Title: National Peace Action Coalition Records
Inclusive Dates: 1970-1973

Creator:

• National Peace Action Coalition

Call Number: Micro 828; Audio 806A; PH 4808; M80-019; M92-176; M96-198

Quantity: 10 reels of microfilm (35 mm), 0.2 cubic feet of photographs (1 archives box), 0.1 cubic feet of posters (1 oversize folder), and 6 tape recordings; plus additions of 0.1 cubic feet, 6 photographs, and 1 videorecording (1/4-inch reel)

Repository:

Wisconsin Historical Society, Division of Library, Archives, and Museum Collections

Archival Locations:

Wisconsin Historical Society (Map)

COLLECTION MAY BE STORED OFF-SITE: see catalog entry to request materials and for additional information.

Abstract:

Records of the National Peace Action Coalition, a national coalition (1970-1973) that opposed U.S. involvement in the war in Vietnam. Although incomplete, the collection is revealing about NPAC's own activities and its often acrimonious dealings with the People's Coalition for Peace and Justice. Included are files on NPAC's internal structure, correspondence, financial records, publications, and other general records; activities files; and a small affiliate file. Material relating to NPAC's internal structure includes announcements, agenda, and minutes for many meetings of the national steering committee and lists of members and affiliated locals. General correspondence includes exchanges with various affiliates such as the Student Mobilization Committee which were most often written by national coordinators Stephanie Coontz and Jerry Gordon and by Ron Wolin and other staff members; legal correspondence relating to an investigation of NPAC by the House Internal Security Committee for its alleged socialist domination; and exchanges with international opponents of the war in Japan, Vietnam, and other countries. Activity files relate to various actions and anti-war conventions in which NPAC participated.

Language: English

URL to cite for this finding aid: http://digital.library.wisc.edu/1711.dl/wiarchives.uw-whs-micr0828

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The National Peace Action Coalition was an umbrella organization composed of many local and national groups and coalitions that opposed U.S. involvement in the war in Vietnam. Combined with the Student Mobilization Committee to End the War in Vietnam, its student arm, the National Peace Action Coalition represented the largest, best organized, and most generously funded of the anti-war groups. More important than its size and success in mustering supporters for large demonstrations, the formation of NPAC at the National Emergency Conference in Cleveland on June 19-20, 1970, acknowledged the growing split between various anti-war groups. These differences, which continued in varying degrees throughout NPAC's existence, focused on its affirmation of non-exclusion, the principle by which all opponents of the war were welcomed regardless of political ideology, and on its unwillingness to dilute the movement to encompass other social and political issues. In addition, NPAC's strategic commitment to peaceful mass actions set it apart from those groups that condoned confrontation tactics. Finally, the National Peace Action Coalition differed from still other groups in its insistence that policy and tactics be democratically determined by biannual conventions.

Between its conventions, NPAC was governed by a national steering committee made up of elected representatives of all the member organizations and by five national coordinators: Jerry Gordon, who also headed the national staff, Ruth Gage-Colby, Don Gurewitz, James Lafferty, and John T. Williams. Later coordinators were Stephanie Coontz, Fred Lovgren, and Katherine Sojourner.

Among the major actions which NPAC built were the demonstrations of October 31, 1970; April 24, 1971; November 6, 1971; and April 22, 1972. In addition to its sponsorship of these and other mass actions, NPAC made national news when it was charged during hearings before the House Internal Security Committee that the coalition was controlled by the Socialist Workers Party. Although the degree to which NPAC served as a front for the SWP is uncertain, socialists were unquestionably important in its structure and influential in its policy-making. Fred Halstead, SWP presidential candidate, was closely involved in the coalition, and his Out Now! A Participants Account of the American Movement Against the Vietnam War should be consulted for an informative and detailed history of the organization.

Little is known about the provenance of the bulk of the records of the National Peace Action Coalition. Fred Halstead wrote in correspondence with the Society's Field Services Division, only that his donations here were materials to which he “had access.” Examination of these papers provided only a few clues about the history of the collection. Because of the incomplete nature of the documentation and the presence of much photocopied material it is likely that the original accessions represented only a portion of the historical record of NPAC activities. In 1980 national coordinator Jerry Gordon added six feet of records to the collection. These papers complemented the existing collection, and hence did little to change its overall character. Later Abe Bloom added material on the Washington Area Peace Action Coalition.

The researcher may also be assisted by knowing that much of the collection was received as loose material and that its present order is entirely imposed. This arrangement consists of records in three groups: general records, activity files, and a small affiliate file.

