War resistance then

There is no draft today and it really doesn't need to be a talking point in terms of today's war resisters. It is a subject of an advertisement taken out in The National Guardian in the spring of 1967 and we are sharing that advertisement here. We do so not to trip back into nostalgia or to have Tom Hayden tell us more 'horror stories' of how 'invasive' his draft physical was. We do it because you need to grasp what the peace movement was already doing in 1967 (approximately eight years before the US finally left Vietnam) to grasp what is and is not being done today. The ad was taken out by The Vancouver Committee to Aid American War Objectors.



AID DRAFT RESISTANCE

During the past two years several thousand Americans have evaded the draft by coming to Canada. Many more who would have evaded the draft in this way are now in the army because they didn't have accurate information about how to get legal status in Canada. Anti-war groups in the U.S. have up to now done very little to distribute information about immigration to Canada. We find that deplorable because:



1. Those who oppose this war should not only be trying to change the policies of the American government, but should also do whatever possible to obstruct the prosecution of the war. We hold that large-scale draft evasion is at least a minor obstruction.



2. Anti-war groups have a special responsibility to young men whom they have convinced that the war in Vietnam is unjust. While we encourage and expect these young men to refuse military service, we must at the same time assist by providing them with information on all ways of avoiding induction into the army. Every act of non-compliance with the military should be welcomed as an obstruction of the war effort. . . .



Anyone consider emigration or renunciation of American citizenship should have up-to-date information and advice appropriate to his own situation. Countries which have similar laws return lawbreakers to the authorities for punishment. Canada does not have a draft and American draft offenses are no bar to Canadian citizenship. However, in most cases men who flee the draft can never expect to return to the United States without facing immediate induction or prosecution.



This was an advertisement, a public service announcement and we're not concerned about "fair use" since the point of the ad was to get the word out. The point of including it is to give you a gauge by which to start judging today's movement (or, too often, 'movement'). We searched to see if it was available online (our copy comes from C.I.'s journals in real-time and the penciled date looks like "April" something). We don't find it. It should be available online. You can find a pamphlet from The Vancouver Committee to Aid American War Objectors here. Though Toronto usually gets the lion share of attention in look-backs today, Vancouver was very active and also included The American Deserters Committee in Vancouver.