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Henry announced he’d taken the DuBois Club decision out of Millet’s hands and passed it to a committee of the board of trustees. Millet appeared relieved to be done with it. The president had faced situations of this nature in the past and successfully managed through them. Tensions between campus activists and university administrators increased, as evidenced in a Millet appearance at an SDS meeting that only served to agitate his audience. His talk was criticized in a Daily Illini editorial that alluded to “Berkeley riots.”

SDS split in two: the SDS/RYM (Revolutionary Youth Movement)--led by Jeff Jones, Bernardine Dohrn, and Mark Rudd, soon to become Weathermen—and the SDS/PL (Progressive Labor), led by old-school Marxists. The Weathermen visited campus, recruiting for a revolutionary action in Chicago, a failed effort—few Illini followed their lead—and the local SDS withdrew from the national organization, as antiwar feelings were now mainstream on campus but violent revolution was not. The Radical Union (RU) formed, supporting a national march on Washington; the FBI arrested three on campus for harboring a deserter; Seymour Hersh exposed the My Lai massacre.

This chapter introduces the movements that were the central targets of COINTELPRO–New Left and COINTELPRO–White Hate Groups, namely Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) and the United Klans of America.

This chapter focuses on the effects that COINTELPRO actions had on their targets, especially how these impacts varied across COINTEL programs based on the vulnerability of particular classes of targets. Bureau agents enjoyed considerable access to many Klan members, as the latter's patriotic sympathies fostered respect for law enforcement, created a common ideological ground for interview-based tactics, and ensured that Klansmen were not prepared to face an organized program of repression. Additionally, the Klan's semicovert nature made many “secret” members (who hoped to prevent the negative implications exposure would have in community and workplace) vulnerable to counterintelligence, a vulnerability compounded for some Klansmen by their precarious financial states. In contrast, the New Left's anti-police orientation and sometimes countercultural disposition ensured that FBI agents had little understanding of or access to their targets. Organizations such as Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) learned quickly to anticipate and develop strategies to combat typical forms of counterintelligence, and the impact of COINTELPRO–New Left was therefore considerably less direct, succeeding mainly when it could contribute to a repressive climate created by more overt repressive forms such as police actions and court cases.

During the 1960s, President Kennedy's inauguration speech challenged the youth to do something for the country. As this speech inspired many, several activists joined the Appalachian volunteers (AVs) which served as an antipoverty organization. After Kennedy' inauguration, the AVs had to face accusations that their visions and actions were “un-American” and somewhat rebellious. During this period, several people felt frustration regarding the reform effort involvings another “New Deal” for Appalachia. Although Kennedy did not fulfill what he promised during his campaign, the Appalachian volunteers was one of the first programs that the War on Poverty funded towards a “Great Society.” This endeavor was also supported by other groups such as the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) which comprised of black students and the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) which comprised of Northern white students.

This chapter discusses the two wings of one generation, the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) and Young Americans for Freedom (YAF)—their relationships, their tensions, their compatibilities, their fates. It examines the problem of generations, as well as such related themes as political identity, gender, and convergence. The chapter also illustrates the inextricable bonds between activists of the left and the right as they tried to shape the country's future.

This chapter traces the origins of SDS and YAF, and then compares the founding principles of each organization. It explains that youth in both groups encountered parallel processes of disillusionment as their ideals of America clashed with the realities of American life during the 1950s.

This chapter examines the backgrounds of activists and their families, contrasting the social worlds of youth of the left and right. It explains that not only were members of SDS and YAF from different worlds, but within YAF traditionalists and libertarians stood apart in terms of social background and upbringing.

This chapter analyzes how and why the counterculture divided activists within SDS and YAF, at the same time that it brought the worlds of the left and right together. It explains that the use of drugs unified elements of the left and right as they became enemies of the state and shared a common impulse toward personal freedom.

This chapter discusses the divisions within both SDS and YAF over “the woman question,” over whether women were first- or second-class citizens. It explains that despite objective evidence of male dominance in each group, there was a split among women in each group as to their subjective perceptions of discrimination. The chapter argues that these differences were due primarily to organizational factors and to the availability of a language to identify inequality.

This chapter explores the ideological conflicts that tore SDS and YAF apart during the late 1960s as activists became polarized and each organization faced factionalization. It notes that at the same time, these divisions increasingly drew together sectors of the left and right through common interests and participation.

By the middle of the decade, civil rights dominated the nation’s news media, but the war was escalating, and the student newspaper, the Daily Illini, was filled with stories of both. The paper introduced a different news theme when free-speech protests at the University of California at Berkeley made the headlines. Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) sponsored an event on the UI quad to debate the war, a fraternity sponsored a blood drive for the soldiers, and graduate students Vincent Wu and Vern Fein recall their experiences surrounding free speech, civil rights, and early antiwar activities.

Student enrollment at the university was 2:1 male to female, as was the movement, and despite talk of equality, the campus movement was driven by white males who treated women poorly. Women spoke of their experiences in the movement and their treatment by males; SDS organizer Vivian Rothstein visited campus and raised women’s political awareness; Patsy Parker, a champion of women students’ issues, was elected first woman student-body president. A midnight women’s rally on the quad fell flat, and national SDS meetings failed to address women’s issues, while other issues such as ecology, black power, and racial justice expanded the movement’s focus.

In early October the DRU voted to sit-in at the local draft board, and two members announced they’d burn their draft cards the day of the event. Herbert Gutowsky, Chemistry Department head, met with SDS and CEWV leaders on their Dow plans, advising a responsible approach. On the day of the sit-in, university faculty held a teach-in, Steve Schmidt and Rick Soderstrom burned their draft cards on the patio of the Union, and hundreds marched to the draft board, where ten protesters were arrested for sitting in. That evening, before Staughton Lynd spoke, bail money was collected for those in jail.

In mid-October a peaceful Dow sit-in at UW Madison turned violent when the university’s president directed police to intervene. The day after, Illinois SDS met and voted to sit-in against a Dow visit the following week, over Gutowsky’s strenuous objection. Accompanied by an outdoor teach-in and picket lines, the action took place at the East Chem building, but the administration did not send in police, allowing the interviews to be halted, and followed with charges after the fact. The Daily Illini complimented the administration’s restraint, a small number of identified students were charged, and hundreds signed a statement of complicity.

The decade of the sixties was filled with violence toward civil rights protesters, Viet Cong guerrillas, and Vietnamese civilians, and with Black Panthers and ghetto riots and assassinations; yet the summer of ‘68 marked the first time violence targeted the privileged, white youth of the student movement, and the Democratic convention in Chicago proved to be the watershed. Protesters remembered changing attitudes reflected in national SDS meetings, where some advocated violence, others rebelled at the thought, and the makings of a rupture appeared. Many activists lacked clear direction, even the Beatles seemed confused, and the movement began to flounder.

This introductory chapter sets out the book’s purpose, which is to trace the history of a particular social movement, the white New Left, from 1965 to May 1970. In tracing this history, the ultimate goal is to uncover the reasons for the New Left’s collapse and defeat. More than any other organization, Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) represented the trajectory of the white New Left and the white student movement of the 1960s. An overview of the subsequent chapters is also presented.