The Militant(logo) 
    Vol.61/No.1           January 6, 1997 
 
 
25 & 50 Years Ago  
January 7, 1972
Washington's savage intensification of the air attack on the people of Indochina with five days of massive, continuous bombing raids on the Democratic Republic of Vietnam during the holiday period of Christmas and New Year provoked an immediate and angry response from antiwar forces in the U.S.

Hastily called actions were held in New York, Washington, D.C., and a number of other cities. In a dramatic gesture aimed at focusing publicity on the renewed bombing, 15 members of Vietnam Veterans Against the War seized and occupied the Statue of Liberty in New York harbor for a day and a half from late December 26 until early December 28.

One hundred pickets marched in the rain for an hour at noon in Times Square in New York December 30. An antiwar vigil was held in New Haven, Connecticut, the same day by about 100 people.

The following day, December 31, was marked by actions in both New York and Philadelphia. When William P. Bundy, a top architect of U.S. aggression in Southeast Asia, tried to address a session of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, in Philadelphia, he was confronted by about two dozen antiwar members of a group called Science for People. They refused to let him speak until he answered a series of questions about his views on the war. Bundy and another speaker were escorted from the meeting by cops.

January 4, 1947
GERMANY, December - In recent months there have been at least three important strikes by workers in the U.S. occupation zone of Germany.

In Stuttgart, the acquittal of von Papen, Schacht, and Fritsche, followed by the attempted bombings of several De- Nazification Commission buildings by underground Nazis, led to a general protest strike last October.

In Mannheim 2,000 workers employed in the shipyards struck in a solid body for the reduction of their working hours from 48 to 45 per week. The union leaders were opposed to the strike and tried to prevent it.

The workers demand for a reduced work week was finally won when the German administration of the yards upon the instruction of the occupation authorities yielded to the workers.

The workers wanted their hours reduced in this way so that they could have the whole day off on Saturday for the purpose of foraging in the countryside for extra food to supplement their slim rations. There has been no Saturday work since the strike, and an attempt of the management to cut rations was quickly withdrawn upon the threat of another strike with the U.S. authorities intervening to prevent the attempt from going through.  
 
 
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