Some Previous Talks Caused Difficulties For Local Police

Governor Barnett will not be the first unpopular speaker to present problems for Harvard and Cambridge authorities.

The most recent speaker to require extensive special police protection was Fidel Castro, whose appearance before the Law School Forum three years ago cost the Cambridge Police Department an alleged $800 in overtime. Enroute to Soldiers Field, where he spoke, Castro was guarded by Boston, Cambridge, and Metropolitan District Commission police.

Black Muslim leader Malcolm X addressed the Forum two years ago, and caused no public disturbance; neither did Governor Marvin Griffin of Georgia the year before.

In February of 1958, however, David Wang, a segregationist who wanted to nominate Ezra Pound for the Presidency, spoke in Lowell Lecture Hall to an unfriendly audience that jeered and booed.

At the conclusion of Wang's opening remarks, however, the hall was cleared temporarily because of a bomb scare. The bomb was advertised to go off at 9 p.m., and at 9:10 the audience filed back in to hear the rest of the speech.

Other controversial figures who have appeared here include Pete Seeger, who two years ago gave a concert sponsored by the Student Council while waiting for an appeal of his conviction for contempt of Congress to come before the courts. President Pusey eventually decided to allow him to sing, but not to discuss his case.