The getting old draft resister got here early to beat the Memorial Day observance at Los Angeles Nationwide Cemetery. He angled by means of rows of white headstones, treading on immaculately tended grass. He stopped on the grave of the choose who had sentenced him.
He had a message for U.S. District Choose Harry Pregerson that has been in his ideas since that day in 1970.
As an 22-year-old in 1967, Bob Zaugh had discovered a objective in his life extra essential than college, profession and even freedom. It was a recognition of the commonality of all people that meant he couldn’t assist the Vietnam Battle or the system that despatched younger males to struggle in it.
So on Dec. 4, 1967, the second nationwide draft card turn-in day, he joined different resisters at First Unitarian Church of Los Angeles on West eighth Road in symbolically dropping their playing cards in a goblet.
On the top of the nation’s battle of conscience over the Vietnam Battle, that call had a number of potential penalties for a younger man: ostracism by family and friends, lack of employment alternatives, and lifelong stigma as being unpatriotic or worse — a coward. To not point out jail time.
Federal Choose Harry Pregerson, seen at 92 in his Woodland Hills workplace, was an ex-Marine who by 1970 had despatched three of Zaugh’s roommates to jail for resisting the draft.
(Patrick T. Fallon / For the Occasions)
When Case 5787, United States of America vs. Robert Paul Zaugh, went on trial on Tuesday, Could 26, 1970, Zaugh got here ready to confess to the 2 expenses — refusing to report for a preinduction bodily and refusing to report for induction. The utmost sentence was 5 years in jail and a $10,000 positive.
Pregerson, although remembered as a liberal choose, was additionally a Marine who was wounded within the Battle of Okinawa in World Battle II. He didn’t have a monitor report of leniency, and had already despatched three of Zaugh’s roommates — Richard Profumo, Mike Swartz and Jack Whitten — to jail.
After Assistant U.S. Atty. Arnold Regardie launched Zaugh’s Selective Service file as proof, the choose turned to Zaugh, who had waived a jury trial and was representing himself.
“You could proceed, Mr. Zaugh.”
“I’ll begin by saying that on Could twenty ninth I did refuse to cooperate at a bodily, and that on August twenty seventh I did refuse to undergo induction,” he started.
His protection, he stated, can be “that there’s actually no different approach for me to behave when I’m confronted by the U.S. Navy Code.”
Zaugh would later receive a transcript of the listening to from the Nationwide Archives.
In his opening assertion, he quoted at size from a Selective Service System pamphlet known as “Manpower Channeling,” and argued that the very idea of the draft infringed on his and different younger males’s inalienable rights expressed within the Declaration of Independence and, in his view, reserved to the residents by the ninth Modification.
Zaugh drops his draft card in a goblet at First Unitarian Church of Los Angeles on Dec. 4, 1967, in a public present of resistance to preventing in Vietnam.
(Los Angeles Resistance Assortment / Los Angeles Public Library Particular Collections)
The prosecutor may now not bear it.
“I’ll object to any additional opening assertion alongside these strains on the grounds that it’s irrelevant and actually not correctly a part of a gap assertion,” he broke in.
After which got here the second when Pregerson inadvertently created a bond that will reside past him — and lead Zaugh, yr after yr, to the choose’s grave.
“What you say is technically true, Mr. Regardie,” Pregerson advised the prosecutor. “However I’ll hear Mr. Zaugh.”
Zaugh would — essentially — be convicted that day and face potential jail time. However he had unexpectedly received the one victory he hoped for — to be heard.
For anybody who didn’t reside by means of the Nineteen Sixties, it is perhaps unattainable to conceive of the ethical fissures wrought in America by the Vietnam Battle and the life-changing and character-defining choices confronted by each man of navy age.
Some would observe their sense of obligation, or merely do what they had been advised, and be part of a struggle many discovered they didn’t perceive. Those that didn’t die returned to a house that many discovered didn’t perceive them.
