"In the Army learned that I wanted to be a teacher, oddly, because the Army had a really good way of teaching, young people complicated stuff in a way I've never seen done before. So, I became interested in teaching as a career."

"I'm sure the possibility of being sent to Viet Nam was at some level in my consciousness percolating and leading me to increase skepticism about the value of that particular military involvement. "

"All the anti-war activism at UCI had to take place in the context of a county which despised it at the time..."

Chancellor Daniel Aldrich supported the notion of free speech and spoke out in 1967 during the student protest of governor Ronald Regan's firing of the President of the University of California, Clark Kerr. The administrative and faculty support of student-led movements paved the way for the development of student organizations and political activism. In 1968, UCI students protested the firing of professors Steve Shapiro, Don Brannan, and George Kent. Student organizations such as the Students for a Democratic Society established a Chapter at UCI during the 1960s which was involved in organizing anti-war activities and other social justice movements. While undergraduates at UCI established a wave of political movements and social activism, faculty and graduate students became involved with the New University Conference which engage with left-wing politics and anti-war sentiment. Collectively, the student and faculty established a community culture at UC Irvine through the engagement of free speech political activism. 

"We are witnessing, right now, a right-wing assault on higher education that I think is highly disturbing, and quite real, and not likely to end."

"Reagan represented the conservative position that the University should be quiet and its students should be quiet."

The Free Speech Movement (FSM) began at UC Berkeley in 1964 in response to the school administration's enforcement of a ban on political activism on school property. Berkeley students had initially defied the ban to build student support for the Civil Rights Movement, but the impact of the FSM reached beyond civil rights activism--such as into the anti-war movement--and transcended the decades. The Berkeley students were ultimately victorious in securing their right to free speech and to conduct political activities on campus, and the politically active character of the UC which began with the Free Speech Movement at Berkeley has remained an important part not only of the UC Berkeley campus culture but also of cultures of other UC campuses. 

The FSM and the student anti-war movements on University of California campuses through the 1960s and into the 70s cemented a culture of activism on its campuses, but the paving stone set adjacent to it was the conservative conception that the UC and institutions of higher education, in general, were conscious incubators of liberal--as well as Socialist and Communist--ideologies, and this idea remains prevalent half a century later. 

"Among the faculty there were some differentiations about preferred politicians to provide support for. I happened to be a moderate in that group because what I helped do was to help organize the Orange County headquarters for Eugene McCarthy... From many of my colleague's points of view, that was a cop-out because they were interested in the Black Power movement and supporting Eldridge Cleaver." 

Oral Histories in Conversation: Anti-War Movements in the UC System

The late 1960s marked a turning point in the history of the UC system as anti-war activities expanded beyond individual campuses and into a collective student movement. While each UC campus had individual activities that students and faculty engaged in, oral recollections introduce the historical discourse of the impact that the Vietnam War had on individuals. We decided to include the oral histories of Daniel Ellsberg by Harry Kreisler in 1998 and Ellen M. Bulf by Elizabeth Spedding Calciano in 1969 because they share an array of personal encounters that shape the experience of the Viet Nam War era in the context of the UC system.