Professors Call For Total Amnesty At Boston Rally

Two Harvard professors, speaking yesterday at a rally in Boston, called for unconditional amnesty for all Vietnam war resisters and a lifting of the trade embargo on South Vietnam.

George Wald, Higgins Professor of Biology, and Leroy W. Yolton '51, coordinator of field education addressed about 150 people at the Arlington St. Church in Boston to mark the start of National Amnesty Week.

In his address to the group, Wald said he thinks the American government has been more concerned with death than life, adding that the government has had "a deep concern with bringing every dead body home."

"What we want to do is bring the live bodies home and that is what amnesty is all about," Wald said.

Yolton, who was master of ceremonies, encouraged the group to write their Congressmen, adding that "the time is now to pressure Congressional officials into granting unconditional amnesty to all Vietnam war resisters."

Seven other people addressed the rally, sponsored by the Massachusetts Coalition for Amnesty, including Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich.), Rev. Paul Deats, a professor at the Boston University School of Theology, and Austin Hodge, an exiled resister who said he intended to turn himself into authorities following the rally.