A whole bunch of hundreds would linger at school or marry to acquire deferments, or enlist within the Coast Guard or Air Pressure to keep away from conscription into the Military. Others turned their backs on the U.S. by transferring to Canada.
It was later estimated that greater than 570,000 sought deferments by means of deception — the draft dodgers — or brazenly repudiated the draft — the resisters.
Some declared they wouldn’t struggle for causes of conscience. The usual-bearer of that group was world heavyweight champion Muhammad Ali, who in 1967 was sentenced to jail for refusing induction primarily based on a mixture of his Muslim religion and his nation’s racial injustice.
“Why ought to they ask me to placed on a uniform and go 10,000 miles from dwelling and drop bombs and bullets on brown folks in Vietnam whereas so-called Negro folks in Louisville are handled like canine?” Ali requested.
World heavyweight champion Muhammad Ali, seen in 1966, can be sentenced to jail the subsequent yr for refusing to struggle within the Vietnam Battle primarily based on his religion and conscience.
(Related Press)
The late David Harris, former Stanford scholar physique president and co-founder of a bunch known as the Resistance, emerged as a pacesetter within the rising nationwide civil disobedience motion. He opposed the draft on broad philosophical precepts:
“We’re all answerable for what our nation does,” Harris wrote. “Underneath the worst of circumstances, we management our personal habits.”
Zaugh was in graduate college at UCLA when Harris, quickly to be tried and sentenced to jail himself, spoke on campus, railing towards the draft as an unjust system funneling younger males into an unjust struggle.
The message struck so deeply that Zaugh dropped out of UCLA, joined a commune of fellow draft resisters residing in a big home in central L.A., and commenced volunteering with a ragtag group known as the Peace Press that printed anti-war literature on a small offset printer.
Amongst resisters, Zaugh was a particular case. Earlier than he took his stand of conscience, he had reported for, and flunked, a preinduction bodily on account of a congenital situation known as rheumatoid spondylitis, a fusing of the spinal vertebrae.
He by no means would have been despatched to Vietnam.
When Zaugh’s day in courtroom arrived, he needed the Choose to know that he may have taken the simple approach out.
“I hope to point out that, to begin with, I may have cooperated, taken the bodily, and I might have flunked and acquired both a 1-Y or a 4-F,” he stated, citing two classes for medical deferment.
However that was not his protection. He introduced up his bodily situation for just one purpose, he stated: “I would love you to be satisfied of the sincerity of what my protection actually is.”
With Pregerson’s license to talk, Zaugh did, for quarter-hour. He learn passages from “Channeling Manpower,” which he stated “actually had a terrific impact” on him — “a lot in order that I printed up, myself, about 10,000 copies and distributed them.”
Zaugh was able to danger jail in 1970 by admitting he’d refused his draft orders. He was not ready for a choose to listen to him out, or to present him the sentence he did.
(Wally Skalij / Los Angeles Occasions)
Anybody who learn the doc, he stated, “would clearly see that the younger individuals are dispossessed of their lives on this nation, and that in consequence we’re being disadvantaged of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
“I preserve that I’ve the suitable to decide on my very own happiness; to not have it imposed upon me from the surface.”
Pregerson reduce in.
“Don’t you suppose all of us reside underneath sure restrictions, Mr. Zaugh? Actually, are any of us utterly free to do what we wish to do and to pursue our personal happiness in the best way we wish to pursue it?”
However with out ready for a solution, he modified his tone.
“What are you doing now? Are you at school?”
“No,” Zaugh replied. “I’ve been working with blind kids for 4 years, and I do printing on a subsistence wage, and I pack eggs for the daddy of a pal of mine who was despatched to jail for refusing induction.”
“Go forward,” Pregerson stated. “I’m glad you might be doing that type of work.”
Zaugh described a latest realization: “All the selections that I’ve made relate to varied social issues, akin to ecology, the draft, racism and struggle.”
Complying with the induction legislation “implies that I’m violating the rights of others, as a result of the results of the Selective Service System is admittedly slavery. I believe if you end up compelled to go within the Military due to worry of 5 years in jail, you might be being enslaved.”
