Assembly Rejects Effort to Oust Hayden as ‘Traitor’

The Assembly, voting along partisan lines, rejected an attempt Monday to oust former radical Tom Hayden from the state Assembly for alleged traitorous conduct on four trips to Hanoi during the Vietnam War.

Hayden, defending himself during an emotional speech on the Assembly floor, conceded that he had “made mistakes” while aggressively protesting the war, but insisted they were “out of honest outrage, not servitude to some foreign power.”

The unsuccessful fight to remove the 45-year-old Santa Monica Democrat from the Legislature was led by Assemblyman Gil Ferguson (R-Newport Beach), 63, a retired Marine lieutenant colonel. Ferguson, assailing a legislative colleague in unusually harsh language, said Hayden “is still what he has always been: a traitor to America,” and asserted “it is a national disgrace that he still sits here.”

Assembly Speaker Willie Brown (D-San Francisco), after allowing the drama to be played out before a gallery jammed with veterans, ruled that Ferguson’s motion to oust Hayden was improper because it was based on actions that occurred years before he was elected in 1982.

Brown’s ruling then was narrowly sustained, after an appeal by Ferguson, on a 41-36 vote that essentially followed party lines. All 41 votes supporting Brown’s ruling came from Democrats. Voting no were 32 Republicans and four Democrats.

Rekindling memories of the nation’s bitter division over the Vietnam War, Ferguson contended that Hayden was not qualified to be a member of the Legislature under a provision of the state Constitution that prohibits a person who “advocates the support of a foreign government” during “hostilities” from holding public office.

Yearlong Attack

Ferguson, who has been publicly attacking Hayden for the last year, said the liberal Democrat “was not a simple, spit-on-the-flag, burn-your-draft card protester. Tom Hayden was a traitor.”

During his four trips to Hanoi, Hayden’s anti-war statements critical of U.S. policy were broadcast over government-controlled North Vietnamese radio stations.

When he was granted the floor, Hayden responded, “I want to tell you, Mr. Ferguson, I am a patriotic American.” That comment prompted a negative roar from scores of veterans seated in the Assembly chamber, before he continued, “and no narrow-minded bigot can strip that away from me.”

“I am not the kind of American who thinks ‘my country right or wrong,’ ” Hayden said, “but I am the kind who says, ‘My country, let me right the wrongs.’ ”

Hayden added, “People like me paid our dues as well. . . . Families and loved ones who did not speak to us for 10, 12 years attacked and accused us of all the things Mr. Ferguson said here today. I have paid my dues just as members of my generation who served in Vietnam paid theirs.”

Conviction Overturned

Hayden, now the soft-spoken, well-groomed husband of actress Jane Fonda, also a former anti-war activist, was a co-founder of the Students for a Democratic Society and the National Mobilization Committee to End the War in Vietnam. He was convicted of inciting a riot during the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago, but the conviction was overturned on appeal in 1972.

During the war, Hayden escorted home the first three U.S. prisoners released by the North Vietnamese Communists, and he said Monday that he had been in contact with U.S. State Department officials during his travels “and they approved of it.”

“Despite our differences over the war in Vietnam, I worked with those people. . . . The question of my patriotism never came up,” he said.

Hayden added that the government had him under surveillance for more than 16 years, but never charged him “with any of the charges Mr. Ferguson had made.”

While acknowledging that there were “ample emotional reasons” for conservatives and veterans to attack him, Hayden dismissed Ferguson’s challenge as “sordid, blatant, partisan politics.”

Timing of Effort

Ferguson, who said in a recent interview that he has “never spoken one word” to Hayden directly “and I never intend to,” timed his ouster effort to coincide with the state convention of the Veterans of Foreign Wars, which ends today in Sacramento, and the American Legion state convention, which begins Wednesday in Redding.

About 200 sign-carrying veterans staged a rally outside the Capitol on Monday morning, chanting “Tom must go!”

Veterans claim they had collected 258,000 signatures on petitions demanding Hayden’s ouster, and all 79 other members of the Assembly were heavily lobbied.

Assemblyman Norm Waters (D-Plymouth), one of four Democrats who voted to allow a vote on Hayden’s qualifications, said he received 1,500 letters from constituents who want “to get rid of Tom Hayden.”

Local and state leaders of veterans groups opposing Hayden had appeared at a morning press conference, along with Ferguson and U.S. Rep. Robert K. Dornan. Dornan called Hayden “a liar . . . a coward . . . and a traitor.”

At a later press conference held by Vietnam veterans who supported Hayden, Dornan pounded on a closed door demanding entry shouting, “I am a member of Congress.” The congressman was restrained by state police.

Hayden’s Reaction

Hayden, quiet and retrospective, had few comments after the vote. He said he regrets that his anti-war effort may “have compounded the pain” of the families of dead servicemen, but he does not regret having opposed U.S. involvement in Vietnam or going to Hanoi.

“I’m not the same angry young man I was 20 years ago,” said Hayden, flanked by several Vietnam veterans, including James Jackson, an Army Green Beret sergeant who was released to Hayden from a North Vietnamese prison camp in 1967. “. . . I’ll never again believe that everything I do is right.”

Monday marked the second attempt to unseat Hayden. In 1984, veterans groups gathered more than 100,000 signatures demanding his ouster. But the petitions were referred to the Assembly Elections Committee, where no vote was ever taken.

After Monday’s floor vote, Ferguson and veteran leaders said they would make certain that Assembly members who voted to protect Hayden will be forced to answer to voters back in their districts. But Ferguson also insisted that his motivation was “justice” and not politics.

After the vote, Brown and other Democrats generally dismissed the exercise as “a waste of time,” while Republicans said it was a long-overdue airing of Hayden’s radical background.

Indication Seen

“The Hayden issue was finally put to a vote and it is a good indication of where people stand,” said Assemblyman Gerald N. Felando (R-San Pedro).

Brown, who based his ruling on advice from Legislative Counsel Bion M. Gregory, the Legislature’s lawyer, said the exercise “wasted two hours this morning. It was non-productive.”

Ferguson sought to disqualify Hayden and declare his seat vacant, rather than expel him--a legal nicety that requires a simple majority vote, instead of the two-thirds needed for expulsion.

The four Democrats who voted against Brown’s ruling were Assemblymen Waters, Richard Robinson of Garden Grove, Allister McAlister of Fremont and Steve Clute of Riverside.

McAlister and Waters both said they voted against Brown because they thought the issue deserved a full hearing, debate and a recorded vote. But both Clute, who is chairman of the Assembly Veterans Committee, and Robinson, who is running against Dornan for Congress, said they considered Hayden’s Vietnam-era conduct reprehensible.