An Attempt to Subvert the US Military, December 1966

A further document relating to the history of Aberdeen YCND (mid-1960s vintage) has come to light in the form of the leaflet transcribed here. Current world events suggest that, although the base at Edzell is no more, some at least of the leaflet's content may be only too relevant today. 

TO U.S. PERSONNEL (EDZELL)

This weekend while we are fasting in protest against your Government’s policy in Vietnam, and while you are celebrating Christmas with your families, there is occurring a truce of two days duration in that war-torn country. After the truce is over the war will be resumed with ever greater ferocity. More civilians will be accidentally killed by American troops, more members of the N.L.F. have their flesh seared by Napalm and their crops poisoned by the chemicals which are in daily use in Vietnam.

All over the world people are crying out in protest against the crimes being perpetrated in Vietnam by the American Government, in the names of freedom and humanity. We have come here to add our voices to this protest. To appeal not to those of you who are so blind and so unassailable in your bigotry, so hate-filled that you would gladly kill us as well as slaughter the Vietnamese, but to those of you who have misgivings about the war. The war being waged in your name, the war that is CRUEL, ILLEGAL and IMMORAL.

There are many amongst you who see through the lies put out by your Government, who know that the people of South Vietnam are not heroically resisting Communist aggression but are fighting a foreign invader from 5,000 miles across the sea. Who would agree with former President Eisenhower when he said, “I have never talked or corresponded with a person knowledgeable in Indo-Chinese affairs who didn’t agree that had elections been held as of the time of the fighting, possible 80% OF THE POPULATION WOULD HAVE VOTED FOR THE COMMUNIST HO CHI MINH” (White House Years, 1953-6, p.372). But who do not draw his conclusions, namely that they should not be allowed to take such a course as it would prejudice America’s access to supplies of certain minerals and raw materials in South East Asia. The Vietnamese are suffering not because they are being invaded by Communists, but because of the GREED of certain sections of American society, who are finding war “GOOD BUSINESS”. But war is not good business for the young Americans who through their daily contact with the horror that is Vietnam lose all regard and respect for human life. They are becoming hardened to cutting people down like cloth dummies as they flee, frantic, helpless. ALREADY VIETNAM IS A SCAR ON THE AMERICAN CONSCIENCE THAT CAN NEVER HEAL.

During the days we are here you will see us fasting. Many of you will manage to shrug your shoulders and call us commies but others will know this is not so, you will be unable to ignore us and disregard our leaflets.

We in Britain can only do two things. The first is to stop our Government supporting America in Vietnam. This is difficult because, as Dean Rusk puts it, “AMERICA SUPPORTS THE POUND AND BRITAIN SUPPORTS THE AMERICANS IN VIETNAM”. The second thing we can do, and what we have in fact come here to do is to ask you to DISENGAGE YOURSELF FROM THE AMERICAN MILITARY MACHINE of which you are a part, TO PUT ASIDE ALL CONSIDERATIONS OF JOB AND FAMILY – TO DESERT.

This is a difficult step to take, requiring courage, but as the great Pacifist thinker Tolstoy said, “Not billions of roubles, not millions of soldiers, no institutions or wars have so much power as the simple declaration of a free man that he considers something to be  right or wrong.” WE ASK YOU TO MAKE THIS DECLARATION.

The war continues, the war ESCALATES, WE GIVE YOU A WARNING. This conflict will lead to World War III unless stopped soon. In this you and your families will CERTAINLY DIE, and the attack which Edzell base will draw upon itself will kill by fire and fallout a large number of the population in Dundee and Aberdeen. By leaving the American forces you would be helping in some measure to avert this terrible prospect and also to bring about a lasting peace in VIETNAM.

CHRISTMAS 1966

THIS FAST IS SUPPORTED BY THE FOLLOWING ORGANISATIONS –

[All supplied with Aberdeen addresses]

YOUTH FOR PEACE IN VIETNAM

Y.C.N.D.

