Sundial: Columbia SDS Memories: Prologue

PROLOGUE: Clubbed At Columbia, 1968

We sat on the floor of Fayerweather Lounge, our arms linked, singing a freedom song defiantly. We heard our barricade of chairs and desks being torn apart and tossed to the floor. We saw helmeted Tactical Patrol Force [TPF] cops entering the lounge.

I watched four TPF cops grab, rough up and drag the student in front of me out of the Columbia University building. It all seemed unreal. It seemed like a bad dream or some scene from a Hollywood movie. The cops were intent on getting us out of the building as quickly as possible. Students who refused to unlink their arms were roughed up and clubbed by the cops more than students who quickly unlinked their arms.

More helmeted cops poured into the lounge. I realized my turn to be brutalized was coming. I noticed a husky, tall, helmeted African-American cop. We looked into each other’s eyes and I noticed no sign of empathy in his eyes. I thought to myself: “Yes, some Black men will even fight for Columbia, if you pay them enough.” He then grabbed me and started to rough me up as efficiently as any white cop. I felt a club come down on my head during the one minute it took for the TPF cops to shove me from the lounge to the front steps of Fayerweather Hall and throw me onto the campus grass. My head was bleeding. I lay dazed, until I was approached by a medical student who gave me first aid.

It happened fast. One moment we were singing and watching them come at us. Then, while they were brutalizing me, I was wondering whether I was going to survive. And I thought: “Is this really happening to me?” as they passed me from cop-to-cop and out of the building. I felt completely powerless, because they had all the clubs. And I was not clear about what was happening until I was on the grass of Columbia’s campus and realized that I was still alive.

Dino was lying on the grass next to me. He was also bleeding from the head. He was crying and cursing the cops. Spontaneously, we grabbed each other’s hand.

Dino was a tall African-American non-student. A street-hustler, a grass dealer, and a street revolutionary. He looked like a SNCC person, although he never had been into Movement organizing.

A medical student helped Dino and me stand up. Other medical students escorted us into an ambulance. We were taken with other bleeding protesters to Knickerbocker Hospital further uptown in Manhattan. In the emergency room, a doctor sewed up our head wounds and put bandages on our heads, using about 10 to 15 stitches. Then we were released from the hospital. I walked back downtown to my dorm room in Furnald Hall, in the darkness of early morning.

As I re-entered Columbia’s campus, I wondered how many other people were injured, how many other students were arrested and whether the Black students who had occupied Columbia’s Hamilton Hall had been brutalized. I wondered whether the Columbia Administration was going to be able to get away with its use of police to evict us all from the campus buildings we had collectively liberated. I wondered how the rest of the campus and the rest of the world were going to react to the police invasion of Columbia’s campus.

I was angry. And I was ready to resume the fight against Columbia’s institutional racism, complicity with the Viet Nam War and its policy of suppressing student dissent. But were other students at Columbia and Barnard ready to continue the fight?

By the afternoon of April 30, 1968, crowds of students had started to form again on Columbia’s campus. It became clear that the police bust had led to a mass radicalization of the campus. The fight against Columbia’s trustees and the Columbia Administration was going to continue. Spontaneously, students were angrily chanting, over and over again outside of Low Library, “Kirk must go! Kirk must go! Kirk must go!” and, simultaneously, raising their hands in the peace sign to emphasize each word.

Sundial: Columbia SDS Memories: Table of Contents

SUNDIAL: Columbia SDS Memories

For Ted Gold and student activists of the 1960s, 1970s, 1980s, 1990s and 21st century.




