Mexican Student Massacre

To the Editors:

On a recent visit to Mexico, I was astounded and chilled to learn that the “massacre of students” of 1968 was indeed a massacre. A sober and unimpeachable source told me that he could certify at least a hundred shot dead; angry radical students said there were 500, many of the bodies having been made to vanish in a crematorium. (This rumored detail was denied by my more sober authority.) Because of this event, Mexican students express an irreconcilable bitterness that is quite unlike the tone of our American militants—though it may exist among some blacks—and it seems to me to be a terrible warning to us.

It is essential that the whole incident be aired and fully reported by those who have information about it. It is blacked out of the Mexican press, and at present Mexicans cannot protest without serious sanctions. The following statement was prepared by Americans who may or may not risk unpleasant consequences because of it. The thirty-four signers include professors and students, a truck driver, priests, ministers, and missionaries, a member of the American Friends Service Committee, a college president, a former Regent of one of our states, etc. (I and The New York Review have the names.) The American Bernard Ames is singled out not for special consideration, but because he has been a means of information.

Paul Goodman

New York City