Flint War Council
Encyclopedia
The Flint War Council was a series of meetings of the Weather Underground Organization
(WUO) and associates in Flint, Michigan
, that took place from 27–31 December 1969 . During these meetings, the decisions were made for the WUO to go underground, to "engage in guerilla warfare against the U.S. government," and to abolish Students for a Democratic Society
(SDS).
would later say that this made the ballroom a "fitting place" to hold the War Council.
For the event, the ballroom was decorated with revolutionary slogans and imagery. There were pictures of Malcolm X
, Che Guevara
, Fidel Castro
, Ho Chi Minh
, Vladimir Lenin
, Mao Tse Tung, and other revolutionary figures influential to members of Weather. One wall was filled with pictures of Fred Hampton
, the Black Panther
leader recently killed by Chicago police. Slogans included "Sirhan Sirhan Power" and "Piece Now" over the picture of a gun. There was also a giant papier-mâché gun, with bullets attached to pictures of President Richard Nixon
, Vice-President Spiro Agnew
, California Governor Ronald Reagan
, Chicago Mayor Richard Daley
, and Sharon Tate
, who had recently been murdered by Charles Manson
and his followers.
The practical effects of this decision dominated discussion at the War Council. Topics for discussion included how to obtain weapons, how to hide from law enforcement, and how violent the WUO should become in order to further the cause of domestic revolution in the United States. The targets of this violence were also discussed; there was even discussion about whether or not white babies were legitimate targets for the group.
In a meeting of WUO leadership conducted behind closed doors, the second decision was to disband what remained of SDS (despite the fact that the gathering had been advertised as the "SDS National War Council" beforehand). This decision reflected the splintering of SDS into hostile rival factions. Rather than try to rebuild SDS from underground, the WUO decided to abandon it altogether. Rudd would call the dissolution of SDS, "[T]he single greatest mistake… of my life… It was a historical crime."
Because of the difficulties in recruiting from underground, and the decision to dissolve SDS, the WUO effectively limited the size and growth potential of the organization.
Mark Rudd gave a speech in which he described himself as a "monomaniacal" "Captain Ahab" set out to kill "the white whale of imperialism," and speculated that killing a "pig" or blowing up a building would be a "really wonderful feeling."
In her speech, Bernardine Dohrn
praised the actions of the Manson family (although she would later claim that the speech was meant to be satirical), saying, "Dig it; first they killed those pigs, then they ate dinner in the room with them, then they even shoved a fork into pig Tate's stomach. Wild!" Holding up four fingers (symbolizing the fork) became the WUO's salute during the War Council.
Even during the event, according to a reporter present, many of the speeches delivered at the War Council "stunned" those who were not part of the WUO. Former members of the WUO have had similar reactions when looking back on the events at the War Council. Jeff Jones later called the speeches an example of "group psychosis," and Mark Rudd described them as "madness." Susan Stern
called the speeches praising Manson, "[T]he last putrid drop of American poison" in the WUO. Cathy Wilkerson said that, although some may have seen the events of the War Council as theatre, to her the sentiments expressed were "deadly serious."
Historians' evaluations of the War Council have also differed. Dan Berger
calls the War Council a "[S]pectacle… an expression of outrage, but one whose hyperbole was self-evident." Jeremy Varon says, "[A]n air of unreality hung over the Weatherman's menacing performances, further confusing just what to make of their "message."" Todd Gitlin
described the speeches as "a public rite to exorcise the Weathermen's last doubts."
" in Chicago]/ When the pigs take a beating/ And things start leading/ To armed war against the state."
At night, there was a party atmosphere, with dancing, a "good deal of free-for-all sexual activity," and discreet drug use (discretion was required because the WUO did not want to give the police a reason to raid the War Council).
Karen Ashley
;
William Ayers;
Kathie [sic] Boudin
;
Jeffrey Blum;
Robert Burlingham;
David Camp;
Peter Clapp;
Edith Crichton;
Mona Cunningham;
Marc Dinsmore;
Brian Flanagan
;
Laura Foner;
John Fuerst;
Lynn Raye Garvin;
David Gilbert
;
Theodore Gold;
Joyce Greenways;
Leonard Handlesman;
Phoebe Hirsch
;
John Jacobs
;
Naomi Jaffe
;
Jeff Jones
;
Michael Junstesen;
David Klafter;
Nancy Kurshan
;
Karen Latimer;
Jonathon Lerner;
Connie Long (Ullman);
Howard Machtinger
;
Jeffrey Melish;
James Mellen;
Raymond Moser;
Russel Neufeld;
Diana Oughton
;
Jed Proujansky;
Eleanor Raskin
;
Natalee Rosenstein;
Mark Rudd
;
Marguerite Smith;
Michael Speigel;
Jane Spielman;
Barry Stein;
Malorie Tolles;
Robert Tomaschavsky;
Clayton Van Lydegraf
;
Mary Wozniak.
