Most Recent Additions

The Air Force admitted in a recent hearing that at least three men with dangerous psychiatric problems had been assigned to guard a super-secret nuclear weapons installation at Hamilton Air Force Base, 25 miles south of San Francisco.

The instability of the guards came out it a preliminary hearing for one of them, Sgt. Robert V. Ballou. He is accused of going berserk with a loaded carbine on the base and holding a loaded gun at the head of another officer.

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Up to 1949 the most important symbol in the ghetto was the knife, from then on it became the needle.

In 1956 the first wave of smack (heroin) hit the young black people of Harlem, an attack on the poor youth of the ghetto that served to “pacify” the oppressed people of the city. In New York over the last ten years smack has been used to break up gangs of poor whites, blacks, and Puerto Ricans.

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“Throw back your books and outa your seat—Throw open the door—out into the street!”

—Chuck Berry.

High School has begun. Help us reverse the process it hopes to put you through.

The Fifth Estate will coordinate the news and publicize the actions of high school revolutionaries throughout the Detroit area. If you would like assistance from dedicated “outside agitators” or would like to get in touch with fellow inmates interested in building a movement in your high school, contact me c/o The Fifth Estate.

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Editors’ Note: Linda Evans, from Motor City SDS, was one of 7 Movement people who went to North Vietnam last month to bring back three captured American military men. Along with her were Rennie Davis of the National Mobilization Committee; Grace Paley, writer and pacifist; James Johnson, of the Fort Hood Three, who spent 28 months in the stockade for refusing to go to Vietnam; and three Newsreel photographers, Robert Kramer, Norm Fruchter, and John Douglas.

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(by Bob Fleck, with a little help from his friends—Alfie, Acid, Dena, Nancy and Barb)

“Naked Angels” is the worst movie we have seen. It’s a hype, a ruse and a shuck on the audience that only serves to exploit the image of bikers and titillate the over-40s. And what’s worse, three issues back, Art Johnston did a lyrical piece heralding this flick as the vision of our culture’s rise to total freedom.

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This time it’s Bobby Seale.

With Eldridge in exile, and Huey in jail, the punk-ass power-structure has turned its racist wrath on the Black Panther Party Chairman. Seale’s troubles are simply the latest government attempt to crush the Panthers by ripping off their leaders and vamping on their headquarters.

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“Over North Vietnamese radio the voice of ‘Hanoi Hannah’ constantly harangues the Americans: ‘Don’t be the last G.I. to die in Vietnam.’”

—Ian Brodie, London Express

“Battles for bunkers in the Song Chang valley are merely tactical moves in the President’s strategy of retreat. He is asking Company A to fight for time to negotiate a settlement with Hanoi that will save his face, but may very well lose their lives. He is also carrying on the battle in the belief, or pretense, that the South Vietnamese will really be able to defend their country and our democratic objectives, when we withdraw, and even his own generals don’t believe the South Viet Namese will do it. It is a typical political strategy, and the really surprising thing is that there have been so few men, like the tattered remnants of Company A, who have refused to die for it.”

—James Reston, New York Times

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Dear Brothers & Sisters,

It was good to hear from you last week. My transfer to Marquette has been postponed at least a few weeks, but they are determined to send me there as soon as they can. A pig from the Corrections Dept. in Lansing came here to talk to me last Friday and told me how much I would like it up there and that they couldn’t possibly send me into the general prison population in Jackson because I would surely organize the prison men to revolt against the prison authorities, and they couldn’t take a chance on that. So I’ll be shipped up to Marquette Prison in the Upper Peninsula sometime next month. Then I’ll be able to have my typewriter and can get some work done.

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The White Panthers arrested in New Jersey after the Woodstock Music Festival have all been released on bond and are back in Ann Arbor.

Although defense attorneys feel there are good chances of the charges being dismissed, the Panthers see this as an enlarging pattern of attempts by the authorities to eliminate their organization.

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The Fifth Estate’s Labor Day benefit at the Grande Ballroom was an overwhelming success. The bands were beautiful and so were the people. Newsreel’s films turned everybody on and a good time was had by all. Special thanks to the MC5, the Stooges, the Gold Brothers, Newsreel, Uncle Russ and everyone who came. It was a real Detroit city evening. Everyone got down.

