Law Dems Deny They Yielded to Outside Pressure

Robert I. Ronka 3L, president of the Harvard Law-Grad Democrats, denied yesterday that any outside pressure had been placed on the club to break its contract with George Lincoln Rockwell, its Monday night speaker.

Ronka said that the decision -- made at a Sunday night executive board meeting -- had been entirely internal. He said the officers wanted to remove any impression that the club was lending financial support to Rockwell's American Nazi Party or trying to put him on public display.

In explaining the club's action, Ronka denied the accusations of another officer of the club who charged Tuesday that outside pressure from both the Jewish War Veterans and the local and state Young Democrat organizations prompted the decision.

Because of the controversy growing out of the move, Ronka said that he has called a meeting of the full membership for Friday to decide whether or not to honor the written agreement with Rockwell.

According to Ronka, there had been many calls "questioning" the club's decision to have Rockwell as a speaker. Some of these calls did come from members of the Jewish War Veterans, he said, but none demanded that the agreement not be honored.

Ronka said attempts to share the sponsorship of the speech with other Harvard organizations, such as the Law Forum, were unsuccessful.

Therefore, in order to dissociate the club with Rockwell as much a possible, Ronka proposed breaking the agreement to pay him. Rockwell, however, could not be reached before he landed in Boston.

In a related development, syndicated columnist Max Lerner criticized the club yesterday in his column, saying that it was the "death-wish of democracy" which not only allowed Rockwell to speak but also gave him a public platform.