Activists Sit-In, Protest K-School Ties to Pentagon

A small but noisy group of anti-war activists, protesting Harvard's training program for national security officials, held a sit-in for three hours yesterday morning in the offices of the National Security Program at the Kennedy School of Government.

Chanting "more money for welfare," seven protesters refused to let members of the National Security Program enter their offices from 9 a.m. to 12 p.m., while another group of activists rallied to protest the program outside the school, at the corner of John F. Kennedy (JFK) and Eliot Streets.

The protesters said the Program for Senior Officials in National Security, which provides instruction, room and board for select members of the national security community of the United States and other nationas, ties the Kennedy School to the Pentagon.

"It's an extension school for the Pentagon," said Jack Trumpbour, one of the protesters, who is a Ph.D. candidate in the History Department. Trumpbour is also the editor of the well-known book, "How Harvard Rules."

"We're being told all the time that Harvard is a bastion of independence when a lot of the decisions here [at the Kennedy School] are being tailored by the Pentagon," he said.

Another protestor, Professor of Biology Ruth Hubbard, said, "The Kennedy School is more responsible for the wars that the United States is involved in than the arms manufacturers."

The protesters claimed that the Kennedy School program influences budget policy by encouraging exorbitant defense spending.

"We are people who are concerned about the effects on American communities in terms of the drainage from social spending," said Wendall Waters, a local activist who participated in the sit-in.

The protesters also attacked the program's $15,250 per person price tag, for eight weeks of instruction and room and board. This cost falls on the taxpayers, the protesters said.

"This is the educational equivalent of the Pentagon's $700 hammers and $2500 toilet seats," said a flyer which was handed out to passersby on JFK St.

The protesters are members of an ad hoc citizens' group created during the recent Gulf War. The protesters said they were attempting to draw attention to a number of war-related issues even now that the war itself is over.

"We're not going home until we think there's not going to be another war...But it looks like the people at the helm don't agree," said a participant in the sit-in, about the Kennedy staff members who continued working despite the protesters.

The protesters locked their arms and stood or sat in front of the two entrances to the National Security Program offices, a doorway and an elevator door. One woman who wished to deliver a letter to the office had to hand it to a National Security staff member over the heads of the protesters.

"We would like to bother the people as little as possible while bothering the program as much as possible," said protester Elijah Wald.

One staff member engaged in a brief struggle with two protesters who stood in front of the elevator with their arms locked. A police sergeant warned the protesters, "keep your hands to yourself."

Members of the National Lawyers Guild were on hand to make sure the protesters were treated fairly by the police.

Bernard E. Trainor, director of the National Security Program, expressed disapproval for the protesters' goals and methods.

"I am sympathetic to programs aimed at breaking the cycle of poverty and its consequences," Trainor wrote in a statement issued yesterday. "But to advocate domestic programs to the exclusion of education in public management is myopic. To do so in a fashion disruptive of the education process is fascistic."

Steven K. Singer, director of communications and public affairs for the Kennedy School, said the matter of the sit-in was "in the hands of" the Harvard University Police.

"The rest of the school is just going about its business as best they can trying to just not pay too much attention," Singer said.

Singer said he was not surprised by the protesters' attraction to the Kennedy School.

According to Singer, the Kennedy School program has provided advanced management training for 85 national security officials annually since 1984. Gen. H. Norman Schwarzkopf graduated from the program in 1985.

"Any time you're active at the forefront of government policy you tend to draw attention," said Singer