About 400 students at Bates College, angered at the student newspaper for presenting former president Richard M. Nixon with an international communications award, held a protest rally Tuesday at the Maine campus.

The editor of The Bates Student, Robert Cohen, called a news conference Tuesday to announce he had received two threatening letters since he visited Nixon at his San Clemente home to give him the award.

"We (the newspaper staff) thought we were justified in giving Nixon the award, and we will continue to think so," said Cohen. He cited Nixon's career--from his 1953 trip to the Soviet Union to his visit to China in 1973--as reasons for the honor.

Harvard Republican Club member Nancy Achin, who wrote a letter to Nixon asking him to refuse an invitation from the club to speak at Harvard, said yesterday, "I can't imagine them really meaning it. Nixon did give quite a contribution to journalism, though--he gave the press something to write about."

"I would chalk it up to a cheap publicity stunt--very cheap," Achin said.