Past and Present Background and the Function of the Interviews

Two points remained to be tied in after the interview but neither had, to our relief, any consequences:  one was Kit living with Erwin; the other was Max’s fear that Caproni, the Life magazine photographer, had recognized his voice.

For point one, Erwin had told me at the last PACS meeting that he was thinking of subletting a friend’s apartment and letting Kit share it with him.  He told me instead of telling Max because everyone found me a pleasanter personality.  Max also made himself less available to the PACS Americans because he said he was worried about his own security, a statement I took to be a way of identifying with the deserters and giving himself importance.  As for Erwin and Kit, at present they were both sharing Erwin’s room at the Hotel Louisiane.

          --If he wants to give his floor to a deserter, it’s okay by me, said Max when I told him.

          --Kit’s in the bed and Erwin on the couch, I explained.  Do you think there is anything between them?

Max looked amazed.

          --It never occurred to me.  That’s more your line of experience.  All those artists you married.

          --There weren’t that many of them.  And they weren’t all gay.

          --The only thing that would worry me would be that Erwin might make a pass at Kit, and Kit would go running back to the army and all the way to Vietnam--horror-stricken at our depraved ways.  But anyway, if it’s going to happen, it’s happened by now, or Kit has got the picture and it’s not gonna happen--either way, I have enough else on my mind.

          --Speaking of which, what about Caproni?

          --What about him?

          --You said you were afraid he’d recognized your voice.

          --Yes, but I think he would have said so if he had.  Maybe not.  He owes me a favor.

          --Well, he was pretty aggressive.

          --What makes you think that?

          --What makes me think that?  He was attacking Buster the whole time.

          --I don’t worry about Buster under attack.  Neither does he, unfortunately.  I attacked him myself about walking out of that job, and I didn’t notice him any the worse for it.  No, Caproni and company behaved exactly the way journalists usually behave:  they want all the information they can get, and three-fourths of the time, aggression gets people mad and they spill things.  It certainly worked with Buster.

          --I must say, I’m beginning to share the general feeling about the Establishment Press.

          --You have to know how to use them, said Max complacently.  But everyone is not a Max, unfortunately.  Caproni nevertheless might have remembered he owes Max a favor and kept his suspicions to himself about the voice behind the curtain being mine.  You see, Caproni was, or should I say is, unless he has changed in the meantime, which I very much doubt, Caproni is a Dutch-Italian, or Italian-Dutch, probably the first way, with an Indonesian grandmother somewhere in the background.  He was photographing away even back in the Tournon days.  Let’s see, the great period of the Cafe Tournon was in the fifties.  Caproni must be about my age, and then he was photographing away for a Dutch magazine.  You know that Indonesia started life as a Dutch colony?

          --Rice taffel.

          --Yes.  Familiar case of acculturation.  You know what acculturation is?

          --Get back to Caproni.

          --Oh yes.  Well, he’s a photographer and doing all right.  Probably a pretty good photographer because whereas the Dutch weren’t as racist as most, still, an Indonesian grandmother was a colonized, and I suppose he had to fight his way through some tough competition from the local Dutchmen. Anyway, there he was in Paris in the fifties at the Cafe Tournon--photographing away--not at the cafe, you understand, but he was part of the crowd there--photographing away...

          --You keep saying that.

          --All right, I’ll make it brief.  He had a Dutch girlfriend--another form of acculturation, integration of the colonized with the colonizers--although he probably had met her in Amsterdam and not Sumatra--whose grandfather was a millionaire.  I don’t know what her father did, but it doesn’t usually much matter when your grandfather is a millionaire.  And this millionaire--whose name I have long since forgotten if I ever knew it, which is unlikely--he came to Paris because he was worried about his granddaughter who was the apple of his eye and the light of his declining years and all the rest of it, and he was worried about her.  There she goes off to Paris to study art or French civilization or whatever young girls are sent to Paris to study, and what happens?

Launched in his story, his question, for once, was rhetorical.

          --She gets laid.  In addition to being less racist than the other colonialists, the Dutch also seem to be more broadminded about other things like sex because the grandfather was not troubled about her being laid but about the kind of guy was laying her.  This is where I come in, in case you’ve been wondering.

          --I knew you’d come in eventually.

          --That’s one thing about my stories, said Max.  You always know who the hero is.  In this case, Max the hero came in at a cafe table.  Completely by chance.  I was there early one afternoon sitting on the terrace, and the grandfather was there buying champagne for himself, and a little bit later for me too, and we got to talking.  He asked me if I knew this guy Caproni and what I thought of him.  He made no secret who he was, the old grandfather--actually he wasn’t that old--but explained about his granddaughter being the apple of his eye and his wanting to be sure she was all right because he was a millionaire and sometimes men take advantage of young girls because of their millions or prospective millions.  For a moment I thought of taking advantage of her myself.  But I was busy elsewhere, and Caproni seemed to be a nice enough guy, so I said so.  I built it up more than that, of course, and like everything Max does, I did it well because the next thing I heard they were married.

He paused.

          --I don’t know whether or not Caproni ever found out I was the one made his marriage for him.

          --You probably told him.

          --Oh, if I’d seen him I certainly would have told him.  But I left for the Sahara or something right afterwards. and I’m not sure I ever saw him again until the interview the other night.  And then I didn’t see him, of course.  For one thing, they didn’t invite Max to the wedding--but then, for another, it was in Amsterdam, and I couldn’t have gotten away just then anyway.

          Neither this vignette nor the Kit/Erwin relationship had any consequences.  Erwin did not try to make Kit who, along with Manfred, was one of the few deserters who had no trouble getting girls.  Caproni had not recognized Max’s voice or, at least, never gave him away to the police.  But you never know until afterwards, as Max often said, what information is relevant and what is not.  It is always information.  Erwin and Caproni were in the no-consequences category of information acquired.  So was Manfred’s being hooked, since it had not prevented him standing up to the police.  Perhaps a novel could be written on Erwin’s love life, Caproni and the millionaire’s daughter, and why Manfred was a junkie, but none of these affected developments in the deserter movement. Drug culture advocates might maintain that the very fact of taking drugs gave Manfred the necessary courage in an emergency.  Except he had not been on drugs when he had been awakened at five-thirty in the morning in an abandoned car along the Seine.  And even if Caproni had told the police that Mr. Watts was Max, hence a foreigner, hence expulsable, it is extremely unlikely that they would have expelled anyone just then in 1967.  Although they did not know it, at the time, they were waiting for the failure of the May ‘68 revolution in order to start their repression.

