headquarters of the Communist Party U.S.A.- Marxist-Leninist, the American Maoist organization, was fire-bombed October 8. Opened only two weeks previously, the meeting. place suf- fered damages estimated at. $1,500 to $2,000. Besides the breakage of the storefront glass windows , Chinese, Albanian and Vietnamese literature was damaged.
According to Michael I. Laski, national party spokesman and general secretary of the group, three men broke the glass front at about 4 a.m. The noise awoke Earl Johnson, who had been sleeping in a rear room. Johnson ran out of the rear door to. alert Laski and another party member, Easton Simmons.
When the three returned, several small fires were burning on the floor and along the bookshelves.
As they sought to put out the fires, a bottle filled with gasoline was thrown through the window from a moving automobile.
The assault followed a similar attack on the national headquarters of the Socialist Workers party only the week before. LSee World Outlook October 7.] In the fire-bombing of the SWP, Judy White, the New York gubernatorial candidate of the Trotskyist organization, called attention to a definite pattern that had appeared.
She noted the bomb assaults against the national headquarters of the Communist pro-Moscow Communist party, the national headquarters of the W.E.B.Dubois Clubs, and the headquarters of the Vietnam Day Committee in Berkeley -- all since last April. These organizations oppose American involvement in the civil war.in Vietnam.
"Possibly a single right-wing or fascist-type organization is responsible for all these outrages," she said. "The commandos evidently hope by violent means like this to intimidate organizations that oppose the war in Vietnan.
Laski told the press that he thought the fire was started in the Maoist headquarters because the party had urged Negroes last week to arm themselves "as the only effective means to struggle titfor-tat with the Ku Klux Klan." phe finger of suspicion pointed, he said, to "states-rights groups.
He said that his organization intended to stick tough. "We will not be pushed out of here by racists. his will not intimidate us. In fact, it reaffirms our convictions. an
If necessary, he told the press, the plate-glass windows will be replaced by plywood "backed with steel.