Paris Heidelberg Line

            I went back to Paris the next day.  Max had left several duplicate copies of the Militant off at the book store on Schiffgasse which, unlike the material for the UBS still on a lower shelf in a plastic bag, were gone the next time he looked.  But Norbert never called again, and Max did not know whether or not he had attended the UBS meeting.  In any case, he had been due to leave for Coblenz to meet the other YSA comrades sometime around the middle of the week.  A week after that, through two of these comrades going back to the States via Paris, June heard the final word on Norbert.

            --Do you know a Black—well, very light-skinned comrade—called Norbert?  she asked.  I forget his last name.  Anyway, he’s YSA too.

            --Norbert Thomas.  Yes, he went back.  He was here to write articles on the GI movement in Germany.

            --I know. I took him around when I was in Heidelberg.  I wondered if he ever—

            --There had been an incident there, just before he arrived, interrupted one of the YSAers.  I don’t think it was political.  Something about two Panthers getting shot on an air base somewhere.

            --Yes.  Ramstein Air Base.  And it was political.  How could it not be?

            --Anyway, for security reasons, his and theirs, he didn’t meet any GI’s.

            I looked at the young comrade from the Young Socialist Alliance and asked:

            --What do you mean, he didn’t meet any GI’s?

            --Because of this incident, he didn’t meet any GI’s.

            --But he did.  He was to go to a meeting with them Monday night.

            --Well, Monday night he was with us.  I’m not sure of the details.

            Not interested.  Solidarity with the Party line.  Max says the YSA has many elements of the Old Left, i.e. Communist Party.  You contact organizations, not individuals.  And you stick to your story that “for your safety and theirs.”  Maybe Porter isn’t considered political—just like the Ramstein incident wasn’t political.  When they say “not political,” they mean their politics.  The YSA line, whatever that is. 

Since I never saw Norbert again, there was no way of confirming whether one or any of my suppositions were correct.  I looked in the Militant for articles on black GI’s in Germany but found nothing.

k soldiers really could have a platform here—but would they care to?  Ask around.

            Meeting Secours Rouge in Censier—first week in February.

            Meeting Communist League in Mutualite—Feb.16.

                                                                                    Let me know.  June

            Max immediately got the word out that there was a meeting in Paris to support Angela Davis, first by going to Old Vienna and then by talking to Jamie and his friends.  He was not very sure who was sponsoring it, or what its relation was to the anti-imperialist meeting, but the general impression he had received was that the presence of soldiers was desired, and he was willing to help with that.  June was never very exact, and the second letter had seemed to him to be at variance with the first.  If there was an Angela Davis campaign, it seemed logical to him that the blacks would be wanted to speak for her rather than against American imperialism.  He found Angela Davis more positive.

            So after putting out some feelers to see if there was any response at all, Max got slightly turned off by June who called and said that the League was not sure whether a soldier should speak after all, since there would be no Vietnamese participation.  No one  was coming from the American section, and therefore the League saw no point grafting the GI’s onto a purely French meeting.  Max interpreted this to mean that the American section of the IVth wanted to control the soldier’s participation.  He did not approve, but since the American section of the IVth was in America, now that Norbert and his comrades from Coblenz had left, and the UBS was in Germany, the question of control remained academic, the more so as the black soldiers had as yet shown no interest in the Paris invitation.

            But a week later, Max was in the NCO club with Willie and Elizabeth, a bilingual Polish girl, when Gravidson came up and asked him, “What about it?”

Max’s presence at the NCO Club is an indication of the laissez-allez of the US Army in Heidelberg, USA Army HQ in Europe in 1970.  Radical black soldiers and extreme left civilians had no trouble meeting and fraternizing in night clubs, University  buildings, and even on base in NCO clubs.  PFC Willie Lynch had run into Max at Old Vienna, and they had then gone to the NCO-EM Club together where Willie signed Max in.  Willie was nineteen, had joined the Army as a volunteer and right after Basic Training had been put on the Army basketball team.  Since then he had done nothing but play basketball.  And pinball.  He had met Max playing pinball at the Old Vienna, Max had introduced him to Elizabeth, and sometimes she went out with him, or smoked hash with him in the student dormitory where she lived.  To his regret, that was all she would do with him.  Elizabeth was, by then, turned on to working with American GI’s, but she still didn’t know what to say to Willie.

            --It is encouraging you have any conversation at all, said Max.  A girl from Warsaw and a black GI from the wilds of Georgia.

            --But only when we smoke, said Elizabeth.

            --If a GI wants to see you, you should see him, said Max sententiously.  It is very irresponsible not to.

            --But I don’t know what to say, wailed Elizabeth.  Honestly, unless we smoke and it relaxes the atmosphere, I just don’t know what to say to him.

            --Well, if you’re going to smoke anyway, you might as well smoke with him.

            --But I don’t like smoking that much.

            --Well, you can come with me now and help me find him.

            --I don’t mind that, said Elizabeth.  As long as I’m not alone.

            And so they went to Old Vienna and found Willie playing pinball and afterwards he took them to the NCO-EM Club at Patton Barracks where they ran into Gravidson who asked what about Paris?

            --There’s a meeting in support of Angela Davis, said Max.  They want you to speak—that is, someone from the UBS, you or someone else.

            --Well, we would like more details, said Gravidson.

            --It’s a united front meeting, said Max.  A lot of organizations are supporting Angela Davis and joining together to have an anti-imperialist week in Paris.  They thought you might be willing to come and speak.  The deal is they pay for your fare and your stay there.  They’ll put you up too while you’re there.

            --Five of us might be able to come, said Gravidson.  And I’d want to bring Rose.

