Muhammad Ali's Greatest Fight

by Howard Bingham

  Back inside, the inductees were ordered to assemble in Room IB. When they arrived in the small room, which had been used as a judge’s chambers years earlier, a young officer, Lieutenant Steven S. Dunkley, stood behind an oakwood rostrum with American flags on both sides. A number of official-looking but out-of-place civilians, later revealed to be FBI agents, had gathered to witness the unfolding drama.

  Dunkley later recalled the scene. “The way I felt the day that Muhammad Ali was coming up was that it was definitely going to be a different day at work that day …. We knew that the whole thing was going to be monitored from the Pentagon on a direct phone line the whole day, all of his activities. A lot of the guys who worked at the center were fans of Ali. You know, he was the heavyweight champion of the world and it’s not every day you get somebody like that come through the induction center, so they were excited about that.”

  As the inductees assembled, Dunkley cleared his throat and barked, “Attention.” Then he read the prepared statement that had been heard thousands of times before by scared young men about to be ripped away from their old lives. “You are about to be inducted into the Armed Forces of the United States, in the Army, the Navy, the Air Force or the Marine Corps, as indicated by the service announced following your name when called. You will take one step forward as your name and service are called and such step will constitute your induction into the Armed Forces indicated.”

  All eyes appeared to be on Ali as the induction began.

  “Jason Adams—Army.”

  The first man stepped forward.

  The roll continued until the last man before Ali on the list.

  “Luis Cerrato—Army.”

  He had been anticipating the next words for a long time but now Ali’s hands were sweating as he wrestled with the decision which would alter his life.

  Years later, in his autobiography, Ali would recall his emotions: “For months I drilled myself for this moment, but I still felt nervous.…What did I fear? Is it what I’d lose if they take my title? If Fm jailed or barred from the ring? Was it fear of losing the good, plush life of a world champion? Why was I resisting? My religion, of course, but what the politician told me in Chicago was true. I won’t be barred from the Nation of Islam if I go into the army … I recalled the words of the Messenger: ‘If you feel what you have decided to do is right, then be a man and stand up for it…. Declare the truth and die for it.’”

  Finally, as Ali stared impassively into Dunkley’s eyes, the officer called out,

  “Cassius Clay—Army.”

  Silence. Ali stood straight, unmoving. One of the recruits snickered and Dunkley turned beet red, ordering all the draftees out of the room. They filed out, leaving Ali standing there.

  “Cassius Clay, will you please step forward and be inducted into the Armed Forces of the United States.”

  Still nothing. Another officer, Navy Lieutenant Clarence Hartman, came forward to confer with Dunkley, then walked over to the man whose action was about to shake the world. “Mr. Clay,” he began. “Or Mr. Ali, as you prefer to be called.”

  “Yes, sir?”

  “Would you please follow me to my office?” he asked politely. “I would like to speak privately to you, if you don’t mind.”

  When they repaired to a small green room, its walls covered with pictures of Army generals, Hartman’s tone suddenly became brusque. “Perhaps you don’t realize the gravity of the act you’ve just committed. Or maybe you do, but it’s my duty to point out that if this should be your final decision, you will face criminal charges and your penalty could be five years in prison and ten thousand dollars fine.” He offered Ali a second chance to reconsider his decision.

  “Thank you, sir, but I don’t need it.”

  He was told he would have to go back out, stand before the podium, and face the call again.

  When he returned to the room, a private handed Ali a note, saying “This is from your lawyer.” It was written by U.S. Attorney Mort Susman:

  I am authorized to advise you that we are willing to enter into an agreement. If you will submit your client for induction, we will be willing to keep him here in the Houston area until all of your civil remedies are exhausted. Otherwise, he will be under criminal indictment.

  Ali was unimpressed by the offer and crumpled up the note. Dunkley waited with the induction statement in his hand. “Mr. Cassius Clay,” he began again, “you will please step forward and be inducted into the United States Army.”

