Some Notes on Early Anti-War Activity at Iowa State University,
Ames Iowa

Donald B. Siano - June, 1995

This is an account of my activities against the war in Vietnam,
based on a few newspaper clippings that I saved, my FBI
file, my selective service records, and a few leaflets and notes.
My records are pretty sketchy, especially for the first
couple of years, and my memories are no doubt biased to reduce
embarrassments. I also amplify my own role in events
with many actors--this is, after all, a personal account.

In May, 1964, I attended my first anti-war demonstration, which
consisted of about 20 of us circling with placards at
lunch-time, at Kent state University. I was a senior physics/math
major.

In September I started Graduate work at Iowa State in the Physics
Department and that Fall I joined the Student Committee
on Racial Equality (SCORE, a SNCC for whites). This was the only
student organization with any political leanings to
speak of, other than the Young Republicans or the student
Government. I was looking for some sort of organized activities
against the war: there were none, and no prospects. Endless,
fruitless meetings on civil rights, little to no discussion of
possible anti-war activities. The consensus of the membership was
to remain that way and not be distracted.

I remember being particularly impressed by the leadership of the
local chapter who were trying to solve profound social
issues of the time, while having personal lives that were
complete messes. SCORE did serve, however, as a meeting
place for the anti-war activists to-be. Perhaps a third of the 25
or so "members" of SCORE later became involved in
forming SDS.

On Oct. 15 and 16, during the International Days of Protest,
shortly after a vigil outside the ROTC building, Greg Calvert
(untenured Assistant Prof. in History), Ernie Mehler (Chem Grad
student), a few others, and I formed an SDS chapter.
Only four or five of us actually filled out the membership forms
from the national office. The anti-war activities began
with small (12-20 people) meetings to formulate a constitution,
developing a program of action and so on. SDS was
viewed at the time as being vaguely seditious by many, and in the
depths of the Cold War it took quite a bit of courage to
be associated with it in any way.

Eventually I made my first real attempt at some sort of action
other than a meeting. I chose to try a blood drive for the war
wounded through the International Red Cross, which I (wrongfully,
as it turned out) claimed aided the Vietnamese, as
well as our boys over there. This was pretty much of a fiasco,
but it gave me some experience in working with the press
and so on. Right from the start the Iowa State Daily covered all
of SDS's meetings and activities even when they were
quite insignificant--the relationship between SDS and the ISD
became almost breathlessly symbiotic.

An occasional event that engendered some interest in this period
was to find out when the Marine recruiter was going to
set up in one of the two booths in the student union, then
schedule the opposite one as an SDS literature table. A couple of
these were deliberately quite provocative--I'd cover the booth
with pictures of wounded Vietnamese kids, Americans
burning huts, and so on. I had some really lurid ones. The
recruiters and I eventually became pretty friendly but there was
never any significant confrontation or problems with the Student
Union management that I can recall. Disgust was the
dominant reaction, I guess. But some positive response, too.

The one I remember best was one where I set up a display, using
news clippings, that lead the reader by connecting
several stories of the same event, to infer that a American got
the Congressional Medal of Honor for blowing up an
underground Viet Cong hospital with 2-300 patients.

Another early effort, presaging the later focus on the selective
service system, was a nationwide effort by SDS to leaflet
the meetings of registrants at which the lottery was implemented,
I think. I don't have a date on this and can't recall many
details, but I definitely remember passing out lots of leaflets
as concerned students filed into the larger lecture halls on
campus. We became more visible, and alive.

About this time, several of us took part in the small (20 or so)
meeting and demonstration with anti-war activists in Des
Moines where it was suggested that black arm bands be worn to
signify opposition to the war. This became more
interesting when some Quaker high school students (the Tinkers)
were forbidden to wear them. This led to a free speech
case which was eventually settled (in favor) years later by the
US Supreme Court. Political insignia can be worn in high
schools as a result--a not insignificant contribution. The Des
Moines papers and TV covered the story pretty thoroughly.

