"Rough Draft of Proposed Statement on Vietnam and the Draft." (1968).
Congress of Racial Equality (CORE).
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Rough Draft of Proposed Statement on Vietnam and the Draft
Congress of Racial Equality (CORE)
1968
The lies, cynicism and hypocrisy that have enveloped the Johnson Administration's
colonial war in Vietnam are an old story to the black people of this country. The total
falseness of the Administration's characterization of our one-sided intervention in a
civil war brought on by the tyranny and injustice of our own puppet, Ngo Dinh Diem,
as "assistance" in repelling an "invasion from the north" to protect
"freedom and democracy" in the south has by now been so thoroughly exposed
as in complete contradiction to the facts that no one is any longer taken in by it.
Doesn't everyone know today that the United States helped France to the extent of more
than two billion dollars in her attempt to reimpose her colonial rule in Vietnam; that
we actually supported Diem in his refusal to hold the all-Vietnam elections called for
by the 1954 Geneva Agreements that ended the war against the French; that it was this
violation of the Geneva agreements, and Diem's undemocratic police-state methods and
religious persecution that forced the Vietnamese to take up arms against their
government; that the United States supplied huge quantities of arms and 23,000
"advisors" to help the dictator Diem attempt to exterminate all opposition,
until it was clear that in spite of this help he was a lost cause; and that after Diem
was deposed there followed a parade of military juntas, virtually none of which
represented anyone but themselves and a handful of wealthy landowners and businessmen,
climaxed by accession to power of a man — the present premier, Air Marshall Ky
— who has openly declared that Adolph Hitler is his greatest hero.
The black people of this country, who have suffered from racism and colonialism in
their own country for four hundred years, and have learned to view with skepticism
official pronouncements of benevolent intentions, have no trouble recognizing the racist
and colonial character of this war. When we read how white American soldiers stand by
while Vietnamese prisoners of war are tortured to death, we remember our own experiences
of police brutality. When we read that Vietnamese culture and villages are destroyed
and the inhabitants herded off to western-style detention camps, we remember the systematic
destruction of our own cultural heritage under slavery. When we read that one
experienced observer "has never met a Vietnamese official who didn't feel and show
contempt for the Vietnamese peasant", or that white American soldiers refer to all
Vietnamese as "gooks", we remember four hundred years of humiliation. And when
we read the Administration's statements about winning the "hearts and minds"
of the Vietnamese people, and instituting economic and land reforms, and then learn that
a large part of our aid is stolen by corrupt officials, the land reform has scarcely
begun, civilian hospitals are filthy and lacking in essential supplies, and widows of
South Vietnamese killed accidentally by American bombs are given $34 as compensation,
we think of a hundred years of broken promises, and that 13 years after the Supreme
Court desegregation decision ___% of negro children are still in integrated schools,
and a hundred years after emancipation ___% of negro families are still forced to live
in all-black ghettoes, negro unemployment is two times that of whites and the negroes
average wage only ___% of the white population's.
The racial and colonial aspects of the Vietnam war have not, however, blinded us to
other considerations regarding the war which affect both black and white. We think of
the dislocation of the lives of young men sent off to Vietnam, and the dehumanization
they undergo on learning the ugly facts about what they are actually being used to do
there. We see this country's economy devoted more and more to war industry, when what
the country and the world needs most is peace. We see funds that had been promised for
the war on poverty being shifted to feeding the war machine. And we see our country
becoming the main opponent of the underprivileged and the main support of dictators and
militarism throughout the world.
For these reasons we of CORE wish resolutely to state our total opposition to our
country's continued intervention in Vietnam, and our complete endorsement of Martin
Luther King's five point program for ending the war. We urge all our brethren to make
every effort to obtain conscientious objector status and avoid participation in a war
which we are absolutely convinced is immoral, illegal, unjustifiable, and in every
way contrary to our national interest and the bare ideals of our national heritage.
With a view to implementation of the above-stated position regarding the Vietnam war,
we submit the following resolutions:
- Be it resolved the CORE will undertake a national campaign to bring the facts
regarding the American involvement in Vietnam to the black people of this country.
- Be it resolved that CORE wishes to state a firm protest against the numerous
inequities and discriminatory practices of the Selective Service system, both in
principle and in practice. These grievances will be detailed and documented in a
separate statement.
- Be it resolved that CORE wishes to state its indignation and outrage at the treatment
accorded a great American Mohammed Ali, by the Selective Service system, and CORE's
complete support for Mohammed Ali's refusal to serve in the Vietnam war and his claim
to be regarded a conscientious objector.
- Be it resolved that CORE urges every black citizen eligible for the draft to file
a claim as a conscientious objector and to refuse to serve in Vietnam on the grounds
that the war is illegal, immoral, and unconscionable.
- Be it resolved that CORE whole-heartedly support the Reverend Martin Luther King's
five-point proposal for immediate cessation of United States involvement in the war
in Vietnam.
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