Word: mayday
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SPRING was difficult to enjoy in Washington last week. Amid whiffs of tear gas, the wail of sirens, and wandering bands of youths calling themselves guerrillas, the capital endured an odd and bitter little siege. Preposterously ill-organized for such a venture, Radical Rennie Davis' Mayday romanced itself into the delusion that it could literally close down the Federal Government by blocking traffic into the city during morning rush hours. In terms of that immediate goal, the protesters had about the same effect on traffic as a heavy spring rain...
...there were more disturbing effects. To thwart the lawlessness of Mayday, Washington police broke the laws themselves, making thousands of illegal arrests as they swept the streets clear. And in what almost seemed a willfully self-defeating gesture, the demonstrators diverted public attention from the war issue to the issue of their own conduct, thereby diminishing rather than gaining influence and, for a time at least, clouding the future of anti-war efforts...
...beginning of the week, Mayday volunteers were camped in West Potomac Park near the Jefferson Memorial. Many came only for a rock festival and would have been, at most, passive onlookers at the closing down of "the war machine." The Justice Department and Washington Police Chief, Jerry V. Wilson, fearing that the force of 50,000 could indeed paralyze the city, hit upon a brilliant maneuver. At 6:30 a.m., Wilson's police quietly moved into "Algonquin Peace City," revoked the campers' permit, disconnected the all-important loudspeaker and sent the kids scattering. Many simply left town; others...
Musical Bodies. With its obsessive emphasis on "collective decision making," Mayday was at best, unpredictable. When the demonstrators began their traffic disruptions at about 6 on Monday morning, they were mostly small bands arrayed against Wilson's well trained and disciplined cops, who were reinforced by 6,000 federal troops and National Guardsmen, with another 6,000 in reserve. The troops' role, according to a police official, "was to be bodies in a game of musical bodies," to act as the manpower at bridges and other traffic arteries to push away abandoned cars and to protect property from...
...Bridge, the crossing from Virginia to Georgetown, Mayday protesters arrived early and succeeded in halting traffic for eight minutes before motor-scooter police chased them off. Elsewhere, at the eight other intersections Mayday had marked for blockage, demonstrators fled from tear gas and fast-moving police. With thousands of protesters in the streets, Wilson soon issued his controversial order to dispense with the normal and slower arrest procedures, and radioed his men to "just load 'em into the vans," a process that led to thousands of indiscriminate arrests -of bystanders on their way to work, for example...