SERLIN

A student sit-in
at Britain's

staid old LSE

By JOHN WILLIAMSON
_ (London, England)

PPERMOST in the minds of
the council of the National
: Union of Students which
met in Liverpool on the last day
of March was the growing
discontent of Britain’s 127,000
university students. The council
is actually a national conference
comprising elected representa-
tives from the unions in each
university,

The militant lead of the re-
cently organized Radical Stu-
dents Alliance, as a_ ginger
group within NUS found expres-
sion around four issues:

(1) Opposition to the effort of
the NUS leadership to rule out
of order political issues such as
Vietnam or apartheid, except as
they apply directly to students;

(2) Attitude to the Interna-
tional Students Conference,
whose recent disclosure as the
recipient of CIA money makes
it less savory to British students;

(3) The need to change the
present undemocratic voting sys-
tem for the NUS leadership; and

(4) Criticism of the NUS lead-
ership for failing to support the
recent sit-in of students at the
London School of Economics.

Irrespective of the final out-
come of the many months of
struggle at the world-famous

_LSE, things will never be the

same ‘again. This affiliate of the
London University since 1900
was originally founded before
the turn of the century by the
Webbs and Bernard Shaw. It al-
ways had the shadow of the
Fabian Society over it, but gain-
ed its greatest notoriety under
the directorship of Harold Laski.

Today its more than 3,000
students—nearly 1,000 of whom
come from abroad—are housed
in very poor and overcrowded
conditions, with large classes,
falling academic standards and
and an administration that still
lives in the sheltered sanctuaries
of their Victorian-era ivory
towers, with little awareness of
a changing world which also
finds expression in the composi-
tion of the student body of the
school.

With the Easter vacation,
there ended an eight-day sit-in
of students at the LSE, number-
ing from 400 to 1,200, and ad-
mittedly supported by 2,500 stu-
dents. During the course of this
struggle there were picket lines,

¢ ROME :

a hunger strike of 13 students,
questions in Parliament, a march
of over 2,000 students including
solidarity delegations from other
colleges through London's

streets, and exposure of many

people—in LSE administration,
NUS and in government.

The sit-in was in protest
against the suspension by LSE
Director Sir Sydney Caine of
David Adelstein, president of the

Students Union, and Marshal.

Bloom, president of the graduate
students association, until the
end of the summer term. They
were both charged with allow-
ing a vote at a protest gathering
of students in the LSE entrance
hall who were demanding en-
trance to the Old Theatre in the
college to hold a protest meeting
against the appointment of Dr.
Walter Adams as the new direc-
tor. This opposition to Adams
was based on his failure, while
principal of University College
in Salisbury, to fight the racial-
ist policy of the Rhodesian gov-
ernment. This attempted protest
meeting followed a letter from
Caine which forbade indefinitely
any discussion about the Adams
appointment. _

During the course of the eight-
day sit-in, the attitude of the
administration fluctuated —be-
tween aggressive hard-boiled-
ness and the offering of conces-
sions. Caine started off by say-

Charge Bonn
to make own
A-weapons

* BERLIN
Professor Albert Norden,
executive member of the So-
cialist Unity Party, told an
international press conference
here last week that West Ger-
many. stands on the threshold
of launching its own produc-
tion of atomic weapons and
that 60 percent of the young
officers in the West German
army are sympathizers of the
neo-nazi party.

(More details on this
speech will be carried in a
story by our Berlin corres-
pondent Max Reich in next
week’s issue.)

ing the sit-in was the work of
“anarchist agitators.” Actually,
many students who had not par-
ticipated in the original protest
against the Adams appointment
actively supported the sit-in, as
they saw their democratic
rights as students being endan-
gered, and their elected leaders
being victimized.

At one point the police were
called in and threw out the sit-
in students and this was follow-
ed by 102 additional suspen-
sions. Provocative statements
were made by various LSE offi-
cials, including the threat of
loss of grants. Denis Howell,
undersecretary for education in
the Labor government, made an
outright racist attack on over-
seas students, whom he charged
with being “the ringleaders,”
after “being subsidized to the
tune of £800 each.” He said their
“coming here” and participating
in such action was “an imperti-
nence” and it was time they
were ‘‘sent packing.”

