DOW

To the Editors of the CRIMSON:

Last night while pulling radio watch (in the village of An-Nhut-Tan set on the junction of two rivers 60 miles S.W. of Saigon) I perused the 11 Nov. 1967 edition of the New Republic. (The magazine had been garnered from under a pile of Lifes, Looks, and Auto 67 that the smiling and somewhat distracted Red Cross girls had left at Company Hq. this afternoon). The article that caught my attention was "The Right to Recruit on College Campuses" written by Maurice Ford, a teaching Fellow at Harvard.

In it Mr. Ford sets in context those events that led to holding a representative of the Dow Chemical Co. hostage. This was in protest of Dow's sales of Napalm to the government and in protest of Harvard opening its doors and giving Dow an opportunity to recruit at Harvard.

I suppose Dow was singled out for this attention because the use of Napalm has a way of heightening the moral indignation of the imagination. One thinks "to burn alive" and shudders.

But really is the treatment of Dow justified? First, Dow represents the end result of policy and not the source. If it was not Dow it would be somebody else. That is not being fatalistic ... just prognatic.

Secondly, why single out the manufacturer of Napalm? Why not also those firms who make parts for jets, gunpowder, and sophisticated weapons?

The military aim of this conflict (as opposed to the social aim) is to kill or capture the enemy. Whether this is done by dropping into his lap Napalm, a thousand pound bomb, or an 8 in. artillery shell leaves a very slight difference.

An aside here is that Napalm is an effective weapon that is used many times, to solve a particular situation. It is used often when Vietcong have U.S. troops pinned down (usually in ambush). We have no way of knocking out these bunkers without sustaining or risking sustaining heavy losses. Artillery cannot penetrate the earthen cover to the necessary depth and neither many times can bombs. Napalm can put "Charlie" out of action not by burning but by suffocation as the Napalm burning on the surface uses up available Oxygen in the tunnels.

The other issue growing out of the Dow incident was that you wished Harvard to close its doors to Army, Navy, and CIA recruiters. That is not the function of Harvard. Its mission is to present to you the choices available or to give to you enough information (total in scope) out of the cultural context of mankind so as to make enlightened action possible. Then it is up to you to choose your course of action toward recruiters.

I think in trying to make Harvard a moral replica of your ideals you neglect a world which sorely needs the practical application of those ideals. Let the results of your fine education be applicable to practical solution and not vocal flailings scattered on the breeze. 2 Lt. William H. Hickman