fast-breaking political groups were Marxist-oriented and that There is no reason why, in the next municipal elections, the situation. So Bill came to campus to others 'apparently have subversive New York unions could not get together and put up working­ help out when the opportunity arose. leanings which disturb us.' " class candidates on an independent labor ticket. If these One evening there was a meeting to How the "subversive" ietters were candidates put forward a program to meet the needs of working plan a march through downtown San intercepted was not explained. people in New York, including special attention to the plight of Diego the next day. The ultralefts and According to the article, "Prison the oppressed Black, Puerto Rican, and Chinese communities, the reformists were calling for a march officials, however, have insisted that they would win overwhelming support. route that ended up in the courtyard of both outgoing and incoming mail is In West Virginia last November two coal miners were elected the city administration building, where uncensored in compliance with recent few demonstrators could fit, a rally federal court orders.'' to local office as independents with full support of the Coal would be difficult to hold, and a Aprtsoner Miners Political Action Committee. Their biggest problem, one confrontation with the police could Oklahoma of them commented, was convincing other union men and easily develop. women that they could win. Bill stood up in one of the back rows "They've had it beat into them for so long that the companies of the outdoor amphitheater where have control that they didn't believe we could really do it. But over a thousand activists had look," he said, "the coal operators don't have any votes. All gathered. Without a microphone, he Some sweetness in everything launched into a speech and turned the On May 16 in downtown Los they have is money, and with some organization we can whole situation around. The meeting Angeles, the police rushed a factory overcome that." voted overwhelmingly to march to a and rounded up between 500 and 1,000 The same goes double for the bankers on Wall Street. rally in the park. hard-working people and shoved them Under the impact of Democratic betrayals like the New York Bill had no trouble relating to young on a bus to deport them. Illegal aliens. cutbacks, more and more workers will get the idea that an people or understanding the new Mexicans. This, I presume, will give independent labor party based on the unions is no pipe dream­ movements of students, Blacks, room for more Vietnamese doctors, it's a necessity for survival. Chicanos, and women that sprang up laWYers, architects, collaborators all, in the 1960s. He had that revolutionary for .L.A. to welcome and to cater to.

10 MONTHLY MAGAZINE SUPPLEMENT TO THE MILITAN't JUNE 1975

Freedom of the Press and the Workinc Class BJ Leon !rotskJ (INTERNATIONAL SOCIALIST REVIEW! PAGE 2)

commitments elsewhere in Asia and the knowledged that they were already doing world," and, "Let no nation read the events in their best. Indochina as a failure of the American Despite Washington's military bases around will. ..." the world, and despite the Stalinists' efforts to To back up their inflated words, the House hold back and disorient revolutionary up­ of Representatives rushed through the Pen­ surges, the workers and peasants of the tagon's bill for a walloping 27 percent colonial world are drawing the lessons of the increase in funds for weapons procurements U.S. debacle in Southeast Asia. The rebel and development. victories in Cambodia and Vietnam have r allowing the victories of the liberation With their tactical divisions over Vietnam inspired the masses throughout Asia and forces in Cambodia on April 17 and in temporarily superseded - by the Mayagiiez have demoralized their exploiters. Vietnam on April 30, Washington and the "victory,' the capitalist politicians joined in In addition, the American people are less capitalist media began what was termed an making crystal clear their support for re­ and less inclined to pay the price required to "agonizing reappraisal" of U.S. foreign policy. grouping the forces of imperialism and keep up Washington's role as world cop. There was talk about "learning the lessons" of staunchly defending the new positions to Washington can maintain its preeminence the U.S. defeat in Indochina. which they have been pushed by the ad­ only by suppressing peoples throughout the A reporter even had the temerity to ask vances of the world revolution. world. But these peoples want to break out of President Ford at a May 6 news conference One of those lines of defense is South imperialist subjection. Hence more Vietnams whether he would "welcome a congressional Korea, saddled with the corrupt Park dictator­ are inevitable, as Washington seeks to inquiry into how we got in and how we got ship propped up by 40,000 U.S. troops. suppress freedom struggles. out of Vietnam." Secretary of State Kissinger made it clear that The only alternative to the prospect of Ford quickly made it clear that he would the attack on Cambodia was meant to be continual wars, and a repetition of the not welcome any such inquiry. And in the seen as a "message" to the Korean people of unimaginable suffering and devastation in­ following weeks Washington also made it what they could expect if they dare try to win flicted upon the peoples of Indochina, is for obvious that no substantial changes in U.S. freedom from U.S. imperialist domination as the working people of this country to take all foreign policy were· in the offing. In the the Vietnamese did. power out of the hands of the American Mayagiiez incident, Washington operated War secretary James Schlesinger asserted capitalist class. with the same notorious arrogance, ruthless­ that as far as he was concerned, the lesson of ness, lies, and secret diplomacy as during the Vi~tnam was that next -time Washington past two decades in Vietnam. sh-ould "go against the military power of an !he NAACP demonstration against racism Before the ship was seized, the Pentagon opponent and ... not simply spend time par­ held in Boston May 17 had an importance and White House had openly discussed the rying their offensive operations." greater than its numbers might indicate. For need for a u.s. "show of force"-any place New York Times correspondent Bernard one thing, it was the first civil rights demon­ would do, they said-to demonstrate to the Gwertzman interpreted this statement as stration that the NAACP-led by its Boston world that the United States was still "Num­ meaning that "nothing could be ruled out, chapter-had initiated in years. If NAACP ber One." Then they carried out what now including nuclear weapons." chapters continue to implement this action appears to have been a calculated provoca­ And in fact, on May 13 a Los Angeles Times perspective, uniting with other organizations tion. correspondent wrote from Seoul: "The United willing to demonstrate against the racists, this The full truth ·about the Mayagiiez affair States would consider using tactical nuclear will have highly salutary effects on the remains to be told. Was the ship sent or weapons in case of an outbreak of war in the struggle for Black liberation. deliberately allowed to stray into those Korean peninsula, a top American military May 17 also marked a big success for the waters? Was the ship carrying top-secret CIA commander said here Monday." new antiracist coalition, the National Student data and equipment from Saigon, as the West On the European front, the bellicose Coalition Against Racism.- NSCAR won wide German magazine Stern has charged? In attitude taken toward the working-class respect for doing much of the mobilizing and response to the Stern expose, the White upsurge in Portugal was reemphasized with organizing responsible for making the May 17. House admitted for the first time that the Ford's May 23 statement suggesting the action a success. NSCAR is seen by more Mayagiiez had been involved in transporting expulsion of Portugal from NATO. Ford noted and more young people, especially Blacks, as U.S. embassy "material" out of Saigon a few that NATO was set up to be a military alliance an organization that knows what it is doing days prior to the rebel take-over. against the "challenge by Communist ele­ and that is offering a real answer to the racist Whatever the facts-and they are still ments from the East"-that is, against the organizations that are on the rise in Boston emerging-the savage attack on Cambodia threat of socialist revolution in Europe. The and other cities. that began May 14 had nothing to do with the implications for the Portuguese people were May 17 set an e_xample for the struggle stated goal of protecting American lives. The clear. against racism in areas other than that of total of U.S. forces who died or are presumed There is another side to Washington's -school desegregation. The impact of racism dead in the operation reached forty-one as of firming up of its new lines of defense of has been intensified because of the depres­ May 25-more than the thirty-nine crew capitalist exploitation around the world. That sion in the United States. Layoffs and members the marines were sent to "rescue." is the continuation of the detente. cutbacks in social services hit Black people In the course of the Mayaguez operation, Throughout the Mayagiiez events, the and other oppressed peoples in a discrimina­ the arrogance and racism of the rulers of this b_ureaucrats in Moscow and Peking turned a tory fashion. cOLmtry was unrestrained. One Pentagon blind eye toward Ford's gunboat diplomacy. An indication of the explosive anger official told Newsweek that "Henry Kissinger The New York Times gave high rating to the building up against the intensified effects of was determined to give the Khmer Rouge a way the Soviet press agency Tass reported racism could be seen in the May 19 march of bloody nose." Sen. Barry Goldwater (A-Ariz.) the incident, characterizing it as "factual, 15,000 through New York City's Chinatown­ said that if Ford hadn't sent in the marines, without criticism of the operation." the first of its kind-protesting police brutality "every little half-assed nation in the world Peking's first official response was consid­ against Chinese people and demanding more would be taking potshots at us." ered by "Western diplomats" to be "about as and better jobs. restrained as the Chinese could make it given It is students and other young people, The Democratic "doves" joined in, hailing their close ties to the new Government in especially Black youth and youth of the other the "success" of Ford's raids on Cambodia Phnom Penh," according to an account in the oppressed nationalities, who will be in the and asserting their determination to support same issue of the Times (May 16). forefront of the fight for the right to equal whatever moves were necessary to "keep But this was not enough for Washington. education, job opportunities, and human America strong." Kissinger gave a round of speeches signaling dignity. The National Student Coalition This closing of ranks was exemplified in the to Moscow and Peking that they had better Against Racism can play a key role in giving May 13 statement by fifty-six Democratic step up their efforts to hold back revolution in national voice, direction, and power to the "doves" in Congress that proclaimed: "The Asia, in Portugal, in the Mideast, and anger of these young people and of th~ir U.S. does have continuing interests and elsewhere-even though he obliquely ac- allies among white youth.

Portugal One Year After the Coup By Gus Horowitz 7

Freedom of the Press Editor: Caroline Lund and the Working Class Decline of the By Leon Trotsky 10 The International Socialist Review ap­ pears in the Militant that comes out American Colossus 'We're Just Coming during the first week of every month. By Dick ,Roberts 3 Over the Hill' Copyright

12 (PAGE 3/INTERNATIONAL SOCIALIST REVIEW)

Decline of the American Colossus WhJ the Srstem 'Gan't Deliver'

deficits will succeed in turning the American economy total ending of segregation by a certain date is raising around in late 1975. That would stem the slide, at least an expectation which you cannot necessarily achieve." By Dick Roberts within this particular business cycle, toward world Fortune economist Edmund Faltermayer writes: economic collapse-although at the price of reintensi­ "Between 1945 and 1974, half of America's families fied inflation. But it is now clear in any case that moved into newly built houses, and the number of '·he two hundredth anniversary of the first American a turning point has been reached in international private automobiles on the road increased more than revolution coincides with a depression in the United capitalism. The long-term, relatively crisis-free expan­ · three times as fast as the population. In the heady States, the crumbling of Washington's puppet military sion of the post-World War II period is over. Increas­ atmosphere of all that prosperity, there seemed little dictatorships in Phompenh and Saigon, and the first ingly frequent recessions, tending more and more to doubt that further gains were merely a question of recession on a world scale since 1937-38. coincide in all capitalist countries and to be accompa­ time. Workers of every major capitalist country are nied by accelerating inflation, are the order of the day. "That golden assumption no longer looks so cer­ suffering from a rise in unemployment. As 1974 ended, In the United States the depression is spurring on the tain.... unemployment in Japan had soared by 40 percent in massive loss of confidence in the government, triggered "Future gains will not come as easily as those of the that one year to 750,000 or 1.5 percent of the labor by the slaughter in Southeast Asia and the lies recent past." force. Officially admitted rates were 3 percent in surrounding it, by the Watergate exposures, and by the Daniel Bell, one of the best-known American sociolo­ Britain, 3.3 percent in France, 4.2 percent in West more recently disclosed activities of the CIA and FBI in gists, is Fortune's most pessimistic contributor: "The Germany, and 8.2 percent in the United States. Across the U.S. and abroad. promise of plenty has been transformed into a the "advanced" capitalist world at least 15 million This is a historic crisis of legitimacy for U.S. revolution of rising expectations. . . . workers were jobless and the number was rising daily. imperialism. Politicians talk about the need for a "new "Just about all grievances now get dumped into the There are disputes about applying the term "depres­ consensus" or a "new sense of national unity," which lap of government. . . . sion" to the U.S. downturn. In 1933, the worst year of they hope will make their domestic and foreign policies "The direction of events is clear: the government has the previous depression, national unemployment stood easier to sell to the workers who vote them into office. made a commitment, not only to create a substantial at slightly above 24 percent. Yet in February 1975 the The more farsighted apologists recognize that there are welfare state, but to redress all economic and social unemployment rate in Detroit, the hardest-hit U.S. no easy solutions. Some go so far as to propose that it inequalities as well. And the commitment is largely industrial center, already stood above 23 percent. For is the ideological framework itself that needs to be irreversible. . . . poor whites, youth, and Blacks in Detroit's inner city overhauled. An example of this is offered by Fortune "The ultimate problem presented by the revolution of the jobless rate was above 50 percent. An unemployed magazine, the business publication of Time-Life, Inc. rising entitlements is not that it will cost a lot of Black Chrysler worker told a correspondent for The For its special April 1975 issue, purporting to celebrate money-although it will certainly do that. What is Militant: "Everything's poor man, really poor. I don't the bicentennial of the American revolution, Fortune potentially more dangerous is the threat that the make but $134 every two weeks. . . . I expect to be assembled twelve authors and President Ford himself revolution presents to our political system. It threatens unemployed forever." to discuss the excruciating problems facing American to overload the system, to confront it with far more A thousand miles to the southwest, in Albuquerque, capitalism as it prepares to enter its third century. The grievances than legislators and judges know how to New Mexico, an unemployed Chicano told a New York issue is entitled "The American System." A more cope with" (emphasis in the original). Times reporter: "I do not think I will be able to buy accurate title would be "In Defense of Capitalism in its Decline." food stamps. It is too much." He and his wife and ten ! hese concerns are well founded. There are growing children live on $295 a month Social Security, $66 a The basic view of the Fortune authors abo.ut the expectations and dissatisfactions among millions of month welfare, and $15 a month from a son who has a nature of the developing social crisis-although Americans. Modern technology can produce nuclear job. These are depression conditions. And every worker reached th:cough fallacious reasoning and used to weapons and send rockets to the moon with minute knows they are spreading. justify utterly reactionary conclusions-is correct. precision but consumer goods are neither durable nor It is too early to know -whether massive government Briefly put, they contend: The advances the U.S. safe. Why do people have to live in shabby housing and economy was able to attain for its citizens, especially in crowded tenement slums? Why do the trains, buses, Dick Roberts is a frequent contributor to the Interna­ the first two decades after World War II, can no longer and subways work less and charge more? If Washing­ tional Socialist Review and was formerly its managing be achieved on anywhere near the same scale. And a ton can spend hundreds of billio·ns of dollars on editor. He is also a staff writer for the Militant and has serious political threat to the capitalist system flows weapons for its global military system, why aren't spoken on college campuses throughout the country on from this contradiction between what the system can there enough jobs in the United States? Why isn't the international capitalist economic crisis. This article deliver and what people think it should 'deliver. education and medical care free? What Bell arrogantly is a chapter of his forthc;oming book, Capitalism in Cri­ The Fortune authors spell out this theme as it labels as "hedoni!;tic" are the perfectly just demands of. sis. It is used here by permission of Pathfinder Press. pertains to every major social aspect of the capitalist people for decent and fulfilling lives. Copyright© 1975 Pathfinder Press, Inc. All rights re­ system at home. "Raising expectations is a serious On top of this the ~;apitalist government faces a served. matter," says President Ford. "Setting a goal for the further layer of contradictions. The democratic preten-

13 (INTERNATIONAL SOCIALIST REVIEW! PAGE 4)

sions and promises that it refuses to carry out stand in argument that far: "The country is heading for an two decades imperialism had plunged into the world stark contrast to the private privileges of the ruling unpleasant face-off between those who are getting war that she believed to be inevitable. Subsequently the class and the profit-making corporations that the angry about Social Security deductions and the expansionary drive of capital brought the Great government serves and defends. George Novack, a elderly.... The utopian era of comfortable retirement Depression of the 1930s and a second interimperialist leading Marxist writer, treated this subject in depth in wholly at government expense will have to be post­ world war that dwarfed any horrors of capitalism that Democracy and Revolution, a 1971 book whose timeli­ poned indefinitely." The millions of poor elderly Marx saw. Imperialism's counterrevolutionary drive to ness is increasing. citizens who eke out bleak starvation-level existences in suppress struggles for national liberation in order to "A system in which the people do not control the the slums of American cities or their retirement hovels control the semicolonies, especially their sources of raw most important decisions and actions of the govern­ will have the last say on this. materials, has not let up even for one day. ment, their economy, their welfare or the course of their It is true that in the postwar epoch, capitalist growth The inflation that has beset world capitalism in the lives," says Novack, "can hardly be considered and inflation are inextricably linked. But that can't be recent past is not simply the result of capitalist growth, genuinely democratic. It can be more precisely defined blamed on the relatively paltry outlays for social as Bell pretends; it is even more the product of as a plutocracy dressed in democratic disguise" (p. 199). welfare made by the government. It has to do with capitalist crisis. The depression of the 1930s taught the Novack notes that this same opinion was expressed fundamental contradictions of the capitalist system rulers of this country that the monopoly-dominated by C. Wright Mills in The Sociological Imagination that the Fortune authors themselves do not treat. But if capitalist economy, left to its own devices, inevitably (1959): "The United States today I should say is these contradictions are introduced into the discussion, led toward deepgoing and prolonged crisis. Following generally democratic mainly in form and in the the Second World War, they increasingly adopted the rhetoric of expectation." Bourgeois sociologist Bell has policies advanced by Keynes during the depression taken his time in recognizing the floodtide of rising that would seek to provide "replacement markets" for expectations among the masses and its latent potential 'The long-term, relatively crisis­ inadequate normal ones through inflationary govern­ to capsize the capitalist ship of state. ment deficit spending. "The avoidance of another free expansion of the post-World Great Depression became the number one economic War II period is over. Increas­ priority of the postwar world," monetary expert Irving Ben and his colleagues are obligated to come up with ingly frequent recessions, ac­ Friedman wrote in 1973 (Inflation, p. 34). reasons why American capitalism can no longer companied by accelerating infla­ "Government expenditure could supplement inade­ deliver on the scale of the 1950s and 1960s. These quate private investment; it would stimulate the reasons must cover up both the profit drive of the tion, are the order of the day.' economy in a way directly analogous to increased monopolies and the role of the ruling class which owns private investment. The consequences would be in­ them. Not surprisingly they attempt to shift the blame creased employment, increased income, increased from the decaying profit system to the oppressed and demand-both for production and consumption goods. exploited victims of that system: the people at home they underline all the more the deepgoing character of The economy could approach a new equilibrium, where and abroad are demanding "too much." the crisis Fortune's bourgeois ideologues are seeking to employment, if not full, was greatly increased." There is a supposedly inseparable link between rising allay. These policies were initiated during the war and expectations and inflation. The people make demands The insuperable. contradiction of capitalist produc­ postwar period primarily to build up the gigantic U.S. on the government that the government can meet only tion, as Marx explained it, is that growth itself leads to military machine. The inflationary war expenditures through massive expenditures and ultimately through crisis. The drive to accumulate capital is not linked to helped to stimulate the economy and defer another deficits that cause inflation. But the only way to end the needs of society, but solely to the profit needs of the world depression, but that was not their essential inflation at this juncture is through massive unemploy­ owners of capital. "Fanatically bent on making value purpose. They were and are primarily undertaken to ment. Thus rising expectations, inflation and unem­ expand · itself," Marx wrote in the first volume of build the weapons of the "arsenal of democracy"-that ployment, so the argument goes, are linked in a vicious Capital, "(the capitalist] ruthlessly forces the human is, to defend and extend the empire of finance capital circle that must result in economic crises. race to produce for production's sake. . . . The on a world scale. The countercyclical effect on the (For an earlier and more detailed presentation of this development of capitalist production makes it constant­ economy is a fringe benefit of this policy. thesis see Inflation, A World- Wide Disaster by Irving S. ly necessary to keep increasing the amount of capital Friedman [New York: Houghton-Mifflin, 1973]. Fried­ laid out in a given industrial undertaking, and man, who is a top monetary expert in the United -competition makes the immanent laws of capitalist One of the earliest documents in the Pentagon States, having served the government, the Internation­ production to be felt by each individual capitalist, as Papers brings out the continuity of the foreign policy of al Monetary Fund, the World Bank, and now the First external coercive laws. It compels him to keep constant­ six postwar administrations, stretching from Democrat National City Bank, extends the argument that rising ly extending his capital, in order to preserve it, but Harry Truman to Republican Gerald Ford, that have expectations cause inflation on a world scale, including extend it he cannot except by means of progressive taken it upon themselves to police the global frontiers in semicolonial nations.) accumulation. . . . of capitalism. A telegram from General George C. "Paradoxically," says Bell, "economic growth may "Accumulate, accumulate! That is Moses and the Marshall, then secretary of state, to the U.S. Embassy be a source of a distinctive 'contradiction' of prophets!" (pp. 492, 495). in Paris, dated May 13, 1947, complains about the capitalism-a contradiction that may prove to be its The profit needs of capital periodically drive accumu­ French failure to crush the Ho Chi Minh-led insurgents undoing. For growth has become inextricably linked lation beyond the point where investments can, in fact, in Vietnam: with inflation, and it seems unlikely that any demo­ be profitably made. In 1899 Rosa Luxemburg wrote cratic society can abolish inflation without disastrous Reform or Revolution, a polemic against the "refor­ We becoming increasingly concerned by slow political consequences. mists" led by Eduard Bernstein in the German Social progress toward settlement Indochina dispute. Key "It is not as though Americans look upon inflation Democratic Party, who believed that capitalism could our position is awareness that in respect develop­ ments affecting position Western democratic pow­ without concern; every survey taken in the last few peacefully transform itself into a crisis-free system. If ers in Southern Asia, we essentially in same boat years shows that inflation is an object of profound that could happen, she contended, it would mean "one as French, also British and Dutch. We cannot fear. . . . And yet every imaginable anti-inflationary of two things: either the world market can spread conceive setbacks to long-range interests France policy impinges on the welfare of some major interest unlimitedly, or on the contrary the development of the which would not also be setba.-:ks our own. . . . group. The simple fact is that no one wants to pay the productive forces is so fettered that it cannot pass In our view, southern Asia in critical phase its price of ending inflation, and modern democratic beyond the bounds of the market. The first hypothesis history with seven new nations in process achiev­ governments [in fact, capitalist governments in constitutes a material impossibility. The second is ing or struggling independence or autonomy. These general-D.R.] find it politically difficult to make any rendered just as impossible by the constant technical nations include quarter inhabitants world· and sizable group pay the bill." progress that daily creates new productive forces in all their future course, owing sheer weight popula­ The ultimate logic of this tortured argument is to branches" (p. 46). tions, resources they command, and strategic blame the poor and elderly for inflation and even Luxemburg's position is far from having been location, will be momentous factor in world depression. Fortune economist Faltermayer carries the invalidated by subsequent history. Within less than stability.... We consider best safeguard against

