Lawrence Roberts, Author of Mayday 1971, Sheds Light on the Biggest Day of Mass Arrests in U.S. History

"The pure and simple truth is rarely pure and never simple."
--Oscar Wilde

Author/Journalist Lawrence Roberts

Over the past few years I've attempted write about some of the experiences of my youth in an effort to perhaps gain deeper insights to what I saw and felt and thought, and how it may have shaped me. One of these was my experience of hitchhiking to Washington DC to be part of a major antiwar rally. What prompted me to write my story was Ken Burns' 10 part series on the Vietnam War. I believe it was part seven that covered the events of Mayday 1971. Watching this led me to write a blog post titled Mayday 1971: Correcting the Narrative in the spring of 2019. 

As it turns out several people who had been there for the Mayday rally left comments, and this past fall one of them informed me that a book had been written about the events preceding and surrounding protest. The book is titled Mayday 1971.

After acquiring a copy for myself I reached out to see if I could interview the author, who has clearly taken great pains to assemble and organize all this information so we have a better understanding of what happened and why. 

Lawrence Roberts has been an investigative editor with ProPublica, the Washington Post, Bloomberg News and a leader on teams honored with three Pulitzer Prizes. Mayday 1971 is his first book.

EN: A very big thank you for the work you've done here, Larry, and your efforts to give us an understanding from all angles. Where were you during the Mayday 1971 protests?

Lawrence Roberts: I came to D.C. with a group of friends to participate in the demonstrations. We drove down in a VW microbus from northern New Hampshire, where I was a sophomore at an experimental school called Franconia College.

 

EN: Did you participate in the non-violent protest training on Sunday May 2? What thoughts were you having then?

LR: I wasn’t there for the training because I didn’t camp at the West Potomac Park site. I was staying with friends at George Washington University.

 

EN: What bridge or intersection had you been assigned to block?

LR: My affinity group went to a traffic circle near Georgetown.

 

EN: Were you surprised by how quickly this event seemed forgotten in the shadow of Watergate and the Pentagon Papers?

LR: Yes, I was amazed that the biggest season of dissent in Washington history, followed by the biggest mass arrest in American history, all taking place under a president who would eventually resign in disgrace, had faded from collective memory. Like many people who had been there, I would get quizzical looks for years when I told people what happened. They’d never heard of the events and weren’t quite sure they believed me.

EN: What were the biggest insights you gained from researching and assembling this book?

LR: The Vietnam antiwar movement didn’t realize at the time what a profound effect it was having inside the White House. It’s an example of how sustained and organized nonviolent dissent can influence public policy. I also found it illuminating to retrace how people on all sides of the Mayday protests confronted that extraordinary historical moment. Some people stuck by their principles, while others, for all kinds of human reasons, were slippin' into darkness, as a popular song of the time said.

EN: What were the biggest challenges?

LR: Finding out who exactly ordered the mass arrests. Investigating who dynamited the U.S. Capitol in March 1971, and if the bombers had help.

 

EN: How did this experience color your understanding of the current protest movements on the right and the left?

 

LR: It’s striking to me that a half century ago, thousands of people who came to D.C. to protest nonviolently  against the policies of an authoritarian president were greeted by more than 15,000 police, National Guard, soldiers and marines, and mass detention camps, while this month, thousands of people who came to violently support an authoritarian president found only a handful of Capitol police in their way.

 

You might think that these events were like apples and oranges because they are separated by fifty years. But when you look at the Trump administration’s militarized overreaction to the 2020 protests by Black Lives Matter in D.C. and Portland, and elsewhere, you can see that the powers that be still tend to overestimate the threat of disorder from demonstrators on the Left, and underestimate the threat from the Right.

 

Although the Mayday Tribe’s motto was “If the government won’t stop the war, we’ll stop the government,” the 12,000 protesters only ever wanted was to stop traffic in the capital. They had no intention of trying to overthrow Congress or override the Constitution, as the pro-Trump mob tried to do.

 

EN: Your book includes a lot of interviews with people who were involved in Mayday. Have you heard from others since it was published?

LR: Yes! I've been collecting some fascinating individual stories about those days from protesters, police, federal agents. They're available at www.lawrenceproberts.com/were-you-there

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Photos

Middle: Antiwar groups targeting the Selective Service, which conducted the draft. (AP/Charles Harrity)

Below: Troops from the 82nd Airborne being flown in to land on the National Mall (Washington Star photo/Pete Copeland)

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"History doesn't repeat itself, but it echoes."--Mark Twain 

Related Links

Lawrence Roberts' Mayday 1971 Takes Readers Behind the Scenes at the Biggest Mass Arrest in U.S. History

New book: www.lawrenceproberts.com

Twitter: @robertslawrence 

Lawrence Roberts' Mayday 1971 Takes Readers Behind the Scenes at the Biggest Mass Arrest in U.S. History

How much do we really comprehend of what we experience in our lives? How much do we understand the forces at work that are forming our attitudes, provoking our actions, influencing our decisions?  

