Christmas 1970 – In Moscow and Hanoi

“This is my song, O God of all the nations,

a song of peace for lands a-far and mine.

This is my home, the country where my heart is;

here are my hopes, my dreams, my holy shrine;

but other hearts in other lands are beating,

with hopes and dreams as true and high as mine.”

(Text: Lloyd Stone   Music: Jean Sibelius)

At a time when there is much concern and debate about Russia’s role in the world and about the United States ending our almost fifty year ‘war’ with Cuba, this trip I made in 1970 reminds me how, in Rick Steves’ phrase, travel as a “political act” can help us shed the hubris of American exceptionalism, and see and feel events from other peoples’ points of view.

In Fall 1970, my then wife, Trudi, and I were asked by the Committee of  Liaison with Servicemen Detained in North Vietnam (COL) to travel to Hanoi at Christmas time to carry mail between their families and American POWs. Our travel companion was Ann Bennett, a leader in Church Women United. The itinerary would take us from New York to Moscow, to Vientiane Laos, and from there to Hanoi. The COL was organized by Cora Weiss and other U.S. peace movement leaders to perform a humanitarian service that the Red Cross might have performed, except that our government refused to recognize the Hanoi government.  Gathered with our families on Thanksgiving, Trudi’s parents and mine expressed fears about us visiting Hanoi and fears about possible government prosecution when we returned. In part because other small COL delegations had preceded us in making this trip and because by this time a majority of Americans opposed the war, we felt confident, not fearful about going.

On our first night in Moscow, we enjoyed festival like live music and cuisine at Aragvi, a very popular Georgian restaurant. During the day, we had meetings with representatives of the government-sponsored Soviet Peace Committee, and we became aware that other Russians apparently at all times were “keeping tabs on us.” On our second night, we went to the yellow parliament building inside the Kremlin’s walls to attend a fabulous Bolshoi ballet performance of Don Quixote. Even in this brief visit and despite the thick fog effects of Cold War conflicts, it was possible to experience Russian popular pride and love for their country, a country that suffered a staggering 11,000,000 soldiers and estimated 20,000, 000 civilians killed in World War II, as well as 75% of Russian industry destroyed. The next day, we rose early in the morning for the 4,200 mile flight from Moscow to Vientiane; and there, pretty exhausted, we boarded a second smaller plane for the hour long flight to Hanoi.

We were greeted at the Hanoi airport by representatives of the Vietnam Peace Committee, a semi-official government organization and partner with COL in the mail exchange. We stayed at the Hoa Binh (Peace) Hotel. Our hosts asked us about traditional American customs for celebrating Christmas. When we returned from a day trip on Christmas Eve, we discovered that hotel staff had decorated the dining room with pine branches, lighted candles, and a small pine tree. For dinner the waiters proudly brought out a roasted turkey, with its head still on and a carrot curl in its beak. After showing us the Christmas bird, they returned it to the kitchen from where it soon reemerged chopped up in a familiar Vietnamese-style stir fry.

Our hosts took us to see some of the devastation caused by B-52 bombing and to meet several badly burned and broken civilian victims. We visited a museum where we saw displays of anti-personnel bombs and bomblets, tens of thousands of tons of which were dropped by our country on Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia. Having seeded the earth with these weapons, unexploded anti-personnel bombs would continue to kill and maim civilians, especially children, long after the war was over.

During unscheduled time one afternoon, Trudi and I walked freely in the center of Hanoi around the Lake of the Returning Sword and visited the One-Pole Pagoda. We were struck by how friendly Vietnamese seemed, even when they learned we were Americans. We were told that this partly reflected  Vietnamese Buddhist culture, but also Ho Chi Minh’s teachings. During decades of foreign occupation by the French and Japanese, Ho Chi Minh urged Vietnamese to resist, including by violence, but Ho also taught when foreigners don’t pose any threat, hatred and vengeance are ineffectual and wasteful attitudes. While this does seem to have been Ho’s philosophy, it is a matter of record that American prisoners of war at times suffered harsh treatment and that some prisoners, including John McCain, were tortured. In 1995, Senator McCain joined with Senator Kerry, who had testified against the war in 1971, to support President Clinton’s decision to normalize relations with Vietnam.