Weather Underground (organization)
Weatherman, known colloquially as the Weathermen and later the Weather Underground Organization , was an American radical left organization. It originated in 1969 as a faction of Students for a Democratic Society composed for the most part of the national office leadership of SDS and their...
(WUO) and associates in Flint, Michigan
Flint, Michigan
Flint is a city in the U.S. state of Michigan and is located along the Flint River, northwest of Detroit. The U.S. Census Bureau reports the 2010 population to be placed at 102,434, making Flint the seventh largest city in Michigan. It is the county seat of Genesee County which lies in the...
, that took place from 27–31 December 1969 . During these meetings, the decisions were made for the WUO to go underground, to "engage in guerilla warfare against the U.S. government," and to abolish Students for a Democratic Society
Students for a Democratic Society
Students for a Democratic Society was a student activist movement in the United States that was one of the main iconic representations of the country's New Left. The organization developed and expanded rapidly in the mid-1960s before dissolving at its last convention in 1969...
(SDS).
Location
The War Council took place in a dance hall in the middle of the "black ghetto" in Flint, Michigan. There was a dried blood stain in the corner of the ballroom, the residue from where a shooting had taken place the night before. Mark RuddMark Rudd
Mark William Rudd is a political organizer, mathematics instructor, and anti-war activist, most well known for his involvement with the Weather Underground. Rudd became a member of the Columbia University chapter of Students for a Democratic Society in 1963. By 1968, he had emerged as a leader...
would later say that this made the ballroom a "fitting place" to hold the War Council.
For the event, the ballroom was decorated with revolutionary slogans and imagery. There were pictures of Malcolm X
Malcolm X
Malcolm X , born Malcolm Little and also known as El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz , was an African American Muslim minister and human rights activist. To his admirers he was a courageous advocate for the rights of African Americans, a man who indicted white America in the harshest terms for its...
, Che Guevara
Che Guevara
Ernesto "Che" Guevara , commonly known as el Che or simply Che, was an Argentine Marxist revolutionary, physician, author, intellectual, guerrilla leader, diplomat and military theorist...
, Fidel Castro
Fidel Castro
Fidel Alejandro Castro Ruz is a Cuban revolutionary and politician, having held the position of Prime Minister of Cuba from 1959 to 1976, and then President from 1976 to 2008. He also served as the First Secretary of the Communist Party of Cuba from the party's foundation in 1961 until 2011...
, Ho Chi Minh
Ho Chi Minh
Hồ Chí Minh , born Nguyễn Sinh Cung and also known as Nguyễn Ái Quốc, was a Vietnamese Marxist-Leninist revolutionary leader who was prime minister and president of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam...
, Vladimir Lenin
Vladimir Lenin
Vladimir Ilyich Lenin was a Russian Marxist revolutionary and communist politician who led the October Revolution of 1917. As leader of the Bolsheviks, he headed the Soviet state during its initial years , as it fought to establish control of Russia in the Russian Civil War and worked to create a...
, Mao Tse Tung, and other revolutionary figures influential to members of Weather. One wall was filled with pictures of Fred Hampton
Fred Hampton
Fred Hampton was an African-American activist and deputy chairman of the Illinois chapter of the Black Panther Party...
, the Black Panther
Black panther
A black panther is typically a melanistic color variant of any of several species of larger cat. Wild black panthers in Latin America are black jaguars , in Asia and Africa they are black leopards , and in North America they may be black jaguars or possibly black cougars A black panther is...
leader recently killed by Chicago police. Slogans included "Sirhan Sirhan Power" and "Piece Now" over the picture of a gun. There was also a giant papier-mâché gun, with bullets attached to pictures of President Richard Nixon
Richard Nixon
Richard Milhous Nixon was the 37th President of the United States, serving from 1969 to 1974. The only president to resign the office, Nixon had previously served as a US representative and senator from California and as the 36th Vice President of the United States from 1953 to 1961 under...
, Vice-President Spiro Agnew
Spiro Agnew
Spiro Theodore Agnew was the 39th Vice President of the United States , serving under President Richard Nixon, and the 55th Governor of Maryland...
, California Governor Ronald Reagan
Ronald Reagan
Ronald Wilson Reagan was the 40th President of the United States , the 33rd Governor of California and, prior to that, a radio, film and television actor....
, Chicago Mayor Richard Daley
Richard Daley
Richard Daley may refer to:*Richard J. Daley , Mayor of Chicago , father of Richard M. Daley*Richard M. Daley , Mayor of Chicago , son of Richard J. Daley...
