Harvard War 'Coalition' Formed; N.Y. Rally May Draw Thousands

Several Harvard faculty members -- including Gar Alperovitz, Fellow of the Institute of Politics, and Samuel Bowles, assistant professor of Economics -- have formed a "coalition" of students, faculty members, and local residents to organize people in the Boston area against the war in Vietnam.

The group, which already has about 100 volunteers, has begun experimenting with various techniques of community organizing in Cambridge and Brookline. The leaders hope to learn enough to build an independent political movement on the state and possibly the national level to oppose U.S. policy in Vietnam, and to test their strength in the 1968 presidential primaries.

The volunteers are now ringing doorbells and canvassing local residents on their feelings about the Vietnam situation. The group is seeking out politically inactive people who nevertheless strongly oppose the war in Vietnam.

'Discussion-Action'

Once these people are found, Alperovitz said, the next step will be the formation of "discussion-action" groups in the community to study the war. He hopes the people will subsequently undertake such political actions as pressing their Congressmen to hold open hearings in the community on the war and getting referenda opposing the war on the ballot in local elections.

"Essentially, what we are seeking is a 'teach-out,' rather than a 'teach-in,'" Alperovitz said. "We have to stop talking among ourselves and start educating other people about the problem."

The coalition includes other faculty members such as Michael L. Walzer, associate professor of Government; local clergymen, including Rev. Richard E. Mumma; radical student groups such as SDS; and local housewives.

Middle Class Model

What the group is trying to do now, Alperovitz continued, is to work out a model of how the country's large middle class can be most effectively contacted and organized.

At the anti-war marches this Saturday in New York and San Francisco, pamphlets written by Alperovitz calling for a "National Vietnam Summer" in 1967 will be distributed. The pamphlets ask college students to spend this summer organizing residents of their own neighborhoods against the war.