We started hearing upsetting rumors in early July of the 1970s, at the height of the Yippie (Youth International Party) movement in the United States, that the Yippies planned to invade Disneyland. The Yippie movement wasn’t necessarily an anti-war movement, but rather a revolutionary movement, like when students at UC Santa Barbara burned down a Bank of America building. The Yippies were anti-authority, theatrical anarchists who participated in dramatic incidents.

We understood that the Yippies planned to raid Disneyland on August 6, 1970. And as the date got closer and closer, we heard more and more reports from newspaper and media people. When we heard about their plans, we started talking to the Anaheim Police Department and the O.C. Sheriff’s Department, who had also heard the rumors. The Yippies wanted to make a national statement by taking over the Magic Kingdom and uncovering the corporate lies and myths that existed within this image of capitalism.

I went to Card, Eddie, and Dick and said, “We need to have a plan.” We called The Times, The Examiner, all of Southern California community newspapers, and the local radio and TV stations. Card made the presentation and told the media, “Don’t respond to rumors. Don’t fuel this. If anything happens that is factual and you know it is happening, fine, but don’t spread rumors. On August 6, we’ll have a media headquarters set up at the park for your reporters and cameramen. If anything happens, we will be in radio contact with law enforcement. The minute anything occurs, we’ll let you know. But we don’t want you out there before that with your cameras.”

Media hype was as bad then as it is today because if you put a reporter and a cameraman on the street, a crowd will form in an instant. And that’s what we wanted to prevent.

Amazingly, the media agreed with us. A Fullerton newspaper, however, broke the story ahead of time by reporting that we anticipated a problem in two days. But the major media didn’t say a word.

As the day grew closer, law enforcement started seeing people coming into the county. If someone was driving a VW bus, the police pulled the driver over and told them to go away. As August 6 dawned, about 400 police units gathered backstage in the park. We had another staging area across the street at the Disneyland Hotel and one at the Anaheim Convention Center. El Toro provided a company of Marines, and more Marines were prepared to fly in by helicopter, if necessary. We were an armed camp and a potential battle zone.

That morning, the media showed up. We had everything – including desks, phones, coffee, and sweet rolls – set up for them in the administration building. The morning passed quietly, but we knew some Yippies were trickling into the park.

Close to noon, a small confrontation occurred outside the Main Gate, and we notified the press, who ran out there. That interaction did us a lot of good with the media because they knew we were being honest. We told them that if there was a problem they would know as soon as we did. That group at the Main Gate was turned away because they had banners, and we didn’t allow banners of any kind in the park.

In the afternoon, a group of around 150 young people made their way over to Tom Sawyer Island. They took over the fort, lowered the flag, and raised their own flag, which was a marijuana leaf inside of a red star. We had a simple solution to that act of defiance: We shut off boats going back and forth to Tom Sawyer Island. The Yippies could sit there all day.

We told families that the island was closed.

The Yippies sang and did their thing, but nobody paid much attention to them. Finally, at around five in the evening, they pleaded to be let off the island. So we brought them by raft off the island. Then, a group of them started marching down Main Street and stood in front of City Hall. They started chanting things like “F—- the man,” and some kids got up on the balcony over City Hall, pulled the flag down and ran their flag up. While this bunch of kids stood in front of City Hall spewing out foul phrases, a guest on the steps at the railroad station started singing "God Bless America," and pretty soon, several hundred people started singing with him. The kids didn’t know what to do.

We knew that our guests needed to be separated from the Yippies. So in front of City Hall, Dick Nunis, director of Park Operations, set a line of Disney employees standing shoulder to shoulder. We told the Yippies, “You’re going to get out of the park,” and we then started walking arm-and-arm slowly around Town Square towards the entrance, but they still wouldn’t go. We went back around Town Square again, got in front of the Opera House and right before we got to Hills Brothers, we stopped. “This is it. You’re not going any further,” ordered Dick.
They grew more restless.

We held our line. They tried to push forward.

Finally, Dick got on the radio and said, “Send in the troops.” The gates opened and in came 400 policemen in boots, helmets, and shields. We could all hear the boots marching.

We had the Yippies corralled with only one way out.

I was in the front row of the line at the time, and some nasty little kid, not more than 14 years old, said to me, “You can’t keep us out of here. This is America. We got a right to be here.” And when the gates opened, I said, “You’re not going to go any further. We’ve got plenty of law enforcement here.”

“I’m not scared of any fuzz,” he said. “Bring on the fuzz.”

“You wanted fuzz. Here is the fuzz,” I barked at him.

These policemen, all six foot four and taller it seemed, marched down the street with cadence and determination.

This kid’s eyes grew. I wrapped my hand around his long hair, held it and said, “You wanted fuzz, here it is. I’m going to give you fuzz.” I slammed the kid against an officer’s chest and said, “What is that? Is that fuzz?”

The kid said, “No sir, that’s a law enforcement officer, sir.” I let the police handle him from there.

Then I noticed a guy who had long black hair hanging below his shoulder that looked like it hadn’t been washed in months, yelling, “Don’t stop. Push ’em through. Push through.” He broke loose and went around and up Main Street.

Dick, once an All-American football player from USC, went after him. The chase went through The Emporium, the candle shop, crossed the street into a fake flower stand, and at about that time, Dick tackled the guy. When I arrived, Dick had a handful of hair in his hand, and I thought, My God, Dick’s scalped him!

But the Yippie, who turned out to be an English professor from Cal State Fullerton, was wearing a wig.

We also had a row of police, shoulder to shoulder, in the hub, all down Main Street, on both sides. We had 59,000 people in the park and had to get all of them out. The kids mostly ran as soon as they could. By this time, we closed the park down for the night.

The Yippies knew that they were facing many unhappy people. They had spoiled these people’s day at the park. Any group that size included sympathizers and anti-war folks, but Disneyland is the wrong place for this kind of event. The event made national headline news, and Disneyland received 1,400 editorials from papers supporting our action within a week. The main crux of the situation was that the Yippies took on an organization that didn’t do anything wrong, and people visited Disneyland to have fun. The guests, who were forced to leave early that day, received free readmission tickets, many returned the next day. A lot of media and cameramen lingered around the park on August 7, so they talked to the guests, many of them saying, “If those kids show up again, they are going to be sorry. I’m not going to let them carry on like that in front of my wife and kids.”

On Yippie Day, everybody who worked at Disneyland was family. I have never seen the park that pure. On that day, there was no division between labor or management. We had management people working as janitors in all of the bathrooms acting as lookouts for Yippies. We had a presence throughout the park, and I’ve never seen a more united group of people at Disneyland than we were on August 6, 1970. It was something to see because nobody said, “Oh he’s a director, he’s a supervisor, and he’s a ride operator.” That didn’t matter. We were all Disneylanders and nothing else that day. We were a family, and somebody had attacked our family.

To order "In Service to the Mouse," please visit:
www.inservicetothemouse.com