MASSACHUSETTS HALL--"This kind of an action, if it is successful, is going to precipitate a lot of others." Randall Robinson of the Pan-African Liberation Committee said yesterday in the first press interview held in Massachusetts Hall since the occupation began Thursday morning.

"What's going to happen is that we're going to get into a boycott situation, and actions like this occupation will make it more achievable," Robinson said. He predicted that a national black boycott of Gulf Oil products would be mounted in protest of Gulf's involvement in Portuguese Africa.

The interior of Massachusetts Hall was clean and in good order. There was no evidence that the 40 occupiers inside had tampered with any of the University's files and records. Garbage had been regularly collected and stuffed in plastic trash bags. Loaves of bread, jars of peanut butter and jam, and cans of coffee and tea were neatly stacked in the occupation storeroom, and the long hallway on the second floor was swept clean.

High Morale

The morale of the demonstrators seemed high. Donations, including $500 checks from Ewart E. Guinier, professor of Afro-American Studies and chairman of the Department, and from the Afro-American Society of the Business School, letters and telegrams of support, and a steady stream of supplies have been delivered to the occupiers since the Thursday dawn takeover.

"The one thing that's clear now is that we'll be here when they come," Robinson said, in reference to the possibility that police may be called in to evict the demonstrators.

"We'll be here unless they sell the Gulf stock," Clement Cann '74 added.

In a telegram to President Bok, Rep. Charles E. Diggs (D-Mich.), chairman of the House Subcommittee on Africa and former chairman of the Congressional Black Caucus, endorsed the takeover of Mass Hall and other protests by students as "necessary actions to demonstrate their deeply-felt opposition to your Corporation's stated position. It is a position that is morally bankrupt and unworthy of an institution with such a reputation."

The occupying students seem to be aware of the risks involved in participating in the takeover. "I knew the consequences when I came in," one woman student said. "It's obvious that people here are willing to risk their degrees," another participant added. Several students said that they felt, as one sophomore put it. "You have the obligation to fight what Harvard does while you are here. If we don't fight the oppressions that come down out of here, we're just as guilty as anyone else."

In discussing the University's decision to retain its Gulf holdings. Robinson noted an incongruity between the University's explanation of its action and numerous statements by African and black American organizations, officials, and scholars urging the University to divest. "The overwhelming African voice has said to Bok that it is in our interest to have Gulf out. To have you out of Gulf and to have Gulf out of Angola. But the Corporation never deferred to the African voice," Robinson said.

"In his statement. Bok not only says that it's not useful for Harvard to get out of Gulf, he goes even further and says it ain't even useful for Gulf to get out of Angola. That is just the height of arrogance," Robinson said.

"That statement was an insult. That statement wasn't even well-written." Robinson added, terming it "a bad-faith, half-witted explanation."

The occupiers have come to feel at home in their Mass Hall homestead.

"This is our turf now. The University is in exile," one of them said as the darkness deepened Saturday evening and the occupation prepared to endure its third night.