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Chicago, October 11

“The summary of this nightmare which torments America from one end to the other is that in this continent of almost 200 million human beings, two-thirds of whom are Indians, Mestizos, blacks, those who are discriminated against in this continent of semi-colonies, there die of hunger, of curable diseases, or of premature old age some four persons per minute, some 5,500 per day, some 2 million per year, some 10 million every five years. These deaths could easily be averted, but nevertheless they continue. Two-thirds of Latin America’s population lives briefly, and lives under a constant threat of death. In 15 years this holocaust has brought about twice as many deaths as the First World War and it still rages. Meanwhile there flows from Latin America to the United States a constant torrent of money—some $4,000 per minute, $5 million per day, $2 billion per year, $10 billion every five years. For every thousand dollars which leaves us one body remains—$1,000 per death! That is the price of what is called imperialism—$1,000 PER DEATH! FOUR DEATHS EVERY MINUTE!”

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Fifth Estate

“To Serve the People”

EDITORIAL GROUP

Alan Gotkin

Peter Werbe

Cathy West

BUSINESS & ADVERTISING

Bill Rowe

DISTRIBUTION

Keep On Truckin’ Co-op

STAFF

Dena Clamage

Rick London

Bill Melater

Bruce Montrose

Claudia Montrose

Dave Watson

Tommye Wiese

Marilyn Werbe

POLITICAL PRISONER

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in cooperation with Detroit Adventure

THURS. AUG. 21

Adventure flick, WINGS OF THE HAWK, starring Van Heflin shown at Oakland Community College in the Amphitheatre FREE 8:30 pm.

FUN AT MEADOWBROOK. Bring a blanket, some food and a friend while Sexton Ehrling conducts an evening of Bartok and Brahms. At Baldwin Pavilion at Oakland U. 8:30 pm.

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Editors’ Note: The following letter is a reply from the national officers of SDS to criticisms of their upcoming national action in Chicago made by this newspaper in our last edition [“Letter to SDS,” FE #85, August 7–20, 1969].

Dear Comrades,

Your letter about the National Action has become an important item for discussion around here. Because of the way you posed certain problems, and because you have focused in on questions that are being raised around the country at this time, we felt it would be important to answer your open letter with an open response. There are a couple of major misconceptions made about the action. The notion that any part of the action is or could be “adventurist” is crazy. The terms of the fight against imperialism are being set by the colonized people of the world.

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UNCLASSIFIEDS cost 50 cents per line per issue. Figure four words per line. (A word is a word including one and two letter words. A phone number is a word. Street numbers are words. Abbreviations should be sensible. DISCOUNT RATES: Five runs cost 35 cents per line.

Amazing opportunity for starting and operating your own successful small business. Free details: B&W Enterprises, P.O. Box 9175F. Boston, Mass. 02114.

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One of the most remarkable men in Michigan runs the only Vegetarian Cafeteria in this area: Stanley Filipzcak has operated the Health Food Center at 5255 Schaefer Road, Dearborn, for the last six years.

Filipczak is now eighty years old. When he reached the age of forty, he was suffering from arthritis, lumbago, headaches and other diseases, which three Ann Arbor doctors could not cure. A friend turned him on to vegetarianism and by the age of forty-five he was cured and a confirmed vegetarian.

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Recently the staff of the Fifth Estate, members of the Zulus motorcycle club and people from Detroit Newsreel a movement film making group, went to a press screening of “Easy Rider.”

The film is about two bikers played by Peter Fonda (Captain America) and Dennis Hopper (Billy), who produced and directed the film, riding out to Mardi Gras in Search of America on two beautiful choppers.

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It was probably something I had coming for a long time, but it really caught me by surprise when it happened. After all I don’t write these pieces because I get paid for them. I do it because it gets me some free records, gets me into the clubs for free, and a few other fringe benefits. Or so I thought.

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“There is no LAW in Amerika today—only the honkie power structure and its victims. We are down to the nitty-gritty now, with our backs to the wall, and the population is quickly polarizing: oppressors and oppressed. The revolutionary youth of the weirdo country are an oppressed people—the victims of a calculated cultural repression movement instigated and carried out by the honkie power structure under Richard M. Nixon, Henry Ford II, Nelson Rockefeller, and other monied interests who are committed to maintaining the decadent status quo. They will kill us if they can, they will incarcerate their own children and have them beaten if they can get away with it, they would jail all of us if they could—all in the name of, freedom, democracy, and the unspeakable obscenity they call the American Way.”

