Rally Against the Vietnam War at the Pentagon, 1967

From The Washington Post, October 22, 1967.

179 Arrested As Violence Takes Over

By William Chapman
Washington Post Staff Writer

More than 55,000 persons demonstrated here against the war in Vietnam yesterday in what started out as a peaceful rally but erupted into violence at the Pentagon late in the day.

At one point a surging band of about 30 demonstrators rushed into the Pentagon, only to be thrown out by armed troops.

Dozens of youthful demonstrators were arrested during two brief but angry melees at the Pentagon's mail Entrance. Several thousand demonstrators surged across boundaries that the Government had prescribed.

In many isolated incidents, military police and U.S. marshals clubbed the jeering, rushing demonstrators who invaded forbidden spots or pushed against defensive lines.

Reporters saw military police throw at least three tear gas grenades. The top military commander categorically denied it, insisting the gas from the other side.

Before the day was out, at least 79 persons were arrested in connection with [the demonstration].

The Pentagon said 27 persons were injured--6 military men, eight marshals and 13 demonstrators.

The attempted storming followed a long rally at the Lincoln Memorial where the marchers-the vast majority of them young students-heard both the war and President Johnson denounced in bitter language.

The vast majority of the demonstrators were not involved in the attempt to storm the Pentagon. Among those arrested at the Pentagon area were author Norman Mailer; Dagmar Wilson, head of the Women Strike for Peace, and Dave Dellinger, the self-styled radical who is chairman of the National Mobilization Committee to End the War in Vietnam, sponsor of the rally.

In the most serious incident, 20 to 30 demonstrators slipped through lines of U.S. marshals and military policemen and into a small vestibule inside the office of the Pentagon's Mall entrance. Once inside they encountered heavily armed troops.

The troops, carrying rifles with sheathed bayonets, used gun butts to force some outside and carried others out bodily. Blood was spotted on the floor.

Outside, the big crowd surged forward and began throwing what they had at hand-picket signs, magazines, leaflets, sticks and at least one rock which crashed through a Pentagon press room window.

An earlier foray of several hundred pushed against military police lines and a rope barrier. Some of them were carrying North Vietnamese flags. After a brief scuffle, they were shoved back with night sticks. They identified themselves as members of the U.S. Committee to Aid the National Liberation Front, a New York group. The marshals and military policemen carried only side-arms, but they were promptly reinforced by troops carrying rifles with sheathed bayonets and wearing tear gas grenades on their belts. . . .

Throughout the afternoon there were sporadic violent encounters between small groups and the troops. Several demonstrators were clubbed when they pressed too close to troop lines or refused to move out of forbidden sectors.

When one group of soldiers was surrounded, marshals waded into the demonstrators and fists began flying. A marshal repeatedly clubbed one demonstrator, whose friends fought back with fists. Others jeered, screamed, and cursed the military.

But thousands of others merely hung back, looking on with curiosity, occasionally breaking into chants and songs.

Occasionally when taunted too long, military policemen swung back with clubs. Several times they simply picked up demonstrators bodily and threw them back into the crowd.

In one incident, a company of troops pushed a crowd off the steps. The people threw back empty soft drink cans.

At one point, about 100 young persons stood up and burned what they said were draft cards. . . .

At the Lincoln Memorial, the crowd that had gathered was in a football-afternoon mood as it lined the banks of the Reflecting Pool.

There were hippies and housewives, veterans and aging pacifists, but the overwhelming majority were college or high-school aged students. They came with banners unfurled from Harvard, Radcliffe, Southern Illinois University, the University of Georgia, and many other campuses.

Speakers denounced the war and President Johnson, and they were vague calls for "active resistance"--a so called new stage of the protest movement. But no one called for any specific acts of civil disobedience. Not until just before step-off time, shortly after 2 p.m., did Dellinger, the national chairman, announce the whole things would be turned into a "gigantic teach-in" to "educate" the troops guarding the Pentagon to the miseries of the war in Vietnam.

The biggest crowd response was a chant of "Hell no, we won't go!"--a familiar draft-resistance slogan-started by John Wilson, associate national director of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee. . . .

Dr. Benjamin Spock, the prominent baby physician and leader of the Committee for Sane Nuclear Policy, fought through the drone of passing airplanes to denounce President Johnson and the war.

He accused the President, Sen. Everett M. Dirksen (R-Ill.) and House Speaker John McCormack (D-Mass), of trying to stifle dissent by accusing dissenters of impeding the war.

"We consider the war Lyndon Johnson is waging as disastrous to this country in every way," Spock declared. . . .

"The enemy, we believe in all sincerity, is Lyndon Johnson, who we elected as a peace candidate in 1964 and who betrayed us within three months." . . .

Wilson, the SNCC leader, said white people in America are just finding out what it means to confront "white honky cops." He added, "Welcome to the club." Later, he called for a moment of silence for Che Guevara, the Cuban leader killed recently as an insurgent in Bolivia. . . .

At one point, the program featured folk songs by Peter, Paul and Mary and a new favorite--"I Declare the War is Over," sung by Phil Ochs.

The Mobilization's leadership seems delighted with the Government's massive security precautions, claiming it as evidence that the Administration fears the strength of the peace movement.

"The Government has done most of our work for us," said Douglas Dowd, a Cornell University professor and an early leader of the campus protest teach-ins.

Dellinger, who had promised marchers they could commit civil disobedience if they wanted to, seemed to be trying to shift to simple protest tactics just as the crowd left the Memorial when he said the confrontation would be turned into a "gigantic teach-in" to educate the Pentagon's defensive troops.

"We announced we were going to disrupt the Pentagon and I believe its already been disrupted," he said, referring to the massive troop gatherings across the river.

"We said we were going to encircle it--but its already encircled by people in uniform. . . .There is always a time when an idea's time has come and we are going to present that idea to the troops and the police. . . . We will call on them to be free men. . .We will tell them that the United States must stop this bloody aggression and bring our boys home safe and alive now."

Looking much like an inter-collegiate jamboree, with the heavy concentration of students, the crowd contained relatively few of the middle-aged couples and clergymen who are so prominent in peace movements led by less radical leaders.