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July 14, 2009 at 22:52:52     
Promoted to Headline (H4) on 7/15/09:

My Non-Interview with a CIA Recruiter in 1966

Diary Entry by GL Rowsey (about the author)

 

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So there we were. My gay housemate along for psychological support, and me, waiting in one of those ubiquitous pavilions at Stanford, outside an office and next to a plain sign saying "Interviews – 2 pm".

::::::::

It was in the spring of my third year in law school.  And I'd been sharing a house with a gay classmate that third year of our incarceration, after introducing quite a few of my classmates to the pleasures of smoking marijuana for two years.    

I'd also been contemplating the possibility of being shipped to Vietnam.  Students up the peninsula and across the Bay were already listening to the wind saying "Turn on, Tune in, and Drop out" but Stanford was a long way from Berkeley and with my credentials, it hadn't occurred to me that I could.  (In fact, turn on, tune in, and drop out is exactly what I did do, over a period of about five years beginning that spring of 1966, but I didn't even understand I'd begun the journey at the time.  What I did understand was that I did not want to practice law, and I did not want to go to Vietnam.  And if I joined the CIA, I could stay stateside with a job which my family wouldn't consider dishonorable.)


Turn On, Tune In, Drop Out, at Wikimedia    

So there we were.  My gay housemate along for psychological support, and me, waiting in one of those ubiquitous pavilions at Stanford, outside an office and next to a plain sign saying "Interviews 2 pm".

I remember walking into the interview room, seeing a man behind a desk, and sitting down.  But that's it.  My memory's a blank concerning the interview itself.  Later in the afternoon, I remember telling my gay roomie that the absurdity of my being there had turned every word in my head to water.  I thought that the interviewer expected me to tell him the truth, and the truth was that I was sharing a house with a homosexual and breaking the law against possession of marijuana every day. 


Interview With The Moon, by Rebecca L. Daily at Flickr

Maybe I just got up after looking at the man for a while, and walked out. 

The next year or sometime during the next ten, as I drifted undrafted around California and the American Southwest and dropped farther ever farther out, it dawned on me that: (1) Getting military and CIA recruiters off campus at UC-Berkeley was a big part of what got the Free Speech Movement rolling in 1964; and (2) most interviewees with CIA recruiters in 1966 probably lied, and the recruiters expected it, and the interviewees simply were worldly-wise enough to not give a damn.  They knew that no legal consequences would follow telling lies to a CIA interviewer.  Because, well because....it was a far, far different world back in 1966. 

 

"How could I fail to speak with difficulty? I have new things to say."

I graduated from Stanford Law School in 1966 but have never practiced. Instead, I dropped back five years and joined The Movement, but it wasn't until the 1970's that I (more...)
 

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Incorrect perception. by Allan Wayne on Wednesday, Jul 15, 2009 at 1:17:47 AM
That's IT! by GL Rowsey on Wednesday, Jul 15, 2009 at 9:22:23 AM
Draftees Can be Guards for Democracy by Jason Paz on Wednesday, Jul 15, 2009 at 2:27:41 AM
Yes - America the Unthreatened, by GL Rowsey on Wednesday, Jul 15, 2009 at 9:26:45 AM
Recent developments... by John Sanchez Jr. on Wednesday, Jul 15, 2009 at 10:00:51 AM
I bet you were in a hypnotic state through the interview by karmacounselor on Wednesday, Jul 15, 2009 at 11:13:24 AM
That's possible, karmacounselor. by GL Rowsey on Thursday, Jul 16, 2009 at 1:51:25 AM
The question... by Allan Wayne on Wednesday, Jul 15, 2009 at 9:31:17 PM
Looking back by sometimes blinded on Wednesday, Jul 15, 2009 at 9:34:28 PM
Gooood point, sb. by GL Rowsey on Saturday, Jul 18, 2009 at 7:22:38 AM

 

 

 

 

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