— John Sinclair

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Three Michigan men are among a group of 18 GIs who have sought sanctuary in a Honolulu church because of their opposition to the war in Vietnam. They are Matthew Biggerstaff of Westland, Arthur Parker of Holland and Daniel Overstreet of Garden City.

The scene began when Airman Louis Parry came to the Church of the Crossroads which offers refuge to military asylum. By August 15 the other 17 men, from all branches of the service had joined him.

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The letter in your August 7 issue [FE #85, August 7–20, 1969] from the corpsman in Da Nang harbor has prompted me to relate a similar experience to you.

I was a corpsman at the hospital at Fort Ord, Cal., for almost two years, where I was appalled by the condition and treatment of over 1000 patients who were packed into a hospital staffed for 250 beds. Most of these patients were Vietnam returnees, and seeing them (and in fact the whole experience) turned me on to the resistance and the revolution.

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Remember, if you will, the inevitable explosion that took place in our fair city during that dark week in July two years ago.

No sooner were the fires put out, the hoses rolled up and the fire trucks washed, there appeared a group of dedicated citizens whose sole purpose was, at any cost, to rebuild Detroit and put things “back to normal.”

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THE ENEMY: If Hoover really did have RFK’s authorization to tap Martin Luther King’s phone why doesn’t he produce the signed memo that says so. James Bennett, director of Federal prisons for almost 30 years, has now written a book boasting about his contributions to penal reform (had you noticed how humane prisons are these days?)

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(via Good Times/UPS)

Q: How do you feel about your movie?

A: How do I feel about my movie? Very strong, and a bit funny in the knees. No, I’m putting you on. I feel very good about the movie. I hope I do better next time.

Q: Have you got the next film started?

A: No, I have no...I’m writing a flick now. About the American Revolution.

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Memorial Park in Royal Oak has been a hang-out for suburban youth for a long time. Freaks and even a few straight kids and neighborhood families visit the park frequently and it is seldom seen deserted. For the past two months the scene there has changed from placid, bored and stoned to something far more relevant—the control of the park has become a major issue.

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Photo / Jeannene Seeger

Representatives from five Ann Arbor revolutionary groups convened at Trans-Love Energies Monday, August 11, to announce to the press the formation of a working coalition of the White Panther Party, the God’s Children motorcycle club, the Black Berets, Sunnygoode Street commune, and the Congolean Maulers.

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a review of

The Stooges (Elektra EKS-74051)

The Stooges’ earliest live appearances consisted of the band playing 25 minutes or so of uninterrupted music while Iggy danced, contorted and otherwise acted strange in front of them. They never did the same thing twice. The music was always different. Iggy once covered his body with raw hamburger before he went on stage.

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This column will be devoted to an exploration of Establishment thinking, as revealed primarily in power structure publications such as the Wall Street Journal, Forbes, Fortune, etc. The assumptions of the writer are Marxian, Marcusian, and C.W. Millsian: in brief, that there is a power structure largely centered in the economy; that the Establishment, in particular its economic wing, is still remarkably flexible; that we, as radicals, had better know a lot more about how this Establishment functions; and, on a strategy for change must try to understand the divisions within the Establishment so as to make use of them for revolutionary purposes.

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It is a good time in American history to go back to roots, to “get down,” to forget speeches and lectures and concentrate on The Word.

The smallest practical unit of language is the word. Music is beyond language.

Without the word you can’t make a political speech. Without the word you can’t have nauseating ideological wars. Without the word you have to touch each other. Without the word you can’t quite call yourself human. Without the word we would all probably be happier, but less “human.” So who wants to be human if you can be happier being something else?

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SOMERSET, Ky — A 14-year old boy jailed for auto theft led three other prisoners in a break from the Pulaski County Jail Thursday.

Authorities said the boy obtained what appeared to be a.32-calibre pistol from an unknown source.

Deputy jailer Gary Johnson said a prisoner, Donald Ray Lynn, 24, of Somerset, received a telephone call and was let out of the cell block to take the call.

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a review of

The Population Bomb, by Paul R. Ehrlich, Ballantine, 223 pp., $.95, paper.

Ehrlich tries to reach a broad public in this book—but he’s not coy or campy.

