THE BLOODY DUKE

To the Editors of The Crimson:

The Lampoon disgraced itself and the community by bringing to Harvard, and to little-needed national attention, John Wayne, a man who distinguished himself by portraying the extermination of the native inhabitants of this continent as a series of heroic acts. He then used his reputation as vigorously as he could to advance the prosecution of a war which Americans now see as anything from the most monstrous, costly error in our history to a deliberate genocidal campaign. To those who found this amusing, I must say I missed the funny part; to those who think Harvard gained any points against Wayne, I urge you to read the articles on his appearance in The Times, Globe, or Herald-American.

As we grew up playing "cowboys and Indians," as a new generation grows up playing "Americans and gooks,"one can envision a Germany of the future, the edge of atrocity dulled by time, in which children play "Nazis and Jews" (the destruction of Warsaw was, after all, a dangerous business), and in which an actor famous for portraying death-camp officers is feted, as a joke, of course, by the University of Heidelberg humor magazine. "The old celluloid hero had his bluff called by the raucous students, and he took it like a man. Except for a few spoil sports, a good time was had by all." Undoubtedly there will be efficient means for dealing with spoil sports. Ha-ha-ha.

If you find the analogy far-fetched, look at any recent history of American Indians. Picture yourself as an Indian watching a Wayne film. What will the next portray? The Trail of Tears? The distribution of smallpox-infected blankets? The massacre at My Lai? Sand Creek? Wounded Knee?

Things certainly have changed. As someone said, if armored cars had rolled into Harvard Square five years ago it would have been for a different reason. Now that the spirit of Wayne has replaced the spirit of Thoreau at Harvard, now that the "disturbances" of the Sixties are finally over, now that, as the Globe says, "the silly season has returned to Harvard," whatever force it is in America that wages wars of extermination may rouse itself again and prepare to engage, without fear of its conscience on the campuses, since that conscience is safely asleep. Mel Konner, Ph.D. '73   Department of Anthropology