            --Look, June is coming next week.  Why don’t you meet her and she can give you all the details.  Do you know her?

            --Sure.  She’s been in here with you.

            --Well, she’s coming this weekend.  Why not set up a meeting for Sunday night?  What do you think?

            --OK, said Gravidson and went on to another table.

            --Is he from the UBS?  asked Elizabeth.

            --He’s one of the main organizers, said Max.  Have you had any contact with them?

            Willie said he hadn’t.

            The next day Max put a telephone call through to Paris.  June said that practically everything he had told Gravidson had been incorrect.  The meeting was in support of the Vietnamese Revolution, not Angela Davis, and sponsored by the Communist League, not a united front. 

            --I thought you hadn’t gotten any response, she concluded.

            --I hadn’t till last night.  Then one of them said they were interested.  Gravidson.  He says he knows you.  Of course, I don’t know how interested they’ll be when I tell them it’s for Vietnam.  They think they’re coming to support Angela Davis.

            --I thought it was clear.  The big meeting is for the 16th.

            --In the Mutualité?

            --That’s right.

            --Which room?  The big one downstairs?

            --Of course.

            --Well, all I can say is, if they come, they’ll expect to have Panther posters or Angela Davis support slogans hung up.  If they just see Vietnamese slogans, they’re not going to understand.

            --But the meeting isn’t to support Angela Davis.  First of all, her trial has been pushed up to March.  Secondly, we—or at least my cell—has decided that all support of Angela Davis should be tied in with supporting Bobby Seale and Erika Huggins.  Everyone’s talking about Angela, while Erika and Bobby are going to get shafted.

            --Angela Davis is very important, said Max.

            --I know, but nothing’s going to happen to her—the Soviet Union doesn’t want her killed or imprisoned, she’s not going to be killed or imprisoned.  But they’re not organizing any support for the other two Panthers.

            --Angela Davis is very important, repeated Max.  She’s not only a black militant but also a member of the Communist Party.

            --Well, they’re defending her.  That’s my point.  And no one is bothering much about Bobby and Erika.  Except the Heidelberg SDS maybe.

            --We’ll discuss it when you get here, said Max.

Heidelberg:

            June arrived with Jim O’Kelly, the Irishman, and his girlfriend, Michelle la Belle.  Jim had quit the Army in 1968, immediately taken a plane to Paris, and been there ever since.  Unlike most deserters, he had a college education, a profession as sound engineer, and Irish nationality.  The Irish nationality was thanks to Max’s discovery that anyone with a parent or grandparent born in Ireland could reclaim his Irish citizenship.  Jim had reclaimed his and therefore could travel to Germany on his Irish passport.  The US Army was no longer interested in putting out calls for deserters.  Since Max’s expulsion from Paris, Jim had taken over the handling of the deserter movement in Paris.

            --We stopped in Saarbrucken on the way, he told Max.  A German called Paul Prinz sent us a deserter from there last week.

            --Who is he?

            --I don’t know much about him.  Cricket gave me his name.

            --Who’s Cricket?

            --A new deserter.  I think he’ll go back.

            --He’s a fufa, said June.

            Fed up with the fucking army . 

            --Three-fourths of them start out that way, said Max reprovingly.  But they evolve.  I’m more interested in Prinz for the moment.  German co-operation is very important.

            --He’s an old leftist type like you, said June.  Ex-Party, I would say.  He’s working with an action committee outside of Saarbrucken.  We told him about RITA and working inside the Army.  But he only speaks German, and I don’t know if he’s up to explaining RITA to a GI who wants to split.

            --A lot of these guys are going to split anyway, said Max.  Usually just before pay day.

            --That’s what Cricket did, said Jim.  Prinz supported him for a month.  He split with a T-shirt and tennis shoes period.

            --Like Norbert arriving in Heidelberg, said June.  And Norbert’s a militant.

            --New Left, said Max.

            --Norbert would take a dim view of being called New Left, said June.

            --That’s what he is, said Max.  It’s not my fault.  He just happened to join the YSA and not the Army.  Given his background, it’s sheer chance he ran into the YSA first.

            --Or the Army didn’t run into him first.

            --Practically speaking, said Max.  Now he has money to get a coat, which Cricket doesn’t.

            --Cricket could have gotten a coat too if he’d waited till pay day.

            --Cricket’s a GI, said Max patiently

            .--He did take a parachute with him, said Jim.  He left it with Prinz.  Prinz’s idea is that if the GI’s would only desert with their uniforms, he could sell them to the farmers in the Saar for work clothes and use the money to finance the GI’s trips to America.

            --I can just see the German farmers plowing the fields in green fatigues, said Max.

            --So far he has only the one parachute, said Jim.

            --Plus which we don’t need any more GI’s in Paris.

            After eating chicken in the Vienna Woods, branches all over Germany, Jim and Michelle, Max and June, went to Old Vienna.

            --Maybe no one will show, said Max.  I was here last Saturday night and no one showed.  I waited around for two hours and just as I was leaving, I met Gravidson outside and drove him home.

Underneath the red lanterns hanging over the back booths of Old Vienna, they waited for the UBS.  In pinpoint colors, a wall mural outlined a suspension bridge.  Silent the pinball machine, silent the jukebox, silent the majority.  The minority of four whites waiting in a side booth was majored by a minority of one, slim, brown, beardless MacArthur.

            --Where’s your beard?  asked Max.

            --I shaved it off.

            --Here’s June, said Max.  Now she can give you all the details of the Paris meeting.

            --What Paris meeting?

            --Didn’t I speak to you about—I’m sorry, what’s your name?

