The day of the Washington Monument, I attended a meeting of the United States Youth Council. This was a State Department-sponsored group, which consisted of representatives of major U.S. youth groups, such as YMCA, YWCA, Young Democrats, Young Republicans, NAACP Youth, Catholic Youth Organization, Freedom Leadership Foundation (representing the UC youth before CARP) and many others.

We had been active on the USYC for several years, attending meetings, sending delegates on fact-finding tours, etc. I went to Israel with the USYC in 1974. Dan Holdgreiwe went to Portugal and Germany, I think. I remember getting a good laugh about how the delegation visited the Ministry of Gezundheit.

Anyway, the deal was that the anti-cult movement had been lobbying the USYC to kick us off, and that was one of the things on the agenda. So I had to attend. The USYC leadership was social-democratic, but anti-Communist, and we were allies against the left-liberals on the council. To make a long story short, the president of the council, David Dorn, gave us a strong vote of confidence and the idea to kick us off was unanimously defeated. I left the meeting feeling pretty good, but worried about how the mobilization for the Monument would turn out.

The USYC meeting was just a few blocks from the Monument. I arrived around 4:00 p.m., I think. As I rounded the corner, I couldn’t believe my eyes. People were everywhere. And buses were lined up for blocks and blocks unloading passengers. People were running to find the best seats. It was a gorgeous, late summer day. I thought to myself:

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