Building a Bridge

During the 1970 Cambodian operation, Brian McDonnell, a young pacifist, pledged to fast until the operation was called off or he had been able to put his case to the President. Early in June 1970, on a mutual friend's suggestion, I called on McDonnell, without White House permission, at the simple residence in Georgetown where he was staying. I was moved by his sincerity even while I disagreed with his conclusions.

Brian and I met frequently afterward, always without publicity. In early 1971 Brian suggested that I meet with a group of his friends to discuss the war and the problems of our society. I invited them to the White House. The friends turned out to be a nun and two laymen who had been named as unindicted coconspirators in an alleged plot to kidnap me. When the press later learned of the meeting from my visitors, I was admonished by the Secret Service and the Attorney General.

I met with Brian and his friends on a Saturday morning in March 1971 in the White House Situation Room, and we struggled to fashion at least a temporary bridge across the mutual incomprehension that was rending our society. Gently, they expressed their deep and passionate opposition to the war; but they had no idea how to end it. My problem was to translate inchoate ideas--however deeply held--into policy. Ours was the perpetually inconclusive dialogue between statesmen and prophets, between those who operate in time and through attainable stages and those who are concerned with truth and the eternal. I found it easier to respect these committed and consistent pacifists, who hated all killing, than those whose morality was selective, who condemned American military actions but not North Vietnamese or Indian or Soviet.

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