In 1964, Carl Oglesby, a young copywriter for a Michigan-based defense contractor, was asked by a local Democratic congressman to draft a campaign paper on the Vietnam War. Oglesby's report argued that the conflict was misplaced and unwinnable. He had little idea that its subsequent publication would put him on a fast track to becoming the president of the now-legendary protest movement Students for a Democratic Society (SDS). In this book, Oglesby shares the triumphs and tribulations of an organization that burgeoned across America, only to collapse in the face of surveillance by the U.S. government and infighting.

As an SDS leader, Oglesby spoke on the same platform as Coretta Scott King and Benjamin Spock at the storied 1965 antiwar demonstration in Washington, D.C. He traveled to war-ravaged Vietnam and to the international war crimes tribunal in Scandinavia, where he met with Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir. He helped initiate the Venceremos Brigade, which dispatched thousands of American students to bring in the Cuban sugar harvest. He reluctantly participated in the protest outside the 1968 Democratic National Convention and was a witness for the defense at the trial of the Chicago Seven the following year. Eventually, after extensive battles with those in SDS who saw its future more as a vanguard guerrilla group than as an open mass movement, Oglesby was drummed out of the organization. Shortly after, it collapsed when key members of its leadership quit to set up the Weather Underground.

This beautifully written and elegiac memoir is rich in contemporary echoes as America once again must come to terms with an ill-conceived military adventure abroad. Carl Oglesby warns of the destructive frustrations of a peace campaign unable to achieve its goals. But above all, he captures the joyful liberation of joining together to take a stand for what is right and just — the soaring and swooping of a protest movement in full flight, like ravens in a storm.

"Enjoying the security and comfort of his middle-class lifestyle in the suburbs of Ann Arbor, Mich., where he worked for a defense contractor, Oglesby was an unlikely candidate to move to the forefront of the countercultural antiwar movement. However, several momentous events, combined with his growing sense that the Vietnamese revolution had less to do with communism and more to do with national independence, led him to quit his job and follow his principles by becoming involved full-time in the radical organization Students for a Democratic Society. Oglesby traces his and the organization's activities from its attempts to educate the public on Vietnam at 'teach-ins' through the more violent antiwar activities of its splinter groups. His insider's view introduces readers to the personalities and ideologies of some of the major players in SDS and the antiwar movement, and he uses recently released FBI, State Department and CIA files to show the magnitude of governmental infiltration of the organization. But what makes the book most compelling is Oglesby's in-depth knowledge of this tumultuous era and his astute observations about the influence of key events of the period — such as the murders of Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert Kennedy as well as military operations like the Tet offensive — on SDS and its evolving political ideology." Publishers Weekly (Copyright Reed Business Information, Inc.)

"Oglesby's personal story is an American adventure told with charm, sadness, anger, and comedy. It's a racy read, in perfect pitch with the country-western songs of his southern Baptist roots. A must-read for anyone interested in 'how we got here today' from 'where we were in the Sixties'. The drama, heartache, exhilaration, and rage of the anti-Vietnam war movement feels so fresh it could be about our Iraq war dilemmas. His expansive, come-one-come-all mindset is a terrific shot in the arm. Unputdownable for activists, a breeze for the uninvolved."

-- Clancy Sigal, author of A Woman of Uncertain Character

"Besides being an engaging read, this memoir about political struggle in the 1960s is a valuable document for understanding the everliving history of American liberal/radical protest."

-- Michael Parenti, author of Contrary Notions and Superpatriotism

"An unflinching, honest, and perceptive portrait of the sixties anti-war movement in all its promise, complexity, and contradictions. A fascinating and important book!"

-- Ron Kovic, author of Born on the Fourth of July

Carl Oglesby was president of Students for a Democratic Society between 1965 and 1966. His previous books include Containment and Change and The JFK Assassination. He lives in Amherst, Massachusetts.