Dear Friends,

My name is Robert Malecki and I need your help.
  I need the help of the members in your organisation.
I need the help of all organisations who claim that they stand on the side of poor and working class people.
  I have been living in exile in Sweden for over 23 years because of my activities during the Vietnam war.
If I were to return to the United States, I could be put in prison for a very long time and therefore this plea for help.

Between the years 1968 and 1972 I publicly took responsibility for the destruction of tens of thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands, of draft files and orders calling young, mostly poor and working class kids, up to be sent to Vietnam.
Statements to the newspapers, T.V. and radio usually said "that we would not tolerate sending working class kids off to Vietnam to kill other poor and working class kids".
  I also took responsibility for the destruction of the international computer network of the Dow Chemical Corp. in Washington DC.
  This company produced napalm and agent orange for the bombs being dropped on Vietnam. Because of this action and others Dow Chemical stopped its production of napalm.

However we were unable to stop the war. Speaking of large corporations who are prepared to commit genocide against innocent people one should mention that this is still going on today.
A large mining company called the Conzinc Rio Tinto with its head office in Australia has been strip mining on the island of Bougainville.
  The people who inhabit the island are fighting for their independence and have closed the mine. The mining company and the Australian government are financing a dirty little war on Bougainville in order to open up the mine again.
  One would think that the Australian government had learned its lesson after the Vietnam fiasco! They were allied with the Americans remember?
  Anyhow those who read this letter should try and raise this matter in and appropriate way. Just as the Vietnamese needed support back then, the people on the island of Bougainville need support today. Perhaps all of you Vietnam veterans who got tricked into fighting for the profits of Dow Chemical and others in Vietnam could help stick the mining company Conzinc Rio Tinto and the Australian government and their policies of genocide against the wall.
  That would really be justice!

  In November of 1969 I was caught coming out of a draftboard with military files. I was put on trial and sentenced to 12 years in prison. In defence actions I took up the Nuremberg trials after the second world war. I said that there was no difference between the Nazi concentration camps and the American bombings of the Vietnamese people.
  Therefore it was my duty to break national laws, in protesting American war making policy in Vietnam, in order to uphold international laws.
This defence was not allowed by the court and I was sent to a maximum security prison in Lewisburg, Penn.

  At this prison there were many others sitting because of their activities against the United States government. There were black nationalists, black panthers, anti-war activists and even some Russian spies! Jimmy Hoffa, leader powerful Teamsters Union was there and not in the least Catholic priests like Phil Berrigan. I sat in this prison 27 months.

  However my activities against the war in Vietnam did not stop there. One of the more spectacular actions was the time a Russian spy, who claimed that his parents had been killed in "Dresden" during the second world war and I purposed publicly to be exchanged for two B-52 pilots, alive or dead, because we believed that the Vietnamese struggle for independence was correct.

   The United States government had not succeeded in silencing the opposition to its criminal war policies and therefore found new ways to try and keep people in prison. Conspiracy trials, that is you did not have to do anything against the government to be put on trial, merely talking about it was enough.
  One of the big conspiracy trials of the time was the case against Phil Berrigan and other Catholic priests and nuns who, according to the government, were planning to bomb the White House and attack the B-52 bomber planes stationed on Guam in the Pacific Ocean. The key person in this frame up was an agent sent in by the government to the prison we were in to get the goods on people.
  I could have been a defence witness in this case. However at the same time as the above was going on I was charged by a "secret grand jury" for conspiracy to bomb public buildings and electric powerplants among other crimes. The funny thing about this is that it never happened!
  The White House, planes on Guam, electric powerplants, public buildings was a conspiracy according to the government. In reality we were people who had always taken responsibility for our actions.

At the same time that this was going on, Jimmy Hoffa leader of the powerful transport union, received a pardon from Richard Nixon the president. Was Nixon afraid that Hoffa would join an anti-war coalition and bring the working class out against the war?
  Serious discussions were going on and the possibility was a real threat. I watched Jimmy Hoffa walkout of prison and I believe that his deal with Nixon was a betrayal of poor and working class people. Soon after Jimmy Hoffa disappeared. I wonder who killed him? The government? The Mafia? Hmmm!

After 27 months in prison I was released on bail pending trial for the above. 25,000 dollars raised by the anti-war movement gave me the chance to go underground and come to Sweden.
I applied for political asylum and received a humanitary asylum mainly because the Social Democratic Party under the leadership of Olaf Palme had gone over to the Vietnamese side after Nixons massive bombings of Vietnam.
  When Bill Clinton became president I wrote him a letter demanding amnesty. I thought that Clinton,who had gone to England during the war, would understand my situation. Well I waited nearly two years for and answer from Bill Clinton. Now I heard from a friend that McNamara has written a book which has made front page news both in the states and Australia. After all these years, he is saying now, that he knew that this war was all wrong.
  This is and act of a political coward,however better late then never. It appears to me that many people now, 25 years after the war, are creeping out of the closet and saying things about how wrong this war was. Well if these people had any guts, they would help people like myself get the right to return home.

I will never say I am sorry for my actions against the war in Vietnam. Millions of people suffered and are still suffering because of the bombings. Tens of thousands have cancer and children are still being born deformed because of chemicals like agent orange!
  Besides that it was not I who was the criminal, it was people like Richard Nixon who were responsible for the war.I have children and grand children in the United States who I would like to visit. I want the right to return to the U.S., the country of my birth and walk the streets as a free man.
  I mean people like Bill Calley, leader of the My Lai massacre, are walking free today in the U.S. at the same time peopl like me can not return home.

I have always taken responsibility for my actions, publicly in newspapers, T.V. and radio. I do not intend to crawl back to the U.S. begging for forgiveness. However, I would accept an amnesty or pardon. The United States government can call it anything they want as long as the charges against me between the years 1968 and 1973 are dropped.

  In closing I would like to say that I need your help just as I need the help of organisations claiming to stand on the side of poor and working class people. Unlike Bill Clinton I could not run off to England during the war in Vietnam. Unlike McNamara, I did not creep out of the closet 25 years later, to talk about being against the war! But I still remember the faces of the Vietnamese children running down a highway in Vietnam while napalm was burning holes in their little bodies and I did fight the best way I knew how!

Please publish this letter. Send this letter to other people, other organisations, other countries.

Send a letter to the White House. Send a letter to me. But please help. Don't forget the dirty little war, going on today, in Bougainville mentioned in the letter. Especially you Vietnam veterans, now you have a real chance to get those corporate creeps responsible for sending you off to die for their profits! This mining company, Conzinc Rio Tinto, with offices in Australia and London are carrying out a genocidal war TODAY!!!, along with theAustralian government. The people on Bougainville need your help! Put these creeps asses against the wall! Demand the U.S. government take up this matter. Demand that the charges against me be dropped. Demand the right for me to return to the U.S.

Ask Bill Clinton if he enjoyed Nixons funeral. Tell McNamara if he had any guts he would fight for people like myself. We didn't hide in the closet I am feeling like the Japanese soldier who was found on a deserted island in the Pacific Ocean 25 years a fter the second world war. His first question being "is the war over?".