The new political philosophy turned into action in 1971, as the big brothers led a boycott against the shopping mall, charging that merchants were making an adequate financial contribution to neither the Big Brother Program nor the community as a whole.

"We wanted to get the kids involved in the political process by working to boycott the stores that were fucking us over," Pitts said. But the third effort at boycott was not as successful as the first two, and the tactic was stopped.

Come spring 1972, the time usually devoted to fundraising for the summer program, the Big Brother Program's chief fundraiser and half the counselors were involved in the takeover of Mass Hall and the protest against Harvard's investment in Gulf, and Gulf's involvement in Angola.

There were other problems as well. "The word got out that we were political, which cooled off the fund money," says Pitts, "and there was a general cutback in funds to poverty programs by Nixon at the time."

"As a leader I didn't put all my time into working on the program," says Pitts candidly. "I was doing more political things. But I don't think the money was out there to be got. I committed myself to the program, but I didn't go through with it.

"Our radicalism was a vulgar radicalism," he continues. "We might have done better if we had played some of the bureaucratic games. It's a question of style as well as politics."

Aid from the Area Planning Action Council (APAC), a government-funded program, was spurned, and a mutual dislike grew. APAC felt the big brothers were too radical; the big brothers felt APAC was another white pacification program.

The 1972 summer program left the big brothers deeply in debt, and the program as a whole declined rapidly. Admissions to the program were frozen, and in April 1973 Pitts recommended it be terminated, writing in his report that "it is doubtful Columbia Point is the correct battleground to fight capitalism."

At the project, the credit union folded in 1969 as too few members repaid loans, and the Bayside Mall closed last year, claiming too little business volume. APAC cut its staff of part-time help and beginning in December will be funded on a month-to-month emergency basis. The clinic, which seems to be set for the moment, must under new guidelines become self-sufficient by 1975.

The Harvard radicals can find new battlefields, the Harvard liberals can find new causes, the college-educated social workers can find new jobs in the system. But the Columbia Point residents have no place to go.