Word: cfia
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...downtown Boston. After several hundred demonstrators risked arrest for about one-half hours by sitting in front of the Tremont St. office, a PCPJ spokesman unexpectedly announced that the march would proceed to a "military-linked target" somewhere in the Cambridge area. The target's identity (it was the CFIA) and what would occur once the marchers reached it were kept secret, the spokesman explained, so that the police would not be able to abort the action...
...because the route followed was the same as taken by an April 15, 1970 march that ended in street-fighting in the Square. As the marchers passed several targets in the Central Square area and continued west on Mass Ave, a Harvard target seemed even more probable. But the CFIA building was considered unlikely because a city-wide planning meeting several days earlier had ruled out University targets...
When the march veered right abruptly on Quincy St., it became apparent that the target was indeed going to be the CFIA, located at 6 Divinity Ave. The march's vanguard raced the last several hundred yards to the building, where about 20 people immediately shattered the windows of the three-story structure with rocks. Several other attempted to open the doors. The building's night watchman, alerted by a youth, had attempted to bar the door...
...police then skirmished for several hours with what remained of the original march, although most of the CFIA trashers had scattered. Lines of police swept through the Square and adjoining side streets, reading an emergency curfew order signed by the Cambridge city manager and ordering everyone to disperse. The police used tear gas four times and made two arrests. Within two hours, the area had returned to relative normalcy and traffic was moving again...
...CFIA TRASHING was condemned almost unanimously by the community. President Bok said it was an action with "no purpose to be gained other than mindless violence." The Crimson editorially condemned the attack "without qualification" and characterized it as "aimless violence." Daniel Steiner '54, general counsel to the University, estimated that about $25,000 damage had been done to the building. Student volunteers and Harvard policemen worked late into the night to clear up the wreckage. The trashing probably had a salutary effect on attendance at the upcoming mass meeting; students became even more determined to translate their outrage into effective...