number one: end all bombing in north and south vietnam.
number two: declare a unilateral cease-fire in the hope that such action will create the atmosphere for negotiation.
three: take immediate steps to prevent other battlegrounds in southeast asia by curtailing our military buildup in thailand and our interference in laos.
four: realistically accept the fact that the national liberation front has substantial support in south vietnam and must thereby play a role in any meaningful negotiations and any future vietnam government.
five: *set a date that we will remove all foreign troops from vietnam in accordance with the 1954 geneva agreement.
part of our ongoing...part of our ongoing commitment might well express itself in an offer to grant asylum to any vietnamese who fears for his life under a new regime which included the liberation front. then we must make what reparations we can for the damage we have done. we must provide the medical aid that is badly needed, making it available in this country, if necessary. meanwhile... meanwhile, we in the churches and synagogues have a continuing task while we urge our government to disengage itself from a disgraceful commitment. we must continue to raise our voices and our lives if our nation persists in its perverse ways in vietnam. we must be prepared to match actions with words by seeking out every creative method of protest possible.
*as we counsel young men concerning military service, we must clarify for them our nation's role in vietnam and challenge them with the alternative of conscientious objection. i am pleased to say that this is a path now chosen by more than seventy students at my own alma mater, morehouse college, and i recommend it to all who find the american course in vietnam a dishonorable and unjust one. moreover, i would encourage all ministers of draft age to give up their ministerial exemptions and seek status as conscientious objectors.* these are the times for real choices and not false ones. we are at the moment when our lives must be placed on the line if our nation is to survive its own folly. every man of humane convictions must decide on the protest that best suits his convictions, but we must all protest.
now there is something seductively tempting about stopping there and sending us all off on what in some circles has become a popular crusade against the war in vietnam. i say we must enter that struggle, but i wish to go on now to say something even more disturbing.