45th Anniversary of 1968 Columbia University Student Revolt: Revisiting 2011 Interview About 1968 Revolt and Columbia's NROTC Connection

On April 23, 1968 a student revolt of Columbia University and Barnard College students began on the campus of Columbia University in New York City that led to the non-violent occupation by anti-war and anti-racist students of five Columbia University buildings: Hamilton Hall, Low Library, Avery Hall, Fayerweather Hall and Mathematics Hall; and a subsequent invasion and occupation of Columbia's campus in the early morning hours of April 30, 1968 by around 1,000 New York City Tactical Patrol Force [TPF]cops (who arrested over 700 students and injured over 100 students and faculty members during the police riot that developed after the police began to make arrests and clear the university buildings of its protesting students).

To mark the 45th anniversary of the beginning of the 1968 Columbia University Student Revolt, following is the text of a 2011 e-mail interview with a Columbia student about both the 1968 student revolt at Columbia and the Columbia Administration's decision to begin training U.S. Navy military officers again on its campus for the endless U.S. wars abroad during the 21st-century in a Columbia University Naval Reserve Officers Training Corps [NROTC] department/unit:

What was the climate like on campus in the 1960s from your perspective?

BF: Although Columbia was on the border of Harlem, in the 1960s very few students, professors or administrators at Columbia or Barnard were African-American in the 1960s. So the climate on Columbia’s campus in the 1960s was felt by most Black students who attended either the then-all-male Columbia College or one of Columbia’s professional grad schools to be unfriendly and unwelcoming. Black students returning to their dorms on Columbia’s campus at night, for example, were often stopped by Columbia’s security guards on campus and asked to show their Columbia student identification card much more frequently than their white student counterparts—who were usually never stopped unless they were visibly drunk and rowdy.

Yet perhaps because of the impact of mass media coverage of the early 1960s Civil Rights Movement, by the Fall of 1965—when I arrived at Columbia—hundreds of mostly white liberal or white left Columbia College or Barnard College undergraduate students were involved, outside of the classroom, in various Harlem or Upper West Side community service or tutoring projects that the student-run Columbia Citizenship Council organized; or in student activist groups like Columbia and Barnard’s Congress on Racial Equality—C.O.R.E.—chapter.

But still, until April 1968 the majority of Columbia and Barnard undergraduates seemed much more into just hanging out in the Ferris Booth Hall student union building lounge and Lion’s Den cafeteria during the day, going to the West End Bar—you could legally drink at 18 years of age in Manhattan in the 1960s—and exploring Manhattan on weekends, their academic/career preparation work, or their personal relationships; than into getting involved in either Civil Rights Movement activism, Citizenship Council community service projects, or any anti-war activism which protested the Columbia University Administration’s collaboration with the Vietnam War Era Pentagon war machine in any sustained way, on a daily basis. And until April 1968, most of the Columbia grad students and professional school students seemed too busy working on their master’s thesis or PhD dissertations or academic work—or reading of law books-- to be involved much with anti-war student groups like Columbia-Barnard SDS, on a regular basis.

And aside from a Columbia Professor of Math named Serge Lang, a Columbia Professor at the School of Engineering named Seymour Melman, a Columbia Professor of Sociology named Vernon Dibble and the Episcopal Campus Ministry person at Columbia’s Earl Hall—Rev. Bill Starr—nearly all the members of the Columbia and Barnard faculty in the 1960s seemed more into their academic careers on a daily basis, than into speaking out much against Columbia University’s involvement, institutionally, with both the Institute for Defense Analyses—IDA—weapons research think tank of the Pentagon or the Pentagon’s Naval Reserve Officers Training Corps—NROTC—program that trained U.S. military officers for the U.S. military intervention in Indochina.

Another thing about the climate on Columbia’s campus in the 1960s was that since only men were then admitted to Columbia College, only men then lived inside the Columbia College dorms and there were some restrictions on allowing women to visit men inside Columbia College’s dorms even in the late 1960s. So the only anti-war canvassing and knocking on dormitory doors to discuss the war and the draft with dorm residents on each floor—and the slipping of anti-war flyers under dormitory room doors—that could be done inside Columbia’s dorms in the 1960s had to be done usually by Columbia College men alone.

Most of the students on Columbia’s campus seemed to be either politically apathetic or pro-war until the Fall of 1966—when the Columbia SDS chapter that the still-imprisoned U.S. political prisoner David Gilbert founded was re-organized and most of the 200 to 300 students who had attended the demos and meetings and rallies on a fairly regular basis of the Independent Committee on Vietnam—the ICV—at Columbia--which had been formed after the Pentagon began bombing North Vietnam regularly in early 1965—collectively decided that a multi-issue, anti-war student group like Columbia SDS—which also worked to democratize the decision-making process at Columbia by creating more student power at Columbia—was the way to go politically for Columbia and Barnard’s white student left.

Yet even though there had been a protest outside Low Library—where the NROTC ceremony at Columbia was being held—in May 1965-- which was broken up by the New York City cops that the Columbia Administration called in at that time--it’s important again to realize that anti-war students at Columbia and Barnard still represented a minority campus sentiment until the early months of 1967. And until April 1968, the majority of Columbia and Barnard students—although by then passively opposed to the Vietnam War and the draft that then threatened their lives after graduation once they lost their student deferments—were generally still pretty apathetic politically on a daily basis.

What did exist, though, before April 1968 at Columbia and Barnard that didn’t exist at most other U.S. universities—with the possible exception of UC-Berkeley and some of the other large state universities—was a hard-core of 30 to 50 anti-war New Left radical student activists, organizing under the Columbia SDS banner, whose steering committee met every Friday afternoon—usually in Earl Hall—to figure out different ways in which the apathetic anti-war liberal majority of Columbia and Barnard students could be politically radicalized in their political/philosophical consciousness and lifestyle aspirations; and eventually also mobilized to unite politically and end the Columbia Administration’s collaboration with the U.S. war machine and its institutional racism with regard to the historic way it related to Harlem residents and its African-American students.

What also existed at Columbia in the 1960s that didn’t exist at most other U.S. universities was a political revolutionary leadership of SAS—the Student Afro-American Society—which was willing to both align with a nearly all white anti-war left radical student group like Columbia SDS—once SDS showed it could mobilize nearly 500 people to non-violently confront the Columbia Administration around a set of anti-war and anti-racist demands; and which was willing to take a leadership role inside Hamilton Hall of the mass base of SDS during the initial period of the April 1968 student revolt at Columbia—that was sparked by the assassination of Martin Luther King, the failure of the Columbia Administration to both stop construction of its planned gymnasium in Morningside Park despite the protests of Harlem’s community groups and end Columbia’s institutional membership and sponsorship of the Pentagon’s IDA, and the attempt of the Columbia Administration to discipline anti-war student activists for staging an indoor demo against the Columbia-IDA connection inside Low Library in march 1968.

After Columbia’s buildings were occupied and the two police invasions/police riots of April and May 1968 on Columbia’s campus happened, of course, the climate on Columbia’s campus became much more politicized for the next few years than before April 1968; and the level of general student political apathy seemed to decline dramatically.

What objections, if any, do you have regarding the return of the ROTC today?

BF: The return of a ROTC program to Columbia’s campus would represent a decision by the Columbia Administration to, on an institutional level, contribute to the Pentagon’s military intervention in Iraq and Afghanistan and Pakistan in 2011. If you think it’s moral for the U.S. government to continue waging war in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan, then it probably would seem o.k. morally to you for Columbia University to start training U.S. military officers on its campus.

But what if, like me, you think that it’s immoral for the U.S. government to continue waging war in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan? Then wouldn’t it also be then immoral for Columbia University to contribute to prolonging this U.S. military intervention by training U.S. military officers who will be participating in this unjust and endless war?

In recent years, for example, 80 percent of all students who were trained on Cornell University’s campus by that Ivy League School’s ROTC program have served as U.S. military officers in Iraq and Afghanistan. And, if you check out the Wikipedia entry for “Reserve Officers Training Corps,” it seems to indicate that in recent years U.S. university ROTC programs have been producing 39 percent of all active-duty officers for the Pentagon—20 percent of all active duty U.S. Navy officers, 41 percent of all officers for the U.S. Air Force which has dropped bombs that kill civilians on Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan, and 56 percent of all active duty U.S. Army officers (many of whom have—after being trained by U.S. universities—been involved in the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq, for example).

Or to put my objections another way. Imagine that you were a German student at a German university in late 1940 and you were examining the ways that German universities were contributing to the German war effort and occupation in Poland and France, for example. One way might be that science professors at German universities were doing research for the German Ministry of Defense. And another way might be that German universities were training some of their students to serve as German military officers in the German war machine that bombed and occupied Poland, France and other countries.

And imagine that you had discovered in 1940 that thousands of civilians had been killed in Poland and elsewhere by the same German military that the science professors at the German university you attended were doing research for; and that the German university you attended was training some of its students to be military officers for the German military? Wouldn’t you then feel that you had an internationalist moral and humanitarian obligation to do all that you could to stop the German university that you attended from training officers for the German military on your campus?