GENERAL RECORDS, 1970-1973, contain material generated by NPAC's internal governing structure, together with correspondence, financial records, clippings, and publications. The section begins with an information file, consisting of a few brief organizational histories and fact sheets. The structural material includes minutes, agendas, and announcements of the national steering committee, lists of committees at various stages in its history, lists of regional and local affiliates, and biographical information about the national coordinators.

Because of their importance a complete listing of the records of the national steering committee follows:

• 1970 July 18: calls, minutes
• 1970 August 22: calls, agenda, minutes
• 1970 September 19: call, agenda, minutes (2 versions), recordings
• 1970 October 11: calls, agenda, minutes, and transcription
• 1970 November 21: call, agenda
• 1970 December 4-6: calls
• 1970 undated: agenda
• 1971 January 16: calls, agenda, minutes
• 1971 February 13: calls, minutes
• 1971 February 21 (?): minutes
• 1971 March 12 and 13: calls, agendas, minutes (2 versions), transcription of labor panel with Sam Pollock, Abe Feinglass and Moe Foner
• 1971 March 27: minutes
• 1971 April 10: call, agenda
• 1971 May 8: call, agenda, minutes
• 1971 June 12: call, agenda, minutes
• 1971 September 18: calls, agenda
• 1971 October 23: call, agenda
• 1971 November 21: calls
• 1971 December 3: agenda
• 1972 January 8: calls
• 1972 February 6: call, agenda, minutes (2 versions)
• 1972 March 11: call
• 1972 April 8: call
• 1972 Spring: agenda
• 1972 May 7: call, agenda
• 1972 June 3: calls
• 1972 July 7 (8): calls, agenda
• 1972 July 21: agenda
• 1972 August 27: call, agenda
• 1972 October 8: call, agenda
• 1972 November 4: call
• 1972 December 2: call, agenda
• 1973 January 31: call, agenda
• 1973 February 23 and 24: call, agenda, memorandum, recordings
• 1973 August 6: call
• 1973 September 5: call
• 1973 September 15: minutes
• undated January 17: agenda
• undated: agenda

The general correspondence is incomplete, yet it is revealing both with regard to NPAC's activities and to its relations with the People's Coalition for Peace and Justice. The early letters, most often written to and from Coordinator Jerry Gordon, reveal a conciliatory attempt to work with PCPJ, labor unions, and various other peace organizations. Throughout are letters and reports from local groups pertaining to the organization and mobilization of the coalition. This later correspondence is sometimes written by Stephanie Coontz and Katherine Sojourner or by Ron Wolin and other members of the staff. Unfortunately only a few items provide information on relations between the coordinators. Among the prominent correspondents are:

• Abzug, Bella S., 1971 June 23
• Alda, Alan, 1972 February 14
• Feinglass, Abe, 1971 April 5
• Fernandez, Richard R., 1970 September 9, October 2, November 20
• Gorman, Patrick, 1972 April 5
• Lowenstein, Allard, 1971 May 17
• Meachem, Stewart, 1970 October 7
• Muskie, Edmund S., 1971 June 9 in a letter of June 25
• Pollock, Sam, 1970 June 29
• Seeger, Pete, undated

Correspondence circulated as form letters also includes some items of special note. Particularly interesting are several letters pertaining to relations with the PCPJ and a copy of greetings cabled by the Vietnamese Provisional Revolutionary Government in 1971. The correspondence and related papers about the House Internal Security Committee hearings include statements of support, press releases, clippings, and copies of legal briefs relating to a suit filed by NPAC and PCPJ to prevent subpoena of their financial records. Other legal correspondence contains briefs for a related suit in which NPAC joined with the American Civil Liberties Union. International correspondence best represents relations with opponents of the war in Japan and Vietnam and contains material collected by NPAC representatives at the Paris World Assembly for the Peace and Independence of Indochinese Peoples.

Financial records consist of fund-raising form letters, budgets, lists of expenditures, and material relating to two special events sponsored by the New York coalition.

