Ain't they got no shame?

RANDALL Robinson sat in a chair against the wall of one of the secretaries' offices on the second floor. "The point is that before you get to the question of all that more jobs bullshit," he said of the Corporation's stated intention of urging Gulf to hire more Angolans and upgrade the jobs of the 33 blacks the company currently employs. "You're talking about colonialism here, and any investment, whether you can affect it by withdrawal or not, buttresses the damn thing. The Corporation never deferred to the African voice. The OAU (Organization of African Unity) has said they want Gulf out. Frelemo, PAIGC, MPLA have said they want Gulf out. The Black Congressional Caucus has said they want Gulf out. Rutabanzibwa, the Tanzanian Ambassador, said so. The Vice President of Zambia said so. 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. In this statement Bok not only says that it's not useful for Harvard to get out of Gulf," Robinson said, his face registering disbelief, "he goes even further and says it ain't even useful for Gulf to get out of Angola-which is just the height of arrogance."

Robinson's face clouded with unfamiliar harshness. "It's bad for people to keep identifying Bennett as the only bastard on that Corporation," he said. "Bennett is not the only bastard. They're all just shades of the same horse and there's not much difference between the front and the back. The only difference between Bok and Bennett is that Bennett is more honest." Robinson, who had attended the Law School while Bok was there, added. "It said in this morning's Crimson that I was a good friend of his. I go on record as correcting that, I think there's some sense of mutuality about friendship."

THE BOK style inspires such remarks. The handling of the whole Angola issue has been marked by an arrogant and spineless paternalism that is reckless in its desire to smooth, please and control all concerned.

At the first meeting between the Administration and the PALC on February 24, the Administration was informed of the statements that black organizations and individuals had made condemning Gulf's Angolan operation, the University's nexus to the injustice and suffering in Portuguese Africa, and the demand for a graphic demonstration of moral revulsion on the part of the University by a well publicized severance of the Gulf connection.

Steve Farber, who later authored the Gulf Angola memo the Corporation used as the basis for its decision, sat through the whole presentation, and then telescoped the key point of what may prove to be the costly arrogant attitude of the Administration with his response. Farber said, "Well, black people don't have a monopoly on wisdom."

To which a black South African retorted. "No, Mr. Farber, black people don't have a monoploy on wisdom, but they goddamn sure have a monopoly on suffering."

"And that's what we're talking about," Jim Winston said Saturday. "That's really what the whole thing boils down to and they refuse to recognize that fact. And everything else that they say to disguise it can't hide that fact. There's nothing rational in the response that they gave. There's no rational basis on which to say that sending Steve Farber to Angola is going to change anything for anybody at any particular time."

THE VOICE on the radio was slow and heavy, stumbling like an expiring runner stumbling through a jungle of ill-logic and abandoned good intentions. The echo of congas drumming and a strong electric guitar nearly drowned out the radio's reproduction of Derek Bok's voice. The President of Harvard College was voicing his desire to see the occupation ended without injury. "They're our students and we care about them and their welfare."

However, the most immediate threat to the welfare of the occupiers of Mass Hall is the restraining order obtained at Bok's direction, for as he himself admitted. "The courts may take the enforcement of the injunction into their own hands." If the court so decides, the welfare of the occupiers is in jeopardy, to say the least.

The most honorable and reliable way for the University to avoid the bad exposure of a blood bath at Mass Hall is to negotiate a settlement. However, Bok has absolutely nothing with which to negotiate. As the University's chief administrative officer, he is vested with all the powers and privileges appertaining to that office," but is not empowered to countermand the directives of the Governing Boards at whose pleasure he serves.

If Bok is truly sincere in his desire to have the occupation ended peacefully, he must induce the Corporation to alter its decision-even if that requires his resignation. The Daly Delay stalling strategy was effective in ending the occupation of a building at the University of Chicago, but there is little indication that it can be applied successfully here. The occupiers will probably be eligible to file for homestead before they would leave Mass Hall to Bok and Angola to Gulf. As Randall Robinson puts it. "This our turf now. The University is in exile. Now we are prepared to confer a degree on you in here. Yeah, we've taken our shoes off and set up. Yeah, this Birth of a Nation."

Ain't you got no shame D. W. Griffith