Cancelled Teach-In Lacked Speakers, Not Protection

Students for a Just Peace (SJP) cancelled last night's planned pro-war teach-in because they were unable to attract speakers, sources revealed yesterday. SJP never actually discussed with the administration the matter of protecting the teach-in against disrupters.

"I know no reason to suppose that there would have been trouble," Archibald Cox '34, University troubleshooter, said yesterday." There were never any specific requests or proposals about protection for the teach-in, and it was never certain they'd get the speakers for it," Cox said.

The one invited speaker who said yesterday that he had planned to come is Nguygen Hoan, counselor for Political Affairs at the South Vietnamese Embassy in Washington. Hoan also came to the March 26 "Counter Teach-in."

A second speaker, Jim Humes, director of the Office of Policy and Plans at the teach-in "was discussed-that was all."

SJP also invited Henry Kissinger and speakers from the White House and the Pentagon, all of whom declined.

According to Laszlo Paszter 73 cochairman of SJP, "the main issue involved in the cancellation is that the University is not willing to protect our rights."

"It's questionable whether they try to protect our rights," Pasztor said, "or whether they have some kind of malice toward us. We have the dignity to be politic; we don't take over buildings. They're treating us like some kind of nude niggers."

Both Dean Epps and Cox deny having had specific negotiations with SJP regarding protection of the teach-in. The University has a regular policy of providing "reasonable" protection, which usually amounts to two policemen. At the "Counter Teach-in" there were about 20 Harvard policemen and two photographers hired by the University.

Follwing the disruption of the March 26 "Counter Teach-in," Pasztor sent a petition to Dean Epps requesting that members of SDS, Radcliffe-Harvard Liberation Alliance (RHLA), University Action Group (UAG), and Progressive Labor Party (PLP) have their University privileges taken away.

Epps wrote back, declining to sever the students. "Indeed," the letter reads, "the allegations you make involve acts of individuals, if they did occur, and such acts do not automatically flow to an organization." SJP has written a letter to Dean Dunlop protesting Epps' decision.

Pasztor said that SJP considered taking those students they charged with disruption to the public courts. "The University refused to cooperate with our investigation," he said. "Many of the guilty are not being punished." He is sure the majority of students support punishment.

Pasztor, who claims never to have lost an argument on Vietnam, said yesterday that the Left "turned this into an issue of free speech. Their views must be so weak that they're afraid to try to defend them."