Republicans, Protesters Prepare to Welcome Ford

A coalition of Harvard and non-Harvard organizations prepared yesterday to demonstrate against Vice President Gerald R. Ford when he comes to Boston today.

Ford is scheduled to accept a man-of-the-year award from the Harvard Republican Club this afternoon at the Harvard Club in Boston, and to attend a fund-raising dinner of the Middlesex County Republican Club this evening at the Sheraton Hotel.

Organizers of today's planned demonstrations--including the New American Movement (NAM), La Organization, the Radcliffe Women's Organization, the Attica Brigade and several leftist labor unions--called last week for picketing outside the Harvard Club and the Sheraton. The groups attacked Ford as a representative of the Nixon administration and its policies.

The demonstrations will include a 3 p.m. rally in The Yard, a picket line outside The Harvard Club on Commonwealth Ave from 4:30 p.m. on and a 6:30 p.m. rally outside the Sheraton.

Will Arrive at Four

William R. Glass III '75, a Harvard Republican Club member, said last night that Ford is scheduled to arrive at the Harvard Club shortly after 4 p.m., speak briefly and then answer questions from the invited audience of about 150, including perhaps 40 from other local college Republican clubs.

Glass said he would probably cite Ford's recent accession to the vice presidency and his years of service to the Republican party as House minority leader in presenting him with the award. "I plan to speak for a minimum of time to make sure he can speak for a maximum of time," he said.

"Personally, I think they're misdirected when they protest Ford," Glass said of the planned demonstrations. "I don't think, as they say, that he's Nixon's puppet--he may well get to be president, so he should act as his own man, and he generally has."

"I'm sure it'll be bigger than the Honeywell demonstration," Peter S. Hogness '76, a NAM member, said yesterday, referring to today's planned demonstration and last month's protest here against a Honeywell Corporation recruiter, which drew about 120 people.

"There should be a minimum of a few hundred at the Harvard Club," Hogness said, "and many more outside the dinner--it depends how well it's publicized at other schools."

The Attica Brigade has been publicizing Ford's visit at several Boston schools, including Boston University. In past protests, the Brigade has gone beyond picketing--it led the trashing of the Center for International Affairs here in the spring of 1972, and more recently threw eggs at former secretary of defense Melvin R. Laird when he spoke in Providence, R.I., in January.

But Hogness said the Brigade agreed to abide by the decision of the majority of protesters to picket peacefully. "I think they will be okay," he added. "I think there will be massive enough numbers of people who aren't crazy to put pressure on those who are."

At least one meeting hastily convened here to help plan for today's demonstrations drew about 40 students last night.

Several NAM members complained yesterday that posters advertising the demonstration that they had put up in South and North Houses had been torn down over the weekend.

Speakers at the Yard rally today will include Mary Lassen '75, a NAM member