, and Sharon Tate
Sharon Tate
Sharon Marie Tate was an American actress. During the 1960s she played small television roles before appearing in several films. After receiving positive reviews for her comedic performances, she was hailed as one of Hollywood's promising newcomers and was nominated for a Golden Globe Award for...
, who had recently been murdered by Charles Manson
Charles Manson
Charles Milles Manson is an American criminal who led what became known as the Manson Family, a quasi-commune that arose in California in the late 1960s. He was found guilty of conspiracy to commit the Tate/LaBianca murders carried out by members of the group at his instruction...
and his followers.
Decisions
Two important decisions were made during the War Council. The first of these decisions was to go underground, which stemmed from the fact that law enforcement was increasing pressure on the WUO and similar groups (as evidenced by the killing of Fred Hampton), as well as the belief that going underground was the best way to conduct guerrilla warfare against the U.S. government.The practical effects of this decision dominated discussion at the War Council. Topics for discussion included how to obtain weapons, how to hide from law enforcement, and how violent the WUO should become in order to further the cause of domestic revolution in the United States. The targets of this violence were also discussed; there was even discussion about whether or not white babies were legitimate targets for the group.
In a meeting of WUO leadership conducted behind closed doors, the second decision was to disband what remained of SDS (despite the fact that the gathering had been advertised as the "SDS National War Council" beforehand). This decision reflected the splintering of SDS into hostile rival factions. Rather than try to rebuild SDS from underground, the WUO decided to abandon it altogether. Rudd would call the dissolution of SDS, "[T]he single greatest mistake… of my life… It was a historical crime."
Because of the difficulties in recruiting from underground, and the decision to dissolve SDS, the WUO effectively limited the size and growth potential of the organization.
Speeches
During the course of the War Council, several of the leading members of the WUO gave impassioned speeches designed, as Judy Siff later said, to "really psych [the group] up." Some of these speeches would become very controversial.Mark Rudd gave a speech in which he described himself as a "monomaniacal" "Captain Ahab" set out to kill "the white whale of imperialism," and speculated that killing a "pig" or blowing up a building would be a "really wonderful feeling."
In her speech, Bernardine Dohrn
Bernardine Dohrn
Bernardine Rae Dohrn is a former leader of the American anti-Vietnam War radical organization, Weather Underground. She is an Associate Professor of Law at Northwestern University School of Law and the immediate past Director of Northwestern's Children and Family Justice Center...
praised the actions of the Manson family (although she would later claim that the speech was meant to be satirical), saying, "Dig it; first they killed those pigs, then they ate dinner in the room with them, then they even shoved a fork into pig Tate's stomach. Wild!" Holding up four fingers (symbolizing the fork) became the WUO's salute during the War Council.
Historical Perspectives
The Flint War Council has been controversial with historians and former WUO members because of some of the statements made during the event.Even during the event, according to a reporter present, many of the speeches delivered at the War Council "stunned" those who were not part of the WUO. Former members of the WUO have had similar reactions when looking back on the events at the War Council. Jeff Jones later called the speeches an example of "group psychosis," and Mark Rudd described them as "madness." Susan Stern
Susan Stern
Susan Ellen Stern was an American political activist.She was a member of the prominent anti-Vietnam War groups Students for a Democratic Society , Weatherman and the Seattle Liberation Front ....
called the speeches praising Manson, "[T]he last putrid drop of American poison" in the WUO. Cathy Wilkerson said that, although some may have seen the events of the War Council as theatre, to her the sentiments expressed were "deadly serious."
Historians' evaluations of the War Council have also differed. Dan Berger
Dan Berger
Dan Berger is an American comic book artist best known for his work on the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles series.Berger began his career working on the TMNT Adventures series published by Archie Comics and officially began working on TMNT in August 1989...
calls the War Council a "[S]pectacle… an expression of outrage, but one whose hyperbole was self-evident." Jeremy Varon says, "[A]n air of unreality hung over the Weatherman's menacing performances, further confusing just what to make of their "message."" Todd Gitlin
Todd Gitlin
Todd Gitlin is an American sociologist, political writer, novelist, and cultural commentator. He has written widely on the mass media, politics, intellectual life and the arts, for both popular and scholarly publications.-New Left activist:...
described the speeches as "a public rite to exorcise the Weathermen's last doubts."
Other activities
During the War Council, the WUO held a number of communal activities, including sessions of karate practice, and singing from the "Weatherman songbook," which replaced the lyrics of popular songs with revolutionary messages. One example was "White Riot," sung to the tune of "White Christmas," and containing the lyrics, "I'm dreaming of a white riot/ Just like the one October 8 [referencing the "Days of RageDays of Rage
The Days of Rage demonstrations were a series of direct actions taken over a course of three days in October 1969 in Chicago organized by the Weatherman faction of the Students for a Democratic Society...
