I won't soon forget the scene of that army of police, massing silently in the night, and a photographer peering out the press room window and remarking with a thin smile: "It seems to me I read all about this somewhere before.

The question might well be asked, why do you need 600 cops to cope with 700 passively resisting kids? More important than their number, however, was their attitude. Make no mistake, the cops weren't just doing their duty. If they'd merely been the machines, the automatons, the privates in the army of the politicians, they'd have been much better.

But many, many of them were enjoying their work. They were getting their kicks (you should pardon the double entendre), as well as their revenge for the embarrassment of the 33-hour seige of Oct. 1-2 (the incident of the trapped police car). And the air of vindictiveness was unmistakable.

Without indulging in parlor psychology, it was obvious that for many policemen (and this is something that's got somehow to be precluded in the future) this was a safe way to work out their own frustrated resentment of students and intellectuals.

There was much hilarity in the ranks, as the students were dragged the gauntlet down the long corridors to the stairwell. Very few of them struggled or resisted in any way save going limp, but they were deliberately hauled down the stairs on their backs and tailbones, arms and wrists were twisted, hair and ears pulled--all to the immense amusement of the Oakland police. And lest anyone think I exaggerate, listen to the cops themselves.

"They shouldna' let those beatniks and kooks in here (the University) in the first place."

"Yea, they're just a bunch of Jerks--we oughtta show 'em."

"Don't worry, wait till we get 'em on the stairs."

"Hey, don't drag 'em so fast--they ride on their heels. Take 'em down a little slower--they bounce more that way."

"We should do like they do in them foreign countries; Beat 'em senseless first, then throw 'em in the bus."

* * * *

Since when does the press meekly submit to its own suppression? Where were the outraged editorials? Where were the complaints about press censorship amid all the howls for law and order? Why were newspapermen barred from watching the bookings?

Why was an N.B.C. television cameraman blocked at the stairwells and prevented from taking pictures freely--though he stood there for 15 minutes pleading with the police: "But we're on your side, we want to tell your story, we want to show the public that the police aren't brutal..."

It was the first time ever that the basement of an administration building on a college campus in America was turned into an interrogation cell, where students temporarily became political prisoners, herded into a detention pen--to await deportation to a prison farm. While the cops stood around outside the cage--I use that word advisedly--taunting and teasing the students.

That's part of what went on during my very brief sojourn in the Sproul Hall basement--before the Alameda D.A.'s office invited me upstairs, where the officially approved versions of the news--which always appear on the front pages of your and my daily newspapers--can be reported without ever having to leave the "public information office."