Doug Weiskopf
America’s Vietnam War era comes alive through the firsthand account of a student organizer who helped lead one of Oregon’s most significant antiwar movements.In Notes from an American Antiwarrior, Doug Weiskopf traces his transformation from a Los Angeles teenager focused on football, surfing, and high school life into a key organizer of disciplined, nonviolent resistance at Portland State University. Set against the political and cultural upheaval of the late 1960s and early 1970s, his memoir offers an inside look at how students organized, protested, and challenged powerful institutions during one of the most turbulent periods in American history.In 1969, Weiskopf and fellow organizers helped lead major Vietnam Moratorium demonstrations, including a Portland march attended by an estimated 12,000 people. Following President Nixon’s invasion of Cambodia and the killing of four students at Kent State University, Portland State erupted into a student strike. Weiskopf recounts the May 1970 police attack on peaceful demonstrators that injured 31 protesters, followed by a march of approximately 4,000 students and faculty members to Portland City Hall.The movement soon expanded beyond campus. When the federal government planned to transport deadly nerve gas by train through the Pacific Northwest, Weiskopf and fellow activists joined University of Washington student organizers in threatening to sit on the railroad tracks along the entire route between Seattle and Portland. Their resistance helped force President Nixon to cancel the nerve gas train. The movement also organized the People’s Army Jamboree during the 1970 American Legion National Convention in Portland, which caused President Nixon to panic over the large looming protests and cancel his Sept. 2nd Legion speech honoring the 25th anniversary of Japan’s surrender and the end of WW2.Throughout the memoir, Weiskopf reflects on leadership, media strategy, political pressure, moral conviction, and the movement’s commitment to nonviolence.Blending political memoir, Vietnam War history, student activism, and personal reflection, Notes from an American Antiwarrior preserves an often-overlooked chapter of the antiwar movement through the perspective of someone who helped shape it.Learn more at: antiwarriors.com