In addition, even if you don’t object to what’s been done overseas to foreign civilians and to the foreign soldiers, foreign insurgents and U.S. soldiers who have been casualties of the endless Iraq-Afghanistan-Pakistan military intervention by the U.S. government, an objection to the return of ROTC can be made on the philosophical basis that U.S. universities should be in the business of the pursuit of knowledge and the promotion of humanism and pacifism; and not be involved in training its students in ROTC courses like “the art of war” and the killing of the people that the U.S. government decides is now “the enemy.”

Before the DADT law was in place, what were the guidelines barring ROTC from being a campus activity: in other words, what do you see was the reason for its absence in the 1970s and 1980s?

BF: The official grounds for barring ROTC from being a campus activity before the DADT by most of the Ivy League administrations and their faculty committees may sometimes have been that the ROTC courses may not have conformed to the academic course accreditation criteria required by some of these Ivy League schools. But I think the real reason for ROTC’s absence in the 1970s and 1980s from places like Columbia was because anti-militarist student and faculty sentiment was still high, due to the campus political consciousness that had developed during the Vietnam War Era. And administrators at places like Columbia probably felt it made no political sense to disturb the relative campus calm of the post-1973 era by provoking its by then generally politically passive anti-war student body and politically passive anti-war professors into a potential new wave of campus protest--comparable to what happened in the 1960s—by trying to push ROTC back onto their campuses.

What do you think would happen if the ROTC was allowed to return to campus—at Columbia and elsewhere?

BF: Both the Pentagon and the U.S. corporate media—including the New York Times—would probably highlight it as an historical reversal of one of the legacies of the Vietnam War Era and the 1968 Columbia Anti-War Student Strike fall-out and the Sixties Anti-War Movement. And it would probably be utilized by the U.S. government as evidence that—under the Democratic Obama Administration—the alienation of U.S. college students from the U.S. military has decreased and that current U.S. college students—even at a bastion of anti-war sentiment historically like Columbia and Barnard—now have less objection to the continued endless U.S. military intervention in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan than did U.S. college students during the Republican Bush Administration.

The folks on the U.S. right-wing who don’t see anything morally questionable about the militarism of U.S. foreign policy will probably also feel more emboldened about bringing their pro-militarist agenda onto Columbia’s campus and re-militarizing Columbia to the point where they would eventually demand that the ban on secret military research on Columbia’s campus also be lifted.

And I suspect that some more juicy, lucrative Department of Defense research contracts would tend to get thrown Columbia’s way much more, if ROTC were now allowed to return to Columbia’s campus. So Columbia might once again, eventually, become “The MIT of West Harlem”—in terms of the degree to which it once again started to become dependent on Pentagon contracts for nearly half its budget, like it was in the mid-1960s.

Of course, once students wearing ROTC uniforms started marching around on campus and holding military-oriented ceremonies again on Columbia’s campus, it’s also possible that eventually—if the endless U.S. military intervention in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan isn’t ended or if an additional U.S. military intervention in Iran, North Korea or Venezuela is eventually started over the next few years—some anti-war students at Barnard College and Columbia College might mobilize eventually in larger numbers to again demand that Columbia stop training U.S. military officers for the U.S. power elite’s endless wars abroad.

What is your perspective on the acceptance, with faculty, alumni and current students?

BF: If you check out the chapter, titled “The Military Ascendancy,” in former Columbia University Professor C. Wright Mills’ book The Power Elite, J.W. Fulbright’s The Pentagon Propaganda Machine book or the CBS documentary The Selling of the Pentagon from the 1970s—and also Al Jazeera TV’s recent documentary on YouTube on the way the Pentagon uses Hollywood to promote support for U.S. military adventurism around the globe—you’ll see that since World War II there’s always been a big public relations effort by the Pentagon and the U.S. military-industrial-university-media complex to get people in the USA to feel that it’s “unpatriotic” to be opposed to the militarization of U.S. society and a U.S. foreign policy that is militaristic or to call for huge cuts in the Pentagon’s defense budget. And U.S. supporters of a pacifist U.S. foreign policy and the demilitarization of U.S. society and of U.S. universities like Columbia generally don’t get much mass media TV exposure—except when anti-war and anti-racist students non-violently occupy buildings in large numbers at places like Columbia in 1968 or when anti-war activists—like the Chicago 8—went on trial in Chicago during the 1969-1970 academic year.

So it wouldn’t be unexpected if current Barnard College , Columbia College students and faculty—as well as current Columbia Journalism School students and faculty—end up accepting passively the return of ROTC to places like Columbia in 2011. Especially if it’s marketed as “a way to influence the U.S. military in a more humanitarian direction”; or as something that only students and professors who are “soft on terrorism” or “stuck in a 1960s mentality,” or “politically naïve pacifists” would have moral objections about.

On the other hand it could be that the now-imprisoned Private Manning’s morally courageous de-classification of those Wikileaks cables and documents have revealed to enough people on campuses like Columbia that what the U.S. military is doing around the world contradicts the humanistic values and democratic moral values that most students and professors and workers at Columbia and Barnard have, historically, been brought up to adhere to. And that, therefore, the U.S. military still does not belong on Columbia University’s campus in 2011. (end of interview)

Columbia and Barnard Anti-War Students Oppose Return of ROTC To Columbia University Campus In 2011

On their "No ROTC" blog, the anti-war students at Columbia University and Barnard College who have been opposing the undemocratically made decision of the Columbia Administration of Washington Post Company board member, Federal Reserve Bank of New York board member and Columbia University President Lee Bollinger to begin training U.S. military officers for the Pentagon's endless war in Iraq-Afghanistan-Pakistan-(and Libya) on Columbia's campus indicated why ROTC and NROTC should still be banned at Columbia University in 2011:

"The Coalition Opposed to ROTC is deeply dismayed to learn of the Senate resolution calling for the return of ROTC to Columbia, which was circulated in campus media on Monday, March 21st. Here, we challenge the primary assumptions used to justify this resolution.

1. `Whereas the Yellow Ribbon program gives veterans opportunities to study at Columbia'
Yes, and this is incredibly valuable. Yet having veterans study in class, as students, is completely different than having military officers trained on campus, where Columbia will allow Armed Forces personnel to equip uniformed students with the relevant skills necessary to lead military units– be this in weapons usage, counterinsurgency tactics, physical prowess, or other forms of training that are markedly different than the classes those who participate in the Yellow Ribbon program attend.

2. 'Whereas Columbia’s military engagement has been commended by the military'
Since when has wining plaudits from the military become something a university should be proud of? But more importantly, “military engagement” as it already exists on campus, with current and former members of the military studying in large numbers at Columbia, is completely separate from ROTC. Such students are valuable members of the Columbia community, but ROTC represents a radically different type of relationship, and embracing of the military as an institution (and not as diverse individuals associated with it).

3. 'Whereas the Task Force discovered broad support on campus for increased military engagement in 2005'
As mentioned above, the overarching phrase “military engagement” does not equate to support for ROTC. To engage with the military can mean anything from organizing classes, seminars, or lectures on the military, to expanding support for the G.I. Bill. Each instantiation of this engagement must be considered in its specificity. Moreover, it is disturbing that the resolution ignores the outcomes of the discussions on campus in 2008, when strong opposition to ROTC was recorded across campus, partly, but certainly not exclusively due to DADT.

4. 'Whereas there is an off-campus ROTC program'
Yes, there is. In fact, the Solomon Amendment prevents Columbia from obstructing participation in ROTC or military recruitment on campus, under threat of the withdrawal of hundreds of millions of dollars in federal funding, so this is a non-issue. Moreover, for individuals to support an off-campus ROTC program is essentially to think that everyone should have the right to choose what to do with their lives – just as many students pursue jobs, internships and other courses off campus. It is the militarization through ROTC of Columbia, our campus and our community, that we oppose.

5. 'Whereas DADT was repealed'
Yes, it was. The previous existence of DADT is not the reason for our opposition to ROTC. Discrimination (including against transgender individuals), sexual violence, obedience to authority, and the harsh disciplining of those who speak out still characterizes the military. The military, the defensive apparatus of the state, will never be an ideal employer, no matter what changes its internal policy undergoes. A more egalitarian military will not change its fundamental role in asserting American power abroad by force and violence.

6. 'Whereas Obama, a Columbia alumnus, called on college campuses to embrace military recruitment and ROTC'
If every famous Columbia alumnus had some say over Columbia’s decisions, university governance would be in absolute disarray. If the President of this country is a guide for our decisions, this sets a dangerous precedent for the autonomy of academic institutions. And when it comes to the military alone, Obama has seen the expansion of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, the escalation of indiscriminate drone attacks in Pakistan, the recent bombardment of Libya, and the incarceration and likely torture of military whistleblower Bradley Manning, among many other things. Surely the White House is not the source of inspiration for Columbia’s policy.

7. 'Whereas the Tien Special Committee in 1976 decided that the Senate will make decisions relevant to military engagement'
This point is indeed entirely accurate. We will wait and see what happens when this goes to vote in the larger Senate body on April 1st. However, it is clear this push is *not* coming from the elected Senate as a whole but a very specific group of people with a clearly biased interest in pushing this decision through as quickly as possible.

