Petition Seeks Bilateral Halt To Arms Race

A Cambridge-based group recently passed the halfway mark in a drive to collect 25,000 signatures of local voters on a national petition calling for a bilateral halt on "all further testing, production, and deployment of nuclear weapons."

The Cambridge Committee for a Nuclear Weapons Freeze has been centering its efforts in Harvard Square ever since a two night "blitz" there last summer reaped 3000 signatures, Toby Pugh, one of the committee's founders, said yesterday. The all-volunteer committee is part of a state and nation-wide citizen campaign to freeze the development of nuclear arms.

Although other district committees set their petition quotas at 10,000 signatures, the Cambridge group--representing House speaker Thomas P. O'Neill's eighth congressional district--chose a much higher goal "because of who our congressman is," Pugh said. O'Neill's reaction to the petition could have a "great influence on the president," she added.

The Harvard-Radcliffe Peace Alliance, although not officially associated with the Cambridge committee, is also gathering signatures for the petition in an effort to eventually "approach every undergraduate with the freeze proposal," Jamie Raskin '83, a Peace Alliance member, said yesterday.