At the same time,
of course, the idea is that there are two experts, that in my wife's Draft
Counseling, she would presumably know the statutes, the regulations, the
Supreme Court decisions, even the customary practice of the local Draft
Board. But the young man with whom she
was speaking (they were all young men back then) was the only person at the
table who would know what he believed, what he was up for, how his girlfriend
would react, his parents, his clergyman, and so forth.
So that concept of
two experts was something that began in Draft Counseling; when we both became
lawyers, we tried to practice Law in exactly the same way. Then, on several trips to Central America in
the 1980s, we learned "Oh wow, there's a word for this! Acompa à ± ar, Acompa à ±a ndo ." That was exciting, but the
word came after we had been into it for many years.
Rob Kall:
You talk a lot about Romero in the book.
A good portion of the book is dedicated to Oscar Romero. Tell us about him, and why you bring Romero
into this picture.
Staughton Lynd:
OK. I'll do my best. There's a book of oral histories about Romero
that I think is perhaps the single most exciting book I've ever read. It's compiled by a magazine editor from
Nicaragua who evidently went to El Salvador shortly after the assassination and
talked with, it seems, everyone.
(laughs) For example, Romero was
/
Rob Kall:
OK. Wait. First give me a real
thumbnail picture of who Romero was.
Staughton Lynd:
OK, good. Romero was born El
Salvador of a peasant family. He was
poor. He himself had worked to supplement
the family's income ever since he was a kid.
But he became enamored of the idea of becoming a Priest, and he went
first to Seminary in El Salvador, and then to Rome for further study and became
a Bishop in one part of El Salvador.
And interestingly,
fascinatingly, he was a rather Conservative Bishop. As he looked back on it, he said about
himself, "You know, I got caught up in these books, and I lost touch with the
people from whom I came." The critical
event in his life was that he was appointed Archbishop (I think I have my dates
right) early in 1977, and only a few weeks thereafter, there occurred the first
assassination of a Priest in that country.
The man who was
assassinated was a Priest named Rutilio Grande.
He was a devotee of the Liberation Theology which was spreading
throughout the Latin American church [during] the same years that Romero was
becoming a young adult. Grande gave
sermons that went something like this: "You know, if Jesus ever tried to come
to El Salvador, he'd have a tough time.
I don't think he'd make it very far across the border. They'd lock him up! And as for the Bible, the only thing they'd
let in are the two covers, because anything in between would be viewed as
subversive," etc etc.
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