Anti-War Group Will Try to Get 5000 Signatures

The Harvard-Radcliffe Committee to End the War in Vietnam has launched a campaign to get 5000 signatures from the Harvard community on an anti-war petition.

Hampered by a lack of manpower, the campaign's organizers had amassed only 400 names by yesterday as the first week of the drive ended.

The petition, which the Committee intends to distribute to students and Faculty members at the College, Law, Business, and Medical Schools, is worded as broadly as possible to attract a wide variety of supporters, said Michael Kazin '70, who heads the campaign.

The petition attacks the United States' involvement in Vietnam for four reasons, alleging that United States policy eliminates the possibility of self-determination by the Vietnamese people, supports a military dictatorship, sacrifices domestic programs for the war effort, and involves U.S. troops in an expanding conflict The Committee is putting particular emphasis on obtaining Faculty signatures, Kazin said, and workers will personally contact "key people in each department."

The campaign, however, is not directed at famous Faculty members, Kazin said. He described the drive's purpose as "mass protest," designed to gather as many names as possible from both Faculty and students.

The campaign has the support of many SDS workers, Kazin said, who will take copies of the petition with them on SDS membership drives and encourage students to sign it. Kazin, however, has not requested official SDS backing for the petition.