WfJ/lIlEIII,,1f1(JIJI1/I, 25¢ No. 416 '.~.1<'523 21 November 1986

Reaganites Sguirm Over Iran Bonzo's Gonzo Diplomacy Irish passports, Iraeli go-betweens, Republican conservative standard­ cakes and Bibles, American hostages, bearer Barry Goldwater. NATO allies the National Security Council, byzan­ are upset about being lied to, "moder­ tine intrigue in Teheran and the White ate" Arab kings and emirs are livid House basement: it's Ronald Reagan's over the U.S. arming Khomeini's Sloane/Gamma-Liaison gonzo diplomacy. This glimpse into fanatical Shi'ite mullahs, while Secre­ Secretary of State Shultz. what passes for U.S. imperialist policy taryof State Shultz publicly dissents is brought to you live and in color with and. floats rumors of resigning (don't House chief of staff Donald Regan former national security adviser Rob­ hold your breath). now cynically refers to his media ert McFarlane and his bunch of wild Since the administration "spin con­ managers as a "shovel brigade that and crazy guys. And it looks like it's trol" on the Iranian junket has spun follow a parade down Main Street turning into a major blowout for the . pretty far out of control, Washing­ cleaning up." They managed to turn administration: "probably one of the ton does not now deny, "plausibly" around the flap over U.S. disinforma­ major mistakes the United States has or otherwise, that McFarlane under­ tion on Libya, instantly repackaged ever made in foreign policy," said took a secret mission to Iran. White continued on page 10

What Are ThelDoing with 200 A-Bombs? Zionist Madmen Target Russia On November 9 the Israeli cabinet Zionist madmen could very easily-arid issued a terse statement, without further perhaps deliberately-trip over the trip' details, that one Mordechai Vanunu wire for World War Ill. was being held somewhere in Israel. Later, police and prison authorities Secrets of Dimona were quoted as sayingthat"the suspect" In the late 1950s, Israel with the help was not in a regular jailor detention of the French government (her ally in center. The London Guardian (10 the Suez War against Egypt) began November) reported: construction of an alleged "textile" "Mr Vanunu is expected to face a secret plant in the Negev desert near the town trial in which neither the precise charge nor the final outcome will be made of Dimona. When an American U-2spy public on the grounds of national plane discovered in 1960 that the security." Dimona 'plant was really a nuclear Mordechai Vanunuis a 31-year-old reactor, Israeli prime minister David technician employed for nearly ten years Ben-Gurion swore that it would be used at Israel's Dimona nuclear facility. His only for "peaceful" purposes, and even "crime" against "national security"? He agreed to allow international inspectors was the source for a blockbuster expose into the plant to verify his claims. Over splashed across the front page of the the years stories circulated about the London Sunday Times (5 October) Israeli nuclear "bomb in the basement." under the headline: "Revealed: the Supposedly it was "only a screwdriver secrets of Israel's nuclear arsenal." The Israel-U.S. alliance aimed at Soviet Union. American F-15, above, used by away" from being operational. Now it Sunday Times article trumpeted that it Israelis in 1,SOO-mile bombing raid on Tunisia last year. appears that they have been turning was "the first direct evidence that Israel those screws all along. has the bomb." More to the point, it has report last year estimated Israel's to do with this arsenal? A dozen or so According to Vanunu, alongside the many, many bombs. nuclear bomb capability at "15 to 20 A-bombs could nuke every Arab capital "peaceful" reactor at Dimona there is a Vanunu had been dismissed along warheads." The real bombshell in the and make Hitler's Holocaust look like building known as "Machon 2," whose with 180 others in a cutback a year ago Sunday Times expose was the revelation child's play. Anyhow, the Jerusalem two innocuous floors above ground and, subsequently left Israel, appearing that the plutonium production at Di­ regime has always managed to get away serve to hide a six-level concrete in London in late September to sell his mona has been 40 kilograms a year, a with dropping murderous oonventional underground bunker. Here, spent fuel story (reportedly for $456,000). Shortly figure far above all previous estimates, bombs on peoples it didn't like, from rods from the reactor are processed in after he finished his business with the This means that "at least 100 and as Iraq to Tunisia. order to separate out the vital plutoni­ Sunday Times on September 30, Vanu­ many as 200 nuclear weapons of varying What's going on here?Vanunu's story um for making A-bombs. False walls nu dropped from sight. There were destructive power have been assembled" raises plenty of questions, and Rupert continued on page 8 reports he had been kidnapped by the by Israel. Murdoch's scab paper is no paragon of Mossad (the Israeli CIA) in Britain, or Two hundred nuclear weapons? This accuracy (they bought the bogus Hitler alternatively lured onto a yacht in the would make tiny Israel the world's diaries, for instance). But 200 nukes Mediterranean, and secretly brought sixth-largest nuclear power after the would mean the warmongers in Tel Aviv Was EI AI back to Israel. In any case, this Deep U.S., the Soviet Union, Britain, France and Jerusalem have a much bigger Throat seems to have been silenced. and China. And it means they've target in mind: Russia. Is this a joint Bomb a . It's hardly new news that Israel has probably got more nukes per capita, operation with Washington in prepara­ the bomb. As far back as 1974,the CIA than anyone. The article also presents tion for nuking the Soviets? (They're Mossad Plot? had noted in a memorandum that ~ evidence that the Israelis might have already in league with the White House "Israel already has produced nuclear thermonuclear Hvbombs, far more in secretly supplying the Iranian ayatol- . weapons" (New York Times, 29 Octo­ destructive than A-bombs. How did lahs with American arms.) Or are the SEE PAGE NINE ber). Indeed, a public United Nations they get them, and what do they intend Israelis preparing to go solo? The Get Your Class-Struggle Defense Notes!

The Partisan Defense Committee is a from class-war prisoners and reports on class-struggle, non-sectarian legal de­ those cases and causes of vital impor­ fense organization in accordance with tance. to the workers movement. Help the political views of the Spartacist publicize these cases. Get your copy League. In the tradition of the Interna­ now! Circulate it in your union locals tional Labor Defense (ILD) under and community.-organizations. Help us James P. Cannon, its founder and first reach thousands ofnew readers. Build a

NOVllIlBER 1986 secretary from 1925 to 1928, the PDC mass organization of class-struggle NUMBER 2 ••44 has revived the tradition of monthly defense. Send your contribution to the The past four months have brought a new round in the govern­ stipends to class-war prisoners as a PDC and receive a subscription to ment assault on democratic rights. The domestic counterpart of Reagan's military provocations--from the invasion of Bolivia in message to those whose freedom is the Class-Struggle Defense Notes. For a the name of the " war -on drugs" and the vote of $100 million for the bloodthirsty Nicaraguan contras by a Democratic controlled cause of the workers movement that single copy of issue number 2, send Congress, to unbrldled disinformation to justify a repeat attack on Libya--has been, the promotion of mass ignorance and intoler­ they are not forgotten. $.75 to: Partisan Defense Committee, ance buttressed by increasing state repression in 'order- to regi­ Class-Struggle Defense Notes; the P.O. Box 99, Canal Street Station, ment the population to be mobilized for war against the Soviet Union. newsletter of the PDC, contains letters New York, NY 10013. As we enter the era of the Rehriquist Supreme Court, it La necessary that labor's power put an end to this assault on demo­ cratic rights nov. Cracks in Reagan's wall may be showing.. We were pleased that an extended column of "Class-Struggle Defel:lse Notes" appeared in a supplement to Workers Vanguard dis­ tributed during the recent ILA strike on the. Atlantic Coast .. OVer a quarter of a million supplements were distributed by Spartacist League (SL) --supporters throughout major ports, from the Gulf Coast to the Tidewater region as well as major urban centers. The supplements were enthusiastically received by the striking dock­ workers as well as machinists, transit workers and brutally op­ pressed blacks in the major urban ghettos.

IN THIS ISSUE

SEIU LOCAL 535 ENDORSES Poe WORK ••••••••••••••••• • •• ••••••• 2 CLASS-WAR PRISONERS--NEW STIPEND RECIPIENTS ••••••••••••••• 4 LETTER FROM GERONIMO PRATT •••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••• 5 RAMONA AFRICA FACES NEW HARASSMENT •••••••••••••••••••••••• 7 INTERVIEW WITH FllEED CLASS-WAR PRISONER ••••••••••••••••••• 8 LETTER FROM SALVADORAN PHONE WORKERS 10 PDC FILES AMICUS CURIAE BRIEF AGAINST CREATIONISM •••••••• 13 FINANCIAL REPORT ~""""""""""""'''''.'''''' 19 Geronimo Pratt LETTERS FROM SUSTAINERS 22 BUILD THE PDCI 23 has spent 16 years in jail, a victim of racist cop/FBI frame-up conspiracy against Black Panthers.

Trotsky On Secret Diplomacy On 23 November 1917, two weeks after the Bolsheviks took power, they began to publish in Izvestia and Pravda the secret diplomatic correspondence between tsarist Geronimo Pratt: Russia and its imperialist allies, exposing their predatory war aims. As Soviet "From the Torch of the poe" Russia'sfirst commissarforforeign affairs, Leon Trotsky wrote the preface for this The Partisan Defense Committee has fested in such profound collectives as TROTSKY publication, stating: LENIN just published the second issue of the P.D.C., and want to encourage more I~ und~rtaking the publication of the secret diplomatic documents relating to the its newsletter, Class-Struggle Defense and more exchange between "the foreign diplomacy of the tsarist and the bourgeois-coalition governments, ...we Notes, a 24-page report on the work of streets" and the prison for it is essential fulfil an obligation which our party assumed when it was the party of opposition. the PDC during the past four months. to the survival of the entire community ~ecret diplomacy is a necessary weapon in the hands of the propertied minority From behind prison walls Black Pan­ that these compassionate acts continue which is compelled to deceive the majority in order to make the latter serve its ther leader Geronimo Pratt wrote about to be realized. For me personally, when i interests. Imperialism, with its world-wide plans of annexation, its rapacious the importance of the PDC: received my first embrace from the alliances and machinations, has developed the system of secret diplom.acy to the P.D.C., it reminded me of a certain How do you like my-new typewriter? highest degree .... The Russian people as well as the other peoples of Europe and night while i was locked deep within It's really something especially for an"01 those of the rest of the world should be given the documentary evidence of the plans folsom's hole (4-A) back in 73, i had not timer." Still learning to..operate it which the financiers and industrialists, together with their parliamentary and seen any outside nor any artificial light properly so bear with me. Hope these diplomatic agents, were secretly scheming.... . for a long time, then suddenly while letters be getting to you. Anyway, what i Abolition of secret diplomacy is the first essential of an honorable, popular, and doing Yoga, i began to see out of the want to address is the importance of the really democratic foreign policy. The Soviet Governmenfhas undertaken to carry cornerofmy eye, a vivid reflection of the Partisan Defense Comm. to prisoners out such a policy, and that is why, having offered to all belligerents an immediate full moon thru a cracked glass across the armistice, it at the same time publishes the treaties and agreements which are no who cannot get key documents, papers, catwalk from the cage i was in.... The books and generally the basic informa­ longer binding on the .Russian workmen, soldiers, and peasants.... feelings were too immense to try and The government of workers and peasants abolished secret diplomacy With its tion that one needs in order to grow and state here, but the warmth, when i intrigues, ciphers, and lies. We' have nothing to hide. Our program expresses the develop in every way possible under received your helping hand was very ardent desires of millions of workers, soldiers, and peasants. We desire a speedy these adverse conditions, There are so much the same. The Ray of Light still peace on the basis of honest relations with and the full co-operation of all nations. many "stranded" Brothas and Sistas shines ...from the Torch of the P.D.C., thruout these dungeons who are addi­ We desire a speedy abolition of the supremacy ofcapital. In revealing to the whole from every heart that repels injustice tionally deprived of certain needs and every hand that seeks to slay the world the work of the governing classes as it is expressed in the secret documents of because of political reasons ...and when vultures that prey on the blood of diplomacy, we offer to the workers the slogan which will always form the basis of assistance is given from the P.D.C. and the people the Torch warms as it our foreign policy: "Proletarians of all countries, unite!" other such concerns, it definitely makes enlightens pass it on and on and on. -Leon Trotsky, "Publication Of The 'Secret Treaties'," a clear and inspirational difference. i i Salute you, Izvestia, 23 November 1917 have nothing but praise for such deeply 1n Struggle, rooted humane gestures which is mani- geronimo

