Rudd was called to the telephone. It was one of his spies at the Ad Hoc meeting calling to say, at 12: 30, that an amnesty vote was coming up any minute and had a good chance of passing. Westin and his group got up to leave immediately, incredulous. Westin, with sociologist Allan Silver at his side, burst into the Philosophy Lounge just after the adjournment vote had narrowly passed. They told the angrily split group of teachers of their meeting with Rudd, picking their words with extreme care. "There is some reason to believe that negotiations may be going fairly well. We would like more time to continue what could conceivably be fruitful talks." There were some questions, then the faculty got up to go home at 1: 10. As they were beginning to leave, an SDS messenger said that Mark Rudd would like to address the group right away. Expectantlv but somewhat reluctantly, the Ad Hoc group agreed. Mark Rudd strode to the center table in front. He had on a cotton flannel, plaid shirt open at the neck. His hair was mussed and he hadn't shaved in two days. He looked tired. "I understand," Rudd began, "that Westin told
you guys that our negotiations are going well. I just want to say that that statement is bullshit." There was a collective gasp. Professor 'Westin, at Rudd's left, turned a vivid red in embarrassment and fury. Rudd said, "Total amnesty is the only answer. We have committed a beautiful, political act. It should be praised as such, not punished. You faculty guys ought to be fighting with us, not against us. There are no neutrals in this struggle." Man y of the teachers still there, including some of the younger ones, were shocked. Rudd's brazen, profane bit of preaching was a display of dedicated vigor beyond their expectations. It dashed the hopes of the many moderates and the innocents who still believed that the SDS students were idealistic reformers who would compromise under intelligent faculty persuasion. 'Word of "the bullshit speech," as it came to be called, spread rapidly, even at that late hour. Professor \iVestin curtly informed Strike Central that he could no longer meet with their representatives. When President Kirk and Dr. Truman heard about Rudd's attempt to "radicalize" the Ad Hoc Faculty, they
SDS chairman Mark Rudd stunned the Ad Hoc faculty group with a remarkable midnight speech on Friday, April 26. He hoped to radicalize the Faculty.
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.."l SPRING, 1968
surmised that SDS was reaffirming its desire to achieve a complete victory and guessed that SDS would scoff at further faculty negotiations. The two executives trudged home to bed at 2:30 a.m. and had a decent night's sleep, their first in four days. Thousands of others at Columbia used that Friday night to catch up on postponed sleep, too. As dawn slowly spread over Morningside Heights on Saturday, April 27, it was accompanied by a thin, gentle rain. By 10:00 a.m., however, the drizzle ended and the sun appeared in full splendor. The thousands of vividly colored tulips around Low Library, bent slightly by the rain, slowly worked their way back to dry erectness. The cherry trees were in delicate pink bloom, and the dogwood trees were preparing to burst out in bud. The two round fountains in front of Low splashed and tinkled. Just off campus the giant bells of Riverside Church and St. John's Episcopal Cathedral chimed occasionally. That morning, Columbia, smelling fresh as a country rye field, had the quiet calm of Oxford in the 16th century. There were relatively few people on campus before noon. Over a thousand students had, as Mark Rudd had predicted, gone home, to other campuses, and to other New York City libraries to continue their studies, complete their research projects and their papers, and prepare for final examinations. In four of the "liberated" buildings (not Hamilton), SDS students and followers peeled off their shirts, rolled up their pants and sunbathed cheerfully on the window ledges. Guitar music could be heard in Low and Fayerweather. The uccupants of Math, the grimmest revolutionaries, also sat outdoors, though they kept the shades down in most of the building. A huge poster portrait of Karl Marx and another one with Uncle Sam as a duck, saying "Quack," were prominent in the lower window of Mathematics. Outside Hamilton, two black students swept the littered stone stairs in front of their building, further underlining their orderliness and discipline, as well as their continued seriousness in the face of SDS' Saturday picnic gaiety. Before President Kirk went to bed the previous evening, and even more frequently that Saturday morning, sen51