Mass Protest Planned

Press, Volume CIX, Issue 32118, 14 October 1969, Page 17

Mass Protest Planned

CBf/ A.A.P.-Seuter correspondent, MICHAEL PRENTICE. through N.Z.P.A.) WASHINGTON, October 13. A nation-wide protest on Wednesday against the Vietnam war is building up to be one of the largest yet organised.

It will be a dramatic answer to President Nixon, who appealed last month for a halt to public criticism of his handling of the war.-

The sponsors of the demonstrations have asked Americans to break off from their daily routine to join marches, vigils and other forms of anti-

war protest, and the aca- ! demic life of many university 1 campuses is expected to be almost at a standstill as stu- i dents boycott classes for the < day. ’ Elsewhere protesters will i wear black armbands at work. I There is no reliable esti- 1 mate of how many will join i in the protest or attend rallies, but opinion polls report '■ that well over half of the < American public now believe ’• that United States involve- < ment in Vietnam is a mistake. 1 Among them is the student s son of the Secretary of Defence (Mr Melvin Laird), ' John Laird, aged 19, who has ' announced that he will join 1 protest marchers from Wis- ’ cousin University. COUNTERACTION 1

President Nixon’s chief lieutenant in the-Senate, Senator Hugh Scott, of Pennsylvaia, has suggested a way in which supporters of the Administration can demonstrate their disapproval of -the protest: he urged motorists all over the country to drive with their car lights on during daylight hours on Wednesday <to show their support for Mr Nixon. He added: “I hope Americans will demonstrate against Hanoi—that’s the enemy.” The principal organiser of the protest against the war is the Vietnam Moratorium Committee, which includes several people who. were campaign workers in the Presidential bid of the peace candidate, Senator Eugene McCarthy, last year. In Washington, the highlight of Wednesday’s protest will be a torchlight procession around the’White House, led by Mrs Coretta King, widow of the slain civil rights leader, Dr Martin Luther King. WIDE SUPPORT

Many of those who demonstrate. next week will not be concerned about the rights or wrongs of the situation in Vietnam, or why the United

States became involved in the first place. What was originally planned as a student protest against the war has spread far beyond the campus, and won support from senators, Congressmen, state governors, professional men and women, and academic leaders. Business in the Senate itself may come to a halt,/necause a group of Democratic senators have urged a boycott of legislative business in Congress on Wednesday, designated Moratorium Day. Supporters of the Nixon Administration fear that it will be a day of demonstrations against the President as well as against the war. Critics of Mr Nixon’s war policy say that it is a continuation of Presidept John-

son’s, and that Mr Nixon’s remarks on the war sound more and more like those of his predecessor. A Harris Poll survey this month showed that only 35 per cent of Americans approved of Mr Nixon’s handling of the war. The positive rating for Mr Johnson in March of last year, just before he announced his decision not to seek re-election, was 27 per cent. Appealing last month for a display of national unity to strengthen the United States’ bargaining position at the Paris peace talks, Mr Nixon obviously hoped, to reduce criticism; but in remarking that in no . circumstances would he be affected by Wednesday’s protest; he increased the determination of his critics to go ahead with it. The latest Harris Poll survey indicated that there will be a broader base of support for this protest than for previous ones. The survey found that disaffection over the course of events in SouthEast Asia had spread beyond the usual centres of protest—

on the campuses, among blacks and intellectuals —to include a great many voters who helped to put Mr Nixon in office.