COMMITTEE OF 100

“MEGATON” GROUP

Further information:-

http://www.ivycom.com/edzell/site/ - for background on the base.

https://lenathehyena.wordpress.com/2011/10/25/scotlands-radical-youth-1960s-scotland-ban-the-bomb-and-anti-vietnam-movement-in-aberdeen/ - background on the protestors.

Captured American tank on display to tourists in Vietnam, summer 2017

The Lighter Side of Protest

Invited c.2010 to supply anecdotes about the 1960s, a former member of Aberdeen YCND came up with the short compilation of memories below. 

Individuals’ names have been replaced by YC1, YC2 etc. (for Young Comrade/ Young Campaigner).

Sometimes you just had to be there...

  

Singing on the bus going to a demo, to tune of ‘We Shall Overcome’: ‘Aibirdeen for the Cup – some day...’

YC1 selling anarchist newspaper, singing sotto voce ‘Oh Freedom over me..’ and adding ‘It was raining at the time...’

YC1 going in to Lodge Walk [police station] to be questioned by local CID about some incident: ‘If I’m not out in an hour, call the police.’

YC2 used to denounce British subservience to US policy, saying ‘’We are tied by the balls to America’. Once he was giving the  same speech to the Student Christian Movement at a joint meeting with Students’ CND and caught himself in mid-flow: ‘’We are tied to America by the -- strings of finance!’

A custom arose for a few people to stay over at a comrade’s house at the weekend when his mother was out. One week YC3 was stopped on the way by police and had to empty his pockets, which contained a toothbrush among other things.  ‘I always carry a toothbrush on Fridays,’ he explained (pause, dead-pan) ‘ - Religion.’

Sometimes irrelevant or absurd slogans were frivolously added to the serious ones in the interests of general confusion, such as ‘Restore the Stuart Monarchy’ among the anti-war messages, or SEX alongside SAW (Scots against War) – later rationalised for public consumption as Society for the Extermination of Xenophobia.

Student on a grant, faced with a fine to pay: ‘The state giveth and the state taketh away...’

The Press and Journal (or was it the Evening Express) did a write-up on YCND and the anarchist connection, which YC4 read out with great gusto substituting ‘Aibirdeen’s ‘YC5 and YC3’’ as the subject, in extracts like (adapting a quote from police)  ‘We are interested in all YC5 and YC3’s nocturnal activities...’

Flower power had a certain appeal c1967; there was even an attempt or two to put it into practice by presenting the forces of law and order with assorted specimens (‘Hae a floo’er’), possibly with the dubious (from a peace-and-love point of view) motive of annoying them more than anything.

The fashion for eastern mysticism had some echoes too, notably on a demonstration advertised as ‘Coulport-Come-All-Ye’ (1967? [1966]) which ended up with some desultory chanting of ‘mantras’ after a lot of fairly pointless wandering about the countryside. This episode was satirised in ‘Megaton: the [short-lived]’magazine of Aberdeen YCND’ under the heading ‘Om Sweet Om, or Coulport-Where-Were-Ye’… ’

We (YCND and anarchists) used to meet in the Trades Halls, Adelphi, off Union Street on a Sunday afternoon. One week a couple of lecturers from the university came along, apparently out of curiosity. They were surprised to find how youthful the gathering was, and one of them, a psychologist, offered us  [the anarchists] his cellar as an alternative meeting place (perhaps he wanted to observe us). We tried it but it didn’t really suit, although our standards weren’t high. At one point someone was investigating one of the holes in a wall, and someone else yelled ‘Dinna dae that, it’ll be all full of rats and mingin mice!’

YC5 wending his way homewards after a convivial evening in a student residence, flourishing a stick: ‘Death to lamp-posts!’ ‘Death to Corporation things on wheels!’

YC5 trying to persuade YC4, who was still adhering to the SLL [Socialist Labour League] at the time, to come along to a folk-song event: ‘We’ll sing “Trotsky was a good lad”!’