C O N T E N T S

Prologue: Clubbed At Columbia, 1968

Chapter I: At Flushing High School, 1964

Chapter II: At UM & M, 1965

Chapter III: Freshman At Columbia, 1965

Chapter IV: Summer Folk Songwriting, 1966

Chapter V: In Furnald Hall, 1966

Chapter VI: Enter Ted Gold, 1966

Chapter VII: Into Columbia SDS, 1966

Chapter VIII: Discovering IDA, 1967

Chapter IX: Confronting The Marines, 1967

Chapter X: The Viet Nam Summer of Love, 1967

Chapter XI: Ted Gold and Dave Gilbert: Roommates, 1967

Chapter XII: Marge Piercy and The Anti-Rusk Demo, 1967

Chapter XIII: Christmas Vacation with Mark Rudd, 1967

Chapter XIV: Back In Furnald Hall, 1968

Chapter XV: Steering Columbia SDS Into Action, 1968

Chapter XVI: We Shut Down Columbia University, 1968

Chapter XVII: Enter Bernardine Dohrn, 1968

Chapter XVIII: Summer In The Streets, 1968

Chapter XIX: Spreading The Student Revolution, 1968

Chapter XX: Commune On Staten Island, 1969

Chapter XXI: Weatherman Comes To Queens, 1969

Chapter XXII: At United Parcel Service and Queens College, 1969

Chapter XXIII: With Andrea Eagan and Newsreel, 1970

Chapter XXIV: The Explosion at West 11th Street, 1970

Chapter XXV: All Power To My Sisters, 1970

Chapter XXVI: Uncle Sam Don’t Want Me, 1970

Chapter XXVII: The Bronx and Kent State, 1970

Epilogue: Columbia SDS Memories: From Berkeley to Kent State

IDA's University Connections in 2005

As the Los Angeles Times observed in an August 15, 2004 article:

"During the U.S.-led attack on Iraq, the Institute for Defense Analyses provided senior Pentagon officials with assessments of the operation.

"Staff members from the institute formed part of an 18-member civilian analysis team working from the Joint Warfighting Center in Virginia.

"The operation was described in a June 3, 2003, briefing by Brigadier General Robert W. Cone of the Army. `This team did business' within the Army Central Command `on a daily basis, by observing meeting and planning sessions, attending command updates, watching key decisions being made, watching problems being solved, and generally being provided unrestricted access to the business of the conduct of this war,' Cone said, according to a transcript of the session."

The Institute for Defense Analyses [IDA]'s board of trustees in 2005 also continued to include members with connections to various U.S. universities. The University of South Carolina's president, John Palms, for example, was the chairman of the IDA's board of trustees in 2005. Sitting next to the University of South Carolina president on the Pentagon weapons think-tank board of trustees in 2005 were the Dean Emeritus of the University of Southern California (USC) Marshall School of Business, Jack Borsting, and the University of Texas at Austin's LBJ School of Public Affairs Dean, Edwin Dorn. A lecturer at Harvard University's JFK School of Government, John White, also was a member of the IDA board of trustees in 2005. In addition, the director of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology [MIT] Center for Genome Research, Jill Merirov, and an MIT Institute Professor, Sheila Widnall, also sat on the IDA board of trustees in 2005.

In a June 2002 report that described how MIT faculty members continue to do secret war research for the Pentagon in this current "era of permanent war and blogging", Institute for Defense Analyses Trustee Widnall wrote:

"There exist several organizations that can provide access to classified facilities to enable MIT faculty to carry out the classified portions of their research. The most prominent of these is MIT's Lincoln Laboratory, but several other organizations could also provide such access.

"The management and oversight of Lincoln Laboratory are major components of the public service that MIT carries out for the nation...MIT should continue its active management of Lincoln Laboratory to insure that...Lincoln Laboratory provides an environment that enables faculty to do research with national security implications.

"MIT and its faculty have ongoing relations with a number of independent defense-supported research laboratories such as Draper Laboratory, Air Force Research Laboratory, Natick Army Laboratory, and the Naval Underseas Warfare Center in Newport, R.I.. These facilities offer opportunities to strengthen our activities in research that have applications to national security. In particular, MIT should strengthen its relationship with Draper Laboratory and have access to Draper as an off-site facility for research and administrative support for faculty requiring access to classified material...

"MIT currently undertakes classified research at Lincoln Laboratory...

"We estimate that there might be as many as seventy-five members of the MIT faculty who currently hold security clearances."

IDA's 21st Century "Warfighting Program"

In this 21st-century era of "permanent war and blogging", the Institute for Defense Analyses continues to help the Pentagon plan more wars abroad on behalf of special U.S. corporate interests. According to IDA's own website, for example, IDA's Joint Advanced Warfighting Program (JAWP):

"...serves as a catalyst for developing breakthrough improvements in military capabilities. The JAWP performs this role by helping to conceptualize and develop new warfighting concepts and capabilities, conduct joint experiments, integrate related activities, and prepare for implementations of the new warfighting concepts and capabilities.

"JAWP has a research staff of approximately 24 people, including several active duty officers representing the U.S. Navy,the U.S. Air Force, and the U.S. Marine Corps. The full-time staff is augmented by adjuncts and consultants as necessary.

"Sponsorship for JAWP's activities comes principally from Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition and Technology, the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Strategy and Threat Reduction, the Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the Deputy Commander in Chief, US Atlantic Command (USACOM)."

