Randy Kehler

Randy Kehler (born 1944 in Bronxville, New York) is an American pacifist activist and advocate for social justice. Kehler objected to America's involvement in the Vietnam war and refused to cooperate with the draft. He was involved in several anti-war organisations in the 1960s and 70s.^[1]

In 1969, Kehler returned his Vietnam draft card to the Selective Service. He refused to argue that he was a conscientious objector because he felt that was simply a form of cooperation with the US government's actions in Vietnam. He was found guilty and served twenty-two months of a two-year sentence. ^[1]

Daniel Ellsberg's exposure to Kehler in 1969 at a Haverford College anti-war protest was a pivotal event in Ellsberg's decision to copy and release the Pentagon Papers (which in turn caused President Nixon to create a group of in-house spies, who caused Watergate, which led to Nixon's resignation).^[2]

The refusal of Randy and his wife Betsy Corner since 1977 to pay taxes for military expenditure resulted in their house being possessed by the US Government in 1989, as depicted in the documentary film An Act of Conscience (1997).^[3]

In the 1980s, he was a national leader of the Nuclear Weapons Freeze Campaign.

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