As black and white protest against the war stepped up, a disproportionately large number of high-profile protesters were, it appeared, being inducted into the Army, which was supposed to rely on a random lottery to select its draftees. Within a year of its decision to turn its efforts to protesting the Vietnam War, SNCCs ranks rapidly dwindled as its leaders were drafted one after another. In the three months preceding Alfs induction, sixteen members of the organization were called into the armed forces—a suspiciously high rate to many onlookers. A month before Ali’s induction, a SNCC field secretary named Cleveland Sellers had been ordered to report for induction at the Atlanta Armed Forces Examining and Entrance Station. When he arrived, three Counterintelligence Corps agents took him into a room to question him. He later denounced his interrogation as “intimidation” and charged the government with “a conspiracy to induct the whole SNCC organization.” After the ACLU took his case, it was revealed that Sellers’s draft board files contained references to his SNCC employmerit, an FBI agent’s visit to the draft board, and an interesting observation by the psychiatrist who had interviewed him at his physical examination, describing him as a “semiprofessional race agitator.”
Cases like Sellers’s were fuelling suspicions that the draft system was being used to target war protesters. Comments from some prominent Washington politicians did little to dampen such speculation. The second highest ranking member of the House Armed Services Committee, F. Edward Hebert, had recently urged his congressional colleagues to “forget the First Amendment.” Agreeing with Hebert, the committee chairperson L. Mendel Rivers urged the speeding up of the prosecution of draft cases and bringing charges against the “Carmichaels and Kings.” For some time, many had speculated that Ali’s suspicious reclassification—the result of a lowering of standards by the Selective Service—was a political act. Without proof, however, it was impossible to make this case stick.
Thirty years later, however, former Attorney General Ramsey Clark reveals a remarkable feud he was engaged in around the time of the Ali prosecution with the head of the Selective Service, General Lewis Hershey. “Hershey wanted to accelerate the inductions of anti-war protesters and I thought that violated the Constitution because it went against the First Amendment,” recalls Clark, who served as attorney general in the Johnson Administration from 1966 to 1969. “As Director of the Selective Service, he had a lot of power in this area, of course. Hershey wanted to use the system to crush the protests. I was personally opposed to the war right from the beginning so needless to say I wasn’t very sympathetic to his aims. I remember I opposed him all the way on this but the White House didn’t want to get directly involved. They told us to sit in a room together and work it out. I could have resigned to express my opposition but if I had done that, I’m convinced there would have been mass targeting of young protesters on a much larger scale. My conscience couldn’t allow that to happen.”
As attorney general, Clark ended up personally approving Ali’s prosecution, an unusual role for the head of the Justice Department. He says his feud with Hershey was partly responsible.
“I had a policy of not getting involved in individual cases but I ended up looking at the Ali case because of all the controversy over the draft issues. I was always a strong supporter of the right to conscientious objection. I enlisted in the Marines during the Korean War but some of the best people I knew were conscientious objectors. Thoreau had always been a hero of mine, I had read his essay on civil disobedience and I always admired his statement,’ I was not born to be forced.’
“Here I was the Attorney General of the United States and the Ali case was going down. It presented a real conflict. Although I supported the right to conscientious objection, I took a look at his case and realized there was not an objection to war per se but rather this war in particular. To me, it wasn’t moral resistance, it was a political choice. Although I respected his choice, I didn’t think the law permitted this form of objection. Society would break down if each individual was permitted to choose which laws they obeyed based on their political views.”
Ironically, Ramsey Clark now represents Ali as a private attorney.
On June 20, Ali appeared in federal court to face trial for refusing induction. Carl Walker, a black assistant U.S. Attorney, prosecuted the case for the government.
“I would say it became a political case. I think politics got into it more than anything else,” Walker later claimed. “Back in those days, I was responsible for prosecuting all of what we called the’draft evaders’….Muhammad had joined the Muslims, who were a very unpopular religious group. In fact, to some people they weren’t a religious group at all. They were looked upon like the Black Panthers or something along those lines, and there was a feeling that if Ali were allowed to escape the draft, it would encourage other young men to join the Muslims. But under our Constitution, every religion has to be recognized, and I always felt it was a case the government would lose in the end. I knew we’d win at trial. At that time, any jury in the United States would have convicted him.”
According to Walker, a rumor was circulating that thirty thousand black Muslims from all over the United States were planning to descend on Houston and stage a mass demonstration outside the courthouse. Racial tensions were already high in the city. At the black Houston university, Texas Southern, eight weeks earlier, a student protest resulted in two buildings being burned to the ground and four students killed. Officials were terrified that the Muslim protest would lead to a race riot. At a pre-trial meeting, U.S. Attorney Mort Susman asked Ali to call the demonstration off.
“He was wonderful about that,” said Walker. “Even with his own problems, he was concerned about someone else getting hurt.”
The outcome of the trial was never in doubt. After a routine presentation of evidence by the government, the defense attempted to prove that the Louisville board that drafted Ali was racially biased because there were no blacks. Ali sat subdued, doodling on a legal pad, as Federal District Court judge Joe Ingraham read his charge to the all-white jury. The only question, said the judge, was whether the defendant knowingly and unlawfully refused to be inducted into military service. The jurors took only twenty-one minutes to find the defendant guilty as charged. On his yellow pad, Ali had drawn a picture of a plane crashing into a mountain.
