We will miss you, Senator Harkin!
As Iowa Senator Tom Harkin prepares to retire, I wanted to share this story about a defining moment from early in the career of one of our great progressive and populist leaders. The story comes from American involvement in a foreign war, in this case, in Vietnam where as a young congressional staffer Harkin had to make a choice between following orders or following his conscience. At a time when foreign wars and American involvement in torture are still all too relevant of issues, the story still resonates. Join me in a trip back across the years, below the fold.
In 1970, a Congressional fact finding mission took Harkin, then a young Congressional staffer, to Vietnam. During the mission, he met Cao Nguyen Loi, a student leader who had been locked in a cage on Con Son Island. He drew a map showing where the "Tiger Cages" were, behind a double wall and a secret door.
Harkin persuaded two of the Congressmen to investigate stories of torture taking place in the Tiger Cages at Con Son. A portion of the delegation flew to the Island to visit its prison. Once there, of course, their official "tour" was taking them nowhere the Tiger Cages - but using the map they diverted from the planned tour and found the door leading into the cages.
Don Luce, who then worked with the World Council of Churches and accompanied the group as a translator, describes what they found behind that door:
The faces of the prisoners in the cages below are still etched indelibly in my mind: the man with three fingers cut off; the man (soon to die) from Quang Tri province whose skull was split open; and the Buddhist monk form Hue who spoke intensely about the repression of the Buddhists. I remember clearly the terrible stench from diarrhea and the open sores where shackles cut into the prisoners' ankles. "Donnez-moi de l'eau" (Give me water), they begged. They sent us scurrying between cells to check on other prisoners' health and continued to ask for water.
What those leading the tour did not know, was that Harkin had a hidden tape recorder in a briefcase with which he recorded the prisoners telling their stories of torture and beatings. He took photographs documenting the conditions.
A survivor named Thieu Thi Tao described her experiences to PBS for their Vietnam Passage program:
In prison, sometimes they made my sister or me witness the torture of the other. When I saw them beat my sister, it was very painful…They put us in the Tiger Cages, and when I came to my senses I thought I fell into Hell because the cage was the shape of a coffin. The jailors walked above us, and we were inside the cages below. There was so much suffering—they mistreated us, poured down quick lime [a caustic chemical which burns the skin on contact] when they wanted to repress us.
When the mission's report failed to include mention of the Tiger Cages, Harkin protested. He was directed to stay quiet and turn over his photographs, but instead went to the media and provided the photos to
Life magazine which published them. At Congressional hearings on the issue, Harkin produced this audio tapes of the prisoners. A story that the establishment had hoped to bury had been brought out in the open. For standing by his principles, Harkin was fired. But the resulting publicity helped shine a light on the human rights abuses taking place, and in the glare of public scrutiny the cages were closed and many of the prisoners released.
After a first unsuccessful House bid and a legal practice in Ames, Harkin went on to be a five-term Congressman and five-term Senator and a steadfast champion of human rights and progressive values.
As a college student, I had the great privilege of working as an intern for Senator Harkin, the summer during which he led the successful effort to pass the Americans With Disabilities Act. I remember watching him give a speech on the Senate floor, using sign languge; his late brother Frank was deaf, which gave Harkin a personal understanding of the challenges and discrimination that often faced those with disabilities. He is one of my personal heroes.
I can think of few political scenarios more terrible than seeing RWNJ Joni Ernst - with her anti-choice, anti-Medicare, anti-education views - move into Tom Harkin's US Senate seat.
We need to roll up our sleeves and make sure that Democrat Bruce Braley becomes Harkin's successor instead. Take a minute to visit his website at www.brucebraley.com and make a contribution or get involved - in honor of, and to continue the legacy of, one of our long-time progressive leaders, Tom Harkin.