Antiwar Radicals Praise NLF Victory

A radical antiwar group said in a statement released this week that the recent cease-fire and peace agreement in Vietnam proves that "a small poor country can defeat the largest, richest power in the world, provided its cause is just."

In a mimeographed four-page statement, the New York Weather Underground said, "The Vietnam victory is one milestone in the long struggle against imperialism," and called for a celebration of "Vietnamese victory."

The statement described what the group considered the crucial steps in the history of the antiwar movement. It cited the role of the civil rights movement, the black power movement the escalation of the bombing under former President Lyndon B. Johnson, and President Nixon's continued involvement in Vietnam as important factors in developing an American antiwar attitude.

"The social movements of the sixties and beginning seventies have transformed American consciousness and forced the war-makers into secrecy," the Weather Underground asserted. "Confidence in them has been replaced by skepticism and doubt."