Martha Harris Cindy Jaquith

14 (PAGE 5/lNTERNATIONAL SOCIALIST REVIEW)

these eventualities a continued close association and the monopolists raise the prices on other goods to economics. Although the precise date is not of critical between newly-autonomous peoples and powers absorb the "surplus purchasing power." importance, the turn had taken place before the Nixon­ which have long been responsible for their welfare. . Some politicians and government officials seem to be Connally offensive of 1971. Nixon's frontal attack on [United States-Vietnam Relations, 1945-1967, indifferent to the inflationary impact of war spending. American workers in the form of a wage freeze, and his Book·8, pp. 100-102] But the Pentagon Papers showed that the highest open declaration of international trade and financial policy-makers were aware of the dangers of inflation warfare through an import surtax, dollar devaluation, Thus the author of the Marshall Plan and NATO, from the outset of the cold war. Typical are· the and selective export controls, signaled that U.S. which supplied U.S. money, arms, and troops to following paragraphs from National Security Council imperialism was in deep trouble. The crisis has capitalist Europe, also outlined a plan for inheriting resolution 162/2, the "Basic National Security Policy" significantly worsened in the succeeding period, even the European colonies. The U.S. would support finan­ document of October 30, 1953, that enunciated Wash­ though 1972-73 saw a brief inflationary upturn in the cially, and militarily if necessary, not only the French ington's global strategy: world economy and there may well be further sho~ in Indochina, but the British in India, the Dutch in lived upturns. Overall, the direction for the foreseeable Indonesia, and above all the Kuomintang in China. 21. Excessive government spending leads to future is toward heightened attacks on the wages and "Pax Americana" was never an idle phrase. It meant inflationary deficits or to repressive taxation, or to living standards of workers both here and abroad. money, guns, counterintelligence,- and direct counter­ both. Persistent inflation is a barrier to long-ter.m There were two basic interrelated economic reasons revolutionary intervention by U.S. armies, in China, in growth because it undermines confidence in the why the turn in policy was inevitable: Korea, in Lebanon, in Cuba, in the Congo, in Vietnam, 1. The growth of postwar Europe and Japan pro­ in the Dominican Republic, in Cambodia, in Laos­ vided the main outlets necessary for the expansionary wherever necessary and politically feasible. Meanwhile drive of world capitalism. While the U.S economy countless billions were spent year after year to build up 'If Washington can spend hun­ reached high-level stagnation by the early fifties and the strategic arsenal .of nuclear weapons, with its dreds of billions of dollars on frequently suffered recessions (the present is the sixth ability to annihilate the earth's population several since World War II), these could be softened by times over. weapons for its global military exporting "overproduced" goods and capital abroad, These huge expenditures were only partially financed system, why aren't there enough primarily to Europe and Japan, but also to their former through taxation. To an increasing extent they were jobs in the United States? Why colonies whose markets had been wedged open by the . met through budget deficits, that is, by government isn't education and medical care U.S. victol'y in the war. In the process an explosive rise borrowing. Including fiscal year 1976, there has only of productivity took place as new electronic and been one surplus budget year in tJ:le last sixteen. This free?' computer technologies were applied and millions of was done because deficits were required to keep the new workers were drawn into the labor forces of economy growing-or, as has been the case fo-r many Europe, Japan, and North America. But the European years, stagnating rather than ·declining. It was also and Japanese "boom" ended. The markets it had pro­ politically safer for Washington to raise part of its war currency, reduces savings, and makes restrictive vided were severely diminished. expenditures indirectly through inflation than directly economic controls necessary.... 2. The permanent inflation of the U.S. economy, 27. The requirements for funds to maintain our through taxes; and the inflation dampen~ and which also helped to shore up domestic downturns, national security must thus be considered in the eventually rolled back the increases in real wages that could be absorbed on a world scale and with minimal light of these dangers to our economic system, had been won on picket lines. Inflation redistributed damage at home only so long as Europe and Japan including the danger to industrial productivity income to the strongest banks and largest corporations. were expanding, so long as they themselves did not necessary to support military programs arising For those who still pretend that U.S. government from excessive levels of total Government spend­ have a great need for deficit financing. Simultaneous deficits are attributable at least partially to social ing, taxing and borrowing. [United States-Viet­ deficit spending on a world scale unleashed uncontrol­ . welfare expenditures, it must be pointed out that just nam Relations, Book 9, pp. 188, 189] lable world inflation. the opposite is the case. Specific taxes are collected to The U.S. invasion of Southeast Asia hastened the finance these outlays (e.g., employment taxes, which But these prophetic warnings were not observed over culminating point of.both these processes. On the one pay Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid) and much the next t\vo decades. In August 1971, the "New hand it qualitatively accelerated the rate of inflation in more is collected in these taxes than is paid out. Total Economic Policy" imposed "restrictive economic con­ the United States, so that European and Japanese government debt that was held by such agencies in trols" in order to shore up the dollar, whose value had products became increasingly competitive both abroad 1974 amounted to $141 billion. This surplus of funds, been eroded by years of war-primed inflation. The and in the U.S. market itself, and the productivity gap ostensibly earmarked for social welfare, has been "NEP" showed that a turning point in postwar was narrowed. On the other hand the war-primed invested in government bonds in order to help defray capitalist development had been reached. inflation rapidly eroded the value of the dollar and massive military expenditures. destroyed the Bretton Woods international monetary It remains for us now to explain why government system based on the gold-exchange standard. (For a deficit spending on armaments is inflationary. To On December 27, 1971, the White House released to Marxist history and analysis of this, see Decline of the finance these deficits, the government must borrow the corporations-but not to the American public-a Dollar· by Ernest Mandel [New York: Monad Press, from banks and other financial institutions. In order to white paper by then presidential assistant Peter G. 1972].) meet the military expenses of the government without Peterson explaining the "NEP." On the first page The new period was characterized by heightened at the same time depleting the sources of money that Peterson declared: competition in world trade. Its most prominent features the capitalists need to finance corporate business, the so far have been the combined U.S.-Middle East banking system must expand credit. This is especially The central fact of the past twenty-five years has imposition of high energy prices; the high prices of U.S. been the conviction-ours as much as that of other true during economic upswings. It is this expansion of meat, grain, and soybean exports; a "floating" interna­ countries-that the U.S. was dominant, both in size credit by the banks, in order to make funds_ available to tional exchange rate allowing continuous devaluation and competitiveness, in the international economy of the dollar as inflation continued to rage in the corporations-much of which will be channeled into and that the practices, institutions and rules the government-guaranteed high-profit arena of war governing international trade and payments were United States; increasingly sharp bouts of inflation production-that creates inflationary purchasing pow­ structured to fit that fact. We as a nation and the internationally as well, as the major capitalist powers er in the economy. world as a whole were too slow to realize that basic abroad also increasingly resorted to deficit spending. Government war spending is wholly unproductive. structural and competitive changes were occurring; These developments have been accompanied by Unlike investment by industrial capitalists, the govern­ as a result, international policies and practices stepped-up attacks on workers everywhere, through ment's outlays do not transform the goods purchased were too slow in responding. direct wage freezes or controls ("austerity programs" in into an expanded mass of commodities which are then Europe), through the persistent decline of purchasing put back on the market to be sold. Rather it simply The weakened grasp of U.S. imperialism-'iiot For­ power caused by inflation, and through increasing takes goods off the market. The newly created purchas­ tune's supposed demand-induced inflation-is the bouts of joblessness as capitalist industry more and ing power cannot find its equivalent on the market, fundamental reason for the turn in U.S. and world more failed to find profitable outlets for its goods and

Howard Petrick

15 (INTERNATIONAL SOCIALISTREVIEW! PAGE 6)

investments. militants seeking large wage increases. tions of a different sort~that working people should This veritable explosion of capitalist contradictions " 'Fear has now replaced need as the gut issue,' one have the direct decision-making power over their own on a world scale once again demonstrated that the labor analyst said. . .. future. And this runs diametrically counter to the expansion of markets, even so large as those of Europe "Among the approaches being talked about or tried monopolists' profit needs and global strategy. and Japan, cannot keep pace with the profit needs of in some cases are share-the-work arrangements, Capitalism has demonstrated in the half century monopoly. shorter work weeks [at less pay], payless furl_oughs, since 1929 that it cannot solve the pressing needs of Today the inflationary boomlet of 1972-73~perha,ps early retirements, and agreements to forego pay humanity. In times of crisis it deals with the demands one of the shortest in history~has given way to increases or even to take pay cuts." of the masses through depression, famine, and war. international recession and a depression in the United The bourgeois ideologues of Fortune attempt to give a These lessons will be newly etched on the conscious­ States. As in the late 1920s, overproduction occurred rationalization to the harsh economic realities that are ness of workers, and that is what ideologues like Bell simultaneously in the two largest U.S. industries, auto a product of the depression and the administration's most fear. "It has become increasingly clear," he and construction, which together account for more policies. writes, "that the revolution of rising entitlements may than 20 percent of the economy. Cutbacks in these But they are shortsighted if they believe they will become unmanageable. . . . If this process is not sectors worked their way back through the industries succeed in the larger scheme of stamping out the rising reversed, it will ~ork to undermine the legitimacy of that supply them with raw materials. More and more demands of the population. In fact, it can be predicted our society." workers were laid off ~and, as purchasing power with assurance that the American working class, Precist)ly. But the right answer is not, as Bell urges, dropped, the recession deepened into depression. which has never suffered a serious defeat, will not that workers should be persuaded to ask for less By the spring of 1975 the manufacturing economy accept this attempt to reverse its living standards and beca.use capitalism can only give less. The workers was operating at under 70 percent of its potential democratic rights without a fight. Already, despite the should demand for themselves and for the oppressed of productive capacity. But it was still creating a Gross shackles imposed by bureaucratic misleaders, the labor the world what is rightfully theirs~a liveable and National Product of about $1,400 billion. If manufac­ movement is beginning to respond. Recent marches peaceable existence. And if this is more than the turing were up to 100 percent of capacity, total and rallies for jobs are steps in the direction of massive~ decadent, crisis-tom system of world capitalism can production would be about $2,000 billion. The differ­ mobilizations of workers and their allies which~ give, it will have to give way to a new system. ence between what the economy is producing now and following the path of antiwar marchers before them~ what it could produce if plants were fully operating is can raise sufficient protest to halt the capitalist some $600 billion! offensive in its tracks. What a terrible waste this is of human and technical As this confrontation develops, millions of workers resources! It totals more than the Gross National will come to see that what is needed in the unions is a Products of Latin America and Africa combined. new class-struggle leadership with a strategy to meet The criminality of wasted production at a time when their needs, a strategy that will lead to the elimination FORTHCOMING FROM PATHFINDER PRESS millions are out of work,~ ill-fed, and unable to get a of capitalist exploitation and oppression once and for decent education or adequate health care is com­ all. pounded by the fact that the depth and duration of the present downturn results from deliberate policies of the An almost panicky atmosphere afflicted U.S. policy Ford administration. The most optimistic projections Capitalism makers as they watched Saigon's armies melt awa'y from the White House do not anticipate a substantial before the sweeping advance of the Vietnamese decline in unemployment in the foreseeable future. Full revolution in the spring of 1975. C. L. Sulzberger, the employment is not even a proclaimed goal. New York Times's well-known foreign correspondent, While the rate of inflation has declined in the face of turned in a column from Paris in which he declared: in Crisis glutted markets, the huge government deficits antic­ "No nation can pretend to be a superpower when its ipated for 1975-76 practically guarantee a resurgence foreign policy suffers such blows as that of the United By Dick Roberts of inflation more virulent than ever during the next States in Southeast and Southwest Asia, when its upturn. economy reels, its currency staggers, and when its Under the conditions of sharpened international leadership, symbolized by a Chief Executive who $6; paper $1.95 competition outlined by Peterson when he explained chooses that moment to take time off for golf, faces its the "New Economic Policy," the American ruling class crises in paralyzed confusion. • Why has the government been unable to hopes to force the American populace into accepting "The lack of faith, morale, self-abnegation and control the inflation spiral with Keynesian not only the status quo but even a rollback of gains willpower now being displayed on the ash-heap of a economic policies? won and expectations generated in past struggles. The pax Americana cannot but appall our friends and • What are the roots of the energy cri.sis, rulers want to dampen wage increases and diminish comfort our enemies." which threatens a new Mideast war over oil? living standards; they would also like to see a reversal The gloom expressed by Sulzberger and the authors • Are we in the early stages of worldwide of the drive for equality by Black people and members of the Fortune articles can only bring cheer and depression and mass unemployment like in the of other oppressed minorities, of the women's rights encouragement to oppressed peoples the world over 1930s? movement, of demands for pollution control, and of the who see the outposts of U.S. imperialism being Dick Roberts offers a radical interpretation of dissent against imperialist foreign policy. weakened. The massive distrust of Americans toward the crisis of the American system and the global On the economic front it is apparent that they have the government in Washington and their deepgoing recession. made_ some gains. New York Times reporter Damon antiwar sentiment have combined with the advancing Stetson noted April 7, 1975, that "continuing economic revolution in Southeast Asia and elsewhere to stay the Order from Pathfinder Press uncertainties and traumatic layoffs in many industries arm of the U.S. imperialists as never before in this 410 West St., New York, N.Y. 10014 . . . have taken some of the steam out of union century. This crippling of its power enhances expecta-

"Do you really think you need the whole You can't let off any steam because personal accounts by people like them­ day off, dear?" she asked me. you're not allowed to talk to the person selves how far the capitalist companies What is almost as bad is the constant sitting next to you. Anyway, that's will go to make themselves rich. stream of abuse that you have to take impossible~the calls are coming in too I · never even thought about writing from both the customers and the fast. anything till I wrote about the telephone supervisors. You're not allowed to I would come home after an eight-hour company, and I thought it probably answer back at obscene and cruel day so nervous and tense that I was often could never be put to use. There are Editors: I just got home and read the remarks. Company policy dictates that unable to eat, or sleep, or even sit down workers who can say what they mean far article by the telephone worker in the "all employees must answer sweetly and for hours. But I was better off than most better and eas1er than I can. May issue of the International Socialist pleasantly," even when you're close to of my co-workers. I didn't have to come My husband and I think the Militant Review and I had to write and tell you it crying. home to a family to take care of. At least and the International Socialist Review is so true! I quit Illinois Bell Telephone It's also hard to concentrate on what 60 percent of the women in my office had are fine papers. The articles are easy to Company a year ago because I couldn't the customer is saying when the children to care for, and 20 percent of my understand. We know the Militant and stand it any longer. Everything she supervisors roam up and down the aisles co-workers were the sole support of their the ISR are the only way we're going to said~the home visits, the chairs, frequently, shouting at the top of their families. get the truth about so many things. everything~is still going on. lungs, "Is everybody open (plugged into Sweatshop conditions have not been Former telephone operator I was not an operator. I was a service the board to receive calls)? I see your eliminated from the twentieth century. Cincinnati, Ohio representative, a position that is light on! You, there! Sit up straight! Quit We need more working people to speak somewhat higher paying, but no less slouching!" out against the cruel and dangerous Editors: International Socialist Review degrading. I'm sure they would never treat men practices that we face every day. And readers wishing to obtain Walter The worst is the "absence. control workers in such a humiliating way. what's more, we need more people to do Rodney's How Europe Underdeveloped program." If a worker has been absent something to change those practices. Africa (reviewed in the May issue) will be "too much" (exactly how much seems to If you print this letter, I, too, would interested in knowing that it has been be completely arbitrary~ I saw them do it prefer to be anonymous. I'm still afraid of republished in hardbound edition by the to women who had been sick six times in Ma Bell. Howard University Press. The original six months), she is put on "Final A reader Tanzanian edition is out of print and hard Warning." That means she is not allowed Chicago, Illinois to find. to miss one single day or even come late Erich Martel for six months. If she does, she is fired. Washington, D.C. Recently an operator in a Manhattan Editors: I want to say how pleased I am office died on the board. She had a heart that you used my paper· [the article "To attack. She was too afraid to ask for a Myself, So I'll Never Forget~A Tele­ day !)ff because she was on Final phone Operator Speaks Out" in the May This column is open to all viewpoints Warning. International Socialist Review). on subjects of interest to our readers. When I asked for a day off because I I wish that people who quit jobs, or are Please keep your letters brief. Where was getting married, my supervisor, after laid off, or otherwise have the time would necessary they will be abridged. Please congratulating me, asked if I could come write about their jobs. It's no fun to do, indicate if your name may be used or if in in the afternoon, after the ceremony. but maybe others would see by these you prefer initials instead.