His testimony continued on this vein till Pregerson, in impact, mounted the protection that Zaugh was unwilling to make. The choose pressed Zaugh’s advisory counsel to argue that the federal government had made procedural errors in his case — a protection that labored for greater than 100,000 defendants.
Opposite to Zaugh’s want to not base his protection on technicalities, Pregerson discovered him not responsible of refusing induction.
Virtually apologetically, he stated he needed to discover Zaugh responsible of refusing his bodily. He set sentencing for June 17.
American attitudes towards the Vietnam Battle had been altering in 1970, as photos of the useless — Vietnamese and American — on nightly tv drummed dwelling the brutality of the struggle; the enemy’s huge Tet Offensive of 1968 had undermined the U.S. authorities’s assurances of final victory. Ali, initially condemned as unpatriotic by a lot of America, turned a robust image for the rising anti-war motion. The Supreme Court docket overturned his conviction in 1971.
That pattern was mirrored within the justice system. Prosecutions, convictions and jail sentences for draft resisters declined sharply within the late Nineteen Sixties and early Nineteen Seventies, President Ford’s postwar clemency board concluded in an exhaustive research of the Vietnam Battle period.
In “Likelihood and Circumstance: The Draft, the Battle and the Vietnam Technology,” Lawrence M. Baskir and William A. Strauss attributed the change to the profitable technique of resistance leaders to overwhelm the courtroom system, and to rising doubts in regards to the struggle amongst prosecutors and judges.
In a chart modeled on a household tree, the authors documented the instances of 209,517 males accused of draft violations: 25,279 indictments, 8,750 convictions and solely 3,250 jail phrases.
Zaugh may need had purpose to suppose Pregerson too was having a change of coronary heart.
Two different members of the commune earlier sentenced by Pregerson — Swartz and Profumo — had obtained early releases and attended Zaugh’s trial to point out their assist.
Although he has no proof, Zaugh believes Pregerson was answerable for their launch. The choose had discovered they had been in solitary confinement for persevering with their civil disobedience in jail. Pregerson went to the jail to see for himself, after which both filed a habeas corpus petition or persuaded a lawyer to take action, Zaugh stated.
Then-Boston College professor and civil rights activist Howard Zinn, entrance, was arrested at a protest in 1971 as opposition to the Vietnam Battle grew, even within the courts.
(Uncredited / Related Press)
At sentencing Pregerson gave no inkling of his motivation, however stated merely that Zaugh “doesn’t now want confinement.” He sentenced him to 2 years of probation on the situation that he “carry out civilian work of nationwide significance contributing to the upkeep of the nationwide well being, security and curiosity.”
U.S. District Choose Dean Pregerson, who adopted his father to the bench, believes the explanations for his resolution had been advanced.
“I believe like a lot of the nation, my dad had nothing however respect for women and men in uniform, however on the identical time he started having doubts about whether or not this struggle made sense,” he stated.
However he additionally thought Zaugh’s sincerity had influenced the choice.
“The opposite factor that could be a reflection of my dad’s character is that he appreciated individuals who had been real, who lacked guile and had been performing on precept,” the son stated. “The truth that folks like Bob had been keen to go to jail slightly than do what much less principled folks would do, which is attempt to keep away from the draft by means of another means, is one thing that spoke to these qualities.”
Zaugh knowledgeable the Probation Board that he supposed to serve the nationwide curiosity by persevering with to work for the Peace Press.
That would have been a tidy finish to the story, however destiny was nonetheless at play.
Three a long time later, the elder Pregerson got here again into Zaugh’s life by probability. It occurred, of all locations, at a UCLA soccer sport the place Zaugh, by then a Bruin fan, noticed UCLA alum Pregerson honored at halftime.
Zaugh’s sense of future was strengthened when he attended a screening of Oscar-winner Terry Sanders’ 1998 documentary “Return with Honor,” about U.S. pilots who’d been prisoners of struggle. It was a fundraiser for an Inglewood veterans shelter, one among a number of Pregerson had helped discovered.
