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Local Activists Plan Campaign For Amnesty

In the workshop on reconciliation, Weiss--who has traveled to Vietnam several times--said recognition of Vietnam has been withheld because of the "personal vindictiveness" of Secretary of State Henry A. Kissinger '50.

Weiss said the U.S. is not fulfilling its agreement in the Paris peace accords to work towards "healing the wounds of war." She said this was understood by both Vietnam and the U.S. to mean reconstruction aid.

"Carter is coming to the White House with clean hands," she said, adding she is optimistic that he will respond to popular pressure to provide aid to Vietnam.

Weiss said a major effort is underway to raise money to build a hospital at My Lai, site of the massacre of Vietnamese civilians by U.S. soldiers.

She said many Western nations, and some Third World countries, including India, have provided reconstruction aid to Vietnam. She added that the hospital would indicate to the world that the "American people support reconstruction even if the American government does not."

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In the workshop on amnesty, Patricia Simon, national coordinator of Gold Star Parents for Amnesty, said "during the war people in the peace movement encouraged draft resisters, but [the movement has] now fallen away to do other things, while was resisters need help."

The name of Simon's organization refers to the gold star emblem that is awarded by the government to parents whose sons are killed in action.

"Nixon said we couldn't have amnesty because it would make a mockery of all those killed in Vietnam," Simon said. "That made many parents of killed servicemen very angry. We've organized and have received significant support."

Simon said Carter's proposed "pardon" would benefit only 4400 draft evaders, the "whitest and best-off group financially," and would subject deserters to a case-by-case review which the speakers said would be slow and inherently discriminatory

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