8. 'Whereas the Task Force “has conducted a broad and representative process” showing widespread support for expanding Columbia’s ties with the military and ROTC'
This final point amounts to the most egregious statement in the entire resolution put forth by the Executive Committee. Multiple faculty and students, whether proponents of, opponents to, or indifferent over ROTC, have pointed out the numerous procedural flaws in the Task Force process. Not once was information disseminated with regards to the details of what ROTC would mean. It is still not clear how the University expects to maintain the right to control curriculum, faculty appointment, and the provision of space for ROTC training, when this was the precise reason for ROTC leaving Columbia in the first place. It is still not clear whether ROTC will bring increased military recruiters to campus or to the Harlem community. It is still not clear what the details of financial aid will be for students who enroll in the program, what their commitment to service upon graduation will consist of, and what the consequences might be for a student who chooses to drop out part-way. Not once was the military publicly consulted to see whether they would even want to return to Columbia, and if so under what conditions. No one has explained why the urgency and rapid pace with which this decision is moving forward. The public hearings conducted provided no space for discussion, dialogue, or debate, and Task Force members individually refused to answer questions posed to them afterwords. The opening speech of Dean Moody-Adams at the second hearing blatantly advocated for the return of ROTC, and members of the Task Force have previous histories of taking explicit positions in support of ROTC, yet the Task Force purported to maintain some pretense of neutrality. No one was told how the hearings would be weighed in terms of the final report, and those of us who attended each session in fact recorded a small majority of speakers at each hearing voice opposition to ROTC.

As for numbers, the poll conducted by the Task Force was open to less than half of Columbia’s schools, excluding over 50% of the student population (approx. 26,400) including all non-professional Graduate Students, as well as Columbia’s approximately 3,600 faculty members (not to mention 11,000 staff). Out of the 44% of students who were even eligible (11,629), 19% participated (2,252), and 60% (1,351) recorded support for ROTC’s return to campus. This amounts to approximately 5% of Columbia students supporting ROTC’s return. It is as outrageous for the resolution to refer to this proportion as “widespread support” as to claim that the Task Force conducted a “broad and representative process”.

9. 'Be it Resolved that Columbia constructively engage the military and educate future military leaders'
The first conclusion of this resolution simply acknowledges that Columbia currently engages the military in some capacity (and educating American citizens implies educating future military and political leaders both). As noted above, constructive engagement does not necessitate the return of ROTC. In fact, as we have argued, any desire to uphold the integrity of Columbia’s education and the principles of teaching, critical debate, and committed research that characterize this institution must preclude such a partnership.

10. 'Be it further resolved that Columbia welcomes the opportunity to explore further mutually beneficial relationships with the military, including ROTC'
We are greatly concerned that this resolution not only welcomes ROTC back, but attempts to set a precedent for the further entrenchment of the U.S. military at Columbia. It is not incidental that this call is being made at a time when America is engaged in two highly unpopular, deeply violent and costly wars. Columbia should certainly continue an open conversation about what forms of relationship with the military are most beneficial to its values. However, this process must be one that is truly accessible and inclusive, something the recent work of the Task Force was not. Moreover, for whom exactly is this relationship ‘mutually beneficial’? Economically underprivileged students, who rather than accessing unconditional financial aid must sign an advanced contract and be willing to risk both their own lives and the lives of others in order to access a premier education? American students who want to participate in ROTC, and will now be saved a short commute across the city in exchange for what will necessitate a significant restructuring of standard Columbia curriculum, hiring practices, and the use of campus space? International students, many of whom have intimate experiences of or connections to the destruction wrought by the U.S. military around the world in the past century, and others who are grateful to have left countries where the violence of military rule permeates day-to-day life? We are left to wonder.

11. 'Be it further resolved that Provost will maintain control over questions of academic credit, appointment, governance, etc. and nothing will contravene the University’s current policies'
In fact, the U.S. law that governs the ROTC program, most recently updated in February, 2010 states otherwise. In the general military law, part 3, chapter 103, which is the ROTC portion, under section 2012 on establishment of ROTC programs, Part B reads: “No unit may be established or maintained at an institution unless (1) the senior commissioned officer of the armed force concerned who is assigned to the program at that institution is given the academic rank of professor. (2) The institution fulfills the terms of its agreement with the secretary of the military department concerned, and (3) the institution adopts as part of its curriculum a four-year course in military instruction or a two-year course of advanced training of military instruction or both, which the secretary of the military department concerned prescribes and conducts” [1]. If this is the case and Columbia invites ROTC to its campus, the university must adhere to these laws should ROTC decide to enforce them.

12. 'Be it further resolved that any further relationships with the Army will be subject to periodic review'
There is no doubt that such periodic review is important. However, we categorically and unequivocally reject this entire resolution, both flawed and politically biased as it is, and will continue to voice our opposition to the reintroduction of ROTC at Columbia as this highly undemocratic process unfolds before us.'

[1]. 10 U.S.C. § 2102 : US Code – Section 2102: Establishment

Mark Rudd Opposed ROTC In 2009 `Toward Freedom' Interview

Mark Rudd was the chairman of the Columbia University chapter of Students for a Democratic Society [SDS] at the time of the 1968 Columbia Student Revolt; and Rudd’s autobiography, Underground: My Life with SDS and the Weathermen was finally published in March 2009.

In a 2009 email interview for the Toward Freedom anti-war website, Rudd responded to some questions about how U.S. pacifists might consider responding to the role U.S. universities play in the current historical era of “permanent war abroad and economic depression at home” and about his new book. And he also indicated, at that time, that he still opposed the training of U.S. military officers on U.S. university campuses.

(1) In 2009, some U.S. pacifists seem to regard elite universities like Columbia as institutions that have, both historically and currently, opposed war and opposed racism—since they hire both anti-war and African-American professors and administrators, implement affirmative action hiring programs, set up “peace studies” and “African-American studies” departments, steer foundation grants and scholarship money in the direction of students from historically oppressed communities and to local community groups, and provide free or low-rent meeting room space for anti-war students and off-campus pacifist groups.

Yet in the preface to your book, you write that between 1965 and 1968 you were “a member of SDS at Columbia University” and “made as much noise and trouble as possible to protest the university’s pro-war and racist policies.” In what ways were Columbia University’s policies “pro-war and racist” in 1968 and in what ways are the policies of Columbia University and other elite U.S. universities “pro-war and racist” in 2009?

Mark Rudd [MR]: The specific demands we raised leading up to the spring of 1968--training and recruitment of military officers for the war in Vietnam, weapons research for the war, the building of a gym in public park land--were only the tip of the iceberg of Columbia's policies. Within months of the strike, the North American Congress on Latin America (NACLA) produced a book entitled "Who Rules Columbia," in which they detailed the military, State Dept., and CIA contracts and connections with the School of International Affairs, the various geographical "area studies," such as the East Asia Institute, as well as the revolving door between Columbia and the government; also Columbia's expansion into the surrounding community at the expense of non-white residents. Most of these connections and policies are still in place; almost all major research universities are still major war contractors. The point is that student activists have their work cut out for them to research and expose what's correctly called the military-industrial-academic complex.

(2) In chapter 1 of your book, titled “A Good German,” you recall that when you first met the then-chairman of Columbia’s Independent Committee on Vietnam (ICV) anti-war student group--current U.S. political prisoner David Gilbert—in early 1966, Gilbert mentioned that in May 1965 his group had “held an antiwar protest at the Naval ROTC graduation ceremony” at Columbia. And later in the “A Good German” chapter you mention that in March 1967 you had “taken part in a sit-in at a Naval ROTC class” at Columbia.

Why did you oppose Naval ROTC at Columbia in the 1960s? And do you think U.S. pacifists should consider opposing ROTC on U.S. university campuses in 2009?

MR: The issue is fundamentally moral. Is the training of people to wage war against other countries, carrying out a criminally aggressive military policy, appropriate in an institution that pretends to seek the truth? Our answer to this question was NO, because we believed in the necessity to oppose U.S. violence as a moral value. Remember, too, that the time we lived in was essentially post-World War II, and the problem of values in society was still being debated in the aftermath of Nazism. I have no doubt that contemporary students will be taking this up again in the near future.

(3) In chapter 2 of your book, you mention that anti-war students at Columbia protested against recruitment on campus by external organizations like the CIA and the U.S. Marines. Why did you think that it was morally wrong for Columbia University to allow external organizations like the CIA and the U.S. Marines to recruit on campus in 1967? And do you think U.S. pacifists in 2009 should also protest against U.S. universities that allow the CIA and the U.S. Marines to recruit on campus while the Pentagon’s war in Iraq and Afghanistan continues?

MR: Same response as #2 above. Whether recruitment is "external" (e.g., Marine recruiters) or "internal" (Military Science Dept. training future naval officers), it amounts to the same thing. The resources of the university are being used to help wage war.

( 4) In chapter 3 of your book, titled “Action Faction,” you write that on March 27, 1968 “SDS had fifteen hundred names on a petition calling for the severing of “ Columbia University’s “ties with the Pentagon think-tank, the Institute for Defense Analyses (IDA);” and “IDA…became the shorthand symbol for Columbia’s huge network of complicity with the war.”

