Anti-War Crowd in Church Cheers Filmmaker Greene

Inside the Arlington St. Church Saturday, a succession of anti-war speakers addressed a crowd which numbered 750 at the 2 p.m. start, and about 125 when the meeting ended four hours later.

Felix Greene, whose film China! played in Boston last year, received the longest applause for a talk on Chinese and North Vietnamese attitudes toward the war. Greene has visited China several times and North Vietnam once --in January--when he spoke with Ho Chi Minh.

While much of his conversation with Ho was "off the record," Greene said, he had gotten the impression that North Vietnam would negotiate on one condition--that the U.S. "demonstrate an intent to get out of Vietnam."

President Johnson's offer of unconditional negotiations. Greene said. 'is as if Japan had said after Pearl Harbor, 'Come have discussions with us.'" "They have a kind of David and Goliath feeling about it," he explained.

"We hear about the 'Industrial complex of Hanoi. Well, just don't believe it. Americans don't seem to recognize how very rudimentary the economy of North Vietnam is."

Greene anticipated three situations in which China might enter the war:

* "If her own cities or nuclear installations were bombed."

* "If the Viet Cong or Hanoi were losing and appealed to China."

* "If the Chinese see preparations for moving north of the 17th parallel."

Greene said China could mobilize 100 million members of its militia within three hours, freeing its regular army to move outside the Chinese border.

Anti-war demonstrations, he said, have an important effect on the people of other countries. "They are thankful that some Americans are standing out against the drift to barbarism."

In addition to Greene, the speakers included: Willard Uphays, director of World Fellowship, Inc.; Bradford Lyttie, chairman of the New England Committee for Non-Violent Action; Neam Chousky professor of Linguistics at M.I.T.: Edwin Moise, professor of Mathematics and Education at Harvard; and John Gerassi, author of The Great Fear in Latin America.

In addition, two "international" students--one of them from Harvard--addressed the meeting. John Barzman 69' who lived for 12 years is France, said the demonstrators would ultimately number is the millions.

The Rev. Kenneth DeP. Hughes, who chaired the meeting, acknowledged that the protesters are still a minority, but said "the hope of the world has always been in its minorities."