April 27, 2016 Greetings! As we approach the one year anniversary of the "Vietnam: Power of Peace" conference in Washington last May 1-2, we wanted to provide an update to participants and signers of the letter protesting the Pentagon's commemoration project: 1)    Videos from the conference have been posted on youtube and can be see here:  http://tinyurl.com/vpccvideo They were only posted ten days ago with no promotion but have already been accessed in Canada, Japan, France, Austria, Mexico, Hong Kong, Germany, Kazakhstan and the United Kingdom, as well as in the United States. You will see that the quality ranges from professional to amateur and there are some sessions missing.  The plenaries are in best shape.  With appropriate equipment and technical help, we may be able to improve the sound and appearance of invaluable miniplenaries and small group discussions.  If you made your own video or audio tape that is better or fills a gap, please contact Paul Ryder, pryder888@gmail.com [Also please respect that these videos are provided for personal, research or classroom use only and no authorization for commercial purposes or reproduction is given or implied.] 2)    Terry Provance is our liaison with the official Pentagon commemoration staff.  The misleading web site time line that led to our protest letter is still posted.  We have been assured that a new version is done and has been sent to credible independent scholars for review.  The revision is promised for this spring.  It is said to take account of the many criticisms of the site but is not expected to satisfy them all.   http://www.vietnamwar50th.com/timeline/ 3)    Tom Hayden has been working with conference speaker Rep. Barbara Lee on a Congressional resolution (H.R. 695) that gives long overdue recognition to the anti-war movement.  You can see it here: http://tinyurl.com/VNpeace and read about it herehttps://davidcortright.net/2016/04/25/a-tribute-to-the-antiwar-movement/ Ask your Representative to cosponsor the resolution by contacting Diala Jadallah, Legislative Director of Rep. Barbara Lee [CA-13] 4)    David Cortright is leading our dialog with staff of the museum and curriculum projects of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund to be sure the perspective of the anti-war movement is incorporated into its outreach to visitors and supporters of the Wall.  (An edited volume with most of the papers from the academic gathering that preceded our conference has been submitted by David to a publisher and is now under review.) 5)    John McAuliff is preparing for a third delegation of anti-war activists to Indochina (optionally plus family members and friends), with a special emphasis on new regional threats to Vietnam's peace and independence.   It could be as early as July but will most likely take place in the fall, according to interest and availability.  Contact jmcauliff@ffrd.org 6)    Thanks to the generosity of many of you, as well as of the Center for International Policy, Rendezvous Consulting Group and Fenton Communications, we have eliminated the conference debt.  Additional tax deductible contributions are welcome to upgrade and promote the conference videos as well as to employ consultants to engage on our behalf with the official Pentagon commemoration and the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund.  Donate here.  7)    Longer term, we are strongly interested institutional partnerships and grants to create a permanent web site that will offer to the anti-war movement an on-line home for an enduring record of our personal experiences and for reflections on historical meaning.  Such a resource currently exists for the civil rights movement at www.crmvet.org hosted by Tougaloo College. It does not take too close a reading of the daily media to know that issues of war and peace are omnipresent, and the lessons of the Vietnam experience are being obscured or forgotten.  As we saw last year at our conference in Washington and, prior to that, in the signers of the letter challenging the Pentagon's 50 year anniversary commemoration, our need to speak truth to power has not ended, nor are our abilities to do so. We look forward to staying in contact. Continuations Committee Ira Arlook Heather Booth David Cortright Tom Hayden John McAuliff Terry Provance Collateral activities April 26-28, Austin, Texas, The Vietnam War Summit at the LBJ Presidential Library, with presentations by VPCC participants Tom Hayden and Marilyn Young   http://www.vietnamwarsummit.org/ April 28-30, Macalester College, St. Paul, Minnesota, The People Make the Peace, a symposium with presentations by VPCC participants Judy Gumbo, Doug Hostetter, Frank Joyce and John McAuliff   http://www.macalester.edu/news/2016/03/macalester-to-host-symposium-april-28-30-on-the-vietnam-antiwar-movement/ May 2-3, Mayday Tribe 45th Anniversary Reunion, Washington DC o with presentations by VPCC participants Carole Cullum and Judy Gumbo  http://www.maydaytribe71.org/  Ongoing resources Vietnam Full Disclosure (Veterans for Peace)  http://vietnamfulldisclosure.org/ War Legacies Project    http://warlegacies.org/ Zinn Education Project    http://zinnedproject.org/?s=Vietnam+War ************************************************************* Postal donations to VPCC Checks should be made payable to our fiscal agent, the Fund for Reconciliation and Development, and mailed to:  64 Jean Court, Riverhead, New York  11901 (or donate online here) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Name:                                                   e-mail: Address:                                                                 City:                                                  State:           Zip: Enclosed is a tax deductible contribution for the Vietnam Peace Commemoration Committee of            ___ $25    ____ $50    ____$100   ____ $250   ____ other $ _____

Fund for Reconciliation & Development, 64 Jean Court, Riverhead, NY 11901