This interview, by the way, is the last of the interviews we ran that I shall present here, although, except for the sacred month of the August summer vacation in France, the interviews continued on to the eve of May ‘68.  At the time, we all thought of them as a way of publicizing what we believed, correctly as it turned out, would turn into a deserter movement which quickly linked itself with the arrival of Richard and the Bond, with the Resistance Inside the Army movement.  However, the psychological effect on the deserters of these open confrontations with “the media” was very beneficial to them.  First of all, during the interviews, the deserters were more important than people like Max and me, who were normally in authority positions.  The roles were reversed.  During the interviews, the deserters took center stage--when Max was muffled, more or less, behind a white sheet.  The journalists anyway clearly preferred the deserters.  In everyday life, we got them jobs and places to live and scolded them when we thought they behaved irresponsibly.  In January ‘67, when Manfred and Buster arrived in France, we stepped right into the role of Master Sergeant and sent them to the Compagnons Batisseurs without consulting them, and they left without consulting us, just as they had left the army.  By the time the Life interview took place, Buster was using the interviewers as a fitting and approved, by us at least, target to release his aggression.  The interviews were also a testing ground for all the things he was learning about the role of the military, the class struggle, and imperialism.  A third function was to let the deserters meet each other and exchange experiences.  Although no one else in your company had deserted, you were not a weirdo because you had.  There were others like you in Paris or Sweden or Canada.  Richard and Carson, for example, became good friends after the Life interview and continued to see each other as long as they were all in Paris.

Transition between May 1967 and May 1968

   

          Manfred  decided that Paris life was for him and, as far as I know, is still there. His political participation in the deserter movement had confined itself to that important but one shot action of demanding political asylum, and getting, if not asylum with a three year residence permit, at least official tolerance for American deserters in France.   Objectively, Manfred played the same role as David Mitchell, a conscientious objector back in the States.  I already have mentioned  him here as the ideal “refuser” from the middle/upper class PACS point of view.  Mitchell had gone to jail rather than to the Vietnam War, unlike Buster and Manfred who had chosen the Army rather than jail.  Mitchell made a political case out of his refusal to go, just as Manfred made a political case out of his desertion.  They both went to jail for their beliefs, but Manfred got only ten days whereas Mitchell got a few years.  This does not mean the French government was any more clement than the US; it just wasn’t a French war any more.  Mitchell has probably returned to the life he led before the war, as has Manfred, although Manfred probably prefers his life in the marginal world of Paris to life in the New Haven inner city.

          We gradually lost contact with him.  He had made the right choice at the right time--done the right thing, as they say--and if he wanted to stop there, it was his business.  Sometimes he came to interviews, but he was always very silent, as if he had expressed  himself once and for all in that first film interview and, unlike Buster, had no desire nor need to repeat himself.  He stayed a loner as far as the deserter movement was concerned, a loner with what the anthropologist Joubain had described as tribal reflexes.  He lived erratically, sometimes with money, sometimes broke, sometimes travelling around Europe, sometimes in jail.  He had learned to speak French fluently, and if he was in jail, we usually got a letter in French through the Quaker Center where he asked us for a stake, which we always sent.  The movement owed him a standing debt, and he asked for payment only when necessary and for as much or as little as he thought sufficient for his immediate needs.  In that he was like Buster, who preferred to take a few days here and there, rather than a month’s vacation.  Manfred preferred a reliable source of support rather than a lump sum and goodbye.  And we were pleased to be that source.

          We had once been afraid that the press would try to make a story out of what appeared to be Manfred’s backsliding--i.e. going to jail.  However, he usually was sent to prison for theft, never on drug-related charges.  And the French government never revoked its tolerance for deserters from the Vietnam War.  Once a legal right is acquired in France, it usually is as hard to get it revoked as it was to get it in the first place.  The spotlight shifted away from Manfred, the situation changed, and Manfred stayed on in France.

          The last time I saw him was in a shoe shop on the Boulevard Saint Germain.  I had gone in to price shoes, decided they were too expensive, and was turning to leave when Manfred tapped me on the shoulder.  He was there with a girl, buying her a pair of shoes.  I asked him how he was doing, somewhat unnecessarily since he was doing well enough to buy his girl a twenty-five dollar pair of shoes, and he told me he had just gotten back from a singing tour with a band in Holland and Belgium.  I guess Simon’s plan to send him to Hanoi to sing over the radio for the American troops had not been so unrealistic after all.  Anyway, Manfred was singing with a pop group and making a living.  Or bringing hash across the border to sell in Paris, said Max when I told him about it.  If he was, he never got caught.

Manfred took a handbill out of his wallet and showed me his name written on it, soloist with a pop group.

          --But how do you travel?  I asked him.  You can’t cross the border on your residence permit.

          --Oh, I have a passport now, said Manfred.

          --How did you get that?

Manfred bent his head.

          --You see, he said sadly, there was this poor Martiniquais who committed suicide and didn’t need his passport any more, so I took it.

Afterwards I wondered a little how Manfred had just happened to be there, wherever “there” was, at the time.  But that was none of my business, and I did not see Manfred as a murderer.  I also wondered briefly if the poor Martiniquais in question was Chico, but then Chico had not had a passport himself.

As for Buster, he was fired from his job before he had time to quit.  He and his three Spanish co-workers got a girl to come up to one of their rooms, and all four of them laid her.  Successively, Buster told Max, and said the girl had agreed beforehand.  He had been number two and had left immediately afterwards.  But the girl had called the police and said she had been beaten and raped, and the police found all four of them.  Buster was questioned, but the police let the matter drop.  Max was not surprised.  He said that most of the single immigrant workers in France lived in a state of perpetual sexual starvation, and this sort of incident was fairly common; with no money to bring their wives to France with them, no money to get girls in France, and usually no place to take them if they did get them, the men did what they could.  The Spaniard had been lucky to have a room.  African workers paid for the use of a triple layer bunk when they were not working; when one left for work, another got his bunk.  The American deserters fell into this category of the labor force, and the police had not singled Buster out as anything special.  But we thought it best he leave Paris for awhile and sent him to the South of France.