SDS in these years ('65 and '66) remained an ineffectual
organization with very slow growth in members and supporters.
Support for the war was incredibly strong on the campus, as
shown, for example, by a very well-organized petition drive
by conservative pro-war activists. Our main activities were
petition drives, literature tables, meetings and such. The
campus newspaper, however, covered everything in excruciating
detail.

There were two regular pieces of literature that we always had on
hand for sale. One was the Port Huron Statement,
which was a steady seller. The other was a local production, The
Liberator. This was a small journal, edited by a student,
John White, which published only locally produced articles.

I recall one of our first efforts was a demonstration (Fall '66,
I think) at lunch time in which we burned an effigy of
Lyndon Johnson. Much fear and trepidation among the 20 or so
participants, but no arrests and no official notice from the
University. Lots of discussion and frustration about the poor
"image" that the organization had. To be anti-war then was
not much different from being against the Gulf War a few years
ago. Kooks...

Another effort about this time involved cooperating with the
activists in Des Moines by picketing at the entrance of Fort
Des Moines, where inductions were taking place. These
demonstrations were quite tiny, generally, and led nowhere.

The style of SDS seemed by this time to have evolved into one of
in-your-face, obnoxious, superior moralistic anarchy.
No real structure, program or leadership. Things happened. The
focus was almost entirely on the war. Discussion of
where to focus: war, GSB, the draft, the university, ROTC, or
cultural affairs were a constant theme at SDS meetings,
however. We decided to focus on everything.

However, the connection to church groups (especially the United
Christian Campus Ministry) was made, an office set up
in the student union, and recognition as a bona fide campus
organization established. I recruited Richard van Iten to be our
"faculty advisor" who took much abuse, no doubt. I can't recall
that he did any advising, but it did take some courage to
lend one's name to such an activity at the time. He later became,
incredibly, chairman of the Philosophy Department. The
organization more or less survived, while SCORE quietly died. The
beginnings of a cultural change was beginning to be
detectable--the sixties at ISU actually started in 1966, I think.

One early effort (Fall, 1966) to involve GSB and the university
in the anti-war activity centered around the issue of the
university's ranking of students, and sending that information
off to local draft boards with the permission, or even
knowledge, of the student involved. Eventually we harassed the
GSB to take up the issue, and they went so far as to
formulate an opinion poll on the matter! The administration
shortly terminated that practice, cutting the issue off at the
knees.

In the meantime, David Metzler, a Biochemistry professor started
a new organization for moderate, responsible folks
called Ames Town Meeting for Peace. It sponsored some activities,
which we also supported, and there was
considerable interchange between the two small groups of
activists. One important thing was Metzler's publication of a
small monthly newsletter (I can't, for the life of me. remember
the name of it) that collected statewide news of anti-war
organizations and was able to increase the awareness and
occasional feelings of solidarity, of the various groups across
the state. His mailing list grew to be about 2000 people as I
recall, so mailing it turned out to require some effort for
envelope stuffing and so on, which we helped with at times.

Our organizations became nicely complementary. The town meeting
attracted those uncomfortable with our evolving
militancy (actually, only rhetoric at this point) and kept SDS
relatively unfettered, so that it could be at the same time be a
sort of cutting edge with a certain cachet, at least among a tiny
sub-population of the largely conservative student body.

In February, 1967 Don Smith, an SDS groupie, ran for student body
president. He was bearded, weird and elected.
[http://www.jlmc.iastate.edu/newsletter/highlights/donsmith.html]
Knowing Don, I supported his hopeless opponent from SDS, John
Grassidonio (who was slightly famous for being the
victim of some anti-hair vigilantes armed with scissors). My
support of John was noted by John, but that was about it.
Incredible volumes of publicity and controversy. Don's presidency
began with a hopeful pledge to "Bring ISU, kicking
and screaming, into the twentieth century." and ended
ignominiously a few months later when he resigned because he got
his girl-friend pregnant. My role in Smith's campaign and short
presidency, was one, largely, of irrelevance, but not
inactivity. I did organize one very large outdoor meeting on
central campus during the pot party/impeachment controversy
that supported Don. Then, during one of the SDS meetings that I
moderated, where all of this was discussed (some
members wanted to disassociate SDS from Smith somehow), I
remember vehemently blaming the Life reporters, who had
"uncovered" the pot party, for actually encouraging it. This
served to take some of the heat off of Smith, as intended.