When the jury returned with its verdict, Ali told the judge, “I’d appreciate it if the court would give me my sentence now instead of waiting and stalling.”
U.S. Attorney Mort Susman, grateful for Ali’s cooperation in calling off the Muslim demonstration, told the Court the government would have no objection if Ali received less than the five-year maximum sentence allowed by law.
“The only record he has is a minor traffic offense,” Susman explained. “He became a Muslim in 1964 after defeating Sonny Liston for the title. This tragedy and the loss of his title can be traced to that.” Susman observed that he had studied the Muslim religion and found it “as much political as it is religious.”
At these words, Ali leaped to his feet and displayed his first emotions since the trial began.
“If I can say so, sir, my religion is not political in any way,” he said.
The judge quickly rebuked him, saying, “YouTl be heard in due order.”
He then imposed the sentence: five years in prison and a $10,000 fine. At this point, Judge Ingraham issued the directive that some believed was worse than the prison sentence. He ordered Ali’s passport confiscated. For the time being, the convicted felon would stay out of prison pending appeal, but the revocation of his passport meant that his boxing career was over. He was already prohibited from fighting in the United States by the actions of state boxing commissions. Now he could not travel to the few countries which still recognized him as world champion.
But if he was worried about what lay ahead, it didn’t show. “I’m giving up my title, my wealth, maybe my future,” he said outside the courtroom. “Many great men have been tested for their religi
ous belief. If I pass this test, I’ll come out stronger than ever.”
The World Boxing Association immediately announced an elimination bout to crown a new champion. Ali reflected the sentiments of many boxing aficionados—even his detractors—when he declared, “Let them have the elimination bouts. Let the man that wins go to the backwoods of Georgia and Alabama or to Sweden or Africa. Let him walk down a back alley at night. Let him stop under a street lamp where some small boys are playing and see what they say. Everybody knows I’m the champion. My ghost will haunt all the arenas. I’ll be there, wearing a sheet and whispering, “Ali-e-e-e! Ali-e-e-e!”
When Ali was convicted, many Americans believed he had got what was coming to him and looked forward to his five-year prison sentence. When it was reported that the convicted boxer would remain free on appeal, his attackers seemed to feel cheated. They took out their hostility on his local draft board, which received an avalanche of mail demanding Ali be jailed immediately.
“Dear Skunks: You yellow-bellied scum—you are as bad as those picketing against the U.S. and those burning their draft cards,” read one angry missive. Another letter writer smelled “a rat—or maybe a payoff! That Black Bastard Cassius Clay should be in Vietnam right now with our fighting men instead of hiding behind some phony heathen religion. He is a disgrace to the sports world—his race—and his country—and so are you for letting him get away with such crap.”
President Johnson was also inundated with a new round of letters from outraged Americans. “Dear Mr. President,” wrote one Texas citizen. “It amazes me and so many, many others that three hours after Cassius Clay’s refusal to take the oath and be inducted into the Army, that you have not ordered his immediate arrest, without bond and a trial in the morning to send him and his Black Muslim pals to jail for treasonable acts, because what they and his attorneys are advising is treasonable. If you want to close your credibility gap a little, do the incredible thing and see this case is disposed of.”
Three days after his conviction, Ali appeared for the first time at one of the increasingly frequent anti-war demonstrations sweeping the country. This one was in Los Angeles, where President Johnson was attending a fundraiser. Despite Elijah Muhammad’s edict that members of the Nation must divorce themselves from white politics, Ali—who had become the most visible symbol of resistance to the increasingly unpopular war—stood on top of a garbage can and addressed the crowd of thirty thousand protesters.
“I’m with you,” he shouted. “Anything designed for peace and to stop the killing I’m for one hundred percent. I’m not a leader. I’m not here to advise you. But I encourage you to express yourself and to stop this war.”
After Ali left, the mayor of Los Angeles unleashed more than a thousand LAPD officers on the demonstrators, attacking them with police batons after they staged a nonviolent sit-in in front of the Century Plaza Hotel where L.B.J, was speaking. Some 275 demonstrators were injured in the police riot. California’s right-wing governor, Ronald Reagan, who had placed the National Guard on alert, made it clear how he thought the protesters should be handled. “If it takes a bloodbath, let’s get it over with. No more appeasement,” he declared.
As Ali watched the brutality on television that night, he vowed to himself not to participate in any more anti-war demonstrations. But his stepped-up rhetoric against the war infuriated J. Edgar Hoover, who ordered continued surveillance of the boxer. In a July 25 memo to the director, an FBI agent reported:
Cassius Clay, alias Muhammad Ali, is an admitted active member of the Nation of Islam, which is a highly secretive organization whose membership is made up entirely of selected Negroes who advocate and believe in the ultimate destruction of the white race and complete control of the civilized world by the Negro cult. The Muslims, as members of this organization are referred to, hold highly secretive meetings which exclude all persons not Negro, which exclude all non-Muslims. The Muslims promote segregation, and they advocate that their members not serve in the military service of our country. Within their organization, however, they train their members in military tactics, conduct classes in physical conditioning and karate, and utilize the paramilitary training normally used by secret militant type groups. Clay, who purports to be a minister in this organization, has utilized his position as a nationally known figure in the sports world to promote through appearances at various gatherings an ideology completely foreign to the basic American ideals of equality and justice for all, love of God and country.
