The Black-Banders

The Government team had been given a thankless assignment: explaining the U.S. presence in Viet Nam to college students and professors.

Members of the team at various times were Thomas F. Conlon, 40, now head of the State Department's Australia and New Zealand desk, but between 1960 and 1962 a Vietnamese-speaking official of the U.S. embassy's political section in Saigon; Earl J. Young, 34, an AID representative in South Viet Nam between 1963 and last February; Lieut. Colonels Thomas M. Wait, 40, and Rolfe L. Hillman Ir., 41, both veteran U.S. Army advisers in South Viet Nam.

They had been to the State University of Iowa in Iowa City and to Drake University in Des Moines. At Iowa City, where the team met with 200 students and faculty in a campus building that once was the state Capitol, they were picketed, hooted and jeered at by the largely hostile audience.

Now the team arrived at the University of Wisconsin in Madison. They had been invited by a recently formed campus Committee to Support the People of South Viet Nam. Opposing their appearance was a Committee to End the War in Viet Nam. They were hailed by a declaration, signed by 132 faculty members and carried in a college newspaper, attacking the U.S. for creating in Viet Nam "a triple crisis--moral, domestic and practical."

"Light, Not Heat." At an informal preliminary session over coffee and cookies with professors and graduate students, the team got a taste of what it was in for. "You State Department people," complained Fred Ciporen, 25, a history graduate, "are coming here on the assumption that we students don't know what Government policy is. Well we do know, and we disagree with it." Replied Conlon: "No, we don't make that assumption at all. We only intend to share our experience with you. We are interested in and respect your views and hope you will respect ours." Retorted Ciporen: "Come on! Why not be honest with us? Like Johnson, you think we're a bunch of babbling idiots." Said Conlon quietly: "We want to shed light, not heat."

That night, some 650 students and faculty members showed up for the full-dress question-and-answer period. Many of them carried placards saying such things as, THE WAR IN VIET NAM is

AN IMMORAL WAR, A DIRTY WAR, A

FUTILE WAR. About a third of the audience wore black armbands.

The Bullfight. The black-armbanders refused to sit down, stood hooting and hollering around the edges of the hall. The chairman of the meeting, Angela Mischke, 23, a graduate in Russian history, pleaded in vain "Please sit down." Cried Fred Ciporen: "These people are standing for a reason! If you ask them to sit down, you're missing the point." Finally a semblance of order was achieved, and Conlon began by comparing the meeting to a bullfight where the crowd had just shouted "Let the bull come out!" Asked for a general statement of the U.S. position in Viet Nam, he said simply: "The overall aim of the U.S. Government is to assist a legal government, recognized by over 50 countries in the world, to resist aggression from North Viet Nam."

Lieut. Colonel Hillman was asked by an armband-wearer: "What do napalm or gas do to a person when used in Viet Nam?" Said he: "The gas you speak of is a misnomer as we normally understand gas. It is better described as an incapacitating agent, one already in use in the United States by police and Army . . ." Yelled a heckler: "Does it work against Negroes?" Continued Hillman: "To answer the rest of the question, what does napalm do? It burns."

A student from Ceylon wanted to know about "what goes on in the month of torture" undergone by captured Viet Cong guerrillas. Said Conlon: "American interrogations in Viet Nam--and I have participated--do not include torture . . . But if you want examples of torture, why do you never condemn the well-documented tortures carried out by the Communists?"

"Fight It Yourself." At times, reason seemed about to prevail, as when Robert Gordon, 20, a psychology student, arose and pointed at a placard proclaiming the death of U.S. morality. Said he: "I have always been led to believe that good manners are a prerequisite of morality. I'd like to ask what these students are doing here, standing against a wall, protesting loudly, and generally enjoying a right of freedom that would be denied them in any Communist society."

But that was one of the few bright spots. And when Conlon was leaving, he was accosted by Arnold Lochin, a 26-year-old biochemistry graduate, who sneered: "Get this straight, sweetie. We're not going to fight your filthy fascist war. Go fight it yourself."

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.