I Never Had It Made (26 page)

I would steal from other soldiers, civilians; I would sell marijuana on the post. But I was never arrested and never got into any trouble for it. I was breaking into houses, and after a while I was selling heroin and cocaine. And just doing a lot of stealing. These are basically the things I did while I was in the Army. When I was honorably discharged after three years I got into some other things.

My commitment to Daytop was for two counts of carrying a dangerous weapon, aggravated assault, possession of narcotics, and using a female for immoral purposes. From the time I came back from Vietnam to the time I was arrested I continued carrying guns. I think it was something I got obsessed with over there and fit very well into the image of what I thought was a man I had gotten from the Army, the image of being tough and fighting and this whole thing being what manhood was all about. I carried a gun until I was arrested two different times here in Connecticut. The first time for possession of narcotics and possession of a dangerous weapon. I went into a hospital and I stayed about three months and I really didn't do anything for myself. I came back out, and in about four months I was arrested for the offenses I listed above and committed to Daytop.

I now have found some direction. I am presently a resident of Daytop, Inc., at Seymour, and I've been there for about two years now. I should be graduating shortly. Daytop is a self-help program staffed and run entirely by ex-addicts. It is an eighteen-to twenty-four-month program and deals with helping the individual grow up and get a good enough understanding of himself to deal with the realities that he finds around him without having the need for drugs.

I have been involved in other programs, but for me Daytop has been the only effective approach to my problem. I've seen it work for a lot of people around me as well.

When I leave Daytop I may do some community work. I have had a number of different job offers from people that I know in the community because I am interested in community work. I have learned to deal with people through being in Daytop and through running groups and being involved with getting an understanding of myself and others. I would like to continue working with people either in the community or possibly with the Daytop staff.

Since my discharge from the military I have not heard from them at all. I filed for a claim with the Veterans Administration. I was wounded when I was in Vietnam and I never got any compensation for that. I was also shot in the foot when I was on pass from the Army when I was in Colorado. I've been limping on my foot for the past three years, and I haven't gotten anything for that either. While I realized that I have to take most of the responsibility for my becoming a drug addict, I don't think that the Army has helped me at all in overcoming my problem, which started pretty much in the Army. I think that if, in that period of my life when I was as confused as I was and as messed up as I was, if I had gotten some good guidance at that point I might have been turned in the right direction. But instead I was given a lot of bad values I feel. I was helped by a very insensitive organization to get further and further down the road to destroying myself. I feel that since I did get heavily into drugs while in combat and while fighting at eighteen years old, I feel the Army maybe should compensate me for this.

I talked to a lawyer about it and I filed a claim with the VA. We decided to wait and see what kind of action they would take. I'm not sure if the VA is really planning to do anything about this or not.

So I've been inactive for the last two years, and the Army hasn't done anything up to this point to help me with this thing at all, either financially or with my rehabilitation.

To sum it up, I was a pretty mixed-up kid when I went into the Army, but the type of guidance I received there didn't help. Things got worse. I became more confused about manhood, responsibility, and a lot of other things. Although I can't hold the Army entirely responsible for my being as messed up as I was, it didn't do me any good.

I think that drug-using servicemen are getting a real bad deal from the government and have been for a long time. They have been looking at the problem and treating these people as criminals. Addicts are not criminals. I feel we are people who are sick. I feel that drug addiction is the symptom of a problem. The problem, the sickness, must be treated. To look at this as a crime is really wrong, and it will not solve the problem. I think it is in part a reflection of a lot of the confusion we find around us in society today.

I think your military Drug Legislation S. 4393 is a good bill. I think it could be improved with stipulations in it for more money for drug programs. I think that a lot of people now who are being sent to jail really should not be and a lot of people who aren't being helped at all should be. I think that the government should allot more money to different drug programs so that we in the programs could handle a larger input of people who are using drugs. I think that Daytop could probably do a lot more if we had more funds, but it seems that the state of Connecticut hasn't really been meeting its responsibility in terms of dealing with drug addiction.

XXI

Politics Today

T
he political outlook at the approach of the 1968 elections had not been particularly encouraging. Robert F. Kennedy was dead. Martin Luther King had been taken away from us. Rockefeller had withdrawn from the Republican race, leaving us with the Nixon-Agnew ticket. I did feel quite strongly about the possibilities of positive leadership under Humphrey because of his past record on civil rights. However, despite a hard campaign in which I was given freedom to work completely on my own, we just didn't have enough time.