As attorney general, Ramsey Clark was technically Hoover’s boss. He explains why the FBI chief considered Ali a threat.
“He was totally out of touch with the reality of Muhammad’s influence,” Clark says. “He thought Ali was some sort of a pied piper leading all these soldiers not to go to Vietnam. It was a fantasy. He was never able to contain himself about his hatred for Dr. King but he also had this thing about black leaders in general. This is a guy who grew up in the South in another era. I remember I was with Bob Kennedy when we met with Hoover and asked him why there were no blacks in the FBI. Basically, he was an anachronism.”
Two weeks later, Hoover’s paranoia toward black activists prompted the FBI to launch the COINTELPRO program, which was designed to “neutralize militant black nationalists.” The agency recruited thousands of informants to infiltrate and disrupt these organizations—an operation so successful the Bureau extended the program to destabilize the anti-war movement as well.
Things were heating up. Dr. King’s message of nonviolence was being usurped by the late Malcolm X’s calls for confrontation. The Black Power movement intensified its rhetoric, and urban unrest increased in every American ghetto.
Ali, however, conscious of his growing influence and wary of inciting violence, distanced himself from it all as he prayed toward Mecca five times a day and mentally prepared himself for a long prison sentence.
The Black Panthers had adopted the slogan “We’re the Greatest.” Whether or not this was in tribute to Ali is open to speculation, but Panther leader Stokely Carmichael had recently called Ali “my hero.” Panther Minister of Defense H. Rap Brown—anxious to capitalize on the boxer’s popularity with ghetto youth—had organized a demonstration outside the Houston induction center to show support for Ali. But Ali, in Houston to appeal the confiscation of his passport, told a reporter, “Rap Brown and these boys can say what they like because they’re nobody. Nobody gives a damn. With me it’s different. If I went to a Negro district they’d come running. It would just take some young fool to throw something and that would be it. He don’t care anything about race. He wants publicity. He wants to see a nice fire. I want to keep away from that stuff.”
Ali’s restraint failed to impress Jackie Robinson, who had been a frequent defender of the boxer’s religious freedom. The increasingly conservative black baseball pioneer told the media, “He’s hurting the morale of a lot of young soldiers in Vietnam. The tragedy is that he’s made millions of dollars off the American public and now he’s not willing to show his appreciation to a country that’s giving him a great opportunity. This hurts a great number of people.”
At the Houston appeal hearing to get back his passport, Ali’s lawyer Hayden Covington played recordings of his client’s appearances on the Tonight Show and other public events to demonstrate that Ali had said nothing anti-American. But his appearance at the Los Angeles antiwar rally the month before seemed to undermine this argument. The judge ruled that this event “proves Mr. Clay demonstrates a ready willingness to participate in anti-government and anti-war activities.” The appeal was rejected.
By the fall of 1967, the war had escalated significantly. Five hundred thousand U.S. troops were now stationed in Vietnam; 9,353 Americans were killed in combat that year. Tens of thousands of Vietnamese civilians suffered a similar fate. Ali’s uncharacteristically quiet dignity and principled stand were beginning to resonate in marked contrast to the graphic images beamed into American living rooms each evening.
; While the majority of the media continued to support the war and attack Ali, Freedomways magazine ran an editorial expressing a sentiment which would one day be echoed by many. At the end of 1967, however, it was still a lonely, almost heretical, voice:
“I won’t wear the uniform,” declared the world heavyweight champion. Of all the rhetoric used to express opposition to the Vietnam War, these words may prove to be the most eloquent as a statement of personal commitment. They are words which should echo among the youth in every ghetto across this land. In taking his stand as a matter of conscience, the world heavyweight champion may be giving up a small fortune, but he has undoubtedly gained the respect and admiration of a very large part of humanity. That, after all, is the measure of a Man.
CHAPTER EIGHT:
Exile
IN 1967, THE ERA OF MULTI-MILLION-DOLLAR boxing purses was still in the future. Nevertheless, the heavyweight crown had always brought its bearer vast sums of money, and Muhammad Ali was no exception. Millions of dollars had passed through his hands since 1964—$3.8 million from the ring, to be exact, and almost as much in endorsements and ancillary income. Yet at the time he refused induction in April 1967, virtually every penny had already disappeared.
Taxes and alimony payments to Sonji accounted for some of this financial attrition, but what happened to the rest has always been a matter of speculation. Cassius Clay Sr. and others believed that the coffers of the Nation of Islam were being filled with the earnings of its celebrity cash cow. Like all members of the Nation, Ali was expected to contribute a 10-percent tithe of his income. But Ali has always insisted that the Nation never asked him for money and, on the contrary, twice loaned him $25,000 when he was short of funds. Where, then, did all the money go?
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