King Will Talk on War At '68 Commencement

The 1968 Class Committee has invited the Rev. Martin Luther King as a Class Day speaker to insure that the Vietnam war is dealt with directly during the Commencement ceremonies.

The invitation--which King's office has indicated he will accept--represents the first time that a Harvard senior class has independently obtained its own speaker for the Class Day exercises.

By inviting King, the Committee is breaking away from the usual Class Day fare of orations and awards to insist on the treatment of political issues.

The letter to King, signed by Alan D. Bersin '68, one of the four Class Marshals, asked the prominent peace and civil rights advocate to discuss the questions of "Asian conflict and urban crisis."

"Since King was the first to link the two in a dramatic way, we thought he'd be a good speaker," Bersin said Tuesday.

Robert C. Pozen '68, another of the speech's organizers, said the purposes of the King invitation were to show that Harvard will not address the Vietnam issue officially and to expose parents and students to anti-war views.

Right To Choose

"Seniors should have the right to make a choice at Commencement, to have what they want to happen," Pozen said.

Although some of the seniors involved in staging the speech have called it a "counter-commencement," there has apparently been no conflict between Harvard and the seniors over the King visit.

The University has, Bersin said, "cooperated all along the line" in arranging for the speech. The Administration has promised the Committee the Sever Quad-rangle for the morning of Class Day, June 12, and is securing a building for the affair in case of rain.

Surprise

"They've been pretty receptive to it, really," Pozen said. "We were surprised."

"The University can't help but concur with the feelings of the class," Eugene Kinasewich, assistant dean of the College, said yesterday. "It's their day, to do with as they will."

Kinasewich has acted as liason between the Administration and the seniors in setting up the speech.

"The Class Committee very strongly put across the point that they felt this was a special year," Kinasewich said. "They didn't feel they wanted to carry on with a normal pomp and circumstance program."