Nation: At War with War

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Even at Berkeley, which had witnessed three weeks of promiscuous "trashing" (random destruction) and cop-baiting, students rallied behind a faculty-student committee intent on raising protest above rampage and turning the vast resources of the university against the war. At a rally of 15,000 in the university's Hearst Greek Theater, talk of militance and confrontation was booed. Chicago Seven Defendant Tom Hayden turned up and tried to blend the war, the Black Panthers and the Kent State murders into one rhetorical attack on the U.S. His audience was not moved. Berkeley Law Professor Frank Newman received more sympathy when he recommended action to pass state antiwar laws and congressional measures to cut off funds for the Cambodian war.

The Berkeley crowd enthusiastically applauded U.C.L.A. Law Professor Michael Tigar when he said: "We must confront the President and force him to withdraw from Viet Nam and leave the people there to determine their own fate. In the course of history, genocide and imperialism will be stopped. We have to decide whether you and I will liberate this country from the inside or whether it will be liberated from abroad." More than ever, there was a feeling among the dissidents that they formed a coherent bloc capable of exercising political muscle.

Last week's sentiment was not confined to the leftist young. Peter Winnen, 27, a Kent State junior and an Army veteran of Khe Sanh, appeared at a Cleveland rally. "I saw enough violence, blood and death and I vowed, 'never again, never again.' What I saw on campus was the same thing again. Now I must protest. I'm not a leftist, but I can't go any further. I'll do damn near anything to stop the war now." The League of Women Voters, holding a convention in Washington, departed from nonpartisanship to hold an antiwar rally on the steps of the Capitol.

Almost as if the new emphasis on peaceful protest and political action cloaked a new danger from the left, reaction from the right was quick and angry. Some of the worst counterviolence of last week was organized in Manhattan by helmeted construction workers, who assaulted student demonstrators in the Wall Street area. More than 200 workers bearing American flags, cheering and singing the Star-Spangled Banner, set upon student demonstrators with fists and lead pipes, sending at least 20 to the hospital. New York's Mayor John Lindsay had ordered the city hall flag lowered to half-staff in memory of the Kent State dead. The workers demanded that it be raised to the top again. While Lindsay spent part of the day addressing antiwar rallies elsewhere in the city, the flag was hoisted to the top of the flagstaff after police reported that they could not (or would not) defend the building against the workers. As the construction men withdrew down Wall Street, they were showered with tickertape like returning astronauts. In Seattle, members of a vigilante group called HELP (Help Eliminate Lawless Protest) were reported to have set upon students with clubs.

Rising Reaction