.'!f!'!!~'!!y~~s!!!~'!~.s~ Attention supporters DIRECTOR OF PARTY PUBLICATIONS: Liz Gordon of the Spartacist tendency EDITOR: Jan Norden PRODUCTION MANAGER: Noah Wilner All sterling EDITORIAL BOARD: Bonnie Brodie, Jon Brule, George Foster, Liz Gordon, Jan Nor~en, Jame~ Robertson, Reuben Samuels, Joseph Seymour, Marjorie Stamberg, U.S. $30 Noah Wilner (ClOSing editor) Workers Vanguard (USPS 098-770) published biweekly. except 2nd issue August and with 3-week interval December Sterling with 14K solid gold "4" by the Spartacist Publishing Co" 41 Warren Street, New York, NY 10007.Telephone: 732-7862 (Editorial), 732-7861 (Business). Address all correspondence to: Box 1377, GPO, New York. NY 10116. Domestic subscriptions: $5,00/24 U.S. $45 issues. Second-class postage paid at New York, NY. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to Workers Vanguard. Box 1377. GPO, New York, NY 10116. (Pin shown 1'12 times actual size) Opinions expressed in signed articles or letters do not necessarily express the editorial viewpoint. (postpaid) -. No. 416 21 November 1986 Order from/pay to: Spartacist, Box l377 GPO, New York, NY 10116. USA

2 WORKERS VANGUARD •I-7 November 1986 CP Sabotages The Trotskyites again betray the struggle for disarmament he Reykjavik summit has served to ~uclear T. b~g the overriding issue of our war danger? Not peaceful coex­ times into sharp relief: the imperative rstenee, byt "world-wide proletarian re­ volution." You can hardly get more r-r-r­ Defense of need to free the world of the danger of nuclear omnicide. revolutionary than that, can you? So long as this cataclysmic threat and This is the "solution" that all the the tremendous costs entailed hang over Trotskyite splinters offer in one way or ~ther. the~d. a brake is putupon progress in From handbills and papers that solVlDg the great contemporary social littered the streets on the route of the Great Peace March on Oct. 25th we Soviet Union, Again problemsand a black-out imposed on the read: ' hopesfor a better future JIM · ' WEST ThatISwhy all eyes everywhere were "Those who today want an end to turned to the capital of Iceland when Ronald war can only want revolution." This Rea­ from a group calling itself"TheSpark. " "When the leaders speak of peace, ence only embolden the Reaganite ::e.and Mikhail Gorbachev met for the second the common folk know that war is reactionaries. West makes an amalgam The "Workers' Advocate" (Marxist-Leninist . When Ronald Reagan pulled back from the Party, USA) attacks the Soviet Union as "social coming. When the leaders curse of the "far right" and "phony left," brinkofagreement on the historic end-the-nuclear­ imperialists," shouts that superpower talks are a war, the mobilization order is al­ declaring "peaceful co-existence" to be arms-~proJl?Sals ofMikhail Gorbachev, he sig­ smOke~~n to hide increased armaments, and de­ ready written out." the "bane and the nightmare of the naled his mtention to continue the slide to the brink mands brmg down the imperialists once and for of nuclear war by pressing ahead with the disas­ all." And so it goes from one Trotskyite outfit to -Bertolt Brecht ultra-right and militarists." He inveighs trousStar Wars program. another. To commemorate the 69th anniver­ against "Trotskyite splinter groups," .. The. CasJ>ll:T Weinbergers, the ultra-right and chiefly the SL, "portraying the Soviet ~tary-indus?'Ial .c0",lplex heav~ a great sigh of All of these phony-left sects have their feet sary of the Bolshevik Revolution, we relief. Reag~ s rejection ofthe historic opportuni­ firmly planted in the cement-block foundation published on the front page of the 7 Union as making one concession after ty for real bilateral nuclear disannament clouded stone ofTrotskyism: the fantasy-theory of"penna­ November issue of Workers Vanguard' another to Reagan 'initiatives'." Fun­ out the spectre of peaceful co-existence. the bane ~n~ revoluti~n."By this they mean that once a so­ cialist revolution starts anywhere it must be contin­ an article headlined, "We Are the Party ny, but we don't recall any right-wingers and the mghtmare ofthe ultra-right and militarists. There was more than a jest involved when a ued. ~ithout interruption until the whole world is of the Russian Revolution!" On the raising this complaint. senator said, in effect, that the far right would have socialist. B~ause the Soviet Union refused to im­ same date, the People's Daily World Compared to the villainous "Caspar banned Reagan from re-entering the U.S. on the pose a workingclass·revolution on Poland after its printed a not too competent polemic by Weinbergers, the ultraright and McCarran-Walter grounds that he had met with own revolution in 1917, despite Trotsky's demand and had dealings with a Communist in Iceland. the !rotskyites have denounced "the betrayal of th~ Communist Party Political Bureau military-industrial complex," Ronald . Th~ ~xtre.me right attack on the issues-clarify­ Soviet bureaucrats" ever since. To them the Sovi­ member Jim West against the Spartacist Reagan almost comes offas a good guy ~g, posmveSide of the summit has its counterpart ~t opposirion on principle to the export 'of revolu­ ~ the attacks from the phony left. To be more pre­ tIOn.~ Its adv~acy ofpeaceful coexistence from League titled, "The Trotskyites again in the CP's view. The favorites of the Le~1D betray the struggle for disarmament." "detente'l-blinded reformists are, of cise, from the Trotskyite splinter groups. s day on, ISbetrayal and capitulation to capi­ . According to the "Workers' Vanguard" Mik­ talism! For the CP, disarmament's the goal, course, "peace-minded" Democrats. hail ~hev. is a "betrayer," one who is'selling So it was not surprising that the Trotskyites talk of revolution is a provocation, and Another article in the issue proclaims a out to ~mpe~~sm for meeting wilh the president ~ o~POsed a negotiated peace in the U.S. war on of IIDpenallst U.S.A. in order to advance the ~Ie~: defense of the Soviet Union is not to be "Peace movement agenda for new Soviet ~uest for peace. The sheet of the Trotskyite They wanted the war to go on until U.S. mentioned. Congress" following the Republican S~lSt League distorts what happened at the 1",Ipenalism was overthrown no matter how many sumnut by portraying the Soviet Union as making Vietnamese people and U.S. youth were killed. West sneers at revolution with a dis­ defeat in the November 4 elections. How much havoc they tried to create in the peace ~ne ,~cession after another to Reagan "initia­ dain worthy of a bourgeois politician: Actually, the Democrats' chief spokes­ movements of that time! tives ! (The far right was pointing to the "danger" "What is the answer of the Trotskyites man on "defense" (i.e., war), Sam Nunn, ofReagan yielding to Soviet pressure!) It is this s~e bed-rock fantasy theory of per­ to the nuclear war danger? Not peaceful attacked Reagan from the right over One ~an hear a demagogic "Amenl" from the mane~t .revolubon, against which Lenin strongly coexistence, but 'world-wide proletari­ Reykjavik for even suggesting giving up extreme nght and the militarists upon reading in polenuClzed and rejected - that impels the sundry an revolution.' You can hardly get more nuclear weapons. "Workers' Voice" these words: ''The world .: in T~ts.kYite ph~ny-Ieft groups to playa disruptive. short, would become a far more dangerous place if splitting role ID the peace movements and in what­ pro~ r-r-r-revolutionary than that, can you?" To give the CP's liberal politics a the 'disannament' deal were signed." ever.movements they penetrate. Hatred ofpeaceful Permanent revolution is dismissed as a "left" cover, West refers to a supposed What IS the answer of the Trotskyites to the coexistence and ofthe quest for a peaceful world in the nuclear age is endemic to Trotskyism. Little "fantasy theory." And of course there "Soviet opposition on principle to the Jim West is a ~mber of the Political Bureau of the wonder that in the broad peace movements they are the usual Stalinist denunciations of COIIU1IIUIi.st Pony, USA. and chairll/Qll ofits Central Re. export of revolution and its advocacy of viewCOIIIIIIission. have earned the designation of"Crazies." peaceful coexistence from Lenin's day ... on." This is an invention of the crudest sort. Repeatedly during World War I, Soviet Republic side by side with im­ tion is nonsense. Every country, should Lenin denounced pacifist "disarma­ perialist states for any length of time is it so desire, will achieve its own ment" delusions: inconceivable. In the end one or the revolution...." It was Stalin's epitaph SOVIETS DENY "A bourgeoisie armed against the other must triumph." for the Comintern he had destroyed. proletariat is one of the biggest, funda­ It was J. V. Stalin who proclaimed the To buttress one historical fabrication, mental and cardinal facts of modern DOWNING PLANE capitalist society. And in face of this myth of "peaceful coexistence," a West invents another, claiming it was Radar supports denial fact, revolutionary Social-Democrats corollary of his anti-Marxist dogma of "Trotsky's demand" that the Soviet are urged to 'demand' 'disarmament'! building "socialism in one country." Union "impose a workingclass revolu­ That is tantamount to complete aban­ This was the antithesis of Lenin's tion on Poland after its own revolution donment of the class-struggle point of program of world socialist revolution, in 1917." This is completely bollixed. In view, to renunciation of all thought of CPUSA press, 2 September .1983: revolution. Our slogan must be: arming on which the Communist International 1920, the Red Army under Leon cringing falsification in face of U.S. of the proletariat to defeat, expropriate was founded. As for opposition "in Trotsky repelled a surprise attack by KAL 007 spy provocation. and disarm the bourgeoisie.... Only principle" to the "export of revolution," Pilsudski's Polish army. When they . after the proletariat has disarmed the even Stalin didn't dare proclaim that reached the border of Poland, the issue bourgeoisie-will it be able ... to consign "Trotskyites" as splitters, disrupters and all armaments to the scrap-heap." until a decade after he usurped power, was posed whether to keep on going. "crazies" driven by "hatred of peaceful -V.1. Lenin, "The politically expropriating the Soviet Lenin was strongly for continuing the coexistence." - 'Disarmament' Slogan" working class. In 1936, after Stalin offensive, seeing the historic opportuni­ The People's Daily World was attack­ (October 1916) allowed Hitler to march unimpeded to ty of linking up with the German work­ ing our article on the Iceland summit On "peaceful coexistence" with imperi­ power, and prepared to behead the ers; Trotsky had reservations, fearing ("Limits to Betrayal?", WVNo. 414, 24 alism, Lenin would certainly qualify as a Spanish Revolution, the Great Organiz­ the Polish workers and peasants would October) in which we warned that "crazy" in the CP's book. In March 1919 er of Defeats told an American bour­ not rise up to greet the Red Army as Kremlin concessions to U.S. belliger- he proclaimed: "The existence of the geois reporter, "The export of revolu- continued on page 4

On November 13, two U.S. mar­ foreign journalists. When on the basis shals, without warning, barged into of considerable evidence the Soviets the Washington, D.C. private resi­ Hands Off Izvestia! arrested and charged U.S. News & dence of Izvestia correspondent Leo­ World Report "correspondent" Nich­ nid Koryavin. These government olas Daniloff with espionage, the thugs with badges grabbed the Soviet American media raised a smokescreen reporter's typewriter, the principal u.s. Breaks Into' Home, of righteous indignation over freedom tool of his work. And they threatened of the press. Where is the hue and cry to return with a truck and haul away over the U.S. government when it his desk, filing cabinets, bookcases and Robs Soviet Reporter tramples upon elementary democratic even his television set! rights in robbing an Izvestia reporter This Gestapo-like raid on the home "peaceful coexistence," is, if anything, the rights, invade the privacy and steal in his home? of a foreign correspondent grew out of oversolicitous of Western capitalists the property of Soviet journalists, This sinister and provocative attack a so-called "libel" settlement awarded who in return routinely use their men Gregorian's attorney has also subpoe­ on a Soviet journalist is of a piece with California "businessman" Raphael in Moscow to engage in espionage. naed the Soviet press agency TASS the mass expulsions of Soviet diplo­ Gregorian. Gregorian claimed he lost a Gregorian launched a $320 million and asked the judge to seize the U.S. mats, repeated incursions into Soviet $10 million operation in the Soviet damage suit against Izvestia and the bank accounts of the Soviet Bank for waters and airspace, and arming Union after an 18 November 1984 Soviet Ministry of Foreign Trade Foreign Trade. cutthroat mullahs and feudalists fight­ Izvestia article accused him "of 'con­ which revoked his trade license with The Soviet embassy sent a diplomat­ ing the Red Army in Afghanistan: a traband operations' and of selling the Soviet Union, in a U.S. district ic note to the State Department pattern of provocation aiming at war. outdated medical equipment" (New court in California. In June the federal protesting this grotesque violation of The . wackos and witchhunters in York Times, 14November). The Soviet ­ judge awarded him $413,000. Not human rights, press freedom and the Washington had better be stopped. bureaucracy, enamored of mythical content with using the courts to violate international conventions protecting Hands off Izvestia! .