            --MacArthur.

            --June.

            They shook hands.

            --Didn’t I talk to you about the meeting?  persisted Max.

            --I went to see Henderson, said MacArthur.

            --You went to see Henderson?  Oh yes, you were busted.  What happened with Henderson?

            --I got busted, said MacArthur.  Henderson tole me the Colonel tole him I won’t get hurt if I take a Article 15.  I didn’ want no Article 15, but I take it, and now I’m busted, and they transfer me to Hanau.  It’s okay for the transfer, I know about that anyway, but I didn’ want to sign no Article 15.

            --Have you seen Henderson since then?  asked Max.

            --He acts like he got more important things on his mind, said MacArthur.

            --I’ll call him, said Max.  He told me he believed the Colonel when he said he wouldn’t bust you if you signed the Article 15, and that he’s going to appeal it.

            --I knew I was getting’ a bust when I take that Article 15, but Henderson say go ahead and it’ll be all right.  Well.

            MacArthur shrugged his shoulders.

            --Is that why you shaved your beard?

            --Yeah.  I was bein’ a good soldier.

            --I’ll call Henderson, said Max.

            --Who’s Henderson?  asked June.

            --Don’t you know about him?  He’s a JAG lawyer we’re breaking in to fight the Army.

            --It doesn’t look like he’s been broke.

            --He means well, said Max.  He probably really thought the Colonel would keep his word.  He’s learning.

            --At MacArthur’s expense.

            MacArthur was playing pinball.  Tackle, wearing a white turtle neck and grey slacks, entered with a light UBS in a black leather jacket.  They stopped at the booth.

            --Could we speak to you a minute?  asked Tackle.

            Max and June followed him to another booth.  MacArthur stopped playing pinball and sat down with Jim and Michelle la Belle.

            --I would like to say something confidential, said Tackle, indicating MacArthur.  He isn’t even in the organization.  And he knows nothing about the meeting.

            --I never remember people’s faces, said Max.

            The red aureole of Jim’s hair stuck up like a hedge over the top of the next booth.  June got up on her knees in her place, turned around and said in Jim’s ear that he shouldn’t say anything about the meeting.  Jim said they hadn’t.  Turning back she told Tackle.

            --I suppose Max has explained to you about the meeting, said June.  But if you’d like, I can run through it again.

            --Yes, said Tackle.  We’d like that.

            June told Tackle she was a member of the IVth International and that the French section, the Communist League, was organizing this meeting which was to start off two weeks of an anti-imperialist mobilization in support of the Vietnamese Revolution.  There had been meetings planned for Angela Davis too, but since her trial had now been put off to March, the concentration would principally be on anti-imperialism.  If, however, the UBS did send representatives to Paris, it would be possible to organize a meeting in one of the universities in support of Angela Davis and the imprisoned Panthers.  The big meeting, however, was against American imperialism and they, as GI’s against the war, would have a great effect in explaining to the French militants that there was organized opposition to the war inside the American Army itself.  There would be time for only two speakers at this particular meeting, but eventually, at a meeting to support Angela Davis later in the week, as many of them could speak as wanted.  Their fares would be paid and they would be put up.

            --We would have to put in for leave, said Tackle.

            He was very courteous, very patient, as if he had been dealing over a table for years.

            --Do you think you will get it?

            Tackle smiled.

            --I think we will.

            The UBS next to him smiled.

            --How long have you been in the Army?  asked June.

            --Ten years.

            --You’re a real lifer, she laughed.

            Tackle said it had taken him a long while to wake up.

            --When did you wake up?

            --In Vietnam.

            --You in the infantry?  asked Max.

            --No, said Tackle.  I was in Intelligence.

            --In Saigon?

            --In Quang Tri mostly.

            --And what turned you on?

            --The so-called Pacification Program.  I was working quite a lot with officers.  After hours, when they got drunk, they would get very frank about why they were there.  They laughed about pacification and talked about the money there was to be made.  I saw how poor the people were and that the pacification was only helping us to make money out of the country, and I began to wake up.

            A Rose in Spanish Harlem sadly sighed its first accords.

            --If Gravidson brings Rose, then he does so on his own responsibility,  said Tackle.

            --She would be welcome to sit on the platform, said June.  But for the meeting on the 16th, only Army people should speak.

            --Oh, she’s in the Army, said Tackle.

            --That’s great.  She could talk to the women’s liberation group.  I don’t know if she could talk at the big meeting though.  There is a time limit.

            --Gravidson and I will probably speak at that meeting, said Tackle.

            Wearing an OD green duffle coat. a UBS appeared and stood in the space between the Brooklyn Bridge fresco on the wall and the booths under the chalet windows.  June wondered if she had seen him before.  Max was asking Tackle if Tackle was staying in the Army, and Tackle was saying he was getting out in September.

            In Spanish Harlem the rose was night-blooming on the bridge to Spanish Harlem from Brooklyn.

            --Too bad, said Max.  We need people like you in the Army.

            --I know that, said Tackle.  I know that.  Besides which I really know this military.  You stay in two years, you just beginning to learn and you out again.  Ten years, you know what they can do and what you can do to them. How you can work.

            --Do you have any questions about Paris?  June asked, looking at the two UBS across the tables, the UBS standing in the aisle.

            --I have, said the brother across from her.  What do we get out of it?

            --You?  The UBS?

            He nodded.