          We went him to a group Max knew of near Nice.  Most of them were our age and older.  They had broken with the Communist Party after the Second World War, were sympathetic to young Leftists but had been running a very legal support of anti-Vietnam activities.  In their hands Buster underwent a complete psychological change, became the nearest thing to a provincial Frenchman that he could, except that he maintained his rather individualistic version of French.  He eventually went off to Canada with one of the girls in the group.  The last we saw of him was in Newsweek, appropriately enough.  The deserter movement had outlived Life Magazine which had folded sometime not too long after our interview with them.  Buster was giving an interview to Newsweek as one of the leaders of the Toronto deserter movement.  He had once said he thought Max had a great job, so I guess it was a happy ending for him.

          Jim O’Kelly and Keith Pearson were second wave deserters and the top of an iceberg that was to float into Paris, Sweden, and Canada for the duration of the Vietnam War.  I became friendly with Jim after the war, since he stayed on in Paris and, partly thanks to John Cavanaugh’s help and friendship, made a very good career as television sound man.  And for all I know, he is there to this day.  John did not like Keith Pearson, however, and disposed of him in the PACS way by sending him “anyplace but here.”  Sweden and Canada were both possibilities.  John sent Keith to Canada, at his own cost, as well as two other deserters.  But even for a wealthy man like John, parcel post was no solution once deserters began to come regularly over the border.  By 1968, John’s interest, like mine to a certain extent, had turned toward local revolution.  Keith himself went back to the US Army and probably denounced us as communists, but the CID and CID knew all about us by that time.  As Max said, “Never underestimate the enemy.”

After Buster left, Richard took Kit in hand.  Erwin Adler had been all right theoretically, but had panicked whenever Kit took initiatives--like the time he had wanted to fly to England, or when he got drunk and kicked in all the headlights on the cars parked along the Boulevard Saint Germain.   Both Richard and Kit helped with the increasing stream of deserters coming into France, but the new arrivals represented their own past, and the work with them was no solution for their future.  Max and I were the older generation, and although we had gotten them started, they had to show us they could make it without us.  In any case, our solutions were not theirs.  We tried to give them as much contact as possible with the French student groups, but neither Richard nor Kit had ever been university students, and they never really learned enough French to participate in the meetings.  This was the situation when May ‘68 broke loose in Paris, and a whole new world created itself for them and for everyone else in France.  Even those who were appalled by it had to admit it was new.  For the two months of May and June, all individual problems were swallowed up in the revolutionary movement.

15 MAY ‘68--SORBONNE

          --So you see, I don’t know.

          --Slowly, slowly.  What is it exactly they want you to do?

          --I just told you, said Richard resentfully.

          --Well, tell me again.  Uncle Max needs time to think.  The last I heard, you were supposed to go out to Nanterre to speak about Resistance Inside the Army, and I had many doubts on that subject.  I’m all in favor of bringing the good word to the students, but I consider it a very secondary priority compared with getting the word out to the GI’s.  And if you get sent to jail, bud, we’ll all really feel the loss.  I don’t want you to get swell-headed or anything--

          --Okay, okay.  That’s exactly what I’m asking you, Max.

          --I don’t know what you’re asking me.  I’m trying to find out.

          --I just told you.  Henri says Nanterre has been closed, and they’re moving the meeting to the Sorbonne.

          --Oh, the Sorbonne!  Well, why didn’t you say so!  I feel much better about the Sorbonne.  The Sorbonne is perfectly okay.  Sure.

          --It is?

          --Look, bud, I’ll give you a short lesson on French history.  Capsule size.  The Sorbonne is one of the oldest universities in Europe.  Along with Bologna, I think.  Bologna’s in Italy.  Both were established sometime in the 12th century.  Shortly afterwards--or at least by the 16th century, says Uncle Max, dismissing 400 years of history with a flicker--the students got--were given, theoretically, but possibly because of their own pressure on the authorities--they were given an independent status in many respects.  Now how this affects you is that the Sorbonne is the one place the police can’t go.  I mean, there is practically a four hundred year precedent.  Whereas Nanterre is a new creation and does not benefit from this tradition.  Maybe it does in theory, but it ain’t the Sorbonne.  At any rate, the cops were certainly out at Nanterre the other day.  Besides, it’s a big sprawling campus and who knows where it begins or ends.  Wide open to police cars.  But the Sorbonne is a building right in the middle of the Latin Quarter, and there has never been any question of the police blundering into it “by mistake.”  Or on purpose.  The inviolability of the Sorbonne is one of those traditions of French politics like not invading a church was in the Middle Ages.  A tacit agreement.  Like where you demonstrate.  The Left demonstrates in the Latin Quarter and around the Bastille and the Republique; the Right on the Champs-Elysées.  At various times in the past, before the last war, for example, the Right got control of the Latin Quarter--national fascist groups calling themselves the Camelots du Roi or Action Francaise, but after the Liberation, the Left students re-established themselves on what had been traditionally their home ground, the Latin Quarter--so named because students in the Middle Ages spoke or at least studied mainly from the Latin texts--and it’s been pretty much that way ever since.  The Right, of course, doesn’t put much emphasis on demonstrations.  Every 14th of July they drag out their armed might and march in front of the reviewing stands along the Champs-Elysées, but that’s about it.  Where was I?

          --You said it was okay if I spoke in the Sorbonne.

          --Sure.  I’m much less worried about you there.  We’ll see if you’re questioned about it the next time you get to the Prefecture to get your carte de séjour  renewed.  When did you say the meeting is?

          --It’s against imperialism.

          --I didn’t say what.  I asked when?

          --Oh, on May 3rd.  I think it’s a Friday.

          --Fine.  I won’t go myself, but it’s okay if you go.

                   §                                    §                                    §

          Richard had pretty much gotten used to the idea that there was nothing doing with Alex, June’s daughter.  He didn’t hold it against Henri, who was French and a revolutionary and a much more impressive character than

Interview with Life magazine

           Why they are babies!  I thought, looking at the three young boys sitting around the kitchen table.  Is this what they fight the war with?

            --Hello, June, said Buster.

            --Hello, said Richard.

Richard was growing a beard.

            --I’m Kit, said the blond boy.

Kit was Erwin’s new baby then.  Blond, quite long hair, blue eyes.

            --You just got in a week ago, didn’t you?

            --That’s right.

            --Where are you staying now?

            --With Irv.

            --Adler?

            --Yes, do you know him?

