‘I Spent My Childhood in a Family Pursued by the FBI’

An account of growing up in a family pursued by the FBI offers a glimpse into a radical vision of opposition to the Vietnam War: bringing the violence of the conflict onto American streets.

The recollection centres on a slogan used at the time: “Bring the war home.” It described an aim to make a distant war an immediate reality inside the United States.

The idea, as explained in the account, was to reproduce the violence witnessed in Vietnam on US streets. The intended purpose was to shake people into recognising what their country was doing abroad.

The childhood recollection places that political outlook alongside the experience of belonging to a family sought by federal investigators. It does not specify the family’s activities or the circumstances of the FBI’s pursuit.