Well, Charlie, I was there, and I assume you were too. I lived in Virginia at the time, but was forwarned by a friend in the Administration that the plan of the "anti-whatever you want to call it" was to block the bridges connecting Virgina and Maryland to the District of Columbia, on a certain day so that federal employees could not report to work that day. The goal was to freeze the government.

On that particular day, the agency I worked for had appropriations hearings on Capital Hill. The Chairman of our agency, and a few key program directors, and myself were expected to testify before the Congressional committe that controlled our budget request.

The Deputy Chairman of our agency was in London at the time, but owned a home in Georgetown (the home Jackie Kennedy bought after her husband was assinated). Our Chairman asked that I spend the night in his home so that, if the protestors were successful in blocking the bridges, I would be available to go to the Hill with our delegation.

My wife drove me into Georgetown that night and we had dinner, at a local restaurant. She dropped me off at the DC's house and drove back to McClean.

The town looked like a military base. Army troops, and vehicles, outnumbered taxicabs.

The following morning I was awakened by the sound of helicopters hovering overhead. The house had a cupola on the roof that allowed a view of the bridges leading into Washington from Virginia and Maryland. I could see that Army troops were standing shoulder to shoulder on the bridges, and that traffic was moving slowly into the District of Columbia. The protesters failed to keep traffic from entering the District.

The protesters had rented Ryder and Hertz rental trucks and mounted Viet Cong flags on them. They drove the trucks through the streets of Georgetown and young protesters, armed with brooms, riding in the backs of the trucks swept broken glass into the streets intended to destroy tires of cars driving the streets.

Taxis, of course. were non-existant.

I began walking from the Deputy Chairman's home in Georgetown to our offices on 14th Street. Young people carrying Viet Cong flags were setting cars afire on "M" street and turned over on their side. Store windows were broken by thrown rocks, etc. I walked through that whole mess to our office witnessing needless destruction along the way.

Charley Nobel: I can't comment on what took place when you were involved in the protests. I didn't go to Washington until July of 1970. The 600,000 march, which frankly I wasn't aware of (that's lots of people!) was before my time.

But that's the way it was when I was there, and I'm SURE it colored my attitude toward so-called peacefull protestors forever.

DougR

Dougr