The 1976 register which described the records of the Student Mobilization Committee to End the War in Vietnam then in archival custody suggested that the collection represented the committee's complete files. That is not the case; even with the inclusions of subsequent additions, the collection still contains many significant gaps and omissions. As a result, the collection is generally more useful as a record of committee activities than a source for examining internal operations and policy decisions.
While it is difficult to characterize the collection as a whole, primary documentation (as opposed to mimeographed, photocopied, and other widely distributed material in the collection) chiefly dates from the early years of SMC's existence when its headquarters were located in New York City (1966-1968). Included are national steering committee records, correspondence, activity files, publications, financial records, and photographs. These are not completely exclusive, and the researcher should be prepared to examine files in more than one location for information on a particular topic. For example, files on Student Mobe's participation in Vietnam Week are located in the April 8-15, 1967, Activity Files, while material on participation on local campuses in the same event may be found in the State Correspondence Files.
The collection, except for the photographs, was microfilmed by Primary Source Media (an imprint of Gale and a part of Cengage Learning) in 2008 as part of the series America in Protest: Records of Anti-Vietnam War Organizations. For the microfilming the company assigned new folder numbers from 1 to 201 and it did not use a frame counter. It also prepared a name and subject index to the collection that is keyed to the new microfilm folder numbers. A copy of this guide can be found in the State Historical Society of Wisconsin Library (Pam 09-1362). To facilitate access, the contents list which follows incorporates both the box and folder numbers for the paper collection and the new folder numbers assigned by the microfilm publisher. The new folder numbers are designated with the initials MF (for microfilm folder) at the end of each line in the container list. The following chart converts the new folder numbers to the appropriate reel numbers.
|
Reel
|
MF (Microfilm Folder) Range
|
| 1 |
1-6 |
| 2 |
7-15 |
| 3 |
16-21 |
| 4 |
22-31 |
| 5 |
32-49 |
| 6 |
50-61 |
| 7 |
62-72 |
| 8 |
73-88 |
| 9 |
89-100 |
| 10 |
101-108 |
| 11 |
109-119 |
| 12 |
120-130 |
| 13 |
131-143 |
| 14 |
144-158 |
| 15 |
159-173 |
| 16 |
174-186 |
| 17 |
187-201 |
The papers consist of NATIONAL STEERING COMMITTEE RECORDS, CORRESPONDENCE, ACTIVITY FILES, PRESS MATERIAL, FINANCIAL RECORDS, CLIPPINGS, and PHOTOGRAPHS.
NATIONAL STEERING COMMITTEE RECORDS, 1967-1972, consist of meeting announcements, agenda, minutes, and other papers pertaining to the steering committee and also to the continuations, working, and interim working committees. Least represented is the working committee, which met weekly while the national office was headquartered in New York City. Because of their important though fragmentary nature, a complete list of the committee holdings follows:
| Continuations Committee |
1967 January 28 |
call, agenda |
| Working Committee |
1967 June 6 |
minutes |
| Continuations Committee |
1967 November 4 |
call, minutes |
| Working Committee |
1968 May 8 |
minutes |
| Continuations Committee |
1969 June 29-30 |
call, position papers for discussion |
| Steering Committee |
1969 September 28 |
report |
| Steering Committee |
1969 October 19 |
call, agenda, registration forms and handwritten minutes |
| Steering Committee |
1969 December 7 |
agenda, minutes |
| Interim Working Committee |
1969 December 18 |
minutes |
| Interim Working Committee |
1970 January 8 |
minutes |
| Interim Working Committee |
1970 January 20 |
agenda, minutes (typed and handwritten) |
| Steering Committee |
1970 February 14 |
call |
| Steering Committee |
1970 March 8 |
call, registration forms |
| Expanded Emergency Steering Committee |
1970 May 3 and 24 |
call, summary, and other papers regarding disruption by PLP and SAS |
| Expanded Emergency Steering Committee |
1970 October 10 |
schedule, handwritten notes |
| Steering Committee |
1971 May 15 |
call, minutes |
| Steering Committee |
1972 March 25 |
call |
CORRESPONDENCE, 1966-1972, is arranged alphabetically by type: form letters sent primarily to local members and supporters, international and state correspondence, correspondence of Kipp Dawson and Syd Stapleton regarding their attempted ouster, and files of the G.I. Press Service. In addition to actual correspondence, some of these sections include related papers of various kinds.
Both the international and state sections are arranged alphabetically. The state correspondence, which is one of the largest and most useful portions of the collections, provides information on local antiwar activities. Some files, such as those for California, Illinois, Massachusetts, Michigan, and New York, are quite extensive. Although many of the exchanges are routine, some of the best material on the early days of the student war movement may be found in the California file which contains several interesting letters from Bettina Aptheker. The international files, which contain extensive ex-changes with opponents of U.S. involvement in the war in Australia, Canada, France, Vietnam, and other countries, concern arrangements and reports on international student strikes and greetings for SMC conventions. Correspondence in both of these categories, which was most often signed by Kipp Dawson, Syd Stapleton, Carol Lipman and Linda Morse, tapers off with the removal from New York City.
Also extensive are the files of the G.I. Press Service, an arm of SMC, which served as a news service for underground G.I. newspapers and whose publication of the same name served as the anti-war paper for soldiers on posts where there was no underground paper. Included here are exchanges between individual G.I.s and various underground post newspapers and editors Allen Myers and Bob Wilkinson. Also included is correspondence on early G.I. organizing by SMC staff member Howard Petrick prior to the formation of the press service. Also present in this section of the collection are letters, press releases, mailing lists and miscellany; a nearly complete run of G.I. Press Service has been transferred to the Society Library. Also transferred to the Library was an extensive collection of post newspapers collected by the press service.
ACTIVITY FILES, 1967-1972, concern not only SMC-sponsored activities, but also other demonstrations, marches, and protest activities which SMC sponsored either alone or in conjunction with New and National Mobilization Committees to End the War in Vietnam and the National Peace Action Coalition, Although these files are primarily arranged by the date, some activities (most notably SMC's high school organizing and its exposure of campus complicity in the war effort) did not focus on a particular event and are thus filed alphabetically by subject. This section contains limited correspondence, but there are press releases, flyers, and clippings. For SMC's national anti-war conferences there are also copies of proposals submitted to the delegation for discussion. Unfortunately there are few minutes or copies of proceedings for any of these sessions, Most thoroughly represented are:
- 1967 April 8-15, Vietnam Week
- 1968 April 26-27, International student strike
- 1969 April 5-6, Easter weekend G.I. - civilian marches
- 1969 July 4-5, National anti-war conference
- 1970 February 14-15, National student anti-war conference
- 1970 April 15, Student strike
- 1970 December 19 and 21, National student anti-war conference
- 1971 November 3 and 6, Strike and march
- 1972 February 25 and 27, Student anti-war conference
PRESS MATERIALS, 1967-1973, include press releases, flyers, and mailing lists. Runs of Student Mobilizer, High School Mobilizer, and several other national and local SMC titles were transferred to the Historical Society Library.
FINANCIAL RECORDS, 1967-1971, are quite spotty with the exception of a file of widely distributed fund-raising appeals and a file regarding the activities of Ron Wolin, director of special events. This file, which concerns various cocktail parties, art exhibits and other events held by the New York chapter of SMC, is of interest for the light that it sheds on the phenomenon known as “radical chic.”
CLIPPINGS date 1969-1972. PHOTOGRAPHS include images of meetings, a portrait of an anti-war soldier, posters by the group on walls, and demonstrations in Bloomington, Indiana, and in Tucson, Arizona.
