Ali to Speak Saturday for Class of '75

Muhammad Ali, philosopher, diplomat and three-time world heavyweight champion, will speak on "The Intoxications of Life" at Sanders Theater Saturday morning in a Class of 1975 symposium.

In 1975, Ali was scheduled to give the Class Day address, but spoke a week earlier because the boxer's training schedule prevented him from appearing on the official celebration of Class Day.

"Everybody who went to his talk had a great time, so we thought we'd do it again," Harden H. Wiedemann '75, first class marshall, said yesterday of Ali's June 7, 1975, speech before 1100 people at the Business School's Burden Auditorium.

Ali will not receive a fee for his speech, only airfare from his Deer Lake, Pa. training camp and overnight accomodations for himself, his wife Belinda, a bodyguard and his manager, Howard Bingham.

"He's looking forward to coming," Bingham said from the Deer Park camp yesterday adding, "A Black guy from Lousiville, who never went to college being asked by some of the world's decision-makers--he's very excited about it."

Ali, currently preparing for an unprecedented fourth attempt at the heavyweight title, could not be reached for comment.

Ali first won the heavyweight title in 1964 on a seventh-round knockout of Sonny Liston. Stripped of the crown in 1967 after he refused to serve in the military, he regained it in his eight-round knockout of George Foreman in the Kinshasa, Zaire, "Rumble in the Jungle" of 1974. After losing to Leon Spinks in 1978, Ali regained the title for an unprecendented third time when he defeated Spinks later that year.

Wiedemann said the class made Ali an honorary member after his first speech and may offer him a "plaque or parchment" at Saturday's speech.

Ali insisted on the topic "Intoxications of Life" and wanted an appropriate setting for such an address, Wiedemann, editor of Campaigns and Elections magazine, said.

In his 1975 speech, Ali discoursed on the importance of friendship and remembering one's roots to the standing-room-only B-School hall