nice article...

for what its worth, Byers was a student of Stephen Smale at Berkeley,
who has been politically active since the Vietnam War:

    Smale's politics also dominated his life during these years. He
    joined the Communist Party while in college, helped organize
    anti-war demonstrations on the UC Berkeley campus in the 1960s,
    including co-organizing with Jerry Rubin a 33-hour "Vietnam Day"
    teach-in in 1965, tried to stop troop trains passing through the
    city, and barely avoided a subpoena from the House Unamerican
    Activities Committee investigating Communists in this country.

    http://www.berkeley.edu/news/media/releases/2007/01/19_smale.shtml

Les