            --You’re a revolutionary group, said June.  Right?  You don’t just want changes inside the Army to make it more democratic, okay?  I believe we are going to make a revolution in France.  I didn’t believe this before May’68, but I do now.  I think it is essential that we make contact as revolutionaries and that the UBS has a chance to reach a wider audience to let people know what you are doing.  Also, it will be a way to strike back at the governments who blocked Kathleen Cleaver getting in the country and who won’t let any black leaders into France.  A few years ago they even kept Malcolm X out.  They don’t think that ordinary soldiers in the Army are going to get up and denounce them.  They think they can stop opposition by cutting down the leaders.  But they will see that you, who represent thousands of soldiers, can’t be stopped.  Do you see what I’m getting at?

            --Don’t you think it will be funny at the border—a white lady in a car with a lot of black men?

            --No, said June.  I really don’t think so.

            --We’ll have to set up a control system, said Max.  Both cars shouldn’t be driven across at the same time.  You should both take different borders and have a meeting place inside France.

            --There is never any trouble at that border, said June.  The Germans are sometimes interested in my dog—you know, whether she has all her health certificates.

            Her voice trailed off.

            The young light-skinned soldier got up and left.

            Unsatisfied?

            --You see, said Tackle.  We still have work to do with some of our new members.

            The Spanish Rose resolved itself, was silent.

            When they left Old Vienna, June said to Jim that if he would put up Tackle, she could put up Gravidson and Rose.

            --Don’t talk about putting them up, said Max.  They haven’t said yes yet.

            --Here we are dividing them all up, said Jim.  But we don’t know their decision.

            Tackle had said the UBS were having their political meeting Monday and would give them an answer Tuesday.

Tuesday

            --Nice, said the white man sitting in the dark bar.  We mustn’t forget to tell them about Nice.

            --If they come, said the white woman.

            The red lantern swung over their heads as if in a faint breeze from the China sea.

            --We’ll wait.

            The Brooklyn Bridge at night swung slightly behind the pinball machine.

Striding across closed spaces, a young man in a black outrider’s hat accompanied by a shorter, broader, equally young man in a black overcoat came and slid into the narrow bench on the opposite side of the booth.

            --How are you?  asked Max.  Long time no see.

            --I’ve been on the road.

            --How’s Rose?

            --She’s fine.

            --Where’ve you been?

            --Stuttgart, Frankfurt.

            --This is June.  Have you met her?

            --We met.  Hello.

            --Yes.  With Jamie.

            --I never know who has, said Max. Who has not met who.  Last time I saw you I drove you to Mannheim.  I think that was the last time.

            This exchange took place between the two whites and the outrider.  The second Black was silent.  A thin white German girl took orders for a Coca Cola, a Scholle, from the two whites.  The two blacks ordered nothing.

            --What did you decide about Paris?  asked the white who had been the first to know about the Paris meeting, the second to contact the UBS in Heidelberg.

            --We don’t know where you are supposed to be meeting, said Gravidson.  We haven’t heard of this hall.

            --The Mutualité.  It is the biggest hall in Paris for political meetings.  Except for the Palais des Sports which is only used for gigantic rallies.  The Mutualité can hold about—how many?  Two thousand people.

            --Don’t be silly, said the white who had been the second to know about the Paris meeting, the first to contact the UBS.  The Mutualité must have at least thirty-five hundred places.  If people stand, you can fit at least four thousand people in there.

            --What is the name of the hall?  asked Gravidson.

            --The Mutualité.  Here I’ll write it.

            Taking a large ball-point and a small block of paper from a leather briefcase, the white man wrote:  Mutualité.  Metro: Maubert-Mutualité, tore off the sheet and pushed it upside down across the table to Gravidson who looked at it and pocketed it.

            --It’s on the Left Bank, added the white lady.

            --Our friends on the Left there don’t know anything about this meeting, said Gravidson.

            --It’s a meeting given by the Communist League which is the French section of the IVth International, said the member of that Section.

            The other white, thirty pounds or fifteen stone or sixty kilos heavier, winced.  A wince with weight behind it.

            --It is an anti-imperialist meeting specifically in support of the Vietnamese revolution.  We would want you to come as our guests; that is, we would pay your fares and put you up—we could invite about five of you.  If you wanted to get there under your own steam, we’d give you one hundred and fifty dollars for the expenses of your stay in Paris.  At the meeting on the 16th, only two people could speak, however, and they would have to limit their time to about fifteen minutes apiece.  Everyone who came could sit on the platform, but we could only have two speakers because it is a long program, and there are other people speaking.  Your speeches would also have to be translated into French.

            Gravidson, the outsider, was silent.  June, seemingly uncertain whether more explanation was more boring than enlightening, hesitantly continued.

            --I don’t know if you know that the IVth International is?  After the death of Lenin, Stalin took over the power in the Soviet Union and exiled Trotsky from Russia.  You know that?  Well, Trotsky believed that there could not be real socialism, let alone communism, in any one country.  Every country must make its own revolution.  Relations between capitalist and socialist countries can never be normal economically or otherwise, since the two systems are obviously incompatible.  Stalin’s policy of peaceful coexistence and socialism in one country completely deformed the nature of Marxist.  The Third International, which was formed by Lenin and Trotsky after the Russian Revolution, was completely deformed by Stalin’s policy of sacrificing the Communist parties all over the world to the USSR.  During the last years of his exile, Trotsky agreed to form a IV International based on the principle of permanent revolution.

            --I want it quite clear that I do not belong to the IVth  International, said the white with the beard; smiling, he added that he belonged to the Third International himself.

            --There is no Third International, said June.  It dissolved itself under Stalin.

            --As usual, you have your facts wrong, said Max.  June means well, but she’s new at this.  I have twenty years of experience behind me.

            Silently, Gravidson had listened.