21 NOVEMBER 1986 3 who flew the Confederate flag of slavery and KKK terror in front of her city hall for two years before the Spartacist s. F. Black -Firefighter Victimized League and Labor Black League for Social Defense tore it down. Her cops posted a Nazi swastika poster in a police van at an anti-apartheid demonstration in 1985. Democratic Party administra­ For Fighting Racist Attack tions have been doing the dirty work for Reagan in cities...around the country­ Q) SAN FRANCISCO-Hugh Smith is a "0 hearings, white firemen sat on one side, like black Democrat Wilson Goode, 'c firefighter, an ex-Marine who was com­ o blacks on the other. A statement mayor of Philadelphia, who ordered the L: mended for bravery last year by the city o circulated by John Flaherty, president 1985 MOVE massacre in which eleven u, fire department. But this is racist, en of the San Francisco Fire Chiefs black people, including five kids,' were capitalist America, and Smith is one of a Association, and signed by 34 of the 62 murdered. While the courts may order relative handful of black firemen in the chiefs, denounced the token punish­ some cosmetic changes in the SF fire city run by Democratic mayor "Dixie ments meted out to the four whites as department's discriminatory hiring Dianne" Feinstein. When Smith con­ "extraordinarily unfair and inconceiva­ practices, the state generally takes an fronted a white racist fireman who bly harsh," and Smith's punishment as interest in "equal employment" in the labor movement only as a cynical cover called him a "nigger" in his station house Hugh "absurdly lenient"! last June, Smith's superior officers Smith Far from being an isolated episode (as for union-busting schemes. covered up the incident and ordered him Feinstein tried to claim, blaming "a few The American proletariat has a vital to lie about it. When Smith blew the lid bad apples"), the incident exposed the stake in fighting to integrate the work­ off, he was charged with making a "false pervasive racism in the city's fire force, including the firemen who (unlike report" and ended up with a "letter of department, 85 percent white in this the racist union-busting cops) are part reprimand" in his file-to be removed in multiracial city with large minority of the working class and perform vital six months if he "keeps out of trouble"! populations. Today there are only 79 social services. We fight for revolution­ This is an outrage! As Smith bitterly Even the commission was astounded by blacks in the force of some 1,500,which ary integrationism, including jobs for commented, "A guy attacks me racially, his brazen claim he meant no racist has long been a job-trusted, ethnic all, union-run special recruitment and and they put me on trial. I feel I was a insult. This disgusting racial epithet is a white, largely Irish preserve, with jobs training programs for minorities and victim" (Chronicle, 23 October). fighting word. It's Klan talk, the passed on to relatives. A lawsuit is women, an end to racial and sexual During the Fire Commission's farci­ language of the lynch rope. Smith's currently in the process of being settled, discrimination in hiring and on the job. cal hearing, the three officers involved in response-that of any self-respecting challenging the civil service tests used to It will take an integrated, class-struggle the cover-up defended themselves by black person-was more than justified. hire and promote firemen as racially and leadership of Bay Area labor to clean claiming Smith agreed to go along with Two of the three officers involved in sexually biased (93 percent of whites out the bigots from the station house to it. When the black fireman first de­ the cover-up ended up with short sus­ and 55 percent of blacks passed the last the suburbs and crush the KKK race­ manded action from his superiors, one pensions, the third with a "letter of rep- one). As Robert Demmons, president of terrorists. That was shown in practice in simply ignored him while another tried . rirnand" to be removed in six months, the Black Firefighters Association, told 1980, when the 1,200-strong ANCAN to pretend he was "kidding." Smith but unlike Smith's without the insulting a Board of Supervisors committee mobilization led by the Spartacist testified that he was ordered to report "stay out of trouble" condition. Fitz­ hearing in October, racial harassment League stopped the Nazi scum from that a hand injury received in his scuffle patrick was suspended for 30 days. This on the job began when San Francisco's "celebrating" Hitler's birthday in the with the racist resulted from a fall in the token punishment Of the racists-rand first black firefighter was called a racist San Francisco Civic Center. And this shower. The racist creep, Jack Fitzpat­ egregious slap at the victim gives the name his first day on the jobin 1955and means a workers party to struggle rick, said he used the word "nigger" green light to racists throughout the has continued ever since. against the capitalist parties, for a frequently to include people other than city. Smith's case has become a focal Hugh Smith got a firsthand taste of workers government to put an end blacks and defined the word as "the point for a racist mobilization in the what can be expected from the bosses' to the racist, capitalist system of lowest element of any race or people." department. At the Fire Commission state. In this city it's run by Feinstein, exploitation.•

