Anti-War Groups Plan Spring Demonstrations And Week-Long Strike

Nine-hundred delegates representing over 40 New England anti-war groups voted at a conference at M. I. T. yesterday to hold mass-anti-war demonstrations and a student strike during the week of April 13-18.

The conference, sponsored by the New Mobilization Committee, also adopted an SDS proposal to exclude "liberals. college presidents, big businessmen, and other imperialists" from the roster of speakers at the April demonstration.

The April action will focus on the slogan "The U. S. has nothing to negotiate in Vietnam," although the group plans related action on issues such as "black and third world liberation, women's liberation, and war corporations."

Final voting came at the end of two days of discussion marked by walkouts and heated debate concerning the aims of the demonstration.

The walkouts followed a tense debate over a proposal by the Revolutionary Women's Caucus of the November Action Coalition (NAC) that the demonstration be strongly focused "on the oppression of women." The Student Mobilization Committee, (SMC), expressing fears that some delegates were attempting to obstruct the conference, caucused in Kresge Auditorium, while NAC withdrew to the Student Center.

The conference resumed at about 3 p. m. after NAC spokesmen assured the SMC delegation that NAC was not trying to disrupt the meeting.

During the afternoon debate the conference adopted the NAC proposal to incorporate related issues such as women's liberation and third world liberation into the April action.

The SDS amendment excluding "imperialists" from the speakers' list for the April demonstration provoked a bitter debate between NAC and SMC leaders.

The amendment failed to pass on a the straw vote, but SDS proposed an extension of debate and a second vote at the end of the meeting passed the amendment.

The conference also approved a resolution by Robert Bresnaham, an SMC coordinator, to leave the implementation and structuring of the April action to a steering committee composed of two representatives from each of the anti-war groups at the conference. The steering committee will meet March 8 at M. I. T.

"We will stay out on the streets until the war is ended and until every U. S. soldier, plane, and gun is out of Vietnam." said Bresnahan after the meeting, "Massive actions will end the war in Vietnam as the level of militancy grows, but you can't build a mass action around a multi-issue movement," he added.

"The only people who had a good time at the conference were the F. B. I. agents," said one NAC member ruefully.