            --I didn’t know he was putting you up.  I’ve just gotten back myself, but I

 thought you were still in the country.

            --No, I’m back.

            --Where were you?  asked Richard.

            --I don’t know exactly.  With the Compagnons something.

            --Batisseurs, said Buster.

            --Yeah, that’s it.

            --Sure, but this guy did some work, said Max, entering from the kitchen door.  Some guys I could mention got bored and hitchhiked back to Paris after a week.

            --Hey now, that was Manfred’s idea, said Buster.

            --What were you, handcuffed to him? asked Max.

            --Well, we didn’t see what good we were doing there in the fight against imperialism, said Buster.

            --Oh no, said Max. Save it.  Tell Life magazine about it--no, don’t!  What am I saying--they’ll think you’ve been brainwashed.  But no one is gonna have a place to stay if places like the Compagnons Batisseurs decide not to take any more American deserters.  Lookit, guys, all of you can come back to Paris and fight imperialism later, but unless you have an alternate plan for eating, do us a favor and co-operate with the Compagnons.

            --I was there three weeks, said Kit.  What do you guys do in Paris?

            --I’m a house painter, said Buster.  By the way, I want to talk to you about that, Max.  I’m not sure I’ll stay there.

            --That was a damn hard job to get.

            --Well, I want to talk to you about it.  There are some things I don’t agree with.

            --Okay.  Save it for after the interview.  Now look, Buster, you’re going to have to carry most of it because neither of these guys have done interviews before.  Now you may not have as vivid an imagination as Manfred, but at least you tell the truth.  Most of the time.

            --Say, what do you mean, most of the time?

            --Never mind.  Just don’t tell Life about your sergeant making you paint the grass green.  You’re not the only one who’s read Catch 22.

            --They put true things in that book, objected Buster.

            --Yeah, but stick to the true things that happened to you personally.  You know, you’re a pretty interesting personality yourself.  Okay, when you finish eating, come in and get behind the sheet.

Simon Regnier of the Million for Vietnam had lent his apartment for the interview.  It was a small angular railroad flat in the Latin Quarter.  A few blocks down the street was a Vietnamese restaurant whose heavenly blue walls distinguished it from other Vietnamese and Chinese restaurants in the neighborhood.  It was run by Vietnamese students in Paris and the proceeds went to the National Liberation Front.  Its takeout dishes, come of which now lay on white plates and brown paper on Simon’s kitchen table, included egg roll, rice pancakes, salad rolls and canned lychee nuts.

            --No wine?  I asked.

            --No wine, said Max. Until after the interview.

He left the kitchen through a small dining room which led into a large living room.  Simon had just tacked up a large white sheet across a small alcove.  Max pulled it gingerly aside to count the number of chairs.

            --One of you guys bring a chair when you come, Max shouted.

A child’s cry came from the bedroom.  Simon stuck his round face out the bedroom door and told Max to shut up.

            --Never mind, said Max.  Here they come.  Just see that that child stays still during the interview.  Okay, now I’ll explain how we work these interviews.  Actually Buster can tell you.  He’s done enough of them.

            --Well, you see we all get behind this sheet, said Buster.  If the guy has a photographer with him, he can take pictures of us through the sheet.  What do you call them?

            --Chinese shadows, said Max.  And he can consider himself damn lucky to get those.

            --The other guy asks the questions.  Max checks it out.  If he doesn’t think we should answer, he says so and...and that’s all.

            --Now lookit, none of you guys has to talk if he don’t feel like it, said Max.

His speech was getting increasingly colloquial as the interview approached.

            --Can I ask a question now?  asked Kit.

            --Go right ahead.

            --Why don’t you want them to take our pictures?  I mean, we’re legal here, aren’t we?

            --Sure, you’re legal.  But you guys might as well learn right now that nothing turns a newspaper man on more than being told he can’t have a story.  If I paraded you guys up and down in front of his camera like a bunch of beauty queens, he’d be bored to death.  You got to make him feel we’re doing him a big favor to let him take one of your beautiful mugs in profile and behind a sheet--a Chinese shadow.  We’ll even make him pay for it.

            --Okay.

            --He’s a really funny guy, Kit whispered to Buster.

            --He’s okay, said Buster.  You just have to know how to handle him.

            --Now then, Max was continuing.  I don’t want him to see me either.  I intend to remain a voice on the telephone--the mysterious Mr. Watts.

            --Who’s that?  asked Richard.

            --Me.

            --Your real name’s not Watts though, is it?

            --As far as Life magazine goes, it is.  To them I’m a mystery and I intend to stay that way.

            --Like Glanzberg, sort of?  asked Kit.

            --The difference is that Glanzberg won’t see you guys, said Max.  If I can’t trust the people I’m working with, I’m not going to do this sort of work at all.  Okay.  Now, I don’t want them to see June either.  You see, we’ll offer them an assortment of people working with deserters as well as the deserters themselves.  All of those people have important reasons for remaining incognito, and we don’t have to divulge them to Life.  So...behind the screen we have you three guys, me, and June.  In front of the screen, controlling the reporter and the photographer, we have Daisy and Simon.

            --Who’s Daisy?  asked Richard.

            --The connection who is bringing the reporters to you.

            --Do you advertise in the Herald Tribune?  asked Kit suddenly.

            --No, but people advertise for me, said Max and ducked into the alcove behind the sheet.

The bouncy convex lines of his generous silhouette were profiled against the bed sheet.

            --I came here because I read a story in the Rome Daily American said Kit.  And then here in the Herald Tribune I saw the name Mr. Watts in one of the personal ads.

            --How about that?  said Buster.  I’m glad to see our work pays off.

            --Who is Daisy?  repeated Richard.

            --She is a beautiful girl with long blond hair and blue eyes who is at this moment meeting Life magazine--Phillips his name is--at the Cafe Flore and bringing him up here. Hey, my god, we’d better get ready!

            --Not much getting ready, said Richard.  All we have to do is get behind the sheet.

            --Do we get to meet Daisy?  asked Kit.

            --You don’t, said Max.  Because you will be on one side of the sheet with me, and she will be on the other side with the journalist.

            --Wiz me, smirked Simon of the Million appearing in the door of his children’s room.

Max quickly cleared the door between the dining room and the living room and ordered Simon to keep the journalist there until he gave the word.  I looked behind the sheet and found the alcove crowded, even without Max.