            --International socialism, he said.  We dig that.

            --Now about the meeting, continued June.

            Another white woman now brought one coca-cola, one Scholle, to her two caucasian contemporaries.

            Gravidson and his friend were not drinking.

            --We have arranged for you to meet with a translator and with the political responsibles of our organization beforehand to discuss details and for you to ask questions or for them to explain anything I have not been clear about.

            Nos responsables politiques was a direct translation from the French.

            --I am not one of the heads of the organization but a militant de base just a member, continued conscientiously the member of the French section of the IVth.  I am transmitting the invitation because I come to Germany a lot, but actually it would be better if the political direction of the League talked to you.

            --We have to put in for leave, said Gravidson.

            --When will you know if you get it?

            --We should know this week.

            --How many of you would be coming?

            --Four or five.

            --Because if you can stay for the whole week, we would arrange meetings in the provinces.  Then you could discuss whatever you wanted:  support for Angela David, Bobby Seale and Erika Huggins, your work in the Army, anything.

            --Nice, said Max.

            --Oh yes, Nice, said June.  There will be a meeting at Nice the same night as the meeting in Paris.  One of you could go to Nice the same night as the meeting in Paris.  It would mean missing the meeting in Paris.

            --I could go to Nice.

            The stocky black soldier next to Gravidson had spoken.  For the first time.  Three pairs of white eyes looked at him, two belonging to the two white eyes, the third, the white eyes of a black man.

            --That would be great, said June.

            --I may go to Nice, said Gravidson.

            --Oh.  It would be nice if you would speak in Paris.

            --You a soldier?  Max asked the stocky young man.

            --Yeah, he laughed.  I’ve been in the military for two years now.

            --You been to ‘Nam?

            --I just got back from there.

            --What’s your name?

            --Jesse Tompkins.

            --Rank?

            --Spec/5.

            --Boy, you’re practically a lifer.

            Jesse laughed.  He wasn’t a lifer and he didn’t care.

            --It would be great if you talked about “Nam, said the representative of the IVth International.

            --You’re being very optimistic, said the occasional champion of the Third International.  These guys aren’t across the border yet.

            --Oh, they’ll get across, said the intermittently lukewarm member of the IVth.

            --I wouldn’t be so sure.  We’ll have to be very careful.  I’ll set up a control with this guy in Saarbrucken—well, okay, we’ll see when the time comes.

            From which it will be seen that the IVth International was more optimistic than the IIIth regarding the success of border crossing, though both Internationals had a history of such difficulties; the IVth tended more to optimism in the light of their future projects, the IIIth to caution in the light of their present possession of State power in many countries.

Of course we are not strong,

Of course we do not have state power. 

And though

At the moment

Our comrades are not in power

In any countries in the world,

Time is on our side,

The time of the Stalinist movement is running out.

Today,

In many countries of the world,

And within the next decade,

We will see

The militants of the IVth International

In all leading struggles.

The UBS and the two Internationals agreed to meet at the same place on Friday evening at eleven to arrange final details, and Jesse Tompkins left.

            The German waitress came back to the table and asked if they wanted something else to drink.  Gravidson grabbed her off her feet, pulled her down to him.

            --You know I want you, baby, he laughed.

            She laughed.

            --You want Rose, she said.

            Gravidson let her go.

            --Yeah, I been around all the clubs.  People say she been in and left.  Can’t seem to catch up with her.

On the jukebox, a Spanish rose…

            The two internationals left.

…took off again…

            Gravidson stayed on alone to wait.

…in Spanish Harlem…

A Penultimate Visit to Old Vienna

            These multiple visits to Soul Vienna did not result in the Unsatisfied Black Soldiers revealing, establishing or defining any definite projects regarding a possible trip to Paris by any members of their organization.  June’s hope that Norbert would become an activist linking the YSA in America with the UBS in Heidelberg, her own role reduced to simple co-ordination, had been short lived and based on an idealistic view of what should happen rather than any true analysis of reality.  Norbert himself had disappeared from Germany as suddenly as he had appeared on the speaker’s platform at the Congress for a Red Europe.

            The UBS were no more communicative.  Max considered such behavior, if not recommendable, at least more excusable coming from GI’s than from a Trotskyist militant.  He considered that a reluctance to be definite, a pragmatic attitude about life in general, was fairly characteristic of GI behavior.

            --The middle or upper-middle class draft resister says, “Hell, no, I won’t go,” and goes to jail.  The working class guy from the ghetto,or a farm, starts off by going into the Army.  It’s better than jail and probably better than the ghetto or farm.  Remember the guy that didn’t give us our money—Amaryllis Botts of Panorama TV?  When he asked one of the black GI’s if  he’d go to Vietnam, the guy said, “No, I’d desert first.”  But then he added, and this is very significant:  “It doesn’t have to be that definite.  You see, when they send you to Vietnam, the plane takes you to Saigon, and you can always desert when you get there.”  There’s a whole part of the city there where black GI’s have things set up.  The same guy also made the point that even if he decided to go ahead to his base, he wouldn’t go out on patrol if he didn’t want to.  Or he would go out and smoke somewhere and then come back.  He said if they didn’t bother the Vietcong, the Vietcong wouldn’t bother them.  He didn’t seem to feel the officers would bother him either if they wanted to stay alive.

            --In other words, said June.  They didn’t consider going to Vietnam as an inevitable commitment?

            --As the soldier said the other night, what’s in it for them?

