Howard Zinn died suddenly last month of a heart attack at age 87. He went, as I think most of us would like to go, suddenly and on a well deserved vacation.

I had the great privilege and pleasure of meeting him on several occasions when he was in Washington speaking, demonstrating for peace, or signing books.

He was one of the most charming and brilliant of men, he had that unique ability to get his point across without being strident or rancorous, you could disagree with him but it was impossible to dislike him.

His, nearly lifelong work "A People's History of the United States", published in 1980, tells the often unreported truth about some of our so called "heroes" and tells the tales of lesser known true heroes who were participants and sometimes leaders in the abolitionist movement, labor movement civil rights movements, gay rights and feminist movements.

A couple of excerpts from "A Peoples History"

Few books describe Mark Twain and Upton Sinclair as socialists and men of the people that they were. Mark Twain once wrote in the New York Herald about the exploits of the United States and other Western countries as they went about the world in the early 1900's.

"I bring you the stately matron named Christendom, returning bedraggled, besmirched and dishonored from pirate raids in Kiao-Chou, Manchuria, South Africa and the Philippines, with her soul full of meanness, her pocket full of boodle, and her mouth full of pious hypocrisies."

Upton Sinclair, whose novel "The Jungle," published in 1906, brought the conditions of workers in meatpacking plants of Chicago to the shocked attention of the whole country and because of that novel, there was a demand for laws regulating the meat industry which in turn helped start labor unions in the United States.

In "The Peoples' History" Mr. Zinn gives a clearer picture of so called heroes, such as Andrew Jackson. Jackson as slaveholder, land speculator, executioner of dissident soldiers and exterminator of Indians, and not simply Jackson as the great frontiersman, soldier, democrat, and man of the people.

As to the robber barons, J.P. Morgan son of a banker with connections started his fortune by selling stocks for commissions but he also dabbled in arms. During the Civil War he bought rifles for $3.50 and sold them to a general in the field for $22, fair enough except that the rifles were defective and shot the thumbs off all who used them. Congress and a federal judge held him blameless.

Morgan, along with John D. Rockefeller, Andrew Carnegie, Phillip Armour, Jay Gould and James Mellon paid substitutes $300 each to take their places in military service, Mellon's father saying "a man may be a patriot without risking his own life or sacrificing his health. There are plenty of lives less valuable"

Just a very small sampling of what is in store for reader's of "A Peoples' History".

Howard Zinn was a bombardier in the ending stages of WW 2 and was in a plane that dropped napalm (used for the first time in warfare) on a small village in France where a group of Germans were thought to be hiding, even though the war was all but over. When he got back home he came to the realization of what he had been part of. He said it is easy to disassociate one's self from the destruction one is causing on the ground when you are 30,000 feet in the air. From that experience he became an ardent anti war activist. He was arrested and beaten at anti Vietnam demonstrations with Daniel Berrigan, was against segregation and was a champion for the common man. And because of his military experience he devoted the rest of his life to quests for peaceful solutions to conflict.

He will be missed terribly by all of us who believe in peace and equality but I am sure he had to be very happy, in his modest way, that his last years were blessed with well deserved recognition. "The People Speak", a theatrical production of "A Peoples' History" features well known actors and activists reading from the book. The production has toured the entire country. A documentary about Howard Zinn's life taken from his writings "You Can't be Neutral on a Moving Train" has been nominated for an Oscar.

Howard Zinn stood for fairness and truth, was dignified, approachable and one of the finest men I have ever met.

The world is a far better place because of the influence of Howard Zinn. His work, "A People's History", should be required reading for every high school student in this country.

Thanks Mr. Zinn for a life not only well lived but importantly lived.