University of Virginia Library

In reply to your article of Dec.
5, "Cadre Protesters Challenged:"
The for the Immediate
Seizure of the Means of Production
is a disciplined democratic-centralist
underground organization
with political ties to the USSR and
official adherence to the literary
minions of that glorious republic.

Our leadership is bound to a
strict theory and practice of vanguardism
and integration into the
struggles of the masses, so that we
can move easily between the back
rooms of analysis and the front
lines of Communist Revolution.
Therefore, by making reference to
"Alan Ogden, leader of the Cadre,"
you played directly into our hands.

The function of the female
comrades in our organization is to react
the masses by using to fullest advantages
their physical assets. Therefore,
although the name of Nina
Chertoff was as well known to your
reporter as was the name of Alan
Ogden, and although she addressed
the students assembled in front of
Minor Hall with as much zeal and
intelligence as our male public
speakers, the fact that her strip
tease overshadowed her verbal polemics
and was given exclusive coverage
in your lackey press also vindicates
our strategy. The bourgeois
media always plays imbecilically
into the hands of the People!!!

It is a policy of the University
of Virginia to welcome recruiting
agents from Dow Chemical, from
hundreds of other profit-oriented
companies with vested interests in
the status quo of imperialism, and
from the CIA and the military. It is
the stated policy of the University
of Virginia to work hand in hand
with the government and with the
business community to miseducate
and channel students into a kind of
career world that supports and
takes its life from the international
American system of manipulation
and exploitation of people for private
profit. During our hassle last
week with Mr. Simpson of the
Placement Office over whether we
would be allowed, as an outside
organization offering ideas for students'
futures, to apply to have a
recruiting office alongside Dow
Chemical in Minor Hall, we got to
look at a copy of the standard
statement of policy on "Recruitment
and Demonstrations" that all
companies which recruit students
sign and which the University explicitly
adheres to. This statement
makes it clear that the University
has a political commitment to and a
stake in the University-big business-government
complex. One section
of this document opposes the
right of students to disrupt recruiting
(even of the Dow napalmers)
on the grounds that
interferes with the of
others." That is, the University of
Virginia officially believes that it
has a duty to protect the "right" of
any company, of any government
intelligence agency - no matter
how disgusting, destructive, or reactionary
the affairs of those institutions
may be - to recruit on
university property against the anticipated
actions of its own students.

All this (and the contracts for
such things as biological and chemical
warfare research that the University
has with the National
Government could be mentioned
here) belies the liberal rhetoric of
the academical village dedicated to
a free exchange of ideas and the
pursuit of truth.

The welfare of students and
their Constitutional rights to free
assembly and free speech do not
come off well under this political
power arrangement. First of all,
they are "protected" against recruitment
by such organizations as
the "Cadre," because we are slightly
freaky and because the Cadre is
unable with integrity to agree with
the political test organizations are
required to meet to prove their
legitimacy. And, just as significant,
the University, through the Student
Council, takes pains to control and
neutralize demonstrations and rallies
which might challenge existing
power relationships. The University
is no better than a police state on
this score. Permission in advance
must be obtained for all rallies and
demonstrations. When Mr. Simpson
broke faith with the people of the
"cadre" last Tuesday, a group of
disgusted students and non-students
decided that a rally with music,
speeches, and creative street theater
was called for on the next day.
Certain points about the social re-
of U. Va. and its imperialist
commitments would have
been made at this rally.

However, the rally was effectively
broken up by the president
and vice president of the Student
Council, functioning as spokesmen
for the administration, as they had
decided that the rally was a "demonstration"
and therefore controllable
under the regist ration-beforehand
rule. Students were
threatened with suspension and arrest,
non-students with arrest. We
were informed that the state
troopers had been alerted and that
there were contingency plans calling
for two cops per attender of
the rally. A plainclothes federal
agent with a camera was in evidence,
and a cameraman who said
he was working for the U. Va. administration
was also busy snapping
pictures. The electricity for our
P.A. setup was cut off inside the
building. The majority of the
people who had stayed up late the
night before planning the street
theater event were intimidated by
Mr. Evan's threats and decided to
postpone their creativity 'till
another day. The Academical Village
lost the decision on a K.O.; the
spontaneous expressions of students
and their non-student friends
were suppressed, and imperialism
was upheld.