Organize Locally

(The following represents the opinion of a minority of the CRIMSON editorial board and was written by WILLIAM R. GALEOTA.)

DURING the past week. President Nixon has given the anti-war movement opportunities which that movement has not enjoyed for over two years, since President Johnson moved to halt the bombing of North Vietnam. The war. a quiescent issue in recent months, is once again a matter of urgent public concern. The support which Nixon mustered for his ill-defined policies of Vietnamization and phased withdrawal is now uncertain. Many Americans, not merely those on college campuses, now feel that Nixon plans not to end the war but to extend it indefinitely, over more years and more Asian nations. It remains for the anti-war movement to determine how best to turn this reawakened public concern into public action to end the war.

A strike by university members would be a useful first step. Such a strike can solidify anti-war sentiment on campuses. and demonstrate the extent of that sentiment to the country as a whole. This effort would be particularly effective if organizers of the strike concentrate their efforts on those universities commonly regarded as bastions of Middle America. When it comes to making the American public aware of the anti-war movement's strength, five hundred students on strike at the University of Montana are worth five thousand on strike at Harvard. Those undertaking the strike should, however, be aware of the limitations to its effectiveness. Unlike an industrial strike, which imposes appreciable financial loss upon an employer, a student strike has little more than symbolic value. Though such a strike can demonstrate the existence of an anti-war movement, by itself it can do liule to spread and strengthen that movement.

To increase the strike's impact, some students might be tempted to take more militant actions such as attempting to shut down; possibly by violence, ROTC buildings and other on-campus symbols of the military. Far from being strong blows against the military, such actions would be like trying to demolish the Pentagon with a few slingshots. Universities do provide some services to the military, but these services can be-and undoubtedly will be, if necessary-procured through other channels such as expanded military academies and government-operated research laboratories. At most, militant campaigns against ROTC and defense research can impose some marginal costs upon the government, while further dividing the anti-war movement, diverting it from more profitable tasks and setting national opinion against it. Wading into water his vice-president has already tested. President Nixon attempted this week to link the entire anti-war movement to the violent actions of its most extreme elements. It would be sheer folly for the movement to confirm Nixon's charges through further violent on-campus actions such as those at the University of Maryland.

ANOTHER tactic of questionable effectiveness is the proposed May 9 demonstration in Washington. Before concentrating their energies toward this demonstration, strike leaders should ask themselves what will come afterward. When the buses return from Washington will most demonstrators, feeling they've made their contribution, disappear completely from the movement and spend the remainder of the strike on Cape Cod? Moreover, the short time available for planning the demonstration, and the experience of April 15 in Boston would seem to indicate that going to Washington en masse could produce sporadic street-fighting, and a further division of the movement from the nation. Supporting those Congressmen who are now trying to force Nixon to reverse his actions is important, but this support can best be given through letters, petitions, and visits by student delegations.

The anti-war movement must turn its vision away form the campus, and extend that vision to cover months and years, not days. Those who are determined to reverse America's foreign and domestic policies should do now what in the past they have often talked about but seldom tried with any constancy: organize strong and continuing anti-war support in communities throughout the nation. These local campaigns should attempt to link the war with other public concerns. pointing out, for example, that defense spending contributes to inflation. Within a framework of non-violent action. a number of local tactics are conceivable: working for anti-war candidates this fall, trying to bring Congressmen now uncertain about the war into the anti-war camp, and beginning stockholder campaigns and consumer boycotts against defense produces.

Local organizing is not the most militant or glamorous of the movement's options, but it is the best and perhaps the only way to assure that the American public's re-awakened concern over Vietnam will not again lapse into acceptance of the war.