Felon for Peace

Jerry Elmer

Description

When Jerry Elmer turned eighteen at the height of the Vietnam War, he publicly refused to register for the draft, a felony then and now. Later he burglarized the offices of fourteen draft boards in three cities, destroying the files of men eligible to be drafted. After working almost twenty years in the peace movement, he attended law school, where he was the only convicted felon in Harvard's class of 1990.

This book is a blend of personal memoir, contemporary history, and astute political analysis. Elmer draws on a variety of sources, including never-before-released FBI files, and argues passionately for the practice of nonviolence. He describes the range of actions he took—from draft card burning to organizing draft board raids with Father Phil Berrigan; from vigils on the Capitol steps inside "tiger cages" used to torture Vietnamese political prisoners to jail time for protesting nuclear power plants; from a tour of the killing fields of Cambodia to meetings with Corazon Aquino in the Philippines.

A Vietnamese-language edition of Felon for Peace has also been published.

Sujets

• Human Rights
• Political
• Lettres et linguistique
• Biography
• Peace and conflict studies
• History of the United States
• Politics
• Autobiography
• History

Informations

• Publié par: Vanderbilt University Press
• Date de parution: 09 septembre 2005
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9780826591982
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 3 Mo

Extrait

Felon for Peace TH EM EMOI ROFA VietnamEra Draft Resister

J E R R Y E L M E R

Felon for Peace he Memoir of a Vietnam-Era DraT Resister

Felon for Peace he Memoir of a Vietnam-Era DraT Resister

Jerry Elmer

Vanderbilt University Press âŝîÉ

© 2005 Vanderbilt University Press All rights reserved First Edition 2005

10 09 08 07 06 05 1 2 3 4 5 Printed on acid-free paper Manufactured in the United States of America

Frontispiece:Shredded dra files from the June 1970 raid on the Providence dra boards. Collage by Peg Duthie. Design by Dariel Mayer.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Elmer, Jerry, 1951– Felon for peace : the memoir of a Vietnam-era dra resister / Jerry Elmer.—1st ed.  p. cm.  Includes index. ISBN 0-8265-1494-4 (cloth : alk. paper) ISBN 0-8265-1495-2 (pbk. : alk. paper)  1. Vietnamese Conflict, 1961–1975—Dra resisters— United States. 2. Elmer, Jerry, 1951– I. Title. DS559.8.D7E46 2005 959.704’31—dc22  2005005031

To earlier generations of war resisters, for having shown the way, and to future generations of war resisters, for continuing the struggle.

Contents

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

List of Illustrations iv

Acknowledgments xi

Introduction 1

School 5

Students for Peace in Vietnam 11

Nonregistration 33

Dra-File Destruction: Six Dra Boards In Boston 65

More Dra-File Destruction: e Rhode Island Political Offensive For Freedom 94

Still More Dra-File Destruction (And a Plot to Kidnap Henry Kissinger?) 108

e American Friends Service Committee 133

Travels in Southeast Asia 173

Mass Civil Disobedience 194

Aer the War: Human Rights in Vietnam 211

Aer the War: Was the Peace Movement Effective? 226

12

13

viii

ere Is No Way to Peace; Peace Is the Way

Neither Fish nor Fowl

Aerword

Index

261

259

255

241

Illustrations

Frontispiece:iiCollage of shredded dra files

Jerry Elmer at the Peace School 19

Anti-dra demonstration at the Manhasset dra board 52

e leaflet Jerry handed out to men going into the dra board 53

Burning David Rosen’s dra card 55

Five men burn their dra cards in Union Square 60

e first large-scale burning of individual dra cards by resisters 61

Father Tom Melville, Father Phil Berrigan, and Father Dan Berrigan 68

Kathy Czarnik, one of the Women Against Daddy Warbucks 81

Rhode Island AFSC staff, circa 1979 135

Noam Chomsky singing a hymn 137

Candlelight procession aer the Religious Convocation for Peace 139

Don Luce speaking in Providence 144

Wendy Bomberg explains the tiger cage display 149

Shackled in the tiger cage: Michael DeGregory and Jim Peck 152

Shackled in the tiger cage: Nguyen i oa and Joan Baez 153

Mitch Snyder and Carol Bragg in the tiger cage replica 155

ix