He knows there’s no longer time for that.

His first words are: “The battle to feed all of humanity is over. In the 1970s the world will undergo famines—hundreds of millions of people are going to starve to death in spite of any crash programs -embarked upon now...

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Everyone who wants to tune in to the music of our culture should be at the Fifth Estate Benefit to be held Sept. 1 at the Grande Ballroom from 6–11 pm. Featured will be the MC5, Stooges, and the Gold Brothers, along with Newsreel films of the San Francisco State strike and two short films from Cuba.

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WRIGHTSTOWN, N.J. (LNS)—This town is a commercial appendage to Fort Dix. Wrightstown is shopping centers, gas stations, greaseburger palaces and bars.

The town is a bore. GIs leaving the base leave their money in Wrightstown cash registers. They return to the base broke and desperate.

A group of experienced movement organizers rented a vacant imitation ice cream store on the main street of town, walking distance from the Fort. The organizers turned the store into a coffee house—coffee, punch, posters, underground newspapers, music; a place to talk and be relaxed. The GIs came.

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Dr. Eugene Schoenfeld speaking at Community Arts Auditorium, May 28, 1969 at a benefit for Open City. Photo: Alan Gotkin.

QUESTION: Marijuana is often heavily weighted down with sugar, as I’m sure many smokers know. The obvious purpose seems to be to give as little grass as possible for the weight of the kilo or lid.

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Fifth Estate

“To Serve the People”

EDITORIAL GROUP

Alan Gotkin

Peter Werbe

Cathy West

BUSINESS & ADVERTISING

Bill Rowe

DISTRIBUTION

Keep On Truckin’ Co-op

STAFF

Dena Clamage

Rick London

Bill Melater

Bruce Montrose

Claudia Montrose

Dave Watson

Tommye Wiese

Marilyn Werbe

POLITICAL PRISONER

...

Editors’ Note: Linda Evans, from Motor City SDS, was one of seven Movement people who went to North Vietnam to retrieve three captured American military men. Their original goal of merely receiving the prisoners and escorting them back to the U.S. was changed as the Vietnamese realized that most of them represented segments of the Movement that were not pacifist, but had actively joined in the struggle of the Vietnamese and were fighting in the U.S. to end the war.

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Sgt. Gerald Biscup is one of the police officers who was involved in the Veteran Memorial incident on November 2. The Detroit Police Officers’ Wives Association (DPOWA) was holding a dance in the Veterans Memorial that night and many police officers and their wives were in attendance.

Sgt. Biscup’s wife is the president of the DPOWA. He was in attendance.

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(via Dock of the Bay/UPS)

• Eldridge Cleaver is coming home within the year—maybe;

• Kathleen Cleaver gave birth to a baby boy named after black Cuban revolutionary Antonio Maceo;

• The Black Panther Party is setting up centers of information and propaganda distribution in Paris and other European and African centers;

• There may be a “summit meeting” of revolutionary groups in the relatively near future, in which “The Black Panther Party will play a key role;”

• The Chicago Headquarters of the Panther Party was attacked by police who claim they were shot at by armed Panthers. National Chairman Bobby Seale said at a recent press conference that the Chicago Panthers did not provoke attack, that since the Chicago headquarters were entirely covered with plywood it would have been impossible to shoot from the office anyway.

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Rolf Dietrich is fighting a one man war with the City of Plymouth—and winning.

Rolf is an old friend of the Fifth Estate and was trying to open up the town to the paper a few months ago. The one head shop he succeeded in placing it in was driven out of business by the local pigs.

Last February, Rolf was stopped on a phony traffic beef and taken to the station for investigation because he had a number of Fifth Estates in the back of the car. The Plymouth police sent the papers to the Wayne County prosecutor’s office to see if they could get an obscenity warrant. Their request was denied, but the pigs refused to give Dietrich back his papers.

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NEW YORK (LNS)—Four hundred demonstrators massed in front of Penn Station August 2 to support 38 Fort Dix, N.J. GIs who face court-martials for having participated in a stockade uprising.

The protesters called for the elimination of all Army stockades, dropping charges against the Ft. Dix 38, and the freeing of all political prisoners—including Black Panther Minister of Defense Huey P. Newton.

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A group from Trans-Love had gone to Woodstock, to raise funds for brother John Sinclair’s defense and trial costs.

