‘60s Political Activists Change Their Stance for the Gulf War : Protest: UC Berkeley was the unofficial anti-war capital during Vietnam. But many of the student leaders of that era are reluctant hawks today.

BERKELEY —  In the 1960s, Steven Smale was one of the leading anti-war radicals at UC Berkeley. He worked with Jerry Rubin to organize the first large anti-war teach-in, known as Vietnam Day. Later, he participated in a host of other peace demonstrations.

But today Smale--like many other ‘60s activists--said he “feels differently” about the largest commitment of American troops to battle since Vietnam. He expresses “qualified support” for the U.S. war effort against Iraq and is critical of today’s peace demonstrators.

“The Iraqi move into Kuwait is the most blatant militarism since World War II, and the anti-war movement doesn’t acknowledge that,” said Smale, a UC Berkeley mathematics professor.

“I don’t agree with the goal of trying to bring our boys home now,” he added. “We’ve got to keep them there because Iraq would take over Saudi Arabia. Bringing them home would give a victory to (Iraqi President Saddam) Hussein, which would be terrible. It would be like acceding to Hitler.”

Smale’s transformation from dove to reluctant hawk is indicative of the journey made by many other peace movement leaders from the 1960s. Many of the men and women who led the effort to end the Vietnam War have expressed varying degrees of support for today’s war effort.

The change is especially significant in Berkeley, the unofficial protest capital of the ‘60s. Many veteran activists, now professors or community leaders, are setting a different tone today than they did 25 years ago, when they spearheaded the protest movement.

The result is clear to see:

“The attempt to galvanize an anti-war movement on the Berkeley campus--one that would disrupt the university like the anti-Vietnam movement--has been a total disaster so far,” said John Searle, a philosophy professor who was one of the early leaders of the Free Speech Movement in 1964.

Indeed, although campus activists staged a few protests in early January, the events were not well-attended. Since then, the campus has been completely quiet, with no major demonstrations in more than three weeks.

That is not expected to change today, when students at UC Berkeley and more than 180 other campuses around the nation are scheduled to take part in a day of anti-war rallies and teach-ins. Disorganization among campus organizers will probably limit the turnout at a noontime peace rally and educational forum, according to rally planner Heather Randle.

Some observers attribute the relative lack of protests in Berkeley, in part, to the fact that the budding peace movement has been denied the organizing talents and energy of many ‘60s activists. Many of the veteran protesters, unsure of which side to take, are sitting this war out.

“Many people find this a complex situation. We don’t view it in simple terms,” said Charles L. Schwartz, a radical from the ‘60s who now teaches physics at UC Berkeley.

Schwartz said he backed the imposition of sanctions on Iraq and is “quite sympathetic” to the U.S.-orchestrated campaign to force Hussein out of Kuwait. “I thought this was an example of an occasion where force might be effective.”

But now, Schwartz said, he fears that Iraq is becoming another “killing field”--just like Cambodia in the 1970s. “All my old feelings are coming back about the general lack of intelligence and humanity in this country, and the insanity of war,” he said.

The shifting attitudes among men and women who once carried banners and clashed with police to demonstrate their opposition to war reflects changes in the ‘60s generation and in America. Many of today’s “fortysomethings” say they are not as radical, nor as idealistic, as they once were. They have gotten more mellow with age, less ready to demonstrate, more willing to support U.S. foreign policy.

But it is hard to shed the views formed in one’s youth. Even if this war is more popular than Vietnam, even if the stakes are more clear-cut, many aging activists find it difficult to offer unqualified support for President Bush’s policies.

“I’m conflicted,” admitted Michael Lerner, who once led UC Berkeley’s chapter of the radical Students for a Democratic Society. “On the one hand, I feel it would be mistake for the U.S. to fight a ground war. On the other hand, it’s not like the ‘60s: Saddam is an evil force that needs to be stopped. He’s a vicious mass murderer.”

Lerner, who now edits Tikkun, an Oakland-based liberal Jewish magazine, takes a middle ground. He condemns Bush for being too willing to go to war and the organized peace movement for being too quick to oppose U.S. action.

Lerner said his views are representative of the many former activists he has spoken with in recent weeks. “There is a very widespread, shared feeling among us that the anti-war movement is off in a fundamental way,” he said. “But we still have sympathy with the anti-war outlook. Many of us are conflicted.”

To be sure, there are plenty of ‘60s activists whose willingness to protest has not been extinguished. One of those is Joe Neilands, a UC Berkeley microbiologist who traveled to North Vietnam in 1967 to investigate alleged American “war crimes.”

“I feel much the same way” about the Gulf War as about Vietnam, Neilands said. “I don’t condone the annexation of Kuwait by Iraq, but it’s not a reason for us to perpetrate civilian deaths by bombing.”

Neilands has been active in anti-war protests on the Berkeley campus. Just after the fighting started, he organized a Faculty Peace Committee and an anti-war teach-in. But in a sign of the times, the teach-in failed to disrupt campus life, and the peace committee has drawn only about 200 members out of about 1,300 university faculty.

“There are very few people on the faculty who are truly committed to the anti-war cause,” said Neil Smelser, a Berkeley sociologist. “It’s very, very discouraging for them. They’re frustrated because they can’t get any support.”

Smelser attributed the lack of protests, in part, to the fact that many ‘60s-era demonstrators are Jewish.

“This war is extremely confusing for Jews,” Smelser said. “To be anti-war suggests you’re anti-Israel. This contributes to the paralysis of the peace movement. The anti-war spirit may not have disappeared, but it’s paralyzed.”

Whatever the cause, the lack of protests indicates that UC Berkeley is slowly shedding its anti-Establishment image. Searle, for one, welcomes the change. Having taken part in many ‘60s protests, the philosopher reflects that today’s more sedate atmosphere indicates that old-time protesters are becoming more mainstream.