David McReynolds (Photo: Mary Reinholz)

East Village pacifist David McReynolds has been arrested at least 15 times in pursuit of his varied causes, once for organizing and leading a 1967 sit-in during the Vietnam war at the downtown Whitehall Military induction center. Arrested with him were leftwing luminaries like Allen Ginsberg, Grace Paley and Dr. Benjamin Spock.

McReynolds, who was on the editorial board of the now defunct Liberation magazine, was arrested two years earlier for burning his draft card in Union Square. Along the way, he visited Hanoi before the fall of Saigon to the communist North Vietnamese — or, as he would put it, “the liberation of Saigon” that occurred just before May Day 40 years ago.
More →