Richard the Lionhearted

              Max had returned from Frankfurt just in time to pick up on Kit Carson.  But while he was gone, Richard the Lionhearted had appeared, and I had been the one to interview him.  Actually, the PACS people had turned him over to me, but he was my first deserter, so to speak. His name was Richard Lyons and he was a very shy boy.  Even his introduction had begun in a whisper.  Ginetta Coryell tiptoed over to me after a PACS meeting and said softly:

          --We brought a new baby.  He’s here.  She doesn’t think we should have--

          Rosette glared over at Mrs. Jarvis, the president of the Paris Americans to Stopwar.

          --But we thought it the best thing to do.

          She glanced at a young boy standing in the corner behind the upright piano, watching several PACS members putting chairs in a line for the meeting and looking as if he would like to help but not quite sure whether he should come out from behind the piano.

          I asked Rosette if he had a place to stay that night.

          --He’s in a hotel around the corner.

          --Does he have any money?

          --He said he did.

          --I’m okay, thanks.

          Richard had come out from behind the piano and joined us.  I looked at him with approval: very short hair, brown eyes, soft voice.  We made a date to meet at his hotel the next morning and then no one spoke to him again.  Or even noticed him.  This was to fool the possible CIA agents who might be at the meeting and might not already have seen us talking to him and might not have noticed his army haircut nor know that deserters were tolerated in France.  PACS behavior was always extremely contradictory all through this period, and so, before going on to Richard, I might define this organization. 

          To begin with, it had nothing to do with the Quakers or Bert, the head of the Quaker Center, who just let us have our meetings there.  Bert himself got interested in the whole question and came to every meeting, but he was English and not a part of the organization, which, as per the title, was to show that there was another America.   Since we were a group of liberals against the Vietnam War, we were not at all politically unified.  Some members like the Coryells were all for helping deserters more or less along our lines, our being Max and me, Daisy, an art student from California, and other people, like the Franklins, who drifted in and out from the States.  Others, like Mrs. Jarvis, were selective, like all of us had been at the beginning, looking for an ideal test case, Manfred as Malcolm X, until we learned that what the French Left called the base was quite able to become the spearhead of the movement.  Mrs. Jarvis never moved far from the phoneless friends position--in fact, she worked largely with Pasteur Rangoon--that a political cadre, not a deserter but possibly a draft resister, like David Mitchell if possible, should be “in charge of” deserters.

That this was the French Communist Party position did not disturb her.  If the Communists had what she considered a workable solution, she was ready to go along with them.  She was now over seventy, and like many liberals of her generation, she had been appalled by the witch hunts of the late forties and early fifties and did not think people should be excluded from PACS because they were communists.  The other PACS members were far more timorous, and so I will open a parenthesis here to outline their positions and why Mrs. Jarvis did not want a deserter brought to the meeting.  Here too she was following the phoneless friends and eventually the SDS position—who would have been appalled at the comparison with liberals-- that, despite Manfred’s winning the right for deserters not to be turned over to the US military, they should remain discreetly out of sight.  If the CIA decided to kidnap a deserter, she said, the French government was not going to ask for him back or defend his right to be tolerated in France.  The test case had been for France, not for Manfred, defining what France would or would not do.  Whether American deserters would be treated differently than any other immigrants we would not know until Manfred’s receipt or temporary residence permit ran out and he tried to renew it.  At the moment, no one was proposing sending any of the new arrivals into the Prefecture for papers.

          Max and I had met at a PACS meeting in February 1966.  In the spring of that year, PACS had originally tried to constitute itself as a non-profit organization covered by a French law of 1901.  since the membership was by definition American, Paris Americans to Stopwar had to have an official American president, Vice-president, Secretary and Treasurer who names had to be on file at the Paris Prefecture.  In addition to their American passport, they needed official residence papers in France; that is, an identity card valid for a minimum period of three years, but preferably ten.  For various reasons this requirement was difficult to fulfill.  Manfred Jackson, for example, with an entire political campaign to support him, complete with testimonials from personal friends of De Gaulle like D’Artois de la Grange, even Manfred only got an eight day residence, eventually extended to three months.  Of course, Manfred’s individual problem as an American was that he was a deserter, but almost every liberal in PACS had an individual situation making the residence requirement difficult to fulfill.

