University of Notre Dame - Dome Yearbook (Notre Dame, IN)

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Above, the place of the CIA-Dow Protest during tranquil periods. 27

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Dow, the C.I.A., As a regular service to its students, the University of Notre Dame allows recruiting agents from industry and governmental agencies to solicit students in their senior year. It is a program carried on quietly and efficiently. The lists of recruiters are available months in advance and seniors, mostly from the Colleges of Science and Engineering, sign up months in advance. This year it happened that someone else read the lists, discovered that Dow Chemical and the Central Intelligence Agency were allowed to recruit on this campus. An issue dis- covered, the tactics were prepared and the Notre Dame radicals had another go at continuing the revolution. The first line of offense was the Student Senate. A bill was introduced there asking that the CIA be for- bidden to recruit on campus since the CIA ' s actions have violated the principles of an open democratic soci- ety and conflict with the ideals of a Christian university and its country. It was defeated because, in one Sen- ator ' s words, It ' s asking the Senate to make a moral judgment for the students of the university. So the demonstration was planned. Greg Gore, acting in concert with the local SDS, called for the protest with a vigorous mandate: We want everybody to do their own thing. The demonstration lasted three days. It opened with a protest against Dow Chemical, conduct- ing interviews that day. Several professors spoke in the dialogue among students during the vigil in the Admin- istration building; the dialogue was a rich one, because this demonstration, like most held at Notre Dame, at- tracted people who were interested but not committed to its propositions. The students also talked seriously with the officers of the administration and with people who volunteered themselves for interviews. The first day ended with a folk mass, which, like the demonstration itself, drew the interest of people who simply didn ' t usually go to that sort of thing. The second day con- tinued with the dialogue laced more with Christianity than Marcuse. Vincent Lannie, a visiting professor of education, cast the proceedings in the terms of love, taking as emblem Paul ' s commandment Avoid getting into debt except the debt of mutual love. If you refuse to love, he said, then you only remain dead. When you feel love you feel Christ and when you feel Christ you are in an ecstasy of love. Although we are few in number we will win because lovers always win. And the second night they sang We Shall Overcome at mass. The third day was the focus of the demonstration; it was the day of the CIA interviews. The strategy adopted was conditioned by Ghandian maxims: the demonstra- tors laid themselves in front of the door of the office in which the interviews were scheduled. The intention was not to obstruct the people who wanted to see the re- and demonstration. cruiter; it was rather to force them to seriously consider their desire for the interview, to assess the relative value of the job opportunity and the crimes the demonstrators believed the CIA guilty of. The demonstrators offered themselves as emblematic of the oppressed people, be- cause they believed that the CIA was the source of their oppression. The demonstration could be considered successful; the interviews with the CIA representatives were stopped. But there can be no doubt that the demonstration was the source of more campus discussion than any other event. Naturally much of the talk lost sight of the prob- lems in obfuscating remarks about tactics, and most Notre Dame students, one suspects, didn ' t give the af- fairs a second thought; dismissing the whole as worth- less. But some did and they are worth quoting. Steve Moriarty: The point I am making is that the Vietnam war, American foreign policy, and the insane race to achieve a higher and higher ration of overkill are all rooted in much deeper illnesses in our sick society. We need not look to the CIA and Dow for symbols or scapegoats rather we should look in our homes, our own classrooms, our own hearts. When one realizes the full depths of this problem, and still insists on demon- strating, I doubt if he will be sleeping for two nights in the Notre Dame Administration building. The Catons- ville Nine and the Milwaukee Fourteen realized this, and are now facing a future in federal prison. Mario Corradi, of the philosophy department: You are ineffective, you know that; what you probably don ' t realize is that you are ineffective because you are also wrong. Or in other terms, you are using the wrong meth- ods in the wrong situation. Let me make a comparison with the European students. They have moved entire na- tions; a few weeks ago, for instance, in my own Italy, their demonstrations provoked a first measure in the re- form of the University (the system of exams is indefinite- ly suspended in all universities), and together with the workers provoked two days ago the resignation of the Prime Minister. You taught the European students the technique of the sit-in, but you have not learned their lesson; ideolog- ical preparation, intellectual rigor and social awareness. Nobody questions your intentions, but what about the content, the motivation, and the foundation of your pro- test? Void, absolutely void. You read poetry, you sing songs, and you trifle even with religious sublimations, but you have nothing to propose; and you have nothing to propose because you are quite ignorant. The gravest handicap you meet in your protest is your break with the working class; the European students be- gin their demonstrations at the university, go to the gates of the factories, and then together with the workers 26

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.-. . ' JcZ Top, left, a night scene during the CIA-Dow Protest. Top, right, the protest during the day of the Presidential Election. Above, another scene during the Presidential Election. 28