16 (PAGE 7/INTERNATIONAL SOCIALIST REVIEW) Portugal One Year After the Coup What Is the Armed rorees •ovem.ant!

the bookstalls. By Gus Horowitz The election campaign of the LCI, sympathizing organization of the . Fourth Iri'ternational, affords an exam­ The tremendous political ferment ple. Despite the small size of the LCI, going on in Portugal is revealed in they were able to gather the 5,000 many ways. signatures necessary to win a place on There are, for example, the apprehen­ the ballot, and they held rallies of up to sions voiced in Washington. There is 3,000 people. talk of the danger that Portugal will The process of radicalization has also leave NATO, or that a Soviet naval been deep among the potential allies of base may be established there-even the working class, including soldiers, talk of a "red take-over" backed up with farmers, students, and women. Moscow gold. Henry Kissinger has All in all, these developments show predicted, according to the April 18 that there has been a very exceptional New York Times, "that by next year rise in the class struggle in Portugal. Portugal will be a Communist nation or The fact that this has all come about in a neutralist nation under heavy Com­ only one year since the fall of the munist influence." Salazarist dictatorship-a dictatorship Another sign of the depth of ferment of fifty years' duration under which the is the fact that all the major parties Portuguese workers movement was find it necessary to talk about socialism suppressed and fragmented-is new being on the agenda-not only the testimony to the revolutionary potential small radical groups, but major forces of the working class. like the Socialist party, the Communist The Portuguese capitalist class has party, the People's Democratic party, not been able to stabilize the economic and the Movimento das Forcas Arma­ situation as it had hoped after the fall das (MF A-Armed Forces Movement). of the dictatorship. Inflation is running Even the People's Monarchist party about 35 percent a year. Unemployment _ says it is for socialism. stands at 300,000, or more than 8 The political situation is also reflect­ percent, and has been rising with the ed in the measures that the capitalist return of Portuguese immigrant work­ government has taken. On March 14 ers in other European countries who the Portuguese-owned banks were na­ have been laid off as a result of the tionalized; on March 15 the Portuguese­ generalized depr

' 17 (INTERNATIONAL SOCIALIST REVIEW! PAGE 8)

oriented to integration into the Europe­ against the guerrillas in Portugal's for postponing elections to a constituent ate much more openly, rallying around an Common Market, where 65 percent African territories will continue as long assembly and instead holding presiden­ the figure of Spinola and waging a of Portuguese exports were. now going. as they refuse a political settlement. It tial elections right away, in an attempt witch-hunt campaign against the Com­ This orientation required moderniza­ is our intention to continue fighting." to build up a strong rightist regime munist party. This rightist offensive tion of the economy and relaxation of But· the class upsurge unleashed by around Spinola. was scheduled to culminate in a big dictatorial rule. the overthrow of the dictatorship upset But this move was rebuffed within rally of the "silent majority" on Sep­ In addition, they had to take account these plans. The junta had to call the the government, and a new regime was tember 28 in Lisbon. of growing ferment in the working class Socialist and Communist parties into formed, which adopted a more reformist and widespread opposition among the the new government to try to contain posture. Since many of the old-line masses to the colonial wars. Draft the upsurge and sell its policies to the senior officers resisted this policy, it The rightist offensive was correctly avoidance had reached about 50 per­ African liberation fighters. This the CP was necessary for the ruling class to perceived by the workers as a threat, cent, with more than 100,000 youth and SP were gladly willing to do. rely more on the MFA. Several MFA and in the face of inaction by the MFA­ leaving the country to escape. In the first weeks after the fall of the leaders came into the new government, dominated government, the workers This was the situation that led the dictatorship there was a huge workers' including ex-colonel Vasco Gonc;alves themselves took steps to counter it. The dominant sectors of the Portuguese upsurge-strikes, factory occU:pations, as prime minister. rightist mobilization was also a threat ruling class to view the coup of April 25 removal of the hated administrators of This governmental change, reflecting to the CP, prompting the Stalinists to with favor. Their goal was to grant the old regime, growth of the workers differences over tactics in th~ ruling take some steps to back the workers' some concessions to the workers but to organizations. Through these struggles class, was accompanied by some con­ mobilization against the rightists. contain the mass moveme~ts that the workers were able to win many cessions in regard to the African The Intersindical and the workers would surely come in the aftermath and wage gains, though not as high as they colonies. An accord on independence for commissions called on the masses to to move slowly toward indirect domina­ had demanded, and in spite of the Guinea-Bissau was signed in August, take to the streets and block the right­ tion of the colonies. treachery of the CP, which backed and one on Mozambique in September. wing rally. The response was terrific. The coup itself was organized by the. away from its original wage demands. On the domestic scene, further moves There was a huge outpouring into the MFA, a group of about 200 mainly The CP's stance was spelled out by its were taken to put the government in a streets, barricades were set up, and the lower-level officers. Many of them had leader Alvaro Cunha! when he said, better position to carry out repression workers took control of the roads been involved in years of colonial war "The strike weapon is most efficient if it against the Portuguese workers. A leading into Lisbon. There were exam­ and had come to the conclusion that it isn't used too often." Maoist paper was suspended and fur­ ples of bus drivers and railway and was necessary to end the wars quickly. The CP consolidated its organization­ ther press controls were announced. A streetcar workers refusing to carry the Despite the MFA's policy differences al hold in the unions and used this draft labor law was proposed with rightist demonstrators. Typographers with the dictatorship, and despite a position to denounce and break strikes, limits on the right to strike. refused to print rally announcements vaguely populist or radical ideology on one after the other. Steps were taken to structure the for the rightists. There was fraterniza­ the part of some MFA officers, the MFA By early June of last year, the initial MFA more and give it a more perma­ tion between the soldiers and the was not a genuinely independent for­ workers' upsurge had died down sub­ nent status. This included the elevation masses. mation. The officers of the MFA com­ stantially, and the government began of some lower-ranking officers into As a result the right-wing mobiliza­ prised one wing of the Portuguese to prepare repressive legislation, insti­ higher posts. The pro-MFA military tion had to be called off and Spinola imperialist army. They did not even tuting some press censorship and tak­ apparatus was strengthened in the had to resign as president, to be have the goal of breaking completely ing moves against some of the smaller Lisbon area through the formation of replaced by Costa Gomes. with the reactionary senior officers. radical groups. But these were basically the Continental Operational Command, In that critical situation, according to Thus the initial coup of April 25, probes; conditions were not favorable the COPCON, under ex-major Otelo an on-the-scene report by Interconti­ 1974, brought into the key junta posts for a full-scale assault on the working Saraiva de Carvalho, a leading figure nental Press correspondent A. Romero, various top-level officers, who had been class as a whole. of the MFA. the workers "acted both in advance of and independently of the MFA and the provisional government, and paid more attention to the instructions of the CP and the Intersindical than to those of the military." Of course, as in Chile, the rightist threat was also a danger to some of the military officers of the MFA who favored a more reformist course. They did act-but slowly, and more out of concern for heading off the mass movement than the rightist demonstra­ tion. This was expressed quite clearly by Saraivo de Carvalho, the commander of COPCON, who explained what the MFA did in that crisis and what its concern was in deploying its forces in face of the rightist threat. Here's what he said: "I ordered the police removed and replaced by military forces. . . . I had complete confidence in what I was doing.... I knew that I was not really fighting against General Spinola. My intention was never that. . . . My intention was to solve the problem that had arisen, the problem of the barricades. . . . "We were bypassed by the people. This process was extremely dangerous in my opinion.... It is impermissible that the people's forces ... came to somewhat critical of the Salazarist Although the workers' struggle in The stated purpose of COPCON was take over a task that belonged to the dictatorship-men like General Spinola, Portugal died down for a while, there "to intervene directly, in support of forces of order. . .. who was former d!lputy chief of staff, was no such decline in the colonies. The civilian authorities and at their com­ "In the final analysis, these people's and Francisco da Costa Gomes, who African liberation fighters were encour­ mand, to maintain and reestablish brigades-and I thanked them- was former chief of staff and is presi­ aged by the overthrow of the dictator­ order"; that is, to be able to move . . . offered us effective help. I only dent of Portugal today. ship in Lisbon. Black troops in the against both the far right and the regret that because of a decision from What the ruling class undoubtedly Portuguese armies began to desert. The working class. But, in fact, COPCON above we did not head off the formation had in mind was for Spinola to play a Portuguese soldiers were less willing to began to be used primarily to break of these brigades." role somewhat like that of de Gaulle in fight, and a crisis in the imperialist strikes and small leftist demonstra­ But the workers trusted in the leader­ France at the end of the Algerian war. army was clearly brewing. Demonstra­ tions. ship of the Communist party, and the As the New York Times put it, he was tions in Lisbon against the colonial CP was largely successful in diverting to be "a man of the right who can effect wars were gaining increasing sympa­ the workers into support for the MFA a disengagement from colonial ties thy among the Portuguese masses. Thus we see the current strategy of and the MFA-dominated capitalist gov­ without causing political chaos or In this situation, divisions broke out the MFA-led government: opposition to ernment. beginning a civil war." in the ruling circles over how to an immediate, strong move back to the After the September events there was The. Portuguese ruling class wanted a proceed. The rightist forces, represent­ far right, accompanied by social dema­ a new rise in the combativity of the strong man in power to do this in a ing sections of the ruling class most gogy to appeal to the workers. But workers, which became particularly stable way. But Portuguese imperialism affected by the changeover to indirect behind this is masked a goal of holding strong around mid-December. The MFA is much weaker than French imperial­ colonial domination, felt the situation on to capitalist rule and restoring order: took on a more demagogic, leftist ism, and things worked out differently. was favorable to putting in a much probing, preparing for, and beginning posture. In January the accords were The initial statements from the junta stronger government, stepping up the some repressive measures against the signed on Angola, setting a future date warned the workers about any "actions domestic repression, and giving very working class. for independence. The capitalist govern­ not receiving prior sanction from the few concessions to the African libera­ In September the far right wing made ment's reliance on the CP was strength­ state power that it has taken into its tion fighters. another move. They were particularly ened, and a trade-union law was passed hands and exercises." And it warned In July a government crisis developed, concerned over the possibility of decolo­ banning the formation of rival union the African liberation fighters to accept over how to proceed. Prime Minister nization in Angola, the richest of formations outside of the CP-controlled Lisbon's limited concessions. As Costa Adelino Palma Carlos, speaking for the Lisbon's African colonies. Right-wing Intersindical. Gomes said, "The armed struggle Spinola wing of the government, called and fascist-type groups began to oper- To try to overcome the economic

18 (PAGE 9/INTERNATIONAL SOCIALIST REVIEW)

cns1s, the government planned to vers of the soldiers' and sailors' coun­ ists have attacked the MFA. tion on the nationalization of industry."' increase state control over sectors of the cils which played such a great role in This attitude was expressed in the The Communist party's policy can economy, including some expansion of the 1905 and 1917 revolutions in Rus­ December 13, 1974, issue of Tempo lead the Portuguese working class into state-owned enterprises. The purpose sia." Economico, a major capitalist economic a terrible tragedy, for it can disarm the was to introduce some direction over Actually, the MFA assembly is quite review, which states that the "tradition­ workers in face of the future danger of a the functioning of the capitalist econo­ the opposite of the soviets, the demo­ al alternatives" (meaning parliamen~ major violent repressive attack by the my as a whole for the benefit of the cratic mas~ organizations of the Rus­ tary government) are "inappropriate to ruling class. major decisive sections of the capital­ sian Revolution. It is essentially a body the gravity of the present situation," Last October, CP leader Cunhal ists. of officers, with a few token rank-and­ because when there are many political proundly boasted: "The Communist And finally, steps were taken to place file soldiers. The main function of the parties having their say, "incompatible party has no arms. But in Portugal greater formal authority into the hands MFA assembly is to transmit the direc­ objectives proliferate," and this "sharp­ there are arms to defend the democratic of the MFA, as opposed to moving tives of the smaller executive body of ens class conflicts." Thus, the article revolution, and there must be such quickly and exclusively toward a parlia­ the MFA-the Revolutionary Council­ concludes, "the role of the [MFA] is es­ arms to defend the democratic revolu­ mentary system. down to the lower levels of the a'r'meci sentia~." It is "the major homogenizing tion. These arms are in good hands, in forces. factor in the Portuguese social system." the hands of the Movimento das Forcas n March the forces around Spinola It is precisely workers, soldiers, and Armadas. Our people do not need arms J In other words, the Portuguese ruling tried their latest attempt at a coup. It peasants councils (or soviets), con­ to defend the democratic revolution in class is compelled to have in power a was a complete fiasco. As in September, trolled democratically from below, that our country under the present condi­ sort of judge-arbiter, appearing to stand the:rightist attempt was met by amaas are lacking on a generalized scale in tions." above the classes and capable of acting mobilization of the workers, but this Portugal and that are necessary to How reminiscent of Chile! And the with decisiveness both to regulate the mobilization was even greater than the defend the gains the masses have made lesson of what happened in Chile internal affairs of the capitalist class previous one. and to carry the struggle forward to indicates the danger that exists in and to contain and repress the workers Spinola was able to count on far establish a socialist Portugal. Portugal. movement-acting in the last analysis · fewer points of support in the army · In response to the MFA's call for as the representative of the capitalist than he had judged. Sections of the unity behind its authority, the Trotsky­ class as a whole. In Marxist terminolo­ !bus, an important task before revo-. armed forces cameo~ against the coup; ists of the LCI have said: "It is on the gy this phenomenon is sometimes lutionists is to expose the counterrevolu­ in some cases the rank-and-file soldiers basis of the Wurkers Committees in the called "Bonapartism," after Napoleon tionary role of the Communist party in ousted their pro-Spinola officers. There factories, on the Soldiers Committees in Bonaparte, who fulfilled a similar Portugal and convince the workers· to were a few reports of soldiers distribut­ the barracks, that the united front of function, although in a much stronger look toward an alternative, genuinely ing arms to workers. Fraternization the working class that we are fighting way than the MFA can. revolutionary leadership. Many of the between rank-and-file soldiers and for and that all revolutionists, all The MFA, a capitalist instrument in tens of thousands of radicalizing work­ workers increased. workers, aspire to, will be built." - a radical-populist guise, has been aided ers who have only recently come- to Workers' occupations of factories and The LCI says that therefore, "~t is not considerably in performing its role by support the CP are not hardened offices also spread. The bank workers, the working class nor the soldiers that the Communist party. The CP has Stalinists and have on many occasions for example, occupied the banks, hung have to have confidence in the MFA," campaigned to channel the workers gravitated toward positions to the left big banners over them reading "The but rather, "those in the MFA who call into full and uncritical support of the of those put forward by the CP leader­ Bank Belongs to the People," and themselves socialists and revolutiona­ MFA. This fits in with the CP's basic ship. demanded nationalization. At one bank ries must have confidence in the work­ policy of holding )Jack the workers' In contrast to the Communist party, the workers had for months been going ers and the toilers and in their inde­ struggle in order to try to cement an revolutionists stress the need for class through the bank records on their own, pendent organizations." independence; that is, for the workers to gathering information to expose the alliance with sectors of the capitalist rely only on themselves and on their bank's economic sabotage and the links class. allies from among the poor, exploited, between the bank owners and the far ! he most farsighted sectors of the The February 20 Wall Street Journal Portuguese ruling class oppose a return and oppressed, rather than on the MFA right. This kind of development in the explained the role of the Portuguese to outright dictatorial rule and are Communist party quite clearly: "Some­ or any other representative of capitalist banks and insurance companies forced seeking ways to construct a stable interests. the government to nationalize them-a times [CP leader] Mr. Cunhal sounds so Of course, under pressure of the class step the ruling class had not planned. parliamentary form of government. But moderate that you have to recheck his they cannot accomplish this immediate­ history to make sure he doesn't belong struggle, some lower-level officers may But in these cases the MFA moved to ly, and they see the need to put up with to some middle-class party. He talks of break with the ruling class and com~ head off workers' control ~d put its the MFA as the most viable instrument · over to the side of the working class. own trusted people in charge. seeing a place for private enterprise in of maintaining their rule at the present Portugal's future. He discourages But if they do so, they will have to The MFA also moved to take greater time. This is the case despite the left break with the MFA, which is on the political power into its hands, demand­ strikes, mutes any criticism of NATO, rhetoric and antimonopoly demagogy avoids vitriolic propaganda and ex­ capitalist side of the class line. ing that the major political parties sign of MFA figures, and despite the fact Revolutionists must find ways to a pact prior to the elections that gave tends a hand toward America. More­ expose the MFA and help dispel the the MFA veto power over the election of that many spokesmen for the capital- over, he doesn't take a dogmatic posi- illusions that the workers have in it. the president, guaranteed it control over This can be done, not through abstract the key ministries of defense, the denunciations of the MFA, but through interior, and economic planning, and raising slogans and demands appropri­ _ensured that for three to five years the ate to the situation, such as: rejection of MFA high council would have veto the MFA pact; construction of rank­ power over legislation. and-file soldiers committees; and a The purpose of this pact, according to workers government based on the mass the MFA, was to initiate "the first organizations of the working class and phase of the transition to socialism." the poor farmers, as opposed to the But in this phase, the necessity was present government, which is dominat­ stressed to maintain "democratic and ed by procapitalist forces like the MFA. revolutionary order," and those who An instructive parallel to the situa­ opposed the pact from the left were tion in Portugal today is the situation immediately denounced by President in Russia following the overthrow of Costa Gomes as having "gotten drunk on freedom and are abusing it." the tsar in February 1917. There too the To better popularize its image in the masses were deceived for a time into context of radicalization in the army, thinking that the capitalist provisional the MFA tops reorganized the MFA governments that replaced the tsar general assembly, increasing its size to represented the revolutionary aspira­ · 240 members (160 officers, 40 sergeants, tions of the workers and peasants. and 40 privates, divided between the What w:1s required was the construc­ army, navy, and air force). tion of a mass revolutionary socialist The Aprilll issue of the Daily World, party, the Bolshevik party, capable of newspaper of the Communist party leading the workers forward to the LCI poster calls for workers government. Both Trotskyist groups, LCI and PRT, have overthrow of capitalist rule and the USA, stated that "in certain respects, urged workers, soldiers, and poor farmers to have no confidence in MFA and to build creation of a workers state. [the MFA assembly] reminded obser- . their own mass organizations.

·19 (INTERNATIONAL SOCIALIST REVIE.WI PAGE 10)

In Portugal, the way forward is emergency wage increases; for a price neighborhoods. Such demands point in the direction indicated by the various demands that freeze regulated by the workers; for Demands to mobilize the rank-and­ of uniting the working class; of develop­ have been raised by the Trotskyist minimum-wage compensation for the file soldiers. For immediate and total ing and extending organized forms that groups there, the LCI and the PRT. The unemployed; for nationalization of all withdrawal from Africa; for withdrawal can become soviet-type institutions of following demands have been raised at industries that threaten to shut down or from NATO; abrogate the Iberian Pact workers power; of deepening and ex­ one time or another by one or both of lay off workers; extend the present linking Portugal with Spain; get rid of tending the alliance between the work­ the groups. This is not a complete list of nationalizations to foreign-owned enter­ the reactionary officers-give them ers, the farmers, the soldiers, and the their demands, but it does indicate prises; nationalization without compen­ public trials and imprison them; spread other allies of the proletariat; and of some of the burning tasks of the hour, sation and under . workers' control; the rank-and-file assemblies of soldiers preparing the workers to defend them­ as seen by revolutionists in Portugal. spread and consolidate the forms of and sailors; elect the officers; link up selves against attempts to reverse the Demands against government restric­ workers' control that already exist in a the soldiers' and sailors' committees gains made and attempts to reverse the tions on democratic r~ghts. For the number of factories; for a state monopo­ with the workers and farmers. direction of the revolutionary upsurge. right of assembly; for the full right of ly of foreign trade; for an economic plan Demands pointing toward workers . We can make no predictions about the trade-union and political organization; drawn up by the mass workers organi­ governmental power. For rank-and-file outcome in Portugal, but this is the only for the unimpeded right to strike; for zations. committees of the exploited sectors of type of program around which it is the right to demonstrate; full freedom Demands pointing toward workers the population at all levels and with full possible to construct a mass revolution­ for the workers' press-lift the ban on self-defense. For a workers united front freedom for all workers parties; for a ary Marxist party capable of leading the Maois_t press; dissolve the riot against reaction; for united self-defense, national assembly of workers commit­ the struggle to a successful conclusion. police. organized through the mass organiza­ tees; reject the pact of the MFA; for a Demands on the economic front. For tions of the workers-on the job, in the workers government.