In 2009, IDA still exists. Do you think that U.S. pacifists should consider demanding that IDA be finally shut down by the Democratic Obama Administration and that U.S. pacifists should consider demanding that U.S. universities like Columbia, MIT and Harvard stop performing war research for the Pentagon’s Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency [DARPA] in 2009?

MR: I believe that the entire US military budget should be cut back and the money used for social needs both in this country and around the world. Security would be much better served by the development of true international law, not more nuclear weapons. If that doesn't happen in the 21st century, we're doomed. All war research should immediately stop everywhere and the money be put into peace, diplomacy, law, and sustainable energy development. To do less now is not only suicidal, it's downright dumb.

(5) In your book, you mention that you and Abbie Hoffman were both arrested at a November 1967 anti-war protest in Midtown Manhattan against the Foreign Policy Association giving an award to then-Secretary of State Dean Rusk.

April 2009 marks the 20th anniversary of Abbie’s death. How would you characterize the role that Abbie Hoffman played in U.S. anti-war movement history and his historical relationship to U.S. pacifists and non-violent anti-war activists like Dave Dellinger?

MR: Abbie was essentially a comedian and an organizer. He was not at all violent; he always encouraged mass organizing, though often in the form of provocative guerilla theater, like the Yippies nominating a pig for president in 1968. I forget how he and Dave Dellinger got along in Chicago, both in 1968 and during the conspiracy trial the next year. My guess is that they respected each other. Perhaps you know more specifics.

(6) Speaking of Abbie Hoffman, how would you respond to Professor Jonah Raskin’s assertion in his review of your book which was posted on The Rag Blog that “like Abbie Hoffman, Mark Rudd wasn’t suited for the underground life—he needed attention, and attention is, of course, the last thing that any fugitive wants;” and “Underground suggests, implies, and shows that Rudd is up there, along with Abbie, near the top of the list of 1960s radicals who wanted attention, and who received far more attention than they needed…It undid Abbie, and it also helped to undo Rudd.”?

MR: I wonder if Jonah actually read my book.

(7) Why do you think the right-wing media monitoring pressure group” Accuracy In Media” [A.I.M.] apparently attempted to pressure Rupert Murdoch’s HarperCollins publishing firm to not promote your book, according to the” Accuracy In Media” web site?

MR: Just another way for the far right to try get at Obama, but it's so indirect that it makes zero sense to anybody else. There was a tiny connection between Obama and Bill Ayers, but that fact gained no votes for John McCain. These people are so stupid that they're still pursuing a tactic that's already failed. I find that a rather comforting fact.

(8) Do you think it’s likely that Columbia University’s Pulitzer Prize Board will decide to give you a Pulitzer Prize for writing Underground—after Columbia University’s current president--a current board member of the Washington Post Company/Newsweek media conglomerate named Lee Bollinger—reads what you’ve written about Columbia University?

MR: I'm a shoe-in.

`Harlem vs. Columbia University: Black Student Power in the Late 1960s'--Review of Stefan Bradley's new book

HARLEM VS. COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY
Black Student Power in the Late 1960s
By Stefan M. Bradley
Urbana and Chicago : University of Illinois Press (2009)

In the epilogue of his great new book on the historic 1968 student revolt at Columbia University , Harlem vs. Columbia University,

http://www.press.uillinois.edu/books/catalog/69erx5xt9780252034527.html

which “attempts to draw out some of the important factors that contributed to the 1968-69 uprisings,” St. Louis University Professor of History and African American Studies Stefan Bradley notes that “although many of the participants have since passed on, the issues at Columbia seem to linger.” This was borne out at a 2008 commemoration event held on Columbia’s campus to mark the 40th anniversary of the student revolt. A Harlem Tenants Council activist denounced the Columbia Administration's current 17-acre campus expansion project in the neighborhood north of West 125th St. and passed out a flyer in which the Coalition to Preserve Community group of community residents vowed to stand against Columbia ’s “ West Harlem eviction plan.”

Professor Bradley also observes that over 40 years after the student revolt, some of the black students who participated in the non-violent student occupation of Hamilton Hall in April 1968, “bristle at the image of the Columbia demonstration that media sources often invoke” and “are dismayed at the representation of the rebellion as one where raucous white youth defied their parents and authority by taking over buildings…”

A key reason why the white students at Columbia and Barnard who were active in its Students for a Democratic Society [SDS) chapter were able to mobilize large numbers of white students to help shut down Columbia a few weeks after Martin Luther King’s assassination was because a political alliance developed between Columbia SDS and the black students who were most active in the Student Afro-American Society [SAS] campus group. So a book like Professor Bradley’s book, which focuses more on the role that the black students who occupied Hamilton Hall played in the 1968 Columbia Student Revolt than on the role of Mark Rudd and the white student demonstrators, is long overdue.

By examining the 1968 confrontation between the Harlem community (and its student supporters at Columbia) and Columbia’s board of trustees, Bradley attempts to: (1) explain how it was possible for Columbia to take land and power from black people before 1968; (2) determine the effects of the confrontation method that the 1968-69 student protesters used; (3) explain why the black and white student protesters separated after Columbia’s Hamilton Hall was jointly seized by them; and (4) explain why Columbia eventually capitulated to some of the demands of the student demonstrators. The first part of Harlem vs. Columbia University explores Columbia’s historic relationship to Harlem’s people and land, while the second part of the book examines the historic role students played in attempting to change Columbia’s institutional policies.

The first part of Harlem vs. Columbia University includes an interesting history of the Harlem and Morningside Heights neighborhoods surrounding Columbia’s campus and explains why community resident opposition to Columbia developed. Bradley recalls that “there was only one full-time black faculty member at Columbia by the mid-1960s;” and, during the 1960s, 9,600 tenants, “approximately 85 percent of whom were black or Puerto Rican,” were pushed out of the Morningside Heights and West Harlem apartment buildings or Single-Room Occupancy [SRO] residential hotels which Columbia University purchased and demolished or converted for its own institutional use.

Bradley next focuses more specifically on Columbia’s plan to construct a gymnasium for its students in Harlem’s Morningside Park and the history of community protests against this project. We learn, for example, that in a January 29, 1966 editorial, Harlem’s African-American newspaper, the Amsterdam News warned:

“If Mayor Lindsay permits Columbia University to grab two acres of land out of Morningside Park for a gymnasium it will be a slap in the face to every black man, woman and child in Harlem…Columbia University, one of the richest institutions in the nation, only admits a handful of Negro scholars each year and its policies in dealing with Negroes in Harlem have been described as downright bigoted…Why then should the parents of Harlem give up their parkland to Columbia? What has Columbia done to merit such favoritism?”

Thirty-one years before, W.E.B. DuBois had also written in his classic 1935 book Black Reconstruction In America that “the Columbia school of historians and social investigators have issued between 1895 and the present time sixteen studies of Reconstruction in the Southern States, all based on the same thesis and all done according to the same method: first, endless sympathy with the white South; second, ridicule, contempt or silence for the Negro…”

By digging up flyers of various 1960s community groups and articles that appeared in various neighborhood newspapers and the local African-American press, Bradley indicates that between April 1966 and March 1968 there were at least four community rallies against Columbia’s gym construction project and at least 25 arrests of anti-gym protesters before April 1968. As Bradley observes:

“After realizing that they would receive access to only 15 percent of the proposed structure that Columbia University would control, and be forced to use a different entrance, many black residents in the community saw that things were once more separate, but hardly equal…Instead of fighting against Jim Crow, the community now fought against Gym Crow…”

In the second part of his book, Bradley relates the growth of the New Left and Black Power movements on U.S. university campuses during the 1960s and describes the initially integrated protest effort of the black and white student demonstrators at Columbia on April 23, 1968, on campus and at the Morningside Park gym construction site as well as inside Hamilton Hall during the first few hours. He goes on to show how the black student protesters in Hamilton Hall won some concessions from the Columbia Administration by aligning themselves with off-campus Black Liberation Movement groups and the Harlem community. Bradley also provides a good description of what happened inside Hamilton Hall, after the white student demonstrators were told to leave Hamilton Hall and explains the political and strategic rationale of SAS leaders for their decision to separate themselves from their white student allies.

Bradley goes on to indicate the supportive role of SDS and its objective of increasing white student support for the Black Liberation Movement at Columbia and includes a description of what happened when a thousand New York City police were called in by the Columbia Administration on April 30, 1968, to arrest student protesters.

Bradley breaks some new ground in late 1960s Columbia historiography by showing how, “at Columbia, the strategies and goals of Black Student Power continued into the spring of 1969 as the black student group, with the support of SDS, called for changes in admission policies” and observes that in the 1960s Columbia’s black students “were regularly stopped by the security guards…to have their identifications checked while most white students were not stopped.” Bradley is among the first historians to write a detailed historical summary about black student activism on Columbia’s campus during the 1968-69 academic year. He also provides a concise summary of black student protests at Harvard, Yale, University of Pennsylvania and Cornell (that received less mass media publicity than did the 1968 Columbia student protests) which reveals to readers that Columbia University was “not the only Ivy League university to be impacted by Black Power” in the late 1960s. Yet as late as 1984 there were still only three tenured black professors at Columbia and the university did not recognize a black studies program until 1987.