            --If I get in here, I remarked, I’ll be stuck until the end of the interview.

            --What’s wrong with that?  asked Max.

            --I’m tired, and I’m too old to stay up all night.

            --What a militant!  And I wanted you to talk.

            --Look, you’re here.  You’ll certainly talk, plus he has three deserters.  They’re the ones he really wants to hear.

            --He’ll hear what we give him.  Besides, these guys are just here to see how it goes, so there is only Buster.

            --All right.

            --All right, shouted Max, ducking in with them.  Simon!

            I listened for the child’s cry, but apparently it was in a sound sleep.

            --Mr. Phillips!  said Max loudly.

            We were all crowded into the alcove.  Richard and Buster were sitting on straight chairs, facing the sheet, and Kit was sitting on the floor.  Max and I were in the back.

            --Yes.  Is that you, Mr. Watts?

            --That’s right.  I’m sorry I can’t come out there, but various signs indicate that I should preserve my anonymity.

            --Well, okay.

            --Simon, are you there?

            --Eef I am here?  Yes, I am here.

            --Did Daisy get here?

            --Eef I am here, said a girl’s voice.  Yes, I am here.

            --Oh baby, said Kit.

            --Eet ees veree naughtee of you to make fun of me, Daisy, said Simon.

            --Couldn’t we come out and say hello?  asked Kit.

            --I’d like to meet you, said Phillips.  Besides, I brought a photographer.

            --Any pictures you get, said Max, will be Chinese shadows projected on this screen.

            --What are you guys afraid of?  asked Phillips.  If you believe in what you are doing, I’d think you’d want to be photographed.

            --I’d come out if we were on Telstar, said Buster.  But what’s the percentage in risking my security when you’re going to twist what I say anyway?

            --I’ll put everything down exactly as you tell it, said Phillips.

            --Okay, I’ll give you a chance. You write your story and send it to us, and if it’s exactly what I said, I’ll let you take a picture.

            --Only my editor decides what goes in the magazine, said Phillips.

            --Sorry, then I’ll stay back here.

            --That’s too bad, said another voice.

            --Who’s that?  asked Max.

            --Mr. Caproni, my photographer.

            --Look, said Max.  I don’t want some joker in Military Intelligence to see one of these guys walking down the street someday and decide to haul him in for questioning.

            --They’d never get me, said Buster.

            --That’s what I thought, said Richard.  But I went out without getting a pass, and they found me.

            --Where was this?  asked Phillips.

            --Don’t answer that question!  said Max.

            --I don’t mind telling him, said Richard.  It was in all the papers anyway.

            --Then say “somewhere in the West of the United States.

            --You deserted in the United States?  asked Phillips.

            --He’s a soldier, said Max.  Not a deserter.  Actually, just to give you a little information, a soldier is considered AWOL for thirty days after he’s left his unit--then he is administratively a deserter but--and this is a big but --he cannot be convicted legally of desertion unless he announces his intention not to return.  Therefore, you can call these guys deserters if you want but, for legal reasons, they do not call themselves deserters.

            --Off the record then, said Caproni.  Do any of them have any intention of ever returning?

            --I’ll go back, said Richard.  I’ll go back and finish my service when the Vietnam War is over.

            --You can put that on the record, said Max.  But in future, I would prefer to monitor the questions.

            --You’re back there with them, said Phillips.  You can impose your own terms.

            --Okay, let’s get started, said Max.  The guy you just talked to is Richard the Lionhearted.  In the middle is Buster, who has been here a little longer.  He’ll probably carry most of the interview because he’s done them before.

            --Where? asked Phillips.  In the Army?

            --I can see you don’t know much about the military, said Buster.  Nobody in the Army is going to ask a soldier what he thinks about nothing.

            --Is that why you left?  asked Caproni.  Because no one asked your opinions?

            --I left because I didn’t see why I should go kill a lot of Vietnamese who hadn’t done me nothin.

            --Were you on orders for Vietnam?  asked Phillips.

            --Don’t answer that question!  shouted Max.

            --Relax, said Buster.  I’m not that dumb.

            --I know, said Max.  But these guys may trap you into saying--

            --We’re not trying to trap anybody, said Phillips.  It was a logical question.

            --For your information, said Max.  It’s a crime in military courts to go AWOL when you’re on orders for  ´nam.

            --I’d like to say something, said Kit.

]           --Go ahead, said Max.

Kit was sitting on the floor, looking at his feet.  The spotlight that had been set up to create Chinese shadows illuminated his blond hair.

            --They don’t always tell you, said Kit, if you’re on orders.  In my company, there was a pretty thick rumor going around, but we didn’t know anything for sure.

            --What was your company?  asked Caproni.

            --No comment, said Max.

            --I wouldn’t mind telling him, said Kit.  They’re in Vietnam now.  I am against the Vietnam War, and I wouldn’t have gone in any case.

            --There’s your statement, said Max.

            --What’s his name?

            --Erwin, said Max.  Erwin Eagle.

Kit and I looked at each other and smiled.

            --We hear you have over twenty-four deserters, said Caproni.  Can you give me a more exact figure?

            --Between twenty and two hundred, said Max.  You know these guys don’t stay put.

            --Where do they go?

            --Lots of places.  Switzerland for example.

            --Are they legal in Switzerland?

            --We have guys there.  They have papers and jobs.

            --But I thought you said the Swiss police turn them over.

            --Let’s put it this way.  When the Swiss government was asked that question, they said, “Who, us?  We never did such a thing--and we won’t do it again.”

Laughter.

            --I don’t get it, said Buster.  Did they turn them over or didn’t they?

            --Sure they did.

All this time Caproni had been snapping pictures of whatever he saw moving behind the sheet.

            --Could you turn a little more in profile?  he asked Buster.  I want to get a clear picture.

            --Don’t get it too clear, said Max.

            --Look, it’s bad enough not getting their faces, but if all I am going to get is a fuzzy shadow, I might as well save film.

            --It’s not up to me.  How do you feel about it, Buster?

            --Sure.  He can take my profile.  How’s this?

Buster turned sideways on the stool, leant forward with an elbow on one knee.  A topknot of curly hair fell on his forehead.

            --It is veree recognizable, said Simon.  I theenk he should ‘ave ‘ad a ‘air cut.

            --I don’t mind, said Buster.  If I like what you write, I already said I’d come out and give you an interview free for nothin.