Not really a win for SDS, but a restless something was definitely
in the air... Beards and long hair began to appear. A
Hippie element, only vaguely political, colonized the campus. I
continued short-haired beardless and beadless, and soon
became a minority in a minority.

Another constant reminder of our visibility included that from
the FBI, who maintained periodic contact with their
informant, Jerry Knight, a reporter for the Ames Daily Tribune.
He would tell them all about our activities, then he'd tell
me what he'd said and what they were interested in. My FBI file
contains material from him, as well as other sources.

About this time (March, 1967), I started(1) "The Free
University". The intent of this was to attract new people to SDS,
provide a forum for anti-war, anti-draft propaganda, and try out
some schemes for a different mode of learning. This
became something of a success--several hundred people signed up
for the 20 or so courses. Dope and pornography were
particularly popular courses.

Negotiations with the university over the use of campus class-
rooms for the courses remain particularly vivid in my
memory. I talked to Carl Hamilton, then University Relations
Director, who had immediate access to President Parks.
Parks was consulted several times during the negotiations, out of
my hearing. I was getting nowhere--Hamilton and Parks
refused to countenance our using any University facilities
because of our name, which included the word "University".
Right! Finally, at an impasse toward the end of the day, I
declared that I knew which class-rooms were empty in the
evening, and I'd just have the classes meet in some central spot,
and proceed to occupy the needed rooms in an organized,
publicized seizure. They capitulated immediately, and I got the
rooms, gratis. I won, but I must admit to feeling some
disappointment--I'd never seized anything before.

It became clear after this (and Smith and the effigy burning)
that the University administrators were not about to be
stupidly confrontational and were willing to go to some lengths
to avoid provocations. Quite a contrast with events at
some other campuses, and probably delayed the progression to
anti-war resistance by six months, at least.

The Free U persisted for a long time (three or four years, I
think), and I successfully transitioned it out of SDS to being an
independent entity, with, unbelievably, funding from the
university student activity fees. It even got some nice press in
the
NY Times.

My next try (April 22, '67) at "broadening our constituency" was
to organize a sort of "happening" or "be-in", Gentle
Thursday(2). The idea was to involve a lot of people in a
harmless, amusing, strange event. It turned out pretty
well--several hundred people participated, a couple of dozen
actually worked to bring it off. It was very pretty. I still
have an image of the couple of hundred huge brightly colored
paper flowers being carried everywhere on a beautiful
spring day. Make love, not war... Students were easily convinced
of the former, at least.

The next activity(3), was, even in retrospect, incredible. I had
been ordered report for induction into the army in Fort Des
Moines on May 27. The army provided me with a bus ticket which
was to depart from Ames, with me (and several other
potential inductees) at 5:30 AM. My dozen SDS colleagues and some
other friends decided to see me off with a little
demonstration. The plan was for me to make a little speech at the
bus. During the distraction, Jack Lasche, whose brother
was killed in the war, volunteered to chain the wheel of the bus
to the axle, preventing it from moving. He did it, and the
bus, containing a number of sleepy elderly travelers from
Minneapolis, couldn't go. Two cars of policemen sat not 30 feet
away, but made no move to interfere. After about a half an hour
of waiting, the bus driver got out a fire ax and knocked the
padlock off. Then, just as he was about to drive off--the bus was
already in motion--one of the protesters lay down just in
front of the bus. This was totally off the script and incredibly
foolhardy. The driver managed to stop the bus and the rest of
the group then lay down, again stopping the bus from leaving for
another half hour or so. I then "requested" them to leave,
which they did, with some relief, I think. No arrests!