On the plinth

King Edward’s statue in Union Street was a favourite point for (small) demonstrations and vigils. YCND held a fund-raising fast there for War on Want over Christmas 1965. We wanted to pitch some sort of tent but this wasn’t allowed because it was ‘against the bye-laws to have an erection in the vicinity of King Edward’s statue.’ Later it was the scene of some puir daft Goons-meet-Situationist would-be ‘happenings’… 

YCND: When it was all kicking off in Aberdeen

(Extracts edited and expanded - it was a minimalist sort of diary - from diary entries by a 17-year-old first-year student at Aberdeen University in the mid 1960s)

CND-related Diary 1964-65: From a small student society to an active group in the town 

            Year                 Date                 Event/Note

"One should always have
something sensational to read..."

October    1964             Wed. 14th         CND Hop

November 1964             Fr. 2nd              Lumpentrot (Marxist Soc. hop)

November 1964             Thu. 19th           CND Meeting

November 1964             Mon. 30th         Anti-Apartheid Meeting 7.30

Feb.     1965                 Th. 4th              CND Meeting

March   1965                 Fr. 5th               Meeting that wasn't; leaflets; Vietnam; Apartheid debate

March   1965                 Sat. 6th             Vigil 3.30 - 5

April     1965                 Fr. 16th             CND bus from Aberdeen to start of Easter March

April     1965                 Sat.16th            Easter March: High Wycombe - Uxbridge, 19mls.

April     1965                 Sun.17th           Easter March: Uxbridge - Wembley - Ealing Common, 14mls.

April     1965                 Mon.17th           Easter March: Hammersmith - Hyde Pk. - Trafalgar Sq.

May      1965                 Sun. 2nd           May Day March, 2.30; CP: "A merry May Day, comrades."

May      1965                 Tue. 4th            Meeting of Students' CND with Students' Christian Movement

May      1965                 Sun. 9th            Afternoon with YS comrades

May      1965                 Mon. 10th          Press & Journal re. Cowdray Hall heckle & walk-out

May      1965                 Fr. 14th             "Helping the police with their enquiries." 

May      1965                 Tue. 18th           CND AGM

May      1965                 Thu. 20th           Leaflets. Oxford Union debate, majority of 27

May      1965                 Fr. 21st             Vietnam meeting 7.30

June     1965                 Sun. 6th 2.30     YCND in Trades Halls, Adelphi; folk-club; visitor from C100

June     1965                 Sun. 13th 2.30   YCND; folk-club, Martin Carthy

June     1965                 Mon. 14th         YCND bods in Falkland (Cafe) - also later mentions

June     1965                 Wed. 16th         mini-van; "working for the party in darkest Mastrick"

June     1965                 Sun. 20th          YCND, Civil Defence sub.cmte; folk-club

June     1965                 Mon. 21st         YCND at St. Mary's Youth Club

June     1965                 Wed.. 23rd        "St. Mary's Folk Song Clique"

June     1965                 (Fr.) 25th           Dundee stopover on way to Glasgow

June     1965                 Sat. 26th           FASLANE; Demonstrators fined at Dumbarton, 

Aberdeen student at Faslane in June 1965
(not the writer of this diary or blog)

June     1965                 30th                  Lobby of Parliament re. Vietnam

August  1965                 3rd                   Court cases in Dumbarton

August  1965                 6th                    HIROSHIMA 20th anniversary

August  1965                 Sun. 8th            "RSG"

August  1965                 Mon. 30th         Freedom: Scots Against War again

September 1965             Sat. 11th           PORTON; London

September 1965             Sun. 12th          London: Hyde Park; CUCaND* meeting, Housmans (Tariq Ali)

September 1965             Thu. 16th           London: Freedom Press

October    1965                 Fri. 1st              YCND, Falkland

October    1965                 Sat. 2nd            Students' Societies Morning. "Reception for Wilson at Dyce"