  Again Ali refused to move. Finally, realizing that further attempts would be futile, Lieutenant Hartman asked him for a written statement regarding the reason for his refusal. Ali took a piece of paper and wrote, “I refuse to be inducted into the armed forces of the United States because I claim to be exempt as a minister of the religion of Islam.”

  The station commander, Colonel Edwin McKee, proceeded outside to issue a statement to the hundreds of waiting journalists: “Ladies and gentlemen; Cassius Clay has just refused to be inducted into the United States Armed Forces. Notification of his refusal is being made to the United States Attorney, the State Director of the Selective Service system, and the local Selective Service Board for whatever action is deemed appropriate. Further questions regarding the status of Mr. Clay should be directed to Selective Service.” In McKee’s pocket was a copy of an alternative statement to be read if Ali had been inducted, informing the media that he was being transported to Fort Polk.

  Then, Ali appeared in the press room and handed out copies of a four-page statement he had prepared in advance, thanking numerous individuals and organizations for their support. It read, in part:

  It is in the light of my consciousness as a Muslim minister and my own personal convictions that I take my stand in rejecting the call to be inducted in the armed services. I do so with the full realization of its implications and possible consequences. I have searched my conscience and I find I cannot be true to my belief in my religion by accepting such a call.

  My decision is a private and individual one and I realize that this is a most crucial decision. In taking it I am dependent solely on Allah as the final judge of these actions brought upon by my own conscience.

  I strongly object to the fact that so many newspapers have given the American public and the world the impression that I have only two alternatives in taking this stand: either I go to jail or go into the Army There is another alternative and that alternative is justice. If justice prevails, if my Constitutional rights are upheld, I will be forced to go neither to the Army nor jail. In the end, I am confident that justice will come my way for the truth must eventually prevail.

  I am looking forward to immediately continuing my profession.

  As to the threat voiced by certain elements to strip me of my title, this is merely a continuation of the same artificially induced prejudice and discrimination.

  Regardless of the difference in my outlook, I insist upon my right to pursue my livelihood in accordance with the same rights granted to other men and women who have disagreed with the policies of whatever Administration was in power at the time.

  I have the world heavyweight title not because it was “given” to me, not because of my race or religion, but because I won it in the ring through my own boxing ability.

  Those who want to “take” it and hold a series of auction-type bouts not only do me a disservice but actually disgrace themselves. I am certain that the sports fans and fair-minded people throughout America would never accept such a title-holder.

  Lieutenant Dunkley looks back on that day and recalls, “As Muhammad Ali walked out of the center, my thoughts were that he had done the wrong thing. I felt that if he would have taken induction they would have put him in Special Services. He probably would have ended up coaching the boxing team or something like that. Or, like Elvis Presley was assigned to a special unit in Germany or something like that. I believe, I’m not positive, but I think Elvis made two movies while he was in the service, and so I think for Ali probabl
y a couple of fights could have been arranged and also he wouldn’t have been stripped of his title as heavyweight champion of the world. So, I felt that he should have taken induction and he should have served his country and that he would have been treated fairly by the U.S. Army, I really do. I think he made a mistake.”

  As Ali left the courthouse with his lawyers and stepped into a cab, an elderly white woman approached waving a miniature flag and yelling, “You heading straight for jail! You ain’t no champ no more. You ain’t never gonna be champ no more. You get down on your knees and beg forgiveness from God!” Ali started to answer, but Covington pushed him into the cab. The woman leaned into the window and said, “My son’s in Vietnam, and you no better than he is. He’s there fighting and you here safe. I hope you rot in jail.”

  The reverberations of Ali’s decision were swift and decisive. Between the time they left the courthouse and the time they returned to the hotel, less than an hour after his refusal to take the step, the New York State Athletic Commission announced that it had “unanimously decided to suspend Clay’s boxing license indefinitely and to withdraw recognition of him as World Heavyweight champion.”

