Student Mobilization Committee Is Planning Antiwar to Enliven Election Season

The national steering council of the Student Mobilization Committee (SMC) announced yesterday that it will meet this weekend at Boston University to discuss its fall antiwar offensive.

The forum--to take place in the Sherman Union at 10 a.m. on Saturday--is open to all antiwar activists interested in organizing nation wide demonstrations on October 26 and November 18.

Workshops and educational programs for campuses and the community are also included on the agenda.

"We want the demonstrations on October 26 to be concentrated around teach-ins on the campuses, and picket lines at Federal buildings," Jack Lieberman, the SMC national staff coordinator, said yesterday. "November 18, however, will be devoted to mass demonstrations in the streets to demand immediate withdrawal of American forces from Vietnam."

The SMC has refused to endorse any political candidates in the November elections, preferring instead to present a united front on the Vietnam issue, uncomplicated by partisan views.

Non-Partisan

"We made the decision not to support any of he parties' nominees at the National Peace Action Coalition's (of which SMC is a member) meeting in Los Angels last July," Lieberman said.

"A lot of the people there supported McGovern," he continued, "but we did not want to have differing views on the candidate's conflict with the main issues at hand, which is to unite for common action in the streets."

The SMC believes that by placing its emphasis on that single issue, it can unite all those who are against the Vietnam war, Lieberman explained. "Polls show that 79 per cent of Americans want to see the U.S. pull out of Vietnam," he said, "but many of these people are for Nixon. In a non-partisan antiwar demonstration, we will be able to include these supporters of Nixon. We must educate them."

In the Streets

Lieberman admitted that he did not know of anyone in the SMC or at the National Peace Action Coalition meeting who was a Nixon supporter, but defended the organization's non-partisan stance as the most effective way to end the Vietnam war.

Political canvassing can help, he said, "but the only acts that have really changed things are mass demonstrations--not electoral tactics. So on November 18th," he concluded. "no matter who has been elected the antiwar demonstrations will be out in the streets."