One very useful feature of the book is a collection of rare photographs of some of the black participants in the 1968 Columbia uprising and the excavated gymnasium construction site in Morningside Park that weren’t included in most previously-published books about the student revolt. But there are also a few omissions or inaccuracies in the book. For example, it inaccurately states that Mark Rudd “decided not to return to school” in the Fall of 1968, when--as Rudd notes in his recent autobiography, Underground-- he was actually expelled from Columbia. In addition, although Bradley notes that “SAS and SDS participated in student-supported on-campus demonstrations throughout the month of May”, readers of the book would not learn that on May 21, 1968, the Columbia Administration called police onto its campus a second time, the police rioted again and, a leader of SAS, Ray Brown, was clubbed to the ground and then kicked systematically by a crowd of cops.

Despite these few omissions or inaccuracies, Harlem vs. Columbia University does a much better job than previously published books about the 1968 Columbia Student Revolt of-- from a deeper anti-racist perspective-- highlighting the relationship of the late 1960s Black Power Movement, the history of the Harlem community, the Black radical left and left nationalist intelligentsia and the role of Black students and Harlem community activists to what happened at Columbia in 1968 and 1969 and the current position of African-Americans in the Ivy League academic world. So if you’re interested in the history of 1960s movements, Harlem and Columbia University or if you’re a 21st-century opponent of institutional racism at Columbia University and at other Ivy League universities, Harlem vs. Columbia University should be considered required reading.

U.S. Pacifists and The Military-Industrial-University Complex: An Interview With `Underground' Author Mark Rudd

Mark Rudd was the chairman of the Columbia University chapter of Students for a Democratic Society [SDS] at the time of the 1968 Columbia Student Revolt; and Rudd’s autobiography, Underground: My Life with SDS and the Weathermen was finally published in March 2009.

In a recent email interview, Rudd responded to some questions about how U.S. pacifists might consider responding to the role U.S. universities play in the current historical era of “permanent war abroad and economic depression at home” and about his new book.

(1) In 2009, some U.S. pacifists seem to regard elite universities like Columbia as institutions that have, both historically and currently, opposed war and opposed racism—since they hire both anti-war and African-American professors and administrators, implement affirmative action hiring programs, set up “peace studies” and “African-American studies” departments, steer foundation grants and scholarship money in the direction of students from historically oppressed communities and to local community groups, and provide free or low-rent meeting room space for anti-war students and off-campus pacifist groups.

Yet in the preface to your book, you write that between 1965 and 1968 you were “a member of SDS at Columbia University” and “made as much noise and trouble as possible to protest the university’s pro-war and racist policies.” In what ways were Columbia University’s policies “pro-war and racist” in 1968 and in what ways are the policies of Columbia University and other elite U.S. universities “pro-war and racist” in 2009?

Mark Rudd [MR]: The specific demands we raised leading up to the spring of 1968--training and recruitment of military officers for the war in Vietnam, weapons research for the war, the building of a gym in public park land--were only the tip of the iceberg of Columbia's policies. Within months of the strike, the North American Congress on Latin America (NACLA) produced a book entitled "Who Rules Columbia," in which they detailed the military, State Dept., and CIA contracts and connections with the School of International Affairs, the various geographical "area studies," such as the East Asia Institute, as well as the revolving door between Columbia and the government; also Columbia's expansion into the surrounding community at the expense of non-white residents. Most of these connections and policies are still in place; almost all major research universities are still major war contractors. The point is that student activists have their work cut out for them to research and expose what's correctly called the military-industrial-academic complex.

(2) In chapter 1 of your book, titled “A Good German,” you recall that when you first met the then-chairman of Columbia’s Independent Committee on Vietnam (ICV) anti-war student group--current U.S. political prisoner David Gilbert—in early 1966, Gilbert mentioned that in May 1965 his group had “held an antiwar protest at the Naval ROTC graduation ceremony” at Columbia. And later in the “A Good German” chapter you mention that in March 1967 you had “taken part in a sit-in at a Naval ROTC class” at Columbia.

Why did you oppose Naval ROTC at Columbia in the 1960s? And do you think U.S. pacifists should consider opposing ROTC on U.S. university campuses in 2009?

MR: The issue is fundamentally moral. Is the training of people to wage war against other countries, carrying out a criminally aggressive military policy, appropriate in an institution that pretends to seek the truth? Our answer to this question was NO, because we believed in the necessity to oppose U.S. violence as a moral value. Remember, too, that the time we lived in was essentially post-World War II, and the problem of values in society was still being debated in the aftermath of Nazism. I have no doubt that contemporary students will be taking this up again in the near future.

(3) In chapter 2 of your book, you mention that anti-war students at Columbia protested against recruitment on campus by external organizations like the CIA and the U.S. Marines. Why did you think that it was morally wrong for Columbia University to allow external organizations like the CIA and the U.S. Marines to recruit on campus in 1967? And do you think U.S. pacifists in 2009 should also protest against U.S. universities that allow the CIA and the U.S. Marines to recruit on campus while the Pentagon’s war in Iraq and Afghanistan continues?

MR: Same response as #2 above. Whether recruitment is "external" (e.g., Marine recruiters) or "internal" (Military Science Dept. training future naval officers), it amounts to the same thing. The resources of the university are being used to help wage war.

( 4) In chapter 3 of your book, titled “Action Faction,” you write that on March 27, 1968 “SDS had fifteen hundred names on a petition calling for the severing of “ Columbia University’s “ties with the Pentagon think-tank, the Institute for Defense Analyses (IDA);” and “IDA…became the shorthand symbol for Columbia’s huge network of complicity with the war.”

In 2009, IDA still exists. Do you think that U.S. pacifists should consider demanding that IDA be finally shut down by the Democratic Obama Administration and that U.S. pacifists should consider demanding that U.S. universities like Columbia, MIT and Harvard stop performing war research for the Pentagon’s Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency [DARPA] in 2009?

MR: I believe that the entire US military budget should be cut back and the money used for social needs both in this country and around the world. Security would be much better served by the development of true international law, not more nuclear weapons. If that doesn't happen in the 21st century, we're doomed. All war research should immediately stop everywhere and the money be put into peace, diplomacy, law, and sustainable energy development. To do less now is not only suicidal, it's downright dumb.

(5) In your book, you mention that you and Abbie Hoffman were both arrested at a November 1967 anti-war protest in Midtown Manhattan against the Foreign Policy Association giving an award to then-Secretary of State Dean Rusk.

April 2009 marks the 20th anniversary of Abbie’s death. How would you characterize the role that Abbie Hoffman played in U.S. anti-war movement history and his historical relationship to U.S. pacifists and non-violent anti-war activists like Dave Dellinger?

MR: Abbie was essentially a comedian and an organizer. He was not at all violent; he always encouraged mass organizing, though often in the form of provocative guerilla theater, like the Yippies nominating a pig for president in 1968. I forget how he and Dave Dellinger got along in Chicago, both in 1968 and during the conspiracy trial the next year. My guess is that they respected each other. Perhaps you know more specifics.

(6) Speaking of Abbie Hoffman, how would you respond to Professor Jonah Raskin’s assertion in his review of your book which was posted on The Rag Blog that “like Abbie Hoffman, Mark Rudd wasn’t suited for the underground life—he needed attention, and attention is, of course, the last thing that any fugitive wants;” and “Underground suggests, implies, and shows that Rudd is up there, along with Abbie, near the top of the list of 1960s radicals who wanted attention, and who received far more attention than they needed…It undid Abbie, and it also helped to undo Rudd.”?

MR: I wonder if Jonah actually read my book.

(7) Why do you think the right-wing media monitoring pressure group” Accuracy In Media” [A.I.M.] apparently attempted to pressure Rupert Murdoch’s HarperCollins publishing firm to not promote your book, according to the” Accuracy In Media” web site?

MR: Just another way for the far right to try get at Obama, but it's so indirect that it makes zero sense to anybody else. There was a tiny connection between Obama and Bill Ayers, but that fact gained no votes for John McCain. These people are so stupid that they're still pursuing a tactic that's already failed. I find that a rather comforting fact.

(8) Do you think it’s likely that Columbia University’s Pulitzer Prize Board will decide to give you a Pulitzer Prize for writing Underground—after Columbia University’s current president--a current board member of the Washington Post Company/Newsweek media conglomerate named Lee Bollinger—reads what you’ve written about Columbia University?

MR: I'm a shoo-in.

Tel Aviv University's Complicity With Israeli War Machine

One reason U.S. anti-war activists should consider supporting an academic boycott of Israeli universities is that universities like Tel Aviv University are “playing a major role in enhancing Israel’s security capabilities and military edge,” according to the winter 2008/2009 issue of the Tel Aviv University Review journal. As Gil Zohar revealed in his “Lifting The Veil of Secrecy” article that appeared in this same issue of Tel Aviv University Review:

“In the rough and tumble reality of the Middle East, Tel Aviv University [TAU] is at the front line of the critical work to maintain Israel’s military and technological edge.

