Mr. CONLEY. The paragraph I have specific reference to, sir, is: The Pentagon seige can be treated as a tactical event to be analyzed and criticized as one possible model for future physical confrontations. This is a necessary process: there will be more occasions for physical confrontations and they ought to be much better planned than the Pentagon was. Can we do better at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago? What if we use snake dances? And

so on.

Now, in connection with the reference made, Mr. Dellinger, to the Pentagon demonstration, and still on this particular subject of the snake dances, I want to read to you and then ask you to examine, if you will, a document dated Washington, D.C., October 21. This was a document published in connection with the Pentagon demonstrations. It is captioned "Another demonstration":

Up until now the peace movement has been operating within the rules of the system, cooperating with establishment restrictions and predictable, controllable demonstrations, paying lip service to the myth that these mass protests will change U.S. policies.

The mounting frustration in the peace movement is caused not only by the fact that the war has not been stopped, but also by the growing identification with liberation struggles in the world today.

A radical new form of protest is needed as a next step in the U.S. peace movement. One example of this type of protest is the Snake Dance, used in Japan by the Zengakuren (student organization), which enables the protesters to take over the streets and control their own demonstration.

The Snake Dance is made up of successive rows of about fifteen people abreast, with arms linked. Once in action it weaves and sways, maintaining a running pace. It is an easily learned formation which is difficult to break up because of its speed and tightness, and because the Snake Dance can change direction spontaneously and immediately. It was this kind of demonstration which was used in preventing President Eisenhower from visiting Japan in 1960.

All independents and groups interested in a militant form of protest will gather at the Reflecting Pool, by the Lincoln Memorial, under the following symbol:

And there is a symbol which I take to be the snake.

Mr. Dellinger, reading from that particular release-I believe that was released by the Revolutionary Contingent based out of New York City, and it was released in connection with the October 21 demonstrations a year ago they make mention that this type of formation was used to prevent someone from coming somewhere. This does not appear to me, sir, to be a defensive tactic.

Mr. DELLINGER. First of all, there are a number of points I would like to make.

First of all, I consider it preposterous that a representative of the U.S. Government, which is wedded to violence and is imposing violence on people throughout the world, should be so morally offended by people who are trying to stop the war contemplating or using a method such as the snake dance, which apparently had the terrible effect when used by the Japanese, for whom obviously I take no responsibility, but of making President Eisenhower-if I remember correctly, it says it prevented him from visiting Japan, making him decide he would stay away.

I think it would be much better if the United States would stop interfering in the internal affairs of such nations. The poor Japanese people passed a constitution, actually encouraged by MacArthur, renouncing war, and ever since the U.S. has been involving them in the cold war and trying to remilitarize them.

Secondly, I am curious about how you know so well who put this out. I am only interested in making clear, first of all, it is unsigned, it is not a Mobilization document. I have never seen it before.

Mr. CONLEY. Sir, I have not attributed it to you.

Mr. DELLINGER. You have attributed it to somebody else.

Mr. CONLEY. I was very careful to keep it away from your organization; that is correct.

Mr. DELLINGER. It is up to you or them to protest or to inquire. Maybe they don't want to protest.

Since it is unsigned, I am curious about how you identified it with a particular group. But I am willing to pass over that.

Now I want to say further in this context, though, that the title of the Waskow article in which you have introduced the subject, if I remember correctly, "Gandhi and Guerrilla," and I myself believe that the traditional nonviolent movement has been much too passive and much too ineffective and I am not interested in the purity of the movement. I am interested in social effectiveness from back in World War II, when I had much more sympathy with the resistance movement of Europe in their fight against Hitler and Hitlerism than I did with the U.S. Government, which is distrusted and, I think, with reasons that have been proven somewhat accurate. But from those days I myself have always contemplated and tried in various ways to experiment with some kind of new development which might be a synthesis of Gandhi and guerrilla or synthesis of the partisan and resistance-type activity.

I think this is fascinating. I am quite willing to discuss my views, including things that are unclear to me. But I also would like to say it is a very strange concern of the U.S. Government to go into such detail over my views on these subjects. I am not sure what legislative purpose it has.

Mr. CONLEY. Mr. Dellinger, in this same connection, regardless of its purpose, and I now hand you what has previously been marked Exhibit 15 before this committee in connection with earlier testimony, which is a closeup of some of these people practicing the Japanese snake dance in the Lincoln Park, and I ask you, sir, if they are not holding some object, a group of them, across the front row there? Mr. DELLINGER. They seem to be grasping a pole.

