Greenfield Recorder, July 25, 2024, By Diane Broncaccio
SHELBURNE FALLS — Randy Kehler, a war-tax resister whose opposition to the Vietnam War, advocacy for social justice and refusal to pay federal taxes gained national attention, died at home Sunday morning after a long battle with myalgic encephalomyelitis. He was 80.
Kehler was remembered fondly this week by friends who fought alongside him for peace and putting an end to war.
“For me, Randy was sort of like the boy in ‘The Emperor’s New Clothes’ who says what everyone knows: that war is an abomination,” said Sunderland resident Aaron Falbel, a friend of Kehler’s for more than 30 years. “He was the ultimate person of conscience, listening to that inner voice and being willing to take the risks involved.”
Resisting the military draft in the late 1960s marked the start of a lifetime of community activism for Kehler. Standing up for what he believed also brought jail terms, the loss of a rural Colrain farmhouse and fame known mostly to others who fought alongside him for the same causes. Kehler’s anti-war stance also inspired Daniel Ellsberg’s public release of the Pentagon Papers, which led to the end of the war.
In Kehler’s copy of Ellsberg’s book, “Secrets,” is a handwritten note by Ellsberg that says: “No Randy Kehler, no Pentagon Papers.”
On his website, the late Ellsberg had written: “Randy Kehler never thought going to prison would end the war. If I hadn’t met Randy, it wouldn’t have occurred to me to copy the Pentagon Papers.” Ellsberg, a military analyst, ultimately leaked the classified information about the Vietnam War known as the Pentagon Papers with major news outlets.
Ellsberg continued, “His actions spoke to me as no mere words would have done.”
Born July 16, 1944, Kehler grew up in Scarsdale, New York. After attending Phillips Exeter Academy, he went on to Harvard, graduating cum laude in 1967 with a degree in government. While at Harvard, he became politically active, working with the Harlem chapter of CORE (Congress of Racial Equality) to organize support for the 1963 March on Washington.
In 1964, Kehler went to Tanzania to teach, but also met Congolese refugees there, whose villages had been napalmed in attacks from unmarked planes. When he returned to Harvard in 1965 and heard that the U.S. was using napalm bombs in Vietnam, he began organizing against the Vietnam War.
Kehler enrolled in graduate courses at Stanford in 1967, but left after three weeks to work full-time with the War Resisters League in San Francisco. As an act of protest, Kehler returned his draft card to the Selective Service and was subsequently arrested for non-compliance with the draft. He was released after serving 22 months of his two-year sentence.
He moved to western Massachusetts in 1973, where he participated in local community organizing. In 1979, he was a co-founder of the Traprock Peace Center in Deerfield. From 1981 to 1984, Kehler was the national coordinator of the Nuclear Weapons Freeze Campaign. He also worked on many community projects and helped establish the Valley Community Land Trust and the Safe and Green Campaign, one of the groups that fought to close the Vermont Yankee Nuclear Power Plant.
Beginning in 1977, Kehler and his wife, Betsy Corner, began withholding their federal income tax as a protest against U.S. military expenditures — instead donating that part of their tax dollars to charities. In 1989, the IRS foreclosed on their Colrain home to recover back taxes. Kehler and Corner were arrested at the house for trespassing in 1990, and a second time in 1991. Corner agreed not to return to the house again and was released, but Kehler refused to cooperate and was sentenced to six months in jail for contempt of court.
“Alongside his local activism, Randy served as executive director of the Nuclear Freeze campaign in the 1980s, and spent 15 years working in the national campaign finance reform movement,” said Bob Bady, Kehler’s friend of 45 years, who now lives in Brattleboro, Vermont. “As a grassroots organizer, he honed in on the details, was cognizant of the big picture and was at times a taskmaster.”
The government eventually sold the house in Colrain to a young couple for $5,000, but a vigil of protesters near the home was sustained for 18 months. The story of the seizure was filmed in a 1997 documentary by Robbie Leppzer called “An Act of Conscience.”
In recent years, Kehler and Corner have lived in Shelburne Falls.
Kehler’s life and anti-war activism has been detailed in other independent films, including “The Most Dangerous Man in America” (a 2009 movie about Ellsberg) and “The Boys Who Said No!” (a 2020 movie about Vietnam War draft resisters who went to prison for their act of defiance). The Randy Kehler Papers are held in a special collection at the Robert S. Cox Special Collections & University Archives Research Center at UMass Amherst.
In a 2022 interview, Kehler told the Greenfield Recorder, “I don’t regret anything. I’ve had an amazing and blessed life.”
Despite illness in recent years, Kehler has continued his activism through editorial letters and lectures. He was still involved in the Nelson Legacy Project to restore the Woolman Hill homestead of late peace activists Wally and Juanita Nelson. This January, Kehler wrote a Recorder opinion piece about love and forgiveness, in the context of the war in Gaza today.
“I believe that buried deep within each of us … is a little seed, a quiet voice, perhaps the voice of God, that is urging us, pleading with us — the people of Israel, Palestine and the United States — to break free from our cynicism and despair and to ‘lead with love and forgiveness,’” Kehler wrote. “Perhaps the young people of Israel and the U.S. can find a way together.”
“Randy was a person of rare integrity,” said Mary Link of Ashfield, who worked with Kehler for a few years at the Traprock Peace Center. “He was a model of non-violence in thought, deed and action. He inspired thousands of people.
“He was first and foremost a beloved friend. Randy reached across the divide, whatever the divide was. I already miss him.”
Colrain resident Al Ladd remembers Kehler as a great neighbor “who immediately made us feel like family” when he and his wife, Marilyn, first moved to Colrain.
“Randy’s an historic figure, and people think of him as larger than life,” Ladd said. “But we knew him as a great friend. He understood people’s limitations and frailties, and did his best to help. He made others feel appreciated.”
Bady, who has known Kehler since 1979, said Kehler has had a “profound effect on this region” over the past 50 years.
“Americans pay frequent tribute to soldiers who have exhibited bravery and suffered the consequences of going to war,” Bady remarked. “Randy Kehler led a long life bravely suffering consequences in pursuit of peace and justice.”