“While much of that research remains classified, several facts illuminate the role of the university. MAFAT, a Hebrew acronym meaning the R&D Directorate of the Israel Ministry of Defense is currently funding 55 projects at TAU…

“Nine other projects are being funded by DARPA—the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency of the U.S. Department of Defense.

“Seven…Israel National Security Prizes have been awarded in recent years to members of TAU’s Blauntnik School of Computer Science—more than any other institution in the country. For security reasons, the recipients cannot be named.”

The results of some of the secret war research projects on Tel Aviv University’s campus have apparently been reflected in the weapons systems that are being brutally used against Palestinian civilians in Gaza by the Israeli War Machine, in violation of the Nuremberg Trial Accords, the United Nations Charter and international law. But the Tel Aviv University professors involved in these campus war research projects have tried to hide what they’re up to from any curious anti-war students or anti-war faculty members at Tel Aviv University. As the “Lifting The Veil of Secrecy” article also observed:

“Not surprisingly, much of the defense-related research at TAU remains hush-hush, conducted in rooms and laboratories protected by barred windows, multiple locks and office safes. `There are people in this university dealing with very secret projects, and they won’t talk about it,’ matter-of-factly notes Dr. Michael Gozin, an expert in organic chemistry and explosives detection, who himself chooses words carefully to describe his work.”

Bu according to the “Lifting The Veil of Secrecy” article, Tel Aviv University Professor Ady Arie, who heads TAU’s Institute for Electronic Devices, is working with Tel Aviv University Professor Aladar Fleischman in “designing systems to protect aircraft from missiles” in partnership “with El op, part of Elbit, which makes electrical optic defense systems.”

The head of the Applied Physics Group at TAU’s School of Physics and Astronomy, Tel Aviv University Professor Abraham Katz, is “working on a laser-based counter-measure system against shoulder-launched surface-to-air missiles (SAMs)…”

Tel Aviv University Professor Ron Bachrach of TAU’s Department of Geophysics and Planetary Sciences is doing research on “seismic waves and remote sensing technologies” that “may finally stop the flourishing underground trade between Gaza and Egypt.”

A “three-year project initiated by the IDF Intelligence Corps on how to enhance and stabilize video images shot from a long-distance” of about seven miles or more was also recently completed by Tel Aviv University Professor of Engineering Leonid Yaroslavsky.

The head of TAU’s School of Electrical Engineering, Tel Aviv University Professor Anthony Weiss, told the “Lifting The Veil of Secrecy” article writer that “I’m not free to talk about things funded by the Ministry of Defense, naturally;” while “characteristically, MAFAT denied” Tel Aviv University Professor Michael Gozin “permission to speak in all but generalities about his research into the detection of `green explosives’—next generation munitions based on multiple nitrogen atoms in the molecules,” according to the same writer. The director of TAU’s Interdisciplinary Center for Technology Analysis and Forecasting [ICTAF], Tel Aviv University Professor Yair Sharan, also “is not free to discuss his current work with Israeli defense agencies including MAFAT, the counter-terrorism unit in the Prime Minister’s Office [MALAL], the Ministry of Defense and the police,” according to the “Lifting The Veil of Secrecy” article.

Ironically, although these Tel Aviv University professors may be shy about fully disclosing the nature of their secret war research work to anti-war students at Tel Aviv University, at least one professor, Tel Aviv University Professor Oded Maimon, has not been shy about apparently violating the privacy rights of people around the globe who correspond with each other by e-mail. As Gil Zohar revealed in his “Lifting The Veil of Secrecy” article, “with implications for intelligence gathering, Professor Oded Maimon…mines cyberspace in a project funded by the European Union, Israel’s Ministry of Science and General Motors;” and “using sophisticated algorithms,” Tel Aviv University Professor “Maimon reads millions of e-mails and identifies those that are suspicious or important.”

Yet, according to Tel Aviv University President Zvi Galil, “people are” still “just not aware of how important university research is in general, and how much TAU contributes to Israel’s security in particular.”

Coincidentally, Tel Aviv University President Galil is a former Columbia University School of Engineering and Applied Science Dean. After moving from his Columbia University campus office in Manhattan to his Tel Aviv University president’s office in June 2007, former Columbia University Dean Galil stated:

“I look forward to continuing a dynamic, positive relationship with the American Friends of Tel Aviv University and collaborating with our friends in the United States…TAU and Columbia are separated by an ocean, but that has less meaning than at any prior time in human history.”

A former senior regional director for the militaristic Israeli government’s AIPAC lobbying firm named Sam Witkin was the president of the tax-exempt American Friends of Tel Aviv University until a few years ago; and before Witkin was replaced in 2007 by a former executive at the Zionist movement’s United Jewish Appeal office in New York City named Roni Krinsky, former American Friends of Tel Aviv University President Witkin was paid an annual salary of $248,972.

According to its Form 990 financial disclosure form for 2006, between October 1, 2006 and September 30, 2007 the “non-profit” American Friends of Tel Aviv University group’s total revenues exceeded $22 million, while its total expenditures were only $16 million. In addition, during this same period the “non-profit” American Friends of Tel Aviv University earned over $1.3 million in dividends from the over $21.3 million in corporate stock that it owned; while the amount of State of Israel bonds that the American Friends of Tel Aviv University also owned exceeded $1.2 million.

Perhaps the surplus capital still controlled by the American Friends of Tel Aviv University should be used now to pay some reparations to the Palestinian civilians that the Tel Aviv University-supported Israeli War Machine has been brutally attacking in Gaza during the last three weeks, in violation of the Nuremberg Trial Accords?

Vice-President Cheney's 50th Anniversary Tribute To DARPA's Weapons Development Contributions

At an April 10, 2008 commemoration event to mark the 50th anniversary of the Pentagon’s decision to create a research division that has worked closely, historically, with Columbia’s IDA/Jason Division and with other U.S. universities besides Columbia, Vice-President Dick Cheney also indicated how DARPA-funded research helped develop the weapons technology that the Bush Administration needed to launch its endless war in Iraq:

“Good evening. Thank you very much. And I want to extend a special welcome to those of you who've come from out of town to help us mark the 50th anniversary of DARPA.

"I'm genuinely pleased to be here. And let me thank especially my friend and colleague Gordon England for the introduction, and Dr. Tether for the invitation to join all of you tonight. I'm in good company this evening -- with Secretary Don Winter, representatives of the military and industry, and alumni of DARPA. Some of you I've known going back to the time I was Secretary of Defense -- the good old days, when I had real power in this town.

“It's possible that some of us go back even further, to my prior service on the House Intelligence Committee, or even to the administration of Gerald Ford, when I served as his chief of staff. In any case, I've always had great respect for DARPA and its people, and I've been closely interested in your mission.

“As Tony remembers, back in 2001, not long after becoming Vice President, I went out to headquarters for a briefing. After eight years out of public life, I was eager to get back up to date on everything that was going on at DARPA. Each time I've met with representatives from DARPA, I've gone away even more deeply impressed by the work product of this agency. Anyone who seeks the very definition of high intellectual standards, creative energy, and hard, persistent effort will find it at DARPA. It's a huge credit to the Defense Department and to the nation. Every one of you can be proud of your association with DARPA -- and tonight I bring congratulations and good wishes from the President of the United States, George W. Bush.

“DARPA was, of course, founded in a moment of urgency. It was 1958, and the United States was facing all the implications of the launch of Sputnik the preceding October. The man in the White House, Dwight Eisenhower, didn't scare easy. He had complete, justified confidence in this nation's ability to reclaim the technological edge, and to hold it from then on. But he knew it would take a focused effort within government, public education, and the private sector. Eisenhower knew, as well, that it would require significant investments -- and he trusted that future Presidents and future Congresses would provide those resources. I'm proud to say that DARPA has had many friends in our administration, from the President and myself to Gordon England and two fine leaders of the Pentagon in Don Rumsfeld and Bob Gates.

“From the earliest days, it's been the fundamental charge of this agency to make sure that America is never again caught off guard. DARPA's job is to prevent technological surprises -- and to make sure that the great inventions, the breakthroughs, and the game-changing technologies are created by us, not by somebody else. And for 50 incredible years, DARPA has kept that charge.

“This agency brought forth the Saturn Five Rocket surveillance satellites, the Internet, stealth technology, guided munitions, unmanned aerial vehicles, night vision, and the body armor that's in use today. During my time as Secretary of Defense, we saw a number of major projects come to fruition. We had the first combat use of stealth technology with the F-117 during Operation Just Cause in '89, and then made extensive use of that aircraft during Desert Storm in the Persian Gulf in 1991. The Gulf War also gave us the first use of the JSTARs command and control aircraft, which allowed us to monitor the movement of enemy forces on the ground hundreds of miles away.

