I took film of a demonstration in Chicago a year later. That's why the bus loads of state police were brought in. The U knew exactly what we were going to do. It turned out according to the documentary that we were infiltrated by one or more police informants. Always reasons for why anything suggested was wrong. It was a lot like a church meeting or a county political meeting. It was a Students for a Democratic Society meeting. The protest was planned in the student union basement the day before. Napalm is an insignificant part of our business." The admin didn't seem to understand that there were other options (There were other entrances, or they could have taken the Dow people off campus and let people interview them elsewhere.) Quote from Dow people: "Our government wouldn't use napalm against civilians. Public opinion was that it was a state school and that trumped any claims of academic freedom or constitutional rights. I was surprised the entire U didn't explode about the state police being brought in, but it was Iowa and 1967. 107 were arrested and several were taken to the hospital. After an hour of speeches the police said we could leave or be removed and arrested. Two busloads of State Police were brought in with white Storm Trooper riot helmets with face shields and carrying 3', 2" thick "batons." Very scary looking. Several hundred of us blocked the Union entrance where Dow Chem was interviewing. Just watched a 28 min documentary on a demonstration I was in at the U of Iowa Dec. Just about anything you do is potentially illegal if you are doing it as a protest. Standing on a sidewalk or in the street violates local laws. It is against the law to gather in certain places. Laws limiting protest have multiplied everywhere in the past 40 years. It is amazing that in a country begun in revolution against the powerful British of the time, that any semblance of protest is discouraged. Police have driven out occupiers from the park in NYC, in Oakland, and some other places. Political news elsewhere is filled with discussions about pepper spray being used on students sitting across a walkway at UC Davis. (The snowmobile trails are extensive and cross highways and corners of private property.) So all I can do is keep on talking with people who care about issues more than or as much as snowmobiling. Imagine all the relatives and friends and neighbors of these folk, all wanting to vote to keep this activity protected in our area. Turns out the biggest vote getter this past election is a big supporter of the biggest organization in town, probably larger than any of the churches - The Snowmobile Association. I have been asking about who is who and why. I have learned a bit more about local politics in our small town. The frontespiece of Carl Jung’s Memories, Dreams, and Reflections explains it for me: “We must not only live the time of our lives, but also the life of our times.” Yup. And I never worked for either of these “companies.” Life is funny, how it works out, how I ended up in the church. So I left the CIA interview and joined the protest against Dow, and later refused induction into the US Army. I heard several such lectures, and I heard James Bevel, from King’s Southern Christian Leadership Conference, tell about the connection between the struggle for civil rights and the disaster that was the Viet Nam war. And he introduced me to Bonhoeffer and Tillich.Īnd what is not widely known, one big reason for the campus protests of the ‘60's was that a steady stream of older, Quaker men, were traveling the campus circuit, explaining their anti-war stance. I had read it and was moved by the teachings of Jesus. I had joined First Presbyterian Church in Iowa City, where Jack Zerwas had given me the Phillips translation of the New Testament (more correctly called the Christian scriptures). My Brother-in-law had died in an auto accident in May, 1966, so I had thought through some life and death issues. People were gathering for the protest against Dow Chemical.įor a year and a half I had been coming under the influence of Christianity. During the interview I was looking out the window, down Jefferson Street to the Student Union. The interviewer told me what they were looking for: History majors like me, with a few years of Russian and French, like me, who could build files on leaders and upcoming individuals in foreign countries. The interview took place on the second or third floor, on the northwest corner of Jessup Hall, which is the northwest building of the four original campus buildings surrounding Old Capitol. day of the sit-in, the morning after the SDS planning meeting, I had a job interview with the CIA. One detail of my experience of the sit-in (what we called “occupy” in the ‘60's) in Iowa City in ‘67 came to me yesterday as I was running my giant snowblower, trying to move 6" of wet, gloppy, heavy snow from my 400' driveway.