Freedom of the Pnss aDd the Worklnl Glass BJ Leon !rotskJ The article printed below, dated no, the ultimate consequences will be We have a living exampie of such a result of the ban on the reactionary August 21, 1938, first appeared in the home primarily by the working class. dynamic before us in the detestable press the workers and peasants can free October 1938 issue of Clave, the maga­ Both theory and historical experience suppression of freedom of speech and of themselves from the influence of reac­ zine of the Spanish-speaking sections of testify that any restriction of democra­ the press that is now the rule in the tionary ideas. In reality, only the the Fourth International, published in cy in bourgeois society is, in the final Soviet Union. This has nothing to do greatest freedom of speech, of the press, Mexico City. It has special relevance to anaiysis, invariably directed against with the interests of the dictator,ship of and of association can create favorable the events now taking place in Portu­ the proletariat, just as any taxes that the proletariat. To the contrary, it is conditions for the advance of the gal. are imposed also fall on the shoulders designed to protect the interests of the revolutionary movement of the working of the working class. Bourgeois democ­ new governing caste from the worker class. On May 19 the Portuguese Commu­ racy is of use to the proletariat only and peasant opposition. That very It is essential to wage a relentless nist party mobilized workers to shut insofar as it opens up the way for the bonapartist bureaucracy in Moscow is struggle against the reactionary press. down the Socialist party newspaper, development of the class struggle. now being aped by Mr. Lombardo But workers cannot let the repressive Republica. This and ·other restrictions Consequently, any working-class "lead­ Toledano and Company, who equate fist of the bourgeois state substitute for on the press by the ruling Armed Forces er" who arms the bourgeois state with their personal careers with the interests the struggle that they must wage Movement, supported by the Commu­ special means for controlling public of socialism. through their own organizations and nist party, have posed acutely the ques­ opinion in general and the press in their own press. Today the state may tion of freedom of expression. particular is, precisely, a traitor. In the _appear to be "kindly" disposed to the The issue has also come to the fore in last analysis, the sharpening of the workers organizations; tomorrow the . Peru, where the military. government class struggle will impel the bourgeoisie ! he real tasks of the workers state lie government may fall, inevitably will has silenced the right-wing press and of every stripe to reach an agreement not in clamping a police gag on public fall, into the hands of the most reaction­ has sought support from the workers among themselves; they will then pass opinion but rather in freeing it from the ary elements of the bourgeoisie. In that movement for such restrictions by the special laws, all sorts of restrictive yoke of capital. This can be done only case, whatever restrictive legislation capitalist government. measures, and all kinds of "democratic" by placing the means of production, that exists will be thrown at the Leon Trotsky wrote this article while censorship against the working class. including the production of public workers. Only adventurers with no in exile in Mexico, where the Commu­ Anyone who has not yet understood information, in the hands of society as thought other than for the needs of the nist. party was a powerful force, just this -ahould get out of the ranks of the a whole. Once this fundamental social­ moment would fail to heed such a as the CP is in Portugal today. The working class. ist step has been taken, all currents of danger. Mexican CP controlled the CTM (Mexi­ "But at times," some "friends" of the public opinion that have not taken up The most effective way to combat the can Confederation of Workers), the USSR will object, "the dictatorship of arms against the dictatorship of the bourgeois press is to expand the major trade-union federation. And it the proletariat is forced to resort to proletariat must be given the opportuni­ working-class press. Of course, yellow had influence over the head of the special measures, particularly against ty to express themselves freely. It is the journals of El Popular's ilk are incap­ CTM, Vicente Lombardo Toledano, the reactionary press." duty of the workers state to make able of taking up such a task. Such who was also the editor of the CTM's "This objection," we reply, "comes available to them all, in proportion to sheets have no place among the work­ newspaper, El Popular. down primarily to trying to identify a their numbers, the technical means ers' press, the revolutionary press, or This article appeared without a signa­ workers state with a bourgeoi~ state. they may require, such as presses, even the reputable democratic press. El ture, and it could not be positively Even though Mexico is a semicolonial paper, and transport. One of the main Popular serves the personal ambitions identified as Trotsky's until the original country, it is also a bourgeois state, and causes of the degeneration of the state of Mr. Lombardo Toledano, who in tum manuscript was examined in the Trot­ in no way a workers state. However, apparatus is the Stalinist bureaucracy's serves the Stalinist bureaucracy. Its sky Archives at the Harvard College even from the standpoint of the inter­ monopolization of the press, which methods-lies, slander, witch-hunt cam­ Library. ests of the dictatorship of the proletari­ threatens to reduce all the gains of the paigns, and falsification-are also To­ This translation by Gerry Foley from at, banning bourgeois newspapers or October Revolution to utter ruin. ledano's methods. His newspaper has the Spanish is printed by permission of censoring them does not in the least If we were to go looking for examples neither program nor ideas. Obviously Pathfinder Press, Inc., from the forth­ constitute a 'program,' or a 'principle,' of the Comintem's fatal influence on such a sheet can never strike a respon­ coming volume Writings of Leon Trot­ or an ideal setup. Measures of this kind the workers movements in various sive chord in the working class or win sky (1937-38), second edition (1976). can only be a temporary, unavoidable countries, the present campaign by the proletariat away from the bourgeois Copyright © 1976 by Pathfirukr Press, evil." Lombardo Toledano would provide one papers. Inc. All rights reserved. Once at the helm, the proletariat may of the oddest. Toledano and his fellow So, we come to the unavoidable find itself forced, for a certain time, to doctrinaires are trying essentially to conclusion that the fight against the take special measures against the introduce into a bourgeois-democratic bourgeois press starts with throwing Acampaign against the reactionary bourgeoisie, if the bourgeoisie assumes system means and methods that might out the degen~rate "leaders" of the press is underway in Mexico. The an !lttitude of open rebellion against the in certain temporary conditions prove working-class organizations, in particu­ - attack is being directed by the CTM workers state. In that case, restricting unavoidable under a dictatorship of the lar with freeing the workers' press from leaders, . or, more precisely, by Mr. freedom of the press goes hand in hand proletariat. What is more, they are not the tutelage of Lombardo Toledano and Lombardo Toledano personally. The with all the other measures employed in really borrowing these methods from other bourgeois place seekers. The objective is to "curb" the reactionary waging a civil war. Naturally, if you the dictatorship of the proletariat but Mexican proletariat has to have im press, either by placing it under a , are forced to use artillery and planes rather from its bonapartist usurpers. In honest newspaper to express its needs, democratic censorship or banning it against the enemy, you cannot permit other words, they are infecting an defend its interests, broaden its horizon, altogether. The trade unions have been this same enemy to maintain his own already ailing bourgeois democracy and prepare the way for the socialist mobilized for war. The incurable demo­ centers of news and propaganda within with the virus of the decaying Stalinist revolution in Mexico. This is what cr~ts. corrupted by their experience the armed camp of the proletariat. bureaucracy. Clave proposes to do. So, we are with a Stalinized Moscow· and headed Nonetheless, in this instance, too, if the Mexico's anemic- democracy faces a starting out be declaring an unrelent­ by "friends" of the GPU [Soviet secret special measures are extended until constant and deadly threat from two ing war against Toledano's wretched police], have hailed this campaign, they become an enduring pattern, they directions-first from foreign imperial-­ bonapartist pretentions. And in this which cannot be regarded as anything in themselves carry the danger of ism and second from the agents of effol't we are looking forward to the but suicidal. In fact, it is not difficult to getting out of hand and of the workers reaction within the country, who con­ support of all the advanced workers, foresee that even if this campaign bureaucracy gaining a political monop­ trol the publications with the widest Marxists, and genuine democrats. triumphs and leads to practical results oly that would be one of the sources of circulation. But only the blind or that suit the taste of Lombardo Toleda- its degeneration. feebleminded could think that as the

20 (PAGE 11/INTERNATIONAL SOCIALIST REVIEW) 'We're .Just Coming Over the Bill' Summing Up Willie •ae Bald Campaign Against 'Boss' Baler dent party. the overall primary vote, winning the and ran on a program providing specif­ By Elizabeth Stone Another important factor was the Democratic nomination. ic solutions to the problems of working strong sentiment in Chicago's large Needless to say, this whole sequence people. Black community for a Black mayor of events left those who had hopes for a Again and again, Reid would point and the fact that Willie Mae Reid was Black mayor feeling discouraged. Only out that while the capitalist politicians • asses of Americans are disillu­ the only Black candidate to appear on slightly more than 40 percent of the have no solutions to the problems of sioned with the politicians of the the ballot in the general election. registered Black voters bothered to go unemployment, inflation, bad schools, Republican and Democratic parties. A In the months leading up to the to the polls. police brutality, crirp.e, bad housing, recent Harris poll shows that more primaries there was much discussion in There was also disillusionment with and other social ills, the socialists do. people now consider themselves "inde­ the Black community about the possi­ the program of the Democratic and "We need deepgoing solutions to deep­ pendents" than see themselves as bility of electing a Black mayor in Republican party contenders. None of going problems," she would say, and supporters of either of those two parties. Chicago. There was speculation that the candidates ran on programs offer­ then she would explain her proposals: Lack of confidence in Democratic and Daley would not· run for an unprece­ ing real solutions to working peoples' Create jobs by using the $100 billion Republican politicians has led to record­ dented sixth term because of his age, problems. All of them conducted their defense budget for a public works low voter turnouts. It has also been failing health, and exposures of corrup­ campaigns in a manner typical of program to build schools, housing, and reflected in an upturn of interest in tion in his inner circle. capitalist politicians, putting personal public transportation. End the cutbacks socialist candidates. The Committee for a Black Mayor, a ambitions ahead of principle. in social services. Shorten the work­ Socialists are now able to talk with group of prominent Black ministers, Singer, confident of liberal backing, week with no cut in pay to spread the more people, get a more serious hearing, business people, labor leaders, and .swung to the right in an-attempt to pick available work. and gain more support than before. An others was formed to select a candidate up conservative votes. He joined Reid campaign supporters went example of this was the recent cam­ and raise money for a bid for the Hanrahan-who had ordered the 1969 throughout the city with their sound paign of Willie Mae Reid, Socialist Democratic nomination. Meanwhile, police attack that resulted in the deaths truck and talked to people about her Workers party candidate for mayor of five Blacks, including three Democrats, of Black Panther party leaders Fred program. When General Electric laid off Chicago. The Reid campaign was one Republican, and Willie Mae Reid, Hampton and Mark Clark-in claiming the entire third shift at its big plant in qualitatively bigger and more effective announced they were running. that "crime" was the big issue. Singer's nearby Hawthorne, lllinois, she went to tha~ previous Socialist Workers party The Committee for a Black Mayor answer to street crime WllB' that of the the plant and talked with the workers campaigns in lllinois. decided to urge Democratic Congress­ "law and order" liberal, with proposals about the situation. Campaign support­ Although the commercial media, as man Ralph Metcalfe to run. Metcalfe, a for more cops. ers went to unemployment lines and usual, discriminated against the social­ longtime machine stalwart who had in Hanrahan, figuring he had the racist welfare offices to distribute literature ists, the Reid campaign got more recent years taken his distance from "law and order" vote in his pocket, tried and to talk with jobless workers. coverage than previous socialist cam­ Daley, considered entering the race. to give the appearance of moving a Reid gained a reputation as someone paigns. DOzens of articles on the campaign appeared in the newspapers, with some Black papers giving esp~al­ ly. good coverage. Reid was on radio and television .talk shows or feature interviews for a total of seventeen hours. During the last few weeks of the campaign, hardly a day went by without some media coverage of campaign activities or statements. Campaign supporters passed out more than 100,000 pieces of campaign literature. "Reid for Mayor" posters were pasted up in many neighborhoods. Reid spoke to numerous organized meetings, forums, and rallies and also campaigned on unemployment lines, at plant gates, on street comers, and at high schools and campuses. Prior to the February primaries, she took part in debates with the Democrat­ ic and Republican contenders (except · for Daley) on five separate occasions. What all this meant was that large numbers of people who had never heard a socialist before, who had never been able to listen to a candidate with a program for solving problems of work­ ing people, became familiar with social­ ist ideas. In addition, people not previously part of the socialist movement became supporters of Reid's campaign and pitched in to build various campaign activities. Their efforts brought out 16,693 people to vote for Willie Mae Reid on election day. (At least that's When it became clear that Daley was little to the left, speaking out for "equal­ who did not mince words, who was how many votes "Boss" Daley's elec­ running, Metcalfe bowed out, claiming opportunity hiring" in the police depart­ unafraid to tell the truth about this tion board credited her with. The real the Committee for a Black Mayor had ment. society. The contrast between her atti­ vote was undoubtedly higher.) In the not raised a big enough war chest. Newhouse did not have much of a tude and that of Newhouse and Singer majority-Black wards of the city, Reid Metcalfe knew that with Daley run­ program at all. His opposition to the was reflected in their different ap­ was credited with 5.2 percent of the ning, the big business interests would Equal Rights Amendment cost him the proaches to Hanrahan. Newhouse and vote. support the mayor. support of many, although he switched Singer always avoided raising the One of the most important factors in By the time of the primaries, the one . his position to support for the ERA at obvious fact that here was a man with the success of the campaign was Reid's Black Republican and all the Black the last minute. a brutal, racist murder on his hands. achievement of ballot status, despite Democrats, with the exception of State Again and again Reid was applauded the highly restrictive, undemocratic Sen. Richard Newhouse, had dropped at candidates' meetings as she attacked election laws. Supporters of the socialist out. This left Newhouse, liberal Alder­ Reid's campaign, her program, her this hypocrisy and said it was an insult candidate collected more than 60,000 man William Singer, and former state's approach, everything she stood for, was to all Black people to have a man like signatures on nominating petitions, attorney Edward Hanrahan running the opposite of that of the capitalist Hanrahan come around asking for their and Reid became the first mayoral against Daley in the Democratic pri­ politicians. vote. candidate in forty years to meet the mary. The Black vote was split mostly She announced from the beginning Reid's militancy and the strength of stringent requirements for an indepen- between Singer, who got 31 percent in that she was running independently of; her conviction come from her life the city's fifteen predominantly Black and in opposition to, the Republican experience. Growing up in Memphis, Elizabeth Stone was on the staff of wards, Newhouse, who got 20 percent, and Democratic parties. Her campaign Tennessee, and living most of her adult· the_Willie Mae Reid campaign commit­ and Daley, who got 47 percent: was not designed to win acceptance life in Chicago, she became convinced tee in _the Chicago mayoral race. She is Although it was the first time ever among the business interests that call that Black people and working people a National Committee member of the that Daley did not win a majority of the the shots in the capitalist parties. She must organize themselves independent­ Socialist Workers party. Black vote, he garnered 58 percent of championed the rights of the oppressed ly if change is to come.

21 (INTERNATIONAL SOCIALIST REVlEW! PAGE 12)

Reid's campaign was different in headlines exposed one or another lurid showing for the mayor and to boost his and apparatus. Singer received more another way. She not only emphasized caper by Daley's "red squad." One of national clout. Daley was also no doubt coverage in the CP's newspaper, the the need for working people to become these headlines concerned a revelation aware that the more voters brought out Daily World. involved in the political process, but she that Daley's police had been complicit by the machine, the harder it would be Mter the primary, the Daily World and her supporters actively backed the with a robbery carried out by a rightist for Reid to get 5 percent. With a was forced to admit that Daley was day-to-day struggles going on, such as group against the Socialist Workers patronage army of tens of thousands of able to win the votes of many working strikes and demonstrations. party's headquarters in 1969. people with city jobs, Daley turned out people in the Democratic primary By running this kind of campaign, by Reid immediately met with an assis­ 542,817 voters. because the so-called independent gaining ballot status, and by auda­ tant to the state's attorney and de­ It is significant that Willie Mae Reid candidates-Singer and Newhouse-did ciously challenging the politicians rep­ manded that all documents relating to got her highest vote totals in the areas not address themselves to the import­ resenting the status quo, the Willie this incident and other harassment be with the higher percentages of ant issues of jobs and racism. Mae Reid campaign helped provide an made public and that the culprits be . independent-minded voters. In the An official CP statement about the example for broader forces within the brought to justice. South Side's Fifth Ward, a majority­ election, quoted in the March 13 Daily Black and labor movements. In line with this, the Socialist Work­ Black ward with an antimachine tradi­ World, complained about Smger's rec­ Reid made. the point many times that ers party campaign committee asked tion, Willie Mae Reid received 14.5 ord in never exposing Daley's inaction if she could make the impact that she for an exemption from compliance with percent of the vote. This was also a on public works and jobs, and in made, with the relatively limited forces the Illinois disclosure act requiring that ward in which Reid did a lot of cam­ proposing tax-free bonds to subsidize behind her campaign, how much more names of campaign contributors be paigning. corporate profits and other tax breaks could be accomplished if broader forces turned over to the government. The As the election results showed, there to big business. in the Black community and labor campaign committee charged that this were many liberals who, either because All this was true about the CP's movement began to organize and run meant exposing these people to possible they had not heard of Willie Mae Reid favored candidate, and plenty more, but their own independent candidates. government harassment. .or because they were prejudiced against this did not bring the CP to conclude that they were wrong to support Singer. On the contrary, the Daily World touted Jn Chicago, the Republican party is the campaigns of the antimachine so weak that winning the Democratic Democrats as being truly "heroic." primary is often tantamount to being This policy was in line with the CP's elected. national perspective of supporting Dem­ No one thought the Republican nomi­ ocrats, but it appeared all the more nee, then-alderman John Hoellen, could treacherous in Chicago because of the beat Daley. Immediately after the vigorous alternative presented by Willie primary, newspaper headlines pro­ Mae Reid. claimed Daley's victory for another four years, and some papers carried news The Chicago mayor's race was an about plans for Daley's inauguration. example of the bankruptcy of capitalist Hoellen, after being defeated in his politics. It showed why it will take the bid to be reelected as alderman in the building of a mass party, organized in Forty-seventh Ward, threatened to with­ the interests of working people, to solve draw from the mayoral race: "If I can't our problems. be elected alderman of the Forty­ The significance of the Reid cam­ seventh Ward," he said, "it's impossible paign was that it was part of a for me to be elected mayor." beginning of the difficult but necessary Republican leaders exerted pressure process of building such a party. Even on Hoellen not to pull out. At one though the campaign was not on the meeting of Republican party chiefs, . scale of those of the candidates favored Illinois Attorney General William Scott by the moneyed interests, there was exhorted them to get behind Hoellen to -enough wind in the sails of Reid's protect the party's ballot status. Accord­ campaign to give a glimpse of the kind ing to the March 2 Chicago Tribune, of momentum that can develop as the Scott "warned that if the Republican present disillusionment with the capi­ Party does not have a viable mayoral talist politicians deepens. candidate who can get 5 percent of the It gave a glimpse of some of the gains April 1 vote, Republicans will cease to that can be expected in Chicago as the be a legal party in the second-largest Socialist Workers party turns to cam­ city in the nation, and the Socialist paigning for the SWP 1976 presidential Workers Party will be No. 2." ticket of Peter Camejo for president and Scott was referring to the fact that in Willie Mae Reid for vice-president. As a order to be on the ballot without having Elizabeth Stone result of the groundwork laid by the to petition in the next election, a party Willie Mae Reid at street meeting (above) and debating opponents Singer (left) and socialist mayoral campaign, the Social­ must get 5 percent of the vote. Hoellen Hanrahan before primary. ist Workers party will be opening up a was cajoled into running, but he had a second campaign headquarters on Chi­ hard time generating much interest in On election day, April 1, Daley was socialists, decided to cast their "pro­ cago's South Side. Peter Camejo and his campaign. He was not only politi­ credited with just under 78 percent of test" vote for Hoellen, despite his Willie Mae Reid will be touring the city cally reactionary, incompetent, and ill­ conservative stance. An especially neg­ the vote, Hoellen with about 20 percent, soon. financed, but also somewhat of a ative role was played by the Indepen­ and Willie Mae Reid, 2.4 percent. It is sometimes hard for peop.le who buffoon. In one desperate attempt to Although Reid did not get the 5 dent Voters of Illinois, an antimachine are used to looking at elections only in gain public attention he appeared at a percent of the vote that would have organization that was the base for terms of an immediate victory or loss to news conference with live snakes, assured a place on the ballot in future Singer's primary campaign and that understand why socialists would con­ saying that this was to draw attention elections, her supporters considered the has a lot of prestige in liberal circles. sider a campaign such as Reid's race to his plan to "drive the vipers out of nearly 17,000 votes she did receive very After Singer was defeated, the lVI for mayor a success. On the night of the city hall." encouraging. This was especially true announced that it was endorsing Hoell­ election, one reporter from the Daily Meanwhile, Willie Mae Reid stepped since there were no statewide elections en. According to the March 6 Chicago News marveled that Willie Mae Reid up her efforts to reach as many voters or ballot propositions and very few Sun-Times, lVI leader Lee Epstein said seemed to be such a "happy loser." He as possible with her program. An aldermanic runoffs on April 1. There­ they did this to "reaffirm !VI's belief in wrote, "For a party that was losing an article in the Chicago Weekend! a fore, most voters who pulled the lever the need for a two-party system in election, the Socialist Workers head­ Black-community newspaper, described for Reid came to the polls for the sol~ Chicago." quarters was a remarkably lively her efforts this way: purpose of voting for her. Actually, the people of Chicago need place." "While Democratic independents There was also evidence of the usual just the opposite-to break the political The atmosphere. at the headquarters nurse the wounds sustained in the Feb. vote stealing. Peggy Smith Martin, a monopoly of the two-party system. If was one of optimism. There were cheers 25 primary elections, while the Republi­ former state representative, called the Willie Mae Reid had been able to gain from campaign supporters as poll cans stumble along with a candidate Reid campaign headquarters on elec­ permanent ballot status, this would watchers arrived and announced pre­ who has admitted he would rather not tion day to report that she had seen have helped do just that. cinct vote totals as high as 20 percent run for mayor, one candidate is press­ money changing hands at her polling Even more scandalous than the !VI's in areas where the party had cam­ ing forward actively in an electoral place. Another woman called to say role was that of the Communist party. paigned heavily. assault on Mayor Richard J. Dal­ that Reid's name was not on' the The Communist party was approached Toward the end of the evening, after ey.... machine in her precinct. She was .repeatedly by Reid supporters, both Hoellen made his speech telling televi­ "Lacking the resources needed to outraged when election officials told her directly and by means of an "Open sion viewers he was going to retire from mount a 'modern' media blitz, Willie it didn't matter, since there were few Letter to the Communist Party and politics and "rid~ off into the political Reid's campaign is a truly grass roots Black people living in the area. Young Workers Liberation League" sunset," the TV channel switched to a effort. Appearances on high school and The voter turnout was the lowest in urging them to call for a vote for Reid very different kind of statement by college campuses are punctuated by forty years, with only 47 percent of on April 1. Willie Mae Reid, frequent streetcorner rallies, early those registered turning out. Although They refused. With a choice between "We may not be a household word," morning handshaking at factory gates, Daley received a high percentage ofthe the Democrat Daley, Republican Hoel­ she said, "but we reached more people and conversations with voters waiting vote-the press called it an overwhelm­ len, and a Black woman socialist, they than ever before. As we move into the on unemployment lines." ing victory-it wa:s his smallest vote chose to remain neutral. national campaign, we're going to build During the last several weeks of the total ever in a general election for Before the primaries, the strategy of on the start we made in Chicago." campaign, city hall was rocked by mayor. the Communist party was to support And she added, to cheers, "We are not "Daleygate," a series of exposures of a Despite the certainty that Daley the liberal antimachine candidates, riding into the sunset. We are just massive spy and harassment apparatus would win the election, the machine Singer and Newhouse. Of the two, they coming over the hill." created by Daley for use against his made an all-out effort to bring people to seemed more enthusiastic about Singer, political opponents. Day after day the polls to make an impressive last who had the greater financial backing

