Just As I Thought by Grace Paley Page B

signed by a number of antiwar activists, including myself, and distributed by us to interested people. However, there were 3,500 other delegates. And many of those had suffered their country’s oppression and were famous fighters against the colonial uses of their people. They traveled in exhaustion from commission to commission calling out their histories. I suppose journalists on foreign beats are familiar with the beauty and passions of the women and men of this world, but I am not. For me, they were astonishing to see. They came from Africa, Asia, continents, countries, and villages where occasion still allows golden magnificence or delicacy in dress and demeanor, instead of dour formality. Familiarity is no excuse for ignoring beauty.
    On the last day of commission meetings, Paul Mayer read a statement signed by Noam Chomsky, Dave Dellinger, Daniel Berrigan, Paul Mayer, David McReynolds, Sidney Peck, and me. In it, the signers identify themselves as American dissenters. They establish that they are not cold warriors. They condemn the Soviet government for its persecution of dissidents, but call upon the dissidents themselves to join in protest against political murder in Chile and the continued imprisonment of hundreds of thousands in South Vietnam. I distributed this statement to fifty or sixty people who requested it (mostly Russians), but also to members of other delegations and the press.
    We were corrected in a fairly sensible Russian tone by the next speaker and excoriated by several others (Asian, African, American, European). At supper that night I offered copies to the American delegates and explained our position. In this way, we found that many people shared our views but had not yet spoken. A steering committee meeting was called that night. Paul, who had been co-chairman of the delegation, was called a liar, an agent, a deceiver. They feared that it would be assumed that he spoke for the entire delegation, a legitimate fear—still, we met no one who assumed it after speaking to us and the steering committee. Paul was censured and resigned in order to maintain some unity. I have been told this is why people resign. In this case unity was not maintained. I was more contemptuously dealt with as a woman and a mere leaflet carrier. At all times the Russians were calmer than the Americans. For instance, the Russians never said we should be shot. A couple of American women said that I ought to be shot. Then they thought it over during the night. In the morning, they said I should not be shot but “something … something terrible should be done.” It has been suggested to me that the Russians depended on some sort of strong American statement to prevent the burial of the Peace Congress by the American press.
    What I’ve described so far is talk and paper, ideas and hope. As for direct action, the day before we left Moscow, Maris Cakars went to GUM, the lively, mobbed Macy’s of Moscow, and deposited handfuls of leaflets ( The New York Times ad for Soviet amnesty translated into Russian) on various strategic tables, counters … Finally he was seen, gathered up into energetic police arms, and taken to the police station across the street. He was, he said later, better treated than on certain similar American occasions.
    I would have preferred to have been part of that action but felt a responsibility to work with Paul within the hopeful meaning of the congress and use whatever time could be saved from meetings to try to speak with at least a couple of Russian dissidents.
    The First Visit
    Paul Mayer had already talked to one of the most religious and conservative of dissident Russians, the novelist Vladimir Maximov, author of Seven Days of Creation —translated into German, not yet English. Paul Mayer is a Catholic priest and not as ashamed of saving souls as some other American radicals. He had been in Moscow in April as part of the congress preparatory committee and had gone to see Alexander Galich and