Professor Threatened

Press, Volume CIX, Issue 31981, 7 May 1969, Page 1

Professor Threatened

(N.Z. Press Association)

AUCKLAND, May 6.

A visiting American professor painted an ugly picture of student unrest in the United States during a lunchtime lecture at the University of Auckland today.

“To have threats made against my life is not an uncommon occurence,” said Professor Urban Whitaker, of

the San Francisco State College, “but I do not take the threats too seriously when the would-be assassin telephones beforehand with a warning. “The serious ones don’t make appointments, and I do take a little more notice when the police receive a tip-off from an informer.” This was what happened late one night in December, 1967, when, the professor said, he was advised to stay away from the campus on the following day. “The advice seemed to

make sense,” the professor went on, "but I knew that if the potential killer was really determined, staying at home wasn’t going to save me. The police arranged for a squad car to patrol past my house at hourly intervals. Most reassuring.” The next day, the members of the black faction who had plotted his death had made a decision to direct their violence against property, rather than life, and he returned to the college. “And violence to property there certainly was,” he said. “Fires and bomb scares became so frequent that even today my office is searched every morning by police before I arrive for work. “A police helicopter is permanently hovering over the campus, and 800 policemen are stationed across the street from the college. “The main reason for this student dissent and the ensuing violence is the young people's loss of faith in their elders. Vietnam, conscription and racial unrest on a large scale have all contributed to youth’s loss of faith in society.” The professor said he believed that student dissent could best be described as a downward spiral. “Violence leads to repression, which, in turn, leads to more violence,” he said. Professor Whitaker was pessimistic about the future of the United States. “With things going as they are,” he said, “it is not inconceivable that the United States of the seventies will resemble the Germany of the thirties.”