Atomic weapons for Vietnam?

fey Wa

1 Viet S'ound f

Yi Americans plan to
Viet atomic weapons in

tion this: lam? No idle specula-
the Asso, a8 early as last March,
e Meoaieie Press described
4 ieee on Into Vietnam of
| Atomic - howitzer, “The 6-inch
| lo Aeell that has been deve-
f or the 155-mm. howitzer
"quivale Y Packs an atomic blast
to around 1,000 tons

he :
ity of By Issue of the Minor-
ing about), Parts the follow-
wet the new weapon:

Tom 4
of March 90° hington Post story
atomic how: it emerges that the
fa epilzer Shell is but one
| ended Y of atomic weapons
Clear Kn Vietnam. One nu-
the Vietcong pec nicknamed
Ver,
Weapons al New types of nuclear
‘the Penta ave been offered to
rand 80n for the Vietnam
: Conflicts like it.

(sig) He aiclear bomb advertised
Of Underoy Ve against the kind
h Ortifications the
Vietnam's ave built in South
*Dlode at on Triangle would
© gtound 1 euvine itself in

mee a8 Secret. tech-
SOurces  “OFding to stele?

z

the aro The blast would shake
Or miles around,
We thy tunnels in the
Sound, 4S structures above

las NY tro
Beck, a Ops ne
Mell 8 Would be killed we

farth ee nea

he. “is :
“Mount pndae bomb’ woutd
n athe ccing the conven-
SW ‘eye? ae On one of the
Ombs already deve-

ee
| Us 8 these sam

e fi
Ports aa People Ines, the

"s Voice, re-
Story from

_ “Heavily guarded, unusual and
furtive weapons movements at
the naval weapons station here
have furnished strong —if cir-
cumstantial — evidence that nu-
clear devices are on their way to
Southeast Asia as escalation of
the Vietnam war threatens a
world conflagration.

“The unusual activity was
spotted by members of the Port
Chicago peace vigil, who have
been watching weapons move-
ments daily during the past nine
months.

“The evidence consists of
trucks labeled ‘radioactive ma-
terial,/ which were spotted en-
tering a terminal near the base,
and of the movement of heavily
guarded box cars, sandwiched
between troop-bunk cars being
moved out of Port Chicago east-
bound.

“Since the beginning of May,
vigilers report, the movement
of ‘conventional’ weapons, in-
cluding napalm, had almost
doubled at the base from which
90 percent of all U.S. Asia-bound
war materials are reportedly
shipped.

“But the new, horrifying touch
was added on May 9, when vilig-
ers first saw what they dubbed
the ‘doomsday machine.’

“The box and bunk cars were
hitched to the middle of the
freight, well away from the en-
gineer. The car bore no unusual
markings.

“About the stepped up move-
ment of ‘ other - weapons, ‘the
vigilers report that on one day
(May 17), between 9 a.m. and 3
p.m. they tallied the following
movement through one of the
area’s two gates: eight explo-
sives- trucks, seven napalm
trucks and 125 railroad cars with

|
:
|
H) laps.
|
.
|
|
|
.
|
|
i
|

Port epic follow;
F n
Chicago California:
KE See ATOMIC, pg. 10

— ek
— z ——
2 : ~—
Se nha
hoa
Ni
eS YY
ipwe @ : rp
/ Ww Aik
hs
HY
“isn §
j pasa

yy

Girerd in Le Travail (Montreal)

iy be, y Ow) %
"hu, "ce; “Wing i
ft, .eive S part ‘
y Si, Piscops Y the 7eoe let- being taken over by the Com-
FA, Franc! Peace ell Cfor of munists. I am here to tell you,
"ric, eh ine ve. oe i my very dear breathren, that if
SS Nteey eS} were a poor: Vi eas-
sa jkr for 4 at its
in South Vie,. Prevent me from being a Viet-

," Oe, ; H namese Communist. Do you un-
Ue, Vietnam. derstand that?

Do- you understand what it

hy Se means to have a plane fly over-
Mn, "© at 4,2 + fear. The head and just stop in utter ter-

ge S'ation ie Animal Hus- ror of what that plane might be
tin int ay and 7e0ns along doing? Do you understand what
ss ang « COUntr Nave gone napalm does to people? It ex-
Ag My Visite YSide several plodes and spread a jelly all over
Pvglar to Wok he @ places in everything in the vicinity. The
“a Wore? Steir is quite jelly is on fire. It burns through
/ he org, iN agri Orpsman’s Clothing and destroys the skin
vg hing au thing rature ex- With burns. It leaves the people
bs i ountr find myself not already dead to die a hor-
| me Yo Y Visited by ible death by burns. It burns
“ingt? Ca kno wh trees, houses, everything.
deg cine the You even s _that Do you understand what a
Woy able Ber horton €gin to phosphorous bomb does? It gets
y Suffer; and in- on the body and burns; and it

Nita, Te rin
Fi, (ed Seresents2 ats that does not stop burning until it
is fighting . The reaches bone. What does it feel
uth Via? 2 War like, I wonder, to have phos-

) Ent g
i :
etnam from phorous on your face and feel it

eating away right down to the
skull. Do you like that picture?
Well, that is what your govern-
ment and mine is doing!

Do you understand what it
means to be a subsistence far-
mer, just growing enough rice
for the family to live on for a
year? And do you understand
how it feels to watch a plane fly
overhead spraying chemicals on
your field just before harvest,
and then watch that field become
brown, and then black?

Do you understand that bombs
and artillery are indiscriminate
and don’t just cause death and
suffering among Vietnamese
Communists? Do you under-
stand what it is like to be liv-
ing in a village in an “insecure”
area and to have a plane unload
its bombs and then strafe your
village without mercy because
someone fired at him with a
rifle? Can you even begin to
imagine the utter horror of be-
ing in a village where the planes
come in dronnin~ freqmentetion

S WAR!

bombs to get an effective “kill?”

Can you imagine how my
Vietnamese friend felt when an
American soldier stopped me
and asked, in a loud voice,
“You aren’t a gook, are you?
Don’t worry, my friend; we
aren’t killing persons over here,
we are cleaning up the gooks.”

If you could hear me writing
this letter you would know that
these words are being shouted
in: desperation and anguish.

Do you understand that almost
90 percent of the refugees in
Vietnam are refugees of U.S.
firepower? Have you ever been
in a refugee camp? Sensed the
hopelessness, the fear, the deep
sorrow and yearning for the now
destroyed home?

Many of my friends have writ-
ten and asked if they could help
me and my work with an offer-
ing of money. I respond-to them
and to you. If you have been
able to grasp even a tiny frac-
tion of the anguish and despera-
tion of this letter, and T hare

} \the name of everything that is sane and loving..

|. Please, STOP THI

been able to record a fraction of
what I feel, and I feel only a
fraction of what my people in
the countryside feel; then you
will do everything in your power
and in the power that God offers
you to STOP THIS WAR!!! Pick-
et, go to jail, protest, organize
politically, preach, pray, write
letters, bring our bumbing giant
of a nation to its knees. Do
whatever is necessary, but
please, please, in the name of
everything that is sane and loy-
ing, please STOP THE WAR!

I am sure that there is any
number of good reasons why we
should be fighting this war, but
I really can’t find any good en-
ough as I see what this war
does to our brethren.

Please don’t sleep well tonight,
or any night until somehow a
way is found to stop destroying
human beings in Vietnam.

I send this letter in love and
agony.

David Nesmith, [VS/USAID,
Advisory Tes>m No. 3.

June 16, 1967—PACIFIC TRIBUNE—Page 3