" in Chicago]/ When the pigs take a beating/ And things start leading/ To armed war against the state."
At night, there was a party atmosphere, with dancing, a "good deal of free-for-all sexual activity," and discreet drug use (discretion was required because the WUO did not want to give the police a reason to raid the War Council).
Attendees
Around 300 people attended the War Council. Among the groups represented, besides the WUO, were the Detroit White Panthers, the Bay Area Collective, and RYM II. According to the FBI, the following people "are known to have attended this convention":Karen Ashley
Karen Ashley
Karen Ashley is a former member of Students for a Democratic Society and The Weatherman .-SDS:In February 1968, Karen Ashley and Mark Rudd along with eighteen other SDS members traveled to Cuba as guests of the Cuban government...
;
William Ayers;
Kathie [sic] Boudin
Kathy Boudin
Kathy Boudin is a former American radical who was convicted in 1984 of felony murder for her participation in an armed robbery that resulted in the killing of three people. She later became a public health expert while in prison...
;
Jeffrey Blum;
Robert Burlingham;
David Camp;
Peter Clapp;
Edith Crichton;
Mona Cunningham;
Marc Dinsmore;
Brian Flanagan
Brian Flanagan
Brian Flanagan is a former member of the American radical left organizations Students for a Democratic Society and the Weather Underground Organization .-Early life:...
;
Laura Foner;
John Fuerst;
Lynn Raye Garvin;
David Gilbert
David Gilbert
David Gilbert is an American radical leftist organizer and activist who is currently imprisoned at Auburn Correctional Facility. Gilbert was a founding member of Columbia University Students for a Democratic Society and member of the Weather Underground Organization...
;
Theodore Gold;
Joyce Greenways;
Leonard Handlesman;
Phoebe Hirsch
Phoebe Hirsch
Phoebe Hirsch is a former member of Students for a Democratic Society and Weatherman .-Early Education and Activism:...
;
John Jacobs
John Jacobs (student leader)
John Gregory Jacobs was an American student and anti-war activist in the 1960s and early 1970s. He was a leader in both Students for a Democratic Society and the Weatherman group, and an advocate of the use of violent force to overthrow the government of the United States...
;
Naomi Jaffe
Naomi Jaffe
Naomi Esther Jaffe is a former undergraduate student of Herbert Marcuse and member of the Weather Underground Organization. Jaffe was recently the Executive Director of Holding Our Own, a multiracial foundation for women.-Early life:...
;
Jeff Jones
Jeff Jones (activist)
Jeff Jones is an environmental activist and consultant in Upstate New York. He was a national officer in Students for a Democratic Society, a founding member of Weatherman, and a leader of the Weather Underground....
;
Michael Junstesen;
David Klafter;
Nancy Kurshan
Nancy Kurshan
Nancy Kurshan was born in Brooklyn, NY on February 4, 1944, was raised as a “red diaper baby” and is best known for being a founder of the Youth International Party . She was a participant in the civil rights and peace movements as far back as high school...
;
Karen Latimer;
Jonathon Lerner;
Connie Long (Ullman);
Howard Machtinger
Howard Machtinger
Howard Norton Machtinger is a former director of Carolina Teaching Fellows, a student teacher scholarship program at the University of North Carolina. He is an education and civil rights activist, a teacher, a forum leader, and a political commentator...
;
Jeffrey Melish;
James Mellen;
Raymond Moser;
Russel Neufeld;
Diana Oughton
Diana Oughton
Diana Oughton was a member of the Students for a Democratic Society Michigan Chapter and later, a member of the 1960s radical group Weatherman. Oughton received her B.A. from Bryn Mawr College. After graduation, Oughton went to Guatemala with the VISA program to teach the young and older...
;
Jed Proujansky;
Eleanor Raskin
Eleanor Raskin
Eleanor E. Raskin née Stein; was a member of Weatherman. She is currently an associate professor at Albany Law School, teaching transnational environmental law with a focus on catastrophic climate change.- Early life :Eleanor E...
;
Natalee Rosenstein;
Mark Rudd
Mark Rudd
Mark William Rudd is a political organizer, mathematics instructor, and anti-war activist, most well known for his involvement with the Weather Underground. Rudd became a member of the Columbia University chapter of Students for a Democratic Society in 1963. By 1968, he had emerged as a leader...
;
Marguerite Smith;
Michael Speigel;
Jane Spielman;
Barry Stein;
Malorie Tolles;
Robert Tomaschavsky;
Clayton Van Lydegraf
Clayton Van Lydegraf
Clayton Van Lydegraf was a writer and activist of significant influence on the New Left in the 1960s. He served as Secretary of the Communist Party in Washington State in the late 1940s....
;
Mary Wozniak.