On the return trip through New Jersey the suspicious looking bunch, traveling in a rented van, were apprehended by the Law. While snooping around the pigs noticed one of the group had a knife. This was all the excuse they needed for searching the entire vehicle. Their efforts produced a substance they claimed to be the taboo weed, marijuana.

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a review of

Howard Zinn, A People’s History of the United States, Harper & Row, New York, 1980, 600 pages plus index.

Howard Zinn is a “radical revolutionary,” whose People’s History is aptly named given its kinship with the various “Peoples Republics.” In fact, this “wild” book was conceived as a means of slaking Zinn’s “thirst for notoriety in the pecking order of the radical left,” as well as for the enrichment of himself and Harper & Row. So saith the reviewer for Barron’s [1] the financiers’ weekly.

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The FE BOOKSERVICE is located in the same place as the Fifth Estate Newspaper, both of which are located at 4403 Second Avenue, Detroit MI 48201—telephone (313) 831–6800. The hours we are open vary considerably, so it’s always best to give us a call before coming down.

HOW TO ORDER BY MAIL:

1) List the title of the book, quantity wanted, and the price of each;

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Discussed in this article

The Poetry of Postwar Japan, edited by Kijima Hajime. University of Iowa Press, 1975.

Modern Japanese Poetry, translated by James Kirkup and edited by A.R. Davis. University of Queensland Press, 1978.

War poetry is significantly characteristic of this century. Because the poet’s voice is inherently a human voice, poets throughout the world have felt a weighted responsibility to react to that which threatens to destroy humankind and to protest against the inhuman force of modern warfare—from the ruthless use of asphyxiating gas during World War I to the massive unleashing of bombs during World War II.

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Issue No. 14 of Open Road is now out. This issue was made possible thanks to the generous response to the OR’s financial appeal. They welcome additional support, of course. The OR now costs $1.00 per issue. The current issue includes an interesting article by John P. Clark, “Anarchism and the World Crisis,” articles on pornography, the democracy movement in China, punk rock, the Amsterdam riots, and more.

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Atanas Porezoff was, as were so many revolutionaries of his generation, host to many names: Atanas Vidloff, Tony Bulgar, even affectionately “The Old Man.” But to those of us who knew him only in his later years, he was just Tony.

Once towards the end of his life, when we visited him in the hospital, he smiled at the nurse and, said, “See, I don’t need medicine, these people are my medicine.” And he would remind us at the end of each visit to remember the message contained in the works of his “great teachers, Bakunin, Kropotkin and Tolstoy.” His customary call of “Viva la anarchia” as we left after visiting will stay with us always. Tony lived a long and full life, yet we cannot mask our sadness for a departed friend and comrade.

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It might seem self-indulgent, in the face of mounting worldwide horror, to call what has occurred around the FE the past several months a “crisis,” but a more precise word fails to come to mind. In August we were told by our landlord that we had one month in which to vacate the FE office, in order to allow construction workers to tear out the ceiling and undertake renovation of the building.

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Dear FE:

With only 12 shopping days left ‘til nuclear war, I thought I’d better get some bucks off to you to renew the old sub. Thanks a million, or should I say thanks $4 bucks? Whatever, the FE is always welcome on my doorstep.

I like the new big format. Makes me feel like I’m really reading something and it holds more kitty litter. No, seriously, the paper is greatly appreciated for its sane thoughts in a world long gone mad. Keep up the excellent work.

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It’s said that the mark of good actors and actresses is their ability to portray characters that are completely unlike themselves. Taking that into consideration, it seems to me that Jane Fonda is the perfect example of a good actress, even though many people may carry with them the popular view that she’s really quite a stinker. Recently, I saw this crusader of social causes in a very interesting film that depicted the senseless horrors and personal tragedies of war. The film was “Coming Home,” and not only did it show the shattered lives of the Vietnamese and Americans who found themselves killing each other in the fields of Vietnam, but the racist war propaganda and empty morals of corporate America.

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Dear Fifth Estate,

Thank you for your criticisms of the Freeze campaign [FE #309, June 19, 1982]. I agree wholeheartedly that the Freeze is not enough. The Freeze is just a first step, it is a talking point. Whatever its limitations, it has engaged the interest of millions of people in the subject of nuclear terror, and it has helped people start to think about the issue.

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