Rallies Losing Intensity : Home front: Anti-war protest is held at RAND Corp. Marchers supporting the troops meet at Federal Building.

Separate rallies supporting and opposing the Persian Gulf War were staged in Southern California on Saturday, but in this fourth week of the conflict, emotions did not seem as intense, nor the speeches as long, as at the beginning.

The largest crowd, estimated by police at 400 to 500 people, marched on RAND Corp. headquarters in Santa Monica to protest what the Los Angeles Coalition Against U.S. Intervention in the Middle East organizers called RAND’s involvement in war planning and operations.

“Every bomb falling on Iraq came out of the computers right here,” charged Anthony J. Russo, a former RAND employee and associate of Daniel Ellsberg in the release of the Pentagon Papers during the Vietnam War. Russo was the main speaker at a rally that RAND allowed to be held on its property across from Santa Monica City Hall.

The longtime anti-war activist also accused RAND of assuming a role as “the major planner of nuclear war for the Air Force,” and referred to the firm as “this genocide factory.”

A RAND spokesman, Jess Cook, said Russo was off the mark.

“That’s his usual trash,” said Cook. “The fact is, we don’t handle any operations. Our computers are barely adequate to handle the research we do.”

Cook said Russo and other critics should read RAND research papers on file in the Santa Monica Public Library before expressing a false view that the firm is an important nuclear planner.

Russo, he said, has had a “phobia” about the company since working there in the 1960s.

The rally ended with the crowd chanting “Shame on RAND!” and then quietly dispersing.

A short time earlier, in front of the Federal Building in Westwood--which has been the site of some of the biggest anti-war demonstrations--veterans groups, Young Republicans and the American Freedom Coalition staged a rally to support U.S. troops in the Persian Gulf. Slightly less than 200 people attended.

Rep. William E. Dannemeyer (R-Fullerton), who has said that he intends to run for the U.S. Senate in 1992, told a flag-waving crowd that when he sees anti-war protesters, “I sometimes wonder how we could fit them into a Patriot missile.”

Dannemeyer immediately softened the remark by saying he respects the right of any American to differ with the war.

Contingents from chapters of the American Legion, Veterans of Foreign Wars and Disabled Veterans held their flags along Wilshire Boulevard for 2 1/2 hours before the speeches began. A few toted signs asking motorists to honk their horns if they agreed with U.S. war policy. Many drivers did.

A few flags also were waved at the anti-war rally, and Russo took notice of them, telling the crowd, “George Bush has dragged the flag through the mud, and today George Bush is dragging the flag through blood. I’m glad to see the flag here today, because it’s our job to clean it up.”