Hoffman Calls UC System ‘Hypocritical’

Anti-war activist Abbie Hoffman, his beard graying but his voice as strong as it was in the ‘60s, brought about 400 UC Irvine students to cheering, hand-clapping fervor Monday as he denounced university research work on military weapons.

Hoffman, recently acquitted of an anti-CIA sit-in at the University of Massachusetts, also denounced CIA recruiting within the nine-campus University of California system.

Standing under a hot noon sun in front of UCI’s University Center building, Hoffman drew one of his biggest ovations from the outdoor crowd when he accused UC of being “hypocritical” about peace.

Centerpiece of Protest

“Come this commencement day, when the president of this university puts on his robes and says how much he’s for peace, you say, ‘What about the SDI (Strategic Defense Initiative) research on this damn campus?’

“It’s hypocritical to go out and talk about peace. It’s hypocritical to talk about clean air and clean water and then make toxic chemicals in the lab at this university. And it’s hypocritical to talk about peace, justice and truth and let the CIA come here and recruit people with a pack of lies.”

Hoffman’s speech was the centerpiece of a day of anti-war, anti-nuclear protest in Orange County. The demonstrations began at 9 a.m., with a gathering of about 50 Alliance for Survival anti-war protesters in front of the Newport Beach office of Rep. Robert Badham, a conservative Republican. Badham’s office was closed during the demonstration.

Alliance for Survival demonstrators then marched from Newport Beach to the Irvine campus. The 25 marchers were joined on campus by about 400 students who listened to Hoffman and several other anti-war speakers.

Although the crowd, by its applause, appeared to be overwhelmingly in favor of the anti-war speakers, there were counter-demonstrations by the conservative Young Americans for Freedom campus chapter. Two men who are not students carried religious-oriented banners and jeered Hoffman.

Hoffman responded to the catcalls by making some barbed comments about fundamental religionists. “There are many times when I considered being born again, but I discussed it with my mother, and neither she nor I thought it was a very good idea,” he said.

Then, in an obvious reference to sexual scandals involving some TV evangelicals, Hoffman added: “In the Bible Belt, in the past few months, the belt has been on pretty secure but the zipper on the fly has been a little loose.”

Hoffman called for more student activism against weapons research and against President Reagan’s support for the anti-government rebels in Nicaragua. “We need young people,” Hoffman said. “I’m not young. I’m 50 years old.”

Other anti-war speakers at the UCI rally were Irvine Mayor Larry Agran, Laguna Beach Councilman Robert Gentry, Costa Mesa Councilman Dave Wheeler and Blase Bonpane, director of the Santa Monica-based Office of the Americas.

Agran said that he is distressed that university graduates are being drawn into weapons research. He said he believes that instead, bright young minds should be working to solve America’s health and poverty problems.

Wheeler said he thinks colleges are becoming so tied to weapons research and recruitment that the term “military-industrial complex” should be changed to “military-university complex.”

Gentry said that America needs to work for better world relations, especially since “we’ve got people in the Kremlin like Gorbachev interested in world peace.”

Bonpane, whose organization opposes U.S. military involvement in Central America, denounced U.S. Rep. Robert Dornan (R-Garden Grove) as being “a military fanatic.”

Campus speakers repeatedly noted that the large student crowd was very unusual for outdoor events on the usually placid UCI campus. Hoffman, chortling at the irony of a large anti-war crowd in the heart of a conservative county, said: “It’s so great to be in this bastion of radical subversion, Orange County, U.S.A.”

Not all those present supported the rally, however. A small cluster of students from the Young Americans for Freedom held anti-Hoffman signs. “We think these people here are misguided,” said Carol Beaucage, 20, a senior from Tustin who heads the Young Americans for Freedom. “What they’re calling for is more like surrender.”

One of the religious-oriented pickets at the rally identified himself only by his born-again-Christian name of “Bobby Bible.” He said he was 47, lived in Long Beach and had come to protest the rally because “these people are naive about disarmament . . . and I love America.”