April Third Movement
Template:TOCnestleft April Third Movement
History 1965–1975
The movement at Stanford University against the Vietnam War emerged as a significant force in 1965 and continued through the end of the war in 1975. It overlapped with the civil rights/Third World liberation movement, women’s liberation, the counter-culture, gay rights, labor organizing, university reform, anti-draft work, anti-imperialism, and several version of socialism to form what we called the Movement, but anti-war activity was the largest and most sustained thread.
The Stanford anti-war movement was particularly effective, militant, and persistent because we linked our opposition to the war in Southeast Asia to the roles that Stanford and associated institutions played in conducting that war. We researched those connections, wrote pamphlets, led classes, held teach-ins, and organized dorm meetings. We took actions that included peaceful picketing, campus elections, class boycotts, guerilla theater, civil disobedience, “trashing,” and street warfare. And we had many meetings, large and small.
In October 1968, members of Stanford SDS (Students for a Democratic Society) nailed the following demand to the door of the university president’s office in Inner Quad with a “golden spike”:
WE, the members of Stanford SDS and concerned members of the Stanford community, DEMAND that Stanford University, its wholly owned subsidiary, the Stanford Research Institute, and all members of the university community immediately halt all military and economic projects and operations concerned with Southeast Asia.
That demand laid the foundation for the April Third Movement (A3M), one of the highlights of the anti-war decade at Stanford. Formed at a community meeting in Dinkelspiel Auditorium on April 3, 1969, A3M staged a nine-day sit-in at the Applied Electronics Laboratory, briefly occupied the Encina Hall administration building, and blockaded the Stanford Research Institute’s counterinsurgency offices in the Stanford Industrial Park. The following year many of the same activists mounted the “Off ROTC” campaign against the Reserve Officer Training Corps, which grew into the Stanford version of the national student strike in response to the U.S. invasion of Cambodia—a combination of daytime marches, night-time confrontations with police, teach-ins, and the early end to Spring quarter.
The Movement put an end to classified research at Stanford and forced ROTC off campus; and we believe that along with similar movements—among students, GIs, and others—it hastened an end to the war.
Equally important, by attracting our classmates to the anti-war, New Left cause, we had a lasting impact on American society. Many people who took part in our sit-ins and street demonstrations became progressive leaders in academia, the professions, the labor movement, and politics. They helped transform computers from captive tools of the military and large corporations to the technologies that today serve us all.[1]
Reunion/deceased comrades
On May 17, 2014, at the A3M-Plus Reunion, Jane Yett led a memorial session that included comments from Betsy Braunstein (remembering her late husband Yale Braunstein), Lee Herzenberg (remembering her late husband, Len Herzenberg, as well as others), and from Jane on behalf of Charles Drekmeier (remembering Charlie's wife, Margot Drekmeier).
Jane read the names of deceased comrades, as well as brief notes about a couple of them, then others in the room called out the names of others we have lost. Those notes and a combined list may be found below.
We are creating a memorial section on the A3MReunion web site, so we can add names and brief comments as we learn about others who have died. Please submit additional names, paragraphs, and/or spelling corrections to me.
Some of the people remembered at the reunion seemed to have a tangential relationship to the Stanford-area Movement. However, since their names were called out by members of our cohort, we're retaining them on the list.
Lenny Siegel, June 11, 2014.
- Christian Bay
- Yale Braunstein
- Robert McAfee Brown
- Ron Carne
- Frank Cassidy
- Maureen Kulbaitis Cassidy
- Gary Cavazos
- Isobel Cerney
- Robb Crist
- Margot Drekmeier
- Lise Giraud
- Raymond Giraud
- Lee Gorfinkel
- Lila Gosch
- Julia Harvey
- Steve Heiser
- Len Herzenberg
- Jessica Holland
- Charlie Horman
- Wally Hunkeler
- Roy Kepler
- Hildegarde Kneeland
- Ken Mills
- Rev. B. Davie Napier
- Sam Napier
- Jim Saxe
- Ira Sandperl
- Tom Scribner
- Ann Simms
- Rick Smith
- Larry Thatcher
- Liz Wiltsee
- Jeff Youdelman[2]