Ciitizens' Commission of Inquiry

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National Committee for a Citizens' Commission of Inquiry on U.S. War Crimes in Vietnam (aka, for short, as the Citizens' Commission of Inquiry

History

In late 1970, or early, 1971, a group of hardcore Communists, sympathizers and assorted Hanoi/VC supporters created a group known by two names, i.e. the "Citizens' Commission of Inquiry" CCI for short, and the "National Committee for a Citizens' Commission of Inquiry on U.S. War Crimes in Vietnam". It was patterned after the "war crimes" tribunal of the wacko Lord Bertrand Russell of England, an American-hating, pro-communist semi-senile "intellectual" who charged the U.S. with "war crimes" in Vietnam. In fact, Russell's genuinely mentally off-balanced top aide, Ralph Schoenman was a member of this newly formed CCI's "National Coordinating Committee".

This organization, an early and effective communist propaganda operation concerning alleged "war crimes" in Vietnam, was made up of key members of the Hanoi Lobby and its major component organizations including the various Mobes, Vietnam Veterans Against the War in Vietnam VVAW, Jane Fonda's FTA organization , (i.e., F**k the Army) touring show, and "Citizen Soldier". Its "National Coordinating Committee" had a decidedly communist/marxist dominance with members of the Communist Party USA CPUSA well represented as well as other assorted communists, marxists, and sympathizers (Mora, Stapp, Wolin, Chomsky, Dowd, Freed, Genovese, Kushner, H. Lamont, Lauter, Lester, Lynn, Misnik, Neilands, Paley, Schoenman, Geismar, and Feinberg, among others).

In one of their boldest actions, CCI actually got communist congressman Ronald Dellums D-CA to lend them a room for their "war crimes" propaganda exhibit in the Longworth House Office Building in early 1971. One of the few newspapers to cover this was the conservative weekly Human Events in their February 6, 1971 issue. Entitled "Darling of Radic-Libs Opens 'War Crimes' Show", the article described what CCI was doing with this exhibit, complete with a photo of Dellums and CCI leader Jeremy Rifkin who would later form the Marxist-oriented Peoples Bicentennial CommissionPBC, its short-lived successor, the Peoples Business Commission, a foundation known as FET Foundation on Economic Trends, and then into various environmental groups and causes.

Rifkin, a hardcore marxist, was often called the "Al Sharpton" charlatan of the environmental movement, i.e. forming nice-sounding groups that actually were marxist-oriented, anti-free enterprise groups who literally got funding under false pretenses. His story actually represents, in a microcosm, how the Hanoi Lobby deceived so many people for so long, and got funded for their activities.

KEY PERSONNEL

STAFF:

SPONSORS:

NATIONAL COORDINATING COMMITTEE:

This organization the "Citizens' Commission of Inquiry" represented one of the first major Hanoi Lobby organizations to concentrate on alleged U.S. war crimes in Vietnam, and it brought together some of the top pro-Hanoi and pro-VC leaders/activists. Many of their names and identifications show up in the various House Committee on Un-American Activities hearings and reports on the various Mobes organization and successors that existed from 1966 thru approximately 1974 PCPJ, esp. in the New Mobe Staff Study of 1970 where there are hundreds of identifications of people mentioned in it as members of such groups as the Communist Party USA, Socialist Workers Party, their fronts including Veterans For Peace, the Chicago Peace Council and other so-called "peace councils" that formed a large part of the Mobes and PCPJ.

Additional hearings and reports on these groups will be found in other Keywiki sections as well as in the overall Hanoi Lobby section. However, there are at least four books on the "anti-war movement", focusing mainly on [{Vietnam Veterans Against the War]] VVAW that deserve to be listed here because they contain many of the names as listed above, with more details as to their identifications and activities. These books, all written from a leftist to out-right sympathetic viewpoint, are, for the most part, extensively researched, esp. the Nicosia book, but due to the open biases of the authors, they often leave out vital information on who some of these people actually were (especially pertaining to CPUSA identifications). In fact, the key role of Leroy Wolins, a long-time identified CPUSA member, leader of the cited CPUSA front, Veterans for Peace VFP and propaganda import business partner of identified CPUSA member, David S. Canter, in setting up the original VVAW, is only hinted at or totally ignored in these books though it constituted the first major CPUSA penetration and guidance of the New Left veterans who would form the national VVAW (as opposed to local/regional groups with that name who operated as independent units).

David S. Canter would play an as-yet undetermined role in the promotion of the political career of Barack Hussein Obama in the Mayor Harold Washington Chicago era, a fact proferred by his son Marc Canter in an ongoing internet discussion with Trevor Loudon of the website "www.blogspot.com" in 2008. David Canter's communist connections can be found in the HCUA hearings on Communism in Chicago, 1965, et. al. (Full titles to be listed here in the future).