The ACTIVITY FILES contain the following types of material: correspondence, form letters, flyers, endorsements, logistical material and convention papers, clippings, and miscellany. For the anti-war conventions, the logistics category includes proposed agenda, resolutions submitted for debates, and, occasionally, minutes. Best represented are the April 24, 1971 and April 22, 1972 Marches on Washington, D.C., the November 6, 1971 strike, and other actions of the offensive of that fall. Prominent correspondents in this section include:

• Abzug, Bella S., 1971 March 10, September 30
• Bayh, Birch, 1972 circa July 21
• Chomsky, Noam, 1970 December 3
• Cranston, Alan, 1972 June 28
• Davis, Leon J., 1971 October 8
• Fernandez, Richard, 1970 October 9
• Gravel, Mike, 1971 March 19, October 4
• Hart, Philip A., 1971 October 7
• Hartke, Vance, 1971 March 10, October 9
• Hester, Hugh B., 1971 October 8
• King, Coretta, 1971 March 26
• Koch, Edward, 1971 March 26
• McGovern, George, 1971 June 30, 1972, circa July 21
• Mazey, Emil, 1970 October 5
• Meachem, Stewart, 1970 November 16
• Morgenthau, Hans, 1971 September 28
• Peck, Sid, 1970 pre June 20 memo
• Rangel, Charles B., 1971 August 24
• Stokes, Louis, 1971 February 26
• Tunney, John, 1972 July 20
• Wilkins, Roy, 1971 February in 1971, February 11
• Woodcock, Leonard, 1971 February 19

The AFFILIATE FILE consists of flyers, press releases, and other published material which did not pertain to the activity file or the general records.

The VISUAL MATERIALS consist of photographs, photocopies, contact sheets, a videorecording, and drawings relating to the National Peace Action Coalition and the anti-war movement, 1965-1971. Most of the images show death, injury and destruction in Vietnam. Other images depict anti-war protests by students in the United States and abroad, an anti-war event at the Biltmore Hotel in New York City, and designs for buttons and posters for a protest in Washington, D.C. The video is identified as an edited peace promo.

Acquisition Information

Presented by the Coalition, New York, New York, via Barbara West; Fred Halstead, Chicago, Illinois; Jerry Gordon, Washington, D.C., and Bonnie Gordon, Cleveland, Ohio; and Abe Bloom, Washington, D.C., 1971-1978. Accession Number: M78-068, M80-019, M92-176, M96-198