One of the high points of our visit to Hanoi was an hour-long meeting with Pham Van Dong, a close associate and friend of Ho Chi Minh. Having grown up in Quang Ngai Province, which became part of South Vietnam after the country was divided, Dong joined the resistance as a young man and was jailed by the French for seven years. Following Vietnamese defeat of the French at Dien Bien Phu in 1954, Ho Chi Minh named Dong Prime Minister. After the American war ended, Dong served as Prime Minister of united, independent Vietnam from 1976 to 1987. Interviewing Pham Van Dong provided Ann, Trudi and me personal experience of Vietnamese determination and confidence that they would succeed finally in freeing Vietnam from control by any foreign power, including the United States.  This reinforced our views that the American war in Vietnam was not only morally wrong, but utterly unwinnable.

On our fourth day in Hanoi we were taken to meet a few of the American POWs. Our main purpose was to bring loving greetings from their families, to let the men know that people back home were praying for them, and that we were working to end the war, so that they could come home. Illogically, the Nixon Administration often spoke as if the U.S. was continuing the war to bring home American prisoners. Appreciating the sensitivity of our meeting, including possible propaganda value to North Vietnam, our government’s opposition to our mission, the intense U.S. media focus on POW/MIAs, and the likelihood our meeting would be monitored, we didn’t ask the men how they were being treated, but instead simply asked each man to tell us how he was captured.

One of the prisoners we met was a fighter bomber pilot who had flown several missions from an aircraft carrier in the China Sea. He told us that he had never been in Vietnam and never met a Vietnamese before his plane was shot down and he was captured. “Until my plane was hit and I parachuted down,” he told us, “the war wasn’t real; it was more like a very dangerous arcade video game.” He told us that he broke his ankle when he landed in a field. Local villagers surrounded him and began to argue loudly about what to do with him. After several minutes, they roughly bandaged his ankle with cloth strips and carried him some distance through fields and then down into a deep bunker. He told us, “Very soon after we were underground, there were thunder-like booms and the earth shook violently. I knew that these were bombs being dropped by our B-52s.” He confessed convincingly, “You know, until that day, I never experienced a B-52 raid from the ground. I wouldn’t want—and I wouldn’t want anyone else—to experience that ever again.” 

     Our route home to New York took us to Bangkok, then across the Pacific with a brief stopover in Seattle, where as soon as we landed, immigration authorities and armed police boarded the plane and ordered us to come with them and to bring the bag containing the hundreds of letters we were carrying for families of the POWs. We were led into a small room where the authorities threatened us with legal penalties and demanded that we give them the mail. I realized then why small, sixty-six year old Ann Bennett had insisted that she carry the bag.  Ann held it tightly against her chest and said, “We are carrying this mail for American servicemen who are prisoners of war and we promised them that we would send it to their families. You will have to beat me to take this bag of mail.” The authorities recognized they had met their match. They let us go; we re-boarded our plane and continued our flight home. On our arrival at Kennedy Airport, leaders of the Committee of Liaison greeted us and we held a press conference. The very next day, the letters were placed in new envelopes with stamps and mailed to all the prisoners’ families as promised. 

It was good, even as we continued to protest and resist the American war, to have had this experience of acting in solidarity with the American men and families of the men who were fighting it.

*    *    *

“Whatever may be noble and heroic in war is found in us, and 

whatever is evil and horrific in war is also found in us.” 

“All wars are fought twice, the first time on the battlefield, 

the second time in memory.”

From Nothing Ever Dies by Viet Thanh Nguyen,

Author of the 2016 Pulitzer Prize winning novel, The Sympathizer

Order Ron Young’s memoir, Crossing Boundaries in the Americas, Vietnam and the Middle East. $25, plus $3 postage.

Reflection on the Election: What Was I Missing?

By Ron Young

December 2016

In the months leading up to the election I spoke-up quite a lot, mostly with family and friends as, together, we conspired nervously to reassure one another about the election’s likely outcome. Since the election, I’ve been more silent than outspoken. The shock I feel is deep and hasn’t worn off yet. It may not. Rather than diminish, the shock may grow as the Trump Administration seeks to implement his campaign promises. Reflecting on the election campaigns and how shocked I am by the outcome, I’ve asked myself, “What was I missing?”

