Dick Gregory Pokes Fun at War; Today Is His 164th Day of Fasting

"If I were elected President, the first thing I'd do is raise G.I. life insurance to $50,000," Dick Gregory, comedian and former candidate for President said to a packed house at Jordan Hall last night.

"Everything else has risen in value, it seems, but an American boy's life; I'd raise that insurance to $50,000 and make war so expensive that nobody in this country would want it", he added.

Gregory has been fasting in protest against the Indochina War for 163 days, taking nothing but fruit juice. He has not been running for President, but he has given at least two lectures a day for several months trying to arouse public action against the war.

In his speech, Gregory discussed several issues--racism, the Mafia, and the war--with a blend of humor and rage. Alleging that the Federal government has tapped his phone for eight years, Gregory said, "I'm the only black man in America who owes Bell Telephone $12,000 and whose phone has not been cut off."

When the controversy over busing began, Gregory said, he sent George Wallace a telegram: "Why don't you do what you did before--stand in front of a bus?"

"When 'trouble' starts in a ghetto or on a college campus," Gregory said, "the President and others start talking about sending in troops to preserve law and order." "But," he added, "never has the President threatened to use the Army to break the slimy degenerate Mafia hoodlums."

To stop war, to change society, Gregory said, students and other young people should use economic boycotts. "Declare a boycott on Christmas until the war ends, and Sears Roebuck and other firms will get pretty uptight. Get organized, boycott the big ones like General Motors and you'll be amazed how fast things happen," he added.

Gregory called the Washington police department "the most brilliant in history," because on Mayday last spring they "arrested 7000 people on one day without including one criminal." He urged young people to combine demonstrations with economic boycotts.