WEDNESDAY, MARCH 16, 1983 WASHINGTON, D.C. (Front Page)

By Gene Goltz

<B>Washington Staff Writer</B>

Police are denying there is any new poilcy, but the street people and the clutter of protest signs have disappeared from in front of the White House.

William Thomas, an anti-nuclear protester has been swept away by police three times since last Friday and others, such as Concepcion Picciotto, another Anti-nuke regular who plastered her signs at 16OO Pennsylvania Avenue, have vanished from the scene.

The U.S. Perk Police deny there is any new crackdown. But there has been a near feud involvlng the police, the courts and various Lafayette Park protesters for at least two years, and sources have told The Washington Times that the cluttered sidewalks in front of the White House have been a topic of discussion lately among the Secret Service, the Park Police, and the U.S. attorney's office.

"It has been an ongoing problem," said Sandra Alley, spokeswoman for the National Park Service.

"Hundreds of thousands of people come to Washington, the nation's capital, and for many of these it's a once-in-a-lifetime experience.

"We must protect the rights of those persons who visit the capital as well as those who demonstrate. But I don't think I'd call it a crackdown."

Thomas was arrested Friday and charged with arson, when, according to Metropoliton Police, he poured a flammable fluid on a three - sided wooden structure and set fire to it.

Thomas, who police say has "no fixed address," was warned shortly before his arrest by Park Police that the presence of the structure, in which Thomas sometimes sat, was in violation of the law. Thomas claims it is a sign and therefore is protected by First Amendment rights.

After the warning, Thomas moved his structure toward the Old Executive Office Building. When he ignited it, he was arrested by D.C. police because he had moved into their jurisdiction.

Thomas phones the American Civil Liberties Union yesterday morning and reported he had been arrested Friday, Sunday, and yesterday in front of the White House,ACLU spokesman Art Spitzer said.

After Friday's arrest, General Services Administration employees showed up in front of the White House to haul away Thomas' several protest signs.

"He's been a regular protester at Lafayette Park...for two years," Spitzer said. "He did say when he called that he has to make more signs. The ACLU does not have a view whether Thomas' rights are being infringed or not. We have never represented him in court."

The Washington Times printed two editorials in February berating "the garbage that passses for protest signs" in front of the White House and calling for an act of Congress if the protesters didn't leave the street.

Neither the Park Police nor anyone else would aknowlede yesterday that a concerted cleanup was under way. But with the arrest of William Thomas three different times, the other protesters along Pennsylvania Avenue have departed.

It was the first time, old White House watchers said, at least since before the Vietnam War, that strollers can get a clear view through all parts of the fence along Pennsylvania Avenue.

In case you're looking for us (White House Peace Vigil - Peace Park anti-nuclear vigil - and friends) our signs have been moved across Lafayette Park to H Street, as has happened every four years since the vigil began in June, 1981.

Meanwhile a dozen large mobile homes rest on the grass of the southern half of Lafayette Park for the construction crews' comfort. Police patrol regularly, in part to make sure no homeless people crawl under the empty trailers in the icy dark of night. The bricks where office workers and tourists usually walk have been torn up, and huge - ugly - three-story bleachers rise in the space where our vigil normally stands, along the north side of Pennsylvania Avenue, so the press -- for one afternoon -- may stay warm and dry and near bathrooms while President Clinton has his second inaugural parade. The bathrooms on the north side of the park are locked, though construction workers again (as in past years) have for their use several porta-johns which are locked at night. Fences of every variety are intricately laid out to block demonstrators into the northeast corner of the park during the Big Event.

Ronald Reagan tried to have a second inaugural parade but it was so cold Inauguration Day 1985, the president had to call it off, and the quarter-million-dollar bleachers went unused. We were shivering and dancing in the northeast quadrant of the park, giving credit to God for a good sense of humor.

The vigil began five months after Reagan's first inauguration. At that time, people were allowed to demonstrate on the White House sidewalk. After a campaign by the Washington Times in 1983, new regulations were written banishing the vigil to Lafayette Park. During the wee hours of the morning, when tourists weren't about, police hovered and often arrested the vigilers. Department of Interior lawyers wrote a "camping" regulation which was used (see CCNV case, U.S. Supreme Court, 1984) to criminalize what was formerly protected behavior (see Abney case, U.S. Court of Appeals, 1976)

Since there are private citizens who insist on paying for this desecration of Lafayette Park every four years (via the Inaugural Committee), I suppose we're stuck with the bleachers again this year. So I'm writing President Clinton asking him, as I asked President Reagan in 1985, at least to leave the bleachers up for the rest of the winter, for homeless people to get out of the cold, wet, snowy, icy streets. I'm not asking for us -- we will remain at our signs with the minimal amount of protection necessary to survive. We are asking on behalf of the homeless sleeping on the DC streets (in spite of police harassment) ... still, after all these years.

Ellen Thomas
PEACE PARK ANTINUCLEAR VIGIL
PO Box 27217, Washington, DC 20038 USA
202-462-0757
prop1@prop1.org