o as two imperialistic "superpowers," they 15 s: Again, CP scab on the defense of the gains of the a, > Bolsheviks' October Revolution. West, 3: of course, doesn't mention that our Sabotages ••• article prominently declared: "Defend (continued from page 3) the Soviet Union!" liberators. But Stalin did everything he In fact, West doesn't mention defense could to sabotage the offensive, divert­ of the Soviet Union-and for good ing crucial forces from the drive on War­ reason. West tries to claim the Soviet CPUSA saw, which ultimately stopped the Red mantle by hailing the "historic" dis­ chairman Gus Army on the Vistula (see "The Bolshe­ armament proposals of CPS U general Hall peddles viks and the 'Export of Revolution'," secretary Mikhail Gorbachev. But we've social-patriotic Spartacist No. 27-28, Summer 1980). pointed out before how the CPUSA's line of "detente" illusions have led it to aban­ "peaceful Continuing the method of the amal­ coexistence." gam, the CP tries to equate us with don defense of the Soviet Union on every manner of minuscule anti-Soviet several occasions. For example, when sect, such as the social-democratic the KAL 007 jetliner was shot down "Spark" group and the "Marxist­ overflying some of the most sensitive Leninist Party" (MLP), erstwhile aco­ Soviet military installations in the Far lytes of Enver Hoxha's Albania. The East, the Daily World (2 September Soviet air space over military zones, Hall getting some heat over his grovel­ MLP would certainly object to being 1'983) published a banner headline: sending U.S. ships into Soviet territorial ing pro-detente line from abroad, as labeled "Trotskyite"-indeed the vari­ "Soviets Deny Downing Plane." They waters near key naval bases, ramming when French CP leader Duclos sent a ous ex-Maoist groups are merely Stalin­ not only invented a Moscow denial, but Soviet submarines, expelling Soviet missive (on Stalin's behalf) to Earl ists without a country. And in treacher­ refused to believe the Soviet Union diplomats en masse. This is not to say Browder suggesting that dissolving the would defend itself against the unidenti­ ously equating the USSR with the USA that the Trotskyists reject all negotia­ CPUSA was carrying the People's fied intruder. tions with the imperialists. West takes us Front with Roosevelt too far? Or could What about when the New York to task for opposing a "negotiated it be that some quite senior CPers are Times (2 November 1984) asked Gus peace" in Vietnam: "They wanted the getting a little tired of their crappy Hall where the CPUSA disagreed with war to go on until U.S. imperialism was organization, and like seeing a genuine the Soviet Union-Hall replied that overthrown no matter how many communist paper, if only as an external Polish Solidarnosc was "a positive Vietnamese people and U.S. youth were point of reference.• step," and, "The other socialist coun­ killed." We denounced the CP and its tries should learn a lesson from it...." reformist and liberal cohorts for calling This was the favorite "union" of Rea­ for negotiations in Vietnam instead of gan, the pope and the Wall Street bank­ fighting for the victory of the Vietnam­ Spartacist League ers! The Spartacist League said: "Stop ese Revolution. But we did not call the Public Offices Solidarnose Counterrevolution!" Or 1973 Paris accords a betrayal: we said it when Hall told the CPSU congressthat was a "temporary bargain" and pro­ -MARXIST LlTERATURE­ Gorbachev had a duty to come to a claimed: "The Civil War Goes On"( WV Bay Area summit in the U.S. no matter what No. 16, February 1973).The war did go Fri.: 5:00-8:00 p.m., Sat.: 3:00-6:00 p.m. 1634 Telegraph, 3rd Floor (near 17th Street) provocations the Reaganites threw up. on, U.S. imperialism was overthrown, Oakland, California Phone: (415) 839-0851 "Do you suggest," the astounded Soviet and we hailed that victory. leader asked, "that I come to your coun­ As we proclaimed in the article West Chicago Tues.: 5:00-9:00 p.m., Sat.: 11:00a.m.-2:00 p.m. try without conditions?" Hall replied, attacks, as Lenin repeatedly declared, 161 W. Harrison St., 10th Floor "Without conditions" (New Times, 24 ..Workers Revolution Must Disarm the Chica.go, Illinois Phone: (312) 663-0715 March). This was Reagan's line! At least Imperialistst" New York City the Kremlin said no to that one. One has to ask after all this, why is it Tues.: 6:00-9:00 p.m., Sat.: 1:00-5:00 p.m. 50e (24 pages) Appeasement is not the way to deal that the CPUSA should print such an 41 Warren St. (one block below Chambers St. near Church St.) Order from: Spartacist Publishing Co. with these capitalist warmongers, who ignorant and vulgar "polemic." Certain­ New York, N.Y. Phone: (212) 267-1025 Box 1377 GPO, New York, NY 10116 go from one provocation to another, ly not in order to expose their "Com­ dispatching civilian planes to penetrate munist" pretensions to ridicule. Is Gus 4 WORKERS VANGUARD Industrial·Murder·in the North Sea LONDON-On November 6, one of the of the PATCO air traffic controllers worst helicopter crashes in history took union led directly to a sharp rise in air place just off the Shetland Isles in the fatalities. Had the ASTMS struck in North Sea. Forty-five men, oil workers support of the heroic British coal miners working on the offshore oil rigs, died strike-when oil-fired power stations as their Chinook helicopter foundered played a crucial strikebreaking role­ and broke up in the icy waters of the they could have made the difference in North Sea.. where you're lucky to last deep-sixing "Iron Lady" Thatcher, two minutes in the near-Arctic condi­ North Sea whose revenues depend heavily on tions before freezing to death. Miracu­ oil rig: North Sea oil. For union control over lously, two survived, by clinging to a Capitalism safety and working conditions! For a piece of wreckage and a dinghy and creates strong industrial union of North Sea oil being fortuitously picked up by a coast disaster­ workers under class-struggle leadership! guard chopper on a training flight ridden, From Whitehall to the City of Lon­ within minutes of the crash. Otherwise, frozen don, the ruling class has seen in the they too would have frozen and hell for North Sea oilfield the saviour that drowned. workers. would somehow save clapped-out Brit­ The ill-fated Chinook helicopter was ish capitalism indefinitely from eco­ owned by Robert ("Captain Bob") nomic disaster. But it has not. And now Maxwell, darling of treacherous Labour the one region of Scotland that due to leader Neil Kinnock and owner of a Conditions on the North Sea oil rigs which are central to the functioning of oil has had some measure of alleviation number of daily papers. His recently . epitomise the total disdain for the the oilfield are five times more likely to from the all-around economic devasta­ acquired British International Helicop­ lives and welfare of the workforce that malfunction and crash than fixed-wing tion isfinding that this was transient and ters has taken over much of the work is characteristic of capitalist exploita­ aircraft. The pilot must maintain hands­ illusory. As the oil industry goes into involved in ferrying oil workers to and tion. In April 1977, "Red" Adair, the on control of these "unstable platforms" decline, it is estimated that 40,000 jobs from the various rigs and depots dotted American oil rig troubleshooter, said: during every instant offlight. And in the will be lost, ripping the heart out of this around the North Sea. Having sent' "Whatever precautions are taken, North Sea oilfield, they operate virtual­ enclave of Scottish "prosperity." It's no these 45 mainly Scottish workers to there'll be a disaster in the North Sea, ly without cease, making the air traffic accident that a significant number of their deaths, the despicable Labourite sooner or later. There are no proper control centre at Brent Log one of the those killed aboard the Chinook came millionaire then launched a fund drive facilities for coping with it" (New busiest in Europe (at one time second from Fife, once a rich coalfield, since for the bereaved families through his Yorker, 27 January). The North Sea only to London's Heathrow interna­ turned into industrial desert. Acting out newspaper chain. Truly, blood money! oilfield has been plagued with disaster tional airport). The New Yorker cor­ a capitalist sequel to the Highland "Accidents will happen," the bosses from its inception. In December 1985, respondent notes that "The parallel Clearances, Scotland (like Wales) has are saying in chorus. But whydo they 13 men were killed when the Sea Gem, between the North Sea and space has been viciously ravaged and ripped off by happen? The drive for 'profit .that is one of the first drilling barges, capsized become one of the cliches of the the British bourgeoisie in its epoch of intrinsic to capitalism involves system­ and sank. Several weeks after. Adair's industry." But if the imperialist bour­ decay. And look what British imperial­ atic negligence and outright, wanton prediction, Well 14,on Ekofisk Bravo in geoisie is prepared to see seven astro­ ism has done in Ireland. murder. Maintenance engineers insist­ the Norwegian sector of the. oilfield, nauts blown to bits aboard the Chal­ Marxists stand for the right of self­ ed on delaying the fatal flight when blew out. The oil companies had pre­ lenger space shuttle, what concern determination for the Celtic fringe. We they discovered an oil leak before its viously rejected Adair's proposal for a takeoff, and an eyewitness to the specialised firefighting vessel on the crash on a nearby fishing vessel saw grounds of expense. one of the rotor blades fall off just North Sea oil adds something like £2 before the Chinook started its dive into million (almost $3 million) per hour to the sea. . the coffers of the oil magnates-every Aircraft design experts describe the penny of it leached out of the blood of Chinook as an "engineering nightmare." the workforce. The workers, many of In February 1983this same chopper had them highly skilled and specialised, to make a forced landing when a work straight 12-hour shifts 14days at a Striking British miners in gearbox bearing failed. Only two of the stretch. (You can get a taste of the 1984 funeral three improvements recommended in its Dante-like infernal scene, minus the procession for wake by safety experts-on fire safety, high-tech, from the Sean Connery film coal miner killed flight deck warning indicator and Outland.) They are forced to work on by scab. General gearbox design-were ever implement­ slippery platforms blown backwards strike then could ed. In October 1984, the synchronisa­ and forwards by gale-force winds in a have brought tion shaft failed during maintenance. prisonlike regime-s-booze and women down bloody Given the Chinook's overlapping twin are banned, newspapers are generally Thatcher. rotor blades design, the synchronisation several days old, their only source of mechanism is critical to keeping the relaxation videotapes. Except in the blades from smashing each other to bits. sleeping areas, the deafening din and would one expect the notoriously' do not, however, urge a course of That was the cause of a similarly horrific vibration ofthe rigs is everywhere and rapacious oil companies to give to their separation: the Scottish and Welsh crash in Mannheim, West Germany in always present. And, unlike onshore oil workers? proletariat have been in the vanguard of 1982, in which 46 French and Welsh refineries, workers can't run away from The North Sea helicopter disaster was the working class movement in the amateur parachutists aboard a military a. fire; they can only jump into the fundamentally of a piece with the Kin­ British Isles. The answer is neither the version of the Chinook were killed. It surrounding icy sea. ross gold mine catastrophe in South fool's gold of Scottish nationalism, appears that something very similar And the helicopters-s-mostly Chi­ Africa a couple of months ago, in which which would leave the Scottish working happened on November 6. nooks and the smaller Sikorski S-61s- nearly 200 black miners were asphyxiat­ class no less brutally exploited, nor the ed a mile underground. For the capital­ vile "socialism" of Kinnock's Labour ist bloodsuckers, the bottom line-, Party, which revels in its strikebreaking literally-is their profit statement at the and treacherous fealty to the English end of the fiscal year; and to that end, ruling class. Having stabbed the miners human life is expendable. In particu­ in the back, "Judas" Kinnock goes off JUST OUT! lar, the' English-centred bourgeoisie on a pilgrimage to the Berlin Wall to Women and has routinely treated Scottish working laud the Nazi effort to fight off the Red Revolution people as expendable, be it as cannon Army liberation of Berlin and then lays Winter 1986-87 fodder in the Scottish regiments or as a wreath for the racist cop killed during No. 32 (32 pages) workers on North Sea oil rigs. the police invasion of London's Totten- The oil workers have considerable ham ghetto last year! . industrial muscle. The nascent South A revolutionary struggle for socialism • Meese Police African black National Union of Mine­ can unite the English working class with Target Everybody workers organised a powerful memorial the downtrodden peoples of the Celtic • The Trouble with strike in outrage Over the Kinross fringe and the oppressed black and Sexual Utopias massacre. But to the extent the North Asian minorities-who all have good Sea oil workers are unionised, they have reason to hate and fight the British • Harriet Tubman: Fighter for only the pathetic ASTMS, which or­ ruling class. Above all, that requires the ganises primarily white-collar techni­ forging of a Leninist-Trotskyist van­ Black Freedom ='rl out of ....--i",.. y; ---, --.,.'-=::~~JuIr,~...... Court-.c1alDn _...... SEE PAGE SIX _ cians. Shortly before the recent crash, guard party through splitting the work­ government official Norman Margue­ ing-class base of the Labour Party from ::-:-.'d.uk. to Hne ,.. 2 $.50 single issue ree AbortIon On Demand! •.• rite wrote to "interested parties" (no the pro-capitalist tops. Such a partywill $2.00 4-issue subscription ::C:-A:~:::~IaIef' ··············...3 doubt including the ASTMS leader­ act as tribune of the oppressed, mobilis­ ~"cwDetMee of Sdence, Make checks payable/mail to: ....11Jtion of ChlRh 8nd S 4 ship) expressing gratitude for their ing all the downtrodden'in this society Spartadst Publishing Co. "patience" over long-postponed reforms behind the social power ofthe proletari­ Box 1377.GPO New York. NY 10116 in safety conditions. • at and finally sweeping the racist Union-busting paves the way to butchers of this senile ruling class into industrial murder. Reagan's smashing the dustbin of history .• 21 NOVEMBER 1986 5 Hundreds of Thousands Homeless After Duake Salvador Workers: Give Duarte the Somoza Treatment! The October 10 earthquake in EI repressive forces have slaughtered more Salvador were held on the ground for broken mains, advertised for new Salvador struck a heavy blow at the than 61,000 civilians, and in the last nearly a week. Inside the city, for days workers rather than rehire 236 fired poor and working people of this land couple years murderous governmental only the Catholic church and Interna­ union militants. As for reconstruction, who have already withstood six years of aerial bombardment combined with tional Red Cross distributed limited aid, some destroyed communities may never civil war. This was no "act of God" frequent army "search and destroy" while hundreds of victims gathered be rebuilt as wealthy landlords reclaim divorced from the class struggle: it is the. sweeps have created an internal refugee outside the hangar where official relief the meager parcels on which the poor slum dwellers who are homeless today, population of about 500,000 living in was centered, clamoring for food and had put up their squatters' shacks. the rich are not sleeping in the streets! In and around the capital. With half the As the initial shock of the earthquake fact, rapacious Salvadoran capitalists population either underemployed or wears off, anger is mounting over the and their bloodthirsty military guard unemployed and the economy mired in criminal exploitation of the relief dogs used the opportunity to continue , depression, the outlook for the Salva­ operation. On November II hundreds pillaging the country arid persecuting doran masses was catastrophic, even of students burned an effigy of Vncle working-class fighters. A revolutionary before the October I0 earthquake. Their Sam and shouted "i Duarte asesino!" workers party would respond to this experience since then proves that the when the puppet president tried to set disaster by mobilizing the Salvadoran class struggle is not suspended for foot on the University of El'Salvador to masses against their utterly corrupt and natural disasters; the resulting chaos "evaluate damage" from the quake. cynical rulers."In Nicaragua, Somoza's and victimization of the dispossessed "Duarte, you have hurt the university looting of relief supplies fueled outrage only intensifies it. more than the earthquake did," came ultimately leading to the July 1979 The government "relief" operation the outcry, recalling that the campus Sandinista-Ied popular insurrection strips bare the brutal realities of class was shut down in 1980under the Duarte that sent the dictator packing. In EI oppression in EI Salvador. In Mexico junta after scores of students were Salvador, where a militant workers after last year's killer quake, the military murdered by a police and army attack. movement is recovering its strength went through the motions of aiding the The Salvadoran masses who have lived after several years underground, the victims. In EI Salvador, the army has through the bloody civil war and this earthquake could be a detonator for done nothing outside ofthe Ilopango~ir latest infernal calamity must burn with .proletarian revolution sending shock base (center of the CIA's contra gunrun­ class hatred: there will be no salvation waves throughout the region. ning operation) and protecting govern­ for them without sweeping away the Within minutes of the first tremor, ment warehouses. Soldiers watched brutal rule of Duarte and his Yankee half the capital lay in ruins. While the with cold disdain, fingering the trig­ godfathers, of the insatiable local bour- . Salvadoran government of V.S.-puppet gers of their M16s while Salvadoran geoisie and bloodthirsty military. president Jose Napoleon Duarte tried to and international volunteers feverishly downplaythe destruction, relief officials searched for survivors. Treasury Police For Workers Revolution estimate that as many as 3,000 were chief General Rinaldo Golcher told Throughout Central America! killed, 20,000 injured and 300,000 left Newsday (13 October), "The men are During times of crisis nationalists and homeless (SALPRESS, 13 October). here to keep order." The dust had hardly San Salvador earthquake: a scene reformists rally 'round the flag, sub­ More than 500 died in the Ruben Dario settled before government death squads of devastation. merging the class struggle in the name of office building, condemned after the last .,. resumed their kidnapping and killing. plastic sheets to protect them from the "national unity." Following the October quake but never ordered razed by then­ Among the fatalities were seven mem­ storms. quake the Salvadoran Revolutionary mayor Duarte. Some 30,000 homes bers of a refugee relief organization and The entire disaster relief operation Democratic Front (FOR) and the were destroyed, not counting the rude Francisco Mendez, an electrical worker has been political from' the start. The" guerrillas' Farabundo Marti National mud and adobe structures of the of the STECEL union shot by the army V.S. has tried to control supplies in Liberation Front (FMLN) declared a tugurios (slums) which were especially while working as a brigadista aiding order to strengthen its grip on the unilateral truce. Having earlier canceled hard hit. Compared to last year's quake victims. capital where a resurgent labor move­ the "dialogue" at Sesori by militarily Mexico quake, whose force was over a At the airport, the army deliberately ment had begun to assert itself. Perhaps .occupying the site, the government hundred times greater, the number left delayed desperately needed relief sup­ the most obscene image of this was the responded by increasing military opera­ without a roof over their heads in San plies. These guardians of the bourgeois photo of V.S. secretary of state George tions in rebel-controlled zones. In the (Let 'em Eat Bullets) Shultzand butcher V.S., rad-libs and reformists like Duarte surveying the earthquake dam­ CISPES and the Socialist Workers age. After his visit, Shultz recom­ Party take up disaster relief as a form of mended that the majority of future V.S. charity. What's urgently needed is aid be destined for the military. Duarte, revolutionary struggle against the op­ meanwhile, turned coordination of pressors! The earthquake was a natural external disaster aid over to the private phenomenon; the fact that hundreds sector, partly out of recognition of died and hundreds of thousands are left widespread government corruption and homeless is the product of capitalism. partly to appease the ultraright. The There should have been militant demon­ businessmen chosen for the task are strations against the government de­ leaders of the Salvadoran Foundation manding that relief supplies be handed for Development, a group directly over; the warehouses should have been linked with the V.S. extermination seized and slum areas turned into "no­ campaign in the countryside through go" areas for the military. the V.S. Agency for International In imperial Russia, at the turn of the Development. century widespread famine sparked Not surprisingly, with this Reagan­ philanthropic relief efforts by the style "magic of the marketplace" scant impotent "Zemstvo" provincial councils aid reached the victims. Most inter­ permitted by the autocratic regime. V.I. national donations were siphoned off Lenin could have been describing EI no credit Militant water workers confront Salvador National Police. for private construction projects or Salvador today when he noted in hoarded by the army. Striking person­ October 190I that "the tsarist govern­ Salvador was double that in Mexico order went over arriving planes, with a nel at thePolicllnica Salvadorefia, who ment officials hamper and reduce relief, City. The astounding toll of homeless fine-toothed comb, grotesquely search­ worked around the clock performing minimise the extent of the distress, victims reveals the precarious existence ing for arms to the leftist rebels! surgery in the hospital parking lot, impede the opening of food-kitchens, eked out by the poor and working class Sandinista Nicaragua sent a delegation complained that medicines were si­ etc." To Narodnik populists and Zemst­ who live in shacks teetering along river with blood plasma, medicine and phoned off by the militaryhospital. And vo liberals who accused the socialists of gullies and clinging to steep ravines. As blankets. However, the Salvadoran with mass starvation looming, the "artificially applying the concept of the more than 1,000aftershocks and torren­ government rejected outright an offer ' Christian Democratic. regime an­ class struggle" to the issue of famine, tial rainstorms battered survivors, San by Cuba to supply a fully equipped field nounced it would sell 2,000 tons of Lenin responded that "the Russian Salvador became a veritable hell on hospital and team of doctors. It also wheat donated by the government of Government excels us all in the judge­ earth. blocked aid shipments destined for Japan. Meanwhile, with more than ment of the profundity of the class This disaster comes in the midst of the distribution by unions. A V.S. relief 30,000 phone lines down, the military struggle." The "increasing exploitation V.S.-backed war to crush a workers and agency denounced the fact "that 15 manager of ANTEL (telecommunica­ of capital" and "predatory policy of the peasants.insurgency seeking to throw planeloads of supplies were denied tions) refused to bring back 20 fired government and of the landlords" had off the yoke of more than half a century ~ landing rights in the days just after the technicians, instead contracting a for­ reduced the peasants to their ruinous of bloody military rule. Kill-crazy right­ disaster. Two planes from the Los eign team. And the ANDAwaterworks, state, he wrote. The future leader of wing death squads and uniformed Angeles-based -Medical. Aid to EI facing urgent repairs to huudreds.of the Bolshevik Revolution called for 6 WORKERS VANGUARD exposing the government's criminal bargain with the contra killers! The food policies and insisted; Trotskyists oftheSpartacistLeaguecall "there neither is nor can be any other instead for military victory to the leftist means of combating unemployment insurgents in El Salvador, and to de­ and crises...than the class struggle of fend, complete and extend the Nicara­ the revolutionaryproletariat against the entire capitalist system." guan Revolution. We stand for a class -V.l. Lenin, "Review of Home fight against Duarte's death squad Affairs" (October 1901) "democracy" and its Republican and The suffering of the hundreds of Democratic paymasters, for a class­ thousands of homeless in El Salvador struggle workers party and concrete will not be alleviated by a truce, but actions of labor solidarity: hot-cargo through mobilizing the urban poor and arms to El Salvador, for material aid to the peasants behind the workers move­ defend Nicaragua, for labor strikes ment in revolutionarystruggle. Over the against a U.S. invasion of Central last two years, the combative Salvado­ America. ran workers have repeatedly taken to The San Salvador disaster could be a the streets in massive demonstrations turning point for the Salvadoran revo­ and work stoppages. September saw a lution, much as the 1972 Managua "broad movement of labor solidarity" earthquake was in Nicaragua. Ten showing"increased class consciousness" thousand people died there, and a (Proceso, 8 October) around strikes by no credit quarter of a million were left homeless; construction workers, hospital workers Union-called national demonstration of 50,000 in San Salvador defies the center of Managua was leveled. and workers at the CIRCA textile plant, military blockade, October 4. International aid poured in. Somoza who won their economic demands after Matanza of 1932 without calling in the Mexico, whose PRI rulers fear the and his cronies saw in the catastrophe a a month on strike. On September 19 Yankees; with the racist exploiters who contagion of social revolution could chance to make immense profits. phone workers.stopped work for three today employ psychopathic killers like spread from Central America to their Through ruthless land speculation,' hours, disrupting communications from D'Aubuisson so they can dispose ofthe own earthquake victims and the deeply raking in huge loans and stealing Duarte's "peace" charade in Sesori. On "Indian" toilers like cattle! Communist exploited Mexican proletariat. international relief aid, El Jefe and his October I and 2 more than 15,000 leader Farabundo Marti understood in In the U.S. the fake "solidarity" pals made millions from the suffering of teachers and other public employees 1932 that "until the rich class is forced brokers look to Democrats like Walter the Nicaraguan people. But the incredi­ walked out. And on October 4, 50,000 from power by all of us, we will always ("Quarantine Nicaragua") Mondaleand ble greed and cruelty of these blood­ people from around the country de­ be their slaves." Marti's battle cry was to "progressive" union bureaucrats such suckers fueled the Sandinista rebellion fied a military blockade to march for"All power to the workers, peasants as the National Labor Committee for which eventually put an end to Somo­ for a "political solution to the nation­ and soldiers councils!" The FORI Democracy and Human Rights in El za's tyranny. In El Salvador today, the al conflict and the demands of the FM LN nationalist-reformists despair Salvador, which voted at the October avarice of the bourgeoisie and the workers." about making a revolution because as 1985 AFL-CIO convention for a treach­ heinous crimes of the military and their What "negotiated solution" canthere nationalists they have no perspective of erous negotiated settlement in El Sal­ front man Duarte must spark prole­ be with the arro'gant Salvadoran ruling international class struggle. They look vador and Nicaragua-i-i.e., the FORI tarian revolution throughout Cen­ class, which prides itself on crushing a instead to "progressive" bourgeois gov­ FMLN should sit down with the tral America to bring these bastards worker-peasant upr-ising in the bloody ernments of the Contadora group-like butchers and the Sandinistas should down.•

