Failed Fire-Bombing

To the Editors of the Crimson

Last Thursday night, April 23, an attempt at political assassination apparently occurred outside Malinckrodt Hall--a failed fire-bombing of Dr. Long V. Ngo '68, after his participation in an East Asian Legal Forum. This is the most alarming news at Harvard in years. Yet you reported nothing of it on Friday, April 24. You buried it on Saturday under an article about a broken water main. And you reported nothing of it on Monday. Your neglect is a gross dereliction of your journalistic duty.

It also alarms me that you have not published an editorial on the subject. If you believe any of the principles you usually preach, you must recognize that the attack on Dr. Ngo is an attack on us all. I hope that you understand me literally. If Dr. Ngo cannot return to Harvard to express his views on Vietnam without fearing for his life, then the faculty, guests, employees, and students who write and speak here on such subjects as Chile, Cuba, Nicaragua, and ElSalvador have to expect that they too may soon run deathly risks.

I urge you to report fully on the events of last Thursday and to call for an investigation by the appropriate authorities of what may well be a conspiracy to murder Dr. Ngo. John Womack Jr.   Professor of History