UMass Students Protest Anti-CIA Rally

Students who support CIA recruiters on campus occupied the office of a radical college group Thursday to protest sit-ins aimed at banning the spy agency from the University of Massachusetts campus in Amherst.

Singing the national anthem, about 70 students stood nearly an hour in the office of the Radical Student Union after an afternoon of shouting matches between CIA supporters and protesters, said school spokesman Joan Ashwell.

The students said they occupied the office because they were fed up with demonstrators' taking over administration buildings to protest CIA recruitment on campus.

"They feel they should have the right to dictate who the First Amendment should apply to. We don't think that's right," said Lawrence Powell, 18, of Groveland, Mass.

Police had arrested 60 demonstrators, including former President Jimmy Carter's daughter Amy Carter and 1960s radical Abbie Hoffman, in a November 24 occupation protesting the CIA recruiters. Eleven protesters were arrested the week before in another occupation.

Those students said they want the CIA off campus because the agency was found in violation of international law for mining Nicaraguan harbors.

The CIA protesters had scheduled a noon rally before the student union Thursday to accuse police of brutality during the arrests and to demand that the school ban the spy agency from campus by February 4, when trustees next meet.

"If we have to do this every week, then by God we have to do it," said protester Dwayne Warren.

Brutality Protest

The CIA protesters criticized police use of handcuffs and a painful penlike device to force them to move from a university building during the November protest against CIA recruitment, campus observers said this week.

But police did not use excessive force in removing the protesters from the administration building at the University of Massachusetts, the Civility Commission said Tuesday.

The commission, a committee of 15 faculty, staff and students formed in 1981 to examine questionable university actions, said that campus police appeared unused to mass arrests during the occupation of Munson Hall on November 24.

"All the observers agreed that they didn't see the brutality during the incident," said Judith Davis, one of the five observers from the commission at the scene. "But we do feel that steps should be take to improve the quality of arrests."

She said the handcuffing and a method known as "painful compliance" through the application of a device called a kubuton on the body's pressure points made the observers uncomfortable.

She also acknowledged that no observers were stationed in the fire escape stairway, where students said they were treated roughly.

Director of Public Safety Gerald O'Neil said four officers sustained injuries ranging from a bite wound to a separated shoulder.

Conservative Backlash

In response to the anti-brutality, anti-CIA rally, conservative students scheduled their own rally at the same time and place. Ashwell said the crowd of 400 appeared evenly split between pro-and anti-CIA protesters.

Singing "God Bless America," CIA supporters drowned the chants of protesters yelling "CIA, USA, out of Nicaragua."

The spy agency's supporters stood before CIA protesters holding an American flag as the protesters marched to administration offices. The supporters then blocked the building's doors to guard against another occupation.

The conservative students returned to the student union and filed into the radical group's office, making a point of allowing anyone to enter. There were no arrests and no reports of violence, police said.

Chancellor Joseph Duffey announced shortly after the rally that political science Professor Dean Alfange would review the school's policy on campus recruitment with a committee of students and other faculty members.

Duffey said an educational forum with speakers from both sides of the CIA recruitment issue would be held on campus within the next few weeks and that he would meet with members of the Stop CIA Recruitment Organizing Committee on December 15.

"This is not in response to the group's demands, but is part of the adminstration's look at the issue," said Jeanne Hopkins Stover, another university spokesman.