U.S. Ponders Aid-Pause to City Schools

Attorney General Nicholas de B. Katzenbach said Friday that there is a possibility that federal funds could be withheld from Boston under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act.

At a press conference at the Business School. Katzenbach said that the idea of withholding federal money "has been looked at" as a way of dealing with the Boston School Committee. The committee has refused to comply with the state's Racial Imbalance Law, and the state has consequently withheld educational aid from the city.

The Attorney-General also said he would be willing to meet with the School Committee. "If the Mayor, Governor, and Senators though it would be useful." He added, however, that "I think they [the Committee] would be difficult to persuade."

Katzenbach wa sat Harvard for the closing luncheon of the Institute for Police Chiefs, an intensive 3-week management-training course. he made a very short speech for the chiefs, and then presented them with their diplomas. By the time of the press conference, he was perspiring heavily in un-air-conditioned Kresge Hall.

Katzenbach was asked if he included Boston on the list of 30 or 40 cities in which violence could erupt at any time. "I wouldn't exclude Boston from the list," he answered.

He disagreed with one reporter who suggested that Boston has not had racial violence because the Negro leaders here are 'moderate." "Perhaps," he said, "but I don't think Negro leaders have anything to do with it."

"If a group of whites in Chicago throw rocks at Martin Luther King. I don't hear any calls for responsible white leadership."

The Attorney-General mentioned two factors which help determine why one city has violence while another does not:

* Level of unemployment

* Presence of gangs. "One gang goes out with weapons," he suggested, "and instead of fighting another gang, they break some windows in a store, and you have a riot."

Katzenbach ended his talk to the police chiefs by asking them to look at the whole system of Justice together: the police, the courts, and correction.