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"WHY DON'T YOU TAKE THAT STEP?"
(1) "Man, I ain't got no quarrel with them Vietcong!" -- Heavyweight Champion Muhammad Ali; 2-17-1966
The 2004 election campaign has been the Vietnam War generation's attempt to come to terms with an ugly and divisive chapter in our nation's history. As the national discussion grows angrier, some people have suggested we would be better served to discuss Iraq, rather than Vietnam. But, as General Wesley Clark reminds us, we can not discuss the war in Iraq until we understand the war in Vietnam.
By 1966, the American public was largely convinced that the war being waged in Southeast Asia involved national security. Today we recognize that the North Vietnamese victory in and of itself created no significant impact on our society. Yet the lies and distortions on the part of our nation's leaders resulted in the death of over 58,000 Americans in Vietnam.
Today, we see that some of our leaders continue to lie about Vietnam, and about their reasons for not serving in the war. They even lie about the honorable service of the democratic candidate for president, and about his supporters -- both democrats and republicans -- who also served in Vietnam.
It is important to study the history of the call to serve in Vietnam, in order to appreciate the true nature of the republican call for young men and women to serve today in Iraq. As part of the discussion of this issue, it is important to examine the case of Muhammad Ali.
(2) "I am the greatest!" - Muhammad Ali
On February 25, 1964 Cassius Clay knocked out Charles "Sonny" Liston in 7 rounds to win the Heavyweight Championship of the World. It was one of the greatest upsets in sports' history. In the following days, accompanied by Malcolm X, the new champion told the press that he had converted to the Nation of Islam, and had changed his name to Cassius X. Within a week, he again changed it, and has been known since as Muhammad Ali. This was one of the greatest upsets in the cultural phenomenon known as the "1960s."
Two years before he won the title, Ali had been classified 1-A, or available for the draft, by the Selective Services. After he announced his membership in the Nation of Islam, aka the "Black Muslims," he was ordered to take the military qualifying exam. He easily passed the physical exam, but failed the mental aptitude test. He was "re-tested" by three army psychologists, who determined that the results were accurate, and that Ali was not malingering. Ali was thus reclassified as "1-F," or not qualified under currant standards.
As American involvement in Vietnam increased, our country was dealing with the Civil Rights movement at home. Malcolm X had been assassinated after urging black Americans and Africans to view the civil rights struggle as part of a larger, international struggle for human rights. And Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. would say that in 1966, younger black Americans began to talk about the civil rights movement and the violence in American cities in terms of its relationship with the violence in Vietnam.
It came as no surprise when the young Islamic heavyweight champion was suddenly "re-classified" as 1-A on February 17, 1966. The press immediately began to hound the 24-year old Ali with questions about the Vietnam War, the Gulf of Tonkin, and President Johnson's policies. Finally, after taking the tenth call of the day, Ali told a reporter, "Man, I ain't got no quarrel with them Vietcong. They never called me 'nigger'." ("Muhammad Ali," by Thomas Howser; pgs 144-5)
The following day, writer Jimmy Cannon ranted, "Clay is part of the Beatle movement. He fits in with ... the boys with their long dirty hair and the girls with the unwashed look and the college kids dancing naked at secret proms .... and surf bums who refuse to work and the whole pampered style-making cult of the bored young." (New York Journal American; 2-22-66)
On May 13, 1966, the US Attorney's Office contacted the FBI with a request that Ali be placed under surveillance and investigated as a potential threat to national security. Compare this action to the current "Patriot Act," and it becomes clear how history repeats itself. In Thomas Howser's fantastic book on Ali, he details the extent the government began to go to follow Ali's every move. (page 150-170)
(3) "I doubt that he had ever, at the beginning, anticipated what would happen to him in America, between his public embracing of the Black Muslims and his resistance to the draft....I'm convinced he was unafraid of whatever the future held. His behavior convinced me of his total sincerity in the action he had taken.....and he never exposed the slightest vestige of fear. Not ever. Not over his future. Not over the threat of jail." -"Cosell," by Howard Cosell, page 196.
Ali filed for "conscientious objector" status, based upon his religious beliefs. On August 23, 1966, he appeared before a retired Circuit Court judge for a C.O. hearing. The conservative judge ruled in Ali's favor. despite this finding, the Department of justice wrote to the Appeal Board to over-rule the judge's decision.