22 La Lucha Puertorriqueiia Jose·Perez

California belonged to the Mexicans ·A fire bombing in Boston before the white man and his sweet The recent attempted murder of five Puerto Rican at Elizabeth Cruzado's apartment, hit the plywood, talk and forked tongue robbed it from families in Boston got buried in police statistics as a covering it with burning gasoline. Cuba came to help them. "racial incident." It didn't even make the out-of-town Cruzado put out the fire and then ran out to get help. I am bitter, yes, but I'm willing to newspapers. But it is a blood-curdling illustration of She asked a neighbor who was already living in the fight. There is sweetness in everything, why Puerto Ricans have a life-and-death interest in building to call the fire department. He said, "fuck it," and the knowledge that the Militant is mobilizing to_ make sure the racist movement in and went into his apartment. . distributed to our brothers and sisters behind bars in the nation's prisons is a Boston doesn't succeed. Soon the bottles of gasoline were hitting windows good omen for the future. I want to On April 29, the five families tried to move into of all five apartments, and all the unboarded ones had contribute to the Prisoner Fund. I apartments in East Boston's Orient Heights housing been smashed. The women gathered with their enclose three dollars. Onward, and let project. They had been forced to leave their old children in Cuba's apartment, which had plywood on freedom ring. apartments in a Puerto Rican neighborhood because all the windows. S.C. fire had gutted them. What happened to the families is Then the front door was fire bombed and began to Los Angeles, California described by Dianne Dumanoski in the May 20 Boston burn. It had been the only way out. They were trapped. Phoenix. The women· struggled to put out the fire at the front Desperately looking for lodging they could afford, door as the room filled with smoke. Finally, they the Puerto Ricans contacted the Boston Housing succeeded. Shortly afterwards, the fire department and Killing two birds Authority to see if they had any vacancies. It turned the police arrived, preventing further attack. The A few months ago, after being sold a out the apartments they had available were in East women went back to their old neighborhood with their Militant, and then subscribing, I got Boston, a stronghold of the antibusing movement and children, returning the next day under police escort to interested in the campaigns of Stacey of the rabid anti-Black and anti-Puerto Rican hysteria retrieve their belongings. Seigle and John Studer here for that accompanies it. The cops say they are investigating the incident, but governor and Senate. I was recruited, Eneida Cuba, the mother of a sixteen-month-old have been unable to catch the would-be murderers. The at a campaign rally, to the Young baby, told reporters, "At first we refused to go, because cops can't be trying too hard, however, because the Socialist Alliance. we know it was bad. We know. Our friends got beat up Phoenix reporter had no trouble finding and interview- Now I'm selling the Militant myself. going there.... " ing the arsonists. · Of course, my sales are better when America Nazario was lucky. She and some friends I've read the paper first, and that's who were helping her move were driven away by the Most of those interviewed were unwilling to unambi­ why I'm writing. Our bundle arrives by plane on racists before she even got her furniture into the guously state that they had participated, but they Friday night or Saturday morning. My apartment. The others went through a horrifying knew all the details, down to the number of people in issue arrives through the mail later. If experience and at the end barely escaped with their the mob. And they justified the attack, saying: possible, I'd like to donate the lives. "I don't like living with spies. Nobody does." remainder of my subscription, about a It was a Tuesday night, and many of the teen-agers "They're pigs." year's worth, to the Prisoner Fund. living in the project had just come back from a "They multiply like rabbits." This way, I could get my copy on basketball game when they started to make trouble. "We're going to clean up the projects. Just like Saturday morning, while the sub I've The first thing that happened was that one of them Southie." already paid for would go to a good beat up a Puerto Rican man who had nothing to do Asked if he was worried about someone getting cause (as the letters from prisoners with the new tenants-he just happened to be in the killed, one replied: "I don't care. That's the breaks. published in the paper indicate). wrong place at the wrong time. Then, around 11:00 That's life in the big city." Kris Huget p.m., they started throwing molotov cocktails at the Another: "So they cook, they cook." It could have Portland, Oregon windows of the apartments. been Hitler talking about the Jews at Auschwitz. Because most of the apartments were not yet ready But it wasn't. It was young whites in "Eastie" [The Militant's special Prisoner for the new tenants, many of the windows were still repeating what they learned in .their segregated Fund makes it possible for us to send boarded up with plywood. The first fire bomb, thrown schools and their antibusing homes. complimentary or reduced-rate subscriptions to prisoners who can't pay for them. To help out, send your contribution to: Militant Prisoner Fund, 14 Charles Lane, New York, New York 10014.] Their Government Cindy Jaquith Native American memorial This letter is to ask your assistance in informing the public that we, Pte Ska 0-ya-te (White Buffalo People), a The gov't and the 1ree' press nonprofit American Indian awareness group, are in the process of compiling Although Watergate and Vietnam are "over," they Didn't the press understand that Nixon had graciously an eighteen-month pictorial calendar have had a permanent effect on the way journalists suspended the bombing for a whole thirty-six hours of early Native American religious· look at themselves and the country. This was brought during Christmas? scenes as a prelude to our Bicentennial home to me when I attended the Fourth A. J. Liebling The room went into an uproar at that, with noncelebration. Counter-Convention, held in New York May 8-11. Herschensohn helplessly pleading, "I don't think you The calendar, which will be The convention, named after press critic A. J. get the point." available in June, will be composed of Liebling, was sponsored by the monthly journalism "I don't think you get the point!" someone in the twenty photographs, each suitable for review [More]. About 1,000 people attended the various audience shouted back. framing, from the works of Edward S. Concern over the government's manipulation of the Curtis, pioneer photographer and sessions. They were reporters, free-lance writers, humanitarian. workers in publishing, journalism students, and oth­ media was also expressed at the panel on CIA spying. We are asking no set price for these ers. Much of the discussion turned on the problem of CIA calendars; any amount, no matter how Most participants were young and many were plants in the newsrooms of the major papers. modest, will be gratefully accepted and women. At some sessions the mood and appearance of This is a practice with which many newspaper acknowledged, as will all the crowd was like an antiwar conference or a publishers secretly collaborate, Stuart Loory, an Ohio correspondence. women's liberation gathering. State Uniyersity professor, pointed out. Loory noted by All proceeds will go toward erecting Although the .convention covered a wide range of way of example that when the Washington Star first a suitable memorial monument to all topics, from technical questions to political issues, disclosed the existence of CIA agents in the press, Native Americans. That is our goal. certain themes seemed to pop up everywhere: The lies virtually the entire rest of the media suppressed the Please print this letter so that your and deceptions practiced by the U.S. government; the story. readers will be aware of this project. role of the press in disseminating those lies; the war in Richard Colbenson Vietnam; the conflict between reporter and publisher. Of course, sometimes the intervention of the govern­ Pte Ska 0-ya-te The sharpest expression of disgust with the govern­ ment into the editorial rooms is quite a bit more direct. 411 Stanford Road ment came at the Saturday night panel on "Self­ New York Times reporter Seymour Hersh told the Grand Forks, North Dakota 58201 Censorship," to which the convention organizers had session that Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, who invited Bruce Herschensohn, one of Richard Nixon's recently had lunch at the Times, had complained old PR men. bitterly about the paper's coverage of the CIA For the audience, the experience was a sort of The letters column is an open involvement in the Chile coup. catharsis, an opportunity to do a little of the heckling forum for all viewpoints on sub­ Kissinger, Hersh recounted, said the Chile scandal jects of general interest to our that is so tempting at a White House news conference, has made CIA operations in Portugal much more readers. Please keep your letters but definitely forbidden. difficult now. (In case you are wondering if the CIA is brief. Where necessary they will So when Herschensohn launched into a defense of in the "destabilizing" business in Portugal, now you be abridged. Please indicate if the Nixon Vietnam War policy, the crowd had its know.) your name may be used or if you chance. He reached his peak of absurdity when he Interesting discussions also took place at the panels prefer that your initials be used tried to explain that the press should never have called on Indochina and Watergate. More about these instead. the 1972 carpet bombing the "Christmas bombing." discussions in a future column.

THE MILITANT/JUNE 6, 1975 23 The Great Society Harry Ring

And getting more 'stupid' every and jail terms. The ordinance, how­ being peddled to Holy Year pilgrims. day-" ... the free-enterprise system ever, does not specify whether the Purportedly part of the supply used to in this country is in mortal peril," protected public is limited to people or seal up the Holy Door of St. Peter's Jerome Hull, president of Pacific includes other animals as well. Basilica, the bricks are going for ·as Telephone, told the California Bankers much as eighty dollars. The Vatican Association. He said businessmen Like crazy, man!- urged Romans not to fleece the pil­ have allowed themselves to be painted "WASHINGTON-Sen. Jesse Helms grims. "as greedy profiteers, a sort of ruling (R-N.C.) stunned his Senate colleagues class that is responsible for most of the when he proposed that each member of ills and frustrations of our society." He Congress donate $1,000 to help finance Like Darwinian selection-Those said the people believe this because the Indochinese refugee resettle­ concerned about the health of people "they are stupid and naive about how ment. . . . The proposals sent senators living in Los Angeles can relax. our system works." scurrying to the floor for a vote, where Resea~chers established that area it was crushed by a margin of seventy­ residents have developed a resistance Double standard?-The' Stanfield, five to five."-News item. to pollution. They showed only half the Oregon, city council adopted an ordi­ lung function loss experienced by a nance prohibiting animals from hav­ Leave something for the group of imported Canadians giv~n ing sex in view of the public. Owners of collection-The Vatican decried the equal .amounts of ozone, a principal animals violating the law face fines brisk traffic in spurious holy bricks ingredient of smog. 'Send the marines-my job's missing' By Any Means Necessary Baxter Smith ROAR widens its enemies list BOSTON~"Communism. That's what it's all The women's testimony could result in penalties heavy anticommunist tone to it. The PLP, because about," a voice said from the back of the crowded against them. They, or ROAR, might also be added of the ultraleft and sectarian nature of its actions, is elevator. "They'll never get my kids. Never!" as defendants in the desegregation suit. Last a favorite of ROAR. But the real target goes far The voice came from a white woman who was December, Garrity forbade gatherings of three or beyond PLP; it includes all poliotical groups who talking aloud to no one in particular. She was hot more people within a hundred yards of the school have joined the movement to defend desegregation. because she'd just left a Boston courtroom where during school hours. The antibusing forces have already on one the racist antibusing forces had lost a round in the In the courtroom, Robert Dinsmore, the tigerish, occasion busted up a meeting favoring passage of school desegregation struggle. ruddy-faced lawyer for the two women, tried to the Equal Rights Amendment. Now they ~ppear to The woman had on a ROAR button. ROAR paint them-the architects of the campaign of be widening their enemies list. (Restore Our Alienated Rights) is Boston's largest violence against Black students-as latter-day Joan "Is this a backhanded slap at Mrs. Hicks?" antibusing group. of Arcs, who would roast on the stake rather than Dinsmore asked, pointing to the ROAR leader who Judge Arthur Garrity had just ordered two top submit to the tyranny of desegregated schools. sat between the two women. "If so then who is leaders of ROAR to testify about an early morning Dinsmore claimed that the racist mob was next?" demonstration outside South Boston High School showing its opposition to a Progressive Labor party on May 8. march into South Boston the previous Saturday and "These two women are like a little woman who On that morning 500 white parents had blocked to an incident in which a Black student had got on a bus in the South in 1955," Dinsmore said in the streets outside the school, preventing the unfurled a PLP flag inside the school the day before conclusion. "She was tired and refused to move to approach of buses carrying Black students. Three the mob gathered. the back of the bus and that started the civil rights hundred cops had to be summoned to clear an "They were taking it out on communism. That's movement. entrance. why the good people of South Boston were outside "Now we have two white women. They are not on The demonstration was called by the South their school that morning," he said. a bus but they are tired. And if someone tells them Boston Information Center, of which the two "Communism" is becoming a popular whipping to move to the rear, they are creating something." antibusing leaders, Virginia Sheehy and Rita boy of the antibusing forces. The rally they held the What! Rosa Parks?! Graul, are also officials. day after the May 17 desegregation march had a I nearly fell off my seat. National Picket Line Frank Lovell GE workers grapple.with layoffs The following guest column is by Herman workers reflects the depression conditions in North­ city government ought to put this valuable experi­ Kirsch, a member of the International Union eastern Ohio. Despite the graveyard whistling by ence to use with a massive public works program." of Electrical Workers Local 707, who was Washington politicians, who say the economy is Another suggestion was made, unsuccessfully, recently laid off. showing "signs of recovery," layoffs and plant that the negotiation committee be expanded to closings are mounting here. include rank-and-file members and that one of the CLEVELAND-At three o'clock one recent after­ IUE Local 707 had 2,200 members enrotled last demands of this enlarged committee be to get GE to noon, just before the close of the shift, forty-three year. Four hundred of them are now unemployed. open its books to the union and/ or the public for workers at Star Machine, a division of General Nationally, IUE has lost 40,000 members. That's inspection. Electric, were told that the company was "seriously one reason why the IUE was so active in organizing Another member cited a proposed bill in the state considering" closing the plant permanently. for the April 26 rally for "Jobs Now" in Washing­ legislature that would require corporations to give The prepared statement, read to the assembled ton, D.C. two years' notice before they could shut down a workers by the plant manager, allowed for no Some of the thinking of the union members was plant. questions or disC'Ilssion. expressed at the local's recent membership meeting, When the vice-president of the union, Helen The workers were shocked. A good percentage of unusual because of its large attendance and degree Brown, proposed that if everyone were to "buy these skilled workers had previously had jobs in of participation from the ranks. American" millions of jobs would be created, one plants that were "phased out," giving no considera­ In his report to the membership, local President member took the floor to object to this narrow tion to the employees, thinking only of protecting Joe Janor expressed the hopelessness many felt: "I concept. profits for the company coupon clippers. don't know when [the layoffs are] going to stop. In "The U.S. exports more commodities than any They knew from bitter experience that, if lucky, the last month I've been tied up with layoffs and other country. If every country would adopt this they could get another job, but at lower wages and nothing else. I can handle grievances and other thinking, millions more American workers would be with fewer fringe benefits. The gains won by their matters related to the contract. That is something I out of work. Besides, [the corporations] produce union were wiped .out. know how to handle. But this is something differ­ parts in every continent. We live in a world­ While punching out their time cards, one older ent." integrated economy. What's American?" man remarked, "It isn't too bad when you're young, Others had some suggestions. "The workers who To the many proposals and demands made at the but what does a man do when he reaches my age, will be 'phased out' at Star Machine have many meeting, Janor responded, "Maybe the whole fifty-three?" The retort from another behind him in years of experience, skill, and ability," said one system in this country is wrong. I don't know. The the line was, "Well, I'm twenty-two and it isn't any unionist. "If GE doesn't want to use these people, or system is beginning to destroy itself. It works when easier for me. How am I going to pay my debts?" the plant and machinery, why should it be allowed everyone is working, but now it has so many The hopelessness expressed by these stunned to deteriorate and rust away? The federal, state, or problems that it's mind boggling."