Later, the suspensions of the
102 were changed to a £5 fine
to be donated to charity. The
suspensions of Adelstein and
Bloom, although upheld on ap-
peal, were modified to allow
them to visit their tutor and re-
ceive instruction, subject to sat-
isfactory behavior. It was also
proposed to establish a new
board of discipline on which
there would be two student’rep-
resentatives. The other members
would be two from the staff and
two from the court of governors.

On the eve of the Easter va-
cation, with many students al-
ready on their way home, the
LSE Students Union, by a vote
of 232 in favor, 177 against and
15 abstentions, voted to suspend
the sit-in and called for an inde-
pendent inquiry into the suspen-
sion of the two student leaders.

In the course of the sit-in, 16
staff lecturers, headed by Dr.
Ralph Millaband, publicly con-
demned the suspensions. A total
of 60 staff members supported
the student action in one way
or another.

While the Tory dinosaurs call
for the birch and want to further
restrict entrance to the universi-

’ ties to the “upper class,” the

more far-seeing Sunday Obser-
ver says the “happenings at
LSE” are “only the symptoms,
in a particularly acute form, of

London School of Economics students in sit-down protest

wien
a wider malaise which threatens more self-confident L i
the entire system of higher edu- decessors” and
cation in this country.” “which senses its

It goes on to say that “Stu- not outlet for it ith
dents are in danger of coming The extension 4" nw
to regard themselves as a new of the entire syste eM
kind of intellectual proletariat,” education is oné ott
a generation “which is both social problems °

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around the sv,

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is
A DELEGATION of the Canadian Communist Pat. ih
chairman, Tim Buck, has arrived in Kiev for discuss! att
Communist Party of the Ukraine. Members of the delee of 4
the Ukrainian capital and laid a wreath on the 8!@ tee
known soldier . .. The Roman Catholic Ad Hoc Com™ af
the War in Vietnam has called for demonstrations ith”
York’s St. Patrick’s Cathedral each Sunday in proves!
dinal Spellman’s defense of the Vietnam war. Thelt stat
in part: “How many more children must be burned Be, sith
the Catholic hierarchy of New York adds its voice
that of the rest of mankind?” 4s
x x * vie"
SOLIDARITY WITH THE STRUGGLE of the coh
people was the first item on the agenda of the Ni co Ai
the International Union of Students held in Ulan ao
the Mongolian People’s Republic. Formed 20 years ©? it ay,
unites students from more than 80 countries. OM © ost
congress some 20 national student organizations eral
desire to join. These included Ireland, Turkey, © 5
and Yugoslavia .. . A computer has beaten scientist We
gold and oil-bearing seams from geological survey oa US 1}
ses have been gold deposits near Magadan in north-2" ee }
well as gas deposits in Central Asia and East sibel 20 |
puter was working on a program initially created 1°
geometrical patterns.

powel Ti

* * * ue
THE 100 UNITED S1ATES STUDENT leaders ¥"9
pressed concern to Johnson over the Vietnam wat er
reply from 70 of their counterparts in South vietna ne
to U.S. students contained the names of only twO ® pall
bers of the academic community in South Vietnam. “ot |
the other names could not be revealed for fear 2 5 @
More than 300 distinguished people—parliamentatial ie |
churchmen and leaders in the arts, professions and : nee
signed an advertisement in the London Times urging pes ‘
Vietnam war. The 334 signatories included 88 mer i
House of Commons and House. of Lords. It was thé 4 pee
a British parliamentary group of this size, including Dy at? i
Labor, Liberal, Communist and Welsh Nationalist 9
expressed opposition to Wilson’s Vietnam policy

paper.

* * *

VICE-PRESIDENT Hubert Humphrey, speaking "ys
parliamentaitans, cited the Bible in defending the ei
Vietnam. “It’s the peacemakers who are blessed" pot &
marchers or the peace talkers,” he said. One ie pte
asked him, “What about the bomb droppers?” He ein é
formance was described later by one British MP 49 nigh
propagandistic, unserious and unworthy for the man

April 14, 1967—PAcIFIC TRBUP