            June nevertheless would have liked a definite answer, a yes answer preferably, from the UBS agreeing to come to the Paris meeting. Despite her belated but conscientious efforts to adopt proletarian positions, her concept of the meeting was an idealistic one:  the League, the Provisional Revolutionary Government of Vietnam, the Khmer Rouge of Cambodia, the Laotian Students, and the UBS would get up in Paris and say Fuck US Imperialism.  Like a prophet or a preacher, she had thought it would suffice for her to outline her idea for its obvious value and rightness to be recognized by the black soldiers.  But so far, meeting after meeting had taken place in Old Vienna and nothing definite had come of any of them.  She had not known how to put her position appealingly to pragmatic and unsatisfied black soldiers, unsatisfied with the Army and the white world;  satisfaction was more of an ideal to them than revolution.  Max, more experienced and pragmatic, said he would have approached the subject differently, but it was an operation of the IVth and so he left it to the IVth.  Soul Vienna began to define itself in terms of meetings, discussions—and congresses, like its illustrious namesake.

            This  meeting with the UBS took place on a Friday.  The ritual had by now become well-established.  The two friends of resisters inside the Army were late and were, as usual, the first to arrive, already worrying if the UBS had left.  The German waitress came over and took their orders for a coca cola and a Scholle and usually by the time she came back with the drinks, or came back for them to be paid for, a black soldier or two had taken the empty places on the other side of the booth.  Although the meetings had ended inconclusively, never did a representative of the UBS fail to turn up.

            This  time was no exception.  It had been fixed at eleven-thirty.  At midnight the outrider strode in, stopped at the bar, talked to the girls, slid in the booth.  Alone.

            --What’s new?  asked June.

            --I don’t think we’re going to be able to get leave, said Gravidson.

            --You’re not?  Is it sure?

            --I don’t know about the others, but I have CQ on Tuesday.

            --You can’t get someone else to take it for you?”

            --I’m looking for this guy now.  If I find him, he’ll take it for me.  I can buy it from him.

            --Any of the other guys free?

            --There’s one car going on Monday.  They’re going anyway.  They put in for leave a few weeks ago.  So if any of us are free, we could go with them, see?

            --But can any of them speak in public?  You know, it needs a certain experience to be able to speak to 3500 people.

            --You just believe in what you say, said Gravidson.

            --I couldn’t, said June.  I believe in what I say, but I’m scared speaking in public, and so I speak badly.  I never finish my sentences, for example.  I always assume everyone knows what I am going to say and agrees beforehand.

Gravidson said casually that their leftist friends didn’t know anything about this meeting.

            --Which friends?  In Frankfurt?

            --Yeah.

            --Well, they can find out if they want to.  It depends on how good their Paris connections are.  I don’t suppose I’d know about a meeting taking place in Heidelberg if I were in Paris.  Tell them it is the Communist League in Paris, and if they don’t know what the Communist League is, tell them it is the same organization as the RKJ—air-ka-yacht—in Germany, and that both are sections of the IVth international

What do you know about the Panther Support Committee in Frankfurt?  June asked a German comrade some time after this encounter with Gravidson.  The Red Panthers, I guess .  If that’s what they call themselves.  There’s not more than one support committee for the Panthers in Germany, is there?  No, said the comrade.  There’s about twenty of them.  They call themselves the Red Panthers and support the Black Panthers and travel around Germany, but it is always the same twenty people.  I wish I’d known that before, said June.

            --There’s a guy called Dany Cohen-Bendit in Frankfurt, June went on.  We are not the same group, but we work together, and he knows Mathieu, one of the heads of the League.  They were both leaders of the May ’68 revolt in Paris.

            --Okay, said Gravidson.

            But he didn’t write down the names.

            June extracted a news clipping in French with a typed English translation attached where Mme. Binh of the Provisional Revolutionary Government of South Vietnam thanked Huey Newton for his offer to send a Panther division to Vietnam to fight.

            --It shows there is a definite co-operation between the Vietnamese and the Panthers, and therefore it would really be in line with Panther policy for you to speak at a meeting in support of the Vietnamese Revolution.

            --I think we have gone as far as we can with you and Max, said Gravidson.

            June passed the clipping across the table to Gravidson who pocketed it.

            The German girl came by and asked Gravidson what he wanted to drink.

            --You know I don’t have no money, baby, said Gravidson.  C’mon over here, I’ll tell you what I want.

            --Can we buy you a drink?  asked Max.  I’ll have another Scholle myself.

Gravidson ordered a gin.

            --Rose been in tonight, he asked casually.

            But the waitress had not seen her.

            --If you stay long enough, you might get in touch with a Martinique group, said June.  They are not organized, but they are personal friends, and it would be a good idea for you to make contact.

            Why not mention that the Vietnamese PRG and the Khmer Rouge and the Laotians would be there?  This will be the first time they appear at a Trotskyist-sponsored meeting.  The Party gives them a lot of leeway, but until recently they only have spoken at Party meetings, sometimes for a United Front.  After the invasion of Laos, they decided to speak at our meeting. Will it make a difference to the UBS?

            --I’m ready, said Gravidson.  I’m reading Franz Fanon now and he talks a lot about Martinique and Africa.

            --He was from Martinique, said June.

            --You read in the barracks?  asked Max.

            --Yeah.  I have another half hour to read tonight before I finish White Masks, Black Skin I’ve already read Wretched of the Earth.  I read that in the morning.  After that I’m going to read Algeria Year I.

            --When do you report for duty?

            --When I feel like it.  They leave me alone.  If I feel like staying in bed to read, I stay in bed.

            --You don’t get harassed?

            --Naw.  They’re trying to 212 me is the only thing.

            --It would be a pity if you left the Army, said Max. 

