Jwv, Reversing 7-year Policy, Calls on Nixon to Withdraw Troops from Vietnam

The Jewish War Veterans reversed a seven-year policy here and approved a resolution calling on President Nixon to withdraw all American troops from Indochina by the end of the year. The resolution, passed overwhelmingly at the JWV convention here, made the JWV the country’s first veterans organization to change its stand to one favoring prompt withdrawal. “There is little to be gained from extensive arguments over how, why or who was responsible for the decisions that resulted in our country becoming mired in the bottomless pit of Indochinese geopolitics,” the convention declared. “Hindsight will contribute nothing to the solution of the Vietnam quagmire.” The large majority of the 2,000 delegates, representing more than 100,000 men and women JWV members, made the following arguments for withdrawal by year’s end; the war is immoral and useless and there can be no winner; the United States should never have gotten involved in the first place; the war has put the American economy “out of whack” and caused domestic hardships; U.S. involvement in Indochina has led to a loss of confidence in American leadership; South Vietnam is not a viable democracy, and the Pentagon Papers have proved that U.S. Involvement was the result of Washington “chicanery.”

Warren Adler, a spokesman for the JWV, the oldest active war veterans organization in the U.S., advised the Jewish Telegraphic Agency that its change in policy was the result of a “tremendous fight” by antiwar elements within the ranks who over a period of seven years managed finally to have their “strong feelings” prevail. “They did it out of conviction,” Adler said, calling the resolution “a real major step forward.” He said Jerome D. Cohen, a New York lawyer who succeeded Albert Schlossberg as JWV Commander, “led the fight” for the resolution. Cohen also spearheaded–despite strong White House pressure–a demonstration in New York last year against visiting French President Georges Pompidou for his refusal to send Israel 50 Mirage jets she had paid for. The JWV convention rejected the view that U.S. support for South Vietnam was equivalent to U.S. support for Israel. The convention was held in the Radisson Hotel in Minneapolis.