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Policeman Arrests Berlow After Tip-off by Student

John T. Berlow '71-against whom the Harvard administration filed criminal charges in connection with the disruption of the March 26 counter teach-in here-was arrested yesterday morning after a member of Students for a Just Peace (SJP) pointed him out to a Cambridge policeman.

The unidentified member of SJP-the group which sponsored the counter teach-in-tipped off Sgt. John McMahan, on patrol in Harvard Square, that Berlow was passing out leaflets in front of Holyoke Center. McMahan then arrested Berlow, who was booked at the Cambridge police station and then taken to East Cambridge District Court, where he was released on personal recognizance.

Berlow will be tried at 9:30 a.m. next Friday in East Cambridge District Court on charges of trespass and disturbing a public assembly. The maximum penalty for trespass is 30 days in jail and a $100 fine; for disturbing a public assembly it is 30 days or $50.

SJP co-chairman Laszlo Pasztor '73 said yesterday that members of his organization have called the Cambridge police "three or four times" this month to tell them of Berlow's whereabouts, but that yesterday was the first time a policeman had been on the spot.

Two other SDS members formerly at Harvard against whom the administration filed criminal charges after the counter teach-in disruption have not been arrested. They are James T. Kilbreth '70 and Ellen J. Messing '72.

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Berlow, an active member of Progressive Labor (PL), was "dismissed" by Harvard after the occupation of University Hall in Spring 1969.

In another development yesterday relating to the counter teach-in disruption, Dean Epps indicated that the request by SJP's co-chairmen that four leftist groups be barred permanently from use of university facilities will be denied.

The co-chairmen-Pasztor and Arthur N. Waldron '71-wrote to Epps Thursday that SDS, PL, the University Action Group, and the Radcliffe-Harvard Liberation Alliance "did plan to and did actually disrupt a scheduled teach-in on the war in Indochina in violation of the Resolution on Rights and Responsibilities," and therefore should be denied University privileges.

But Epps said last night that "there has been no finding that there are organizations which have prohibited the exercise of free speech at Harvard," and that even if such organizations existed, "to deny [them] the use of University facilities would be for the University itself to partake in the restriction of freedom of speech and assembly."

Epps said that he probably will call a special meeting of the Executive Committee of the Committee on Houses and Undergraduate Life next week which would take official action on the SJP co-chairmen's request.

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