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JOEL NEUBERG '63

[For more information visit Joel's web page at www.santarosa.edu/~jneuberg and a great picture at www.sonic.net/~elmolino/paper/feb1696/neubergforprez.html ]

It was early in 1965, the last seconds of the first round of the intramural boxing championship bout at the University of California (Berkeley). I was nineteen and had the same reach as Floyd Patterson. I was fighting at 134 pounds, but planned to gain weight by continuing to eat all my meals with the football team. I had distinguished myself the previous year as a member of the UC freshman swim team (our Olympic contender had quit the team in protest against the war in Vietnam, one guy moved up from the freshman team to fill his spot; the best freshman breaststroker had dropped out of school into a mental hospital, which left the coach desperate for a breaststroker; he pulled me out of a lifesaving class; I got to swim in every meet and I think I actually beat someone that year, earned a letter). Boxing was my second collegiate sport. A few years before, a student boxer had died in the ring (in Wisconsin, I think), so most universities eliminated boxing. There were only 8 college level boxing teams in the U.S. in 1965. After I won this fight (I had won my previous three fights against opponents shorter than 5'7" with the reach of Eddie Arcaro), I planned to go on to win 7 more matches to become the national inter-collegiate champion before I turned pro and put on weight. I had already made more money betting on the first Clay-Liston fight than I earned in any day during the '60's.

With my last right cross in the first round, I caught my thumb in my opponent's headgear and broke it (the "it" here, refers gramatically to "headgear", but also serves for my thumb, also broken). They fixed the guy's headgear (he was at least 6 feet tall -- I still don't know where they got such a tall skinny guy, I'm sure Carey Horwitz was still in Illinois), but I went the rest of the bout blocking punches with my forehead to protect my right hand. I lost the fight on points (the other guy was actually in worse shape than I was, but he was hitting me with both hands). I did make the varsity boxing team (the coach loved the way I backed up all around the ring with my left out), but my confidence was shot. I coulda been a contenda.

Maybe it was all those blows to the head. Or maybe it was the drugs. Or maybe it was the weather (125 in the shade) or something like that, but I seemed to get into trouble a lot by writing. Below is a transcription of an early important letter (I had the only typewriter in my sector of the Sahara and the only house without a roof).
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Lido, Republic du Niger
February 22, 1969

Joel Gary Neuberg
11 82 45 62

All of You Folks at
Local Board No. 82
Selective Service System
2355 West 63rd Street
Chicago, Illinois

Dear Folks,

Just a short note to let you know that Joel Gary Neuberg (11 82 45 62) isn't having any more. I hereby withdraw my membership in your organization. Please take me off your mailing list.

The II-A deferment you so generously granted me for Peace Corps service runs out in April of 1969. I do not request a renewal of that deferment, nor will I request any deferments in the future. I am taking myself out of the game, I can't seem to obey the rules anymore.

I also find myself unable to take seriously your form 150 Special Form for Conscientious Objector. After two years of more or less serious soul searching, I still can't see how you figure you have the right to ask me to demonstrate the religious basis of my objection to war. But before closing our correspondence forever, I should like to quote a few relevant passages out of my long and glorious religious tradition:

                Thou shalt not kill. (Exodus, 20:13)

And the officers shall speak further unto the people, and they shall say, What man is there that is fearful and fainthearted? Let him go and return unto his house, lest his brethren's heart faint as well as his heart. (Deuteronomy, 20:8)

Therefore shall they have no inheritance among their brethren: the Lord is their inheritance, as he hath said unto them. (Deuteronomy, 18:2)

The Lord shall smite thee with madness, and blindness, and astonishment of heart. (Deuteronomy 28:28)

And it shall come to pass afterward, that I will pour out my spirit upon all flesh; and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams, your young men shall see visions. (Joel, 2:28)

You people are wrong. The war is wrong; the law is wrong; the whole idea of military solution is wrong. Your whole system is wrong. I can no longer follow your rules. It sounds too easy, and it feels too easy, but I'm getting out of the game.

Sincerely,

Joel Gary Neuberg
s/c Corps de la Paix
B.P. 537
Niamey, Republique du Niger
Afrique Occidental
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I was certainly wrong about that being the end of my correspondence with Local Board No. 82, but it was the end of the really fun part.

On July 7, 1969 (Pam's 24th birthday), I flew back to the U.S. from Madrid. I had toured Morocco, Italy, Israel and Spain in three months (thanks, Paul) I didn't send Pam a birthday card (as I had each year since 1963); that got her attention.

The 2000 election seems to have a lot of people running for President who have no foreign affairs experience or inadequate experience. I realize this is very important to you (foreign affairs), so I will give a brief summary of my expertise.