When I finally arrived in Fort Des Moines, I learned that all of
the buildings were locked and guarded--the base was on
"red alert", one of the guards told me, "because this guy Siano
is coming". After a very strange encounter with army
intelligence, three large US Marshals (jack-booted thugs) shoving
me around, and the commander of the Base, one Major
Grasso, left wondering what to do with, and the significance of,
my yellow submarine button that he liberated, I was
released in suspense as to my ultimate fate. The Des Moines
Register, which was already mad at the Major for other
reasons, wrote a very nice editorial about the difference between
civilians and military men.

In the summer of 1967 I went to Chicago to be trained in a
nation-wide effort called "Vietnam Summer", in which local
organizations were to be strengthened (with activities focused on
the ex-university community) during a time when
campuses were usually quiet. Using Ernie Mehler's Income Tax
refund and a small grant from the national organization
(Kennedys, it was rumored) , I hired Jim Hannah to work full time
on it, while I continued my part-time work as a
programmer/technician in the biochemistry department. We had two
activities that we focused on.

The first was a survey of 20 local draft boards (one per county)
to see how well they were complying with the law.
Posing as registrants, we would visit each of the offices and ask
to see the regulations, see the list of draft board
members, ask for forms, and so on. We scored them on how well
they complied with each of the laws and compiled a
nice report which we released to the press and public officials.
Generally, we found that many violations of the law were

routinely occurring in most of the boards. Interestingly, the
Ames office (which I had gotten to know pretty well because
of my struggle with my own case) did the best. We got some good
press from this, but perhaps more importantly, became
much more familiar with a target for later efforts.

Our other effort of Vietnam Summer was an unusual leafleting
campaign targeted at people going to church on Sunday
morning. After passing out the (fairly provocative) literature,
we would attend the service and later try to talk to the
minister. This was carried out by 10 or so of us, with the
majority being high school students at Ames high. The local
churches became gradually more important--some would support us
by very inexpensive printing, meeting rooms, my draft
counseling efforts, and so on. The Baptists, Methodists and
Presbyterians were especially notable for their increasing
involvement. The Catholic priests were especially notable by the
complete apathetic disconnectedness to anything
political, in spite of several desultory attempts on my part.

It was during this summer that John Rundle, son of a prominent
ISU Professor of Chemistry, refused induction. A very
small contingent only managed to mount a day-long vigil at the
local draft board office. Up until this time, no arrests for
anti-war activities had occurred at ISU. Then, as I was going to
lunch in the student union one day, I spotted three guys
sitting in a car way out by Lake Laverne.

I went inside, found John, and told him "John, I think the Feds
are outside waiting for you."

He says, "Oh yeah? Let me take a look."

We went outside; the guys got out of the car, ran over, and
arrested him. The FBI has terrific eyesight, I guess.

In early August of that year, the national SDS organization met
in Clear Lake, Iowa. A few of us, including Calvert, Tony
Pounds, and Dierdra Peglar, as I recall, spent a week being
educated in the mores of the organization, such as it was. Sort
of moralistic libertarian/libertine/Jeffersonian/socialist, I
think.

Later that same month, we all went to a really large meeting in
Chicago's Palmer House Hotel: The "National Conference
for New Politics" which turned out to be a really large fiasco
because of the demands of the Black Caucus for at least half
of everything. They won the votes, but nothing more was heard
from it. Wonderful, fuzzy, articulate speeches, though.

On October 21, a couple of VW vans and several carloads of us
took part in the March on the Pentagon. The Ames
contingent was near the front at times, got a good view of
McNamara watching, but successfully avoided arrest and injury,
unlike many present. I was really impressed with the blood I saw
on the steps from an earlier confrontation. John Rundle
retrieved a broken nightstick from that same area that was
tangible evidence of some of the violence that took place. A
highlight was when Mark Rutledge, the Ames UCCM minister,
addressed the crowd just as the mass arrests at the front
began in earnest. In my only violent act against the war, I
remember throwing about a dozen rocks at some of these troops.
I don't know if they hit anyone.