Sons of Salvad"oran Unionist Jailed and Tortured Free Jose and Jaime Centeno! More than 500 trade unionists and other victims of rightist repression in El they were. My eldest son(Jose) is 21 and Salvador are imprisoned under the dictatorial decrees of President Jose Napoleon the younger (Jaime) 18. When I told Duarte. Among them are the two sons of the Association of Salvadoran them that these were my sons, they told Telecommunications Workers (ASTTEL) secretary Humberto Centeno. The seizure me that they should accompany them of Centeno and his sons Jose and Jaime by a death squad of plainclothes police in too. So we left my home in Cojutepeque. November 1985 provoked a national strike by the 7,000 ASTTEL members. They put us face down. They threatened Although the elder Centeno was quickly released, Salvadoran phone workers stayed us. They mistreated us. I was very upset. out until his sons were transferred from the torture cells of the Treasury Police to Never in my life had I been in a jail for Mariona prison. While in the hands of the sadistic cops, a forced "confession" was any reason. I never" belonged to any extorted from them of supposed involvement in the kidnapping of Colonel Omar political party. I've never been connect­ Napoleon Avalos, head of the civil aviation agency, CIA agent and Duarte confidant. ed with anyone, except in the struggle CISPES for the workers. , Jose and Jaime Centeno in Marlona This case of brutal anti-labor repression is part of an offensive against ASTTEL, prison, May 1986. which has been fighting for its life for the last year. In a 51-day strike by militant When we arrived aithe Treasury telecommunications technicians this spring, 20 strikers were fired, including the Police, I was taken before Colonel From then on, we waged a hard union delegates (see WV No. 409, I August). In the_U.S. the Partisan Defense Golcher, He. was very annoyed: he told campaign. They felt obliged, forthe first Committee has highlighted their struggle, and locals"of the Communications Workers me they had made a. big scandal about time in El Salvador, to have a picture of America (CWA) in Oakland, Cleveland and New York City have expressed my seizure. At that point I didn't know taken of them. About three days later, solidarity with their class brothers and sisters struggling under Reagan-Duarte's that my ASTTEL colleagues had de­ they invited the national press on the death squad "democracy." As part of OUI' defense of the militant Salvadoran phone clared a work stoppage, and also that all condition that they take pictures with­ workers, Workers Vanguard spoke with Hurnberto Centeno about the circumstances the radio stations in EI Salvador were out asking questions. It seemed strange of his and his sons' capture. Following are excerpts from his account: strongly criticizing my capture. Colonel to me that my sons appeared in those Golcher told me that I could go home, photos wearing jackets. Later, when but that my sons would remain there they were in Mariona, they told me that Centeno: We Salvadoran workers have only for me. But my sons, on hearing the and that they would hand them over to they had put the jackets on them suffered repression for many years. As uproar caused by the entry of many men me in the afternoon. Well, from there we because they had scars from electric government employees, we are com­ dressed in civilian clothes-death squad went to the Roma center where the com­ shocks on their arms. The important pletely unprotected by the laws. They types-came out to see what was going pafieros were meeting. With a great thing was the sentiment of solidarity of can-fire us any momentthey want. And on. The guy in charge asked me who spirit of solidarity they told me that they all the workers of ElSalvador, of all the as in EI Salvador there is so much were going to continue on strike until people. The telecommunications work­ unemployment, everyone initially was my sons were released. ers felt that they were trying to black­ afraid of forming their unions. Never­ Later we went to a congress that mail me, and therefore the whole union, theless, the very hunger as well as the FENASTRAS [National Federation of so we continued on strike some 19days. economic crisis that all Salvadorans Salvadoran Workers] was holding in a In November, my sons will have been suffer led us to form associations. From hotel in the capital. Then"some Ameri­ held prisoner for one year, unjustly. As the beginning [in 1984]we weren't going cans accompanied us to the Treasury Salvadorans, we don't find that strange, to be an association that organized Police at about five in the afternoon. since for more than 50 years they have fiestas or held raffles. A series of strikes When we arrived, instead of releasing been violating our human rights. Al­ were called-at least by ASTTEL as my sons, they gave me a notification though my sons are in Mariona, and well as in the Post Office, at the Ministry saying that they would be there for 15 although they have broken up a home, of Agriculture, at 'Social Security, by the days. Possibly during that day that my they haven't lowered our morale to keep water utility union. The government sons were there, the brilliant idea struggling in favor of the workers, not realized that we weren't going to be a occurred to themofframingthemup in only the telecommunications workers, pro-Christian Democratic Party asso­ the kidnapping of Colonel Napoleon but all the Salvadoran workers. After ciation, and neither could the leaders of Avalos. The next day when my wife and the capture of my two sons, our work ASTTEL be bought off by the Ameri­ I came, my sons didn't recognize Us. has become greater, 100 percent more. can Embassy with its millions of dollars They were quite drugged. So I called a We hope for the day when all workers that it throws away in El Salvador. no credif press conference and reported that they unite, and that is one of the aspirations On November 8, they seized me in my ~ salvadoran union leader Humberto were torturing them, they were drugging of many Salvadorans, so that they re­ home. When they arrived they asked Centeno. them. - spect us as human beings.•

21 NOVEMBER 1986 7 Photos (left) of Israeli nuclear bomb factory beneath Negev desert from Sunday Times (London), 5 October 1986.

Israeli nuclear technician Mordechai Vanunu at demonstration for a Palestinian state last year.

