In October 1964 the peaceful academic atmosphere of the University of California at Berkeley was suddenly disturbed by a full-scale student demonstration.

Hundreds of students gathered outside the Student Union to listen to student orators criticise the shortcomings of the university administration. The students then staged a massive "sit-in" inside the university buildings. They remained there until State police were called in to remove the students and carry them off to jail.

What were the demonstrations all about, and what has been happening at Berkeley since the Free Speech Movement, as the first demonstration was called? I put these questions to Dr. E. M. Mrak, Chancellor of the University of California, when he made a brief visit to New Zealand recently.

Attempts

Dr. Mrak began by saying that many people have attempted to explain what happened at Berkeley in the fall of 1964. But much of what he has read has been rather nauseating and highly opinionated — written by people who are experts on the Free Speech Movement without having lived through it. Dr. Mrak said he couldn't put his finger on all the factors involved, although he was certain of some.

He suggested that, for a start, faculty members at Berkeley have become so involved in research and creativity of one type or another that they may have drifted away from the students.

Students also resented the impersonality of the IBM approach to the education system. There are 27,000 students at Berkeley. When they register they get a card full of holes: the IBM machine tells them this, that or the other.

Sports

Dr. Mrak went on to explain that the university had ignored changing student attitudes towards activities. "We emphasise sports," he said. "But there is a whole galaxy of things they'd like to do. Some of them want to go into cultural things. And some of them want to have political discussions. The refusal to permit students to do this or that just set it off. It blew up.

"There was a philosophy in the university rules that what a student did off the campus was his business and the business of the civil authorities. What he did on the campus was covered by the rules and regulations of the university. The campus tried to stay free of political activity so they couldn't be accused of permitting one side or the other. Well, the way things have gone now apparently we've outlived those days, and so when the students set up tables on the campus to collect money on the one hand for the Gold-water campaign, and on the other hand for the Negro civil rights in the South, here you had extreme groups with opposite views side by side and it just brought them together. They were ordered not to do this, and this was the fuse that actually set it off."

"Do these regulations still apply?" I asked.

"No," replied Dr. Mrak. "They have changed tremendously. They have opened up, very much so. Now the students are on their own any place. The university has given up any protective attitude to the student. He's on his own. He's a civilian. And if he does things on the campus that are not entirely in line with the codes, you might say, he is now handled by the courts, whereas in the past we might have taken care of the situation and tried to protect him."

Dr. Mrak says that a good number of the people involved in the demonstrations at Berkeley were not students at all, but hangers-on who live in slum areas on the perimeter of the university. He said most of them are young people who probably don't have much money. Many of them are bearded and shaggily dressed. They are wandering about, staying near the university.

"They are people who haven't found themselves in life. They may sit there and discuss things extensively, and maybe some day they'll find themselves, and maybe they won't. Probably they have had psychological problems, a lot of them. But they can talk loudly and raise hell."

Misnomer

Dr. Mrak felt that the name "Free Speech Movement" was really a misnomer. Speech was never involved, he said. It was a clever gimmick. It was freedom of activity the students wanted.

"It was humorous to hear them talk of free speech. No one ever said they couldn't speak. Free speech came into it this way. When they were lecturing off the steps outside the Student Union and causing disturbances, then the question was: should they stay there or move elsewhere?"

Dr. Mrak spoke to me about some of the people involved in the Free Speech Movement. "There was this fellow Savio (a philosophy student) who was an excellent speaker. He was a man who, just like Hitler, could bring the mobs behind him.

"The University of California is one of the great educational institutions of the world. It's a centre for people, an attraction, a magnet for people who like to think in all terms and in all directions. So you had all types of thinkers drawn to this thing. A lot of them, as I told you, were not students. A lot of people have said that subversive elements were involved in sponsoring it. I don't think they set it off. But I am certain that some of them were involved later and encouraged them to go on."

"What sort of subversive elements were involved?" I asked.

"Well, what is a subversive element in your country? It's people who . . . Well, one of the girl leaders subsequently admitted she is a member of the Communist Party. There was this type of thing."

"Did you have any warning that these demonstrations were likely to come off, or were they just a spontaneous eruption?"

"They were rather spontaneous, but there were indications (I don't think they pertained to this at all) that there might be demonstrations in some of the great universities. There was some forewarning of this."

"From the students?"

"Not from the students. This came from people who know what's going on behind the scenes."

"Who would they be?"

"People in Washington. There was an indication that there might be demonstrations. But we didn't know how or what. I don't think that these demonstrations represented what we were warned of. But I do think that once they got started the subversive elements got into the picture."

Others

I asked Dr. Mrak about demonstrations at the other campuses in the University of California at the time of the Free Speech Movement.

"There were about 20 or 30 students who got excited at Davis and wanted to do something. The vice-chancellor sat down and talked with them for hours. Some of them said, "Well, we ought to have a demonstration but we don't know why. Here we have everything we want. But Berkeley wants to have one here."

"The vice-chancellor said, 'Okay, here's a loudspeaker. Just don't turn it up so loud you're disturbing the classes. Go ahead and raise hell if you want to. Speak all you want.' Over a hundred students turned out to demonstrate, but the demonstration soon died down. Similar-sized demonstrations took place at the Santa Barbara, Riverside and Los Angeles campuses.

Questions

I asked Dr. Mrak if there were any elements amongst the students who questioned the reasons for the demonstrations.

"Yes there were," he said. "Once they had cooled down only a very small percentage of students supported the continuation of the demonstrations. There is a rather interesting thing about the students at Davis when President Kerr resigned. They had a demonstration such as I have never seen. They marched into my office and indicated their desire that we do all in our power to retain him. Some students who wanted the demonstration against the administration tried to stop the pro-Kerr demonstration and the mob ran over them.

"I thought they would kill 'em. It scared me to death. And I found one of the girl leaders went behind a tree and started to cry. That literally destroyed these youngsters. And it was an interesting thing to me because I certainly thought they had the whole campus with them and when this explosion occurred in favour of the president they were crushed Probably they were youngsters who may have had some unhappy life or something, you know, and weren't too stable. They're just antagonistic. A lot of people are that way, you know. Their antagonisms were crushed."