The basic reality I was missing is how many and how much people across the country are hurting, fearing the future, feeling that the “American Dream” has died, and how frustrated and angry people are about the political do-nothing deadlock in Washington. I was missing the unique positive possibilities and very real dangers in the present situation as reflected in the unpredictably wild primary campaigns. Bernie Sanders, sounding sometimes like a Socialist, challenged the Democratic Party establishment, declared the need for a “political revolution” and mobilized millions to support his candidacy. Donald Trump, sounding sometimes like a fascist, rallied millions of voters and trashed sixteen other candidates, decidedly defeating several favorite sons of the Republican Party establishment.

 In this volatile context, no matter how inspired and spirited her slogan of “stronger together” and no matter how rational and realistic her policy plans, Hillary Clinton’s campaign couldn’t compete successfully in enough counties in the country to win the election. To Clinton’s credit and thanks to the moral wisdom of a majority of voters, she won the popular vote.  Whatever our views of the Electoral College, and I’m for reforming or abolishing it, we all knew and certainly all her politically sophisticated, highly paid political advisors knew that winning the popular vote would not be enough to win the Presidency. I failed to recognize serious weaknesses in Clinton’s campaign strategies. To many voters, who previously may have voted Democratic, Clinton seemed like “more of the same old, same old” in a year when a vast majority of people wanted some sort of, and many wanted almost any sort of, “BIG change.”

Polls suggested that Bernie might have done better than Hillary against Trump, but this hope would have been severely tested and probably crushed by the fear-filled negative ads that everyone expected would be aimed against him.  Sadly, we’re still deeply scarred by racism and the Cold War, so that a candidate’s hateful racist rantings frighten fewer people than a candidate being accused of being a “socialist.” 

And that reveals a second important reality I was missing, at least in part because I am a privileged, native-born, mostly hetero-sexual liberal (or progressive) white Christian man. I initially missed and didn’t want to believe how Donald Trump’s racist, anti-immigrant, anti-Muslim, homophobic, misogynist rhetoric would swell support among many potential voters and would be shamelessly ignored or discounted by many decent folk who desperately, even if dangerously for themselves and others, wanted the most outrageously outsider anti-establishment candidate to win the White House.   

I also missed or underestimated how, if you believed Ronald Reagan in his first inaugural address when he declared, “Government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem,” then Trump’s lack of any personal record of public service and his apparent appalling ignorance about the substance and complexities of important domestic and foreign policy issues could conceivably be viewed as positive qualities. People who voted for Trump got what they wanted, at least for now. Particularly related to helping working people, no matter how we voted, we all need to do more than track Trump’s tweets. We should track Trump’s promises. Does he keep or break them.

(See the NY Times Editorial 12/5/2016, “How to Help Working People.”)

The election revealed deep divisions among us, but also divisions within us. I missed the capacity of the same people just a few years apart to make very different political choices. Missing or forgetting that quality about us tempts us toward a more satisfying but misleading and all too simplistic understanding of our society and politics.

Taken together as a people, psychologically and politically, we are a schizophrenic nation. How else to explain our voting two terms for George W. Bush, then two terms for Barrack Obama, and now choosing Donald Trump? How else can you interpret Republican voters in 2012 decisively choosing Governor Mitt Romney, an experienced moderate centrist, over a primary field of more radical candidates, while in this election year they chose the most radical, unpredictable, and least experienced candidate? And how do you explain the finding that 10% of people who voted for Donald Trump in 2016 voted for Barack Obama in 2012?

So, where are we and what might I (or we) be missing now? I’m not missing the sickening sense of shock at Trump’s victory or the fear and foreboding I and many people are feeling about what a Trump Administration might do in the next four years. And I’m not missing how extreme rightwing political forces, including the Klan, anti-immigrant and anti-Muslim groups, Alt-right and Breitbart may now have a choke hold on the Republican Party, as reflected in President-Elect Trump’s choices of  Steve Bannon, Michael Flynn and Jeff Sessions for major posts in his administration.