“Obviously, these aren't the sort of technologies you decide you need, and then go to the store to buy them. They took years and years to develop and to bring online. And one of the biggest lessons I learned at the Pentagon is just how much you owe that job to your predecessors and to earlier commanders in chief. When the Gulf War was over with I picked up the telephone and I called former President Ronald Reagan and thanked him for the absolutely essential defense buildup of the 1980s. And I remember feeling tremendous gratitude to former Secretaries of Defense, Democrat and Republican alike, who made sure we had the force we needed in that conflict -- public servants like Frank Carlucci, Cap Weinberger, Harold Brown, and Jim Schlesinger. And Don Rumsfeld, too, of course, because he had been President Ford's Defense Secretary in the mid-70s. As I've reminded Don, this makes him the only man to serve as Secretary of Defense in two different centuries.

"One thing we didn't have a lot of in Desert Storm was the unmanned aerial vehicle. But thanks to DARPA, that technology was advancing rapidly in the early '90s. And we've been able to use it all the time in both Afghanistan and Iraq -- for reconnaissance, for remote sensing, and to strike the enemy. DARPA has also brought us the very small UAV's that are so useful to a fighter in the urban warfare setting -- the little machines that Marines refer to as the "guardian angels." You developed the networking technology that foot soldiers are using every day -- to share information on a fast and secure basis, so they can operate within an enemy's reaction time. And there are so many other tools now in common use -- from advanced alert systems, to special gloves that do an almost miraculous job helping troops stay cool in the desert heat -- tools that simply wouldn't be around now if we didn't have DARPA. Most Americans, perhaps, haven't heard of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. But if they knew how much you've done to save and protect our men and women in uniform, they would be grateful beyond words.

“We're talking here about a federal agency that fulfills its mission, and delivers results, to a degree that most other organizations would envy. And if we look to the reasons why DARPA has been so consistently successful, we can see some fundamental advantages.

"By its charter, DARPA basically has no short-term obligations. It can stay focused not on small increments, but on the big changes. This is critical -- especially in wartime, when the armed forces have more than enough to do, and don't really have the chance to invent, develop, and test disruptive technologies. DARPA is out there every day working on the far side, where the ideas are, and finding ways to bring it over to the near side, where the operations are. And it's driving relentlessly toward the new core of technologies that'll maintain our military superiority far into the future.

“DARPA is not encumbered by parochial interests. It defends no status quo, and it doesn't find itself wasting time on turf wars. As Tony Tether has said, DARPA works best as a `swashbuckling place, constantly getting into -- getting management in trouble, constantly [testing] revolutionary, crazy ideas, but always out there in front' where it belongs.

“Though it's 50 years old, DARPA has never developed the apparatus or the mindset of a bureaucracy. It's still a highly manageable enterprise, leading huge projects but operating on a human scale. By one description, DARPA is a "hundred geniuses connected by a travel agent." And DARPA leadership does a terrific job bringing out the best work in government, academia, and the private sector.

“The whole ethic of this agency is fresh thinking -- and it preserves that ethic with a high rate of turnover. Everyone at DARPA knows this. In fact, if you work there, your last day on the job is printed right on the front of your I.D. badge. Come to think of it, so is mine. This may not be the best way to plan out a career -- but it's all the more reason to admire the people who go into DARPA. The idea is not to settle in, but to dive in, to take up the toughest intellectual challenges, and to know the rewards of turning concepts into actions, and finding out that a project will be a `go.’

“With all its inherent advantages, plus the incredible talent it brings in, DARPA is rightly known for `setting great minds on fire with big ideas.' And it doesn't overstate matters to say that we need this creative force more than ever before.

“We're engaged right now in a struggle against enemies of a kind not easily dealt with. We're not facing a clash of huge armies and navies. The outcome of the fight won't be like chasing Hitler into his bunker, having a surrender ceremony onboard ship, or wearing down a communist empire. The extremists in this war have a backward ideology, but they have genuine global ambitions -- and there is nothing old-fashioned about the weapons they're trying to get their hands on. Their goal is to intimidate the United States and our friends into dropping our global responsibilities. They would move into that void, impose a dictatorship of fear, and build new staging grounds for further attacks on us. And the toughest part of this fight is the enemy's cult of murder -- the utter rejection of any rules of warfare; the contempt for moral standards; the rejoicing in the blood and tears of innocent people. Their mode of operation is to target the unsuspecting, to lie in wait, and to shock the world in moments of spectacular violence.

“As we take the fight to the enemy, they don't engage us force on force. At most, it'll be squad on squad. So we need to keep pressing for absolute superiority in speed, agility, and access to information. In this era of new dangers, I know DARPA has also been pounding hard on the issue of weapons of mass destruction. It's not a pleasant business to think about. But we have to do everything possible to take WMD's off the table as a threat to the United States or its friends. DARPA has already moved us in the right direction, and I'm confident you'll make even more historic progress in that effort. And in the core technologies -- whether it's microsystems, high-efficiency battery cells, or quantum science -- the work of DARPA will be the key to American military dominance far into the future, against any challenge that comes our way.

“That future, I believe, will bring us many victories. And the day will come when the cause of tolerance and freedom overcomes the hateful ideologies that have turned their guns on us. A lot of our successes will be easy to quantify. Others will be harder to measure, because they'll be the things that don't happen: the attacks that don't come, the surprises that don't strike us, the harm that doesn't befall an American soldier. But those victories will be just as real. And many of them will occur because years before, somebody sat down and did some hard, disciplined thinking about the future, and came up with a good idea, and had the sturdy support and the guidance of DARPA.

“If you've been associated with this agency, you're the kind of person who lives and breathes technology -- and you have a place in the story of the past 50 years. It's a story of boldness and excellence; of visionary, high-yield projects; and of service above self. And all of these have been directed to the highest purposes that a citizen can assume: The safety of our people. The security of our nation. And the survival of freedom itself.
We're an honorable country, a decent country, a generous country. And the world is a better place for the power and the influence of the United States of America.

“To have a role in this nation's defense is a privilege -- and that privilege has belonged to many in this room this evening. For that, I want to offer my highest personal respect and gratitude -- and my full confidence in DARPA for another outstanding 50 years.

"Thank heaven for DARPA, and thank you very, very much.”

Next: Ben Davis lyrics

DARPA's Military Missiion & University Connections--Part 8

(See Parts 1-7 below)

In his March 25, 2004 statement before the House Committee on Armed Services’ Subcommittee on “Terrorism, Unconventional Threats and Capabilities,” the Director of DARPA, Dr. Anthony Tether, also indicated additional specific ways that the DARPA-funded research work that is currently done on U.S. university campuses at places like Columbia is used to help the Pentagon wage war in Iraq:

“We have a program that is testing the use of Kevlar air-bags to thwart rocket-propelled grenade attacks. The idea is to detect the incoming rocket-propelled grenade and then deploy an airbag to smother the round so it doesn’t go off and deflect it slightly. Because rocket-propelled grenades use directional shaped charges, deflecting it should greatly reduce the damage, even if the round still goes off.

“We are also working on various ways to detect improvised explosive devices. One of these involves a technique for detecting, identifying, and locating radio frequency-controlled improvised explosive devices in the considerable background clutter typical of cities.

“To improve communications among our warfighters, we are working on using Aerostats to connect line of sight systems like SINCGARS (Single Channel Ground and Airborne Radio System) and EPLRS (Enhanced Positions Location Reporting System), and on an inflatable communications tower in a box.”…

Next: Vice-President Cheney’s 50th Anniversary Tribute To DARPA’s Weapons Development Contributions

DARPA's Military Mission & University Connections--Part 7

(See Parts 1-6 below)

In his March 25, 2004 statement before the House Committee on Armed Services’ Subcommittee on “Terrorism, Unconventional Threats and Capabilities,” the Director of DARPA, Dr. Anthony Tether, also indicated some of the military applications of the DARPA-funded research work in computer technology and biology that is currently done on U.S. university campuses at places like Columbia:

“The High Productivity Computing Systems program…will maintain information superiority in areas such as weather and ocean forecasting, cryptanalysis, and computing the dispersal of airborne contaminants…

“DARPA’s strategic thrust in the life sciences, dubbed `Bio-Revolution,’ is a broad effort to harness the insights and power of biology to make U.S. warfighters and their equipment safer, stronger, and more effective…

“DARPA’s program in preventing cognitive degradation as a result of sleep deprivation illustrates how the Bio-Revolution will help maintain our troops’ combat performances…

“Many of the systems used today in Afghanistan and Iraq benefited from DARPA investments made many years ago. But there are a number of items in use that might be described as `direct from DARPA.’…

“Software from our Command Post of the Future program is being used by the command post of the Army’s First Cavalry Division to distribute itself across space, instead of being in one spot.