On August 25, 1966, the chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, L. Mendel Rivers, addressed a Veterans of Foreign wars Convention in New York. He focused on the threat that Ali posed to US national security, "Listen to this! If that great theologian of Black Muslim power, Cassius Clay, is deferred you watch what happens in Washington. We're going to do something if that board takes your boy and leaves Clay at home to double-talk. What has happened to the leadership of our nation when a man, any man regardless of color, can with impunity advise his listeners to tell the president when he is called to serve in the armed forces, 'Hell no, I'm not going'." (New York Times, 8-26-66)
The US Army Intelligence and Security Command began to follow Ali's every move. Dozens of his relatives and friends were interviewed. His business dealings and his personal life were put under a microscope. Even an appearance on the Johnny Carson show was analyzed for a report to FBI Director J Edgar Hoover.
On March 14, 1967, he was instructed by the Army to report for duty in Louisville, Kentucky on April 11th. His lawyers were able to change the date to April 28 in Houston, Texas. In one of the most significant events of that decade, Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. would deliver his historic "A Time to Break Silence" address at the Riverside Church in New York City on April 4, 1967. This was not the first time King publicly opposed the Vietnam war; however, it was the first time he linked it to the Civil Rights movement, and directly attacked LBJ's war policies.
King also suggested in this speech that young men file for C.O. status in opposition to the war machine. The government would later admit to taping conversations between King and Ali during this period. The two discussed the draft, the war, and the interest that African nations had in King's movement.
When Ali appeared in Texas, most Americans thought his only choices were either going into the army, or going to jail. Reporters asked him if he was going to "take that step" as he entered the government building. Ali ignored all of them, except Howard Cosell. When Howard Cosell asked him, Ali said, "Cosell, why don't you take that step?" Cosell answered, "I did, in 1942." (Cosell, page 216)
(4) "There is another alternative, and that alternative is justice. If justice prevails, if my constitutional rights are upheld, I will be forced to go neither to the Army nor jail." -Muhammad Ali, (FBI file)
Ali was immediately stripped of his boxing title, and of his ability to earn a living, by a combination of boxing commissions and the US government. Yet he became a symbol of courage to the young white students on college campuses across the country. He helped to blend the civil rights and the anti-war movements in America.
"I'm expected to go overseas to help free people in South Vietnam, and at the same time my people are being mistreated and brutalized here, and this is really the same thing that is happening in Vietnam. So I'm going to fight it legally, and if I lose, I'm going to jail. Whatever the punishment, whatever the persecution is for standing up for my beliefs, even if it means facing machine gun fire that day, I'll face it before denouncing Elijah Muhammad and the religion of Islam," Ali told college students. ("A/K/A Cassius Clay" documentary on Showtime)
The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld Ali's conviction on draft evasion, and he was facing five years in prison. Yet he did not back down. Howser's book shows that his determination drew the attention of Robert and Ted Kennedy, and helped to convince them of the errors of the US policy in Vietnam. (page 199)
Others felt differently. In March, 1971, Alabama Congressman George Andrews yelled to his fellows in the House of Representatives: "Where on earth is the Justice department in this country? Why on earth is not that man Cassius Clay in the penitentiary where he should be?" (Congressional Record; 3-30-71; p. 8630)
(5) "The Supreme Court ruled on his case in May 1971. It was now as much a conservative court -- based upon Nixon appointments -- as a liberal court. But it didn't matter. They all voted alike. By a count of eight to nothing the conviction was reversed. The court simply decided that Muhammad Ali was sincere in his religious convictions. .... And he had no bitterness. 'The people who were against me thought they were right'." (Cosell, pgs 234-5)
Ali's Supreme Court decision was not so simple as Cosell reported. Thurgood Marshall had recused himself. The first vote was 5 to 3 to uphold the conviction. A heated debate resulted in a change to 4 to 4, meaning Ali would still go to prison. Finally, Justice Potter Stewart came up with a compromise, based on the third of the three points needed to qualify a person for CO status. All 8 justices agreed Ali was sincere.
Today, when our nation listens to the heated debate about John Kerry's experience in Vietnam, where he was wounded in a war he was opposed to, and when we hear information on how George W. Bush avoided serving in the war he supported, it may be more important than ever for Americans to re-examine the case of Muhammad Ali.
Kerry went to Vietnam, and came home and expressed his opposition to an immoral war. Ali was a conscientious objector, who was attacked by his own government, and lost millions of dollars and three and a half years of his career, and risked going to federal prison for his beliefs. But George Bush, who "believed" in that war, risked nothing. George, tell us, why didn’t you take that step?
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