ROTC: NO MORAL RIGHT TO BE A PART OF IT

To the Editors of the CRIMSON:

Our objections to ROTC units at Harvard are based on opposition to the American government's policies in Vietnam and other nations in the underdeveloped world. Because we see this policy as an expansionist and counter-revolutionary one, our objections to ROTC are definitely political and go beyond what Colonel Pell rightly calls "academic/administrative issues" such as merely depriving ROTC of course credit. The "right" to be trained by ROTC as an officer in the United States Armed Forces is an opportunity, in Colonel Pell's words, to "stand at the head of a platoon of 44 other young Americans" who are destroying Vietnam and other nations in order to stop popular social revolutions. Morally, then, there is no "right" to be part of an organization like ROTC.

This means that Naval, Army, and Air Force ROTC should be deprived of course credit and prohibited from using Harvard facilities, and that all ROTC scholarships, in case of need, should be converted to regular Harvard scholarships. No referendum of Harvard students can change the functions of officers in the United States military "services." The suggestion of such a referendum reminds us of Stephen Douglas's conception of a "democratic" solution to the problem of the expansion of slavery before the Civil War. Under Douglas's plan, the white residents of the territorial areas (Nebraska and Kansas) would vote to decide whether slavery would be legal when the territories attained statehood. For moral men, there can be no "right" to suppress people fighting for social, political, and economic freedom, just as there is no "right" to enslave other men.

The HUC resolution fails to confront these issues. Its standard for the University is one of "fairness," allowing an open market-place in which the military, as well as other interests, can function. We reject the notion that the University must welcome the instruments of repression in the name of freedom or the narrow self-interest of some Harvard students.

The HUC has rejected the most obvious means by which the university offers special privileges to what it should be criticizing. We hope that the Harvard community will oppose ROTC in any form, and will go on to attack Harvard's many other involvements in interventionist policies. Jeffrey Alexander '69   Jeffrey Elman '69   Lance Lindblom '70   Alan Zaslavsky '68-4   Michael Kazin '70   Harvard-Radcliffe SDS