            --And I told you I assume complete responsibility for what I write, said Phillips.

            --We assume that, said Max, or we wouldn’t be giving you this interview.

            --We’ll see, okay, Max?  said Buster.  If we like the article, the next time we’ll come out in front of the screen.

            --Could you tell me something more about yourself? continued Phillips.  What did you do before being drafted?

            --I wasn’t drafted.  I volunteered.

            --You did?

            --In a manner of speaking.

            --So did I, said Kit.

            --I did too, said Richard.  Almost all the guys I met in Germany are volunteers.

            --That’s something none of you civilians know, said Max.  The difference between RA and US.  RA is a volunteer soldier.

            --Look, Mr. Watts, said Phillips.  I appreciate your help, but I’d like to hear the deserters’ point of view.

            --AWOL, said Max.  Not deserters.  AWOL soldiers.  Sorry, I haven’t said anything.  Ask them--they can speak up for themselves.

            --Well, Buster here said he volunteered “in a manner of speaking.”  Just what did you mean by that, Buster?

            --Tell him about what you did before you were in the army, said Max.

            --Well, when I was young, I was sort of troublesome, began Buster.  I got in with the wrong crowd, and we used to steal cars.  The last one we didn’t even drive away--but that was because we was, were drunk that night--and we just sat inside listening to the radio in the driveway until the guy that owned it woke us up and called the cops.

            --You stole a car, and you joined the army, is that it?  asked Phillips.

            --I was pushed.

            --He was only sixteen, added Max.

            --You mean you were drafted?

            --No, I told you, I signed up.

Buster was enjoying himself and winked at Max.

            --Choice rather than chance put in Richard.

            --But I didn’t have no choice, said Buster.

            --I don’t understand, said Phillips.

            --Look, I’ll explain, said Buster.  You see, they sent us to a home, a reform school really because you have to be seventeen to go to jail.  So then I spent six months in the home, and when I was seventeen, they gave me a choice, see?  Some choice.  Go to jail or go into the Army.  So the Army was a year less, and I figured, what have I got to lose?

            --You call this being forced to enlist?  asked Phillips.

            --What do you call it?  countered Buster.  Though, if I’d known what the Army was like, maybe I would of gone to jail.

            --Could one of you--Buster, if you like--tell us how you deserted?  I mean, what you actually did?

            --I walked out the main gate, said Buster.

            --Did you realize you were doing something that might harm you in the future?

            --How many people are hurt in Vietnam?  I’d consider it a great career to die doin’ something like this.

            --What does your family think about it?

            --My mother’s dead.

            --And the rest of your family?

            --My father and brothers say I’ve been brainwashed.  But I don’t get in touch with them any more because it’s their duty as Americans to give the Army information about me or else they get up to five years for aiding and abetting a deserter.

            --When you were sent to Germany, did you come in contact with other soldiers who had come back from Vietnam, or did you just talk about it among yourselves?

            --Oh there were quite a few soldiers who had done the tour in Vietnam and then been sent to Germany.  The ones that came back to my unit--well, they were quite happy about being back.  I mean, you know, for instance, two of them--one was a motor man, and he was quite happy about being back because it was pretty risky, and, oh, he was sort of proud of the fact that he went over and fought for his country and killed people that had never done him nothin’.

            --Don’t you feel you have to fight somebody that’s killing you and other boys like you?  After all, when you go to Vietnam--

            --But I’ve already proved the fact I wouldn’t go, said Buster.

            --Oh, all right, said Phillips.  What happened when you walked out the main gate?

            --Well, I went up with Manfred--he is one of the guys I split with--and these two other guys into town where they’d been waiting for me--like we’d agreed on in the stockade.  One of the other two guys knew a girl there who owed him some money.  Actually, what it was was he had given her a gold watch which he thought to get back and get some money that way.  But when we arrived, she had left for the mountains, and we didn’t feel like staying there because the guys that had just gotten out of the stockade--I was one of them--had their hair cut very short at that time, and we saw the MP’s looking at us closely, and so we took a taxi to Frankfurt.

            --Cut that!  cried Max from behind the sheet.  No place names, please.  I wish you’d be more careful, Buster.

            --He can use it, said Buster, because we never got there.  We told the driver to take us, but he let us out about eighty k’s away.  We didn’t know--it was early in the morning.

            --All right, said Max.  I guess there are enough bases around Frankfurt so they won’t be able to pick out yours.

            --There sure are, said Buster.  I could name you at least six right now.

            --Well, don’t, said Max.         

            --Did the driver know you were GI’s?

            --I guess he knew.  I mean, he heard us talk English.

            --Do you think a German driver would purposely leave four American GI’s eighty kilometers short of their destination and pocket the difference in time, money, and gasoline?  asked Caproni.

            --Sure he would, said Buster.  He did.

            --Well, go on.

            --We knew we had to get out of Germany because anyone could have turned us over to the MP’s.  What happened was though, the other two guys went over to find these girls they knew because we thought it was Frankfurt, and we arranged to meet at the station in the evening, but they never came.

            --Why not?  asked Phillips.

            --They probably got picked up, said Buster.  Probably.  Anyway, they never found us again.

            --Where did you say you were—asleep?  asked Caproni.

            --I didn’t, said Buster.  It was some little train station eighty klicks from Frankfurt.  I don’t know exactly what’s its name, and I wouldn’t tell you if I did.

            --You didn’t think the German people would help you?  asked Phillips.

            --Some did, some didn’t. Like the taxi driver didn’t.

            --I suppose you’d had a bit to drink when you got in his cab, said Caproni.

            --Where would we of got the money? I was the only one had any money, and my money went to pay the cab.  When we left that little station, we had no money at all, and we still had to get out of Germany.

            --How did you eat?

            --We didn’t.  We were hungry.  But one thing we learnt in the Army was to go for days without food.

            --Didn’t you think of giving yourselves up?

            --No, we didn’t think of giving ourselves up.  We didn’t consider it, you might say.  We just let them feed us.

            --Who?  The Germans?

            --The military.  We just went to the nearest base and said we was, we were GI’s coming back from leave, and we had run out of money, and so they gave us a meal.

            --Didn’t they ask you for leave papers?  Or some proof that you were soldiers?

            --Naw.  My hair was real short, see, but all they said was, “You been in the stockade, soldier?”  and I had been so I said, “Sure.”