            --Well, that’s it, said Gravidson.  I don’t mind being 212ed, but I know I’m useful where I am.

            Inapt for military service.  Especially if you don't get too harassed.

            --The only thing they’re doing is shifting me around from job to job.  That’s their plan, see?

            --How often?

            --Every two months about.  Then, after a certain time, they will put in a report showing I was not fitted for any of the jobs they gave me, and they really couldn’t place me, see?  And this will go to the 212.

            --You RA?  asked Max.

            Gravidson smiled and shrugged.

            --Yeah, I knew I shouldn’t sign up.  I almost didn’t.  My father told me not to—maybe that’s why I did.

            --What does your father do?

            --He’s a gangster.

            --Is he for the war?

            --Mostly he thinks you should look out for yourself.  Of course, I thought they’d get me sooner or later.

            --Choice not chance?

            --Yeah.

            --Where were you from?  asked Max.

            --Detroit.  But we moved to Philadelphia when I was fifteen.

            June asked Gravidson if he had ever seen Norbert.

            --He was from Detroit.  A young black journalist with light skin.

            --He didn’t come around, said Gravidson.

            --How did you get turned on to being antiwar?  pursued Max.

            --There was a girl, said Gravidson.  At Bryn Mawr.  There’s a very fancy girl’s college there and they had these scholarships for black girls.  She was one of them.  They practically had that college organized the way they wanted, you know?  Anyway, some of them used to go into downtown Philadelphia and watch us play basketball.  We played in one of the youth clubs in the ghetto there, and they came down from Bryn Mawr to watch us.  I met this girl, and she told me about black power and Malcolm.  I went through my white devil period with her.

            Should I mention Emily, who was in her white devil period at the Swiss Pavilion in the University of Paris in spring 1967.  She called the Martiniquans there fink-outs and Uncle Toms.  The West Indians had been guests at a literary evening at the Swiss Pavilion and any black man who collaborated with the white devils was an Uncle Tom.  She finally went home to the States when Martin Luther King was killed although he of course had also collaborated.

            --What happened to the girl from Bryn Mawr?

            Gravidson shrugged.

            --I lost track.

            Good bye Bryn Mawr.  I almost went to.  But the place had seemed to remote to me, a New Yorker.

            --So you joined the military?

            Gravidson smiled.

            --I had a forty dollar a day drug habit.

            --Forty dollars?

            --I didn’t have to pay it.  I knew right away I shouldn’t have gone it.

            --What were you?  Infantry?

            --Later.  When I asked for it.  First I was in codes.

            --Codes?

            --Yeah.  They had me studying codes.  So I could be Intelligence.  I told them I wanted to be taken out of codes.  At the time I was in a black power stage, you see, and I told them I couldn’t learn codes because I was black.  You know?  I mean, I said English was already like having to speak a foreign language, and as far as learning codes went, it was an ethnic impossibility.

            Gravidson laughed.

            --They sent me to a psychiatrist.  A lot of psychiatrists.

            --What happened?

            --I told them about codes being an ethnic impossibility and being a black nationalist.  They were all old guys and if it had only been for them, I would have gotten a 212 then.  But then they sent me to a young guy, and I had trouble with hm.  I could talk to him, but at the same time, I hated him.  If I’d seen him downtown, I probably would of  killed him.

            Again Gravidson smiled.

            --But I never did see him downtown.  So he didn’t get killed, and I didn’t get out of the Army.

            --You go to ‘Nam?  asked Max.

            --I wouldn’t go.

            The German waitress came by, smiled at Gravidson, went away again.

            --Is Tackle around?  asked Max.

            --He said he’d be in later.  I was supposed to meet him here.  Probably he’s at Penrose, fasching.

            --Where?  On the Hauptstrasse?

            Gravidson nodded.

            --Do you need transportation anywhere?  asked Max.

            --No, I don’t need none.

            --I beg your pardon?

            --I don’t need any.  I’m staying here awhile.

            --Okay, said Max.

            He got to his feet.

            --Do you have my number?

            --Yeah.  You gave it to me—let’see now, I have the same sheet of paper, I haven’t lost it.

            He unfolded a piece of paper which yielded Max’s address in Max’s handwriting.

            --It’s listened to, said Max.  But it’s all right to make dates over.

            Gravidson nodded.

            --If we can come to Paris, I’ll call you tomorrow before one.

                                    *                                  *                                  *

            The next day passed without a call from Gravidson. That night Max and June went down to Old Vienna again where again they met Gravidson who told them he hadn’t been able to contact anyone, either the UBS or the guy he wanted to take his CQ.  They again left it that someone should call before one o’clock the next day, a Sunday.  June was leaving at three.  The conversation during this last meeting was entirely non-political except for a brief interchange on whether the problem of getting to Paris was a political one.  If there was no one to take his CQ, Gravidson could not come and that was that, said Max.  There was nothing political involved.

            --Years of Stalinist de-politization of struggles have had their effect on you, said June.

            She said this later, not in front of Gravidson.

            --It’s not political, insisted Max.  It’s only a question as to whether they can get into France.

            --Of course they can get into France, said June.

            Gravidson himself had not brought up the question of the technical problem of getting out of Germany and into France.  But he had said that he thought they had gone as far as they could with her and Max.  June interpreted this as meaning they would have to talk to the political bureau of the League.  Max interpreted it as meaning they were not coming to Paris.  Max turned out to be right.