24 Meetings with Blacks, students On the campaign trail with Willie Mae Reid By Linda Jenness sponded to questions about the class SAN DIEGO-It was the fifth cam­ forces in society and the role of paign appearance of the day for Willie students in the revolutionary process. Mae Reid, Socialist Workers party As Reid left to attend yet another candidate for vice-president, as she meeting, members of NIA agreed that walked into the headquarters of NIA. the dialogue begun between the two NIA-the Swahili word meaning organizations should continue. The awareness-is a Black nationalist n:ext evening, at a Socialist Workers organization based in San Diego. Ron campaign rally, NIA sent a speaker to Karenga, a well-known Black national­ welcome Reid to San Diego on behalf ist who was recently released from of NIA and to participate in the rally. prison, is one of the leaders of the group and was present at the meeting University in turmoil with Reid. Earlier in the day, Reid had cam­ NIA invited Reid to discuss the paigned at the University of California program of the SWP. About twenty at San Diego (UCSD), where the members of the group were present. campus is in turmoil. The graduate Reid was visibly tired after a day students are fighting against cutbacks that had started early in the morning in funds, which would greatly in­ with a news conference. But after crease class sizes, and are demanding being introduced to the meeting, Reid an increase in student teachers' pay. -gave a short, snappy talk explaining More than 400 graduate students Militant/Arnold Weissberg the goals · of the socialist campaign. demonstrated the day before Reid SWP vice-presidential candidate Reid (right) has found much interest in socialism When she finished, the group ap­ arrived. The San Diego Student Coali­ during her West Coast tour. plauded. tion Against Racism (SCAR), which Members of NIA are studying the sponsored a solidarity march with the to defend Joan Little to the undemo­ panel discussion on "Socialism and the relationship between Black national­ Boston Black community on May 17, is cratic election laws in this country. Movement" held at UCSD and to give ism and socialism, and the discussion supporting the graduate students at The SWP, along with four other the people attending the panel some after Reid's presentation centered on UCSD. parties, is challenging the prohibitive campaign literature. some of the basic political positions of In addition, during the week, the requirement of more than 63o;ooo She ended up about 11 p.m. in a the Socialist Workers party. United Farm Workers called a picket signatures to qualify a new or minor restaurant for a bite to eat and A young woman asked Reid what line that grew to more than 200, and party for California's ballot. Half that something to drink. "Tell us about guarantee the Black community had on May 15 several hundred students number are required to put an inde­ your tour, Willie Mae," urged a cam­ protested against President Ford's pendent candidate on the ballot, and a paign supporter. "You've got to be attacks on Cambodia. law is now under consideration to kidding," laughed Reid, "it's my tum The increase in campus politica1 reduce the independent requirement. to listen. You talk for a change." activity was reflected in the outdoor If either the lawsuit or proposed That was one day-Thursday, May rally at UCSD to hear Reid speak. One legislation results in lowering the 22-on the campaign trail for Willie hundred twenty-five students gathered number of signatures required to a Mae Reid, but there were· other days around as the newly elected president realizable number, Californians may just as rewarding. Before leaving Los of MECHA, the Chicano student or­ have their first chance to pull the lever Angeles to travel to San Diego, Reid ganization; the coordinator of · San for an SWP presidential slate in talked to workers on the unemploy­ Diego SCAR; a representative from November 1976. "If you'll give us the ment lines and met with an aide to both the UFW and the UCSD Women's petitions," a Black activist at the Mayor Tom Bradley to urge immediate Center; and the organizer of the San Women's Center told Reid, "we'll do action against those who bombed the Diego Young Socialist Alliance took our part here in getting the signa- socialist campaign headquarters and turns in welco'nling Reid and express­ tures." , other radical centers in the last few ' ing solidarity with her campaign. months. The . students applauded as Reid She spoke at the University of explained why in her platform, the Soapboxing California at Los Angeles and "Bill of Rights for Working People," From the Women's Center, Reid and marched in a picket line to protest the she calls for free education through the a group of supporters went to down­ May 16 raid on undocumented workers university level. "This is the richest town San Diego for a street rally. in that city. country in the world," she said. "Why Standing on a milk crate in front of In San Diego, in addition to the shouldn't all have the right to go to a big banner that read "Jobs for all­ activities on May 22, she talked to a school, not just those who can afford vote socialist," the campaigners took large group of high school students at it? turns speaking through a bullhorn to Wright Brothers High School. Al­ Reid 'soapboxing' in downtown San "Even Cuba, with far fewer re­ the rush-hour crowd on the way home though the principal assured Reid that Diego. sources than this country has, can from work. she couldn't hold the attention of these provide free education for all her . "I'm Willie Mae Reid and I'm run­ young students for more than twenty citizens. If Cuba can do it, so can we." ning for vice-president of the United minutes, about eighty students and that when the working class won A group of students gathered at the States on the socialist ticket," Reid teachers listened attentively for forty power, that power would not be used to Women's Center after her speech for began. In a crisp style, she talked two minutes, and ten stayed afterward for suppress the Black community. more informal discussion. The Wom­ or three minutes about the "Bill of a "Join the socialist campaign" meet­ "The struggles that develop will en's Center had cosponsored Reid's Rights for Working People" and then ing. have to be around demands that rally along with the YSA. The discus­ began again. The San Diego tour culminated in a include the Black community," replied sion covered topics ranging from It was at the end of this busy day lively socialist campaign rally, which Reid. "Blacks will not fight around international capitalist competition to that Reid went to meet with NIA, and drew people from all her campaign demands that don't have anything to capitalist violence, and from the need following that meeting to listen to a appearances during the preceding da~. do with our needs. "Take the fight for jobs, for instance. Black ·workers are not going to go out and fight to get white workers jobs first, hoping that later the white Join the '76 socialist campaign Name______workers will give them jobs. No, white The Socialist Workers party can­ tee, 14 Charles Lane, New York, and Black workers will have to fight didates for president and vice­ New York 10014. together for jobs for all. That's the only president, Peter· Camejo and Willie Address ------­ way that fight can be won." Mae Reid, are taking the socialist City------( ) Please send me a copy of the Bill solution for America's economic State ------Zip ___ Combined struggle crisis to working people and stu­ of Rights for Working People ( ) in Reid explained that the fight to end dents all across the country. They -English; ( ) in Spanish. capitalist rule will combine the Telephone ------are talking with them about it on ' ( ) Please send me __ copies of Occupation ____Union ____ working-class struggle for socialism unemployment lines, at plant gates, the Bill of Rights to distribute. with the Black struggle for national at union meetings, at shopping Enclosed is $ __ to cover the cost Business address ------liberation. Black people will play a · centers, on campuses, and in their (three cents each; two cents each for central role in the revolution, she said, School/Organization ______homes. 1,000 or more). or the revolution won't succeed. Their ideas are meeting wide­ ( ) I would like to come to a cam­ The only guarantee that their rights spread receptivity as more and more paign meeting. will be respected, she explained, will be people are looking for a way to fight ( ) I would like to set up a meeting Officers of the Socialist Workers 1976 the organized power of the Black back against the ravages of this for a socialist speaker at my ( ) un­ National Campaign Committee­ community through its own organiza­ system. ion; ( ) school; ( ) community Chairpersons: Fred Halstead, Ed Heis­ tions and under its own leadership. You should be part of the socialist group; ( )home. ler, Linda Jenness, Andrew Pulley­ Treasurer: Andrea Morell. Reid also discussed busing and its campaign. Here's how you can get relation to the demand for Black involved. ( ) Enclosed is my contribution of control of the Black community; ex­ A copy of our report is filed with the plained the difference between the $-- Federal Election Commission and is Clip------and mail to: Socialist Workers ( ) I want to join the Socialist available for purchase from the Federal SWP and Stalinist organizations, such 1976 National Campaign Commit- Workers party. Election Commission, Washingion, D.C. as the Communist party; and re-

THE MILITANT/JUNE 6, 1975 25 Claim 'right' to disruP-t Spartacist League thugs attack SF forum By Robert West facts, yet its members recklessly dis­ the attempt to break up the meeting What does this concept mean? It SAN FRANCISCO-In recent rupted the gatherings. had failed, the Spartacists dispersed. means the right of those within the months, a small left-wing sectarian In view of the gravity of these In light of these further incidents, it working-class movement to discuss group called the Spartacist League has disruptions, organizers of the Militant became clear that the disruptions and different points of view, to hear all gone on an all-out drive to "smash" Labor Forum decided that the five physical attacks were not the result of sides, and to debate out questions of what it calls "Stalinist-style exclusion­ individuals who had led the disrup­ some individual members losing their concern to the movement. But such ism" of its members from this city's tions of the Coral meetings would be self-control, but rather represented the discussions are impossible when one Militant Labor Forum. permitted to attend future forums only policy of the Bay Area Spartacist group takes it upon itself to decide to The forum here, like similar ones if they gave clear and unambiguous League as as whole. halt a meeting of another organiza­ across the country, is a weekly series indications of their willingness to Moreover, the SL has announced, tion, through heckling and violence, that presents lectures, panel discus­ allow the meetings to proceed in an both in leaflets distributed here and in because it is not being run to the sions, films, and debates on topics of orderly fashion. the pages of their national newspaper, satisfaction of the disrupters. general interest to those fighting for Several members of the SL came to that they intend to continue disrupting In a leaflet they are distributing, for social change~ the forum on April 25, including one of and "will never repudiate" their previ­ example, the Spartacists say that the Militant Labor Forums have a long the five that had led the Coral disrup­ ous attacks. forums are "orchestrated" because tradition of providing a place where tions. They were informed that all Consequently, all members of the those called upon by the chair are different points of view can be aired, could attend the forum except the Spartacist League have been excluded "prepared," while "others believed to both in presentations and in discus­ disrupter, and the reason was ex­ from the Bay Area forums. This is the be critical are passed over." sion sessions afterwards. plained to them. only way that the organizers of the "A public forum is a public forum, The Spartacist League is well aware Two did go into the meeting and, meetings can guarantee both that and the chair has the obligation to call of this tradition. Its members have rudely interrupting the speaker, shout­ forums will proceed without disruption on everyone who wishes to speak," the participated in these forums in the ed a few unintelligible remarks. They and that those attending will not be leaflet asserts. · past, often speaking during the discus­ then left, informing the forum organiz­ placed in physical danger. This policy Members of the Spartacist League sion periods. ers that they would return the next will continue in effect until the SL have always been welcome to ask Recently, however, the Spartacist week with a picket line. changes its policy of disrupting the questions and make comments at the group here adopted a policy of organiz­ The following week's forum was on meetings. Militant Labor Forums, along with ing disruptions of the forums. As a the current situation in Chile, with everyone else in the audience, provided result, the organizers of the weekly Rodolfo Campos, a recently released Workers democracy only that they abide by time limits, series were faced with the choice of political prisoner, as the main speaker. The SL charges that the forum confine their discussion to the discus­ allowing the meetings to be broken up Twenty Spartacist pickets chanted and organizers, in barring them from the sion period, and respect the right of by the disruptions, or barring members shouted loudly outside, jostling the forums, have carried out a "suppres­ others to speak. of the Spartacist League from attend­ monitors who had been organized to sion of workers democracy." But the Spartacist League has pro­ ing the forums.· Naturally, they have ensure that all those who wanted to The statements made by the SL on claimed that it has the right to decide chosen to protect the right of the enter the meeting could do so. this issue, however, show that this sect if those being called on aren't "criti­ forums to be held. As the meeting was beginning, three does not understand the meaning of cal" enough-in which case the SL representatives stood up inside the workers democracy. Continued on page 30 Coral meetings disrupted room and began speaking, challenging In March, members of the SL in this the policy excluding the SL members. area disrupted meetings by Argentine The chairperson explained the policy socialist leader Juan Carlos Coral, who and said that if there were more was speaking on repression and right­ questions or comments these could be wing terror in his homeland. The heard after the main speaker finished Spartacists leaped to their feet to speak his remarks. without being recognized, refused to sit down, yelled loudly, and interrupted Shouting down speakers other speakers. , The SL hooligans, however, refused These actions were especially serious to permit the forum to continue, and because Coral has been personally instead began shouting. Clearly, their "sentenced to death" by the Argentine intention was to break up the meeting. Anticommunist Alliance, a group that As a result, they were asked to leave, has murdered hundreds of leftists in and when they refused to do so, they that country in the past year. More­ were escorted to the door. over, one of Coral's first meetings in At that predse moment, the picket­ this country had been attacked by a ers outside attacked the six monitors gang of fifty Cuban exile thugs. These at the door and tried to charge into the factors necessitated extraordinary pre­ meeting. They were successfully re­ cautions in organizing all meetings pelled. Although there were no injuries, and put a premium on their proceeding one of the monitors was thrown into Antidemocratic disruption is nothing new to Spartacist League. SL joined this without any disorder. the street and his clothing torn and his Progressive Labor party disruption of 1971 antiwar conference because they The SL was fully aware of these glasses broken by the SL thugs. Once disagreed with what speakers were saying. Black students hit cutbacks at Ohio State By Chris Rayson building to present the demands to the Blacks make up 18 percent of Colum­ COLUMBUS, Ohio-About 1,000 president. They were followed by 250 bus and 11 percent of Ohio's popula­ students, most of them Black, rallied in demonstrators, who gathered in the tion, but are only 2.9 percent of the front of the Ohio State University first-floor lobby and chanted, "Ain't no students at Ohio State." administration building May 21 to time for half-stepping while the march Montgomery stated that Black stud­ voice support for demands of the All­ is on," and, "We are an Mrican peo­ ies programs at Ohio State are woeful­ Mrican Student and Faculty Union ple." ly inadequate. "The Black Cultural (AASFU). The demands include expan­ The delegation demanded a meeting Center is just one room in the base­ sion of the Office of Minority Affairs, with President Enarson, and one was ment of an old building. Hell, this the creation of an adequate Black finally arranged for the following day whole university institution is a white Cultural Center, increased recruiting at 8:30a.m. cultural center." and financial aid for Black students, About 200 Blacks returned the next A woman demonstrator pointed out and preferential hiring and upgrading day to find all entrances to the that cutbacks in Black programs and of Black faculty. building heavily guarded by ·campus declining Black enrollment are affect­ Among the speakers at the demon­ cops. A few AASFU representatives ing state universities all over Ohio. stration were William Nelson, head of were allowed in to see Enarson, but the "When Blacks need something, the the Black Studies Department, and rest were locked out. This reporter administration don't have it," she said. Frank Hale, Black associate dean of witnessed several incidents of cops "But the university has money to do the graduate schools. pushing and shoving Blacks who tried more landscaping, build two more Nelson said that according to a to enter the building while whites went buildings, as well as a new wing for report by university president Harold in freely. the library." Enarson, there are 135 full-time Black The mood was militant among the After an hour-and-a-half meeting faculty members on the campus. He locked out demonstrators in front of with Enarson and a member of the said his own reports indicate there are the building. They were understand­ Ohio Senate Finance Committee, AAS­ only 75 Blacks. ably angry, since a number Qf them FU leaders reported back to the protes­ "That's not even tokenism," Nelson won't be returning to OSU in the fall ters. said, "Only 2.25 percent of the faculty unl_ess increased financial aid is made Kujenga Ashe, chairperson of the on -this campus is Bl~ck and the Militant/Rick Ellis available. AASFU, stated that none of the percentage is going down, not up." ' Students protest declining opportunites "A lot of Blacks are being forced demands had been met. Ashe called for Nelson, Hale, and five other AASFU for Blacks May 21 at Ohio State out," Stan Montgomery said, "and the struggle to continue, and a meeting leaders entered the administration University in Columbus. there are hardly any Blacks here now. was scheduled to plan more actions.

26 Another domino totters Mass pressure pushes Laos to the left By Caroline Lund leadership has insisted on continuing its coalition with these corrupt and From Intercontinental Press parasitic forces. "We want the coali­ Since May 9, student-led demonstra­ tion to continue; it will continue," tions have spread through the major stated a top Pathet Lao official on May cities of Laos. The banners call for an 13 prior to a cabinet meeting that was end to the U.S.-administered Agency to consider the resignations of the five for International Development (AID) rightist ministers. programs, an end to corruption by According to Andelman in the May rightist government officials, and 14 New York Times, "In the last few relief from soaring inflation. days, all the major powers represented The demonstrations have won here, including North Vietnam, have strong support from workers and apparently been quietly expressing others, and have given an impulse to support for continuing the coalition protests by sections of the armed forces concept." The coalition regime was set against rightist commanders. They up by the 1973 cease-fire accords on have accelerated the disintegration of Laos. It rules only the territory former­ the rightist forces and put pressure on ly controlled by the rightist Vientiane the Pathet Lao liberation forces to government; the Pathet Lao controls move into territory previously domi­ more than two-thirds of the country nated by the rightists. outright. The movement began when about Andelman continued: "Interviews 3,000 students marched through Vien­ with Western diplomats and Govern­ tiane May 9 protesting U.S. interfer­ ment officials disclose that the major ence in the country and demanding the powers here-the United States, the resignation of a number of rightist Soviet Union, China and North ministers. Four of the most powerful Pathet Lao soldiers waving to crowd of 20,000 in Savannakhet. Sign on tank says, Vietnam-who urged the establish­ rightist ministers and one deputy 'Yankee Go Home.' ment· of the coalition, continued to minister resigned immediately. This support it." included the minister of defense, whose However, a continuation of the mass functions were taken over by a Pathet officials on economic grievances. provinces of Thakkek and Kengkok. protests against the rightists, together Meanwhile Lao representative. Later, more than 5,000 demonstra­ unit after unit of the with the disintegration of the rightist Most of the remaining right-wing tors occupied the offices of the city rightist armed forces went over to the military and pol~tical forces, can cause politicians and generals fled the coun­ government to press for their demands. Pathet Lao-dominated coalition gov­ the Pathet Lao to go further than they try. Rank-and-file soldiers and lower In another action, students seized ernment. On May 16, 1,000 troops from might like along the road to taking officers of the rightist armed forces, on stores of rice, which they subsequently the rightist air force demonstrated at direct power. the other hand, began to declare their sold at half price as a protest against the Vientiane airport demanding dis­ In the May 9 demonstration in allegiance to the Pathet Lao-dominat­ prices that jumped by more than 50 missal of their commander. The air Vientiane one participant carried a ed coalition government. percent last month alone. force men grounded all military placard referring to the recent victories All 160 cadets at the officer training Another demand of the students was planes. On May 18 the Laotian navy of the liberation forces in Cambodia school just outside Vientiane took over that Pathet Lao troops be allowed into withdrew its allegiance from the and South Vietnam. It read: "Phnom their school May 11, refusing to obey the city, which was a rightist strong­ rightist government faction. Penh-April 17, 1975. Saigon-April their officers. They issued a statement hold. On May 20 Pathet Lao forces On May 22 students and Laotian 30, 19.75. Vientiane-??, 1975." denouncing. those in the military marched into Sa.vannakhet, setting off AID employees took over the AID whom they called "bandits who loot what news dispatches called a "joyful compound in Vientiane. The compound the people." They passed out leaflets to celebration." New York Times corre­ is a thirteen-building, multimillion-dol­ passersby saying, "We have taken this spondent David Andelman said: "The lar complex with its own generators, school over as a liberated area." take-over of Savannakhet came with­ supermarket, and movie theater. Two On May 14 students mobilized in two out violence. More than 20,000 people marine guards and another American major cities, Luang Prabang and [in a town of 200,000] reportedly lined were held inside. \\-.-~':. Savannakhet, demanding the disband­ the streets to greet the Pathet Lao The U.S. government agreed on the ...... ' ..... ·.·1·····....~.:. ing of AID operations and an end to soldiers, estimated to number fewer same day to terminate AID operations .. -· ... . corruption and inflation. In Luang than 500." outside of Vientiane and to negotiate Prabang, the royal capital, radio According to Andelman, the Pathet regarding ending the program com­ ~\, '

reports said that 3,000 students, teach­ Lao had begun "moving into virtually pletely. Subsequently the U.S. embassy --~,- ' ' ' announced that students in Savanna­ ' ... ers, and pedicab drivers joined in the every major town in the Laotian demonstration. panhandle area that previously was khet had released the Americans they In Savannakhet, demonstrators at under rightist control." In a May 23 had been detaining, whose number the home of the rightist provincial dispatch, Andelman described the had grown to fourteen. governor seized three American AID troop movement as "filling the vacuum A full-scale evacuation of American employees to dramatize their demands. created by the flight of large numbers AID employees was begun May 23, a They were released the following day of right-wing officers and politicians." move celebrated by demonstrations in· but kept under "voluntary house ar­ Also pressing the Pathet Lao to Vientiane; rese pending the end of AID opera­ advance were the student demonstra­ In the face of these growing protests Laotian students protest U.S. tions and talks with government tions that occurred in the two southern against the rightists, the Pathet Lao interference in their country. Cutback protests sweepS. Calif. campuses By Nicolas Rosner Even at smaller private institutions, responsible for acts of arson that had were told he was out of town. LOS ANGELES-Chicano and other such as Claremont Men's College and occurred on campus. The case against We decided to stay in the office until minority students at California State Loyola Marymount University, minori­ him was so flimsy that it was thrown he returned. University in Los Angeles are carrying ty students have started to move into out of court for lack of evidence. The administration summoned a on a determined fight for student action. Then came the firing of Gilbert large contingent of Los Angeles cops control of the -ethnic studies depart­ Under the guise of "economy" and Garcia, the militant, popular coordina­ and gave us a deadline of 3:30 in the ments. "reorganization," the administrations tor of the Pinto program. The charge afternoon to leave or be arrested. A few On May 21, about 50 students at various schools have been moving was "insubordination." Actually, Gar­ minutes before the deadline, an official occupied the president's office while, to cut back these programs. There have cia had been warned earlier that he offered us an appointment with Presi­ on minutes' notice, more than 125 been efforts to cut away at them by would be fired if he continued to speak dent Greenlee on the morning of his picketed in their support outside the absorbing them into _other depart­ at rallies in support of student control return from out of town. administration building. ments. Where a measure of student of the programs. We accepted this and joined the The action at Cal State is part of a control of these various departments On May 14, a rally of 250 was held spirited picket line being conducted in mounting series of struggles on cam­ has been established, this has been a by the recently organized Special our support downstairs. puses in Southern California in re­ key target of administrators. Programs Support Committee. The sponse to a wave of concerted attacks The issue of student control is rally demanded the reinstatement of Gilbert Garcia, who had joined the on ethnic studies programs. central in the fight at Cal State. Garcia and student control of special pickets, answered reporters' questions. The day after the action at Cal State, Initially, when the students there programs. He explained our grievances and our 500 students at the University of began organizing against the adminis­ The rally ended with a militant demands. He said students were de­ California at Los Angeles demonstrat­ tration's bureaucratic maneuvers, car­ picket line outside the administration manding his reinstatement but this ed against projected cutbacks of minor­ ried on in the name of "reorganiza­ building while a delegation went into was not the key issue. The key issue is ity studies programs at that campus. tion," the university responded with the office of President Greenlee to student control. There has also been an ongoing fight the attempted frame-up of Emilio present the demands. He refused to He told the media we wanted a against such attacks by students at the Benavides, a member of the Student meet with the students. meeting with the president so that we University of California at Santa Parole (Pinto) program for former A week later, fifty others, including could tell him "that we own this Barbara, with several demonstrations prisoners. this reporter, returned to his offices to university, that we are taxpayers, and of as many as 1,000 people. Benavides was charged with being again seek a meeting with him. We we tell him what to do!"