            --AWOL.

            --You mean you went AWOL and came back before you deserted to France?

            --Not France, somewhere in Europe, put in Max.  How many times do I have to say I don’t want these guys identified?

            --But we keep coming back to the fact that deserters are legal in France, Mr. Watts, objected Phillips.  You told us yourself.

            --And I keep coming back to the fact that I don’t want them kidnapped, Mr. Phillips.

            Phillips sighed and asked Buster why he had come back.

            --Oh, that time was just to go into town Saturday night.  You see, they wouldn’t give me a pass.

            --Why not?

            Buster laughed.

            --They said I was too young because I was only seventeen years old, and I might wake up some morning married to an awful woman.  So they wouldn’t give me a pass.  I was old enough to go to Vietnam and get killed, but not old enough to go out Saturday night in Mannheim.  After that, I told them I was going to desert.

            --You were in Mannheim?

            --Never mind where he was, said Max.  And you, Buster, watch what you say.

            --Then you came to Paris--somewhere in Europe.

            --No, we went to Holland.

            --Why Holland?  asked Caproni.  That’s a NATO country.

            --So is France, said Max.  Just because De Gaulle turned the US Army out doesn’t mean France left NATO.

            --France is still NATO?  I didn’t know that.

            --Not many people do, said Max smugly.  As for Holland, sometimes the Dutch police remember it and turn over a GI, but generally he is OK there.  No papers, no jobs, but no one bothers him.

            --That why you picked Holland?  asked Phillips.

            Max reached in his pocket and took out a leaflet, handed it to Buster.   To American Soldiers in Europe.  Rubber-stamped across one corner was an acronym, IN ADAMNL UGO TO PROVOS.

            --We got one of these, said Buster, passing it under the sheet.

            Caproni asked what it meant.

            --See how smart you are, said Buster.  You’ve had an education.

            --We’re not here to play guessing games, said Caproni.

            --There is no guessing about it, said Buster.  You either know or you don’t.  Maybe you even know why we’re fighting in Vietnam.

            --I’m against all wars, said Phillips.

            --Will Life magazine come out in favor of desertion then?  asked Buster.

            --AWOL, said Max.  Prolonged AWOL.

            --My personal opinions are not necessarily those of my editor, said Phillips.  I’ve already said that.  He probably thinks if you are against the war, you should go to jail and pay your debt to society.

            --Pay my debt to society!  said Buster indignantly.  Pay my debt to society!  But society is dropping bombs on people who haven’t done me nothin’--people 15,000 miles away in Vietnam.  Why should I pay any debt?  Society should pay their debt.

            --If you think the United States is at fault somehow, why don’t you go to Hungary or Czechoslovakia or a Communist country?  asked Caproni.  They’re all against the Vietnam War.

            --I’m not a Communist, said Buster.

            --None of us are, said Richard.

            --I’m scared of Communists, said Kit.

            --As a matter of fact, said Buster.  I don’t think the Army even knows what Communism is.  We used to have classes there about what we’re fighting for, and they kept telling us we’re in Vietnam to fight Communism, so I raised my hand and asked the captain, “With all due respect, sir, just what is Communism?”  He told me not to be smart, but I said, “I’m not being smart but, look, we’re supposed to fight it, we have to know what we’re fighting.”  And he said, “The President of the United States knows what Communism is, and your officers know what it is, you don’t have to know, you just follow orders.”  Then they stopped giving those kind of classes anyway.  Now I’m gonna tell you something, because you haven’t been getting very far with INADAMUGOTOPROVOS.  So, A’dam is Amsterdam; NL is like on the car license plates--the rest is easy.  In A’dam you go to provos.”  I suppose you do know what a provo is?

            --A Dutch hippie, said Caproni.

            --What have you got against hippies?  asked Buster.

            --Nothing.  I stated a fact.

            --Because they are a lot of help to guys quitting the Army.

            --Is that why you went to Holland?

            --More or less.

            --Where did you get the leaflet?

            --Someone gave it to us.  In--well, somewhere in Germany.

            --It says, said Phillips, turning it over, that the War Resisters League puts it out.

            --Maybe the guy who gave it to us was a war resister, but we didn’t care, we just took it.

            --And went to Holland?

            --Yeah.  Manfred had been there on leave and had some addresses.

            --Who’s Manfred?

            --A guy.  Another deserter, if you want to know.

            --Look up Manfred Jackson, said Max, in the files of any large circulation newspaper.  I’m not going to do all your thinking for you.

            Phillips ignored this and asked Buster how he got across the border.

            --Which border?

            --Well, both.  Germany to Holland, say.

            --That was the hard one.  Like I told you, we didn’t have no--any money so we hitchhiked.  A German kid--one of the students--

            --SDS?  asked Caproni.

            --He was a student, repeated Buster.

            --SDS is a student organization in Germany.  In the States too.

            --We didn’t ask him what organization he belonged to, laughed Buster.  I can see you haven’t done much hitching.  You just don’t ask the guy driving any questions--he asks you.  Anyway, this kid was very smart.  He asked us were we deserters, but this time Manfred answered and said No, we were just going on leave.  At the border, the Germans let us through all right on our ID cards, but the Dutch stopped us.  The kid was worried; at least he looked it.  We showed our ID cards, but when we were asked how much money did we have, and we thought he might check so we told him we didn’t have very much, not more than two or three dollars between us.  So he said we could not go into Holland.  So this kid who was driving us turned around and drove back to a cafe we had passed before and said, “Wait here, I will be back in about two hours.”  We thought we’d never see him again, but we waited.  I mean, we figured, what have we to lose, and in an hour and a half he was back again, and he gave us some money and said we should keep that till we crossed the border, and then he took us to a restaurant and bought us a meal, and we hitchhiked into Amsterdam.

            --Then you had some money, said Phillips.

            --No, we didn’t.

            --But you said this kid who took you across the border gave you some.

            --That was just to cross the border.  He didn’t have any money either.  He must have borrowed it, and we gave it back to him as soon as we crossed over.

            --Then in Amsterdam you stayed with the provos, and the provos drove you to Paris.

            --That’s about it, said Buster.

            --Fine, said Caproni.  Well, now, we’d like to hear from these other deserters a little.  What about the one from Lawton, Oklahoma?

            --GI’s, said Max.  Call them GI’s.

            --GI’s, if you want.