            The Paris trip started at three o’clock on Sunday afternoon.  That is to say, June took her car and drove to Paris, and Max stayed in Heidelberg to get what news of the meeting he could by telephone.  He had been expelled from France a year and a half prior to this story, ostensibly for interference in French politics, an activity tacitly forbidden to all foreigners except those that were on the side of the French government.  Actually, proof had been found that, because of his work with American deserters, the United States embassy had pressured the French Minister of the Interior into adding Max to their list of troublesome foreigners to be expelled.  Max had a lawyer trying to bring the case to court in Paris, but in the meantime he was working with GI’s in Heidelberg.

            June was not optimistic about the UBS when she left Heidelberg for Paris.  At the border, a sign with a profile of a car, a profile of a truck, and a profile of a bus pointed out the correct exit for each type of vehicle.  The German customs control did not even come out of their glass house, whereas the solitary Frenchman only asked if she had anything to declare.

            --No.

            --Where did you get your fur coat?

            --In New York.  Twelve years ago.

            He waved her through.

            This was on Sunday.  On Monday she had the unpleasant task of getting herself over to the Headquarters of the IVth to announce that, as far as she could determine, there would be no soldiers coming to the meeting.  Mathieu was displeased and showed it, something that she had rarely experienced.

            --Do they know the Vietnamese are speaking?  he asked.

            --Are they?  When did they agree?

            --After the invasion of Laos.

            --I should have emphasized that.

            --Can’t you call and tell them?

            --I can tell Max.  But it’s not always easy for him to get through to them.  Besides, I’m not sure what it would mean to them.

            Mathieu did not take her up on this.  It was one of the main contradictions in the work, however.  The anti-Vietnam soldiers, and particularly the black soldiers, were ready to refuse to go to Vietnam or refuse to go on patrols against the Vietnamese once they were there, but the idea of discussing with the Vietnamese was of little interest to them.  After the K’town rally, the white Propergander GI’s had received an invitation from the German Communist Party to appear on the same platform as Vietnamese representatives at an antiwar meeting in Bonn.  They did not turn it down, but they had not turned up either.

            --They seem never to have heard of any political group but the Panther support Committee in Frankfurt who say they have never heard of us either,.  It’s a closed circuit inside Germany.  I told them to check out Cohn-Bendit if they want to know who we are, but they don’t seem to have heard of him either.

            Mathieu looked annoyed.  June thought he might be annoyed that anyone would have to go to Cohn-Bendit for a reference for the IVth.

            --What are your soldiers politically?  asked another comrade.

            --Oh, I don’t know.  I mean, I suppose vaguely Chinese, if anything.  But they don’t go around quoting the thoughts of Comrade Mao.  They are more spontex.

            Mathieu raised his eyebrows.

            --Mao-spontex soldiers, said another comrade.  God knows what they might say at a meeting.

            --Do they speak French?  asked a third.

            --How would they speak French?  asked June. They’re soldiers.  Do French soldiers speak English?

            --They might have learnt while they were in France.

            --But none of them were in France.  De Gaulle put the US Army out in 1966—that was five years ago.  Only lifers stay in more than five years.

            --Lifers?

            --A lifer is a professional soldier.

            --I don’t know if it’s such a good idea to have them, said the second comrade.  Particularly if we have a comrade from the American section anyway to talk about the antiwar movement in the States.

            --I think it is illogical to have an anti-imperialist meeting and not ask the most important anti-imperialist group that exists, June said to Mathieu.  An anti-Vietnam GI is quite a different thing from an American political militant.

            --Ask them then, said Mathieu.

            --I did.  But it’s completely up in the air.

            Mathieu frowned.

            --They’re not coming then?

            --Well, they may come in later.

            --Call me if they do.

            --It’ll be late.

            --I have a meeting until midnight.

            June left the office of the IVth feeling discouraged.  But at ten o’clock that night, the UBS rang up.  June, in bed, had picked up the phone.  A French voice answered.

            --Are you 548 0901?

            --Yes.

            --I have someone to speak to you.

            A black American voice said hello.

            --Who is this?

            --This is a friend from Heidelberg.

            --What is your first name?

            --William.

            Gravidson?

            --Where are you?

            --At a hotel.

            --Should I come over or do you want to come over here?

            --We’re a little tired.  There’s another car coming in tonight about four hours behind us.

            --Do you need a place to stay?

            --I think the hotel can take care of us.

            --Do you want me to come over tomorrow?  Or do you want to come over here?

            --What time is the meeting?

            --Eight-thirty.

            --What time do you get up?

            --Early.  Seven-thirty or eight.  But the meeting is in the evening.

            --Where is it?

            --At the Mutualité.

            --Wait a minute, I’ll get a pencil.  Okay, how do you spell that?

            --M-U-T-U-A-L-I-T-E.  The Metro stop is Maubert-Mutualite.  M-A-U-B-E-R=T.  I don’t remember the street, but once you get out of the Metro you can ask anyone.  Anyway, you should definitely come here first.  Unless you want us to come to you.

            --No, we’ll come there.

            --Do you have my address?  14, rue Saint Guillaume.  It’s the third floor left.

            --Yeah.

            --Okay in the morning.

            That was the last June heard of the UBS until her return to Heidelberg.  They came neither to her house that morning nor to the Mutualité that night.

            --You must tell them, said Mathieu.  You must bawl them out.

            She was sitting with him after the meeting, the hall half dark, the lights dim on the banners.  The red flags had already been collected and stacked in a corner.  During the meeting, Mathieu had announced that black GI militants were expected , and the hall had given them a standing ovation.  In their absence.

            --You must tell them, he repeated.  If they say they are coming, they should come.

            They had certainly said they were coming—at least the voice on the telephone had.  A friend from Heidelberg.  What is your first name?  William.

            Which is why

            There was a last visit to Old Vienna.