Local Antiwar Groups Announce Plans For Demonstration and Benefit Concert

Strong antiwar sentiment resurfaced in the Boston area yesterday as several antiwar groups announced plans to respond to recent American actions in Vietnam.

The January 19th Committee, a non-partisan antiwar group, announced plans at a morning press conference yesterday for a massive lunch hour demonstration to be held in Boston on January 19.

At the same time, spokesmen for the American Friends Service Committee and Medical Aid for Indochina announced a concert at Harvard on January 20 to benefit North Vietnamese hospitals destroyed by the war.

The January 19 demonstration will begin at the Park St. subway station at 11:30 a.m. Protesters will then march to Government Center for a rally where Rev. Phillip Berrigan will speak.

Urge Bombing Halt

The 19th Committee stated that the demonstration will be held to urge a halt to all bombing in Indochina, American approval of the Nine Point Peace Plan, and an end to all aid to the Thieu regime.

Rev. Lawrence Hill, a member of Harvard Campus Ministries and a spokesman for the committee, chastised President Nixon as an "angel of death" who "humiliates the people of Vietnam and the people of America."

The concert to benefit the North Vietnamese hospitals will feature pianist Lorin Hollander, Robert Koff, chairman of the Music Department at Brandeis, and several Boston area groups varying from one that plays Renaissance chamber music to one that specializes in contemporary music.

The two sponsoring groups will divide the money collected at the concert and will administer the hospital aid program.

Spokesman for Medical Aid for Indochina announced their intention yesterday to use their share of the proceeds toward the rebuilding of Bach Mai hospital in Hanoi. The Pentagon has now confirmed the possibility that American bombs caused the destruction of that hospital.

Abram Sangrey, a spokesman for the Friends, said that the AFSC is now in the process of negotiating with Hanoi for the fifth shipment of supplies to Viet-Duc, which he said was the principal teaching hospital in the North before it was destroyed in the pre-1968 bombing raids.

Tickets to the 8:30 p.m. concert in Sanders Theater are $5 each and available at the Coop or the door.