Reservists Attack Military Lobby; Picket Convention This Weekend

Picket lines manned by a dozen antiwar Vietnam veterans and Army Reserve officers confronted delegates arriving at the national convention of the Military Government Association at the Statler Hilton last night, as an antiwar group called Reservists Against the War (RAW) began two days of peaceful protest.

The MGA, a private organization composed of active and retired members of Army Civil Affairs units, was attacked by the RAW as a "lobbying and pressure group" for "America's own colonial administration corps." The veterans, some wearing combat medals, carried signs and distributed leaflets to the arriving delegates.

Civil Affairs units are Reserve units of the U.S. Army specially trained to "advise and assist" in the civil administration of countries where the United States is, or might be, militarily involved.

The MGA, in the organization's own words, is designed "to provide a head of steam behind a proper foreign policy."

"Civil Affairs units are the closest things we have to the colonial occupation forces that the British had," said ex-Lt. Dick Bavely, a member of RAW, at the demonstration. Bavely also claimed that the Civil Affairs units use "indepth sociological, economic, and political studies" to discover "the best ways to run other people's countries."

The 357th Civil Affairs Unit, stationed in Boston, recently completed a three-month study of the social and political structure of Tanzania. Civil Affairs units are also involved in planning Vietnamization, pacification and refugee programs in Vietnam.

Reservists' complaints concerning an Army policy of allowing reservists pay and retirement credits for "equivalent duty" of planning and attending the convention recently brought the Army, the MGA, and the 357th Civil Affairs Unit under investigation by Sen. Edward M. Kenuedy '54 (D-Mass.). An MGA spokesman defended the policy as a "long standing" one "of 25 years."