SDS ON ROTC

To the Editors of the CRIMSON:

Regarding the SDS letter against ROTC being on campus in the October 21 edition of the Crimson: We would like to know just when the SDS obtained a copyright on morality? We reject the notion that by allowing a student referendum to decide the status of ROTC, Harvard is submitting to the "narrow self interests of some Harvard students," or "welcoming the instruments of repression."

The issue is not the morality of U.S. involvement in Vietnam, but the simple Right of students to believe differently than SDS. To reject the right of some students to belong to ROTC, is to deny their right, their freedom, to believe as they want, and feel they must; it is to deny them the right to support U.S. involvement in Vietnam. This negation of freedom puts SDS in the position of advocating suppression. The SDS should remember that no matter what moral superiority they claim, they have no more right to suppress freedom than the U.S. government.

ROTC has just as much right to exist as any other organization at Harvard. (Given the right of ROTC to exist, course credit becomes a solely academic question.) We hope that the Harvard community will oppose any attack on freedom, whether this attack is made by the U.S. government's unenlightened involvement in Vietnam, or by an over-zealous and self-righteous student organization. Jeffrey Laurenti '71   Kendall Evans '71   Thomas B. Cook III '71   Murray Turnbull