Peace Group Meeting Split On Speakers

The uneasy coalition of anti-war groups forged at the New England Conference on March 1 dissolved Sunday night when supporters of the Student Mobilization Committee (SMC) walked out of a steering committee meeting originally called to plan the spring offensive.

The SMC supporters walked out of the meeting at M.I.T. after their motion to reconsider a resolution passed at the conference a week earlier to exclude "liberals, college presidents, big businessmen and other imperialists" from speaking at a mass demonstration April 15 had been defeated by a vote of 100 to 96.

"If you are going to participate in building a mass demonstration, then you have to expect them to want their speakers," Richard Osborne '72 of SMC said yesterday in reference to the liberal groups.

After walking out, the SMC supporters met in another room and agreed to hold a march and mass demonstration April 15. SMC will hold another planning session this Sunday night.

The majority that voted to retain the exclusionist resolution consisted of supporters of the November Action Committee (NAC). They will decide whether or not to participate in the SMC demonstration at a meeting this Sunday at Boston University.

NAC member Mike Kazin '70 said last night that he thought the B.U. meeting would vote to participate in the march but would also stage a militant action afterwards. "We'll have a lot of action on our own made up of people tired of McGovern and Zinn." he added.

Kazin said that the walk-out meant that "the tenuous alliance of radicals and liberals was broken-not because it had to-but because the liberals and Socialist Worker Party insisted on keeping the movement where it is." The necessity is now to "build a revolutionary movement, not just a huge march," he said.