I don't know how many people attended the Mayday rally of 1971 on the National Mall in which perhaps a couple hundred thousand people gathered to show their solidarity against the war. What I do know is that there was so much more going on than I was aware of, even though I was in the middle of it. How much more? That is where Lawrence Roberts' book, Mayday 1971,  comes in, to shed light on this tumultuous period of history, and especially the events surrounding the first days of May 1971. 

The full title of Roberts' book is Mayday 1971: A White House at War, a Revolt in the Streets, and the Untold History of America’s Biggest Mass Arrest.

I'm certain that many--if not most--of the young people like myself who travelled to Washington for that weekend demonstration were unaware of all the variables that were at play. Nor were we aware of the amount of tension in high places that preceded our arrival. There's a sense, though, in which I did comprehend that something big was happening, because as I hitchhiked from Ohio to DC I readily got rides the entire way by curious people who wanted to know more about it or wanted to show support. It was almost as if, to some of these people, I were a hero for going.

It wasn't until I read this book that I realized why they were so interested. I mean, I was a college student inside my campus bubble. I did not watch TV or read newspapers. We didn't have Internet. Therefore, I did not know that just weeks before someone blew up a bomb inside the Capitol. Nor did I now about the Vietnam Veterans who marched to the Capitol and threw away their medals, John Kerry being one of their spokespersons. Nor did I know that the Mayday Tribe and others had been planning this weekend's orchestrated events for more than two years. Nor did we know how much Richard Nixon and his top officials had also been actively coordinating a counter-response. 

IF YOU WERE THERE you probably wondered why so little was written about this afterwards. It seemed incomprehensible to me that more than 10,000 people could be arrested in this country (7,000 the first day) and hardly anyone even remembers it. If you were there, then you really must read this book.

Each person who had been part of it--whether police, National Guard, students, demonstrators--knows their own story. Roberts' book provides a line of sight to the activities of that week from multiple angles, including the chief of police who had to balance conflicting agendas, and the justice system that Nixon strove to hamstring.   

How ironic that the same issues we dealt with then have re-emerged in this most recent year. What are the limits of peaceful assembly? What is due process when it comes to the collision of ideals and the need for preserve law and order? What is the legitimate and illegitimate use of force? 

There have been some significant contrasts between last year's protests and Mayday 1971. The book cites a few broken windows but there was no looting, no burning of buildings and, to my knowledge, no shootings. 

A similarity, though, is this. When I hitch-hiked back to Ohio U from DC, I was picked up by two students from Antioch and an older guy who said their whole purpose in attending was not to peacefully protest, but to "get pigs." Out of the tens of thousands, I am certain they were not the only persons there who were so inclined to use the opportunity to do violence.

Ever since then, as I observed protests on television and the Internet over the years, I was always aware that there are bad actors mixed in with the masses, and anyone who thinks otherwise is naive, or disingenuous. 

* * *

The book begins with a Table of Contents, which is then followed by one of the most helpful features of the book for me personally: A Map of Washington DC. Though I'd stayed at Georgetown University when we were cleared from the Capitol Mall early Sunday morning and through Sunday night, I did not have a clue as regards how far it was or its relationship to the Capitol Mall and the Teddy Roosevelt Bridge, which the Ohio contingent had been assigned to blockade on Monday morning. 

Next, the author devotes several pages to the key organizations, key people and key events leading up to the Mayday event. In so doing he highlights the names of the people whose narratives helped shape the content of this book. These people were Egil "Bud" Krogh, Jr. from inside the White House, Rennie Davis and David Dellinger from the People's Coalition for Peace and Justice, Stew Albert and Judy Gumbo from the Mayday Tribe/Yippies, John O'Conner from the Vietnam Vets Against the War, Chief of Police Jerry V. Wilson from the D.C. Police, and Barbara A. Bowman, a lawyer from the Public Defenders Service.

It was intended as the final act in the orchestrated Spring Offensive. Their aim was to attract a large crowd for the Saturday rally, and hopefully retain (persuade) as many as possible for the subsequent Monday May 3 action, which had as its objective shutting down the government for a day by blocking traffic on all the main arteries into the city. The traffic was to be blocked peacefully by human bodies. 

