Police Seek Two Suspects In Explosion at the CFIA

Two young women were identified yesterday as suspects in the bombing of the Center for International Affairs (CFIA) early yesterday morning.

"There's been identification made, but we're not sure if it's the right identification," Cambridge Detective Sergeant Joseph A. Roscoe said last night. The two women, non-students, were identified through photographs of demonstrations all across the nation, he said.

A group calling itself the "Proud Eagle Tribe, a group of revolutionary women," sent a letter to the CRIMSON and Boston newspapers yesterday claiming responsibility for the bombing.

Archibald Cox, Harvard's crisis manager, said last night that the damage to the CFIA was "considerably less than the $40,000 quoted by some newspapers." Last night's Boston Evening Globe estimated the damage at $20,000.

The bomb, which exploded in the lesk drawer of U. S. Army Col. Donald Bletz, a fellow of the CFIA, at 1:02 a. m. yesterday morning, was apparently encased in a length of steel pipe, Capt. Leo Doyle of the State Fire Marshal's office, said yesterday.

Probably Not Dynamite

Doyle said he could not speculate on what explosive was used except that it was "probably not dynamite."

Boston newspapers yesterday afternoon received by special delivery a letter signed by the "Proud Eagle Tribe" claiming responsibility for the bombing. The letter, which carried a Cambridge postmark, said, "[the bombing] our first action, is part of a national fall offensive by tribes of kids all over to attack the enemy everywhere he shows his ugly face."

The letter said that "The Center figures out new ways for Pig Nixon to try to destroy people's wars in Asia, Latin America, and the Middle East."

(The full text of the letter appears on page 8)

Although there is no evidence that the Weathermen were connected with yesterday's bombing, a Weatherman manifesto issued last week predicted a "fall offensive" which would spread "from Santa Banbara to Boston to Kent State," adding that the offensive would be carried out by "tribes and families."

A group calling itself the "Quarter Moon Tribe" claimed credit for the explosion which demolished a ROTC in-

stallation at the University of Washington in Seattle last week.

Damage to the CFIA's third floor was extensive.

The third-floor blast, at 12:50 a. m. Thursday, knocked a University police sergeant to the ground as he was searching the first floor of the CFIA. He described the bomb as a "a muffled sound that lasted only a couple of seconds." But people four blocks away heard the explosion. The blast knocked out third floor windows, blew out part of the ceiling, and knocked over stacks of books. Three offices- 309, 310, and 311- were completely destroyed.

The description of the two women suspected of planting the bomb were obtained by a team of investigators headed by State Fire Marshal Ralph Garrett and including six Cambridge Police detectives and two FBI agents.

Suspects Sighted

Garrett told reporters yesterday that an employee of the CFIA library had seen the pair near the library on the Center's third floor at about 4 p. m. Monday afternoon. When she asked if she could help them, he said, she was met with a curt refusal.

Later, checking the officer on the third floor before leaving, he said, she noticed a grey metal box- similar to one that the girls had carried in- in a desk drawer in Bletz's office.

Garrett traced the explosion to the desk.

Witnesses who had seen the Center's third floor- sealed to the public since early yesterday morning- said that the explosion had demolished the non-supporting walls, broken through the ceiling and into the attic, and stripped the plaster away from supporting walls, leaving curved, petal-shaped scars.

After stating that the damage would be much less than the $40,000 figure, Cox said that Harvard is a self-insuring corporation and that the Center carried no commercial insurance. "We will make the library available for use as fast as we can," Cox added.

Asked about the damage, Lester E. Gordon, director of the Center Development Advisory Service, said, "A good portion of the University's core library on underdeveloped countries has been destroyed."

President Pusey issued a statement yesterday afternoon which called the bombing "a senseless attack upon the entire University." He added that he was "confident the entire University will draw together in pursuing its work, sobered, thankful there was no loss of life."