          I, for example, had been living in Paris since 1954, almost thirteen years, but since my husband had been French, I had automatically received French nationality and therefore did not qualify for American residence papers.  All Americans marrying Frenchmen--and the contrary was not true back in 1967--automatically became French for the French authorities unless they absolutely rejected French nationality.  In my case, I intended to go on living in Paris, and so rejecting French nationality did not seem a tactful move.  As for the American Embassy, it did not care and nonchalantly let all American women married to Frenchmen have double nationality.  If an American married a French woman, she became American if she chose, but if an American man opted to become French, he lost his American nationality.  Theoretically, I should not have become a member of PACS at all, since from the point of view of the French police, I was French, but, as I said, most of PACS official situations were contradictory.  At any rate, I had an American passport and no French residence papers, and so I could not be an officer of an American non-profit organization according to the 1901 French law.

          Mrs. Jarvis had been living in France since 1919, but in that relaxed epoch she had not needed a residence permit at all;  she had never bothered to apply for one until the thirties when the European situation became menacing.  However, when she returned after the Second World War, she had not bothered to renew it.  Therefore, she became the unofficial president of PACS until one day two policemen in civilian clothes came to her door and told her they were bringing her to the Prefecture to “regularize her situation.”  Mrs. Jarvis told them she was expecting lunch guests, but that she would come down the next day, which she did, and was issued a three year identity card from the head of the department.

          --I told him he should give me ten years, she told the PACS meeting.  After all, at my age I can expect to be dead in ten years, and they’ll save themselves the trouble of renewing it.  But the Department Head, or Sousprefect or whatever he was, only smiled and said, “But Mrs. Jarvis, we like to see you every three years.”

          Anyway, she had papers and could be president of PACS.  Until then, Lincoln Purdy had been the only PACS member with a ten year residence card and had been president.  He became vice-president but the organization still needed a treasurer and never got official status in France.  Like the deserters, it was tolerated. I had thought that this similar status would have made the members more sympathetic towards their young countrymen, but it only scared them.  Henry Flowers, for example, had a three year identity card and was PACS official liaison with the Prefecture.  The two times he went down there, he gave them all the information about us that they asked for, under the impression that he was doing his duty to French legality, but they asked so many questions that he finally realized he was being interrogated and left PACS altogether.  Henry was over fifty, remembered all the American organizations witch-hunted out of existence in the McCarthy-Truman period, and was afraid PACS might be considered anti-American.  Certainly everything he told the French prefecture was sent over to the American Embassy.  I do not know how closely the French and the Americans co-operated, but since none of us was very important, the French would have no reason to withhold it.  As a result, mild paranoia was the climate in PACS at about the time Richard Lyons turned up there.

          The next morning I got Richard at the Orient Hotel, and we went to a cafe on the Place de la Croix Rouge where, at a row of tables between the bar and a noisy pinball machine, he showed me his press clippings. 

          GI  Bitter on 19th Birthday, said the Oklahoma City Times.  Pvt. Richard Lyons, RA 8971564 was celebrating his 19th birthday.  But he wasn’t very enthusiastic about it, perhaps because he is spending it in jail.  Lyons is a bitter young man.  He told this writer that after he was in the Army, he heard of alleged mistreatment of prisoners at the hands of American GI’s.  “It just got me thinking,” he said.  That might have been all right if Lyons had confined himself to thinking.  But he began talking to other soldiers about it and was finally discovered in the company of a group of “men and women Communists in a motel room full of subversive antiwar propaganda.

          His parents are New England republicans who do not endorse his stand.  “They don’t want me to ruin my future,” said Lyons.  “They’d rather me just go along with it.”

          --Communists!  said Richard bitterly, as the Oklahoma Times would put it.  I don’t know if they were communists--we were talking about the Vietnam War.  When they write Communists like that, it sounds like something you don’t mention in public.  I didn't have much time to find out all their ideas because I was thrown in the stockade right away.  One of the girls got six months in the local jail.