[Mark Rutledge MDRutledge@aol.com]

In December, 1967 I, along with two other students, "turned in"
our draft cards--another blatantly illegal harmless act.
Nothing much came of it except a little burst of publicity, and
being ordered for induction again. I don't know what
happened to the others. Can't even remember who they were.
Appalling.

I think it was about this time (I don't have any date or record
of it) that the demonstration took place against Dow
Chemical, manufacturer of Napalm, who was recruiting on campus.
It was not obstructionist, though I remember some
apprehension as to how it would turn out. There were problems
with hot-heads (I was one) but the moderates prevailed.
No arrests, not much progress. In one of the SDS planning
meetings for this, however, is where I clearly recall seeing two
new personalities, Richard Bender and Tom Higgins appear on the
scene and begin to take an active role. They were both
articulate, motivated and were destined to play a larger role in
the political arena.

The McCarthy campaign during this period completely overwhelmed
the regular democratic organization in Ames,
illustrating for the first time the newly gained strength of the
anti-war sentiment in the local community. The caucuses,
where in other years only a dozen people would attend, were
swamped by up to 200 voters in some precincts, much to the
consternation of the older, established pols who were still
supporting Johnson. Much of the leadership of this peace
faction were faculty in the Physics Department faculty: notably,
Charles Hammer and Ben Cooper and Tom Weber.
SDSers were quite active in this campaign as well, but were not
in leadership positions. Bender and Higgins were
everywhere. All of the county delegates (I was one) went on to
the district and state conventions which turned out well
enough to restore one's faith in the democratic process.

Although I became quite involved in the Democratic Party process,
I was about as close to a "single issue" participant as
it was possible to be. For me, it was the war. And the
Republicans locally were nearly unanimous in their support for
the
war. In the voting on issues such as the technology and the
environment, gun control, drugs, and capital punishment I was
nearly always with the minority. I was a libertarian even then,
but it hadn't been invented yet.

A small contingent of us (including John Rundle, Dennis Ryan,
Richard Bender, and Jim Hannah) took part in the
demonstration/police riots in Chicago at the Democratic National
Convention. While we were trapped at one point by the
police and gassed rather thoroughly, we got away, thankfully,
without any arrests or injuries. We (actually a couple of
thousand of us) were invited to visit Dick Gregory's house, and
were on that march as well. We were stopped by some
really impressive Jeeps festooned with barbed wire, and tear gas
fogger devices, which were recent additions to the
crowd control technologies, I think.

By this time I had become convinced that my efforts for SDS had
had its day, and the time had come for some new
leadership to emerge. I withdrew from the "SDS spokesman" role in
the Fall of '68, though I still attended meetings for a
time. I clearly remember being denounced at one of these that
Fall by a new young guy, Clyde Brown, who was very
concerned with the lack of leadership and advice from the "older
hands" as he put it. But he quickly became a leader and
it turned out that he didn't need much advice either.

On Feb. 7. 1968 I started a new group, the United Center, and
recruited a new assistant professor, Robert Muehlmann, to
co-direct it with me. The idea behind this organization was to
establish a cell-like organization with different areas of
concentration. One was a center for "radical" activities,
(demonstrations and the like), another focused on finance and
legal affairs (supporting John Rundle's draft case), one for
radical arts, another for draft counseling, and a political
action
center for those interested in supporting campaigns for public
office. The whole was coordinated by the "Center" (John
and I), which would also communicate between the centers. In
practice, this worked amazingly well for some time, and
all of the centers appeared to function well and growth in the
numbers was gratifying. People seemed to be more
comfortable with this arrangement than with the rather anarchic
SDS non-structure. I was quite proud of it. Unfortunately,
it died quietly within less than a year because of a love
triangle... Organizations should not depend too heavily on
personalities.