Con Edison's IDA Connection In The 1990s

“Student uprisings against the Vietnam War, the draft and all things military or quasi-military had strained and, in some cases, ruptured the ties of the think-tanks with the nation’s universities. They had depended on the universities for faculty guidance and participation, for facilities and for free-flowing intellectual exchange…One of the sufferers had been the Institute for Defense Analyses, the think-tank at the disposal of the Secretary of Defense himself, and of the Director of Defense Research and Engineering, working hand in glove with the Defense Department’s Advanced Research Projects Agency…There were signs in the mid-seventies, however, that it was making a bit of a comeback…Even though IDA had lost its official claim on the consortium of 12 universities which had founded and fed it in years long gone by, it still was drawing on their resident brains in an unofficial, informal—even sub rosa-fashion.”

The Superwarriors: The Fantastic World of Pentagon Superweapons by James Canan (page 174)

The antiwar folks who occupied Columbia University’s buildings in 1968 demanded that Columbia end its ties to the Pentagon’s weapons research think-tank, the Institute for Defense Analyses [IDA]. Both Columbia University President Grayson Kirk and Columbia University Trustee William Burden sat on the IDA board of trustees and the IDA executive committee. And, in Columbia’s name, Kirk and Burden were approving the top-secret IDA weapons research projects that enabled the Pentagon to develop its electronic warfare, automated battlefield and laser-guided aerial bombardment military capacity which it used in its 1991, 1998 and 2003 high-technology bombing blitz of Iraq, its 1999 high-technology bombing blitz of Serbia and its 2001 high-technology bombing blitz of Afghanistan. Today, in this current “era of permanent war and blogging”, a Pentagon weapons research think-tank in Virginia, called the Institute for Defense Analyses [IDA], continues to develop new weapons for urban warfare and space warfare use in the 21st-century.

In the early 1990s Con Edison Trustee Ruth Davis was also a trustee of the Pentagon’s IDA. Between 1977 and 1979, Con Edison Trustee Davis had been the Pentagon’s Deputy Under-secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering. And between 1979 and 1981, Davis was a U.S. Department of Energy assistant secretary. Ruth Davis was also a director of Control Data, United Telecommunications, Aerospace Corporation and the Pymatuning Group during the late 1980s. Among the other corporate establishment figures that Con Edison Trustee Davis sat next to on these corporate boards were members of the board of the following corporations and institutions: Shell Oil; General Mills; 3M; Chemical Bank/Texas Commerce Bank; McGraw-Hill; Equitable Life Assurance; Southeast Banking of Florida; the RAND Corporation; and the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

In a 1991 telephone interview, I asked IDA’s Vice-President of Administration and Finance during the 1990s, Ruth Greenstein, what was the role of an IDA trustee such as Con Edison Trustee Ruth Davis?

According to Greenstein, the role of an IDA trustee is similar to the role of a board of directors’ members in any business corporation, although IDA is a “not-for-profit” corporation which works directly for the office of the U.S. Secretary of Defense.

The reason why Davis was on the IDA Board of Trustees during the 1990s, according to IDA spokesperson Greenstein was that “She goes back years with quite significant Defense Department experience.”

Asked to describe the kind of work IDA was doing for the Pentagon during the 1990s, Greenstein replied:

“We do a range of both policy analysis and basic research to sharpen Defense Department capabilities. We are involved in evaluating major weapons systems like the B-1 bomber and assessing new technologies and engaging in fundamental research.”

According to Greenstein, in the early 1990s about one-third of IDA’s trustees formerly worked for the U.S. government, such as Con Edison Trustee Ruth Davis, retired “General Rogers” and IDA’s then-chairman of the Board of Trustees, former U.S. Secretary of the Air Force, Robert Froehlke, who was “also a director of an insurance company.” Con Edison Trustee Davis, according to Greenstein, was the only IDA trustee who also sat on the board of directors of a utility company. Another one-third of the IDA trustees during the 1990s—like Samuel Huntington of Harvard University—were recruited from the U.S. academic community “because of their expertise on national security issues,” according to the IDA spokesperson.

When I asked her if any of IDA’s research proved relevant during the 1991 Gulf War, Greenstein noted that IDA also engaged in “quick response” military research for the Pentagon in the 1990s.