          --Then what happened?

          --They shipped me out.  But first I had to apologize to my sergeant.

          --My mother, said Richard.  After the court martial, she came to see me in jail, and she was all upset and crying and so I did what she wanted.  But I shouldn’t have.  Because after I apologized to the goddamn sergeant, she said I should sign a paper saying I’d been used by the Communists.  And I shouted at her, “What do you want me to do, fink out?”  And you know what she said?  She said I didn’t realize how hard it was for her back home.  She’s a nurse in a Veterans Hospital, and she was afraid--yeah, afraid for herself, losing her job, but even more scared what people were going to say in Watertown.

          --Watertown?

          --Watertown, New Hampshire.  It’s a Republican town.

          --What does your father do?

          --He’s a barber.

          --How does he feel?

          --Oh, I guess he goes along with my mother.  I didn’t get to see him before I left.

          --Left for where?

          --Germany.  They sent me to Pirmasens.  God, was that a hole!  The first Saturday night I was there, there was a riot in the EM Club.  A Black E2 came in with a German girl and some whites jumped him.  There was a big fight--they resent the fact that the Blacks get German girls easier than they do--so another white guy and me fought with the rednecks too--

          --With them?

          --You know, on the side of the Black guy.  So the next day we got beat up by the rednecks behind the mess hall.  I couldn’t take it anymore and I split.  I have a cousin lives near Heidelberg, and I got leave and went to see him.  He drove me through to Paris that night.

          --Where did you cross the border?

          --At Strasbourg.  The Kehl Bridge.

          --Did you have any trouble at the border?

          --No.  My cousin’s car has military plates.  His wife works for the Army.

          --A WAC?

          --No, she’s French.  She’s a secretary in Headquarters in Heidelberg.

          --What does your cousin do?

          --He’s a writer.

          --And he drove you across the border?

          --He drove me to Paris.

          --Then what happened?  I’m sorry to ask you all these questions, but it helps to know how people got in.

          --Well, we didn’t know where to go for help.  So we thought the Communists would help us.  I mean--

He added quickly as if to excuse himself--

          --we were sure they were against the Vietnam War.

          --Did they help you?

          --Oh no, they threw us out. Practically.  I was sort of standing there, looking at the goldfish.  They have a big reception hall with magazines and armchairs, and they had this tropical fish tank with a glass top and bubbles coming into it from outside.  I mean, I sort of looked at it as if I was just there for something else, in case they looked like they were going to take me off.  My cousin did the talking.  He said to the girl behind the desk that he was here with me, and I was an American deserter.  Boy, I thought she’d hit the ceiling.  She began shouting in French, “Go away, go away, allez!” or something like that.  I didn’t need to be told again.  I’d been scared before we even went in.

          --What were you scared of?

          --I remember all the stories I’d heard, you know?  I thought they might tie me up and take me to Moscow or something.  Anyway, I was glad to get out of there.

          --But what about your friends in Oklahoma who were communists?

          --Oh, they weren’t communists.  The girl’s boyfriend was in the Army with me.  You know how in the United States, they call everyone antiwar a communist.  But these were French.

          --Why did you go to see them in the first place then?

          --We didn’t know who else to go to.

          --So then what did you do?

          --We went to another newspaper.

          --Newspaper?

          --After Humanité threw us out.

          --Oh, I thought you went to Party Headquarters.

          --Oh no, said Richard.  We wouldn’t have known where that was.  My cousin had the idea we should buy the Communist Party paper and go there, which is what we did.

          --What was the other newspaper?

          --The Monde.  They were the ones helped us most.  My cousin knew where it was; actually it wasn’t far from where we were.  They said they couldn’t help us themselves, but they would give us a place that could.

          --Humanité?

          --Oh no.

          I smiled but Richard remained very serious.

          --Did you tell the Monde what had happened at Humanité?

          --No.  We thought the less said about that the better.

          --So where did you go?

          --They sent us to the National Vietnam committee that sent us to the Quakers.  It was closed, but my cousin took me to a hotel because he had to get right back to Germany.