  Columnist Jerry Izenberg recalls the scene. “I didn’t go to Houston to cover the induction, I knew it would be a circus,” he says. “I thought it would be more interesting to station myself at the New York Athletic Commission to see how many seconds it would take them to strip Ali of his title. As it turned out, they did it even faster than I anticipated. It was sickening.”

  In fact, the commission had prepared four press releases, anticipating a number of possible scenarios. The one that would have been released had Ali accepted induction praised the boxer for his “patriotism.” The three-member commission had met the previous day and made the decision to strip Ali of his title if he failed to take the step.

  Inside the Houston induction center had been two open lines monitoring the events. One led to the Justice Department in Washington, the other to the athletic commission in New York. When Ali emerged from the induction center and announced his decision, the commission wasted little time in issuing the appropriate release.

  NYAC chairperson Edwin Dooley, a former Republican congressper-son and college football hero, told reporters, “His refusal to enter the service is regarded by the Commission to be detrimental to the best interests of boxing.”

  The World Boxing Association, as well as the Texas and California athletic commissions, immediately followed suit, making it virtually impossible for Ali to fight in the United States. In England, the British board of boxing declared the title vacant. The only dissent from what Ali later called a “legal lynching” was from a number of Muslim countries who continued to recognize Ali as the world champion.

  It seemed obvious that Ali would have to stand alone for the time being. But the news of the commission’s decision didn’t seem to faze him. He had other things on his mind as he returned to the hotel. He went up to his room and placed a call to Louisville.

  “Mama,” he said into the phone. “I’m all right. I did what I had to do. I sure am looking forward to coming home to eat some of your cooking.”

  CHAPTER SEVEN:

  Backlash

  THE PUBLIC AND MEDIA REACTION had been overwhelmingly hostile after Ali declared he was a Muslim. When he made his first comments about the Vietcong, it had turned vicious. Both responses, however, seemed positively restrained compared to the torrent of abuse unleashed after he refused induction.

  The sports editor of his hometown paper, the Louisville Courier-Journal—looking forward to the expected jail term—wrote, “Cassius Clay had a responsibility to himself and the boxing game that has given him so much, but Clay is a slick opportunist who clowned his way to the top. Hail to Cassius Clay, the best fighter pound for pound that Leavenworth prison will ever receive.”

  Gene Ward warned in the New York Daily News, “I do not want my three boys to grow into their teens holding the belief that Cassius Clay is any kind of hero. IT1 do anything to prevent it.”

  Milton Gross of the Post raged, “Clay seems to have gone past the borders of faith. He has reached the boundaries of fanaticism.”

  In an editorial, the New York Times indignantly declared, “Citizens cannot pick and choose which wars they wish to fight any more than they can pick and choose which laws they wish to obey.”

  The black press, generally supportive of the war, was no more sympathetic; but there, at least, some reporters questioned the government’s motives in drafting Ali. “Clay should serve his time in the Army just like any other young, healthy, all-American boy” wrote James Hicks in Louisville’s black newspaper, the Defender. “But what better vehicle to use to put an uppity Negro back in his place than the United States Army.”

  In Congress, reaction to Ali’s action was equally fierce. Republican Congressman Robert Michel was incensed that Ali was not thrown in jail immediately after his induction refusal:

  It seems totally unfair to me that merely because Clay has made a lot of money, he should be able to stay out of the draft while lawyers prepare a barrage of appeals.

  As African-American historian Jeffrey Sammons has observed, “For Ali to score victories in the ring, a circumscribed arena with its own rules, seemed tolerable, but when he took his fight beyond that arena, as his gladiatorial ancestor Spartacus had done, the forces of an ordered white-dominated society responded to the perceived threat.”

  But, if scarce, there were a number of liberal writers and intellectuals who supported Ali’s action, particularly in New York, and several of them bonded together to form an ad-hoc committee to push for the boxer’s reinstatement. Among the most prominent members of the committee were Norman Mailer, Pete Hammill, and George Plimpton.

