Echoes of 1968 Fire Sparked Push to End Vietnam War

[DogPoundPup]

On May 17, 1968, a quiet suburb of Baltimore became the flashpoint of the movement to end the Vietnam War.

Nine members of the Roman Catholic Church broke into a Selective Service office in Catonsville, Md., and stole hundreds of files containing the draft records of young American men about to be sent to Vietnam. Using homemade napalm, the group — which became known as the "Catonsville Nine" — set the papers on fire.

Later that year, they would be tried and convicted of destroying U.S. property, destroying Selective Service files and interfering with the Selective Service Act of 1967. But their trial made Catonsville a focal point of anti-war rebellion.

The Catonsville action was organized by the now-deceased Father Philip Berrigan, who earlier that year had joined three other people in pouring their blood on another set of draft files.

Other members of the group included Mary Moylan, George Mische, Tom Melville, Marjorie Melville, John Hogan, David Darst and Tom Lewis. Father Daniel Berrigan — the ninth member — was recruited by his brother, Philip, to take part in the action, which began when they infiltrated the Selective Service offices on Frederick Road.

"We had been briefed as to the location: second-floor office. Two of the women of our group engaged the women in the office in conversation as the rest of us went for the files," Berrigan says.

The activists, however, met with some resistance, and a Selective Service clerk, Mary Murphy, had to be physically restrained.

"We took the A-1 files, which of course were the most endangered of those being shipped off," Berrigan says. "And we got about 150 of those in our arms and went down the staircase to the parking lot. And they burned very smartly, having been doused in this horrible material. And it was all over in 10 or 15 minutes. The police had been summoned, and we were found in a circle around the fire."

Dean Pappas, a longtime political activist from Baltimore, helped the Catonsville Nine make the napalm from soap chips and gasoline.

"For us in the anti-war movement in 1968, the Catonsville Nine action had a tremendous catalytic effect," Pappas says.

He credits the Catonsville affair with dramatically increasing the level of activity and interest among anti-war protesters.
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=90433944&ft=1&f=1012

[postulater]

1. Volunteers of America! Tear Down the Wall, M@#@#@#@#@!