In the Shadow of the Glassboro Summit, Policemen Stir Up the Anti-War Movement

(The author worked during the summer as Los Angeles reporter for the Vietnam Summer News. Parts of the following have appeared previously in that publication.--Ed.)

When Lyndon Baines Johnson and Alexei Kosygin conferred in Glassboro, New Jersey for a few days last June, fanfares of great drums were heard across the nation.

But the soft sounds of summer were not disturbed by the tinsel thundering of the summit. By now, most have forgotten and few care to remember.

Shortly afterward began a series of events outstanding in the memory: the race riots of Newark, Detroit, Milwaukee. Sandwiched between these two examples of the breakdown of conventional politics was the first and biggest anti-war demonstration of the summer. In the shadow of Glassboro, it received little national publicity.

From the viewpoint of the anti-war movement, the march was a success for two reasons. It confronted the first major fund-raising dinner of the 1968 campaign with a disruptive mass protest, setting the trend for protest activity throughout the campaign. Also, it marked the first time white liberals in the peace movement experienced the police brutality formerly reserved for civil rights demonstrators in the South. For most, it was a radicalizing experience.

President Johnson arrived in Los Angeles three hours late because his summit meeting ran overtime.

An estimated 10,000 to 25,000 persons gathered in Los Angeles on June 23 to carry the Vietnam War protest to President Johnson's dinner table.

More than one-quarter million leaflets were distributed announcing the demonstration to Southern Californians. Los Angeles Mayor Sa mYorty cancelled all days off within the police department in an attempt to guarantee order for the President's visit, which "was greeted by more hostility than any other Presidential visit in the city's history," according to CBS news.

While President Johnson dined on julienne of raw spinach and filet mignon forestiere at a $1000 dollar-a-couple Democratic fund-raising dinner at the Century Plaza Hotel, the protestors marched to meet him from a public park one mile away.

When the front of the column reached the hotel, the march stalled. The line of people, which stretched all the way back to the park, remained immobilized for more than one hour, in spite of the march officials' frantic attempts to get people moving again.

Police then decided the demonstration was in violation of the parade permit obtained by the organizers of the march and declared the crowd an "illegal assembly."

The 1500-man security force, more than twice as many police as deployed at the height of the Watts riot, converged on the massed demonstrators. An hour and a half later, the crowd was dispersed to the satisfaction of the police department. 51 people were arrested and more than 50 reported injured. President Johnson never saw the demonstration.

But most Southern Californians could not avoid a confrontation so easily. June 23 was a day of protest. Pages 21, 22, 23 of the Los Angeles Times were covered with the names of 8,000 "Dissenting Democrats," enlisted by actor Robert Vaughn.

The political advertisement was entitled "An Open Letter to President Johnson and the Democratic Party" and concluded: "MR. PRESIDENT, WE ADVISE YOU AND THOSE ON EVERY LEVEL OF GOVERNMENT THAT, FROM THIS DAY ON, OUR CAMPAIGN FUNDS, OUR ENERGIES AND OUR VOTES GO TO THOSE AND ONLY THOSE POLITICAL FIGURES WHO WORK FOR AN END TO THE WAR IN VIETNAM."

Later that morning, H. Rap Brown, new president of the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee, arrived in Los Angeles and told a primarily caucasian press conference, "The black vote and the peace vote will be absolutely necessary next year if Wallace can carry as many Southern States as the Gollup Poll predicts. With this kind of dissent, we can bring Lyndon Johnson to his knees."

Later he said, "Whether or not a demonstration is violent is determined by the law enforcement officers themselves. All demonstrations begin peacefully, but if the police come down with billy clubs, there will be violence."

The protest proper was launched with an afternoon "Peace-in" at the public park, one mile from the Century Plaza Hotel. While the bands were playing protest and love songs, rumors spread that there was pro-war picketing in front of the hotel.

Although these reports were revealed as false, about 70 anti-war protestors walked to the hotel and began a demonstration of their own on the sidewalk outside the hotel entrance. At 5:30 a man who identified himself as a member of the American Nazi Party started heckling the demonstrators, shouting "You're killing my white brothers in Vietnam."

Police dragged the man away and then ordered the demonstrators to disperse. Most left and crossed the street, but 19 sat down. As the officers surrounded the group, one picket stood up and said, "Let's go back to the park." But the police refused to let him get through the circle. Another picket said, "Well, dammit, if they won't let us leave, we'll stay seated." A paddywagon was driven up and the 19 demonstrators were dragged, clubbed, and wrestled--as they groaned and screamed--into the truck.

Around 6:00 p.m. a gigantic anti-war rally was staged at the park. Muhammad Ali was the first speaker. He told the crowd: "Whatever you do is up to your own conscience...I am not a marcher or a demonstrator but I'm for you whatever you decide to do." This was the first peace rally Ali ever attended and may represent a change in Black Muslim policy toward greater cooperation with other anti-war groups.

Dr. Benjamin Spock warned all war protestors to "beware of our opponents' desire to divide and destroy us." He admonished protestors to "be tolerant, don't turn against others in the peace movement. Don't play Lyndon Johnson's game."

The last speaker, Rap Brown, brought the rally to a high pitch with his last statement. Pounding his fist, he shouted, "Ours is not to do or die, ours is but to reason why: Hell no, we won't go!"

