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SMC Asking University To Close on 15th

NO WRITER ATTRIBUTED

The Student Mobilization Committee (SMC) will ask President Pusey today to cancel classes and close the University on October 15.

The SMC statement says "the majority of Harvard-Radcliffe support the October 15th Moratorium" and asks Pusey to "respect the will of the majority" and officially close the University. The statement also asks the University not to dock the pay of employees who participate in the moratorium for the work time they miss.

A group of SMC leaders will present the written statement to Pusey at 1 p. m. in his Massachusetts Hall office. Richard W. Osborn '72, one of the authors of the statement, emphasized that SMC plans no protest demonstration but only wishes to publicly confront Pusey with their request.

Statement

The majority of the Harvard-Radcliffe support the Oct. 15th Moratorium against the war in Vietnam. The student Mobilization Committee (SMC) calls upon President Pusey and the University administration to respect the will of the majority by declaring Oct. 15th a day of protest and discussion. The SMC calls for the cancellation of classes and the suspension of the ordinary activities of the University for the entire day. The SMC feels that the University must recognize the right of its employees to participate in the Oct. 15th anti-war actions. We call upon the University to permit all Harvard-Radcliffe workers who choose to participate in the Moratorium to do so without loss of pay.

SMC voted to present the statement to Pusey at an October 8 Meeting at which about 200 members approved the general outline and tone of the statement. The SMC steering committee then wrote the final draft.

Other activities scheduled for today and tomorrow by groups supporting the Moratorium:a non-YSA member of SMC, the first meeting about speakers was held at Boston College, September 21, and was attended by the Boston Student-Faculty Coalition, a group in which "SMC, much less YSA, is a complete minority."

A meeting of the same group September 23 at M.I.T. endorsed both Camejo and Sen. George McGovern as speakers. YPSL, Pollett said, just showed up too late.

"We suggested a non-exclusionary coalition," Pollett said. "We want to co-operate on building unity for the antiwar movement. Since SMC had been working on the march and rally, and the Moratorium people were strong on community canvassing, there was an informal division of labor."

Richard Zorza 72, a leader of the Moratorium at Harvard, agrees with Pollett's statement of the division. The rally was never as important to his group as community organizing. "There's a difference in emphasis and constituency," Zorza said. "The Moratorium appeals more effectively to a more middle-of-the road, broader spectrum."

Enzyme Action

Zorza compared the differences between the two groups to "two detergent companies competing in their advertising" - but admitted that the fear among many Moratorium people goes deeper than that.

"YPSL is very unhappy about the role SMC is playing," Ross said yesterday. "They're trying to substitute their slogans for Moratorium slogans; they've put out leaflets calling for a strike instead of a Moratorium; they're running a poster with Camejo's name listed above McGovern's."

According to Richard W. Osborne '72, one of two YSA members of SMC at Harvard, the poster in question is a Boston Coalition poster, approved by all groups, and listing the names in alphabetical order.

Over the summer, Osborne added, when the McCarthy campaign people working on the Moratorium invited SMC to participate. "We told them that we would prefer to call it a strike. They told us do your own thing."

Redbaiters Welcome

"The vast overwhelming majority of SMC is not in YSA." YSA spokesmen said yesterday. "SMC as it now exists is an autonomous organization that recognizes that right of all people, of whatever persuasion to participate in the antiwar movement, including redbaiters."

"Members of the YSA participate openly" the spokesman continued. "We do not hide the fact that we are socialist revolutionaries, but we demand the right of all American citizens to free exposure and association."

Certain pro-Moratorium opponents of the SMC point to a YSA 1965 discussion bulletin, intended not to go outside YSA, concerning "infiltration of anti-war movements by YSA."

The bulletin was obtained by Gordon Hall, a professional opponent of extremist groups quoted in the Boston Globe as saying of Camejo, "It is one thing to oppose the war. It's another thing to march with Viet Cong Flags."

Hard Sell

One section of the bulletin reads: YSAers began to learn through their experiences in the march [1965 march on Washington] how to become the best builders of a principled anti-war protest while at the same time being the best propagandists for socialism. This was demonstrated by the hard work we put into organizing buses, selling buttons, passing out leaflets, and so on for the march and then at the march openly selling far more socialist literature than all of our opponents put together could sell or give away."

"What does infiltration mean?" Osborne said last night. "We're socialist revolutionaries committed to total and immediate withdrawal-of course the way to achieve this is to join with other peace movements. We think the SMC is the best and most principled group with which to build the anti-war movement."

"Who cares if they're infiltrating, anyway?" added one Moratorium spokesman. "They're helping us, aren't they?"

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