"We Support the Hickam Three" Petition

On April 16, 1972, the Honolulu Advertiser ran a full-page paid advertisement from the Hickam Three Defense Committee. James Douglass, James Albertini, and Charles Giuli had been indicted on March 8 for conspiracy and destruction of government property after entering Hickam Air Force Base and destroying files related to the air war in Indochina — an act of civil disobedience in the tradition of the antiwar movement. The signatories called on the public to “take note of the on-going Air War in Indochina which is kept secret from the American public and violates International Law.”

Lauren and Linda Ekroth both signed, as they had on the May 1970 “Peace in Indochina” petition. The same network of names appeared again: Rev. Lawrence Jones (who had officiated at their wedding), Oliver Lee (whose tenure case had set the Bachman Hall events in motion), Brook Hart (ACLU of Hawaii), and Sam Shapiro (fellow tenured faculty). Ekroth’s Army service — he had served with the 1st Missile Command in Vicenza, Italy, from 1958 to 1960 — gave his signature a particular weight. The former soldier was now a public supporter of men who had broken into a military base to expose a secret bombing campaign.

Among the co-signatories was Mazie Hirono, then a young activist in Honolulu’s progressive community. She would go on to serve in the Hawaii House of Representatives from 1980, as Lieutenant Governor from 1994, in Congress from 2007, and as U.S. Senator from Hawaii from 2013 — the first Asian-American woman elected to the Senate. In April 1972, she and the Ekroths were signing the same petition.