Teach-In, Vietnam Trips Linked

The same man who was instrumental in setting up the "Counter Teach-In" to be held this Friday at Harvard was also the main force in setting up a series of trips by conservative students to South Vietnam in the second half of 1970.

Daniel Teodoru, one of the speakers at the teach-in, is responsible for getting the South Vietnamese and Thai ambassadors to the U.S., and White House Vietnam adviser Dolph Droge, to appear at Harvard, said Laszlo Pasztor '73, chairman of the teach-in group.

Motivation

Teodoru, Eastern coordinator for the National Student Coordinating Committee for Freedom in Vietnam and Southeast Asia, said yesterday in a telephone interview from New York that early in 1970, he wanted to offer a chance to visit South Vietnam to students who supported the American presence there.

Action

Because the South Vietnamese mission to the U.N. was "moving too slow," Teodoru turned early last summer to the Vietnam Council on Foreign Relations, which he called "a private organization that Vietnamese and American businessmen in Saigon feed a lot of money into."

Council's Purpose

The purpose of the council. Teodoru said, is to "provide scholars, for the most part, with trips to South Vietnam." He said that the council paid for all transportation, lodging and meals on the trips.

Teodoru said that among the council's members were representatives of Pan Am- on which Pasztor said his group flew to Vietnam- Air Cathay, and China Pacific Airlines. He also said that "some of the oil companies might be involved."

Teodoru asked the council to change its policy slightly and to sponsor a trip for students to which the council agreed, after Teodoru convinced Tran Van Lam, then head of the council and now south Vietnam's Foreign Minister.

Teodoru's Choice

Teodoru picked the students and said that he chose them "on the basis of activity and interest in pro-war work, open minds willing to look at the South Vietnamese side, and individuals who wouldn't go crazy in a war zone."

A group of five students, among them Pasztor, visited South Vietnam for nine days at the end of December.