          --Closed?

          --It was late already.  So I went the next day and the man there, he was the head--Bert, I think his name is--said there was an antiwar meeting that night.  Mrs. Coryell was there too, and she said we could all meet for coffee at the cafe on the corner before.  That was last night.  And I met the old lady who runs it, and then Mrs. Coryell introduced me to you.

          --What sort of papers do you have?

          --Papers?

          --Identity?

          --I have my army ID.

          --Could I see it?

          It looked genuine.  The idea sporadically occurred to us to wonder whether each new baby was genuine.  It seemed only logical to suppose that a secret service would run in a stoolie.  Max maintained that his interview technique was a safeguard against infiltration.  All Buster’s stories about Basic Training and hand grenades had come right out of Catch 22.  Of course, if either of us had bothered to read Catch 22, we would have picked this up.  If a deserter could not remember in what state he went to grammar school, he was obviously lying, said Max. This did not mean he was with the CID or CIA, but it did mean we should be sceptical of all information we got, even if we could not check it out.  Now I felt about Richard that he was too good to be untrue; someone as intelligent and sincere as he was--especially if he wasn’t--would not have been wasted in a backwater like Paris.  I thought the Secret Services would have sent him to the States to do more important infiltration.

I asked Richard to stay one more night in the Hotel Orient and to let me make photocopies of his Oklahoma times.  He had also brought a newspaper called The Bond put out by GI’s in New York, so I took that along too.  If Max didn’t show by tomorrow, I would have to see about getting him out of the hotel.

But Max rang my doorbell at three o’clock in the morning.

Three hours before most deaths are registered, I thought, when I woke from the usual deathlike sleep and remembered Chico ringing the bell to tell us of Manfred’s arrest.  But this time there was only Max, unshaven, open at the neck, bowed down by his briefcases, asking to come in.

          --I came straight here, he said, because I thought there might be cops at my house.

          --Why should there be cops at your house--any more than usual?

          --I saw a Black deserter in Frankfurt who was apparently going to the phoneless friends--at least he was going to some group in Paris, and it wasn’t us.  He just happened to come in as I was leaving Bautz’ pad.

          --Oh, Bautz.

          --He is the connection the Dutch are working with in Germany.  From the SDS.  I woke him and whoever else who was sleeping there at eight in the morning and probably seriously damaged that connection.  The SDS does not like to get up early.  Their working class position does not extend to their hour of rising.  I think the phoneless friends have contacted them since the last time I was there because they were very reluctant to let me talk to their deserter, a deserter with a diplomatic passport, no less.  I ask you!  And they’re the ones who are into security!  I wrote him down as Salisbury Steak, probably because I was hungry--SS in the second alphabet, anyway.  Which will be appropriate if he does turn out to be a fink.  Do you know why?

          --Everyone knows about the SS.

          --But very few people know what it stands for.  Do you?

          Of course I didn’t, but I didn’t feel like playing guessing games at three in the morning.

          --I’ll be nice and tell you, said Max, always put in a good humor by knowing something someone else did not.  Schutzstaffel!  The SA was the first version and--

          --If you’ll shut up, I’ll get you something to eat.

We went into the kitchen, and I made him some eggs.  Later on, due to the objections of my daughters at this servile behavior, I stopped cooking for him, but regretted it when he ate sardines out of the can and didn’t brush his teeth before coming to bed.

          --Do you think Salisbury Steak might give your name to the police?

          --I would be very surprised if they didn’t have it already, but his arrival might inspire them to come and visit me.

          --Do you want to sleep here?

          --That was the idea.  Unless it disturbs you.

          As long as I knew I was not a permanent flophouse, I  didn’t mind.  The sex was fine but not the cohabitation.  A middle class prejudice, he told me, like objecting to sardines.  Ordinarily he threw off his clothes and left them on the floor in a pile, washed himself in a cursory fashion, if at all, and jumped into bed.  If I were not already there, he lay quietly on his back, alternating with a right side reading position and book.  If I was already in bed, he gathered me in his arms, often rolling over on top of me (or pulling me on top of him if he was tired), sitting on me (if he felt playful) and, in every case, trussing and bundling us into the covers until the bed looked like a sheep pen.  Sometimes this wasn’t enough, and he trussed me for good:  hands behind my back, one hand to one foot, hands tied to my neck, and so on.  Steam roller technique of convincing.   Like many of his arguments, it convinced me all right.

