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Harvard Group Routed in Miss. By Tear Gas

A house in Batesville, Miss., occupied by four civil rights workers including a Harvard student, a recent graduate, and a Radcliffe graduate, was bombed with tear gas Saturday night.

Kathie Amatniek '64, L. Geoffrey Cowan '64, and Claude Weaver '65 were staying in the home of Robert J. Miles, a Panola County civil rights leader, when the incident occured. A car drove up in front of the house, someone got out and threw a grenade on the roof. The car sped away as Cowan, Miles, Weaver, Miss Amatniek, and two other COFO workers ran out of the house to escape the fumes.

The case is being investigated by the Batesville sheriff and the local F.B.I. agents.

Miss Amatniek said that Miles had received numerous threatening telephone calls because he had whites living in his house. She theorized, however, that the attack was directly prompted by the success of the COFO voter registration drive in Panola County. The number of registered Negroes has jumped from 30 to 400 since the COFO campaign began.

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