Troublemaker: A Memoir From the Front Lines of the Sixties

by Bill Zimmerman

The political memoir as rousing adventure story—a sizzling account of a life lived in the thick of every important struggle of the era.

April 1973: snow falls thick and fast on the Badlands of South Dakota. It has been more than five weeks since protesting Sioux Indians seized their historic village of Wounded Knee, and the FBI shows no signs of abandoning its siege. When Bill Zimmerman is asked to coordinate an airlift of desperately needed food and medical supplies, he cannot refuse; flying through gunfire and a mechanical malfunction, he carries out a daring dawn raid and success­fully parachutes 1,500 pounds of food into the village. The drop breaks the FBI siege, and assures an Indian victory.

This was not the first—or last—time Bill Zimmerman put his life at risk for the greater social good. In this extraordi­nary memoir, Zimmerman takes us into the hearts and minds of those making the social revolution of the sixties. He writes about registering black voters in deepest, most racist Mississippi; marching with Martin Luther King Jr. in Chicago; helping to organize the 1967 march on the Pentagon; fighting the police at the 1968 Democratic con­vention; mobilizing scientists against the Vietnam War and the military’s misuse of their discoveries; smuggling medi­cines to the front lines in North Vietnam; spending time in Hanoi under U.S. bombardment; and founding an interna­tional charity, Medical Aid for Indochina, to deliver humanitarian assistance. Zimmerman—who crossed paths with political organizers and activists like Abbie Hoffman, Daniel Ellsberg, César Chávez, Jane Fonda, and Tom Hayden—captures a groundbreaking zeitgeist that irrevoca­bly changed the world as we knew it.

Genres: Memoir

464 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2011

Reviews

[Bill Zimmerman · Rating 5 out of 5]

My intent was not only to give the reader a feel for what it was like to be in the thick of the battles that defined the Sixties, but also to explain the values and the strategic thinking that motivated our actions.

[David · Rating 3 out of 5]

The first part of the book was interesting, if only because of the historical aspects. The author gave a clear description of the Vietnam war, which i haven't found before. The contrast of the 50's, where everyone conformed and happily followed their government, and the rebellious 60's, was most compelling.

That said, the remainder of the book isn't as interesting. His description of Wounder Knee was long and drawn out. And the author likes to admit his successes-he doesn't really mention when he screwed up-what he would have done differently. He was just the perfect change agent, and everything went great.

[Bap · Rating 3 out of 5]

I never heard of Bill Zimmerman. It turns out that he was an activist in the 1960's, never in the first rank of notoriety but a sort of Zelig figure present at the civil rights movement, the antiwar movement and Wounded Knee. He had a doctorate from the Univ of Chicago specializing in sleep theory but he gave up his academic and scientific pursuits to concentrate on anti Viet Nam war activism. I have read memoirs by Mark Rudd and Bill Ayres and have come away with the impression that SDS and later the weatherman were posers and frauds full of revolutionary drivel and out of touch with reality. Zimmerman recognized this not that he was above making trouble as shown by his visit to North Viet Nam during the war to deliver medical supplies and to blow the whistle on the bombing of civilians and hospitals. Zimmerman recognizes that in the zeal to stop the war a generation of right-wing counter-revolution politicians was created. Nevertheless, he marvels how antiwar demonstrations started as several dozen and a few years later numbered in the hundreds of thousands. After the war, Zimmerman used the skills as an activist to become a political consultant for progressive causes. This book is a good reintroduction into the turbulence of the 1960's and early 1970's.

[Steve Mayer · Rating 4 out of 5]

Bill Zimmerman's memoir of the antiwar movement, and much more, focuses on his political evolution and his role in the New Left. It's at its best, and most exciting, when he describes his trip to North Vietnam, and what it felt like to be bombed by your own country, and his role in organizing and then flying in an airlift of food to the blockaded Indians of Wounded Knee. But the real story is his political evolution, from a smart working-class kid in Chicago, to a self-described revolutionary, to the organizer of antiwar groups such as Medical Aid to Indochina and the Indochina Peace Campaign to the political consultant for progressive causes that he is today. He describes how he achieved an uneasy balance of trying to achieve systemic change by working within "the system"; if that sounds contradictory, that is precisely what the book is about. It is inspiring, too, but clear-eyed, as well, in describing both the successes of the "1960's," while never ignoring the political backlash it spawned.

[Nancy · Rating 5 out of 5]

An excellent inside overview of the 1960s and early 1970s. Zimmerman was a young college professor who ultimately gave up on academia to work against the Vietnam War. He is an entertaining writer who does an excellent job of capturing the moods of that time. Zimmerman worked with a lot of Big Names of the political left and clearly has a strong opinion on who the "good guys" are but is able to step back enough to give a good overview.

Zimmerman also writes a riveting account of flying a damaged plane to the Wounded Knee standoff in 1973. That chapter reads like a thriller.

[Ann · Rating 3 out of 5]

I think autobiography must be the hardest thing to write, especially for a non-writer. Bill Zimmerman, who was trained as a scientist, became an activist during the Vietnam war. He lived a fascinating life met fascinating people and got to travel to North Vietnam, Cambodia and Wounded Knee at a time when they were in war with our government.

This book should have been fabulous, but it dragged. There was no dialogue and almost no emotion. Sometimes, it seemed like he was just listing his very impressive accomplishments.

[Alexandra · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good