“So, after intending to write down you because the 70’s, the indicators had been clear it was time to take action,” Zaugh stated in an undated letter to Pregerson, by then on the U.S. ninth Circuit Court docket of Appeals.
He reminded the choose of the small print of his case and concluded:
“What was essential for me was that although you most likely disagreed with my place, you most likely set that apart and allowed me to current my protection.”
He talked about that he had achieved his work within the nationwide curiosity on the Peace Press.
“Although it could appear a stretch as work within the nationwide curiosity, it was revered by many and studied as a mannequin worker-owned enterprise by the [Small Business Administration] and California.
“My conviction has by no means been a burden in any approach and the truth that you selected to not jail me has most likely been a blessing.”
By then Pregerson, who famously testified at his 1979 appeals courtroom affirmation listening to that he would observe his conscience if it conflicted with the legislation, had established himself as an activist, each on and off the bench, on behalf of homeless folks and veterans. He stirred the federal forms to supply land for the Salvation Military’s shelter in Bell, and his oversight of litigation over the Century Freeway led to the development of near 1,000 everlasting housing items for veterans at Century Villages at Cabrillo.
On Feb. 16, 1999, Pregerson wrote again:
“It meant so much to obtain your letter. … I keep in mind your case nicely. I additionally keep in mind Mike Swartz and one other younger man whose final identify was Whitten. I’ve usually questioned what turned of you and the others.
“I’m pleased to know that my disposition of your case turned out so nicely for you and for our nation.”
Zaugh had lengthy needed to thank Pregerson in particular person, however couldn’t get courtroom employees to make an appointment. He lastly succeeded in 2016, when he supplied to introduce the choose to his pal Gary Tyler. A Black man who had served 40 years in a Louisiana jail on a homicide cost that was extensively discredited as racially motivated, Tyler was launched that yr in a manslaughter plea deal. Zaugh had supported the marketing campaign to free him and facilitated Tyler’s transfer to Los Angeles.
The 2½-hour assembly within the choose’s chambers offered a hyperlink that bore fruit upon Pregerson’s demise on Nov. 25, 2017.
Sanders, the filmmaker, needed to movie the choose’s memorial service on the Shrine Auditorium. Zaugh made the introduction to the household by means of Pregerson’s employees. That footage turned the muse for “ninth Circuit Cowboy,” Sanders’ feature-length documentary on the choose.
Zaugh, Sanders and Dean Pregerson have since appeared at schools and excessive colleges for showings and discussions of the movie.
Immediately Zaugh, 79, a divorced father of three, lives alone in a guesthouse in south Santa Monica. He spent about 20 years on the Peace Press, then one other 20 years printing for Matt Groening’s Bongo Comics Group. He used his severance from the corporate to type a nonprofit, Actions Converse Louder Inc.
Zaugh, at Pregerson’s grave in November, started his ritual visits after the choose, by then a senior member of the U.S. ninth Circuit Court docket of Appeals, died in 2017.
(Irfan Khan / Los Angeles Occasions)
His nonprofit produces dramatic readings of the play “Our City” and speaks with legislation college college students at UCLA and Loyola Marymount in regards to the Resistance. Its historical past is as related as ever at present, he thinks, as he sees protesters for the Palestinian trigger hiding their identities and shunning the information media as a substitute of brazenly proclaiming their dedication to the trigger.
His present challenge is making ready a yearlong exhibition of talks and paintings on melancholy for El Camino School in Torrance.
He additionally prays out loud each day for some 200 folks, residing and useless.
“I ask that I’m able to characterize, carry forth, one of the best trait of their life in my very own life to honor their soul.”
After Pregerson’s demise, Zaugh started a ritual that’s partly religious and partly his continued service to the nationwide curiosity. On Veterans Day and Memorial Day, he visits L.A.’s Nationwide Cemetery for veterans.
It’s a easy observance. He walks to Pregerson’s grave web site, sits with him and prays.
His message: “Thanks.”