Not only did I recognize the Vietnam war as a mistake early on, but I made public statements to that effect early (unlike Robert Strange M., who waited 30 years or Pat Buchanan, who thought it was a great idea, but had bad knees) [see FBI records for May 1, 1965].  My first overseas posting was as political advisor to Peter Adams, provisional President of the (soon to be) island nation of Anguila.

In late May and early June, 1967, independence minded rebels had been firing shots at the home where then Representative Adams lived with his wife and daughter. Recognizing the advantage of having an American diplomat residing in his home, Mr. Adams selected me from among a small group of Peace Corps trainees who had just arrived on the island. He actually selected Jane Huser (BA, U of CA [Berkeley], 1966 in political science); but since she was unwilling to go without me, he took me along as a shield against stray shots. The weeks I spent on Anguilla pulling nails out of boards and banging them back into shape ("the crooked shall be made straight" Isa. 40.4) and advising Mr. Adams over dinner on the ins and outs of getting your island taken over by the US and installing solar desalinization equipment ("Solar Distillation of Sea Water" by Joel Neuberg, National Science Foundation, University of Alaska, 1962) was a great learning opportunity. This was also the high point in my lifetime effort to gain physical substance. Ms. Huser was on a diet, hoping to enter Peace Corps service at under 150 pounds, but it was impolite to leave anything on your plate on this Carribean island, so whenever Mrs. Adams left us alone at the table, Jane would transfer her helping of blood pudding to my plate. I graduate high school at 116 pounds, college at 134, and Aguilla at 155. [Background information on the 1967 Anguilla revolution available in: UNDER AN ENGLISH HEAVEN by Donald Westlake, Simon & Shuster, NY, 1972, 278 pgs.]

During the Anguilla revolution, the only person to come under actual fire was our French teacher, Beverly, who managed to stay alive by hiding under her bed when the rebels, mistaking her lighted window (she was up late preparing yet another dialog for us to adapt for USE IN Afrique (je ne vais pas risque d'accident por vous mssr.!") for that of the federal governor, opened fire with hunting rifles.

Being a teacher of French to Peace Corps trainees was, in the spring of 1967, not without its hazards. That is how I became the lifelong friend of Mustafa Fetallah Settati. Though not my teacher, 
Mustafa was always willing to sit around over a pipe and help us practice French as it was spoken in Morrocco (a lot closer to West Africa than Berkeley, where Beverley learned her French). Mustafa was the second son of an influential Morrocan businessman/politician. I think he sent to the Virgin Islands Training Center under the understandable linguistic misunderstanding that there would be a substantial supply of virgins in training there.

Mustafa and I bonded on his birthday (it was, I think, in May; he was, I believe, about 25 that day). Fire broke out in the tall grass above the cabins that served us as cooperative farm, intensive language center. Having had one semester of pre-forestry classes at Berkeley, I was considered one of the key players in halting the impending conflagration. I was also sober, a fairly unusual state among the trainees on our half day off. I rushed up the hill with Warren Enger (our forestry/agriculture instructor), Fernand Fontaine (a seventeen year-old bilingual [French-English] native of Maine or Vermont, raised in the woods, he actually knew something about forestry, and was doomed to two years as interpreter for an AID crew that could not be bothered to learn the language), and a few islanders with buckets and shovels. We put out the fire.

As I walked back to the training center on the dirt road, I passed Mustafa walking toward the highway carrying two suitcases. I can't imagine how he packed in that short time. I told him there was nothing to worry about, and he turned around; I carried one of his bags. That night, in celebration of his birthday, I handed him a treat which he swore he had not seen since leaving Morroco more than a year before. He popped the consciousness altering little pyramid in his mouth, "If I can ever do anything for you," said Mustaf, "just ask".

A few weeks later, Moshe Dayan was sorting out priorities, and the opportunity arose to serve the cause of peace and justice in the Middle East. The first thing Mustaf and I decided was that we, as individuals would not participate in the battle. It was clear that Mustaf was a lover, not a fighter, and while I was certainly more a fighter than a lover, my own military experience was unlikely to weigh heavily in the considerations of Golda and Moshe. Then Mustaf made his offer: "I will keep Morroco out of this war if you will promise to keep the U.S. out."

"Done!" I exclaimed, though I later learned that a Jewish Peace Corps volunteer took off on a camel from Agadez on the first day of the war. By the time he reached the Med. in Tunis, the war was over and the Israelis were already trying to find someone who would take the Sinai off their hands.

Fourteen months later, I was in Settat, taking a well-deserved vacation from bringing the green revolution to the Sahara, and I tried to visit Mustaf. I mentioned his name at the train station and was escorted by an unarmed high school student to the house of Mustaf's father.