Students React to Bombs-'We've Been Here Before'

At 3:30 a.m. last Saturday, while most of Harvard slept soundly dreaming about things like 29-29 ties and Jack Daniels-filled silver flasks, Secretary of State Melvin R. Laird announced that the U. S. had begun a "limited duration protective reaction air strike" against the North Vietnamese.

All across the country, the campuses that had given the Nixon Administration's war policy the toughest time were busy with crucial football games. Hardly anyone bothered to read the papers. As Douglas K. Barrett '72 put it, "Most people around here were too busy with the whole college weekend thing to give a thought to the bombing."

But by Sunday night, the news of the action had reached almost everyone at Harvard. Reactions were sometimes angry, sometimes disappointed, but most just expressed the apathetic "What do you expect?"

In a random poll conducted by the CRIMSON last night, students suggested a number of possible reasons for the renewal of the bombing, but few had any definite idea of what to do about it.

Deborah L. Friedson '72 expressed the feelings of most students: "Look what happened after Cambodia. We struck, we marched, we picketed until our feet almost fell off. And what did we have to show for it? Four kids lying shot apart at Kent State. Then this fall, some of us worked for people like Ottinger or Goodell, and what did we get for that? James Buckley and more war, that's what. So now, I just don't think people really think there's anything that can be done."

While most responses tended toward the feelings of despair and "we've been there before" weariness expressed above, a definite undercurrent of cynical anger was evident. There were numerous references to "that madman in the White House."

Michael Sobel '72 said, "I don't know if it was done intentionally, but the timing of the bombing just before the Thanksgiving recess couldn't have been better. It will be pretty hard to get people mobilized. And from a political point of view, the fact that elections are over is probably not just coincidental."