An Icy Draft Rally

Quarter of seven, with the sun down and the wind biting, the scene was disturbing.

In 15 minutes, a rally, a huge rally, was supposed to start, and the steps of Widener were bare.

"I was getting ready to turn it into a press conference," Jamie Raskin '83, who organized the protest, said.

And then, quickly, people began to appear. Despite the wind, which made it feel like 20 below zero, more than 800 Harvard students and demonstrators showed up for a two-hour demonstration against President Carter's call for a renewal of draft registration.

One week to the hour after Carter's speech, and without the backing of any established campus groups, Raskin and a few friends engineered the protest, among the largest here in the last decade.

"This will serve as a catalyst for action," Raskin predicted after the rally. Anti-draft organizers assembled, 100 strong, Thursday night, to plan future strategy.

Current plans call for a campus-wide canvassing effort, perhaps a teach-in, and participation in today's protest at Boston's JFK Federal Building.

College groups around the country enjoyed similar successes--nearly 2000 marched in Berkeley, and a large crowd scuffled with flag-carrying pro-draft forces. Harvard organizers have begun discussions with other groups around the country for a coordinated day of protest later this month or early next month.

But the success of last week's rally also may cause problems for the Harvard anti-draft movement.

At Thursday's meeting, participants demanded that "political discussion" be moved up on the agenda, and then proceeded to argue fruitlessly for an hour about the ideology of the movement:

Should the group's commitment to preventing draft registration also include strong anti-militaristic principles? Should thev focus on peace now or peace always? Should the libertarian argument that forced draft is wrong under any circumstances be adopted?

Thursday's meeting was also marked by a dramatic exodus when the time came for people to sign up for canvassing.

But the spirit demonstrated Wednesday night was considerable, especially under the circumstances. As George Sammaripa, co-author of The Price of Defense, told the appreciative crowd, "it's a lot colder in Afghanistan."