What I fear we may be missing now is carefully weighing the value and effects of engaging in amorphous disruptive protest, marching with signs saying, “Resist Trump” or chanting “Not Our President” versus strategizing politically and preparing to protest and resist actual policies that harm lives that matter, whether the lives are women, LGBQT’s, blacks, browns, immigrants, Muslims, Jews, Middle East refugees or white men. If Trump acts to implement half of what he threatened to do, there will be plenty to protest and resist. The FBI already reports a significant spike in verbal and violent attacks on communities Trump threatened. It may feel necessary and right for now to march and shout “Resist Trump.” For the long haul, however, we’ve got to come together to build alliances and prepare for the battles ahead.

Let’s all get ready. If Trump activates his threats to deport millions of Latinos, possibly including young “dreamers,” municipalities and religious congregations should offer them sanctuary and many of us need to be ready to be arrested for physically blocking their deportation.  If Trump tries to implement a National Registry of Muslims, Christians and Jews, especially clergy, as well as followers of other religions and no religion, should declare, “We are all Muslims,” and demand to register.

In January on the day after the Inauguration we all should participate in the “WOMEN’S MARCH ON WASHINGTON, or in a local Women’s March. This period is also a time locally for reaching out to neighbors to initiate and strengthen relationships, especially with more vulnerable people and communities, to prepare to act politically, resist nonviolently, and help KEEP HOPE ALIVE!

Between now and 2018, when 38 governorships are up, it’s a time for lending our voices and support to realigning the Democratic Party in ways that make it able to appeal more effectively to millennials and to a broader, inclusive constituency, while not weakening support for women and vulnerable minorities.

I want to share one more thought about what I/we might be missing now.  in his White House press conference before leaving on his last foreign trip, President Obama movingly reflected qualities of realism and grace. Responding to one question after another about Donald Trump’s temperament and threats to Obama’s legacy accomplishments, the President spoke calmly, realistically and graciously about huge differences between the rhetoric of campaigning and the reality of governing. Obama said, “This office has a way of waking you up. Those aspects of his (Trump’s) positions or his predispositions that don't match up with reality, he will find shaken up pretty quick because reality has a way of asserting itself."

The President illustrated how reality will assert itself related to the Affordable Care Act and the Iran Nuclear Deal. He emphasized the huge difference between rhetoric promising to “repeal Obamacare” and dealing with the reality of 20 million Americans who now have healthcare who didn’t have it before, and he graciously pledged his support for any reforms Trump might advocate that would provide better healthcare for more Americans. On the Iran Nuclear Deal, Obama appreciated how we had a vigorous national debate over “pros” and “cons” of negotiating a deal with Iran, but said it’s a very different situation now that an agreement was achieved and all the evidence so far indicates that Iran is implementing everything it agreed to do. .

President Obama said that on some issues finding common ground may be possible, but he also acknowledged deep differences he has with Trump “on a whole bunch of issues” that relate to core American values and rights guaranteed in the Constitution. There certainly are some issues, including use of torture, women’s and LGBQT rights, treatment of Muslims, immigration and refugee policies, energy choices related to Climate Change, and nuclear weapons policies on which in addition to appeals to Congress and to the Courts to block dangerous and harmful policies, nonviolent resistance may be necessary. Even in these situations, I hope we can follow Obama’s example of being realistic and gracious. We should work hard to avoid labeling other people in simplistic negative ways, but instead, seek opportunities to listen, to try to understand, and communicate with people with whom we disagree, for some of us that may need to start within our own families. 

May we in our practice of politics, and even in our acts of nonviolent resistance be realistic and gracious, and may we help everyone to KEEP HOPE ALIVE!

Martin Luther King, Jr.

On the steps of the Capitol in Montgomery, Alabama

March 25, 1965

“I come to say to you this afternoon, however difficult the moment, however frustrating the hour, it will not be long, because truth crushed to earth will rise again. How long? Not long, because no lie can live forever. How long? Not long, you shall reap what you sow. How long? Not long, because the arc of the moral universe is long but it bends toward justice.”

Today at 74, compared with when I was 23 years old in Selma in 1965, I understand that the arc of the moral universe is a lot longer than I thought, and I understand better how our lives together with the lives of those who have gone before us and those who will come after us are a vital part of the arc’s bending toward justice.