October    1965                 Tue. 12th           CND meeting

October    1965                 Fr. 22nd            Lumpentrot (Marxist Soc. hop)

*CUCaND = Colleges and Universities Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament

Looking back 45 years later, the diarist as above recalled "the mid-sixties Aberdeen YCND, a phenomenon worthy of being written up in its own right":
"Attracting 70 or 80 to meetings at its height, its activities included white-washing slogans on the streets, a money-raising fast for War on Want, raids on the nearest Civil Defence centre, leafleting at Edzell USAF base, a protest fast at Rosyth naval dockyard, producing 2 or 3 issues [more, actually] of a magazine, Megaton, and, for some of us, supporting local busmen and paperworkers' struggles and trying to sell Solidarity round high-rise council flats - not to mention organising sundry demos, late licences, folk-song sessions and weekends in the hills." 

For more on the group and what happened next see: 
https://lenathehyena.wordpress.com/tag/aberdeen-ycnd/

(includes another diary from 1965, by a 15-year-old schoolgirl)

           

           

            

Far-off Things and Demos Long Ago

Om Sweet Om

or, Coulport-where-were-ye?

            In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was OM...

            (On Sunday September 25th an omming raid was carried out by members of Scottish Y.C.N.D. at Glen Douglas. A spokesman for the Ministry of Defence said later that a move was afoot to fit anti-om devices at all military installations. A spokesman for the demonstrators, when asked to comment, said "OM".)

            And so it came to pass in the days of the prophet ERB that he led his disciples into an high mountain. And when they were come unto the place, there were certain of the disciples, filled with wrathful ire against the powers of darkness, who commenced to chant and shout with a loud voice. Polaris Out, they said, and Yanks Go Home; and the American guards and British policemen and Special Branch men and dogs and sheep wondered greatly. But the prophet was displeased with those who chanted, and concerned lest the polis and SB and guards and dogs and sheep might be affrighted by the fearsome sound. So he spake unto them saying, Nay, brethren, cease from your shouting, and let us instead intone the mantra OM, to soothe the savage breast and impress all who hear us with its profound significance.

            So they all intoned "OM" and "O MANE PAD ME OM", and it was all so profound and significant that they themselves did not comprehend the profundity and significance of it all. But the prophet TIM was greatly cheered up, and led his band of pilgrims down out of the mountain.

            A policeman was heard to remark, "Scram, SCRAM". And all the guards and security-men and dogs and sheep were not affrighted, but shook their heads at the strange events, and laughed with much hilarity saying, "What a bunch of idiots; we must be on the right side, verily." And the prophet and his followers returned to the Aberdeen bus, and went home, pleased with their new weapon.

SMOTH

Megaton, the magazine of Aberdeen YCND, vol.1, no.4, December 1966; p.10

Notes: 

• The demonstration was advertised as "Coulport Come All Ye!"
• SCRAM = Scottish Campaign for Resistance Against Militarism (a nebulous, possibly non-existent organisation). There may be some continuity with the later Scottish Campaign to Resist the Atomic Menace.
• Incipient "flower power", hippiedom and dabblings in eastern mysticism were (temporarily) in the ascendant among the youth around this time.
• The text has been tweaked slightly in the interests (mostly) of clarification.
• Initials ascribed to the "prophet" have been changed in the interests of obfuscation. No allusion to anyone called Herbert is intended.
• Images of several issues of "Megaton" can be found elsewhere on line.

The “Smoth” name came in this instance from a newspaper misprint, “The woman, Smoth…”, which was happily adopted. [Extra note for fans of radio comedy (you know who you are): This considerably predates The Burkiss Way.]

Demonstrations, many no doubt more effective, continued to be organised at the site.  

 "Coulport is a Royal Naval Armament Depot and is situated seven miles from Faslane Naval Base, which is home to the UK's Trident nuclear weapons system.

Both bases have been subject to regular anti-nuclear protests." - BBC, July 2006

Aberdeen YCND "Happening"
at King Edward's Statue, Union St.