          --So the SDS is not going to work with us?  I asked the next morning.  Because you woke them at eight o’clock?

          --As I said, I think the phoneless friends have been there.  Bautz did not say they wouldn’t work with us, but they certainly did not want to let me talk to Salisbury Steak.  I think they are annoyed because I gave Bautz name to a journalist.  You know, they are very against publicity.  Against Establishment Press.  I think they are starting a campaign against Springer.

          --Will they send us babies?

          --The babies will come to us and not wait to be sent by the SDS.  As for Salisbury Steak, the phoneless friends can have him.  You see, the trouble with them is--the SDS, the pf’s, PACS--they’re all on a “single solution” track.  But there is no “single solution.”  On the other hand, sometimes the SDS puts on a very good action.  A demonstration.  Do you want to hear about it?

          --If it’s important.

          --Oh it is.  Very important.  It began with a leaflet distribution several days before my arrival.  I even think they were smart enough not to refer to themselves as SDS, or students, but just people who would be at the PX Saturday afternoon to talk to any soldiers who were interested in talking about the Vietnam War.

          He paused.  Signifying.

          --The countermove by the Army was to shut down the PX.  Good or bad?

          --It depends if they put it off bounds or not.

          --I’m glad you are beginning to think of things in military terms.  Very good.  Let’s see what else you know.  What does a PX look like on Saturday afternoon?

          Determined to get it right--my alternate reaction to being exasperated--I launched into a vivid description:

          --Busy.  Family day.  Women and children.  Supplies for the week--wives pushing shopping carts, husbands in Hawaiian shirts, children wearing batman helmets, babies in those bright-colored plastic shovels--

          --All right, all right, all right.  It’s a mess.  How about the doors?

          --Control.  Very controlled.  I remember when I tried to get in and buy brownie mix--

          --Brownie mix!  Never mind, you’re doing well.  The control slows people down, the doors are crowded--what happens to the SDS students who are there to talk to the soldiers?

          --Trampled to death?

          --Ignored.  How can you talk about the war holding a baby in a shovel?  Do they really hold them in shovels?

          --They did at the Paris PX in the old days.

          --Interesting.  I wonder what Engels would have said about that?

          --Go on about the Frankfurt demonstration.  You’ve made your point that there were no gaily dressed crowds and the PX is closed.  So there are no soldiers, I suppose?

          --Not at all.  Major Polkin was very considerate.  He set everything up the best way he could to co-operate with the students.  Not only did he close the PX, but he put those moveable iron railings around it so that there was an empty space between the PX walls and the railings; the railings themselves were an excellent place for soldiers to stand and lean and hook their feet.  And the SDS students could stand and lean and hook their feet on the other side, and both could put their elbows on the top rail and talk to each other.  Right in the middle of Frankfurt where no one could block off the streets or prevent either students or soldiers from coming to the PX.

          --So it wasn’t put off bounds?

          --There was a notice sent out by Colonel Greene which Bautz showed me--one of the SDS girls works for the Army and took it off the bulletin board--suggesting no one come to town that afternoon.  But no direct orders were issued.  How could they issue direct orders?  Too many people who didn’t know anything about the SDS action were going to turn up anyway, just like they did every Saturday.

          --So the soldiers and the students talked?

          --The soldiers and the students talked, repeated Max with satisfaction.  That’s what made it a historic occasion.  The students even had sense enough to bring a lot of girls.  No students were arrested, and, I would imagine, as far as the soldiers go, the Army let it drop.

          --What about Salisbury Steak?

          --Well, I wish the phoneless friends luck.  A Black deserter with a diplomatic passport--I mean to say!

          --He’s black?

          --Didn’t I tell you?  I told Pasteur Rangoon.

