Just heard this sad news (7/22/14).
Hester and I went to high school together in West Lafayette, IN where her
father (like mine) taught at Purdue U. She was a tremendous influence on me,
convincing me to oppose the Vietnam War. We had been back in touch by email in
the last ten years. Sorry to hear of this loss. My condolences to her friends
and her two brothers.
Here's something I wrote about Hester a while back.
Here's something I wrote about Hester a while back.
When these Birchers, especially a
retired Colonel with kids in the schools, got wind of our plan to have an event onViet Nam, they swung into action. There would be a convocation, but it
would be properly framed. They brought in M. Stanton Evans, a
conservative pundit, contributor to National Review and managing editor
of the Indianapolis News, as the speaker.
Normally, as student body president, I would have put on my herring bone sport
coat and paisley tie, and introduced the speaker, but this time, the Colonel
handled it. I was just another kid in the audience. Evans's talk
was long and dry, but things warmed up during the q-and-a. I asked a
question myself, but it was innocuous. I still thought we could and should win
the war. Wasn't it true, I asked, that North Vietnam, and especially
Hanoi, is dependent on Haiphong for supplies? What if we were to mine the
harbor? Wouldn't the war be over in a week? I was showing off. I
knew about Haiphong. Here was a silver bullet McNamara had
overlooked. For some reason, I thought that I had something on Evans, but
he simply agreed with me, adding that my time frame was too optimistic, but
yeah, sure, let's squash 'em.
Then Hester Harris walked down the aisle toward the audience mic. A
senior like me, she was barely five feet tall. Her black hair was long
and straight in the Joan Baez style of the coasts, and she was wearing an
orange mini-skirt, purple tights and cowboy boots. She looked great,
though my frat boy persona wouldn't let me admit it, even to myself.
Hester was our hippie-in-residence, and a real hippie at that. Her father
was Mark Harris, the author of the Henry Wiggens baseball novels, including Bang
the Drum Slowly, and he had come to Purdue that year as visiting writer
from San Francisco State. Hester had grown up in San Francisco, had
actually hung out in Haight-Ashbury. She had already caused a fuss in the
school paper, acknowledging that yes, she had smoked dope and yes, she was
against the war, and yes (and this was the clincher) she believed in free
love. When she headed down the aisle, everyone knew she was about to
cause a fuss.
"Mr. Evans, isn't it true that the war in Viet Nam is a civil war and no
business of ours? And furthermore, isn't it true that officials of our
own government have acknowledged that if open, nationwide elections were held
in Viet Nam today, Ho Chi Minh would almost assuredly be elected president of a
united Viet Nam?"
Evans pooh-poohed her with some version of the domino theory, but for me at
least, Hester's clarity, assurance and mini-skirt had stolen the day.
After the convo we all milled around down front so we wouldn't have to head
straight back to our fifth period classes, and Hester and I talked.
"We have no right to mine their harbors," she began. "What if
they mined one of ours?"
"That was a good question, Hester. You really nailed him."
She smiled and locked me in with some serious eye contact. She looked
pleased, but I couldn't tell if it was because of my compliment or because she
knew had me off guard. Then, she answered her own question.
"We'd scream bloody murder and drop an atom bomb on them."
Everything she was saying seemed right, but I couldn't admit to it yet, so I
flirted some more.
"Not as long as you've got the floor, Hester."
She smiled again. "Yeah, well, I've got something I want to show you.
I'll bring it in tomorrow."
The Colonel was at the mike now, ordering everyone to return to their classes.
Hester met me at my locker the next morning with a copy of Ramparts
magazine. It was a year old--the January, 1967 issue--and pretty
dog-eared. It featured a 25-page color spread entitled "The Children
of Viet Nam" that showed little kids who'd been napalmed. They were
blistered and scarred and some were missing digits or limbs. I read the article
during study hall--the text was by Dr. Spock--but mostly I looked at the
pictures. The eyes of the burned babies shook me loose and I decided Hester was
right--the war was wrong and we should get out now.
Years later I would read that Martin Luther King had bought that same issue of Ramparts
at an airport newsstand on his way to Jamaica and been similarly
affected. I wondered how many people that article had nudged toward
active opposition. Reading it and looking at those pictures must have been
akin to reading Uncle Tom's Cabin in the 1850s.
Hester wanted me to support McCarthy, but I held back. I told her I
didn't think he could win, but in retrospect I think it was largely a failure
of nerve on my part. I didn't know anyone but Hester who was supporting
McCarthy, and I wasn't ready to be called a hippie.'
(The remembrance above was written by Ned French.)
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