Hughes, Handlin Analyze Marches

Two Harvard professors offered contradictory analyses of last week's Washington peace march in Sunday's Boston Globe.

The march made its point in demonstrating the "sort of Americans who are united in opposition to the war," according to H. Stuart Hughes, professor of History. Responsible journalists can no longer label opposition to the war as "political lunacy," he continued.

Oscar Handlin, Winthrop Professor of History, opposed the march because he believes the pleas for peace were misdirected. "We did not want to fight: the struggle was thrust upon us." Handlin commented. Appeals for cessation of the war must be addressed to the men in Hanoi and Peking.

Inverted Racism

"I do not accept that curiously inverted, if unintentional racism which insists that a free society is appropriate for Caucasians but that communism is good enough for Asians," Handlin said. He added that only firm resistance will counter Chinese expansion.

Hughes commended the press on their fair reporting of the March, but claimed that "even as high-level a newspaper as the Globe" had partially distorted it by printing only pictures of youths flying Viet Cong flags during the demonstration In truth, he maintained, those who carried the banners were "cold-shouldered" by the thousands of more moderate marchers.

The marchers are not the extremists Hughes concluded: "the extremists are those who wage war in our country's name."