The Boston Globe from Boston, Massachusetts • 20

20 Boston Sundav Globe September 15. 156g Vermonters Deny Racism in Storm Over Minister -n i IRASBURG Continued from Page 1 His Irasburg neighbors, who at first had held out the hand of friendship have since withdrawn it, he contends, because of what he describes as an official vendetta against him. "They, (the state police) have turned the town and all the good people against me," he said Saturday. "Things were fine until they started ail the rumors." Vermonters, taciturn at best, have become especially guarded on the subject of th clergyman and his family. 4 Ifli SSHt 2Ly- 1 don't like the position we're mm Gov.

Hoff said Saturday he is "as confused as anyone about the events. "I don't know what the truth of this whole matter is," the governor said, "but I'm going to find out the truth." Hoff said he is awaiting a decision by Atty. Gen. James L. Oakes on whether he has the power to name a three-man, blue ribbon panel of top Vermonters with subpoena powers, to hold ppen hearings on the case.

He said that if he cannot legally name such a commission, he will have the probe conducted through the office of the attorney general. The truth has been obscured in a welter of charges, counter charges and criminal complaints against the minister and some of his tormentors. You can hear the minister and his family discussed at any soda fountain, filling station, variety store or smoke shop. A. -tx the sofa David 15, Mrs.

Ophelia Johnson, Rev. George, 17. Johnson, Brenda, 17 and t) I The charges were denied, categorically by-state police Lt. Clement Potvin, a key figure in the case. "If he thinks he was being shad-.

owed when he drove across i Vermont, he's mistaken," Potvin said. "The warrant wasn't ready for service, until they got to Bethel" Potvin has admitted that a Newport newspaperman Lloyd Hayes, tipped off state The minister, in his only concession to the New York reports, said Friday he planned to go to New York Saturday to "confer with someone about a book I am going to write." He would not elaborate, but on Saturday he was home in Irasburg and said he had changed his mind about going to New York. The Rev. Gordon NewelL minister of the United Church of Christ in Irasburg and a defender of Johnson from the beginning said, Johnson is "responsible for many of his own problems." Newell, who has stuck with the Rev. Mr.

Johnson despited a grim telephone threat that "your house is next," said the minister has been "less that candid, even in dealing with those of us who support his right to live peacefully as a human being." The Rev. Mr. Johnson says he is 39 and a retired pensioner from the Army at $180 a month, which represents his whole income. He said his background, under much scrutiny by authorities here since his includes 25 years of Army service. The discrepancy between his avowed age and his claim to tenure of Army service it typical of factors that have compounded the confusion.

It is kind of discrepancy that is upsetting to the Rev. Mr. Newell and other clergymen who have championed his cause. The Rev. Mr.

Newell said Saturday he had been "embarrassed" because of an outgrowth of an alleged incident in which a dead raccoon had been tossed onto the Rev. Mr. Johnson's front lawn by a supposed racist. "Mr. Johnson had told me that a coon had been thrown into his front yard and I saw fit to deplore this insult at a convocation of ministers in Stowe," the Rev.

Mr. Newell said. "Saturday, the state police came to ask me where I got my information. I told them it came from Mr. Johnson, only to learn that Mr.

Johnson has since denied telling me this." The Rev. Mr. Newell said that, nonetheless, he felt "morally obligated to support this man and his family for the simple reason that Atty. Gen. Oakes, who must rule on whether Gov.

Hoff has the power to name a fact-finding panel, saw his political ambitions reduced to ashes in the fires of the Johnson controversy. Oakes issued the warrant under which Larry Conley, 21, of Glover, a soldier on furlough, was prosecuted and fined $500 for the shotgun blast at the clergyman's home. In a move that caused the wholesale raising of eyebrows among Vermonters, Oakes refused to become involved in the adultery case brought against the Rev. Mr. Johnson and Mrs.

Lawrence. On Friday, however, a warrant issued through Oakes' office resulted in the arrest of two Orleans County men on charges of shouting threats while riding past the ministers home. TALK OF TOWN In Irasburg, Newport, Orleans, Barton and other Republican nomination for Oakes, a Johnson champion the day after the shotgun blast, in. the opinion of many, was trounced for the governor because of his interest in the case, "Why Irasburg?" This is the question that pops up most often as Vermonters ask one another what is happening to their "way of life" and the peace of the countryside. "He says he came here for peace and quiet and we've had no peace and quiet since he arrived." said one burly farmer.

"There must be other places between here an'd California." qualities of the property had been "misrepresented," demanded that Gov. Hoff take action to get him his money back, then moved into another house he is now buying. But the rumble over Johnson and his reasons for choosing Irasburg is the louder because of rumors of visits to his home by out-of-staters, some in cars bearing New York license tags. "If he came here because he wanted to come here, all the luck in the world to him," said a storekeeper. "But if he was planted here by troublemakers from New York, that's something else again.

