‘Richie’ Richardson — an editor & anti-war hero

F.O. Richardson, who everyone called “Richie,” was hardly out of his teens when he jumped into France on the night of June 5, 1944, the eve of the allied landing at Normandy. He survived, luckier than the many young men whose parachutes and bodies were shredded by German machine-gun fire.

Richie Richardson somewhere in France, 1944.

Jump ahead 21 years. He was in many ways the ideal keynote speaker at a mass rally in Union Square in February 1965 organized by Youth Against War and Fascism to protest President Lyndon Johnson’s sending of combat troops to Vietnam.

In those days groups like the John Birch Society — the spiritual ancestors of today’s Tea Party organizers — would hold counter-demonstrations. They liked to call anti-war forces “cowards.” Richie was right in their face, which got them even madder. They attacked the demonstration but found to their surprise that the protesters held the line.

Richie was a Workers World Party member through the 1960s and the early 1970s. In January 1968 he took on an assignment that became a vital contribution to the class and anti-imperialist struggle. He assumed responsibility for editing The Bond, which over the next few years became the best-read newspaper of protest for the rapidly growing resistance movement of soldiers, sailors, marines, air troops and GIs of all types during the Vietnam War.

The Bond became the monthly newspaper of the American Servicemen’s Union. Under Richardson’s editorship, tens of thousands of copies each month were passed hand-to-hand by GIs all over the world, bringing an anti-war and anti-racist message and mobilizing them against the dictatorial chain of command.

The Vietnamese finally liberated the south of their country in 1975. With his editorial and artistic skills, Richie had made a concrete contribution any working-class activist could be proud of. He was one of those many heroes who helped defeat U.S. imperialism in Southeast Asia.

Richie died this March. There will be a gathering in his honor on April 17 at 2 p.m. at the Ethical Culture Center in Brooklyn, N.Y., at Prospect Park West between 1st and 2nd Streets. Surviving family members and friends will pay their respects to this class fighter.