City Council Collides With Anti-War Protest

The anti-war movement collided head-on with the Cambridge City Council last night.

Some 75 members of Cambridge Vote on Vietnam packed the Council chambers to demand that the City put a petition opposing the Vietnam war onto the November 7 ballot. Two weeks ago, Cambridge City Solicitor Andrew T. Trodden disqualified two such petitions on grounds that the issue was irrelevant to City business.

After more than an hour of frequently bitter debate with the anti-war group, the Council voted unanimously to refer the petition to the Committee on Public Safety and Service. The referral in effect killed any possibility of Council action, since the committee's chairman, Councillor William G. Maher, is a bitter opponent of the petition.

One of the petition's original sponsors, Dennis DeCoste, said after the meeting that Vote on Vietnam had never thought the Council would put the petition on the ballot. "We just wanted to put pressure on the Council, to expose their position on this issue," he said.

Vote on Vietnam and another anti-war group--the Cambridge Neighborhood Committee on Vietnam have cases pending in Middlesex Superior Court on their petitions. The court has scheduled a hearing for October 6.

Six members of Vote on Vietnam spoke before the Council last night, arguing that "it is unfair to the people of Cambridge that the City is maneuvering to keep this off the ballot." At one point, Dennis DeCoste reminded the Council that "over 8000 people signed the petition--twice the number needed to elect any one of you to the Council."

Councillor Walter J. Sullivan was unimpressed with the argument. He said he had seen the first 100 of the 985 pages of signatures and that "better than 50 per cent" were invalid. The Vote on Vietnam spectators greeted his statement with hisses.

Councillor Maher repeatedly asked the witnesses if they planned to "join the Hanoi line by demonstrating to shut down the Pentagon on October 21." After laughter drowned one such question, Maher requested the spectators to "be so courteous as to listen, even if they won't support our country."

Only Councillor Cornelia B. Wheeler said she was "reasonably sympathetic that this should go to the people," though she objected to the harsh wording of the petition.

Three Cambridge residents spoke in opposition to the petition. Walter Reed, a past director of the American Legion, said "as good Americans, they shouldn't be around with that petition."

After the hearing, one member of Vote on Vietnam shouted, "What kind of elections do you have when you keep the people from voting?"