Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- 1 Hagerstown and Schizophrenia
- 2 Social Stratification and Parent–Child Relations in Washington, DC
- 3 The Torino Study
- 4 Men Employed in Civilian Occupations in the United States
- 5 The Transformation of the Occupations Study into a Longitudinal Analysis
- 6 Life on Sabbatical Leave in Norway and at the National Institute of Mental Health
- 7 Class, Stratification, and Personality
- 8 Poland under Communism
- 9 Occupational Self-Direction and Distress in Poland
- 10 The Vietnam War, Nixon, and Me
- 11 Japan
- 12 Germany – West and East
- 13 Poland and Ukraine in Transition to Capitalism and Democracy
- 14 The Presidency of the American Sociological Association, Ronald Reagan, and My Job Switch
- 15 My Two Exploratory Expeditions to China
- 16 China in Transition to a Modern Economy
- 17 Retirement, and My Last Sabbatical, at Deep Springs Junior College
- 18 The Theory I Propose
- Index
10 - The Vietnam War, Nixon, and Me
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 12 July 2019
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- 1 Hagerstown and Schizophrenia
- 2 Social Stratification and Parent–Child Relations in Washington, DC
- 3 The Torino Study
- 4 Men Employed in Civilian Occupations in the United States
- 5 The Transformation of the Occupations Study into a Longitudinal Analysis
- 6 Life on Sabbatical Leave in Norway and at the National Institute of Mental Health
- 7 Class, Stratification, and Personality
- 8 Poland under Communism
- 9 Occupational Self-Direction and Distress in Poland
- 10 The Vietnam War, Nixon, and Me
- 11 Japan
- 12 Germany – West and East
- 13 Poland and Ukraine in Transition to Capitalism and Democracy
- 14 The Presidency of the American Sociological Association, Ronald Reagan, and My Job Switch
- 15 My Two Exploratory Expeditions to China
- 16 China in Transition to a Modern Economy
- 17 Retirement, and My Last Sabbatical, at Deep Springs Junior College
- 18 The Theory I Propose
- Index
Summary
During all the time since I returned from Poland, I was concerned about the damned war in Vietnam, but there was very little I could do about it. Janet, however, soon found that she could devote herself intensively to antiwar efforts. She returned to her former employers, Vi and John Gunther, for whom she had once been secretary, but now as a full-fledged and experienced lawyer. They had just the job for her: She became the staff – the total staff – of a committee they set up to fight Mr. Nixon and his war. It was a Herculean task. She, of course, had no subpoena or any other powers to make any sort of inquiry other than to report what was already in the newspapers but not widely known, or known only to people associated with Capitol Hill or otherwise knowledgeable. She spent lots of time at the Congress, and became well acquainted with any number of knowledgeable people. And she used that knowledge advantageously. It was a very exciting life. But it was her life, not mine, except insofar as it imperiled my position as a government employee. But that was a risk that I was willing to take. I knew I could easily get another job.
Then one day, an extraordinary thing happened. I went to the immense National Institutes of Health (NIH) cafeteria, where, at a well-situated spot in the middle of the room, a well-known and much admired woman, one of the scientific stars of that institution, had set up a bridge table, and was busily soliciting signatures for a petition against the war. But she was not alone. She was being manhandled by a cigar-smoking NIH cop, who was trying to muscle her into closing shop. She resisted. I rushed in and intervened. He turned on me, and we were immediately in a scuffle, my one concern being that damned cigar, which he kept pushing closer to my eyes. But I was a pretty good boxer. My father, who had as a young man been a semiprofessional prize fighter, had bought me child-sized boxing gloves when I was a young kid. I had been beaten up by a gang of Irish kids on my way home from a Cub Scouts meeting at a local synagogue.
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- Publisher: Anthem PressPrint publication year: 2019