Word: olimpieri
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Political action also began early. On the 22nd, an AWOL Marine, Paul Olimpieri, took sanctuary in the Divinity School Chapel. On September 23, the Divinity School faculty met but postponed taking any action on Olimpieri or the other Divinity students who sat chained with him in the chapel. "We'd rather be wise and sensitive than clear," that school's dean, Krister Standahl, said after the meeting...
Early on the morning of September 24, military police entered the chapel and arrested Olimpieri. They took him to a Marine base and shaved off his moustache and goatee. That evening, Olimpieri accused the Divinity students of using him as a publicity gimmick...
...most conspicuous failure, however, was that of the students themselves. Tuesday afternoon, after Olimpieri's arrest, 100 of them met for over two hours to discuss the implications of the sanctuary. At the meeting the students failed to agree upon a position of support for the Marine, failed to address themselves to any of the issues which the sanctuary raised, and finally relinquished their responsibility to the Student Council which, that night, adopted a statement urging others "to join with us in similar acts of protest...
...MANY ways these criticisms are criticisms of style. But they are substantive, nontheless. No action--by Olimpieri, Stendahl, Faculty, or students--is going to overpower the war machine. One's strategy, then, necessarily becomes that of symbolic protest and confrontation, which differ from publicity stunts in that they aim at raising issues for debate. And this tactic only succeeds when carried off dramatically...
Conversely, to the extent that the Divinity School was unable to dramatize Olimpieri's sanctuary, the sanctuary lost any value it might have had. Olimpieri, almost obscured by the events he set in motion, angrily charged after his arrest that he had been "used" by the students. He may or may not have spoken under pressure from the Marines. He may or may not have been entirely moral and intelligent in his reasons for leaving the Marines in the first place. But what is more important is that the issues his sanctuary raised--the war, the draft, resistance, and their...