Anti-Vietnam War Protest

Pathe News Clip

FOMPHC Oral History Project Sound Clips

As part of our Heritage Lottery Fund funded oral history project, we are collecting former Officers' written recollections of London's Grosvenor Square Disturbances, March 17, 1968. If you were deployed on public order or other function on that day please send us your account. It will be used for our work with young people and their teachers – so that they can learn about the responsibilities and rights of being a UK citizen. In the meantime, we will upload the best of them on our website. We can only accept accounts if supported by Warrant Nos. and date of joining. The Friends reserve the right to edit anything appearing on our website. Email to: oralhistory@fomphc.org.uk

March 17 1968

A mass rally peacefully demonstrated in Trafalgar Square, organised by Tariq Ali (Vietnam Solidarity Campaign) and addressed by Vanessa Redgrave. They were influenced by American protests against President Lyndon Johnson's continuation of the war in Vietnam. Between eight and ten thousand demonstrators then marched on Grosvenor Square. Ali recalls in his memoirs that he, "dreamed of using the embassy telex to cable the US embassy in Saigon and inform them that pro-Vietcong forces had seized the premises in Grosvenor Square". The officer in charge of policing the square that day was Chief Superintendent John Gerrard. It was agreed that demonstrators could march from Trafalgar Square to Grosvenor Square. They would enter the square via South Audley Street. The marchers would then be allowed to walk three sides of the square – but not in front of the American Embassy. Clearly, this clashed with Ali's aims and the limited police line was soon overwhelmed by sheer weight of numbers.

Government sources (Information Research Unit, an anti-communist intellignence unit) later took the view that a radical West German student group (the extreme leftwing Socialist Student League) incited and orchestrated much of the violence. A hardcore of demonstrators had come prepared for violence. Some were armed with catapults and ball bearings. At 17:55 hrs, an officer witnessed the sudden breaking of police coach windows. They soon worked out the cause, and arrested protesters wearing motor cycle helmets and found them armed with catapults. Other demonstrators carried marbles to put under the hooves of Mounted Branch horses. Red paint, fireworks and flour were also carried by this violent element. Later, coins, mud, bricks and the sticks from banners and placards became weapons. It is even alleged that knitting needles were used to stab police horses - one was certainly severely slashed with a box-cutter. Seeing that the foot officers were in trouble, the order was given to deploy the fifty mounted officers on duty. Their first priority was to enter the fray through police lines without injuring their colleagues. They were subject to sustained and very severe violence. One officer was pulled from his horse and beaten by the crowd. Swift action by his colleagues allowed the officer to remount and continue restoring public order. The 'Mounties', as the newspapers describe them, were then withdrawn. As they withdrew, a spontaneous round of applause arose from police lines marking the Mounted Branch's skill and courage. The serendipity of a small, chain linked, fence surrounding the central gardens tripped many rioters attacking the front of the Embassy. The police could arrest, or throw back into the crowd, the now prone rioters. During the riot, some protesters and press photographers took to trees in the central gardens. They were encouraged down without ceremony. A time of female liberation, women protesters were involved in the thick of the action. Guests and workers in the Grosvenor Square Europa Hotel were disturbed, angered and frightened by the conduct of demonstrators. American tourists threw pennies down at the protestors and shouted abuse at them.

Women officers operated the radio and supervised prisoners in Police coaches, sometimes alone. Many officers and protesters, both men and women, were very frightened by the maelstrom of violence. Mick Jagger lurked around the edges of the square. Peter Hitchens, now a right wing polemicist, and (later Sir) John Scarlett (future Head of MI6) are examples of many protesters that went on to take very different outlooks on politics and public good order in their later lives. At the height of the battle, Serials (20 PCs led by 2 sergeants and 1 inspector) were ordered not to make arrests. Arrests would have taken officers from their lines which were threatened with being overwhelmed. However, an order was given to the Special Patrol Group (SPG) to arrest Tariq Ali at their first opportunity. Ali had anticipated this. He had arranged to be constantly surrounded by six minders who created hindrance and confusion whenever the SPG got near to Ali. Today, Ali is a respected political activist and academic.

Most officers spurned the use of their truncheons as they got in the way. They found it more effective to have both hands free. Either to link arms and apply pressure, or to grab rioters and hurl them back into the crowd. On arriving back at his police station one officer took off his coat to find that the arms of his tunic and shirt had been pulled clean from the body of his uniform. Although officers had no official safety equipment, unofficial safety equipment was covertly used – cricket boxes, bandages and DIY reinforcement to helmets.

Soon after 18:30hrs good order had been largely restored. Officers were required to replace those who had been on duty for many hours. An All Stations message flashed across London from the Information Room at New Scotland Yard. Official refreshment provision proved inadequate, additional tea urns and sandwiches were rapidly found. At future public order events, these new arrangements were formalised and improved.

Due to the unprecedented levels of violence, the deliberate undermining of co-operation between demonstrators and the police and poor training, the public and officers were put at severe risk. There were 86 demonstrators treated by St Johns Ambulance, and 117 officers injured, with 45 protesters and 4 officers hospitalised (vide Hansard). Of those arrested, 246 were charged with various public order offences. Thirteen windows in the Embassy were broken. Many officers were injured by bricks and other missiles thrown by rioters. Police helmets offered little protection, being either stolen or otherwise removed by rioters. Officers with head injuries were stood-down from their lines for medical examination. After Grosvenor Square and other violent mass protests of the time, there was an increasing recognition by police of the need for better intelligence, equipment and training for public order work. They now had to find methods of policing mass protest movements in the face of organised attempts to undermine good public order. This to the background of: Cold War tensions; the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND); the Civil Rights Movement and marches in Northern Ireland; and international radical unrest and terrorism.

One such change was the invention by Special Branch (SB) of the Special Demonstration Squad – aka the Hairies - to covertly investigate disruptive activists. At the time these were largely left wing organisations and has led to the suspicion that SB had a right wing agenda. Officers who carried out these duties in the early days are sceptical. They report that seldom were activists unaware of their presence at sparsely attended meetings. Informants often came from the movement themselves, and included leading trade unionists. Not infrequently open conversations between activists and police officers organising public order events re-appeared as SB intelligence reports!

Link to Hansard 18 March 1968. Home Secretary, James Callaghan's statement to the House of Commons. British Pathe Newreel Footage can be seen here - 6'50" onwards.