Why IDA Must Go--Part 2

During the Vietnam War Era, anti-war students at Columbia University explained why they felt Columbia University should sever all connections to the Institute for Defense Analyses (IDA) and the Defense Advance Research Projects Agency (DARPA) in a leaflet which included the following text:

"Recent IDA Projects Further Reflect The New Emphasis In Counterinsurgency. Titles Include:

"`The Worth of Target Kill Assessment Systems';
"`Airborne Night Television Reconnaissance-strikes';
"`Levels of Nocturnal Illumination';
"`Small Arms for Counterguerrilla Operations';
"`Tactical Nuclear Weapons--their Battlefield Utility';
"`Chemical Control of Vegetation in Relation to Military Needs';
"`Interdiction of Trucks from the Air at Night';
"`Night Vision for Counterinsurgents'

and so on. IDA tests and develops weapons specifically for the terrains of Vietnam, Thailand, North-east India, and Latin America (Hearings, House Comm. on Appropriations, Defense Approop. Hearings for 1965, vol 14, p. 138). It goes without saying that for those engaged in the liberation struggle throughout the world, this new emphasis on counter-insurgency will have deadly consequences.

"IDA is also engaged in developing techniques for suppressing ghetto rebellions and other domestic insurgencies. In a report to the President's Commission on Law Enforcement and the Administration of Justice, IDA researchers recommended explosively spread adhesives, spray mists, droplet projectors, foam generators, `super water pistols,' and `tranquilizing darts, which have been used on wild animals' (NY Times, Nov. 12, 1967).

"IDA depends on its university affiliations to attract top talent (see Business Week, Feb. 25, 1967, "Battle for Brainpower"). Without the prestige and assistance Columbia and its eleven other affiliates give IDA, the organization would be desanctified in the eyes of the academic community it exploits: it would appear to be just what it is--an academic service-station for America's world-wide `company cops.' Columbia's disaffiliation would be a big blow to IDA's legitimacy and to the whole military-academic alliance.

"NOTE: Columbia's affiliation with the IDA is just one instance of the University's very intimate relation with the whole network of oppressive military and corporate institutions. William Burden, a Columbia trustee, is not only chairman of the board of IDA. He is also a director of Lockheed Aviation, Allied Chemical, CBS, American Metal, Manufacturers Hanover Trust, and a score of other foundations and philanthropies. President Kirk, an active member of the IDA executive committee, is also a director of Socony-Mobil, IBM, Consolidated Edison, Greenwich Savings Bank, and too many foundations to mention (including two CIA conduits--the Asia Foundation and the Institute for International Education). These facts alone should dispel any illusions about `value-free' universities. The university must take sides. The only question is--which side?"

Why IDA Must Go--Part 1

Before the 21st-century "era of permanent war and blogging" began, some anti-war student activists at Columbia University explained in a leaflet why they felt that Columbia University should fully sever its connections to the Institute for Defense Analyses (IDA):

"In a series of articles in Nation (Oct. 9 & Dec. 18, 1967), historian Gabriel Kolko has analyzed the consequences of the alarming increase in Defense Department grants to major universities. This growing military-academic complex, Kolko argues, constitutes `a virtual revolution on U.S. military research structure. As the nature of modern warfare changes from confrontations between technological powers in a state of mutual terror and unstable balance to wars against guerrillas, the Pentagon's needs have shifted increasingly from military hardware...to socio-economic "`soft-wares"' that Washington hopes will compensate for the ideological and human superiority of guerrilla movements. And since only the university possesses the necessary social scientists for such research, it may be fairly argued that the Pentagon will increasingly need the university far more than the academy will require Defense Department funds.' For all who recognize the American military to be the main source of violence and repression throughout the world, the lesson is clear: we must by whatever means necessary and to the limits of our power prevent the military from using what is becoming its main weapon--the university.

"In this connection, the campaign against the Institute for Defense Analyses is crucial. Already the Defense Department's `main weapons systems evaluation think tank' (Newsweek, Aug. 12, 1963), IDA is rapidly becoming its main agency for procuring top talent in the social and behavioral sciences. This new direction for IDA is most clearly reflected in the September, 1967 reorganization when the old Economic and Political Studies Division which is expected to vastly expand studies on the techniques of counterinsurgency (IDA Bulletin, July 26, 1967). The old EPSD was engaged in `third area conflict studies' including analyses of counter-insurgency in Thailand and studies of the motivation and morale of Vietcong military and civilian personnel (Hearings, House Comm. on Appropriations, Subcommittee on Defense, FY 1967, vol. 3, pp.607f.). In 1966, ESPD undertook three new projects: an analysis of national security objectives in the Indian Ocean Area; an evaluation of probably military developments in China through 1980; and an analysis of weapons and tactics in counterinsurgency warfare (IDA Annual Report, 1966). With this new reorganization, those who are already bearing the burden of the Pentagon's `soft-wares' can look forward to a good deal more of the same..."