Support the Moritorium

The following editorial has been endorsed by 5 Boston area colleges.

PRESIDENT NIXON told the nation last week that he is taking steps to ensure "a real peace, not the peace of surrender" in Vietnam. He vowed to continue air and naval strikes directed at North Vietnam until the North Vietnamese halt what he termed "unprovoked aggression" against the South. And the logical extension of his statements is that despite the veil of continued U.S. troop withdrawals from Vietnam, the Administration is prepared to fight its undeclared war, if only with deadly mechanical support weapons, until a non-communist, pro-American government can stand on its own in Saigon or until there is no more Vietnam over which to fight.

Nixon's speech has had immediate effects at home. The most crucial one is political: since the speech, with a step-up in the North Vietnamese offensive and a wind-down of antiwar protest across the country, Nixon has been able to rally support in Congress for his time-worn Cold War strategies. Suddenly there is a new wave of support for his determination that "the respect of other nations is essential if the U.S. is to lead the way in building a world stability." But this is not a question of international esteem for the United States's intervention in Vietnam: it is a question of whether we at home will permit our government to pursue the slaughter of the Vietnamese people and the destruction of their country.

Antiwar protests have dwindled in the past ten years. Yet it has never been more crucial for us to show the Administration that we refuse to endorse its unprovoked aggression against the Vietnamese. The recent attempt at a nationwide student strike had mixed success; we recognize now that at least for the present, antiwar demonstrations must take the form of specific, carefully planned mass action. There are three such demonstrations scheduled during the next week.

TODAY, THE Emergency National Moratorium Committee has called for a one-day nationwide moratorium against business as usual. This is not merely a commemoration of the deaths of four students at Kent State University who were shot by National Guardsmen during the 1970 Cambodia strike. It is a broad-based and locally-oriented action intended to give people throughout the country an opportunity to talk about the war, to picket draft boards, to hold town meetings. Among those who are supporting the moratorium are Rep. Shirley Chisholm, Sen. Mike Gravel, NPAC and the Black Caucus.

On May 6, the People's Coalition for Peace and Justice and NPAC have called for a mass rally at 2:30 p.m. on the Boston Common. Among the scheduled speakers are Howard Zinn, Ngo Vinh Long and Bonnie Raitt. And on May 8, the PCPJ is sponsoring a day of nonviolent civil disobedience at the John F. Kennedy Federal Building in Downtown Boston. The day begins at 6:30 a.m. on the Commons; participants will then move to the JFK Building which houses, among other agencies, the local offices of the State Department, the FBI, the IRS, the Wage Freeze Board and the Immigration Service.

These actions are our most visible way of demonstrating our disgust with Nixon's continuation of the air and sea war against North Vietnam. We have to make them work.