CHAPTER EIGHT EXCHANGES WITH MAX Robertsfors, Sweden Dear Max A few things have happened here. Phil Berrigan wrote a letter. He is 71 years old and still going strong. The point of his letter was "be prepared to come back and face the music". I think that is bullshit! Nailing yourself to a cross certainly will not help matters. Received a letter from a guy who claims he is a representative of the U.N., claims he got my letter from an organisation in Prague. Says he wants to take it up as a "human rights" issue in the U.N. Because the U.S. is always posing as the champion of human rights in the U.N. Wanted more informatin which I sent. Could be interesting or it could be the U.S. Government is making a move now that they realise I exist. Numerous letters from England, Israel, Vietnam, Sweden, and the U.S. Some who have written to Clinton, others who won't do anything. By the way, my daughter who lives in Cleveland called the two lawyers you mentioned in your first letter. Bill S. very polite and wanted a copy of my letter. Bob R. acted like an asshole on the phone. "How did you get my number" and generally very paranoid! She sent them a copy of my letter. You would be surprised in how many lawyers have offered to help me "make a deal" which I will not do! Winning battles is not a fundamental Marxist position! Understanding the fundamentals sides in a class struggle is, or which side your on. How to determine what should I do now, in the relationship to the class struggle. which is on going, one can sit with ones finger up ones ass or you can try to do something to shake the dice. With my letter I try to shake the dice. How it will turn up, only the future and the people involved will decide. You still have not convinced me that "We won", winning a few battles does not mean winning the war. In the last letter I sent you I talked about various countries and what could happen. Do not under estimate nationalism, it is extremely dangerous! Saw and article recently about deserters here in Sweden. 1000 came here and thirty are left. There is a guy who is going to do a film of the deserters here in Sweden claims that he is going to make a "loving nostalgic feeling of the 60,s. long haired hippies, suggesting music with the sign of peace." Sounds like a bunch of nuts. Most of the deserters I knew were poor and black working class kids. Here in the north of Sweden I work with mentally undeveloped people. It is people with various different kinds of things, mostly brain damage, usually received because of having a gene in the wrong place or some mess up during delivery. Most of these people were born or mentally deformed in the first years of their lives. I am active in the Trade Union - one of the biggest in Sweden - the bourgeoisie are trying to wrip apart the welfare state and are receiving lots of help from the right wing of the Social Democracy. There are over 600,000 people on the dole here. The state deficit is over 200 billion crowns. So now we are talking about major cuts in the central welfare state. So only time will tell what will come out of all this + the relationship of forces. I saw they had an article on agent orange in At Ease. As you see there are still a lot of victims around. Maybe you can send a copy of my letter to those people. Perhaps they can help. You know millions of people living today were effected by the war in Vietnam. Many of them have suffered a lot of pain. I was one of the more fortunate ones. I mean Sweden is a really nice place. Even if living in a welfare state controlled by the Social Democrats for nearly 60 years!, does make you a little numb in the head, one never can really forget the past. I still have a razor, which I use everyday, which I received on entering the Federal Penitentiary in Lewisburg. It reminds me of my responsibilities! Perhaps someday I will write or make a band of some of the amazing things I have experienced over the years. From growing up in N.Y.C. slums to today. Might help some other people find away forward. Who knows? Take Care Robert P.S. I am sending you a copy of a radio program I did about a year ago, in another package. If you have time listen to it. I would send you a T.V. program we did also but it is only in Swedish. It was a National T.V. station where the two guests on the show was the former vice minister of state and me. Robert Max Watts Dear Robert, Please excuse delay in answering your letter of 13.3.95 and tape (received 24.3.95).Sometimes, as the French say, the "best is the enemy of the good" -i.e. I wanted to do justice to your tape WCPN of 21.3.94, and eventually did a fast job (fast in sense that didn't revise it, it did take some time) of transcribing it. If you want a "fast uncorrected" transcription, let me know.! Phil (I think, though it may have been his brother) Berrigan was an inspiration to, teacher of, one of the leading Paris Ritas (GIs), Jim Morrissey. Who did well in France,is still there, a television expert and sound man. I'm glad to see Phil is still going strong! As to his position, "facing the music", I also disagree. We won, and if anything, should get medals. For being right a lot sooner! And acting then. I don't know whether to laugh or get angry at our various "we knew it was wrong all along, but we didn't say. or - heaven help! - do anything about it, then..." Of course the real reason why they kept quiet was because they had good jobs, dollars, and didn't want to endanger these. Their status. And maybe some hoped that even if the war was "wrong", maybe they could bludgeon, kill, the Vietnamese into submission. Then it would have been RIGHT, after all. For the wrongest thing about Vietnam (for them) is that WE WON and THEY LOST. If they'd won, they would NOT be crawling out with their: we knew it all along(s) - now. They didn't want to switch sides back then. We,d have taken them on