Three Picket Groups May Compete At John Birch Society Headquarters

A battle of pickets will take place today at 2 p.m. in front of the John Birch Society headquarters in Belmont. Local picketers will be able to choose from at least two lines and possibly a third.

A Belmont High School junior, Karen M. Smith, began the picket parade earlier this week when she announced plans to organize a demonstration against the ultra-conservative Birch Society.

Responding to the announcement, James D. Perry '63 called for a revival of CAMP (Committee Against Misguided Picketing). Last year CAMP picketed integration pickets in front of Woolworth's.

Thinking that CAMP was "an example of the type of asinine thing only Harvard students could do," Elliot H. Stanley '63 and Frederick C. Dietx, Jr. '63 quickly proclaimed the creation of CRAP (Committee to Repress Anti-Picketers). Diets and Stanley said they have found interest in their group but did not think they would send out a picket line of their own.

"We are not taking a position on the Birch Society," Diets claimed, "we just want to ridicule the entire thing of picketing a picket."

Anti-Birchite Smith, who plans to attend Sarah Lawrence or Smith to study Anthropology, said she did not object to anti-Communism, but rather to the methods used by the Birch Society. "I oppose the indiscriminate labeling of people as Communists."

While uncertain as to how large her own demonstration will be, Miss Smith remarked that she "could not take CAMP seriously." She considers CRAP "ridiculous."

Perry said yesterday that a "number of threatening phone calls" had weakened CAMP's original enthusiasm for fielding a picket line.