Then thousands poured into the street and began walking rapidly to the hotel. Mothers pushed baby carriages, and many children were perched on their fathers' shoulders. They marched past the park and up the Avenue of the Stars into Century City at the corner where the 20-story Century Towers apartment building stood, spanking new. The marchers were separated from opposite traffic by wide boulevards covered with orange and purple flowers.

Around them were broad expanses of paper-mache tree trunks and miniature battleships which 20th Century Fox left behind when they sold the property to the Century Corporation. People were so close together and there were so many placards that the march looked more fronzied than even the best-staged rally at a political convention.

Just after the front of the line reached the hotel, the march stopped. Nobody knows quite why it did so. Police charge it was intentional, but the protest leaders say they wanted only to walk past the hotel. They claim the police narrowed the marching path from four lanes to two lanes at the corner just past the hotel, which caused congestion similar to that caused by a freeway's being narrowed to two driving lanes. Another factor could be that an enormous number of people who had been standing ten deep in front of the hotel waiting to see the parade, joined it when it came alongside.

This unexpected influx created much confusion. The police had been intent on restraining the bystanders before the marchers arrived at the hotel, but suddenly backed off and let them all rush forward.

As it turned night, about 45 minutes later, the line still had not moved although the march monitors were pleading with marchers to start walking. Then a small group of about 30 sat down and urged all those around to sit down also. In a few minutes about 150 marchers were sitting down, singing "W eshall not be moved."

The policemen were standing 10 feet apart with their billy clubs held in front of them. After the march had been still for an hour, the officers were ordered to "take off your ties." Each policeman took off his thin black tie and wrapped it around his fist. A short while later, the lieutenant called, "Okay, let's go!"

They walked rapidly into the crowd, trying to push people off the street into the large parking lot below. Many of the marchers panicked and attempted to bull their way out of the crowd, away from the police. Young children tripped and were stepped on, women were screaming, boys were shouting profanity at the police and spitting at them. Officers clubbed, and pushed, and kicked to make the protestors disperse.

The crowd poured into the parking lot below, and the police followed them in tight well-organized groups of 15. Their movements were well-lighted by the newsreel cameras.

Rally on Highway

After the parking lot was emptied, about 2000 demonstrators rallied on a six-lane highway below. After 20 minutes had passed, hundreds of policemen arrived to clear the highway. Motorcycles lined up in the center and drove at angles to the curbs, pushing demonstrators against the concrete, driving them backwards.

Most of the highway had been cleared when three boys and one girl darted out of the crowd and sat down in the middle with their legs crossed. The crowd cheered. Then eight policemen descended on the group, swinging their clubs with hatched strokes. In a few seconds they straightened up and walked away. The four figures lay unconscious, crumpled, with blood streaming from their heads and bodies.

One man approached a policeman and said, "There's a little boy who looks hurt pretty bad lying back there. Can you come back and take a look?" The officer replied, "That's not my responsibility. I have to stay right here." "But aren't you supposed to protect people as well as beat them up?" the man shouted. The policeman replied calmly, "Look, buddy, I am protecting people; now get out of here."

Embankment Traps Demonstrators

After the police had cleared the highway, they pushed the crowd up the 35-foot embankment bordered it. The protestors climbed frantically, but many women could not make it on their own and had to be helped up. When somebody slipped, he ran into the club of a policeman.

Los Angeles Police Chief Thomas Reddin, who had left the President's dinner to watch the operation, shout- ed encouragement to his men from a loudspeaker in the middle of the street. "That's it, officers, you're doing a fine job."

One high police official said police began their sweep because of intelligence information that the crowd was about to storm the hotel. This "information" was obtained by two private investigators who had been hired by the Century City Corporation to infiltrate PAC (Peace Action Council), the group which organized the march.

The chief "paid informant" was a pretty, vavacious, 28-year-old girl who approached an executive of PAC two weeks before the march. "She told me her brother was killed in Vietnam, that her parents were dead, and that she didn't know what she'd do if her second brother were forced to go there also. She said she would do anything for the movement," the PAC official said.

The informant befriended several other members of the executive council and, as a result, was exposed to the detailed plans of the march. On the basis of the informant's greatly embellished version of PAC's plans, the Century Corporation's lawyers were able to obtain a ten-point injunction from a municipal judge on the morning of 23 June, which ordered the marchers to "restrain" from doing the ten things listed on the injunction. The injunction order was handed to Irving Sarnoff, PAC chairman, at the rally before the march began.

"We never had any plans to do any of the things on the injunction order, except for using a sound truck in the parade, which we did not do after we received the injunction," Sarnoff said.

The second point on the injunction order prohibited "Intentionally stopping the course of any parade within limits of Century City." A PAC official explained that although nobody wanted to stop the parade in front of the hotel, it did stop, and the police could not know for sure whether it had been intentional or not. This may have led police to believe their intelligence information was being proved correct and lent credibility to the informant's statement that the marchers planned to storm the hotel.

This coincidence, according to the PAC official, was the proposed justification for the brutal sweep of the police. "Her entire statement is half truths and lies," said the PAC executive.

Forty-seven of the 51 persons arrested were released on bail, which PAC raised the night of the march. Bail money totalled $25,850.

The Los Angeles City Council voted June 29 to give a "vote of confidence" to the police department. By a vote of 10-5, the Council endorsed the law officers' actions at the Friday demonstration