Mr. CONLEY. Did you have occasion when you were watching them practicing the Japanese snake dance to see them holding onto a pole such as this?

Mr. DELLINGER. To the best of my memory, I didn't.

Mr. CONLEY. Did you at any time see any such poles with these groups?

Mr. DELLINGER. No. When I was in Lincoln Park there were a number of groups practicing in different places and practicing different methods. I, to the best of my knowledge, I never saw any physical objects such as poles being used. That is not to say there could not have been. What I am very clear about is that during the entire time of the protest and of convention week that I never saw any pole of that kind in anybody's hands.

Mr. CONLEY. Mr. Dellinger, if I may move you to something elseMr. ICHORD. At this point, Mr. Counsel, if you are moving to an

1 Previously marked "Grubisic Exhibit No. 15-B." See pt. 1, p. 2323, of Oct. 1, 1968. hearings.

other subject, it is now 7 minutes after 12. I think this would be a convenient place to declare an adjournment.

The Chair will declare that the committee is in adjournment until

1:30 p.m.

(Whereupon, at 12:07 p.m., Thursday, December 5, 1968, the subcommittee recessed, to reconvene at 1:30 p.m. the same day. Subcommittee members present at time of recess: Representatives Ichord and Watson.)

AFTERNOON SESSION-THURSDAY, DECEMBER 5, 1968

(The subcommittee reconvened at 1:45 p.m., Hon. Richard H. Ichord, chairman of the subcommittee, presiding,)

(Subcommittee members present: Representatives Ichord and Watson.)

Mr. ICHORD. The committee will come to order. Let there be order in the hearing room.

I mentioned yesterday, Mr. Dellinger, of the Chair's knowledge of the fact that you recently had an operation. How are you feeling today? Do you think we are going to be able to finish the hearings?

Mr. DELLINGER. Oh, yes. I feel better today than yesterday. I am sorry to be late getting back. My slowness had something to do with that. I do move slowly.

Mr. ICHORD. The examination of Mr. Dellinger will continue with the observation that the affirmation continues.

Proceed.

TESTIMONY OF DAVID DELLINGER

-Resumed

Mr. CONLEY. Mr. Dellinger, if I may, I would like to direct your attention to Havana, Cuba, this year. Did you have occasion in January of 1968 to attend the International Cultural Congress which was held in Havana, Cuba?

Mr. DELLINGER. Yes; I have made two trips to Havana, Cuba, this year. One of them was in January when I went-although I considered the State Department in violation of the Constitution, again I nonetheless asked and received State Department validation as a journalist. I only regret that a number of intellectuals, American intellectuals, who had also been invited were unable to attend because they were not full-time practicing journalists.

Mr. CONLEY. Mr. Dellinger, I detected that you indicated you had been in Cuba twice this year.

Mr. DELLINGER. Yes.

Mr. CONLEY. When was the other occasion you were in Cuba?
Mr. DELLINGER. I went to Havana on November 1st.

Mr. CONLEY. How long did you remain there at that time?

Mr. DELLINGER. I had my operation in Cuba and I have just returned.

Mr. CONLEY. Now in connection with your trip to Cuba of 1968, the first trip this year, while you were in Havana, did you have occasion to grant an interview to the Cuban newspaper El Mundo?

Mr. DELLINGER. Quite probably, yes. I remember speaking with a journalist who I think was identified as a freelance journalist, but who quite likely may have I never saw the interview, but quite likely

might have placed it in El Mundo since in Havana itself there are just two dailies.

Mr. CONLEY. If I may, I would like to read you some excerpts from a Havana radio broadcast of February 5, 1968, this radio broadcast dealing with your El Mundo interview. Understanding that these are not purporting to be your words-it is the radio station engaging in whatever editorializing they might do, I am sure if I may, I would like to read you some excerpts and then ask you some questions.

Mr. GUTMAN. Do you have a copy that you could put in front of us! Mr. ICHORD. Let the witness have a copy.

Mr. GUTMAN. Thank you.

Mr. CONLEY. Reading from the broadcast:

Among the guests at the Havana Cultural Congress, the North American David Dellinger represents the curious paradox of being a fighter for nonviolence who favors violence. Dellinger does not object to the just violence of the Cuban revolution against imperialism or the violence of the Vietnamese against the same evil; he reasons that "Vietnam and Cuba are very important for the development of a new movement in the United States which will gradually turn into an anti-imperialist movement."

