YAFers’ Tactics, Beliefs Teeter on the Edge of Respectability

Dave Orday had come all the way from Enfield, Conn., for a taste of the action. And now he was getting it, feeling the breath of a union shop steward against his face. “Get the hell out of here!” the union man was yelling at him, his mouth inches away from Orday’s. “Get out!”

Orday, 27, and a score of his friends from the Young Americans for Freedom were spending a Thursday afternoon handing out anti-union leaflets at the National Steel & Shipbuilding Co. shipyard, an organized labor stronghold. Between shouting matches with unionists and pro-abortion activists, the group of young ultra-conservatives is holding its national convention in San Diego.

YAF is well-known for combining the street-theater tactics of the late Abbie Hoffman with the right-wing, free-enterprise ideology reminiscent of Alex Keaton, the wise-cracking character in the sitcom “Family Ties.” On Thursday, working the Nassco parking lot in oxfords, ties and loafers, the Young Americans looked the part of Keaton clones, much to the unionists’ delight.

Anti-Union Thrust Not Appreciated

“Take a look at them, what do you see?” boomed Steve Jandrew, an oil services worker, through a bullhorn. “A bunch of college kids. They should work here for a couple of years before telling us we don’t need the union.”

The young conservatives persevered under the sonic assault, managing to hand out perhaps 200 flyers. Then the shift changed and the masses poured out, and suddenly those loafers looked very out of place.

“If it even looks like it’s going to get rough, we are leaving,” John Tate, the group’s leader, warned his charges earlier. So, when the bullhorns reached a crescendo, and the crowd got particularly grim, they did--retreating first to the edge of the parking lot and then across the street.

“You are going to go back to your friends and boast how exciting this was, how mean those Nassco guys were,” came a parting shot from one worker. He was right.

But their goals are worth the insults and the abuse, Tate and others said. Once again, YAFers--as they call themselves--had succeeded in drawing attention to The Cause. As the group presses its guerrilla assault on the political mainstream, its notoriety often obscures a passionate idealism that owes as much to the Age of Aquarius as it does to that of Wall Street.

‘We Get Called Names,’ President Says

“We are using the same tactics as the civil rights people did in the ‘60s,” said Michael Barnett, YAF charter president at San Diego State University. “Only they were made into heroes, and we get called names.”

“A lot of my friends have no idea what I am talking about,” complained Joel Scwartz of Anaheim.

“After Reagan, all people care about is money,” chimed in his friend, Chris Beiber. “I come here because it’s the only way I can persuade people.”

It is not the first nor the last critical comment by YAFers about Reagan and other icons of national conservatism. Although the former President is the honorary national chairman of the YAF, most members view him as too moderate.

“The effects of the ‘Reagan Revolution’ could all be rolled back tomorrow,” said California YAF chairman Barry Jantz of La Mesa. “We are still fighting from the outside--it’s depressing.”

As for George Bush, he is “a conservative in name only,” scoffs Barnett.

The Young Americans’ heroes? Barry Goldwater, Patrick Buchanan and William F. Buckley, the group’s founder.

Oliver North to Make Keynote Speech

Another hero of the conservatives, Oliver North, will make the convention’s keynote speech tonight, with Fawn Hall in tow. But the law-and-order YAF membership finds it difficult to talk about the convicted felon. “I know he lied to Congress,” said Mario H. Lopez, 18, of San Diego. “But he was trying to save lives.”

Even Jantz has his doubts: “He was so strong in front of Congress, and then just waffled in court. But, even if he was wrong to break the law, we understand that he knew deep in his heart that he was right” about aiding the Nicaraguan rebels.

YAF’s relationship with the Republican establishment has never been a warm one. Founded in 1960 by Buckley and those of his friends who felt Richard Nixon was too liberal, it is by charter a nonpartisan organization championing personal liberty, laissez-faire economics and an aggressive foreign policy, while being stridently anti-communist.

YAF almost split in 1969 over the Vietnam War and the draft. Then, in the late 70s’, Buckley gave the group a second life after allegations of financial improprieties and apathy had nearly destroyed it again.

Now, in the becalmed political waters of the 80s’, YAF is one of the last outposts on the right side of the American political spectrum, inches on the safe side of respectability. Critics say, and some YAFers acknowledge, that they have become shock troops of sort for the GOP.

Republicans ‘Say We Are Crazy’

“They say we are crazy,” Scwartz says of the Republicans, “but then they call us up and ask us to demonstrate, and when we do, and they get called about it, they disavow us.”

Still, some YAFers worry that complacency has set in. “People are padding their resumes in YAF,” said Beiber. “We’ve been hijacked by a bunch of College Republicans who think it’s a social club.”

But YAF membership is growing, Jantz said, fueled by the desire to make a difference. From a late 70s’ low of 10,000, the group’s membership has grown to more than 30,000, including 3,500 in California and 400 in San Diego, he said.

And, as YAF has grown, so have its activities in San Diego. In May, the SDSU charter demanded the removal of murals of communist leaders from one of the dorms. And, last September, YAF waged psychological warfare against a gay and lesbian group at the Republican state convention here. “I joined YAF because they do things,” said Christine Emminger, 20, of Antelope Valley. “They don’t just hold board meetings twice a month like the College Republicans.”

There are worries within the group, however, that YAF’s unorthodox tactics and the reputation they have earned have painted the organization into a corner. “We cannot afford to be seen as anti-idealistic and anti-intellectual,” Beiber said.

Anti-intellectual or not, YAF’s convention radiates the earnestness and enthusiasm of a fraternity gathering. “Hardcore” and “God Rules” pins abound. So do plans to burn a Soviet flag, until YAFers despair of finding one in Mission Valley. Finally, abortion supporters who came to protest a speech by Operation Rescue founder Randall Terry are treated to chants of “Lesbian leftists leave.”

The YAFers are standing there, smiling, occasionally mustering a chant of “baby-killers” at the protesters, but mostly just taking it all in. They see the mounted policemen, the squad cars, the TV camera trained on them. And then, instead of tear gas, it’s on to a banquet with Terry. Some YAFers look disappointed.