  “We all got together and decided to do something because we were outraged by the boxing commission’s action,” recalls Plimpton, at the time a writer for Sports Illustrated. “Not because we opposed the Vietnam War—most of us did—but because it was so clearly wrong what they were doing to Ali just because he had the courage to take a stand.”

  One of the names most conspicuously absent from the committee, however, was ABC boxing commentator Howard Cosell. For almost two years, Cosell had become inextricably linked in the public’s mind with Muhammad Ali. Their association, in fact, came about as a direct result of Ali’s pariah status.

  After Ali made his infamous remark about the Vietcong in 1966, the economics of boxing changed dramatically. Before this incident, fight promoters made most of their money selling closed-circuit rights to theaters, where the public would pay to watch the fights. Ali’s anti-war stand, however, prompted veterans groups to threaten theaters with massive boycotts if they dared to show an Ali fight.

  In response, ABC television stepped in and signed an exclusive contract to televise Ali’s fights, beginning a new era of televised boxing. Moderating these fights for ABC was a loud-mouthed, nasal-voiced sports radio personality, whose televised exchanges with Ali became the stuff of legend. Each fed off the other’s personality to create a series of classic—and often comical—confrontations. In May 1966, Cosell was in London to cover the Ali fight against Henry Cooper. He started an interview with the champion, announcing to the camera, “I am with Cassius Clay, also known as Muhammad Ali.” His subject turned to him with a glare, saying, “Are you going to do that to me, too?” Cosell responded, “No, I won’t ever do that again as long as I live, I promise. Your name is Muhammad Ali. You’re entitled to that.” From that point, Cosell became known as one of Ali’s most passionate defenders. He later recalled the consequences of this support. “I got thousands of nasty letters and death threats for supporting Ali,” he said, “most of them starting’Cosell, you nigger-loving Jew bastard’!”

  Years later, Cosell would express his outrage over the athletic commission’s decision to strip Ali of his title. “It was an outrage,” he told Thomas Hauser shortly before his death, “an absolute disgrace. You know the truth about boxing
commissions. They’re nothing but a bunch of politically appointed hacks. Almost without exception, they’re men of such meager talent that the only time you hear anything at all about them is when they’re party to a mismatch that results in a fighter being maimed or killed. And what did they do to Ali! Why? There’d been no grand jury impanelment, no arraignment. Due process of the law hadn’t even begun, yet they took away his livelihood because he failed the test of political and social conformity. Muhammad Ali was stripped of his title and forbidden to fight by all fifty states, and that piece of scum Don King hasn’t been barred by one.”

  As Ali’s most high-profile supporter, Cosell seemed a natural member for the committee, and Plimpton was dispatched to enlist his support. But when he got to the TV personality’s ABC office and announced his mission, Cosell quickly cut him off.

  “Georgie boy, I’d be shot, sitting right here in this armchair, by some crazed redneck sharpshooter over there in that building,” Plimpton recalls him saying. “If I deigned to say over the airwaves that Muhammad Ali should be completely absolved and allowed to return to the ring, I’d be shot, right through that window.

  “My sympathies are obviously with Muhammad. He has no greater friend among the whites, but the time, at this stage in this country’s popular feeling, is not correct for such an act on my part. There is a time and place for everything and this is not it.”

  Years later, reviewing Plimpton’s book Shadowbox, a New York Times reviewer mentioned Plimpton’s assertion that Cosell refused to join the committee.

  “I remember Cosell’s wife called me up after the review came out, extremely upset,” Plimpton says. “Cosell himself never said anything about this but his wife got extremely upset and told me Howard had been involved from the very beginning in all this, he’s always been a champion of Muhammad Ali and tried to get me to write a letter of apology, which I did because of my respect for Howard, and to be fair he later came out on Ali’s side. But I remember the incident clearly, Howard would not join us.”