Vanunu affair is a ruse by Israeli Shapiro who, according to a 1977 "There are a hundred targets in the intelligence." Israeli military planners expose in Rolling Stone magazine, was Arab world, the destruction of which Zionist will change the face of the area to the openly talk about the "next war," the supplying Israel with uranium; Presi­ extent of not being recognized...." one against Syria. The Economist (15 dent Johnson, however, ordered an -s-Ha'aretz, 14 November 1980 Madmen ... November) speculates that Vanunu's official cover-up. (continued from page 1) And Israel won't suffer from the fall­ story "could have been intended to serve Last year reports surfaced that Israel out?! Yet even in this crazed scenario, hid the elevators to the secret under­ as a deterrent to any attack on Israel the had purchased 800 nuclear bomb what are the other hundred nukes for? A ground factory from the prying eyes of Syrians may have been thinking about." triggers from an American firm; U.S. writer in the Histadrut "union" news- international inspectors. Vanunu gave But an Israeli disinformation scheme is officials had not asked to inspect the paper last year vituperated: . the Sunday Times more than 60 photo- , unlikely in the extreme because the sites where these krytrons were in use "The Soviet regime is the principal graphs of the ultra-secret bunker, one information is terribly damaging to since "such a request could be con­ source of international terrorism.... showing a component oflithium deuter­ Israel. This sounds like the Mossad strued by the Israelis as an affront to Syria is the root of terrorism in the trying to cover an egregious security their national sovereignty" (New York Middle East, especially against the ide (for a thermonuclear bomb with the State of Israel. The western world in force of "hundreds" of kilotons). His breach. Times, 16 May 1985). And this past general and Israel in particular must cut week it was revealed that Department of account was double- and triple-checked The American Connection off the head of this cancer.jf necessary by nuclear scientists in Britain and the Energy records document a 1963 ship­ by force." U.S. One thing is certain: the Israelis didn't ment to Israel of four metric tons of -Davar, I July 1985 The article noted that one would develop their nuclear weapons by heavy water-a key ingredient in run­ War with Syria is openly projected expect "bigger gaps" in the knowledge themselves-they had help from key .ning the nuclear reactor at Dimona. in the Israeli establishment. And of "a mere technician," but this might be imperialist allies. The French provided (NATO ally Norway supplied another the nuclear delivery systems are in explained by the fact that he worked at place. The "nuclear capable" Jericho-2 Dimona for nearly a decade. How come surface-to-surface missiles, with a range he was left alone to photograph the M~ One inch equals of 700 kilometers (about 435 miles), entire secret complex (there are no approximately 750 mites have reportedly been deployed in the o 250 500 1000 people in his photos)? The Sunday I I I ! Negev and on the occupied Golan Times explanation was that British' Heights overlooking Syria. Israeli Kfir control room technicians are often free and F-4 Phantom fighter planes carialso to "roam around nuclear plants alone to reportedly deliver nuclear bombs. But "follow up alarms." Reputable scientists what if it's no "six-day war"? If worse said it would have been possible to comes to worst, it looks like the Zionist secretly upgrade the original Dimona generals may be preparing to attack the reactor from 26 megawatts capacity to Soviet Union, and let the Americans pay the 150megawatts needed to produce so the price. This may be crazy, but crazy much plutonium. But other questions is what they are. rernain-e.g., why did the usually Target Russia? efficient Shin Beth (the Israeli FBI) let Vanunu out of the country shortly after At first glance, the Soviet Union may his dismissal, and how did he smuggle appear to be beyond the reach of the out his film? Israelis. The delivery of a large number The story has its bizarre aspects. We of nuclear bombs onto Soviet territory are told that while working at Dimona, would require long-range planes or Vanunu "became a member of the missiles. One should note, however, that Israeli Communist Party and was ac­ the Israelis did manage to send up to tive in pro-Palestinian demonstrations" eight F-15s on a 1,500-milebombing (New York Times, 10 November). Also run on Tunis in October 1985, apparent­ he was reportedly "modeling naked for ly by a complicated'midair refueling drawing classes at Beersheba Universi­ procedure (with the likely connivance of ty," in a small desert town where most of WV Map the U.S. Sixth Fleet). Curiously, the Israelis target Russia: new Lavi fighter-bomber could nuke Soviet Black Sea Lavi fighter-bomber now being devel­ the Arabs are pro-Zionist Bedouins. A fleet headquarters at Sevastopol. With refueling, they could reach Moscow. girlfriend says he "volunteered to be laid oped by Israel with about one billion off." He then went to Australia, the the initial nuclear infrastructure, and 20 tons.) American complicity clearly dollars of American money could fill the story goes, where he met a Colombian then the U.S. came in, with secret help goes way back. bill. The plane incorporates Israel's journalist named Oscar Guerrero, oddly "from the West Germans. In 1979, To be sure, the Zionists' local am­ "unique battle experience and the latest working as a handyman at an Anglican according to CBS News, Israel tested a bitions sometimes clash with U.S~ electronic gadgetry to help elude a new church (where Vanunu was converting nuclear bomb in the' South Atlantic strategic interests. In the first days of the generation" of Soviet surface-to-air to Christianity), who persuaded him to "with help and cooperation of the South 1973 October war, when it looked like missiles (Washington Post, 6 August). tell his story to the press. Guerrero African government" (quoted in Israel Israel might actually suffer a defeat by Most striking is the combat. radius of wanted money, but Vanunu told News­ Shahak, Israel's Global Role[1982]). In Arab armies, "Israel's Jericho surface­ the plane: 1,150 nautical miles "for air­ week, "I'm doing it for peace." the mid-'60s the U.S. Atomic Energy to-surface missiles were armed with to-ground missions" (Aviation Week, Not surprisingly, the New York Commission discovered several hun­ nuclear warheads in a frantic three days 28 July). This reaches far beyond the Times (29 October) reports "there is a dred pounds of enriched uranium of activity centred around Dimona" Arab states. It is, in fact, more.than school of thought among military missing from the inventory of a Pennsyl­ (Colonel William V. Kennedy, Intelli­ enough to reach Soviet Black Sea fleet analysts in Israel that suggests the entire vania company headed by one Zalman gence Warfare [1983]). The Kremlin headquarters at Sevastopol,'and go as reportedly responded by preparing to far as the Ukraine. With refueling, they send nuclear warheads for Egyptian could hit Moscow too: Two prototypes missiles, whereupon the U.S., at the of the Lavi now are being tested, and Spartacist :au Forums height of Nixon's Watergate crisis, put Israel plans to begin production of 300 its strategic forces on red alert. planes in 1990.Its high cost ($1.7 billion, mostly American money and technolo­ Rampan~ So what would the Zionists do with Sex Snoops, Racists and Book-Burners Run 200 nuclear bombs? Israel Shahak, the gy) indicates that the Reaganites clearly courageous Israeli civil libertarian, has have. a big stake in this American plane. Fight Reagan Reaction .with translated the following hair-raising And with the Sunday Times expose, we musings of Shlomo Aharonson, a have toask: are the Israeli bombs a U.S. Class Strugglel prominent supporterof "liberal" Zionist reserve arsenal for a "lightning war" Speaker: George Crawford, Spartacist League Central Committee Ezer Weizman (the former Israeli air (Blitzkrieg) on the Soviet Union? This also adds a more sinister Guest Speaker: Pete Woolston, member, ILWU Local 6 force chief and then war minister in the Likud government): dimension to Israel's campaign to "Free Friday, November 21,7:30 p.m. Saturday, November 22,7:30 p.m. "A sufficient amount of atom bombs... Soviet Jewry." Foryears, they've sought 145 Dwinelle Hall Unitarian Church can hit hard all the Arab capitals, and to milk Russia of some of its most highly UC Berkeley 1187 Franklin S1. at Geary tear down the Aswan Dam. Another trained technical personnel (10,000 For more information: (415) 839-0851 For more information: (415) 863-6963 amount can hit other cities and oil engineers, 3,800 doctors and dentists, installations. Thermonuclear bombs (H-bombs) can destroy territorial aims, 7,000 students and 1,200scientists from BERKELEY SAN FRANCISCO including concentrations of Palestini­ 1971 to 1984). The USSR 'is the last ans in Lebanon.... repository of Jews whom Israel could 8 WORKERS VANGUARD strike against Libya, Chirac replied, "Totally, completely counterproduc­ tive.... the Americans with their farcical Was EI AI- Bomb aMossad Plot? air raid merely retarded the destabiliza­ tion of Qaddafi's regime." "YQU are While the "Teherangate" affair was saying the U.S. does not have the will to blowing White House credibility to act," commented de Borchgrave. "That kingdom come, another bombshell is self-evident," Chirac responded. exploded when French prime minister Replying to a barb from de Borch­ Jacques Chirac was quoted, in an grave, Chirac, said that France sup­ interview reported in Sun Myung ported Washington in Central Ameri­ Moon's Washington Times, saying he ca, because "this region was of vital understood from top German officials interest to the U.S.," but complained the that the EIAI bombplot in London last Americans were not reciprocating in April may have been a Mossad job, Africa, where they tried to muscle in on orchestrated by the Israeli spy agency French operations in Chad. Appealing from start to finish. For the last several for "prudence" in the Near East in order years, Reagan's shtick in the imperial­ to "prevent the stampede of fundamen­ ists' anti-Soviet "state-supported terror­ talism throughout the region," he said, ism" campaign has been Libya-bashing, "the West must... not allow itself to be leading to the Americans' March air deflected by a few bombs going off in the raid on Libyan SAM sites and Reagan's streets of their capitals": Tripoli murder raid against Qaddafi in "But Britain continues to sell arms to April. Now Britain and Israel are amma Iran, and we now hear the U.S. does pushing the "Syrian connection," with Palestinian Nezar Hindawi, Irish girlfriend Ann too, and they don't even bother to clearance from Washington. Syria is Murphy and EI AI plane. Imperialists can't agree on conceal what they are doing. So much widely understood to be the target for Western solidarity .... Britain wants what the "real story" is. us all to sever relations with Syria of the Israeli war buildup. But the because of some obscure bomb plot that Chirac revelations cut the ground from perhaps by kidnapping Britons in minister's office, was embarrassed. This misfired. Do they really think that under this latest criminal provocation Beirut" (Jerusalem Post [international is how the imperialists talk entre nous. people willthen say, 'Bravo, they've got as well. edition], 8 November). But the letter is On the El Al plot, Chirac had told the balls'?" From the beginning, the case of Nezar intercepted by Italian police, and the paper's editor in chief Arnaud de In the subsequent brouhaha, British Hindawi and the alleged plan to blow up cousin is in custody on charges of Borchgrave: right-wing Labourite Denis Healey an EI Al jet 'sounded uncannily like a involvement in last year's Achille Lauro "But let's take the Syrian affair. I spoke asked why this should come out in a plot straight out of The Little Drummer cruise liner hijacking. If you believe to both [West German Chancellor Moonie newspaper. Arnaud de Borch­ John Le Carre's pro-Zionist Helmut] Kohl and [Foreign Minister] grave, you see, isa long-timejournalistic Girl, this ... Hans-Dietrich Genscher about it. I espionage novel. A high-living Pales­ Nezar Hindawi was convicted by a don't go as far as they do, but their operative "witting" in the ways of U.S. tinian terrorist in London induces a London court on October 24 and thesis is that the [Nizar] Hindawi plot intelligence agencies. Chirac clearly naive, lonely Irish chambermaid, just sentenced to 45 years in prison. There­ was a provocation designed to embar­ intended the published article based on two months off the boatfrom Dublin, to upon Margaret Thatcher's government rass Syria and destabilize the Assad an off-the-record interview to reflect his regime. Who was behind it? Probably be his unwitting pawn. Supposedly, announced it was breaking off relations people connected with the Israeli general views, while' his more bluntly Hindawi hands his girlfriend, Ann with Syria, and called on Britain's allies Mossad in conjunction with certain put goodies would be passed on directly Murphy, whom he's gotten pregnant to back her up-based on the supposed: Syrian elements close to Assad who to the White House. But the Washing­ and promises to marry (in Israell), a ly conclusive evidence of Syrian involve­ seek his overthrow. Things of this ton .. Times editor had his own ax to brown suitcase (which during the trial ment (which was not presented at the nature can be infinitely complex." grind, in particular getting back at the changes its color to blue) containing a trial). Washington withdrew its ambas­ When de Borchgrave claimed that French for their refusal to allow Britain­ plastique bomb, and a detonator sador from Damascus and announced British intelligence (who "are pretty based U.S. F-Ills to take the direct (disguised as a pocket calculator) timed empty "sanctions," such as a ban on good with electronic surveillance") route for their Libya strike. to explode somewhere over the Swiss ticket sales for Syrian airlines, which knew of a meeting between Hindawi and The Western allies are still united on Alps en route to Israel. After she is left don't fly to the U.S. anyway. After some the Syrian ambassador, Chirac replied: "the basics," namely the drive to "roll holding the bag, as it were, Hindawi arm-twisting, the Common Market "Nothing is easier than to fake that kind back Communism" and ultimately re­ runs to the Syrian embassy, meets with countries fell into line as well. Greece of evidence without government leaders conquer the Soviet-bloc bureaucratical­ the ambassador, no less, and is spirited dissented, however, comparing the anti­ knowing about the real plot." He added ly degenerated and deformed workers away to a safe house. Syrian campaign to the anti-Soviet that "I am always suspicious ofthis sort states for capitalism. But here we have Fearing that the Syrians are going to propaganda barrage over the shooting of affair, especially when it fits into a the interimperialist contradictions ex­ do him in, he bolts and holes up in a down of the South Korean airliner certain policy. First it was Libya, and posed to the light of day-with the London hotel where he is conveniently which overflew key Soviet military now it's Syria...." United States desperately struggling to arrested by Scotland Yard, who it turns installations in September 1983. The .This was already enough to set recover hegemony after its resounding out had been trailing him for almost Greek stand against sanctions will be Washingtonon its ear, but the trenchant defeat at the hands of the Vietnamese two months. Meanwhile, his brother, proved right, said the deputy foreign critique of Reagan's Near East policies peasants and workers a decade ago, Ahmed Hazi, is implicated by West minister, just as the KAL 007 "was by the right-wing French prime minister while France, still smarting over Dien Berlin police in the March bombing of proved to have been conducting espio­ was too much even to report. When de Bien Phuand the battle of Algiers, is an obscure German-Arab friendship nage" (New York Times, 16November). . Borchgrave claimed that the U.S. and trying to rebuild a sphere of influence in association. (For a while they tried to In the midst of all this came the even French intelligencehad demon­ the Levant. As for the supposed Syrian link Hazi to the April 5 bombing of La Chirac revelations. Paris first tried to strated the existence of an "internation­ plot, we find, buried in the middle of a Belle disco, the West Berlin club deny the report, disputing the "interpre­ al terror network ...linked .to Eastern London Times (I I November) article on frequented by black AmericanGIs and tation" given to the French prime secret services," Chirac dismissed the Chirac's interview, the laconic remark: Turkish workers, which was the pretext minister's remarks. But after the Wash­ "Soviet connection" out of hand: "Your "The father of Nazar Hindawi jailed in for Reagan's terror-bombing of Libya.) ington Times (10 November) published services and our own are worthless. Britain for trying to blow up an EI AI Hindawi writes to a cousin in Italy, the full transcript of the pithy interview, Moreover, they are all penetrated.... airliner, was sentenced to death in his telling him to "persuade the Syrians to Chirac conceded its accuracy. No They've always been penetrated." Asked absence by Jordan for spying for arrange for Britain to release him, . wonder Hotel Matignon, the prime his opinion about the April 14 U.S. air Israel. ...".

