What friends President Nixon may have in Cambridge were not present in the Science Center at last night's teach-in on impeachment, but about 200 people with some complaint against him were there.
The meeting was touted as an "Impeach-In," but that topic was discussed only marginally by Arthur MacEwan, representatives of the New American Movement and author Kirkpatrick Sale.
MacEwan, assistant professor of Economics, charged the oil companies--or "energy corporations," as he called them--with having masterminded the entire energy crisis. He said they did it in an effort to raise profit levels which declined in the face of the environmental movement and the "unwillingness of the Arabs to play ball."
He said that the oil companies failed to reckon with the recession following the Vietnam War and with a weakened president following the Watergate affair.
"With a weak executive, the oil companies now cannot use Nixon to coerce Congress--which isn't hard, because Congress is pretty gutless in most cases," he said.
He ended by saying that it is "a sad thing that most people can register their protest only by voting for a few Democratic Party hacks."
After the planned March 11 demonstration "to protest Gerald Ford's existence" was mentioned, Kirkpatrick Sale took the floor. Sale said, "Harvard should not be less hospitable to Gerald Ford when he visits than your predecessors were when Robert McNamara visited here in 1966."
Sale attributed the country's ills to a monolithic Southern conspiracy of which he said Richard Nixon is a part.
Alleging that Nixon's "most intimate associates are the very scum of our society," Sale urged the American people to "send Nixon back to Whittier, Calif., where he and Pat will be condemned to live with each other for the rest of their lives."
Read more in News
Trios