            --It’s not what I want; it’s what the Army will sock them with if they get picked up as deserters.

            --We realize that, Mr. Watts.

            --Fine.  Well, Richard the Lionhearted is from Lawton, Oklahoma.  And this is his first interview.  I don’t know how much he feels like talking. How about it, Dick?  You want to tell these guys why you split?

Richard shrugged. 

            --They can ask me if they want to know anything.

            --We’re mass media, said Phillips shortly.  Anything he wants to say will get out to a lot of people.  But we’re not going to drag it out of you.

            --You’re not doing us any favor, you know, said Buster.  I thought I made that clear.

            --Look, there’s no point everyone getting mad at each other, said Max.  Dick has some pretty good reasons for being--shall we say, discreet?-- about his Army experience.  Most of the guys he worked with are still inside.  Maybe I can--sure, I guess he’s pretty well known already--how about it, Dick, should I tell them about Stapp?

            --Go ahead, said Richard.

            --You ever heard of a guy called Andy Stapp?

            --No.

            --You want to tell them about Stapp, Dick?

            --Where did you get that name from?  asked Caproni.  Richard the Lionhearted?

            --That was Max’s idea, said Richard shortly.

            --Look, Mr. Caproni, said Max.  If you get these guys mad, there won’t be no more interview.

            --I just asked where he got the name from, said Caproni.  I don’t know why that should get him mad.

            --Okay, Dick, you want to tell him who Stapp is?  I think it’s time they learned something, don’t you, guys?

            --Sure, said Buster.  I’ll tell them about Stapp if you want.

            --I thought that… began Max.  Never mind.  Okay, Buster, tell them about Stapp.

            --Well, you see, he was this guy, a private, wasn’t he, Max?  Actually he enlisted in the Army so’s he could work and organize inside, you know.

            --Organize what?  asked Phillips.  I thought the army was already organized.

            --It’s organized for the imperialists, said Buster, and against the soldiers. The soldiers in the Army don’t have a union, you see, and so that was about the main thing Stapp wanted.  He organized a union inside the Army.  The ASU.  It stands for--and I’ll tell you this free for nothin’ because the way you messed over INADAMUGOTO PROVOS, I don’t think you’re too good at initials.  It stands for American Servicemen’s Union.  It’s against the Vietnam War, and saluting officers and for higher pay for soldiers.

            --Does the Army recognize it?  asked Phillips.

            --The soldiers recognize it, said Buster.  That’s the main thing.

            --Is Richard here a member?  asked Phillips.

            --Sure, I’m a member.

            --What about the other guys?

            --I’m a member, obviously, said Buster.

            --How can a deserter be a member?  asked Caproni.

            --Easy, said Buster.  Because we’re still GI’s, see?  We’re still members of the armed forces--temporarily self-retired.

            --Richard, do you go along with that?

            --Sure, said Richard.  I’ll go back when the Vietnam War’s over.

            --The Vietnamese will obviously win, said Buster.  In fact, they have practically won already.

            --Okay, said Max.  I think we’d better call it off for tonight.  Because, you know, we don’t get paid for this.  Most of us have jobs to go to tomorrow morning, and so, if it’s all the same to you--

            --I’d still like some real pictures, said Caproni.  How about it, Mr. Watts?

            --Buster answered you on that one a while back, said Max. All I can add is No Comment.

Sounds from the other side of the sheet indicated to the alcove dwellers the packing up of Life magazine.

            --Is Daisy leaving too?  asked Kit.

            --Daisy ‘as gone to sleep, said Simon.  Come, Daisy, you must awake.

Phillips said they were sorry to interrupt her beauty sleep.  Daisy answered something in a low voice.  The door slammed.  Simon came back and said:

            --Okay, they ‘ave left.

            --Daisy too?

            --You’ll meet her eventually, said Buster.  She’s nice, but she’s not all that sensational, you know.

            --I haven’t met any girls here so far, said Richard.

            --Well, what did you two guys think of it?  asked Max.  Think you would like to do an interview yourselves next time?

            --Sure, said Kit.  Why not?

            --How about you, Dick?

Richard had stayed in the alcove at the upright piano where, unconvincingly, he picked out a few notes.

            --Why did you have to say it was my first interview?

            --Well, it was, said Max surprised.

            --You didn’t need to tell them.

            --They’re not bad guys.

            --They work for Life magazine.

            --You have to know how to use them, said Max.  A lot more people read Life than read the Movement press.

            --By the way, Max, said Buster.  About my job.

            --What about it?

            --Well, I think I’m going to quit.

            --What do you mean, quit?

            --Don’t worry.  I’ll get another one.

            --You will?  Who got you this one?

            --You did.  Sure, I know, but now I know my way around.  I’ve made some connections; it’s not that hard, you know.

            --I’m glad to hear it, said Max.

‘           --You see, Max, he’s no sort of boss.  All that hot air about me being late.  I’ll tell you how it was.  I get a vacation this summer, right?

            Buster had already assimilated Max’s questionnaire technique.

            --It remains purely hypothetical, began Max.  Seeing as how--

            --Okay, okay, I know.  But if I went on working there, I would of got four weeks summer vacation.  I know ‘cause my Spanish friends told me.

            --How do you communicate with them, by the way?

            --We understand each other okay, said Buster.

            In his way, he was as hard to stop as Max.

            --Well, I don’t want a summer vacation, see?  I’m here to work politically, not go off on vacations.

            --Fight imperialism?  asked Max.

            --Yes, that’s right, said Buster seriously.  So, instead of taking four weeks, I thought I’d take a few days now and then.

            --What about being late?

            --He was exaggerating, said Buster.

            --I’m glad you haven’t lost any of your Army working habits.

            --It’s the same set-up, actually, said Buster.  Here I’m being exploited by French capitalism is the only difference.

I was beginning to understand why Paris Americans to Stopwar had a hard time relating to deserters.

            --Did you explain this plan of intermittent vacations to your boss?  asked Max.

            --That’s just it, said Buster.  You can’t explain anything to a guy like that--he’s no sort of boss.  Look, suppose I was married and my wife was having a baby, and I asked for a few days off to take care of her?  Hey?  How could I work for a boss who wouldn’t give me a few days off at a time like that?

            --I wished you lived in the present more, said Max.  Don’t forget, your Spanish friends have working papers, and you don’t. 

            --I’m not worrying, said Buster.