[Marxism] Charter Day, UC Berkeley, 1962

[Brian Shannon <brian_shannon@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Daily Californian, March 21, 1962

One Man’s Opinion (given two columns; a feature of the Letters To the  
Ice Box section)

Open Letter to John F. Kennedy

When you took office there were may who expressed the hope that your  
administration would use the vast powers at its disposal towards  
ending the arms race, championing the causes of civil rights and  
civil liberties for all Americans, and in support of the struggles of  
the underdeveloped and colonial nations for a more just and humane  
life. The events of the past 14 months, however, can lead us to no  
other conclusions than that your administration’s policies are not  
formulated with such objectives foremost in mind. Specifically, your  
administration has carried out the following policies to our great  
dismay:
    You have increased military expenditures by $8 billion and have  
imitated the Soviets in the resumption of nuclear testing, thereby  
seriously intensifying the arms race.
    You have organized, equipped and transported a military invasion  
against a small neighboring state, Cuba, in violation of the laws of  
this nation and of the United Nations Charter.
    You have failed to take the initiative to repeal the McCarran  
Act and restore the right of free expression to members of the  
Communist Party.
    You have failed to implement even such minimal steps toward full  
citizenship for the Negro people as signing an executive order  
desegregating federally-assisted housing.
    You have continued to give active support to the corrupt  
dictatorships of Taiwan, South Vietnam, South Korea, Portugal, Spain  
and Nicaragua.
    You have provided the governments of France and Portugal with  
military equipment that is being used for the suppression of the  
Algerian and Angolan people.
    We believe that a continuation of such polices can only lead  
this nation further and further from its professed democratic and  
humanitarian ideals and closer and closer to a garrison state and a  
nuclear holocaust. As Americans concerned both with our own future  
and with the welfare of all the people of the world, we cannot in  
good conscience celebrate with you this Charter Day. We choose rather  
to use the occasion of your visit here to protest directly to you the  
course of action which your administration continues to follow. As we  
protest, we yet hope that you will reverse that course and truly lead  
this nation forward in a “peace race” towards those democratic and  
humane objectives of which you so often speak.
--Ad Hoc Committee For March 23 [1962]

I don’t know who wrote this. I may have written the whole thing, but  
more likely the first draft was by Marvin Garson and/or Frank  
Bardacke (the chairman of the Ad Hoc Committee). Garson (then the  
husband of the now better-known Barbara Garson) was a wonderful  
political writer. However, I worked on it as well. The first sentence  
and some of the closing phrases look like some of mine.

Brian Shannon




 
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