* After an unsuccessful meeting to coordinate VVAW marshals with local police, Perdue was taken aside and told that assassination squads had been hired to "wipe out" VVAW coordinators. At the same time rumors were flying that the leaders would be ambushed, kidnapped and taken to Mexico.

* At another point, a Bal Harbor, Fla. police officer who fell for Perdue's conservative looks, told him. "I can't wait until the shirt hits the fan down there [in Miami Beach] so I can kill some of those hippies." The patrolman proceeded to display some of his department's newly-acquired rifles to Perdue who said he was dumbfounded.

Co-Defendant Stanley Michelsen Jr. of Pompano Beach, Fla. told The Crimson after the acquittal that "The government really got smacked in the face on this one. I don't think that they can spend that much time and money again."

Perdue disagreed: "As long as we have people like Nixon in government these things or something like them are going to continue."

In retrospect, Perdue said that his tour of service in Indochina--March 1969 through October 1970--was the most purifying experience in his life. "The service gives you a lot of time to reflect on your values and Vietnam puts you in a position that forces a mature man to ponder and question those values," he said.

Perdue said that he was fascinated by the Vietnamese people's values, life style and mystical religion. He claimed it transformed his life, and he became disgusted with Western "consumerism and role-playing." His stay in Southeast Asia laid the groundwork for his present research on environmental balance, particularly in the ocean.

Perdue's tour in the Marines led him to become increasingly involved in minority rights in the armed forces. He served as VVAW coordinator for 900 members in metropolitan Fort Lauderdale, Fla, from July 1971 through August 1973.

If Perdue could relive the past few years he said there is apparently very little he would do differently. He paraphrased Mao Tse-tung: "If your enemy never bothers you, you must not be very effective; if he's always trying to lock you up or kill you, you must be doing something right."

Perdue resigned from the VVAW after the acquittal but he strongly denied any connection with the trial or the group's objective. "It's just that certain tactics die out after a while and you have to go to different kinds. Protesting in the street won't work anymore. There has to be more educating and lobbying," he said.

"I don't really like politics. I just joined because I was against the war. Now that it's all over I want to devote full time to school and environmental issues."

Perdue has one-and-a half years to go at the Florida Institute of Technology's Oceanographic Center in Melbourne, Fla., before he receives his B.A. in Marine Science. He will return to school this Fall where he will complete his studies courtesy of Uncle Sam--on a government-guaranteed loan.