NAM Demonstrates Against Ford Visit, Supports Printers With Yard Picketing

If a university is at all politically active, spring is the time when things begin to hop. Harvard is no exception. April 1969 saw the takeover of University Hall. Spring exams were cancelled in 1970 after students struck against the invasion of Cambodia. In March 1972 a student takeover of Massachusetts Hall sparked widespread demonstrations against Harvard's ownership of stock in Gulf Oil. This spring there has been no outpouring of political enthusiasm, but perhaps there would have been none at all if it were not for the efforts of the New American Movement (NAM).

Replacing SDS as the major leftwing political group at Harvard, NAM--a national but decentralized group with several student chapters, founded two years ago last fall--has worked hard to generate support for several different issues among a largely apathetic student body. Using a wide array of tactics, including leafletting, rallies, teach-ins, and guerilla theater, the approximately 30 members of the group have culled a moderate response at best.

Initial signs for an active spring were encouraging, as over 120 people marched and chanted in a late February rain to protest the presence of a recruiter from the Honeywell Corporation at the Office of Career Plans and Off-Campus Learning (OGCP). Organizing the protest in the two days before the recruiter's appearance, NAM publicized Honeywell's role in the manufacture of "anti-personnel" weapons for the Defense Department. After marching and chanting in front of the OGCP for about half an hour, the protestors held a mock trial in which a student dressed in tuxedo and tophat and calling himself "Mr. Honeywell" was found guilty of "crimes against humanity." When the real Honeywell representative failed to appear (he actually had left before the demonstration began), the pickets marched to University Hall to protest the administration's granting permission to Honeywell for the use of the University's facilities.

NAM members and sympathizers looked forward to the March 10 appearance of Vice President Gerald Ford to receive the Man of the Year award from Harvard's Young Republican Club. Working with several other leftist groups, NAM called students to meet Ford at the Harvard Club in Boston as a sign of protest against the Nixon administration. After a preliminary rally of about 200 people in the Yard, over 400 demonstrators--most of them students--chanted slogans outside the club while Ford addressed the Harvard Republicans within. Most of the demonstrators never saw Ford, who entered and left by a back door, but a splinter group of about 100 who had broken around to the back of the club chanted "Impeach Nixon, dump Ford," when the vice president's car flashed by. He waved. The remaining pickets blocked traffic in front of the club.

As the bite went out of the March air and the showers of April began, there seemed to be little prospect for enticing students out of the libraries and into the streets. Then, on April 9, 32 printers went out on strike against the University, demanding a larger wage increase than the 5.5 per cent that Harvard offered. A week later, NAM, together with SDS, announced its campaign to generate support among the Harvard community for the striking workers. Members of the group began collecting money for advertisements, and circulated a petition among students and faculty.

Visibility has been the keynote of NAM's campaign to rally support for the continuing strike. The group called for demonstrations in front of Holyoke Center at noon in an effort to attract not only students but also Harvard employees on their lunch break. Support from these employees was moderate at best, but the rallies still managed to attract between between 120 and 150 sympathizers. A third demonstration of 80 pickets greeted alumni donation-givers as they gathered for dinner at the Faculty Club on May 6.

As the strike continued and neither side showed any willingness to compromise, NAM, in coalition with other groups, announced its plans for a series of "militant and large-scale" actions in the weeks leading up to commencement to dramatize the situation of the workers. Recognizing the administration's desire for an orderly graduation, organizers prepared what they termed "legal and non-obstructive" activities, including picketing at the gates of major entrances to the Yard as well as demonstrations at reunion affairs.

NAM's major activity last fall concentrated on a petition calling for a University-wide referendum on whether ROTC should be permitted back on campus. The action was a response to President Bok's implication before alumni last June that the University might countenance a return of ROTC to Harvard. The petition, circulated at the end of September, eventually garnered 2500 undergraduate signatures. However, the CHUL, which was presented the petition, refused to take action on it, saying that ROTC was not yet an issue. By its action, one NAM representative said, the CHUL was "trying to bury its head in the sand in the face of a national movement that is aimed at returning ROTC to campuses where it has ended."

Signing a petition has been about the extent of most students' involvement in Harvard political issues this year. Despite the hard work of its members, NAM has had trouble building any type of sustained movement. It has been a cool spring, as the lonely printers, picketing in the breeze that sweeps through the gates of the Yard, know. But if NAM members are able to cull some student support for the demonstrations they plan for Commencement, some administration officials might still find graduation day pretty hot.CrimsonMary Ridge