A VERY, VERY TINY GROUP!

To the Editors of the CRIMSON:

AN OPEN LETTER TO DEAN WATSON:

It seems hard to believe that you said what they said you said. Remarks to the effect that student disruption at Harvard is the work of a "very very tiny group of people, including two or three sons of active Communists"... who had been "carefully indoctrinated before coming to Harvard," are shameful and gratuitously provocative. Your resort to guilt by association (both with the Communist Party and with one's parents--all in one remark!), your attempt to stigmatize a particular set of political beliefs, and your misrepresentation of the sources of student discontent at Harvard set an ugly tone in which to further academic pursuits and hardly indicate a willingness to understand or cooperate with students in making necessary changes in this institution.

Whoever wishes to understand students discontent would be much better advised to look into conditions at Harvard (your own responsibility), and conditions in this country as a whole, rather than the heritage of any particular group of students.

SDS is a large and democratic political organization, as you must surely recognize. It is run by no very tiny group of anybody. We are shocked by your remarks, and we feel that you owe an apology to the entire community and to radical students in particular. Kenneth Arrow, Samuel Bowles, Arthur MacEwan, Stephen Marglin, Thomas Weisskopf   Department of Economics