The Mayday rally organizers seemed earnest in trying to produce a peaceful protest. If the people were non-violent and peaceful, then the violence of police would stand out in stark contrast. A public opinion win for the protesters. Unfortunately, there are the rotten apples like the three who picked me up heading back to Ohio. I also witnessed protesters jump on officers' backs and rip their gas masks off, among other things. You can read a more complete account of my experience here.

The objective for the White House, utilizing the police and National Guard, was to not allow the protest to succeed in its objective. 

* * *

The book details much that most of us were unaware of. One quote especially stood out for me. After it was over, Richard Nixon heard that a bomb had been placed under one of the bridges. As it turns out there was no bomb, but Nixon's response to the initial intel was, "I wish it had gone off and blown up the bridge. Then public opinion would be more on our side." 

In other words, lots of death and destruction would have been good PR for Nixon because it would help them spin the narrative in their favor. 

This was precisely the problem with Nixon's approach to the prolonged war in Vietnam. He couldn't afford to lose the war because it would be bad for his image. The U.S. does not lose wars. We have to go out looking like a winner.

Nevertheless, little more than a month after these events took place the Pentagon Papers were published in the New York Times, whereupon the nation learned that as early as 1965 the Washington elite knew that the war was a lost cause. Even so, Johnson and Nixon continued to send young Americans into the bloodshed, unconcerned about casualties, death and destruction. In Nixon's case, he was once again only concerned with the image it would project, that the U.S. was weak. Image was everything. 

* * * *  

Much more can be said and Lawrence Roberts presents a lot of it. You can purchase a copy of his book here. 

Related Links

Here is a website dedicated to gathering first hand stories from others who were there during that week. If you were there, you can share your own experience. 

Other related stories that I've written:

The Bent Penny Brigade – Another MayDay Story

He Who Controls the Narrative Controls the People 

Astroturfing

My father was a chemist involved with the development of latex paints. Some people would call this “artificial paint” way back when. He used to take business trips now and then with quite a few of them to Texas, I recall. On one of these trips in 1966 he had gone to the Houston Astrodome, the first indoor stadium, and the first baseball stadium with artificial grass. I remember him describing how plush the seat were. And I also remember him mentioning the Astroturf, the new name for this artificial grass which had been developed by Monsanto.

It’s interesting how slang gets developed. For example, Dr. Kevorkian made a name for himself by his commitment to doctor-assisted-suicide. In the computer world, “to Kevork” became shorthand for killing a program.

So it is that Astroturf has morphed into unanticipated new applications. Astroturfing now means to create the impression of being spontaneous “grassroots” behavior. According to Wikipedia Senator Lloyd Bentsen coined the term.

Astroturfing would be a propaganda technique to give the impression of a spontaneous movement which has actually been purposely orchestrated.

Many businesses have attempted to create "viral marketing" campaigns that appear to be naturally viral when in fact they have been orchestrated with this aim in mind. Certain popular YouTube videos were originally failures in their earlier generations before appearing to spontaneously "catch on."

In the age of media sound bytes, all kinds of efforts have been made by political parties to give appearances, but which backfire when handled too transparently. Michael Dukakis riding in a tank to give the appearance of foreign policy resoluteness was almost comical during his presidential bid. Sadly, I witnessed a Republican experience of the same nature during my involvement in that party in 1984. I was at a 5th district meeting in St. Paul in which someone was seeking 17 volunteers to help paint an old person's house on the upcoming Saturday morning. All three television stations would be present to capture this act of compassion for the weekend news. The aim was to show that Republicans care about the poor. I received an icy glare when I raised my hand and asked why we don't just explain how our platform and policies will help the poor. I clearly didn't "get it."

Many antiwar protesters in the Viet Nam era were lured to Washington D.C. by rumors that famous rock groups would be performing. I expected to see and hear the Jefferson Airplane in MayDay 1971, as well as the Beach Boys. The latter did indeed put on a show around two in the afternoon.

In the famous Halloween Blizzard of 1991 here in Duluth, I ventured out on Sunday morning to see what condition the Hillside roads were in. As I stood outside the Twins Bar on fourth street I saw three people walking up the road. One was then-Mayor Doty, along with a news camera from channel 3 and Mr. Doty's handler. They were looking (fairly unsuccessfully) for cars stuck in the snow that needed a push. The aim was to create the impression that the mayor was helping people and cared about the problems we were experiencing. I was the only one out on the street so they walked over to me and I saw he was wearing make-up. They wanted to make sure he did not get any glare off the snow to distract from his honest and helpful appearance.

What mystifies me is that politicians continue to create sound bytes in this manner and for this purpose. Is the public really so naive and gullible? Am I missing something here?

Wikipedia has quite a few examples of astroturfing, though the Wiki has itself become a form of AstroTurf to some extent. No matter the issue, power brokers on both sides are shoring up their positions by using the same techniques.