Berkeley, California - Final preparations are being made by the Vietnam Day Committee located here in Berkeley for the October 15-16 YInternational Days of Protest” serving as a focal point of a world-wide co-ordinated effort to protest the war in Vietnam. The VDC is an outgrowth of the massive Vietnam teach-in held on the University of California Berkeley campus May 21-22 which attracted some 20=30,000 people, Target centre of the October 15-16 protest here will be the Oakland Army base which is the main West Coast supplier to the American forces in Vietnam, Although the specific details of the protest action have not yet been ironed out, the VDC is planning a dramatic move that will culminate in a massive disobedience action centring on the Oakland Army base. This act will be preceded by a teach-in that will originate out of the Berkeley campus similar to last May's evente
In issuing its call the VDC urged organisations throughout the world to "move beyond single demonstrations and rallies to one massive internationally co-ordinated action," It addeds “American involvement in Vietnam transcends questions of politics, Indiscriminate bombings of peasant villages by the world's most massive military machine has outraged the conscience of the world, The time has come to go beyond debates about the politics of the war; it is time for the peoples of the world to say to the USA: STOP!" As the international headquarters and one of the 33 member groups of the National Committee to End the War in Vietnam which was founded August 7-9 in Washington D.C.e, the VDC has been among the most successful of the antiwar groups that have mushroomed across the country ~ particularly on campus. Last June it organised a demonstration in San Francisco when President Johnson addressed the UN on its 20th anniversary, More recently demonstrations have centred on military cargo being sent to Vietnam from West Coast loading ports an? also on troop train® destined for duty in Vietnam,
Of significance is the reaction the VDC has received many times from some of the troops aboard these trains who have welcomed the demonstrators and at great risk have displayed signs reading: "We're with you - Keep it up!" On August 25, General Maxwell Taylor, former ambassador to South Vietnam and a chief architect of the war, was singled out by the VDC when he appeared at the Hotel Fairmont,in San Francisco to deliver a talk before the Common= wealth Club, a wealth/businessmen's luncheon group. As he drove up to the hotel, Taylor's car was bes«i.ged by antiwar pickets. So nettlesome did the demonstrators prove to be that at one point they managed to block the elevator Taylor was on,thus delaying his arrival to his suite, Five members of the Committee were arrested,
vpdC is also participating in less heralded "grass roots" activities such as community projects designed to enlist students as well as non-students in a door-to-door campaign to encourage people to take a stand against the war in Vietnam. Of much talk lately is the ability of the VDC to mobilise large numbers of people at a moment's notice when learning of a particular troop train or of war matérial being loaded for Vietnam, A typical example of this occurred on September 5th when the VDC learned of a Mexican freighter, El Mexicano, which had docked in Oakland and whose crew, then engaged in a wage conflict, had refused to carry war supplies to Vietnam. The VDC quickly organised a sympathy demonstration at the Oakland waterfront within earshot of the crew, with 60 demonstrators picketing and shouting words of encourage-~ mente A member of the VDC toting a bull horn spoke in Spanish as a group of waving crewmen yelled back their approval,