conceivably drag to the "promised the Reagan administration. the Israelis have, but it's an open secret Soviet leadership and "prevail" in a land," especially since New York Jews The Israelis have taken on the dirty that the U.S. has over 25,000 ready to hit "limited nuclear exchange." It will take long ago discovered what a hellhole/ work of providing arms and training for the Soviet bloc. And while Reagan world proletarian revolution to thwart deathtrap Israel is and limit their Reagan's anti-Soviet terrorist scum hallucinates about "Star Wars," it's the plans of these nuclear nuts for a support to dollars for Israel Bonds. around the world, from the Somozaist official U.S. policy to "decapitate" the thermonuclear Apocalypse Now.• (Soviet Jews who get conned into "contras" in Nicaragua to the apartheid leaving Russia for Israel quickly decide racists of South Africa. And Israel has to move on to New York, andsome of become well integrated into Reagan's the latter are now moving back to the nuclear first-strike plans: the two Soviet Union, where they can at least get countries recently conducted joint a job and free medical care.) Is Israel military maneuvers and Israel has now trying to get all the Jews out before agreed' to allow "pre-positioning" of Marxist Working-Class Biweekly of the Spartaclst League an anti-Soviet holocaust is unleashed? U.S. military supplies on its soil, as well The legacy of the Bolshevik Revo­ as cooperating in Reagan's "Star Wars" hition of 1917, even following the space weapons scheme. As one Israeli o $5/24 issues of Workers Vanguard 0$2/4 issues of bureaucratic.Stalinist degeneration, is observer perceptively noted: (includes Spartacist) Women and Revolution New 0 Renewal the prime target of the Western imperi­ "The Americans pay us because they o 0$2/10 introductory issues of alists. The Zionists have sought to make want to keep a plane-carrier with 4 0$2/4 issues of Spartacist Workers Vanguard themselves the instrument of one impe­ million inhabitants in [a] place with (edlcton en espanol) (includes Spartacist) extraordinary strategic value, near to rialism after another, from the British the USSR, near to East Europe, near to Name _ Balfour Declaration to Shamir's offer to the oil fields." Hitler to build a fascistic "New Order" -Po Sever in AI Hamishmar, Address ~ _ in Palestine to the Israeli rulers' chosen 29 April ______-'--Phone (__) _ role as point men for the anti-Soviet war The Zionists are dangerous madmen drive. In fact it was the Israelis who first who are fully capable of pushing the City State ~ Zip----__,= invented the slander about the Soviet ­ button. But their big brothers in 416 Union as the "source" of all "terrorism," Washington are also war crazy. We Make checkl payable/mall to: SparteclltPubUlhlng Co., Box 1377 GPO, New York,.N~ 10116 a theme which became the hallmark of don't know how many nuclear weapons 21 NOVEMBER 1986 9 there's this McFarlane megalomaniac Gonzo acting like he's Henry the K, complain­ ing when the Iranians wouldn't meet with them: "You are nuts. We have Diplomacy ... come to solve your problems, but this is (continued from page 1) how you treat us. If I went to Russia to the Reykjavik summit, even put a good buy furs, Gorbachev would come to see face on loss of the Senate to the me three times a day." (Oh, yeah? Try Democrats, he bragged. But not four that kind of stunt in Moscow and see times in a row. Reagan finally went on what happens.) TV to tell the story of the Iranian guns­ Even the nutty ayatollahs running for-hostages deals, to no avail: 14 per­ 1ran know they're dealing with some far­ cent ·of the American people believed out people of the lunar persuasion in him. MQSt thought the president was Washington. So they quickly chuck out suffering from foot-in-mouth disease. McF & Co. and leak the story before It must have been quite a scene in even stranger things start happening to Teheran last spring. Disguised as a flight their country-bombings, invasions, crew, the party carried a cake in the terror strikes in the name of "fighting shape of a key, to symbolize the terrorism." Sure, the V.S.' 1980 embas­ reopening of Iran-V.S. relations. There sy hostage "rescue" mission got stuck in was also a pair of Colt pistols, and a the desert with sand up their turbines; Bible reportedly with an inscription by the Delta Force was so panicked they Ronald Reagan himself about the left their dead on the ground. But an affinity of different religions. Plus they imperialist bully, defeated in Vietnam brought along a couple planes with and made a laughing stock over Iran, is military equipment as sweeteners. The dangerous indeed. They struck merci­ Bible was probably not a big hit with the lessly at tiny Grenada and bombed Gaumy/Magnum ayatollah; they might as well have' Qaddafi's Libya while gearing up to do a Speaker of Iranian parliament Raf­ murderous job on Sandinista Nicara­ sanjani (left), and carnage of Iran­ brought a candied ham or a bottle of Iraq war. scotch. Khomeini reportedly told Irani­ gua. And where was the ubiquitous Col. Jordan/Time Oliver C. ("Now You See Him, Now an "parliament" leader Hojatolislam Stupido" (New York Times, 15Novem­ continued hostility between Iran and Rafsanjani not to receive McFarlane's You Don't") North of overt covert con­ the United States-natural strategic tra war fame? In 1980 he was just over ber). So much for "Operation Staunch." message, and the crew were kept locked "Teherangate" has provided the allies who are now deeply at odds." up in their hotel room for five days the border in Turkey; this time he ran And the U.S.' privileged partner in the the show from Cyprus. Democrats with an excellent opportuni­ (while their phone calls to Reagan were ty to out-Reagan Reagan. Maybe they Near East, Zionist Israel, has main­ taped). As for the cake, according to Back in Washington, White House figure they could ride back into office in tained close ties with Iran both under '88 by mimicking Reagan's "stand tall" the CIA-installed shah and the Shi'ite rhetoric against Carter. (The media are fundamentalist ayatollahs. As far as willing to do their part, rerunning clips they're concerned, although Islamic, of Reagan vowing never to negotiate Persian Iran is an enemy of the Arabs, with "terrorists.") Outgoing Democratic and therefore a natural friend of Israel. House Speaker Tip O'Neill on CNN They love the bloody Iran-Iraq war News (14 November) pointed to the (more than a million dead so far) which sinister pattern of the Reagan adminis­ is doing more to tie down their enemies tration: "I just see so many incidences in than the shah ever did. the past. When [KAL Flight] 007 went In their bizarre fashion, the Reagan­ down that's the day we met and decided ites were trying to mend anti-Soviet to send our Marines to Beirut. When the fences in the region. It's not so easy 241 Marines were killed, three days later given the hodgepodge of competing get it off the front page and go into nationalisms. By botching it so ineptly, Grenada. At Iceland, it's a disaster and they've led even conservative pundits two hours later, public relations: 'why and politicos to wonder if it's bed­ it's been a success'." time for Bonzo. But the White House No matter what the immediate spinmeisters aren't giving in: after objectives of Reagan's NSC operations getting shellacked atthe polls, they put in Iran, behind the arms shipments and the president up there again to say the farcical "secret diplomacy" is the urgent "Reagan revolution" would continue­ . Abbas/Gamma desire to secure strategic anti-Soviet just no more Mr. Nice Guy. For the Delta Force debacle, Iran 1980: Bungled U.S. "rescue mission" abandoned interests in the region. The Soviet V nion working class, the administration's its dead in the desert. borders Iran to the north, Afghanistan temporary diplomatic setback won't to the east. As the Navy Times (17 amount to much, and the Democrats in Rafsanjani the airport guards were spokesman Larry Speakes (who learned November) noted: power would be more of the same: hungry and ate it. something about credibility gaps while "Under current doctrine.vthe United remember Billy Carter and Qaddafi? serving as press aide to Nixon's Water­ This One Takes the Cake States is committed tod'efend the The Iran follies are low comedy, but gate attorney James St. Clair) was Persian Gulf-meaning Iran-with any when the Great Communicator "joked" Who will ever know the fierce debates means against any threat from outside trying to get the press and Congress to . about the bombing of Russia beginning within the National Security Council back off. But the story is out. Mean­ the area, which means the Soviet Union.... If Iran were prepared to in five minutes, he wasn't kidding. It's over what kind of cake would smooth while, the Danish seamen's union has abandon its reflexive hostility to the only by the working class organizing relations with the ayatollahs? Have they provided information about the flow of United States, however, the U.S. and taking state power away from the already sold the royalties to Hollywood? .U.S. arms to Iran, out of understand­ strategic task would be greatly simpli­ nuclear-armed madmen in Washington We do know the Iranians were oddly able concern over their members' safety fied.... The Soviet Union would know that we'll get to have the last laugh.• unamused. Consider their plight: some in the midst of the. war with Iraq. that it would not be able to count on very dubious types show up with phony Columnist Russell Baker said he'd IDs, planeloads of guns, bags of weird planned to start his piece with the goodies, probably making jokes about remark, "In President Carter's time the the good old days of the shah. You run a Ayatollah Khomeini called the V nited check, and it turns out they're heavy­ States 'The Great Satan.' After dealing duty White House operatives. Plus with President Reagan he will call it 'El

WHITE HOUSE SCHOOL OF FALSIFICATION: Spartacist ~Forum Col. Oliver North (top photo, second from right) with Reagan and u.s. Workers: contra leaders at White House White HouselNY Post (Washington Post, Smash the War on Nicaragua! 14 August 1985). Speakers: Jan Norden, Tom Janota, Photo (bottom) given to New York Post editor WV correspondent, by White House Workers Vanguard with slide show on Nicaragua disappears North. Saturday, November 22, 4:00 p.m. Borough of Manhattan Community College, Room N402, 199 Chambers St. (Take any train to Chambers. walk west) For more information: (212) 267-1025