I was terribly disappointed in Nixon's 1968 victory. I feared that his Administration would cater to the conservative backlash that seemed then and now to be increasing in American politics.

Nevertheless, soon after his inauguration, I wrote Mr. Nixon, reminding him that in 1960 I had been solidly in his corner because I believed him to be sincere about wanting to see the hopes and aspirations of black Americans realized.

“I opposed you as vigorously in the last election,” I wrote Mr. Nixon, “because I felt strongly that your position regarding the Old South, the rumors about Strom Thurmond, and the report from the convention would adversely affect the goals we as black people have set.”

Since he had been elected, I continued, all of us—those who supported him and those who opposed him—would pray that his years in Washington would be most successful. I was afraid that unless the Administration took action indicating that it had some empathy with the problems of my people the bitterness between blacks and whites would inevitably grow to the point of explosion. A lack of understanding of the complexities of these problems seemed obvious to me in some of the statements made by some of Mr. Nixon's newly chosen Cabinet members. I warned him that young blacks were sincere and unafraid. I predicted that only sincerity and enormous effort on the part of both races could prevent a holocaust. I ended my letter with the hope that the President had the capacity to provide the necessary leadership. I received a reply that was characteristic of most political correspondence and said little except that my letter had been received.

The President's appointed Attorney General Mitchell went through motions of filing suits against abuses of voting rights, job discrimination, education and housing. However, Mitchell and the Administration demonstrated a marvelous sleight of hand, holding out the promise of progress in the one hand and appeasing the Silent Majority and the sullen South with the other. It was a game of one baby step forward and two giant steps back. The hostility to and “benign neglect” of the black man caused the few token blacks selected for high office to quit in disgust and others to run like hell if it appeared they were being approached with job offers. Only very brave or very insensitive blacks accepted Nixon Administration appointments. The tragic case of James Farmer—who learned the hard way that the Administration cared very little about the health, mis-education, and welfare of blacks—is a classic example of the kind of yawning credibility gap anyone hired by Mr. Nixon had to fight in the black community.

In January, 1970, as chairman of the board of Freedom National Bank in Harlem, I was one of several witnesses who appeared before the Senate Small Business Committee's Sub-committee on Urban and Rural Economic Development. Joe Namath, Willie Mays, Pat Boone, and Hilly Elkins, the New York producer, were some of the other witnesses.

I had a chance, then, to take a good swing at Mr. Nixon's obviously forgotten pledges of what he would do, if elected, to promote black capitalism. I testified that I believed the country's next real crisis would be in economics and politics because blacks, in spite of campaign oratory, were still being denied “a piece of the pie.”

Actually, the hearings were called to discuss the franchise business, which then represented $90 billion, or 10 percent, of the gross national product. I was at that time vice-president of a seafood outlet that was seeking to establish franchises all over the world. However, the committee chairman, Senator Harrison Williams, decided to broaden the subject to explore other economic questions.

The New York
Times
of January 21 reported as follows:

 

Mr. Robinson said that, “The poor relations between black Americans and the present Administration are causing a serious rift in this country.”

Mr. Robinson, a Republican and long-time supporter of Governor Rockefeller, criticized the Administration's black capitalism program, which is administrated by the De- partment of Commerce. Under the program, the Federal Government matches 2 for 1 the investments of big companies to finance ghetto enterprises.

He said the program was failing because of bureaucratic inefficiency, red tape and mistrust by Negroes.

In a small, packed hearing room in the new Senate Office Building, Mr. Robinson contended that because of such problems, businessmen do not want to deal with the Commerce Department's Office of Minority Business Enterprise.

“Making more black millionaires is not as important as moving people from $6,000 a year, to $15,000,” Mr. Robinson commented, adding that “Mr. Nixon and this Administration are the key to this program.”

President Nixon failed to keep the promises he had made and he continued to bemoan the fact that blacks didn't trust him. On one occasion, with what I really regarded as counterfeit humility, the President said he hoped to gain the respect of blacks. After that I wrote him again. Below is an excerpt from my letter of February 9, 1970.

 

If you are sincere in wanting to win the respect of Black America, you must be willing to look at your own administration's attitude. There seem to be no key officials in your administration who have an understanding of what motivates black people. I find it difficult to believe there will be any, when it appears your most trusted advisors are Vice President Agnew, Attorney General Mitchell and Strom Thurmond. How can you expect trust from us when we feel that these men you have selected for high office are enemies? You would not support known anti-Semitics to placate Jewish feelings. Why appoint known segregationists to deal with black problems? If you could see a projection in terms of influence by others of your administration, men like Secretary of State Rogers, Secretary of Commerce Stans, HEW Secretary Finch and Housing Secretary Romney, many of our frustrations would dissipate. Confidence in and respect for you will be based upon the attitudes of those whom you trust.

