On June 1, 1969, comments favoring U.S. military involvement in Vietnam by Archbishop Connolly prompt four students to walk out of Seattle University commencement exercises.
Connolly stated that although he could not advocate U.S. involvement in Vietnam, as long as troops are there the nation must remain involved. He called for stepped up offensives and the bombing of the cities of Hanoi and Haiphong. The students were led by Michael Urban of the Seattle University Student Involvement League.
The following day, a call for a student boycott of Seattle University was diffused when Archbishop Connolly apologized for his remarks and the university president described the comments as "a semantic slip-up."
Sources:
Walt Crowley, Rites of Passage: A Memoir of the Sixties in Seattle (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1995), 270; The Seattle Times, June 2, 1969, p. 37; Ibid., June 3, 1969, p. 3.
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