NEW YORK CITY

10 WORKERS VANGUARD AFL-CIB. To~s Push Anti-Ja~an Crusade Workers: Don't Buy Protectionist Poison!

When they are not giving back their other measures are the only "answer" Toyoto-bashing members' wages and benefits, this of the sellout labor bureaucracy to publicity stunt country's union tops are busy whip­ giveback contracts, union-busting, by Indiana steel ping up chauvinist hostility against the speedup, mass layoffs, plant closings union, 1982. Japanese, whom they scapegoat for and the rampant deindustrialization of the wretched state of American capi­ America. Economic warfare against servative politician, who visited the the most cold-blooded atrocities in talism. Taking time off from setting up Japan is the "friend of labor" Demo­ U.S. a few years back, said the climate modern times: dropping the first nu­ sweetheart deals with contractors, the cratic Party politicos' "answer" to of opinion here reminded him of the clear weapons on the defenseless civil­ AFL-CIO building trades honchos Reaganomics. Walter (Big Loser) years just before World War II. ian populations of Hiroshima and picketed the Japanese embassy in Mondale carried on at an electrical Japan was driven into that war by Nagasaki. Washington a few days ago, demand­ workers' convention a couple of years protectionist barriers raised against its Today once again, capitalist decay ing the hiring ofmore unionized labor ago: exports by the Western powers dur­ and the pro-imperialist labor bureauc- for a Toyota plant being built in "We have got to get tough-and I ing the Great Depression ofthe 1930s. . racies are driving American and Kentucky. They're considering anoth­ mean reallytough/-with nations that The attack on Pearl Harbor was a Japanese workers against one another. use our markets but deny us their er such demonstration in Lexington, markets! And I'll tell you today that if direct response to the American, Brit­ The answer to Pearl Harbor and Kentucky on Pearl Harbor Day, you try to sell an American car in ish and Dutch embargo of oil ship­ Hiroshima is for the American and December 7. We wouldn't be surprised Japan, you better have the United ments to Japan without which' its Japanese workers to unite and wage if they picked the anniversary of the States Army with you when they land economy could not survive. U.S. im­ class war against their own exploiters A-bombing of Hiroshima next. on the docks!" perialism' ,thus provoked Japan into on Wall Street and in Tokyo, from the Anti-Japanese protectionism and No wonder a leading Japanese con- war and then ended it with one of Fortune 500 to the zaibatsu.

dozens of plants and throwing hundreds of thousands of workers on the scrap­ GM heap, in order to make a bigger buck elsewhere. U.S. Steel has become USX, Shutdown... while GM/Hughes has become one of (continued from page 12) the prime Star Wars defense contrac­ tors. The only answer is for the workers the impending plant closings-that both to "divest" the bosses in a socialist company and union officials knew were UAW heacf revolution that will expropriate the Owen Bieber coming. means of production and achieve an The UAW philosophy these days is (right) sells out auto workers in international planned economy. "what's good for GM, auto workers 1984 pact with South African unionists have shown better eat." But there can be no GM chairman the way forward for real international partnership between labor and capital. Roger Smith. solidarity: in February 3M workers Kissing the company's ass at home and there struck in solidarity with locked­ promoting trade war abroad has meant out 3M workers in Freehold, New turning over billions in concessions to Jersey. A class-struggle leadership in the the bosses. The "voluntary" quotas UAW would shut down the entire GM imposed on foreign car makers allowed chain with militant strike action and the companies to jack up prices and black Detroit could have halted the come home to roost: the 3 percent is plant occupations in solidarity with the make profits hand over fist. The jobs of union-busting drive that burgeoned two long gone, American auto workers courageous South African auto workers auto workers have not been saved: since years later when Reagan busted the have taken massive cuts, while UAW and in defense of the jobs of American 1978 some 215,000 or 30 percent of the PATCO air traffic controllers. leaders hypocritically squawk that they workers. Such a leadership would op­ jobs in the industry have gone down the The UAW's sole "success" story since are undercut by "company unions" pose import quotas designed to rob Jap­ tubes. The American capitalists will not then has been the joint GM-Toyota New abroad. anese and Korean workers of their jobs, rebuild industry: last December GM United Motor Manufacturing, Inc.' and would appeal to these workers for used its massive profits to buyout (NUMMI) plant in Fremont, Califor­ For Militant International their support by not boosting exports Hughes Aircraft instead. nia. With import quotas in force, Japa­ Solidarity! during a strike. But such a perspective The concessions racket was ushered nese and now Korean auto makers requires a militant, internationalist in in a big way in 1979, when Chrysler have increasingly chosen to open up In explaining the'militant.stand ofthe leadership, not the labor lieutenants of went bankrupt. Then Doug Fraser and plants here, often with no union or with South African auto workers striking capital who tie the workers to the virtually company unions, like the GM, NAAWU leader Fred Sauls noted: bosses, in the U.S. as well as Japan and UAW at NUMMI. The old GM plant "We can't just stand back and let them Korea. An international Trotskyist here was reopened with half the work­ leave the country with all the gold and party must be forged, with deep roots force hired without regard to union diamonds and profits they've made in the trade unions, that will unify seniority, the grievance system essential- here" (Wall Street Journal, 7 Novem­ the struggles of workers around the "ly destroyed, and job classifications ber). This statement applies equally to world and fight for final victory over reduced to four. Nor is NUMMI heavily the United States. The big corporations the parasitic system of capitalist automated-it's old-fashioned speedup, have looted basic industries, closing. exploitation.• turning up the screws to increase the rate of exploitation. The American bosses know a good thing when they see it, and the new GM Saturn plant in Tennessee SPARTACIST LEAGUElU.S. LOCAL DIRECTORY will model its "labor relations" on National Office: Box 1377 GPO, New York, NY 10116 • (212) 732-7860 NUMMI. The rotten Saturn deal was accepted by the UAW tops before Atlanta Detroit Norfolk workers were even hired! Box 4012 Box 32717 Box 1972, Main PO . Recently Victor Reuther, brother of Atlanta, GA 30302 Detroit, MI 48232 Norfolk, VA 23501 long-time UAW chief Walter, surfaced Boston Los Angeles Oakland WV Photo as a spokesman for opponents to the Box 840, Central Sta. Box 29574, Los Feliz Sta. Box 32552 Spartaclst banner·at UAW protest at Saturn deal. But Victor Reuther and the Cambridge, MA 02139 Los Angeles, CA 90029 Oakland, CA 94604 GM headquarters, Detroit 1979. house "dissidents" in the UAW accept (617) 492-3928 (213) 384-9716 (415) 839-0851 the same pro-capitalist and anti-foreign­ Chicago Madison San Francisco Lee Iacocca, in concert with Democratic worker program as Bieber & Co. In Box 6441, Main PO c/o SYL, Box 2074 Box 5712 president Carter, bailed out Chrysler at exchange for an annual 3 percent wage Chicago, IL 60680 Madison, WI 53701 San Francisco, CA 94101 the expense of half the company's increase, the Reuther bureaucracy (312) 663-0715 (608) 257-8625 (415) 863-6963 workforce. UAW head Doug Frasergot (which trained the Biebers and Ephlins) his payoff by becoming a member of enforced company discipline on the Cleveland New York Washington, D.C. Chrysler's board so that he could vote shop floor and shackled the union to the Box 91037 Box 444, Canal S1. Sta. Box 75073 on demanding more billions in give­ state. The UAW was one of the first Cleveland,OH 44101 New York, NY 10013 Washington, D.C. 20013 backs from the union! (Striking South unions to register under the anti-labor (216) 621-5138 (212) 267-1025 (202) 636-3537 African workers, who are asking for a Taft-Hartley law. Victor Reuther was a member on the company board, should self-confessed bag man for the CIA, Toronto learn from the U.S. experience.) At that whose work centered on purging left­ TROTSKYIST LEAGUE Box 7198, Station A time the Spartacist League called for sit- ~ wingers in unions abroad, thereby OF CANADA Toronto, Ontario M5W 1X8 down strikes to seizeChrysler's assets. A helping pro-boss union misleaders gain (416) 593-4138 wave of plant occupations centered in ascendancy. Now the chickens have 21 NOVEMBER 1986 11 WfJRNER"'''fJIJIIR' South Africa: Mass Firing of Auto Strikers

AP AP Pontiac workers leave plant after GM closings announced (left). Striking South African workers at GM Port Elizabeth plant confront company cop (right). eneral Motors Shutdown to Ax 120,000 Jobs in U.S. NOVEMBER 17-General Motors GM's brutal treatment of its South and Hamilton, Ohio along with thou­ protectionist legislation limiting foreign Corporation called in South Africa's African unions exposes the liberal lie . sands more at St. Louis, Willow car imports. The UAW misleaders ex­ apartheid police on November 7 to that divestment schemes and pressure Springs, Illinois and Pontiac, Michigan. pressed gratitude at having been given break up plant occupations in Port from American corporations willliber­ And GM chairman Roger Smith said to "early notice" of the layoffs. "Both Mr. Elizabeth by militant auto workers ate the black masses from apartheid look for more "consolidations" (plant Ephlin and company officials said the there. The workers were striking in slavery. From South Africa to America, closings). Already, 1,500 additional plant closings had been expected for response to GM's announcement that it GM attacks unions and lays off workers Buick workers in Flint have been laid several years...." was "divesting" its local operation, in pursuit of one and only one goal: off. Flint UAW officials lamented that In other words, UAW officials from leaving workers with no guarantee of higher profits. The U.S. plant closings while their people will 'be losing every­ International president Owen Bieber on union protection or any jobs at all. will massively devastate an already thing, ,"Roger Smith has dollar signs down lied when they sold the rotten Simultaneously. the largest American industrially devastated area. The closing in his eyes" (Detroit Free Press, 7 contract with GM two-years ago, manufacturer announced a sweeping of the Fleetwood/Clark assembly and November). claiming that it guaranteed job security. program for domestic disinvestment: it Conner stamping plants will leave only If ever a situation cried out for One labor economist noted: "Often, you will shut nine automotive assembly and two auto plants within the city limits of militant, joint labor action from Port find that clauses written into contracts stamping plants outright and partially black Detroit. Flint, Michigan will be Elizabeth to Detroit to shut down a protecting job security seem to go by the close two more, terminating 29,000 even harder hit when approximately bloodsucking capitalist giant and seize wayside when it comes to company workers in Michigan, Ohio, Missouri 8,000 workers pick up their pink slips as the plants, this is it. The UAW tops in survival or corporate profits, and that and Illinois. The massive cutbacks in GM closes two facilities including' the "Sacrifice House" predictably acted seems to be the case here" (New York GM's American operations, the most body plant that was the site of the otherwise: union vice president for GM Times, 7 November). The "job protec­ sweeping in its 78-year history, will famous six-week sit-down strike of 1937 Donald Ephlin would only "regret this tion" negotiated by the UAW was result in an anticipated 120,000layoffs, that established the United Auto Work­ decision," and avoided any criticism of certainly designed to ensure that there including workers in related industries. ers (UAW). GM. Instead the union called on the would be no incursion on companyprof­ In South Africa members of the Also slated for the unemployment Democratic-controlled Congress to bail its. It omitted "only" one eventuality: National Automotive and Allied Work­ lines are over 6,000 workersin Norwood out the bosses by passing chauvinist continued on page 11 ers Union (NAAWU) and the Motor Assembly and Component Workers occupied' GM's Kempston Road and Aloes plants when the company an­ 15 November 1986 nounced it was selling out to a consor­ To: National Automobile and Allied tium consisting of its former white Workers Union (NAAWU) managers. In an exceptional display of 102 Lotus Building, Cottrell St. class solidarity cutting across racial Port Elizabeth, S.A. 6001 lines, white workers initially downed tools along with black workers ( Week­ Motor Assembly Components Iy Mail, 31 October-6 November). Workers Union NAAWU demanded severance pay and P.O. Box 11136 Port Elizabeth, S.A. 6000 pension payments, seekingcompensa­ tion for lost job security and seniority Victory to your resolute strike rights. The bosses' answer was to call defending jobs and unions against out riot cops and troops to evict the GM and in defiance of police state. workers. Some 567 militants were fired; At same time GM chops 30,000 in the face of continued strike action, jobs in U.S. International solidari­ GM has announced that it will hire ty from American workers impera­ scabs and resume production "with or tive. Smash apartheid. Wealth of without the unions." And on November South Africa belongs to its toilers. 17, cops viciously attacked the Port Turnley/Detroit Free Pr;~s Partisan Defense Committee Elizabeth strikers with snarling dogs .tnternational labor solidarity: militant black workers at Johannesburg 3M and whips. demonstrate in support of New Jersey 3M workers fighting plant closure. 12 21 NOVEMBER 1986