YPSL Petition Urges Vote on ROTC Status

The Young Peoples' Socialist League claims 800 signatures on a petition to hold a student referendum on the status of ROTC at Harvard.

The proposed vote would deal only with ROTC's special privelege of course credit, not with its presence on campus.

Henry D. Fetter '71 of YPSL said his group's petition is running ahead of the SDS petition also being circulated now in House dining halls.

"They got about 40 signatures in the Union," Fetter said, "and we got 230."

Michael Kazin '70, agreed that the YPSL petition is attracting more support. The SDS position, Kazin said, is that ROTC has no right to be at Harvard or anywhere else.

The YPSL position holds that ROTC has a right to stay on campus, Fetter said, but that students should decide whether ROTC should have the special privileges of course credit and free use of buildings. He called the SDS stand undemocratic.

"If they want to be really democratic why don't they let the people of Vietnam vote?" Kazin suggested. "ROTC is affecting them just as much as it is Harvard students."