For the sake of fairness, I should add that ever since those riots in Detroit. GM has been doing much better in the racial area. But I always thought that we were trying to build a society where progress can be made without the need for riots and killing.

The mass transit issues involves both air pollution and racial justice. The lack of mass transit in this country has clogged our cities with polluting automobiles, has driven white men's roads through black men's homes, and has deprived blacks of access to the new jobs in the suburbs. And GM is a charter member of the powerful highway lobby which has fought for years to prevent federal funding of mass transit programs.

Let's get back to what GM said earlier about going on record for mass transit. They have always been on record for mass transit as long as the money isn't funded.

No Transit Funds

The big controversy in the mass transit area for the last ten years has been what is going to be done with the federal highway trust fund. Millions of dollars have been set aside for national defense highways, and the issue has aways been not whether to devote money to transportation from other parts of the budget-because after all we have other needs in this country equally as pressing-but can't we take some of those highway funds which are already there and use them to build mono-rails, bus lines or some other forms of transportation?

And the answer of General Motors and the automobile manufacturers' association has been no-thou shalt' not touch money from the highway trust fund. Therefore there have been no new funds appropriate for mass transit because most of the people who want more mass transit thought that money should come out of the highway trust fund.

If I had more time, I would talk about automobile warranties, an area which the performance of GM and other manufacturers has been strongly condemned by the Federal Trade Commission. I have a feeling, however, that many of you have sufficient first-hand experience with that problem.

In short, then, GM is a Corporation which has acted irresponsibly in many areas of vital public concern. We at Campaign GM contend that shareholders can and should do something about the record of the company they own. We have proposed two resolutions which we believe would have a significanit impact.

First, we have proposed the addition of three new members to the GM Board of Directors. Our candidates are: Betty Furness, former Consumer Advisor to the President: Channing Phillips, black community leader and Democratic National Committeeman from the District of Columbia; and Dr. Rene Dubos, outstanding biologist and environmentalist at Rocketeller University.

The election of these three candidates would mean that a different point of view would be presented at GM Board meetings. Far more important, these three members would be able to alert the American people whenever GM made decisions which were against the public interest.

Special Interests?

GM strongly opposes our candidates for the Board. It says that they represent "special interests." It is significant that GM now has on its Board directors of oil companies, banks and insurance companies. Apparently oil companies and banks are not "special interests." Only consumers and blacks are.

We recognize that the election of three public interest board members, although significant, is not the be-all and end-all. So we have proposed the establishment of a Committee on Corporate Responsibility to examine not only the GM's performance in the problem areas I have already described, but also the structural changes which may be needed to make GM responsible. What we have in mind is a blue-ribbon committee of outstanding citizens, perhaps like the Riot Commission or a British Royal Commission.

GM opposes this proposal, even though the Commission's recommend dations would be advisory only. The reason is obvious. GM does not want independent and respected experts examining what it has done and what it could be doing for society. It does not wish to have its closed and archaic decision-making processes exposed and challenged.

I recognize that an MIT General Assembly Task Force recommended that MIT abstain on this proposal because it felt that even though the need for a Committee on Corporate Responsibility was manifest, the method of selecting Committee members was inadequate.

Resolution Change

We at Campaign GM had a great deal of trouble determining what the selection process should be. We did not want to leave the matter entirely in GM's hands and we could not think of groups other than the UAW and Campaign GM with sufficient knowledge and interest to participate of the selection process.

I would now like to make two announcements, however, First, I am ready and Campaign GM is ready to provide MIT and other shareholders with a list of the types of persons we would nominate for the Committee on Corporate Responsibility.