!!!!!*****WORKING DRAFT*****!!!!!
Spring break that year, I stayed at Bev and Leslie’s place, thankful for the solitude. So much riled my brain that week. Women’s literature, with Dr. Shulmeister, opened a new arena of intrigue, providing a sense of mystery and power. She loved little vignettes, forgotten stories of women taking control of their own destiny, refusing to stay within their gender role, forging new rules to follow. The best combined tragedy and strength, like Franceska Mann. A Polish-Jewish ballerina, in the fall of 1943 she arrived by train at Auschwitz, stuffed into cattle cars with 1700 other women. Told at first they must undress for disinfection prior to being sent on to Switzerland, in exchange for 600 German POWs held by the Allies farther south, they soon realised what was on the other side of the doors. Franceska, so the story goes, mesmerized the SS officers with a slow strip-tease. Down to just her stiletto heels, she removed one, stabbed the nearest Nazi with its heel and, grabbing his gun, proceeded to kill another. This led all the other women to attack their captors, clawing and ripping at their clothes, tearing noses and ears, and generally creating havoc. Soldiers rushed in from all over the camp, mowing down the women with machine gun fire.
In March she introduced us to Anais Nin, her diaries and novels. That week by myself, I had time to read A Spy In The House of Love. The main character, Sabina, fascinated and frightened me. Married to Alan, a stable, stolid, patient man, she seeks excitement in serial assignations with exotic men. Lyrical and episodic, this tale of erotic heights and guilt-filled home life forced me to think about my own needs and desires. Sabine reveled in the pleasure she could feel with men, but did not feel a need to stay with them. I thought, “I did not choose to love, love chose me.” Love and sex had so far been tightly bound together; either without the other seemed wrong, stunted, denying the value of both. And yet I’d known many girls who managed that separation without a care, or at least one they would admit. Girls who swore they’d “save it” for marriage; others who thought nothing of a one-night stand, knowing only someone’s first name, then never seeing him again. I’d already foreclosed the first option, and was glad I had. I wondered if that were a slippery slope to the second, if I could be someone who could love more freely. Or was I a serial monogamist, would I need to let go of Mike before allowing another man into so fully my life?
Strange posters appeared that week across the deserted campus. The upraised fists, bright red and angry, reminded me the SDS had vowed to bring Harvard to its knees in April. The College still offered ROTC, Reserve Officers Training Corps, as a credit class. With college deferments in question and no end in sight to the war, despite the assurances of newly-elected Richard Nixon, more men were taking this option to avoid a draft and gain some control over their terms of service. In addition, the Harvard Corporation was gobbling up land all around the campus, threatening to throw out the low-income workers who called it home. The SDS seized on these two issues, planning demonstrations against the University itself, no longer content with objecting to the government and corporations. Rumors of building take-overs dominated conversations among the few of us still in town.
Sunday evening before classes would start again on April 7, Bev and Leslie returned. Les had been admitted to Harvard Law the coming fall, and she brought Howard Lehrman along for dinner.
“Sarah, are you going to join us, when the SDS takes action?” he asked. “Keep your eyes open, something big is going to happen. We’re all going to have to choose, do we stand with peace and freedom, or do we cow-tow to Harvard?”
I thought of Mike and his room-mate Rich, singing Desolation Row over and over again. “Dylan’s right, as usual. ‘Everybody’s asking, which side are you on?’ What are the issues? I’ve heard people want to take over a building, call Pusey’s bluff on ROTC.”
Les and Howard filled us in on the grievances. The punishment of nine students who had led the sit-in at Paine Hall in December against ROTC; Harvard President Nathan Pusey’s unwillingness to go all the way in abolishing ROTC; the aggressive incursion of the University into the neighboring communities; the increasing lack of relevance in college classes, the watering down of black and women’s studies. Bev and I stayed silent while Leslie and Howard became more and more agitated.
“Tomorrow, Les, tomorrow, we’re going to University Hall, give them an ultimatum. Six points.” Howard ticked them off on his fingers. “Abolish ROTC, give Harvard scholarships instead, restore the Paine Hall demonstrators’ rights, roll back rents in Harvard buildings to January 1968, don’t knock down the University Road apartments for that Kennedy school, and let those 200 black workers in Roxbury keep their homes. Simple enough.”
“And if they don’t agree?” Les asked.
“Like I said, be ready. Be in the Yard, outside Uni Hall, see what happens. We all need to support this.”
But they didn’t go to Uni Hall on Monday. Classes resumed, and it seemed all might return to normal, I’d be talking in Dr. Shulmeister’s class on Wednesday about Anais Nin’s erotic vision, then sitting behind that one-way mirror in Child Development, recording mother-baby interactions. The war would go on forever, ROTC graduates would eagerly join the fight, Harvard would buy up more and more land, expelling their own workers.