I respectfully submit this, and hope that it is received in the same spirit as it is sent.

Sincerely,

JACKIE ROBINSON

A few days later, after sending that letter, I received the following reply:

 

DEAR JACKIE:

First, I want to thank you for having taken the time to write such a thoughtful letter. As I indicated in my press conference this past week, when asked about the attitude toward me of many Black Americans, all I can hope is that by my acts and those of the men who I have chosen to help set policies, I can earn the respect and then the friendship of Black America.

I want to express my desire for all of us to work for one America and I enlist your help in building together a country that has for too long now been divided.

We must rebuild respect for the institutions of this country and for the process of government; but at the same time that respect will not be rebuilt until government is truly serving the needs and aspirations of all Americans.

Sincerely,

DICK NIXON

This was vague and it sounded like double-talk, but perhaps I was being invited to help. Just in case, I promptly replied, offering to help in any specific way the President thought I could. This time the answer came, not from Mr. Nixon, but from a special assistant I'd never heard of who said the President had asked him to thank me for my kind letter and for the spirit of my offer to serve my country. I was to rest assured that I would be kept in mind and that Mr. Nixon appreciated both my interest and my offer. That was the end of that.

Mr. Nixon has done very little to “bring us together,” and his handling of youthful dissent was a tragic example of the way to promote alienation. He pretended to be wrapped up in a televised sports event when thousands of youngsters came peacefully to the White House lawn to dramatize their feelings about the Vietnam War.

I have not heard from Mr. Nixon in any official capacity since our exchange of letters. However he recently made a statement about me in conjunction with a dinner given in my honor. Here is the statement:

 

Jackie Robinson's place in baseball is already assured, not just because he broke the color barrier, but also because he was a superb ballplayer, a second baseman whose effortless grace around the bag was matched only by the powerful whip of his bat at the plate.

However, Jackie Robinson continues to carve an even larger niche in our country's history for he has not been satisfied to rest on the laurels won at UCLA or with the Dodgers.

Because he was the first black to crack the color line and because of his love for America, Jackie has felt a special obligation to other blacks and minorities that barriers to equal opportunity are taken down wherever found in our society. This is why he has worked so hard for black people, giving them counsel, support, and encouragement—and, in doing so, he has made America a better land for all.

Much has happened since 1947 when the name of Jackie Robinson first made national headlines. Our country has done a great deal to right the wrongs of an earlier time, and this vital work goes forward precisely because Americans like Jackie Robinson are determined that it shall be so. I share this resolve and salute Jackie for the courage to see it through, for the joy and beauty he has given our national pastime and for the enrichment he continues to give our national life.

Naturally I could not ignore such a generous tribute. How-ever, in my reply to President Nixon I felt it necessary to bring up the disturbing implications of his politics.

 

THE HONORABLE RICHARD M. NIXON

President

United States of America

The White House

Washington, D.C.

 

DEAR MR. PRESIDENT:

Your understanding of the inadequacy of our present social structure to meet the needs of every citizen was well expressed. Truly, it is most important that we stand up like men, express ourselves, and, in the dictum of Mr. Cashen, realize that in our attempt to help others, our own image is observed and read by others.

This letter, these words, coming from you, are most important, and, I believe, they will help in the effort to get blacks to understand that it is totally unnecessary to get on their hands and knees in order to be accepted or recognized.

Because I felt strongly that it is not good policy for any minority to put all of their eggs in one political basket, many of us had decided it may be best to support you and your candidacy in the coming election. However, your Vice President, Mr. Agnew, makes it impossible for me, once again, to do so. I feel so strongly about his being anti-black and anti-progressive in race relations that I dread the fact of anything happening to you and Mr. Agnew becoming President of the United States.

As always, I am available to discuss the forward movement of black and white relations.

Again, my sincere thanks for your kind sentiments.

Sincerely,

JACKIE ROBINSON

With the critical problems facing us today it is not enough for one man to admire another because of his past accomplishments. There is too much to be done today. In the face of being written off by Mr. Nixon's party and being taken for granted by the Democrats, we must develop an effective strategy and learn how to become enlightenedly selfish to protect black people when white people seem consolidated to destroy us.