          --When did you see him?

          --Last night.  Before coming here.

          --But why?  If the pf’s have already been to the SDS to badmouth you, why bother with them?

          --Because I don’t consider them the enemy.  Whatever they may think about me, we are on the same side.  Our real enemy is the United States, and if Salisbury Steak is a spy, he is our common enemy.

          --I don’t see how a spy could hurt us much.  We’re in the open.

          --Oh, rest assured; if he hurts anyone, it will be us.  The phoneless friends are too careful of themselves.  Besides, we are foreign aiders and abettors, and most of them are French.  I wish though they would realize that it was in the spirit of co-operation that I went to see Rangoon last night when I got back from Frankfurt.

          --Maybe he just didn’t appreciate being awakened at two a.m.

          --But if he had been politically responsible, he would have gotten over that.  Whereas, he threw me out.

          --How do you mean?

          --He came to the door and told me they weren’t working with me anymore and threw me out.  That’s why I came to see you.  I needed somebody.

          --Suppose I had thrown you out?

          --It would have been a bad evening.  As it was, it turned out to be a very nice one.

          --I forgot to tell you, we have a new baby.  A very political one.  He brought his newspaper clippings with him.

          Max was impressed with the clippings, particularly with The Bond.

I had almost expected him to put down Richard because he was “my deserter,” whereas his deserter, Salisbury Steak, would almost surely turn out to be a dud.

          --I wondered for a minute if Richard was not being sent in as an informer, I would up my report.  Although he is too good to be wasted on a backwater like Paris.

          --Paris is very important, said Max huffily.

          He considered any reflection on what he referred to as “the Paris base” as a reflection on himself.

          --Well, Sweden and Canada accept deserters without question.  Paris just tolerates them.

          --But what are they doing politically in Sweden?  Max asked rhetorically.  Richard Lyons has brought with him the start of an international GI movement.  The Oklahoma Times was right.  This could be the beginning of the subversion of the whole US Army, including in Vietnam.

          I hadn’t really paid much attention to the Bond.

          --Read the title, said Max.

          --The Bond.  The GI’s Newspaper.  This paper is your own property.  It cannot be legally taken from you.  So what?

          --So what?  It is simply amazing--you have the typical liberal middle class peace movement reaction.  As if the Bond was another paper like Resist or the PACS newsletter.

          --Well, it is.  It’s just written by GI’s.

          --Just!  Max rolled his eyes in horror.  You mean to say you don’t realize what that means?  An antiwar newspaper written by soldiers, active duty soldiers!

          He shook his head.

          --I can see I have to explain it to you.  All right.  Now listen: who is fighting this war?

          --I mean, I can see it’s a good development.

          --Who is fighting this war?

          --The GI’s.

          --Give the lady a banana.  Because if GI’s have begun making propaganda against the war, what does that mean?

          --It weakens the military.  Okay, I’m not that stupid.  But it’s like saying if one GI deserts, then a regiment will desert, and if a regiment deserts, than a battalion will desert, and then there will soon be no more soldiers left to fight.

          --Not at all.  It is completely different.  Look:  what is the difference between Richard and Baby A?

          --Baby A is a third generation communist and voted for Goldwater.

          --This is serious, June.  A deserter has left the machine.  To get the machine to stop, you have to be the one at the controls.  You have to resist inside.

          --Like a factory strike.

          --If you like.

          --I mean, if a few workers quit, the bosses can get other workers.  If the strikers paralyze the works, they get what they want.  Is that what you mean?

          --You’re catching on, said Max.

          He was very impressed by Richard’s material, and later by Richard himself, and together they coined the acronym RITA, Resistance Inside the Army, to be applied to all soldiers, both on base and off-base--by which he meant the deserters--who were in any way politically active against the Vietnam War.  As for the break with the phoneless friends and the SDS, Richard more than made up for it.

          --Besides, he concluded.  Our deserters are coming from places outside of Germany recently:  O’Kelly from the States, Carson from Italy, and Lyons from Pirmasens, okay, but Fort Sill, Oklahoma--that’s really something!