Standing up against injustice is important

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 24/06/2023 (1183 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

In 1971, Daniel Ellsberg was working as a military analyst for the RAND corporation when he leaked the Pentagon Papers — the top-secret U.S. government history of the Vietnam War.

The Papers showed the government had been lying to the American people about the progress of the war. Their publication helped turn the tide of public opinion against it.

The leak also resulted in a landmark Supreme Court ruling in favour of press freedom in that country and led, indirectly, to the downfall of then-president Richard Nixon.

Ellsberg, who died June 14 at the age of 92, changed the course of history. But none of it might have happened without the influence of a young man named Randy Kehler — and therein lies a tale about standing up against injustice and having the courage of one’s convictions. And, also, an example of how small acts can lead to big consequences.

Kehler was a Harvard University graduate when, in 1969, he was drafted into the U.S. military, He refused to go. Because of that decision, he was sentenced to two years in prison.

Before beginning his prison term, Kehler spoke at a War Resisters League meeting at Haverford College near Philadelphia about his willingness to go to prison because of his opposition to the war.

That speech would have passed into obscurity except for who was in the audience that day: Daniel Ellsberg.

Ellsberg, who had been growing disillusioned with the government’s escalation of the war, had begun attending anti-war events like the one at the college. Kehler’s speech had a profound impact on him.

“It wasn’t what he said exactly that changed my worldview,” he recalled later. “It was the example he was setting with his life. How his words showed that he was a stellar American, and that he was going to jail as a very deliberate choice.”

After hearing Kehler speak, Ellsberg wrote that he “left the auditorium and found a deserted men’s room. I sat on the floor and cried for over an hour, just sobbing. The only time in my life I’ve reacted to something like that.”

The thought that went through his mind was: “We are eating our young.”

Hearing that speech prompted Ellsberg to leak the Pentagon Papers. “If I hadn’t met Randy Kehler, it wouldn’t have occurred to me to copy (the Pentagon Papers),” Ellsberg said. “His actions spoke to me as no mere words would have done. He put the right question in my mind at the right time.”

Kehler, ended up spending 22 months in jail. After his release, he went on to work for various anti-war groups. He also became a war tax resister, refusing to pay taxes to protest U.S. spending on the military. For that decision, he and his wife, Betsy Corner, had their house seized and sold by the IRS in 1991.

Looking back on his life, Kehler, now 79, said in a 2021 interview: “I don’t regret anything. I’ve had an amazing and blessed life.”

That included a 15-month stint teaching refugees who had escaped war in Africa. The experience of seeing how little most people in the world had to live on, and the impact of war on civilians, helped turn him against the Vietnam War.

“I had learned, in a very poor third-world country, what the effect of our weapons would be in such villages,” he said. From there, “it was just a series of steps to disconnect myself from the war, especially as a draft-age young man.”

For Kehler, it was all about standing up for his convictions.

“If we are silent, if we don’t speak out against what we don’t believe in, we are complicit,” he said. “Until we understand what our own complicity is, we can’t stop being complicit. Just raising your voice is one way. A letter to the editor is one way. It doesn’t mean you have to go to jail. Just stand up and be counted.”

While Kehler is not a religious person, his actions echo precepts from the world’s religions about standing up against injustice and for those suffering because of it. It reminds me, as a Christian, of the words of Jesus, who spoke about how a small mustard seed — or a speech at a long-forgotten War Resister’s League meeting — can grow into a large plant that changes the world.

It also speaks to the religious wisdom that God sometimes chooses small things and unknown or obscure people to make big things happen. Their words or actions are like ripples that radiate after a pebble is thrown into a pond; we never know where or how far they will go.

As for Kehler, he has a copy of Ellsberg’s book, titled Secrets: A Memoir of the Vietnam War and the Pentagon Papers. In it is a handwritten note by Ellsberg that says: “No Randy Kehler, no Pentagon Papers.”

faith@freepress.mb.ca

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