“In short, yeah,” I confirmed. “We heard too many stories about how manipulative PL are, misleading people about what they’re up to, imposing an agenda that doesn’t reflect the wishes of the majority in a chapter.”
“You said they’re Maoist?” Jay pressed.
“You mean PL? Yes.”
“But you’re wearing a Mao button.”
I glanced down at my jacket, at the miniature profile of the portly Chairman’s head set in a red circular background in the centre of a small silver star. “Everybody’s a Maoist,” I tried to explain. I described how the National Office had led off the campaign against PL at the convention with a speaker who had been a Red Guard in China. How the honchos on both sides in their speeches referred to passages from Mao’s writings to bolster their arguments.
“Seems to me, man,” Pump said, “that’s like two people who disagree both quoting the Bible to prove their point.”
I had to acknowledge that Pump was right. Yet at Guantanamero Bay I didn’t elaborate on how disorienting I had found the outbursts of chanting in response to differing ideas. If PL’s supporters approved of a spokesman’s or spokeswoman’s statement, they intoned a singsong “Mao, Mao, Mao Tse-tung,” while waving aloft the Little Red Book. Our side was at a loss how to react at first, but quickly adopted a slogan from Che’s writing. Before he was killed he had said once that the goal for the progressive elements of a society shouldn’t be to sympathize with the plight of the Vietnamese, but to share their fate. What would defeat U.S. imperialism, according to him, was the creation of more armed movements to resist American military and financial support for local oligarchies, and other U.S. efforts to undermine democratization and national independence in Latin America, Africa, Asia. If we were in favour of an opinion, somebody onstage or at a floor mike proclaimed, we were supposed to rhythmically bellow from our seats Che’s call for “Two, three, many Vietnams,” while brandishing clenched fists to the beat. PL began to immediately counter any of our recitations with their own. Eventually, episodes of slogan-chanting and gestures, occurring alternately or even simultaneously, persisted after every speaker until people tired, or until the mindless activity had lasted long enough to appear ridiculous even to its most fervent practitioners. The ritual resembled a cross between a high-school pep rally and, I had thought, a TV news report showing some off-the-wall Third World political assembly.
I offered Pump an explanation I’d arrived at after pondering our convention behaviour for weeks. “Both sides quoting Chairman Chubby is weird. But people are looking for a model for change that works. Mao and the boys kicked out the foreigners who’d carved up China. The cycle of famine got stopped. Ordinary people at least have a chance now at education and other opportunities available to only a handful when most of the population was doomed to live as coolies.”
I assured Pump I wasn’t saying everything was perfect in China, or that all their ideas would work here. But, I stressed, Mao did conduct a successful revolution, one that looked impossible when he started. And he and his Communist Party had managed to modernize the country enormously in twenty years.
“Even started a space program,” Edward added.
“What?” Jay asked.
“Put up a satellite this summer. Couple of weeks before the moon landing.”
“You’re kidding.”
“I saw something about it on TV,” Pump said. “Doesn’t it just play a song?”
“‘The East is Red,’” I confirmed, recalling the news item.
Jay frowned. “Huh?”
“It does seem goofy,” I admitted.
“All that technology, effort, and money to fire a satellite into orbit,” Edward said. “The only thing the satellite does is broadcast a tape of somebody reading quotations from Mao, plus a recording of that song.”
“It broadcasts a song?” Jay asked.
“They’re demonstrating capability,” Edward declared. “If you have rockets that can orbit a satellite, obviously you have ICBMs or at least the potential to build them. The good old U.S.A. better watch out.”
“Maybe it’s to make them feel better,” Pump said.
We stared at him.
He shrugged. “National pride, man. The U.S. and Russia have satellites. Maybe the Red Chinese think that to earn respect you have to have one of your own.”
“I can dig it,” Jay said. “What was the use, really, of us putting a man on the moon? Except to show we could.”
“We even left the flag up there,” Edward said. “And, what’s worse, a plaque with Nixon’s name on it.”
Pump stood. “You’re right, man. The moon shot was definitely ‘Rah-rah, America.’ The same for your Mao guys.” He gestured toward the living room. “What do you want to hear?”
Jay snapped him a salute. “Something American.”
“Crosby, Stills and Nash?” Pump asked over his shoulder.
“Affirmative.”
I reviewed mentally what I had been saying about SDS and the convention. The stately toc-toc-toc drum pattern that established the rhythm of CS&N’s “Wooden Ships” was audible, followed by the decisive organ and guitar chords that kicked off the melody. “SDS isn’t really just a bunch of whacked-out Maoists,” I announced. “Once the term gets underway, everybody will be back to reality. After all, the New Left is not supposed to be ideologically rigid like the Old Left was. Everything happens so fast these days, it figures we’d start down the wrong road occasionally.”
Pump stepped out of the living room, carrying a candle and couple of dinner knives.
“At the convention I was reminded how rapid the changes have been. The Chicago cops were quite interested in our meeting, and that meant —”
“What a surprise,” Edward said.
“They had a TV camera in the window of a second-floor apartment across from the Coliseum entrance. You got filmed coming and going. The first afternoon an undercover cop posing as a delegate was discovered. I don’t know how he attracted notice, but somebody went through his wallet and it contained police ID.”
“Not too swift if he was supposed to be undercover,” Jay observed.
“I’ll say. After that, delegates were checked whenever they entered the hall. You had to turn out your pockets, be patted down, and have your wallet or purse searched. Each delegation in turn had to provide the inspection detail at the front doors. We called the security force ‘People’s Pigs.’”
Edward grinned. “You were a pig?”
I nodded. “Southern California region was on duty one noon hour. I was holding this kid’s wallet. The changes he’d been through had happened so quick he hadn’t even had time to clean the stages out of his billfold. He had his high-school student card, his draft card, his ID card from the McGovern campaign, a student card from U Wisconsin at Green Bay, something from a Milwaukee draft resistance group, and his SDS membership card.”
“He probably won’t stop there,” Edward declared. “So, Wayman, what’s next for him?”
“I know what’s next,” Pump announced from where he was squatting beside his arrangement of the candle, now lit, the knives, and a chunk of hash in a twist of plastic wrap.
“What?” Edward demanded.
Pump looked up at me. “The Beatles are right, man. People aren’t going to follow you if you’re carrying pictures of Chairman Mao. What’s next is Woodstock. You hear about Woodstock up in Canada? That’s what’s next —