Law Professor Holds Maverick Picket At Soviet Hockey Game

Shortly after a home-made bomb was discovered in the Boston Garden Monday before an exhibition hockey game between the Bruins and the Russian National Hockey Team, Professor of Law Alan M. Dershowitz set up his one-man picket outside the arena.

Dershowitz distributed his own self-made pamphlet on Soviet human rights violations while picketing alongside 100 others, including a large number of Jewish Defense League (JDL) members.

Dershowitz said the League bears moral responsibility for the bomb, a hand grenade wired with a timing device.

The JDL has fostered a climate of anti-Soviet violence which encourages terrorist acts like Monday's incident, Dershowitz said. "Their kind of rhetoric gives them some responsibility for the bombing, whether they set it or not."

No organization has claimed responsibility for the home-made bomb, said Marian Martell, a spokesman for the joint investigation by Boston police and the FBI.

"I have no idea who did it. I condemn it," said Kenneth Sidman, head of the Boston chapter of the JDL.

Sidman, who had bought a ticket, was not allowed to enter the arena by security personnel. Last month Sidman sent a letter to Bruins officials warning that the match could spark violence.

In 1972, Dershowitz defended a JDL member who was on trial for manufacturing a bomb which was planted in front of Columbia Pictures in New York. The bomb was placed in protest of cultural exchanges between the motion picture company and the Soviet Union and killed one person. The man was acquitted.

Dershowitz said he did not join any other protesting group because he disagrees with the goals of the JDL and many other mainstream Jewish organizations.

Dershowitz, who usually protests independent of any groups said he is "against censorship" but thinks people should protest and examine the moral issues of attending events with Soviet participants.

"I urged the fans not to apply a double standard. Would they attend an athletic event involving a South African team?, If they wouldn't they should search their conscience about this one," he said.

"I just don't see the difference between the two," he said.

Dershowitz devotes his syndicated column in the Boston Herald next week to his experiences as a prostestor.

Dershowitz recounts a conversation he had with a "young man" going to the game who conceded: "You win, I can't distinguish between a South African and Soviet team."

"He turned away, held up his ticket and asked several passers-by whether anyone wanted to buy a good ticket to the game. There were serval immediate takers," Dershowitz writes.

A caller to the Associated Press office at 4:10 p.m. on Monday told reporters where the bomb was planted. Police found and destroyed the bomb hours before the game began