NVA Plans Return to South Boston

The Committee for Non-Violent Action (CNVA) will return to South Boston where its anti-war campaign has twice recently met a violent reception.

Paul Klotzle, a Boston University sophomore and treasurer of CNVA's Boston chapter, said yesterday that there were tentative plans to distribute leaflets outside of the South Boston High School. "Once they [the high school students] get used to us," he declared, we'll move out to the MBTA stations." A meeting to work out final plans will be held tonight.

Ten days ago, six CNVA members were beaten on the steps of the South Boston Municipal Court by about 75 teenagers, most of them high school students. Two of the CNVA members had just burned their draft cards, and two others their reclassification notices.

Because there were no police at the courthouse, the beatings touched off a controversy in Boston. Last Wednesday members of the Massachusetts Council for Constitutional Rights met Boston mayor John F. Collins to protest police unpreparedness.

Collins deplored the beatings and said a law abiding city cannot tolerate violence on its streets against those who embrace unpopular causes without undermining our very society." The mayor refrained, however, from direct criticism of the police, although he assured the four MCCR members verbally that there would be better protection in the future.

Violence Feared

Because of past incidents, however, many observers believe that there will be more violence if CNVA returns to Boston. Klotzle said yesterday, however, that "we're going to do every- thing we can to avoid it "[violence]". He said those people leafleting would arrive unannounced at the high school and try to avoid building up a crowd.

"Once a mob builds up, we're totally ineffective," he observed. He said that CNVA would notify the police, but hoped that large numbers of patrolmen would not be sent to protect pamphleteers. "They form a barrier and we can't communicate."

He conceded, however, that people in South Boston "are on guard for us--they're looking for us."

"Their main fear is that we're communists and if we can get rid of that we might have a chance," he said. An ex-marine, now a member of CNVA, may distribute a leaflet explaining pacifism in an attempt to "cool people off."

Seven members of CNVA--including two girls and a Harvard student on leave of absence--are now halfway through a 20-day jail sentence. Along with four others, the seven were sentenced for loitering and obstructing traffic for an attempted sit-in March 23 at the Boston Army Base in South Boston. Two of the other four, including a Harvard senior, paid a $20 fine instead of going to jail. The last two, both Harvard students, have appealed the decision.

CNVA holds an hour vigil every morning outside the Charles Street jail, where the seven are held