HELPING GI'S TO HATE

Donald Sutherland (right) is one of that younger generation of movie stars who have come into prominence in the last few years.

Films like 'Mash', 'Kelly's Heroes' and recently 'Klute' have established him as one of the most talented of screen actors.

He has a lazy look about him, bloodhound eyes, a slow thoughtful drawl, a sense of innocent irony. He has a kind of quality that a younger generation of filmgoers identify with all over the world which has made him into what the film moguls and money men describe as a 'hot property'.

offered script after script by anxious producers who are looking for that elusive seal of approval, that guarantee the box office, which will bring home the bacon.

Sutherland is not their man. He describes what he will do.

Although he is recognized wherever he goes, he has none of the trappings the film star. In fact he is resolutely hostile to them. He shambles about in an old anorak and jeans, avoiding the usual frivolous show-biz rounds. has just taurned from the far More East, where he and Jane Fonda and a number of other performers have been entertaining American troops.:

If you think the show is anything like the Bob Hope circus that jollies up the American GIs, think again.

Their show was not allowed to be The ormer camp. American army saw to that. Instead they did openshows, sometimes in halls, outside the camps and the GIs flocked to see them.

It was a show devised in support of the GI movement, something which has grown rapidly in the last few years within the ranks of the American forces. It's a growing resistance within the army to the Vietnam war, to the conditions and contradictions of the GIs themselves.

There are now something like 65 GI underground newspapers throughout bases in the United States, Europe and SE. Asia and growing number organizers on camps to mobilize troops around their basic rights.

It is a movement undoubtedly of political significance and has close links with the Vietnam veterans' movement within the United States itself. It prefigures the collapse of American militarism, because, quite simply, when ordinary soldiers refuse to fight, you have no army.

Donald Sutherland spent a few days in London after the end of the show in Japan and gave this exclusive interview to I asked him how the show came about.

It was asked for by GIs about a year and a half ago. Thousands of letters came into USSF and VVAW, which is the Vietnam Veterans' Against the War, requesting Jane Fonda if she could set up a show • and the initial show began in Fort Bragg in February 1971. 'The purpose of the show was to support the Gl movement; to provide them with funds and to reach GIs who are interested and invigorated to the point where they come and begin to organize. In essence the show was an organizing tool. In terms of audience response it was incredibly successful, overwhelmingly successful. In terms of our performance as performers in relation to an audience, it was for myself personally and for almost all of the people there, the best experience that one had ever had because it was the first time that the combination of social, political and theatrical work were all combined in one concrete moment. "The organizing that happened afterwards, the rap sessions [discussions after the show, BM] were in the main successful. "They introduced many Gls who had perhaps not recognized their numbers in numbers. The real effects of that kind of show have to rest at this moment with the GI organizers.' What did he think the morale of the troops was like? An ironic smile. terrific.

were attempted fraggings The troops are beginning t alize: I mean the Vietnam wa American goverimete economic ally, bureaucratically, in respect. They're not stopping the war, they're not slowing it down. They've had the heaviest bombing raids ever. They're using 15,000pound concussion bombs which wipe area like that. They're to nuclear weapons, or radion The is the lack radiation. called cheeseburgers or daisycutters. 'The point is they are using the navy now pulling the ground troops out. They're laying aircraft carriers off the coast ananda. aircraft carriers have all been refitted—the 'Constella tion', the Coral Sea', the Hancock'--they cost $lm a das dry dock, they cos Gulf of Tonkin.

they troops tr war 'And the reason why the ground troops are being withdrawn is because they recognize more clearly the nature of what imperialism is all about. 'The experience of black soldiers in . Vietnam was described to us quite simply in that they went to Vietnam to light for the Defence Department to bring "democracy" to the Vietnamese people and freedom, and all that the black soldiers could say was how can America, who never , gave third world people within its own confines freedom or democracy, how can they bring that kind of thing to SE Asia? 'Now that's why troops are withdrawing. Because you cannot any more put people through that kind of schooling, you cannot send 500,000 more people to Vietnam and have them come back anti-imperialist, because that makes the groundwork for the overthrow of the American government.' The trip provided Donald Sutherland with an opportunity to see at first hand the impact of American imperialism. He is full of accounts, which appall him; of the violence of the military police; the degradation of prostitutes wearing watches ound their ankles like identity abs, provided at the bases to teep dissent down; the oppresion of the local people; the ow wages they receive for workng on American bases; the whole legrading working of the Ameri:an war machine and American :apital.

One account he told me seems ypical of the attitudes of the American gowernment and nilitary. 'We had the opportunity to neet the American High Comnissioner of Okinawa, Japan, High Commissioner General ambert and his information ›ficer Lt Woodside. And Wood¡ide was explaining how terrific ais job was. And this was in the ushest, most magnificent offices vou've ever seen. I mean it was ike the set of the "Dirty Dozen". . I mean I'd never seen inything like • it. All wood panelling and beautifully done. We were sitting in his office and ne said he had been all around he world, in every military establishment.

I said: "Is there any place you haven't visited?" 'And he said: "Well oddly enough the only place I haven't been is where the war is now." I said: "You're joking. You Lumstances looking out over these people?" 'And he said: "No, not at all. After 20 years in the army you get used to it"' The reference to the IndoPakistan war was not an arbitrary one. Sutherland commented: 'When we were in Okinawa, men were on readiness to go to Pakistan. They were on 12-hour readiness to go. These aren't warships that are designed to go in and carry, people off, like the British did for the French after Dien Bien Phu. These are flights of Phantom F-4s; you know, our little dive bombers that we've sot there. And you have to igure out why. They were alsc on readiness for N Korea because some trouble was coming down there American Gis in Vietnam, and for ther basic rights.

We went on to discuss the use of drugs in the American army. I'd read various reports on the extent of it and Sutherland certainly confirmed this. But he had an interesting interpretation: 'The army has a programme called the Drug Amnesty Programme, which means that if you turn yourself in they won't ask any questions. 'And they'll give you all the help you need. In reality if you turn yourself in, they ask you question after question and don't give you any help. The kind of they give turkey. [Just stopping the supply of drugs and letting the addict sweat it out. BM.] 'The army also re-hires men with drug convictions. The reason is two-fold. Partly because the army recognizes that drugs exist and the use of them, and the other thing is that soldiers who have picked up a heavy habit cannot live in America. A $9-a-day habit in Vietnam is a $900-a-day habit in America. That's why they re-enlist. 'But there's a pattern that emerges with drugs in the army. The pattern is that heavy marijuana comes in, which is really good and stays in for anywhere up to three months. And then it's taken off the market and By up the appeared • 'Klute') t the war there's nothing but heroin and Kool-Aid, you know. And everybody says it's not addictive because it's such good scag that you snort it or you smoke it, and you can give it up when you get back to America, right. 'Now there's a reason why it's going in and coming out. When we went into Okinawa, everybody knew we were coming in because the announcement that we were coming in and the grass came at the same time. It's like a palliative, you • know. You're not going to get a lot of riots when guys are really strung out on dope.' Did he think it was deliberate army policy? 'No you can't say that. I certainly would never be able to Pogically to believe hard even • government would pursue any kind of dope policy. It's also hard to believe that they'd fight this kind of war.' And as a footnote. Donald Sutherland: 'There's a way that GIs get rid of being on active duty. It started about a year ago. What you did was you signed over your insurance papers to the Angela Davis Defence Fund, and the minute.you did that you didn't see active duty again.'

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