Mr. Dellinger, is this substantially in accordance with what you told the reporter for El Mundo?

Mr. DELLINGER. Well, you can be sure that since probably between this date and January and now-well, I don't know, but I might even have had more than a hundred or several hundred press interviews or conversations of this kind. I cannot remember what I said to him. This was in the lobby of the Havana Libre Hotel, when I was on my way to somewhere else, and I spoke to him briefly.

However, I think I made very clear, to the best of my ability I have made clear in the last 2 days my attitude toward the relationship between violence and nonviolence. Although this is a very elliptical version and it goes on in very short order to combine two rather separate ideas, I certainly can see where he may have drawn this. And as you indicated it went all the way from the newspaper to Havana radio, so there were two stages or three stages involved.

I think, as I said earlier about the Baltimore Sun article, I would consider this an example of honest journalism. But I wouldn't want at this point to have those two sentences, particularly as juxtaposed, to be fully representative of my views.

Just to be perfectly clear, it goes on from the discussion of violence and nonviolence-I beg your pardon-no, it is two sentences. Anyway, it goes on from that to talk about the importance of Cuba and Vietnam to the development of new movements in the United States. These are separate ideas I hold. I favor nonviolence. I advocate nonviolence. I practice nonviolence, but I do not repudiate or oppose what I sometimes call the violence of the victims, which in this case includes Vietnam and Cuba, as well as the black people in this country.

Then, as a completely separate idea, I believe that the Cuban and Vietnamese movements for independence and to do away with really what amounts to the imperialist stranglehold on their country, control of their country by foreigners who build up the highest standard of living at home and promote illiteracy and lack of medicine and poverty in Vietnam and Cuba, that the struggle of these two peoples has certainly been an inspiration to me. And I think it has been a challenge to many Americans; it helps speed up the process of evaluation

that goes on in this country. However, I do not consider from my own point of view that the inspiration and the value is inevitably a product of the violence.

Mr. CONLEY. If I may move on to the third paragraph:

The pacifist David Dellinger understands that it is impossible to coexist with the great enemy, and he combats it. He has been to Cuba three times, first in 1960, then in 1964, and now for the Cultural Congress.

Do you recall whether you did or did not make that statement to the reporter for El Mundo?

Mr. DELLINGER. By the way, there is even the fourth stage of this meeting with the reporter in the lobby of the Havana Libre Hotel: in English, he to his newspaper; the newspaper to the radio; and the second stage of that from English to Spanish; and then finally back from Spanish to English. So I am quite prepared to talk about all of my views here, including my very vigorous and determined opposition to American imperialism, which he may be referring to as the enemy, but this is not a good way to find out my views.

Mr. ICHORD. May I inquire at this time, Mr. Dellinger, as to whether all of these interviews that you had in Cuba with Havana radio or representatives of Havana radio were in English?

Mr. DELLINGER. I was always speaking in English. The other interviews earlier were on the telephone, where I was one time in New York and one time in Chicago. In all the cases I spoke in English. Mr. ICHORD. Do you speak Spanish?

Mr. DELLINGER. Yes; my last, trip was a great asset that way. The last trip I was there, I spoke only Spanish and was interviewed in Spanish.

Mr. CONLEY. I think, Mr. Dellinger, this is the reason for our asking you specifically about these, to ask you whether they are a fair quote. If they are not, I think you should indicate they are not.

Mr. DELLINGER. As I said about the Baltimore Sun article, this gives me the general impression of being an honest journalistic attempt. I don't think it is completely accurate, as in a couple of points the Baltimore Sun article was not. I think I indicated why, because it went through four processes, including condensation. It does not mean a lot to me, this particular sentence you quoted. I would be very happy to discuss who I think the great enemy is, although I think there are many enemies. It is hardly a way of discovering my views.

Mr. CONLEY. All right, sir, if I may ask you what the great enemy is, as the interpretation you would put on those words.

Mr. DELLINGER. I cannot, out of context here, know for sure whom they were referring to. I would be happy to tell you who I think the enemies of the American people are, the enemies of world peace. They range all the way from the military-industrial complex to the system in which property is considered to be of more value than human beings, in which people are encouraged to work for private profit instead of for social well-being and the good of the community.

I also consider any reliance on violence, even by people I associate with and am willing to work with in certain ways, I consider this reliance on violence to be an enemy and I try to work away from this as much as I can.

Mr. CONLEY. Mr. Dellinger, a moment ago I think you used as an illustration of a great enemy, and I thought perhaps this is what