board, easy. McGovern,s, McCarthy (Gene)... came along. Here there was a guy called Cairns, and later one Whitlam, who even got elected Labor Prime Minister (December 1972) and quickly, to beat Nixon to it, pulled out the remaining Oz troops from Nam. Stopped the Draft (here called National Service). Many of the still in the army, remaining draftees - hearing him (Whitlam) say on election night. " I'm ending the draft" yelled: "That's it!" - smashed the furniture and walked out, went home. Matter hushed up, Nothing done about it. Whitlam also let draft resisters, etc. out of jail. Don't know whether they got "amnesty", but they sure point out they were right all along. Any futher developments on the lawyer front? Bill S., Bob R., or others? I am incorporating some of our discussions concerning "winning" (and the linked, for some even harder, question of "we", who we are) into a Tale (Tord Nr. 83) I am writing. When have free time. Will send, maybe the first draft of .1 - .3 with this, if I find copy. Whether this is a Marxist position, I leave open. It certainly is a MAXist one. Of course we have not (yet, when, ever) won "the" war. Question: what does this THE refer to ? But we have won all the "wars" I have been in, against Hitler fascism, Algeria, Vietnam, the "dictatorships" in the socialist countries, and against the third World War (which we may yet lose, but certainly have pushed out of the immediate danger zone). Of course other battles have begun or not been solved in meantime. Leave something over for our kids? My understanding of dialectics (Marx into that,too) is that when you win one, another (or several) can be fought, on a "higher" level. But if "we" lose, things go pretty bad. (imagine we lost the ones I mention above!). Heaven help us, yet another film about "deserters"! Very few are made about on-base RITA. Note: for me, us, desertion, awol, are/were just particular forms of RITA. No better or no worse then organising inside the army. Putting out a paper, or fragging the sgt. Choice depended on circumstances. I think I sent you rn 2668 English (The Dutch Connection - it was published in German as "US Army Europe,,, - if you want a copy of the book, will send) in which we considered the difference between Draft Dodging, Draft Resistance, and Desertion/Awol. As you often say, the Draft Resisters were usually middle class kids. Incidentally, I wouldnot fault them for that, isn't it better to be a "middle-class" draft resister or even "only" dodger than to go in as an officer? No? No, for there were some officer ritas, but not many. I think it is important to push where you can, and see where it gives. In fact, the most remarkable phenomenon I personally encountered in my "active" life is how the resistance inside the armies (many armies, plural) bloomed in the post 1965 period. We certainly didn't expect that when we met our first deserter! Don't know if (our book, enclose publicity) LEFT FACE (or Cortright,s earlier: Soldiers in Revolt) is/are available in Sweden. too bloody expensive to buy! Maybe in some Library? I am very admirative of your work with the mentally under-developed. I would have a hard time doing anything like that, am,am glad someone else is able to. Note that the Fascist solution was to kill them. Tried, did, it in Germany, in 1940... And - one of the reasons I am "for you", why this correspondence gets pretty high priority in what time I have left - is that you, although you SAY we do union, etc. Many are discouraged if feel we do not win. And go "home", into inactivity. The battle to dismantle the welfare state is being fought in most (all?) highly capitalised capitalist countries. It is surprising to what extent today these "waves" go right across national, continental, borders. As to the outcomes, they will depend on many factors. Even if the situation looks bleak in a given place at a given moment, the fight continues. I have sent copy of our correspondence to AT EASE, new issue out soon, may have been to late to get into this one, we will see. You really should write or at least tape your "life story". As said above, I have transcribed your WCPN tape (rn 3077.521 - .522) Did you get much feed - back from that broadcast ? I don't know how big an audience that program had. Has there been anything since then, any reaction from Clinton? I entirely approve (push all over, see what gives) you actions against draft boards, but would (between us) point out that many RITAs (in fact, almost all, initially) were working class / peasant volunteers - "anything to get out of the orphanage in Waco" - said baby A who even eventually wound up in Sweden! I take it things with Heather worked out well... as she is now calling the lawyers in the US! What I really liked about your position on that program is that you make Joe Smith realise: "I (we) were right about (in) Vietnam, and they, the government, Johnson, Nixon, (the capitalist ?) were wrong. So we have nothing to apologise for. They sure do!" I enclose copy of a letter d 17.3.95 from June Van I. - mostly dealing with German Deserters from WW 2. May be of interest (her address, authors note) if you should want to contact her... she has been sent copies of our correspondence.. June - my lady friend in those years, worked very hard with RITAs for many years, and then (together with myself and 21 others) sued the US army for violating our civil rights... phone taps, sabotage, etc. After 6 years we won. I got 9000 dollars! Must say didn't expect to... but we did. And she got 4500 dollars and still has job teaching English to GIs. Cora is her daughter. I also enclose a video tape and an article about AUSTRALIA,s OWN ON-GOING LITTLE VIETNAM: Bougainville. Let me know whether this makes sense, to Swedes. INC! = Illeggitimati non Carborundum (don't let the bastards grind you down) - an old greeting! and solidarity Max Watts