THE MILITANT/JUNE 6, 1975 27 'Behavior-modifyjng' drugs used Black prison activists murdered in Mo. By Norton Sandler confinement, Lang was constantly . ST. LOUIS-"Leon Dent and Jesse shuffled between the penitentiary and Lang were murdered, there's no ques­ the state hospital in Fulton. tion about it," Missouri State Rep. Fred Lang initiated four separate lawsuits Williams told a recent forum here against Warden Wyrick for brutality sponsored by the Congress of Mrican and threats by officials. He also People. Williams was commenting on complained of mail censorship and of the deaths of two well-known Black persecution because of his religious prison activists at the Missouri State beliefs. On the day his suits were to be Penitentiary in Jefferson City. heard, Lang appeared in federal court Jesse Lang died January 9, three in a dazed and incoherent state. The days after his arrival in a catatonic suits were later dropped. state at the Fulton State Mental He began to show improvement in Hospital. Leon Dent, according to the summer of 1974. H.owever, after his prison officials, was found hanged in essay "Inside the Missouri State Peni­ his prison cell on April 2. It is now tentiary" was published by African apparent that behavior-modifying World in September 1974, prison offi­ drugs administered by prison officials cials increased the dosage of drugs. figured in both deaths. His mother, Ruth Lang, told a Militant After Dent's death, inmates at the News/Bert Forum on May 16 that he had said, "I prison prepared a document detailing Prisoner. in 'strip cell,' one form of 'behavior modification.' Missouri prison officials' would rather die than crawl out of here the suspicious circumstances surround­ use of mind-destroying drugs resulted in deaths of two Black inmates. on my belly." ing his "suicide." According to the Williams has demanded that Missou- · document, which they sent to the U.S. ri Attorney General John Danforth Department of Justice, Dent had ar­ before his imprisonment. for solitary confinement. investigate Dent's death. Danforth gued with a guard the day of his death In 1968 he had worked with Rev. "They called him a Black militant," denied the request, saying that his job and had struck the guard. Charles Koen in forming a group Dent's sister told the forum, "but I'm is to defend, not investigate, the pris­ Later that night he was adminis­ called the Black Liberators. At one here to say that he was a decent person on. tered prolixin, a behavior-modifying point during that year Dent and Koen who didn't get much of a chance in the Williams is also pressing to have the drug. Because his body was immediate­ were badly beaten by the St. Louis world we live in right now." Citizens Review Board change its ly embalmed, no traces of the drug cops, and a large community meeting According to Williams, Dent was one policies so that inmates' complaints could be found during an autopsy was organized to protest the beatings. of the prisoners who informed him of are immediately investigated. Delays requested by his mother. Later Dent and Koen became leaders the circumstances surrounding the in processing complaints often mean Prison officials were in such a hurry · of the Cairo, Illinois, Black United death of Jesse Lang in January. An that inmates are placed in solitary for to publicize their version of Dent's Front's boycott of racist merchants. autopsy showed traces of prolixin in up to six months before their grie­ death, Williams said, that they notified Dent was sentenced to prison in Lang's body. vances are aired. the news media before contacting Missouri following a fist fight with a Lang had first been given prolixin The United Church of Christ is Dent's family. former member of the Liberators. by prison officials following his in­ planning to hold public hearings on News of Dent's death was received Dent had been in "administrative volvement in a successful February conditions at the prison in conjunction with considerable outrage by the Black segregation" for six months at the time 1973 work stoppage at the prison. After with a newly formed group called the community in St. Louis, where he had of his death. Administrative segrega­ an apparent nervous breakdown later People's Coalition Struggling for Pris­ been active in community struggles tion is Warden Donald Wyrick's jargon that year following months of solitary on Reform. LA. rally against rightist terror gains support By Harry Ring ern California American Civil head of the committee, noting that the LOS ANGELES-Plans for a June Liberties Union; Prof. Morris Starsky; National Bomb Center has cited Los 20 rally against the wave of right-wing Raoul Teilhet, president, California Angeles County as leading the nation terrorism here are well under way, Federation of Teachers; and Tom in bombings. The letter called on with a number of groups and individu­ Thompson, city editor of Los Angeles members of the committee to urge the als expressing interest in joining the Free Press. mayor to act now to end the wave of public protest. The rally will be held At a recent meeting of more than 500 bombings. Friday, June 20, at 8:00 p.m., at the at California State University at Los On June 5 the Los Angeles Police Fritchman Auditorium, 2936 West Angeles, Dick Gregory urged students Commission, a civilian body, will hold · Eighth Street, Los Angeles. to get involved in the June 20 rally as a hearing on the right-wing terrorism. The rally was initiated by the a positive way to fight back against Representatives of the Political Rights Political Rights Defense Fund and is the government's infringement of polit­ Defense Fund and other civil liberties gammg wide sponsorship. Recent ical rights. groups will present testimony on the endorsers include Henry Dotson, presi­ On May 18 Mayor Tom Bradley and continued violence that has been dent of the Los Angeles NAACP; San several Hollywood personalities enter­ encouraged by the lack of police action Francisco attorney Charles Garry; tained the Democratic convention site in apprehending those responsible. Dick Gregory; Dorothy Healey of the selection committee at Chasen's, an A delegation including victims of the New American Movement; attorney exclusive Beverly Hills restaurant. A attacks, civil libertarians, and other Mark Lane; Robert Meeropol, son of picket line organized by the Political concerned citizens is scheduled to meet Julius and Ethel Rosenberg; and Rev. Rights Defense Fund protested the with Bradley on June 6. The mayor Amos Murphy of the Committee to continued inaction of the mayor and has responded to the many messages Reopen the Rosenberg Case. police in ending the terrorism. sent to him in recent months with a Other sponsors include Rose Cher­ Supporters of the Socialist Workers form letter saying that he has ordered nin, Los Angeles Committee to Defend party election campaign, who have an investigation of the bombings. Militant/Dave Wulp the Bill of Rights; Donald Freed, Cam­ twice been the victims of right-wing Bradley's aides have indicated that he As Mayor Bradley entertains Democratic paign for Democratic Freedoms; Ramo- bombings in recent months, distribut­ will reveal the results of his investiga­ party officials, pickets demand action to . na Ripston, executive director, South- ed an open letter to Pat Cunningham, tion at the June 6 meeting. stop right-wing bombers.

By Harry Ring troversy with ultrarightists and reli­ Services Center, saw the new law as LOS ANGELES-California has gious bigots taking a particularly dim providing the basis for eliminating Sexual--­ enacted a law legalizing all private sex v1ew. "soliciting" statutes under which gays acts between consenting adults. California is the eleventh state to are frequently entrapped. People can Signed into law May 12, the measure eliminate such archaic statutes from no longer be charged with soliciting for freedom will become effective January 1, 1976. the books, Illinois having b(:len the an illegal purpose if that purpose is no It repeals a hundred-year-old statute first. However, at least one state has longer illegal, he said. that made a felony of a variety of sex since reimposed restrictive laws. However, Kight added, the issue is acts between men and women and Albert Gordon, a Los Angeles consti­ not ended with passage of the bill. An law passed between persons of the same sex. tutional attorney actively involved in antigay voter initiative is being drawn Passage of the law is generally gay defense cases, saw enactment of up to be placed on the 1976 ballot. Such regarded as a gain for individual the bill as a major gain. In an an initiative needs one-half million in Calif. freedom and the right of privacy and a interview, he said its chief value would signatures to go on the ballot. particular gain for the rights of gay be in the area of civil rights. "The law that they're drawing up," people. Prosecution under such statutes is he said, "will be considerably to the The new law was enacted after a extremely rare, he said. But the fact right of William McKinley's thinking five-year effort by various gay-rights that homosexual acts are no longer and thus it will be easily challenged in groups, the National Organization for classified as felonies removes the basis the courts." Women, the California Democratic for denying homosexuals such things Meanwhile, he said, enactment of Council, and others. Enactment was as jobs and security clearances. the present law represented a signifi­ accompanied by considerable con- Morris Kight, of the Gay Community cant gain for gliy liberation. 28 Retreat from NSCAR Why YWLL ·slanders antiracist coalition By Wendy Lyons In her letter to the YWLL, Kathy A large measure of credit for the Kelly says, " . . . withdrawal of success of the NAACP-called May 17 support from either May 17 or NSCAR march on Boston for school desegrega­ constitutes support for the continued tion is due the National Student segregation of the Boston sch~ols and Coalition Against Racism. was in fact a decision in favor of In the three short months since its racism .... founding at a national conference of "To single out the YSA as siM­ 2,000 in Boston, the coalition suc­ seeking and dominating is simply a ceeded in organizing thousands of refined in-group form of redbaiting by young people to participate in the people who should realize the danger historic march. In addition, NSCAR of that tactic.... " played a critical role in ensuring that Kelly adds that "redbaiting-no the demonstration was disciplined and matter who it is directed against-is a well defended by organizing hundreds time-honored tactic for evading of student marshals for the event. struggle that surrounds any legitimate In his speech to the 15,000 people issue. . . . To bow out is a reactionary who rallied on May 17, Boston NAACP stand against that struggle which is President Thomas Atkins paid tribute crucial to the success of any coalition." to the work of NSCAR and the Nation­ Berkelhammer accuses NSCAR of al Student Association, welcoming the having "no real approach to fighting students they brought from "universi­ racism." He says, "Key to conducting ties and colleges all over the country." an effective struggle against racism is And in a news release issued after the developing an approach to win white demonstration, the NAACP national youth to see that the poison of racism office pointed out that NSCAR was "a is not in their self-interest. To involve principal participant" in the event. white youth in the struggle against Maceo Dixon, an NSCAR coordina­ racism is the only real and principled tor, was one of the featured speakers at way to build Black-white unity." the rally, and his well-received speech Since there were actually more white was picked up by national television. students than Black students at the Through its role in building May 17, founding convention of NSCAR, and the new student coalition has proven the May 17 march was half white, itself an effective organization that what is Berkelhammer talking about? can mobilize youth in the fight against racism, which has been welcomed NSCAR 'too Black'? among forces committed to that fight. Is he upset that the leadership of In some quarters, however, NSCAR NSCAR is predominantly Black? Does has not been welcomed. he object to NSCAR's uncompromising On April 25, the Young Workers stand in support of the Black commu­ Liberation League, the youth group nity's right to equal education through associated with the Communist party, the use of busing-a militant stand circulated a letter announcing their that refuses to give an inch to the withdrawal from NSCAR. Signed by racist pressure to stop busing in Bos­ YWLL Organizational Secretary Matty ton? Berkelhammer, the letter characterizes Or is he just plain uncomfortable NSCAR as "a charade at a united with the whole issue of busing because front, and a caricature of the struggle it does not fit in with the program of against racism." ·the Democratic party politicians that the Stalinists plan to support in the YWLL charges elections? The YWLL charges that 1) NSCAR NSCAR obviously does have an has failed to carry out the decisions of approach to winning Black and white its founding convention; 2) NSCAR is youth to the struggle against .racism. "dominated from top to bottom by the Stalinist school of photography: Top is UPI photo of May 17 march in Boston as it Through activities such as teach-ins Trotskyite YSA [Young Socialist Alli­ appeared in many daily newspapers. Same UPI photo appeared in 'Daily World,' but and rallies, NSCAR chapters all over ance]"; and ·3) "NSCAR has no real NSCAR banner that the people in the front line are carrying was eliminated. the country have been explaining the approach to fighting racism." issues iq Boston and winning support In a recent letter to the YWLL, the NSCAR to join. NSCAR you might not have with­ for the embattled Black community of coordinators of NSCAR responded to The CP's newspaper, the Daily drawn." that city. the slanderous charges raised by World, carried no report of the Harlem He explains, "NSCAR representa­ Through its support to mass street Berkelhammer and urged the YWLL to meeting but did give detailed coverage tives were seen on the Brown Universi­ actions such as May 17, NSCAR is reconsider its position and rejoin of the YWLL march. Judging from the ty campus from the very beginning of succeeding in uniting Black and white NSCAR in order to wage a united fight World account, there was no mention our struggle, and were not part of any youth in action against racism in against racism. of May 17 at the rally after the march. 'jump on the bandwagon' trips. education. Kathy Kelly, president of the Nation­ "In fact, NSCAR aided myself and a The problem is not that NSCAR has al Student Association, and Chris Retreat from struggle number of other New England campus no approach toward winning Blacks Robinson, coordinator of the Ad Hoc While it is certainly worthwhile to leaders who have been involved in and whites to fight racism. The prob­ Committee Against the Cutback at organize marches for jobs, by refusing campus struggles against the cutback lem is that Berkelhammer and his Brown University, have also sent to make support for May 17 a central to pull together a meeting of New mentors in the CP disagree with that letters to the YWLL taking exception part of the action, the YWLL's April 4 England students on May 1st." approach. to their attack on NSCAR and urging march was actually a retreat from the The CP's "Draft Main Political them to reconsider their decision to struggle for school desegregation. This Resolution" for its upcoming national walk out of the organization. pattern was repeated in YWLL actions Red-baiting convention says, in the section entitled An examination of the YWLL around the country. Berkelhammer repeats the slander, "The Black Liberation Movement," charges shows them to be nothing but . Berkelhammer also claims that which the YWLL has been spewing "The forms of struggle are changing. slanders. Berkelhammer claims that NSCAR has not carried out a conven­ forth since the founding convention of The focus of struggle has tended to NSCAR failed to carry out the decision tion proposal calling for "united efforts NSCAR, that the YSA, which they call shift from the streets toward other of its convention to organize activities on the campuses to support an equal "racist," "dominates" NSCAR. arenas of struggle.... on April 4, the anniversary of the access and affirmative action program In their answer to the YWLL, the "Gains [for Blacks] have been made assassination of Martin Luther King, for admissions and financial aid [and] NSCAR coordinators say, "This is in the recent period, chiefly in the in preparation for the 17th. to encourage the continuation of Black, false and a movement can't be built on electoral field. . . . The facts are that NSCAR organized Chicano, Puerto Rican, and other non­ such slanders. NSCAR is an indepen­ "Within the limitations of the two­ picket lines and campus and communi­ white studies programs." dent organization which makes its party system, it is the Democratic ty meetings in cities across the country This, too, is a total fabrication. To own decisions. . . . The February Party which has served as the vehicle on April 4, which the YWLL refused to cite just two examples, NSCAR has [founding] conference is an example to for successful Black candidacies." participate in! been heavily involved in the struggle the Black and radical movement as a And, the Stalinists add, the electoral For example, NSCAR, the New York to maintain open admissions and whole. Anyone was allowed to put a arena will "grow in importance as a NAACP, and the National Council of special recruitment programs for mi­ resolution on the floor and have it focal point for coming struggles." Black Churchmen held a successful norities in the city university system in discussed and voted on. Everyone had rally in Harlem on April 4 to commem­ New York and has played a big role in the right to speak. And after two days Rely on Democrats orate King and to urge people to march the fight against cutbacks on New of discussions, democratic votes were Here is the root of the CP's and the on Boston on May 17. The YWLL England campuses. taken. On a day-to-day level in build­ YWLL's hostility toward NSCAR. refused to endorse the event, instead In his letter to the YWLL, Chris ing activities against racism discus­ They are opposed to the strategy of holding their own "Youth for Jobs" Robinson writes, "Perhaps if you were sions are conducted with democratic mass action as the way to defend and march, which they did not invite more aware of the campus nature of decisions being the outcome." Continued on page 30

