Liberty Liberated

The Viet Nam Veterans Against the War have a special flair for the symbolic: last spring they provided the searing spectacle of men angrily hurling medals won in Indochina against the U.S. Capitol. Last week, in quickly organized protest against the increased bombing in Viet Nam, they occupied briefly the South Vietnamese consulate in San Francisco, the Betsy Ross house near Philadelphia's Independence Hall, the Lincoln Memorial in Washington and the Statue of Liberty.

The New York City group, 15 strong, held out for two days, barricaded inside the statue's base with timbers being used to build an immigration museum. While demonstrators elsewhere were arrested, the New York men were allowed to leave with impunity in compliance with a court order obtained by the Government. They created another vivid image when, from between the points of the statue's crown, they flew a large U.S. flag upside down, as a distress signal. Once the Statue of Liberty meant a new life for generations of immigrants; the protesters chose to convey a considerably more somber message. Yet the statue and what it stands for have survived worse crises than the Viet Nam War, and withstood graver challenges than the veterans' occupation.

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