Teach-In Shows Role of Firms In Asia's Electronic Battlefield

The role of Boston-area companies in developing the "automated battlefield" in Southeast Asia was the focus of a teach-in last night sponsored by the Non-Violent Direct Action Group. NDAG, which has organized civil disobedience against local draft boards and army bases, announced a winter "consciousness raising" campaign against these companies.

Remote Control War

A slide show featured in the program at St. Peter's Church in Cambridge presented the argument that waging war by remote control dampens antiwar protest by reducing American casualties. Citing Senate investigations, military magazines, and testimony from returned veterans, the slide show demonstrated the use of advanced technology to replace ground troops.

Automatic people sensors, dropped from airplanes and disguised as tropical plants or animal droppings, relay information to a central computer in Thailand. The computer decides whether to bomb the target, guides bombers, and drops the bombs, some of which are equipped with TV cameras or lasers to follow moving targets.

Scientists from Boston-area companies and universities took the initiative in proposing the automated battlefield to the Defense Department, Bill Hazeltine, NDAG member said.

Hazeltine, who has researched Defense Department contracts to Boston companies, traced the development of a "university military-industrial complex" involved in strategic weapons system. then counter-insurgency, and most recently in the electronic battlefield. Hazeltine cited contracts to local companies for such devices as antipersonnel bombs, an airborne sensor system for night target surveillance, an armed reconnaissance scout vehicle, and a tactical communications satellite.

About 75 people attended the teach-in, intended to kick off NDAG's campaign against local companies involved in military research. NDAG will leaflet people who live near and work for these companies, an NDAG spokeswoman said last night.

Aerospace Research, NDAG's first target, has developed a foliage penetration radar for the Defense Department, as a company spokesman confirmed yesterday. Spokesmen for three other companies refused to comment on NDAG's information.

Harry Hague, chairman of the board of Harbridge House, said yesterday that his company does "quite a bit" of management work for the Defense Department. It provides similar service for many other public agencies and for private companies, he added