“One of the hardest things about sniper attacks on convoys is knowing you are being shot at—it is hard to hear over the road noise. Over the last few months, DARPA funded development of an acoustically-based, vehicle-mounted sniper detection system to help our convoys detect sniper fire and determine the direction it is coming from. Troops have tested and trained with these systems, and 50 are on their way to Iraq…”

Next: DARPA’s Military Mission & University Connections—Part 8

DARPA's Military Mission & University Connections--Part 6

(See Parts 1-5 below)

In his March 25, 2004 statement before the House Committee on Armed Services’ Subcommittee on “Terrorism, Unconventional Threats and Capabilities,” the Director of DARPA, Dr. Anthony Tether, also indicated additional specific ways that the DARPA-funded research work that is currently done on U.S. university campuses at places like Columbia is being used to improve the U.S. war machine’s ability to wage war in urban areas like Baghdad and Tehran:

“Command and control systems to improve the collaboration at all echelons and on-demand, precise air delivery of forces and supplies to the ground are also key elements…

“DARPA has some programs underway already. We are exploring ways to navigate accurately inside buildings and underground in tunnels. Other programs seek to allow forces to accurately determine a building’s layout before they enter, along with capabilities to determine whether hostile personnel are hiding in the building…

“DARPA’s information technology efforts build on traditional and revolutionary computing environments. Our programs strive to provide such things as improved device/system control, autonomous vehicle navigation, more robust and secure software systems, human-robot and robot-robot collaboration, and enhanced human cognition…”

Next: DARPA’s Military Mission & University Connections—Part 7

DARPA's Military Mission & University Connections--Part 5

(See Parts 1-4 below)

In his March 25, 2004 statement before the House Committee on Armed Services’ Subcommittee on “Terrorism, Unconventional Threats and Capabilities,” the Director of DARPA, Dr. Anthony Tether, also indicated that the DARPA-funded research work that is currently done on U.S. university campuses at places like Columbia is being used to improve the U.S. war machine’s capacity to wage war in urban areas of the globe:

“Urban area operations can be the most dangerous, costly, and chaotic forms of combat. The number of military operations in urban area is increasing and this trend will likely continue for the foreseeable future. By 2025, nearly 60 percent of the world’s population will live in urban areas. Adversaries will seek to fight U.S. forces in cities as a way to mitigate the U.S.’s superior ability to quickly destroy fixed and mobile targets in open and semi-concealed terrain. Accordingly, DARPA has created a new strategic thrust, Force Multipliers for Urban Area Operations.

“The basic idea is to do for the extremely complex urban environment what has been done for open terrain combat: find and use technology that significantly increases U.S. forces’ power and flexibility so that fewer forces are required to accomplish the mission.

“If successful, new urban warfare concepts and technologies would enable U.S. forces fighting in or stabilizing a city to achieve the same or greater overall effect as a larger force using current technology.

“Some initial concepts suggest making strong use of the vertical dimension for entry and attack. Other ideas focus on bringing situational awareness quickly into the complex urban battlespace. Information should flow smoothly from prehostilities intelligence into a tactical network that quickly disseminates information. The goal is to ensure U.S. forces can find and neutralize the enemy wherever he is located—on the streets, inside buildings, or hidden in underground bunkers.

“To achieve this vision, surveillance and target acquisition (RSTA), firepower, and communications must be robust, persistent, integrated, and immediately available. Firepower might include highly responsive precision air and ground fires, or even loitering and soldier-launched weapons, all networked directly to RSTA sensors.”

Next: DARPA’s Military Mission & University Connections—Part 6

DARPA's Military Mission & University Connections--Part 4

(See Parts 1-3 below)

In a March 25, 2004 statement before the House Committee on Armed Services’ Subcommittee on “Terrorism, Unconventional Threats and Capabilities,” the Director of DARPA, Dr. Anthony Tether, also indicated some specific military applications of the DARPA-funded research work that is currently done on U.S. university campuses at places like Columbia:

“DARPA’s sensor work is exemplified by the Standoff Precision Identification in Three Dimensions (SPI-3D) program to develop an airborne LIDAR sensor to provide positive target identification from standoff ranges via high resolution three-dimensional representations. SPI-3D will be cued by wide area surveillance sensors, such as synthetic aperture radar, which can determine the presence of possible targets but may be unable to confirm target type or identity. SPI-3D technology will close this gap, allowing commanders to positively identify targets as needed by our rules of engagement.

“The National/Tactical Exploitation (NYTEX) program uses imagery and data from both national reconnaissance systems and tactical assets to locate and identify enemy air defense units. During Operation Iraqi Freedom, NYTEX supported our forces in Iraq by screening synthetic aperture radar imagery to look for enemy air defense emplacements.

“Other DARPA programs have performed significant demonstrations. These programs have located short-duration smitters with high accuracy; detected dismounted soldiers moving through trees; identified ground vehicles from acoustic/seismic sensor networks; maintained track on designated vehicles through obscured terrain; and delivered precision munitions to destroy moving tanks and trucks from 30 kilometers away.”

Next: DARPA’s Military Mission & University Connections—Part 5

DARPA's Military Mission & University Connections--Part 3

(See Parts 1-2 below)

In a March 25, 2004 statement before the House Committee on Armed Services’ Subcommittee on “Terrorism, Unconventional Threats and Capabilities,” the Director of DARPA, Dr. Anthony Tether, indicated some of the military applications of the DARPA-funded research work that is currently done on U.S. university campuses at places like Columbia:

“The eight strategic research thrusts that DARPA is emphasizing in response to emerging trends are:

“Detection, Precision ID, Tracking and Destruction of Elusive Surface Targets
“Force Multipliers in Urban Area Operations
“Location and Characterization of Underground Structures
“Network Manned and Unmanned Structures
“Robust, Secure Self-forming Tactical Networks
“Cognitive Computing
“Assured Use of Space
“Bio-Revolution.

“Force Multipliers for Urban Area Operations is a new area that we have begun this year, partly to response to what we have seen in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the increasing likelihood that conflict in the future will be fought in cities.

“…DARPA is assembling the necessary sensors, exploitation tools, command systems, and information technologies to rapidly find and destroy ground targets in any terrain, in any weather, moving or not, at any time…

“DARPA is supporting research in four general areas: sensors to find targets; sensor exploitation systems to identify and track targets; command and control systems to plan and manage the use of sensors, platforms and weapons throughout the battlespace; and information technology to tie it all together and ensure the effective dissemination of information.”

Next: DARPA’s Military Mission & University Connections—Part 4

DARPA's Military Mission & University Connections--Part 2

(See Part 1 below)

A professor of National Security Affairs at the Naval War College in 2001 who also directed studies on space, precision targeting and control for DARPA, William Martel, indicated in the 2001 book that he edited, The Technological Arsenal: Emerging Defense Capabilities, that DARPA is involved in developing directed-energy technologies, new weapons for targeting and advanced computer and information technologies for the U.S. war machine. According to Naval War College Professor Martel’s book, “directed energy technologies are useful for detecting and destroying in real time, military targets anywhere in the world."

The Technological Arsenal: Emerging Defense Capabilities book also stated in 2001:

“Future generations of U.S. cruise missiles will be able to destroy targets with the same degree of precision as piloted aircraft, especially as improvements in sensor and artificial intelligence technologies could hit targets with accuracy measured in feet…

“…U.S. military power is being enhanced by the development of computer, communication, and information technologies. Even now, computers are making life-and-death decisions in war that historically were reserved to humans. For example, computer and fire control systems on Aegis cruisers coordinate the radars and missiles that track hundreds of targets…When the U.S. Air Force deploys the airborne laser during the first decade of this century, its computer will determine when to fire the laser…”

Among the weapons that are being developed these days by DARPA for the 21st-century U.S. war machine are high-power microwaves for naval weapons that use microwave devices, high-power microwaves for the electronic battlefield, microwave weapons to destroy electronic equipment. cruise missile technology targeting weapons, unmanned space or air weapons, precision-guided laser bombs and space-based lasers to attack targets.

Next: DARPA’s Military Mission & University Connections—Part 3

DARPA's Military Mission & University Connections--Part 1

In this 21st-century “era of permanent war and blogging,” U.S. universities like Columbia University sometimes claim that if they formally prohibit on-campus classified research for the Department of Defense they are no longer institutionally involved in doing war research for the Pentagon. Yet in the 21st-century, universities like Columbia still are apparently performing contract research work on campus for the Pentagon’s Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency [DARPA], whose mission is to develop more advanced weapons technology for the U.S. war machine to use in Iraq and other foreign countries.

In a chapter titled “Managing Public Sector Research and Development: Innovation Versus Responsiveness,” the late 1980s book that Asa Clark IV and John Lilley edited, Defense Technology, described how DARPA has, historically, operated:

“The Under-Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering (USDRE) also exercises direction and authority over the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). Originally created in 1958 as the Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA) under control of the Director of Defense Research and Engineering (DDRE), it was renamed DARPA in 1972 and is now a separate agency under the Under-Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering. DARPA maintains no laboratories and does no scientific research of its own. It operates through…educational institutions to seek out and manage high-risk basic research and applied-technology programs…

“DARPA manages R&D on projects up to the demonstration stage, where feasibility can be assessed. It then transfers the projects to the appropriate military service…In the words of DARPA’s director Robert S. Cooper, DARPA serves, in effect as ‘the venture capitalists of the Defense Department.’”

Asa Clark IV also observed in a chapter titled “Defense Technology: Conclusions and Implications,” of Defense Technology, that “advanced-technology research and development is carried out largely in secret,” by the U.S. war machine.

Next: DARPA’s Military Mission & University Connections—Part 2