from Tony Topham r Last week three important developments in the Vietnam campaign took place in Hull.
1. The Photographic Exhibition from the Bertrand Russell Peace Foundation visited the town, and was on show for three days. Hundreds of neople saw the exhibition, which gives a moving pictorial account of the American aggression, and of the struggle of the National Liberation Front in South Vietnan. Supporters of the anti-imperialist movement against British complicity in the war should seriously consider inviting the exhibition to their town. It will greatly assist their educational and recruiting drives: it is excellently and professionally mounted, and covers 120 feet of wall space. During its stay in Hull, the literature table in the exhibition rooms was a constant scene of spontaneous and spirited debate on the issues which the exhibition raises.
2. The Struggle for Vietnam, a public meeting organised by the Hull Centre for Socialist Education, and sponsored by the Hull Peace in Vietnam Committee, the Society of Friends, the United Nations Association and the Solidarity with Vietnam campaign, took place last Friday. A packed audience of between two and three hundred people saw James Cameron's film on life in North Vietnam, and heard Peggy Duff, Charles Sweet, Bill Seaton and Dr. Malcolm Caldwell discuss the situation, and the responses which the British movement should be making. John Saville was in the chair. A resolution which recognised the right of the Vietnamese people to self-determination, called for the withdrawal of American troops, and warned of the dangers of escalation into nuclear war, was carried without opposition. A section of the meeting abstained, however, on the grounds that the resolution did not go far enough in full commitment to support the Vietnamese struggle. Speeches in discussion, which called for such a commitment, met with enthusiastic and prolonged applause, but no separate resolution was submitted.
3. The Vietnam Solidarity Campaign, The exhibition and the meeting have stimulated renewed interest in the V.S.C., and those who have participated in the week's events came together last Sunday to formally constitute a branch of the campaign. They will link up existing individual members of the campaign in the town. A particular job which the Hull branch has set itself, is to work with and towards the trade union movement, in the belief that only a co-ordinated international workingclass movement will decisively shift the complicity of governments, and the apathies of people, in this situation. Special leaflets describing the struggle of Vietnamese workers and peasants, showing the impact of inflation and corruption upon the workers of Saigon, and the Nazi-type treatment of the villages by South. Vietnamese government and American forces, will be prepared. The Committee formed in Hull last week is strongly representative of trade unions in the town. Plans are under way for a big public meeting in support of the War Crimes Tribunal, which it is hoped to stage in February.
Hull branch secretary: Alan Rooney, 12, Sunnybank, Hull.Tel:41045. Committee: Tony Topham (Chairman), Tom Watkinson (NUR),George Andrews (T & GWU), Mike Martin (literature secretary), Nita Rooney (Treasurer), Stan Suddaby (T&GWU), John Bumphrey (NUVB), Alf Mellors (T&GWU), Dan Brown (AUFW) Dan Hussey - others to be co-opted.