Tuesday, Howard found me on the Widener steps after morning classes. Head exposed to the biting April wind, his hair a black flag across his forehead, he furiously wound a camel-hair [?muffler?] around his neck with one hand, while the other struggled to retain control of a large batch of paper, fluttering dangerously close to premature dispersal.
“Jane – Hey! Come and help me!” he exhorted, waving the papers above his head. One fell from the rest; I grabbed it before it could fly away.
“STOP HARVARD EXPANSION!” ran across the top. It continued, “What is Harvardization? Harvardization is the transformation of Cambridge into a concentrated center for private and government research – the creation of an insulated city for developing weapons and programs to oppress people here and overseas…” Complaints about the “upper-middle class”, “federal government”, and “the Harvard Corporation” followed.
“Take some over to Radcliffe, will ya? Hand them out to everyone you see, a few in each dorm lounge, go into Hilles, drop some off there.” Howard thrust the whole bunch at me, then dug into his satchel for more. I looked up at Widener, torn between studying for those classes on Wednesday with Shulmeister and Kagan, and following Howard’s passion, wrapping myself into the SDS cocoon of anger and action.
I grabbed the papers, and said, “What’s next?”
“Read it, hand them out, then come to the meeting tonight. We’re going to decide what to do, when to strike, and how. Lowell hall, after dinner, OK?”
Lowell’s lecture hall was massive, could hold hundreds. Students filled most seats, but I found Howard’s wiry mop and scooted into the empty chair beside him. He was buzzing, turning around on all sides, engaging allies it seemed. At the lectern, two guys huddled, checking their watches.
Howard dropped his voice, leaned over to me, and pointed, “See that guy on the left? That’s Kazin. He’s just a junior, but he’s really smart, knows how to lead a mob like this.” Tall and lean, with a slight stoop, he had deep set eyes and a gentle smile. “Chaos all around him, and he just coasts above it. He’ll get us somewhere, I hope.” Howard then explained the dilemma facing SDS leadership: two factions, the Worker Student Alliance and the New Left Caucus, saw different routes forward. The WSA was for immediate action, an occupation of Harvard’s administrative nerve center, University Hall. The NLC, Howard’s group, favored a more measured approach, “educate” the campus first, expand the engagement outside of Lowell, find strength in numbers. Arguments, some raging, some quiet, see-sawed for several hours. Three votes were taken, straw, “final”, and, when that didn’t go the way WSA wanted, another, “binding”, all with the total 180-140, to march that night to Pusey’s house, present him with demands, then spend five days in campus-wide discussion, returning on Monday for an occupation if Pusey would not relent.
Even though it was past midnight, those of us who’d stayed filed out, and marched to Pusey’s house on Quincy Street. A few campus police stood guard at the outside gate, but swiftly stepped aside when they saw the size of the crowd. Kazin knocked vigorously for several minutes on the solid wooden door. He loudly, but politely, announced our presence. Finally, like Luther with his theses, he tacked our six demands below the knocker, and we all turned back, heading home at last.
A powerful energy filled my head, as I walked through the Yard with Howard. I should have been exhausted, but felt exhilarated. “Something’s really going to happen, isn’t it? I don’t know what, but I think, this many people, they can’t ignore it any longer.”
Howard stayed silent, walking slowly. Finally, he said, I don’t know. I just don’t know.”
When he didn’t elaborate, I asked, “What don’t you know?”
“Everything. Will they listen? I don’t know, but I’m pretty sure a few hundred kids tacking paper on his door isn’t going to make Pusey do anything. And if he doesn’t, I know those guys in the WSA aren’t going to just talk and wait. Something’s going to happen, maybe tomorrow – today, by now, huh? I think we’re going to have to decide just how much we’re willing to risk, to get some movement here.”
“What are you going to do,” I asked with some trepidation.
“I don’t know. I haven’t decided yet. I heard some people talking about taking over a building tomor…today. At noon, or something.”
“Where? Which one?”
“All I heard was ‘Be at Mem Church before noon.’ I’ll go there, listen to what people are saying. Are you going to your classes?”
I hesitated. I could feel Howard’s excitement, but I knew these two, Women’s Lit and Psych Lab, were what I really wanted out of Harvard, not another noisy demonstration. “No, I can’t drop them. I’ll be out at noon. Where will you be?”
“Let’s see, why don’t I say I’ll be at John Harvard’s statue between noon and 12:30. Find me there if you want.”
I realised I’d better get some sleep.