The books on the veterans anti-Vietnam movement worth reading are:

  • 1. "Home to War: A History of the Vietnam Veterans' Movement", Gerald Nicosia, Crown Publishers, 2001, perhaps the best sourced work of the group.
  • 2. "The Turning: A History of Vietnam Veterans Against The War", Andrew E. Hunt, New York University Press, 1999. Though on the far-left, the author did interview key players in VVAW and had access to the CCI papers kept by Maoist Mike Uhl, p. X of "Acknowledgments". CCI-related items can be found in this book and are very important to read. CCI joined with VVAW to sponsor the "Winter Soldier Investigations" that eventually propelled John F. Kerry to fame or infamy, depending on whose side you were on).
  • 3. "The New Winter Soldiers: GI and Veteran Dissent During the Vietnam Era", Richard Moser, Rutgers University, 1996. Moser leans far-left and his reliance on certain communists/veterans for information (or their interpretation of events), presents a problem if you are looking for some objective writing. (In other words, if you know the players, you know where they are coming from, and for the most part, it wasn't from Right Field). However, he did a lot of research and has sourced it, which makes it very useful to the reader (if you understand what it all means).
  • 4. "Antiwarriors: The Vietnam War and The Battle for America's Hearts and Minds", Melvin Small, "Vietnam: America in the War Years" - Volume 1, Scholarly Resources Books, Wilmington, Delaware. Though a liberal in his views, Small actually addresses some of the issues about who controlled the so-called "anti-war movement" and how the radicals eventually took control. This book seems to fill a gap in perspectives that the others leave out (for various reasons). A quick review shows that Small doesn't have a good grasp of the U.S. military's logistical role in supplying the South Vietnamese with arms and equipment, a role that was included in the so-called "Paris Peace Agreement" of January 1973, and which was undercut by the Democrats in 1973 and 1974, thus ensuring that the North Vietnamese, supported to the hilt by the world Communist Bloc (mainly by the Soviet Union, East Germany, Czechoslovakia, Poland, Cuba, Red China and North Korea), would have overwhelming military arms/supplies in any future invasion. In 1975, an under-supplied and demoralized South Vietnamese Army, the same one that helped to defeat the PAVN invasion of 1972, could not withstand the overwhelming North Vietnamese forces arrayed against them, including the best artillery in the world and anti-aircraft missiles that decimated the VNAF. The U.S. stood by and did not keep its treaty agreements for resupplies. It is no wonder that South Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia fell to the communists, something most of these writers have not properly addressed.

Nor have they largely addressed the moral issues of how the anti-war movement aided only the Communists and their aggression, not a real and lasting peace in Indochina. The resulting massive executions, slave labor camps, and resulting deaths of upwards of 100,000 South Vietnamese soldiers, officials, and local leaders, plus the deaths of perhaps several hundred thousand South Vietnamese refugees at sea or at the hands of Thai pirates, doesn't get much, if any, space in these works[6] and [7] reports on the human cost of communism in South Vietnam re the post-war executions and related deaths in the prison/work camps, as well as the prophetic report/testimony on communist political and cultural genocide in Vietnam and Cambodia in the SISS series, "The Human Cost of Communism in Vietnam" (what would be Part I and the Testimony of Daniel Teodoru, Part II, 1972-73), and the testimony of Max P. Friedman in July, 1974, House International Relations Committee, and in April, 1975, before the House Armed Services Committee (about Khmer Rouge plans for a conquered Cambodia).

Perhaps of the few anti-Vietnam activists who actually showed concern about what happened to the people of South Vietnam and Cambodia under Communism conquest/rule (Laos was long forgotten but it suffered a very harsh and deadly No. Vietnamese occupation that goes on till today with the Pathet Lao war of extermination against the Meos tribesmen), only Joan Baez and Jacques Decornoy spoke up in any major public forums. The Hanoi Lobby worked hard to discredit and silence them, and many of those who did so appeared on the CCI list of staff, Sponsors, and National Coordinating Committee.

References

Template:Reflist

  1. ↑ Home To War: A History of the Vietnam Veteran's Movement, Gerald Nicosia, Crown Publishers, 2001, p. 17. Wolins was not identified on this page and often his name is confused with Ron Wolin.
  2. ↑ Personal Communication from Max P. Friedman who met and talked or debated with Davidon, Crumb, Lane, Fonda and Brickner at conferences, meetings, or on television, as well as having met a number of the others listed on this page during his undercover research on the anti-Vietnam movement, 1986-69, "Extent of Subversion in Campus Disorders, Testimony of Max P. Friedman, Part 2, Aug. 16, 1969, SISS and subsequent newspaper/studies writings
  3. ↑ Subversive Influences in Riots, Looting, and Burning, Part 2, Hearings, HCUA, Oct. 31 & Nov. 1, 1967, and more details in "Guerrilla Warfare Advocates in the United States", Report, HCUA, May 6, 1968
  4. ↑ Communist Origin and Manipulation of Vietnam Week, April 8-15, 1967, HCUA, Report, March 31, 1967
  5. ↑ Washington Post, Oct. 2, 1967, Style section, "News Wife 'Schizoid' In Fleeing U.S. Bombs", by Nancy L. Ross, and Washington Star, June 29, 1968, "Deported Russell Aide Arrives in U.S.: British Regime Scored"
  6. ↑ Jacqueline Desbarat and Karl Jackson, "Research Among Vietnamese Refugees Reveals a bloodbath", "Wall Street Journal", April 4, 1985, p. 23 and "Peacetime bloodbath Takes Its toll on Vietnam, Too", "Los Angeles Times", May 1, 1985, pp. 11-13
  7. ↑ Ginetta Sagan"Violations of Human Rights in The Socialist Republic of Vietnam, April 1975 - December 1988" Aurora Foundation
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