THE MILITANT/JUNE 6, 1975 29 called the "Bill of Rights for Working The Militant ·Labor Forum will feel that a broad, democratic organiza­ People"-a platform for protection continue to hold public meetings at tion of students . . . to conduct the against the wars, inflation, unemploy­ which all points of view will be struggle vs. racism on the campuses is Calendar ment, racism, and oppression of this welcomed. However, the exclusion of needed and we will continue to work society. the Spartacists will continue until they toward that end." DETROIT WHO REALLY KILLED MALCOLM X AND Our program stands in sharp con­ repudiate their previous attacks and Perhaps they will take Kathy Kelly's MARTIN LUTHER KING?-THE FBI ATTACKS ON trast to the actions of the Democrats are clearly willing to participate in the response to this to heart: "To believe THE BLACK MOVEMENT. Speakers: Robert F. and Republicans, from President Ford forums on the same basis as everyone that another 'broad democratic organi­ Williams, author of Negroes with Guns; B.R. to the Democratic-controlled Congress, else, and without disruptions. zation of students' will spring into Washington, SWP. Fri., June 6, 8 p.m. 3737 from the Republican majority in Al­ Woodward Ave. Donation: $1. Ausp: Militant Forum. existence to combat racism is wishful For more information call (313) 831-6135. · bany to the Democratic administration thinking. The basis is here.... I hope in city hall. that you will reconsider the issue." LOS ANGELES Their bipartisan policy is to call for RALLY TO PROTEST POLICE INACTION ON "belt tightening" and "austerity," to TERRORIST ATTACKS. Fri., June 20, 8 p.m. Fritchman Auditorium, 2936 W. 8th St. AusJ'l: demand sacrifices from workers while ...VWLL Continued from page 29 Political Rights Defense Fund. For more informa- safeguarding the profits of the rich. tion call (213) 483-8855. · Which makes mere sense to you? extend Black rights. Instead they believe all we have to do is convince ... CIA Isn't it about time we started putting Continued from page 32 PHILADELPHIA human needs above the profits of the people to rely on the Democratic party. THE MEANING OF THE VIETNAM VICTORY. As an excuse, he cited the shopworn few? And if an issue, like busing, isn't really Speaker: Fred Feldman, SWP. Fri., June 6, 8 p.m. "national security" argument. "We 1004 Filbert St. Donation: $1. Ausp: Militant Forum. If you agree, then join us in cam­ popular with the Democratic politi­ have to take into account the effect For more information call (215) WA5-4316. paigning for the socialist alternative. cians they want us to support, their answer is to bury the issue and retreat that any disclosure on our part will SAN FRANCISCO from the struggle. have on foreign policy," he said. "That MALPRACTICE AND THE CURRENT CRISIS IN This, and their blind sectarianism is why we have to be very careful." MEDICINE. Speakers: Juan Martinez, SWP candi­ Asked if the committee would accept date for board of supervisors; others. Fri., June 6, 8 toward working with the YSA, which p.m. 1519 Mission St. Donation: $1. Ausp: Militant they place above the needs of the Black an offer made by Castro to provide Labor Forum. For more information call (415) 431- struggle, is behind the Stalinists' documentary evidence of the murder 8918. ... forum withdrawal from NSCAR. attempts, Church replied testily, "I Continued from page 26 Will they continue to stand on the think we can get all that information Spartacist League won't allow the sidelines shouting that the coalition is without having to rely on Mr. Castro." meeting to continue. Likewise, if the "racist" and "YSA-dominated" while Two days later, at a briefing follow­ chair doesn't call on "everyone who NSCAR grows in numbers and influ­ ing more secret. testimony by Colby, wishes to speak" regardless of how ence? Church tried to sound tougher, telling ... N.Y. many times they have already spoken, Their position gets more and more the media that it is "intolerable" for Continued from page 5 or for how long, or what time of night untenable as people become aware of government agencies to engage in schemes-by reducing weekly take­ it is, the meeting will be interrupted. the role that NSCAR played in the murder. "I'm concerned about the good home pay, which already fails to keep In other words, the Spartacist May 17 march. But perhaps some in name and reputation of the United up with prices. Let corporate profits League, and the Spartacist League the Stalinist camp realize this. There States," he explained. bear the expense. alone, will decide what is "democrat­ are some questions that as yet remain But Church's solution to this "intol­ 5) Open the books of the banks, ic," and if they don't agree with the unanswered. erable" situation is neither to open up corporations, and all government way a meeting is being run, they will On May 8 (after the YWLL withdrew the files on all the CIA's secrets so the agencies. Working people have the break it up. This is hooliganism, not from NSCAR), the National Alliance American people can see the truth, nor right to see for ourselves the financial "defense of workers democracy." Against Racist and Political Repres­ to bring the criminals to justice. manipulations, bank holdings, exorbit­ Although this is relatively recent sion, in which the CP is heavily Instead, he proposed that Congress ant salaries for political appointees, behavior at Militant Labor Forums, involved, cosponsored w~th NSCAR a pass a law making it illegal for the hidden payoffs, and profiteering at this general policy is consistent with teach-in against racism at Laney Col­ CIA to go on murdering foreign lead­ public expense that are really behind previous SL actions. In one of the most lege in Oakland, California. Rashaad ers! the "budget crisis." scandalous attacks on workers democ­ Ali of NSCAR and Angela Davis of the In the meantime-while the learned 6) Provide a cost-of-living escal­ racy in the history of the antiwar CP spoke to 500 students at that teach­ legal scholars in Congress debate ator clause for all wages so that movement, the SL joined with the in. Why was Davis speaking on the whether it should be against the law they are kept fully abreast of Progressive Labor party in a violent same platform with a member of an for the CIA to commit murder-what rising prices. An escalator clause attempt to break up a convention of organization dominated by "racists"? other secret operations will the agency should also apply to all social benefits: the National Peace Action Coalition in Or hadn't the news of Berkelhammer's be carrying out? pensions, welfare, Social Security, New York City in 1971 because ·they letter traveled to the West Coast yet? Just-last week the American people unemployment, and veterans' pay­ didn't agree with what some of the learned of the existence of still more ments. speakers were saying. Why, in its coverage of the May 17 FBI Cointelpros ("Counterintelligence 7) Abolish all restrictions on the Lest anyone fail to make the connec­ action in Boston, did the Daily World Programs") to "disrupt" and "neutral­ right of public employees to organ­ tion between their attempted disrup­ report favorably on Maceo Dixon's ize" left groups. Attorney General ize, bargain collectively, and tion of the forums here and the NPAC speech instead of attacking him for Edward Levi revealed May 23 that his strike. Repeal the Taylor Act in New convention, the Spartacists proudly being a member of a "racist" organiza­ predecessor, William Saxbe, "forgot" to York. · recall their performance at that con­ tion? tell the public about five Cointelpros This is what the Socialist Workers vention in the leaflets protesting their In the letter of withdrawal from when he made his report on secret FBI party is fighting for. Our platform is exclusion from the forums here. NSCAR, Berkelhammer says, "We still spying in 1974. Socialist Directory ARIZONA: Tucson: YSA, c/o Glennon, S.U.P.O. SWP and YSA, P.O. Box 846, Atlanta, Ga. 30301. MI. Pleasant: YSA, Box 51 Warriner Hall, Central Fifth Floor, Portland, Ore. 97204. Tel: (503) 226- Box 20965, Tucson, Ariz. 85720. Tel: (404) 523-0610. Mich. Univ., Mt. Pleasant, Mich. 48859. 2715. CALIFORNIA: Berkeley-Oakland: SWP and YSA, ILLINOIS: Champaign: YSA, Room 284 lllini Union, MINNESOTA: Minneapolis-St. Paul: SWP, YSA, PENNSYLVANIA: Edinboro: YSA, Edinboro State 1849 University Ave., Berkeley, Calif. 94703. Tel: Urbana, Ill. 61801. Labor Bookstore, 25 University Ave. S.E., Mpls., College, Edinboro, Pa. 16412. (415) 548-0354. Chicago: SWP, YSA, Pathfinder Books, 428 S. Minn. 55414. Tel: (612) 332-7781. Philadelphia: SWP, YSA, Pathfinder Bookstore, Long Beach: YSA, c/o Student Activities Offi'ce, Wabash. Fifth Floor, Chicago, Ill. 60605. Tel: MISSOURI: St. Louis: SWP, YSA, Pathfinder Books, 1004 Filbert St. (one block north of Market). CSU, 6101 E. 7th St., Long Beach, Calif. 90807. SWP-(312) 939-0737, YSA-(312) 427-0280, 4660 Maryland, Suite 17, St. Louis, Mo. 63108. Philadelphia, Pa. 19107. Tel: (215) WA5-4316. Los Angeles, Centrai-Easl: SWP, YSA, Militant Pathfinder Books-(312) 939-0756. Tel: (314) 367-2520. Pittsburgh; SWP, YSA, Pathfinder Press, 3400 Fifth Bookstore, 710 S. Westlake Ave., Los Angeles, INDIANA: Bloomington: YSA, c/o Student Activities NEW JERSEY: New Brunswick: YSA, c/o Richard Ave., 1-';ttsburgh, Pa. 15213. Tel: (412) 682-5019. Calif. 90057. Tel: SWP, Militant Bookstore-(213) Desk, Indiana University, Bloomington, Ind. Ariza, 515 S. First Ave .. Highland Park, N.J. Shippensburg: YSA, c/o Mark Dressier, Box 214 483-1512, YSA-(213) 483-2581. 47401. 08904. Tel: (210) 828-4710. Lackhove Hall, Shippensburg State College, Los Angeles, West Side: SWP and YSA, 230 Indianapolis: YSA, c/o Carole McKee, 1309 E. NEW YORK: Albany: YSA, c/o Spencer Livingston, Ship;>ensburg, Pa. 17257. Broadway, Santa Monica, Calif. 90401. Tel: (213) Vermont St., Indianapolis, Ind. 46202. Tel: (317) 317 State St., Albany, N.Y. 12210. State Cvl!ege: YSA, 333 Logan Ave. #401, State 394-9050. 637-1105. Brooklyn: SWP and YSA, 136 Lawrence St. (at College, ::>a. 16801. Los Angeles: City-wide SWP and YSA, 710 S. West­ KANSAS: Lawrence: YSA, c/o Christopher Starr, Willoughby). Brooklyn, N.Y. 11201. Tel: (212) 596- TENNESSEE: Nashville: YSA, P.O. Box 67, Station lake Ave., Los Angeles, Calif. 90057. Tel: (213) 3020 Iowa St., Apt. C-14, Lawrence, Kans. 66044. 2849. B, Nashvil e; Tenn. 37235. Tel: (615) 383-2583. 483-0357. Tel: (913) 864-3975 or 842-8658. New York City: City-wide SWP and YSA, 706 TEXAS: Austin: YSA, c/o Arnold Rodriguez, 901 Riverside: YSA, c/o U. of Cal. Campus Activities, KENTUCKY: Louisville: YSA, Box 8026, Louisville, Broadway (4th St.), Eighth Floor, New York, N.Y. Morrow, Apt .. 303, Austin, Tex. 78757. 234 Commons, Riverside, Calif. 92507. Ky. 40208. 10003. Tel: (212) 982-4966. Dallas: YSA, c/o St"!ve Charles, 3420 Hidalgo #201, Sacramento: YSA, P.O. Box 20669, Sacramento, MARYLAND: Baltimore: YSA, P.O. Box 4314, Lower Manhattan: SWP, YSA, and Merit Bookstore. Dallas, Tex. 75UO. T-31: (214) 352-6031. Calif. 95824. Baltimore. Md. 21223. Tel: (301) 247-8911. 706 Broadway (4th St.), Eighth Floor, New York, Houston: SWP, YSA, 1nd Pathfinder Books, 3311 San Diego: SWP, YSA. and Militant Bookstore, 4635 N.Y. 10003. Tel: SWP, YSA-(212) 982-6051; Merit Montrose, Houstoro. Tex. 77006. Tel: (713) 526- El Cajon Blvd., San Diego, Calif. 92115. Tel: (714) MASSACHUSETTS: Boston: SWP and YSA, c/o Books (212) 982-5940. 1082. 280-1292. Militant Labor Forum, 655 Atlantic Ave., Third Upper West Side: SWP, YSA, Pathfinder Bookstore, San Antonio: YSA, c/o Andy Gonzalez, 2203 W. San Francisco: SWP, YSA, Militant Labor Forum, Floor, Boston, Mass. 02111. Tel: SWP-(617) 482- 2726 Broadway (104th St.), New York, N.Y. Houston, San Antonio, Tex. 78207. and Militant Books, 1519 Mission St., San 8050, YSA-(617) 482-8051; Issues and Activists 10025. Tel: (212) 663-3000. UTAH: Logan: YSA, P.O. Box 1233, Utah State Francisco, Calif. 94103. Tel: SWP-(415) 431- Speakers' Bureau (IASB) and Regional Ossining: YSA, c/o Scott Cooper, 127-1 S. Highland University, Logan, Utah 84321. 8918; YSA-(415) 863-2285; Militant Books-(415) Committee-(617) 482-8052; Pathfinder Books­ Ave., Ossining, N.Y. 10562. WASHINGTON, D.C.: SWP, YSA, Militant Book­ 864-9174. (617) 338-8560. NORTH CAROLINA: Greenville: YSA, P.O. Box store, 1345 E St. N.W., Fourth Floor, Wash., D.C. San Jose: YSA, 96 S. 17th St., San Jose, Calif. Worcester: YSA, Box 229, Greendale Station, 1693, Greenville, N.C. 27834. Tel: (919) 752-6439. 20004. Tel: SWP-(202) 783-2391; YSA-(202) 95112. Tel: (408) 286-0615. Worcester, Mass. 01606. 783-2363. Santa Barbara: YSA, P.O. Box 14606, UCSB, Santa MICHIGAN: Ann Arbor: YSA, Room 4103, Mich. OHIO: Bowling Green: YSA, P.O. Box 27, University WASHINGTON: Bellingham: YSA and Young So­ Barbara, Calif. 93107. Union, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Mich. Hall, Bowling Green State University, Bowling cialist Books. Rm. 213, Viking Union, Western 48104. Tel: (313) 663-8766. Green, Ohio 45341. Washington State College, Bellingham, Wash. COLORADO: Denver: SWP, YSA, and Militant Detroit: SWP, YSA, Eugene V. Debs Hall, 3737 Cincinnati: YSA, c/o Charles R. Mitts, 6830 Buck­ 98225. Tel: (206) 676-3460. Bookstore, 1203 California, Denver, Colo. 80204. Woodward Ave., Detroit, Mich. 48201. Tel: (313) ingham Pl., Cincinnati, Ohio 45227. Seattle: SWP, YSA, and Militant Bookstore, 5623 Tel: SWP-(303) 623-2825, YSA-(303) 266-9431. 831-6135. Cleveland: SWP and YSA, 4420 Superior Ave., University Way N.E., Seattle, Wash. 98105. Tel: Greeley: YSA, c/o Barbara Jaeger, 712 15th Ave. East Lansing: YSA, First Floor Student Offices, Cleveland, Ohio 44103. Tel: SWP-(216) 391- (206) 522-7800. Court, Greeley, Colo. 80631. Union Bldg., Michigan State University, East 5553. YSA-(216) 391-3278. WISCONSIN: Madison: YSA, P.O. Box 1442, Madis­ FLORIDA: Tallahassee: YSA, P.O. Box U-6350, Lansing, Mich. 48823. Tel: (517) 353- Columbus: YSA, c/o Margaret Van Epp, 670 on, Wis. 53701. Tel: (608) 238-6224. Tallahassee, Fla. 32313. 0660. Cuyahoga Ct., Columbus, Ohio 43210. Tel: (614) Milwaukee: SWP, YSA, 207 E. Michigan Ave., Rm. GEORGIA: Atlanta: Militant Bookstore, 68 Peach­ Kalamazoo: YSA, 3573 Kenbrooke Ct., Kalama-· 268-7860. 25, Milwaukee, Wis. 53202. Tel: SWP-(414) 289- tree St., N.E., Third Floor, Atlanta, Ga. 30303. zoo, Mich. 49007. OREGON: Portland: SWP and YSA, 208 S.W. Stark, 9340, YSA-(414) 289-9380.

30 ------Beginning in the June 16 Intercontinental Press--..... Puerto Rican, Black, and Chinese Community Control' in New York City TheRght Against Racism in Our Schools by Luis Fuentes (In Spanish or English ) Only $.25 from: /.fW;\ PATHFINDER PRESS, INC. e 41 0 West Street New York, N.Y. 10014 •

Classified The new RADICAL AMERICA features articles on "Women Organizers and the New Left: The Origins of Women's Liberation," plus reports on recent workers' struggles in Spain and tenant unions in Boston. The next issue will contain an exclusive interview with an Argentine militant about revolutionary politics in Argentina, plus a sym­ posium of comments on RA's widely discussed editorial "Racism and Busing in Boston." Each issue costs $1.00. Send your checks to RA, Box B, N. Cambridge, Mass. 02140.

Washington, D.C., May 9, 1970 Ameri~:a's A Participant's Account of the American Antiwar Movement Road By Fred Halstead, one of the key organiz­ The book Out Now! begins June 16 as· a Ta Sa~:ialism ers of the largest national antiwar demon­ serial in Intercontinental Press. Subscribe James P. [annan ·strations. Member of the Steering Commit­ now Don't miss a single chapter. Send $12 IV for six months to IP, P.O. Box 116, Village 128 pp., $6.00, paper $1.95 tee of the National Peace Action Coalition. Order from Pathfinder Press, 410 Author of G/s Speak Out Against the War. Sta., New York, N.Y. 10014. West Street, New York, N.Y. 10014.

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THE MILITANT/JUNE 6, 1975 31 THE MILITANT

Kennedys Iinke~ to glot ouse • I men By Cindy Jaquith be returned someday. In the case of Giancana and WASHINGTON-Outlines of the White House­ Roselli, the CIA reciprocated by getting the Justice planned assassination attempts against Fidel Department to soften its prosecutions of the two Castro, organized by the CIA and carried out by the later on. Mafia, are beginning-to take shape here. And there Protection of the two crooks was the subject of the is growing evidence that President Kennedy was FBI files on the case. J. Edgar Hoover was directly involved in these murder plots. apparently worried that Giancana would use his The facts,. however, are being pried loose only CIA connections to blackmail the government. with great difficulty since the official bodies But more important than the CIA and FBI role in supposedly investigating the CIA have clamped this case are the questions about White House down hard on the release of any information · in-volvement in the murder plot. According to concerning these CIA crimes. Horrock's May 20 article, "Top Administration There have been charges for years that the CIA sources have cautioned that it would be very organized plots to kill Castro. In the 1960s the dangerous 'to speculate on whether the plot to kill Cuban government repeatedly offered proof of these Mr. Castro was ever approved on the White House charges, but Washington always flatly denied them. level of government.'" Now, according to a report by Nicholas Horrock Apparently taking this advice to heart, the Times in the May 20 New York Times, a few of the files carefully buried in its back pages a May 24 article have come to light. that established that the assassination plots were, The files are FBI memorandums on the CIA's indeed, originally proposed at the White House. The contract with two gangsters to murder the Cuban Rockefeller commission, according to this article, leader. A "former top official of the Department of has obtained minutes of one such White House Justice," says Horrock, has disclosed the existence meeting, in which "contingency" plans for Castro's of the files in testimony before the Rockefeller CIA murder were discussed. panel. The memos indicate that under the Kennedy 'Operation Mongoose' administration the CIA hired racketeers Sam According to an Associated Press dispatch, the Giancana and John Roselli to arrange the assassi- minutes were from an August 10, 1962, meeting of a . nation of Castro. The intermediary between the clandestine group called Operation Mongoose. Its government and the gunmen was Robert Maheu, a purpose was to approve covert operations against former FBI agent, gambling casino manager, and Cuba. Members of the group were Robert McNama­ aid to billionaire recluse Howard Hughes. ra, secretary of defense; John McCone, director of the CIA; McGeorge Bundy, adviser to President Crush Cuban Revolution Kennedy; Dean Rusk, secretary of state; and Robert This cold-blooded assassination plan shows how Kennedy, U.S. attorney general. desperately the U.S. government wanted to crush These advisers, wrote Horrock in the Times; the revolution in Cuba. asked that the idea of killing Castro be examined The American rulers hoped to snuff out the "as one possible solution to the growing Cuban Cuban workers state because it was proving in problem in 1961 and 1962." The idea of putting out practice that American imperialism could be taken "feelers" to Roselli and Giancana was also pro­ on and defeated. They wanted to destroy what was posed. becoming an example for liberation fighters in AP reports that two days after the meeting, other parts of Latin America, where dictators ruled McNamara's assistant sent out a memo "directing with an iron fist in the interests of the big U.S. the Central Intelligence Agency to develop contin­ corporations. gency plans for the possible assassination of the And the U.S. rulers feared the growing identifica­ Cuban leader."- tion within the United States itself, among young AP added, "That memo was withdrawn immedi­ people and Blacks, with the advances being made ately, one source said. But he said subsequent U.S.­ in Cuba. sponsored plots were made against Castro's life." The CIA had hoped to incite a rebellion against It is impossible to believe that President Kennedy the Castro regime from within Cuba, but this was a was not party to these plans. The New York Times, miserable failure. As Victor Marchetti relates in his citing a former intelligence official as its source, book, The CIA and the Cult of Intelligence, the CIA reported that "the White House discussions in­ actually believed t:Q.at when its 1961 Bay of Pigs volved 'the highest level' of the Administration and invasion took place the Cuban masses would join would not have been honored otherwise." the CIA and gusano forces in toppling Castro. Instead, the Cuban people responded swiftly and HIT MAN Covering for Kennedy? decisively to the attack by driving out the counterre­ Fear that Kennedy's complicity in the assassina­ volutionaries, who were sent scurrying back to the connections in pre-Castro Cuba," Horrock explained tion attempts will become known is undoubtedly mainland in defeat. in the New York Times. "One scenario under one of the reasons that the Senate Select Committee The efforts of organized crime were also unsuc­ investigation in Washington is whether the entire on Intelligence is maintaining such tight security cessful. The Mafia, according to columnist Jack affair involving the Mafia figures was in fact an around its investigations. -Anderson, tried at least twice to kill Castro, once elaborate 'cover' story for a real assassination plot. On May 21, Sen. Frank Church (D-Idaho), who is with poison capsules and once with sharpshooters. "'If Castro had been killed it would then be chairing the committee, held a news briefing after Both times the attempt failed. possible to make it appear that the mob did the job hearing testimony in secret from CIA Director According to the New York Times, Roselli and because Castro had cut off their gambling interests William Colby. While conceding that assassinations Giancana were hired not only for their professional in Havana,' a source familiar with this scenario were the "central" topic discussed at the hearing, expertise-the use of Mafia hit men had another said. Organized crime leaders would privately take Church refused to tell the media what Colby had virtue in the eyes of Washington. credit to support this story, it was said." said. "Both Mr. Giancana and Mr. Roselli had many Of course, every "favor" done by the Mafia has to Continued on page 30

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