But by then I'd found out how useful and easy it was to evolve
and create new variants of organizations. More species
began to appear on campus as others discovered the same
possibilities. We kept and shared the SDS office and telephone
in the basement of the Student Union, though.

In the fall of 1968 I started work on a project to get the Ames
draft board members to resign and replace them with people
chosen by some other means than the craniums then being used.(4)
I called the organization "Committee for the Fair
Selection of Draft Board Members." This was a very highly
publicized effort and had a lot of support. The churches
played a particularly important supportive role--every one of the
student church groups, from Hill to Campus Crusade for
Christ, endorsed the effort. We had some reasonable expectation
that this sort of thing could create a really awkward
situation for the selective service, and that the demand could
focus attention on just how draft boards functioned. Two of
the local clergy, Sam Buffet of the Presbyterian Church, and
Jerry Smith of the United Methodist church were actually
members of the committee. Others were John Runnel, Ben Cooper,
Ruses Mayan, David Metzler, Richard Bender and
Tom Richards. A high point of the campaign was the largest
demonstration so far--about 90 people marched on October 9,
1968 from campus to the draft office in the rain. The president
of the student body, Denny Forsythe even gave a speech.
The anti-war sentiment had finally broadened beyond the usual 20
or so "misfits and kooks". Another notable event
happened about this time when Col. Bowles, the State Director of
Selective Service, came to campus to give a speech. As
he was being introduced, about a dozen of us walked in, all
carrying pies. We sat patiently in the front row of the hall,
holding the pies in our laps, while Bowles labored nervously
through his talk. At the end, we all rushed the stage with our
pies aloft, turned to face the audience and sang Alice's
Restaurant. Then we shared the pies, much to Bowles' relief.
Craziness. But it happened.

One event that looms large in my mind was the Noam Chomsky/State
Department Representative debate on the war as part
of a teach-in. I think that this was in the Fall of 1969 and may
have been part of the Moratorium activities. Actually, I
seem to remember that the Fraternity association organized this.
At any rate, it was very well attended and Chomsky was
incredibly impressive and persuasive. I think this event was
something of a turning point in winning broad acceptance for
the anti-war position on the campus.

The draft board office in Ames became a target again during the
first Moratorium day a year later (Oct. 15, 1969). By this
time Clyde Brown had become the recognized leader of the anti-war
movement in Ames and contributions from other
sectors of the community (GSB, fraternities, and other
organizations) were increasing dramatically. This demonstration
had about 1500 participants. My contribution, at least as I
recall it now, was to suggest that all marchers actually pass
through the office, depositing a symbolic penny saying the words
"Give him back". This would, I thought, "radicalize" the
otherwise passive marchers and facilitate further actions against
the office later on. This turned out later as I had hoped.

The next month led to the "end of symbolism" campaign which was
intended to suggest that more militant actions would
occur. This was favored by the more veteran organizers,
especially me, and turned out to be a bust. The idea was to
legally challenge the operation of the local draft board and shut
it down for its violations of law. This went nowhere when
the authorities refused to go along.

The usual difficulties of getting anything off the ground in
months other than March to June were much in evidence for the
next few months, as well. There is a real "tempo" to student
protests that must be allowed for. The Christmas bombing
passed almost unnoticed, while the Cambodia events lit a very
large match. Timing is everything.

Various other activities connected with the Moratorium during
this time were also broadly based, but tension between
moderates and more radical elements continued to occasionally
make organizing a challenging proposition for the new
leadership. As the "moderate" activities continued to dominate
the political scene that winter and spring, I continued my
withdrawal from a leadership role in the anti-war activities. I
was quite happy to see the new leadership emerge and the
anti-war opposition broaden into the majority. I moved away from
Ames in March, 1970 and so witnessed the spectacular
events after the bombing of Cambodia and Kent State shootings in
May only from afar.

Donald B. Siano

References