Micro 828	Series: General Papers
Reel   1 Frame   1	Information file, 1971-1972
	National Steering Committee
Reel   1 Frame   14	Minutes, 1970-1973
806A/5	1971 September 18
806A/6	1973 February 24
Micro 828 Reel   1 Frame   322	Member lists, 1970-1972
Reel   1 Frame   393	Regional office lists, undated
Reel   1 Frame   411	National coordinators information file, 1971-1972
Reel   1 Frame   448	Organizing materials, 1971, undated
	Correspondence
	General correspondence
Reel   1 Frame   474	1970-1971
Reel   2 Frame   1	1972-1973
Reel   2 Frame   355	Form letters, 1970-1973
Reel   2 Frame   502	Gage-Colby, Ruth, testimonial dinner, 1971-1972
	House Internal Security Committee, 1971
Reel   2 Frame   588	Correspondence
Reel   2 Frame   637	Press releases
Reel   2 Frame   686	Legal documents
Reel   2 Frame   739	Clippings
Reel   2 Frame   778	International correspondence, 1970-1973
Reel   2 Frame   983	Legal correspondence, 1972
	Financial records
Reel   3 Frame   1	Fund-raising form letters, 1971-1972
Reel   3 Frame   49	Budgets and expenditures, 1907-1971
Reel   3 Frame   124	Collage of Indignation art sale, 1971
Reel   3 Frame   139	“Absolutely No U.S. Personnel Beyond This Point,” art sale, 1972
Reel   3 Frame   149a	Miscellaneous mailings, undated
Reel   3 Frame   329	Press releases, 1970-1973
Reel   3 Frame   454	Publications, undated
Reel   3 Frame   726	Button ideas, undated
Reel   3 Frame   766	Clippings, 1970-1973
	Series: Activity Files	⇧
Reel   3 Frame   903	National Emergency Conference against the Cambodia-Laos-Vietnam War (founding conference), 1970 June 19-21
806A/3	Recorded sessions
Micro 828 Reel   4 Frame   1	Peace Action Day, 1970 October 31
Reel   4 Frame   308	National Convention of the U.S. Antiwar Movement, 1970 December 4-6
Reel   4 Frame   603	WAPAC demonstration, 1971 April 15
	March on Washington, 1971 April 24
Reel   4 Frame   612	Correspondence - Press releases, 1971 March
Reel   5 Frame   1	Press releases, 1971 April - miscellany
806A/4	Recorded speeches
Micro 828 Reel   5 Frame   729	1971 May 15
	National Antiwar Convention, 1971 July 2-4
Reel   5 Frame   733	Correspondence - logistics and convention papers
Reel   6 Frame   1	Clippings
Reel   6 Frame   54	Hiroshima Day, 1971 August 6
Reel   6 Frame   106	Fall offensive, 1971
Reel   6 Frame   723	Moratorium Day, 1971 October 13
	March, 1971 November 6
Reel   6 Frame   877	Correspondence - press releases, 1971 October
Reel   7 Frame   1	Press releases, 1971 November
Reel   7 Frame   497	National Antiwar Convention, 1971 December 3-5
Reel   7 Frame   635	1972 March 26
	March on Washington, 1972 April 22
Reel   7 Frame   683	Correspondence - endorsements
Reel   8 Frame   1	Logistics
Reel   8 Frame   126	1972 April 29, May 4 and 5
Reel   8 Frame   263	1972 May 11, 12, 13
Reel   8 Frame   302	Vigil, 1972 May 20
Reel   8 Frame   338	March on Washington, 1972 May 21
Reel   8 Frame   606	“Ring Around Congress,” 1972 June 22
Reel   8 Frame   646	National Antiwar Convention, 1972 July 21-23
Reel   8 Frame   843	Hiroshima Day, 1972 August 5
Reel   8 Frame   908	1972 September 29
Reel   8 Frame   914	Julius Hobson dinner, 1972 November 14
	1972 November 18
Reel   8 Frame   962	Correspondence - flyers
Reel   9 Frame   1	Endorsements
Reel   9 Frame   36	1972 December 27
Reel   9 Frame   39	Counter-inauguration, 1973 January 20
Reel   9 Frame   430	Thieu visit, 1973 April 4-6
Reel   9 Frame   481	1973 May 5
Reel   9 Frame   495	Demonstration, 1973 June 16
Reel   9 Frame   502	Unidentified convention papers
	Series: Affiliates File	⇧
Reel   9 Frame   530	California, 1971-1972
Reel   9 Frame   575	Florida, 1970-1972
Reel   9 Frame   585	Georgia, 1970-1972
Reel   9 Frame   616	Illinois, 1970-1971
Reel   9 Frame   644	Massachusetts, 1970-1972
Reel   10 Frame   1	Michigan, 1970-1972
Reel   10 Frame   20	Minnesota, 1970-1972
Reel   10 Frame   107	Other states, undated
	New York (NYPAC)
Reel   10 Frame   183	Meeting agendas and announcements, 1970-1971
Reel   10 Frame   221	Correspondence, 1971
Reel   10 Frame   227	Form letters and press releases, 1970-1971
Reel   10 Frame   281	Flyers, 1970-1972
Reel   10 Frame   310	Financial records, 1971
Reel   10 Frame   323	Legal material, 1971
Reel   10 Frame   342	Miscellaneous
Reel   10 Frame   363	Washington, D.C. (WAPAC)
	Special interest groups
Reel   10 Frame   479	Miscellaneous groups, 1970-1973
Reel   10 Frame   514	Third World Task Force, 1970-1971
Reel   10 Frame   592	United Women's Contingent, 1971-1972
PH 4808	Series: Visual Materials	⇧
	Destruction in Vietnam
Box   1 Folder   1	Bombs, mines, bullets and other artillery used by the United States, 1965-1971
Box   1 Folder   2	Graphic images. “New US Crimes in the Ha Tinh and Quang Binh on March 21 and 22, 1971”
Box   1 Folder   3	Graphic images. “Some photos of victims of U.S. Antipersonnel weapons,” 1966-1970
Box   1 Folder   4	Graphic images. “The raid of the Le Ninh State Farm, Le Thuy district, Quang Binh province, on May 1, 1970”
Box   1 Folder   5	Graphic images. “New US Crimes in Quang Binh and Nghê, 1971”
Box   1 Folder   6	Meeting of Vietnamese intellectuals in support of American Spring campaign, 1971 May 8. Note: Individuals pictured include Nguyen Viem Hai, Pham Huy Thong, Tran Dang Khou, and Do Xuan Sang.
	Anti-War Protests
Box   1 Folder   7	Domestic protests
M80-019 PH Box   24	Protests in Cairo, Illinois / made by Carl Hampton, circa 1967
PH 4808 Box   1 Folder   8	International protests
Box   1 Folder   9	Sketches and designs for protest in Washington, D.C.
Box   1 Folder   10	Contact sheets of anti-war event at the Biltmore Hotel in New York City. Note: Individuals in attendance include: John Kerry, Daniel Ellsberg, and Bella Abzug.
PH 4808 (5) Oversize Folder	Posters Note: General posters relating to the National Peace Action Coalition, primarily regarding the Vietnam War.
M92-176	Leaflets, poster, and photocopy of NPAC factsheet, “Is the War Winding Down?,” circa 1972
M96-198	Peace promo videotape