I don't know what to believe." police that the Rev. Mr. Johnson had bought an air line ticket for Mrs. Law rence. "He was not arrested sooner," Potvin explained, "because we felt it would obscure the merits in the shotgun blast case, which' was pending at the time.

"As for his being fingerprinted by state police, this was done as a matter of routine investigation after he and Mrs. Lawrence had been observed by one of our officers in the commission of a crime." "He lives there and I live here," said one of the Rev. Mr. Johnson's more talkative neighbors. "If he doesn't give me any trouble, I certainly won't give him any." "What bothers me is that we're all supposed to be racists because a couple of wild kids ride by with a shotgun.

It just isn't true and we tt Pointing to bullet-riddled 5 Everything was fine until the state police dreamed up this phony adultery charge," he explained. "They took our friendship with Barbara Lawrence and look what they did with it." Johnson and Mrs. Lawrence were arrested in Bethel on Aug. 8 when state police stopped them in a car headed for Massachusetts, where Mrs. Lawrence was to catch a plane for California.

He said state police cars followed him in relay? for approximately 80 miles from Irasburg to the point of arrest. "WAVED TO THEM" "Both Barbara end I thought it was funny there were so many police cars in back of us, but we figured it was just a coincidence. We were arrested at gunpoint, like common criminals. "I was afraid I was going to be shot for no reason," the clergyman said. "I almost got in when I reached for my money belt and again, when I reached for my reg-.

istration in the glove compartment, "Finally, I yelled out that I wasn't armed, and all they told me was they couldn't be too careful." He said the time lapse between the alleged adultery offense on July 22 and his arrest on Aug. 8 supported his charge of a state police "frame-up." He suggested also that his fingerprinting at his home by state police on July 26, 13 days before his arrest, violated his civil rights. freely welcomed and permit-seems to me one should be ted to live undisturbed." Adds the Rev. Mr. La Wall: "This man is not a paragon of virtue, but this is no excuse for singling him out for persecution.

We do feel he has been abused by vigilante tactics and we are concerned with his welfare and that of his wife and family." BACKGROUND HAZY The Rev. Mr. Johnson, who keeps a neat scrapbook of newspaper clippings bearing on the case, meets out-of-town newsmen but presents a sometimes difficult subject for interview. He rejects ns hostile and leaves unanswered any. question aimed at bringing his background into focus.

The minister, his wife, Orhelia and their children, George, 17, Brenda, 17, David, 15 and Yvette, 5, live in a 20-room yellow clapboard house. They have two huge German shepherds locked in the cellar. Mrs. Johnson is a $5000-a-year case worker at the Parent Child Care Center, a social agency in nearby Barton. His daughter, Brenda, works as a receptionist at the Newport office of the Orleans County Council for Social Agencies.

His sons, George and David, attend the Lake Region High School where, they say, they "are treated just like anyone else." But Johnson himself, claims unrelenting persecution by reacists who threaten him and authorities who harass him. The state police official -also denied the widely- published claim that the ar- rest of the minister and Mrs. Lawrence represented the r-s first prosecution of an adul-' tery case in Vermont in 12 years. Potvin produced records 'x to show that 102 such cases have been prosecuted in the 3 past 10 years. "Perhaps the law Is archa- ic in our society and this is not a crime we look for," Potvin said.

"But if a troop- er observes such a crime, he would be remiss In his duty if he did not follow through and make an arrest." A 1 SttiSiiHAKVWi 3 Held in Billerica Holdup; Loot Recovered THE FAMILY poses on they are being persecuted as human beings." A minister said that he would "come to anyone's defense under like circumstances" and added that "if I had it to do over again, I wouldn't do a thing differently from the beginning." BONA FIDE CLERIC. Two other Orleans County ministers were careful to distinguish between their support for the Rev. Mr. Johnson's rights and their unwillingness to endorse him as a bona fide fellow cleric. The Rev.

Mr. Johnson, who by his own admission benefitted from no formal theological studies only tutoring from an Army chaplain was ordained at a Baptist Church in Monterey, last Jan. 14. Fellow ministers say his ordination and his status as a clergyman are not recognized by the American Baptist Convention. The two clerics who joined the Rev.

Mr. Newell in a "statement of clarification" Saturday were the Rev. William Hutchinson, minister of the Unitarian Universalist Chiirch in Derby Line, and the Rev. Roderic D. Lawall, minister of the First Baptist Church, Newport.

"To me," Hutchinson said, "the issue is not who he is or were he comes from, but his fundamental, right to live here, irrespective of his character. "The law guarantees protection to everyone and this, to me, is the sole issue. It By PAUL SULLIVAN Staff Correspondent LOWELL Three men, captured after a massive land and air search Friday, were arraigned in Lowell District Court Saturday and charged with the $31,500 armed robbery of a Billerica bank. Before the court hearing, police recovered the remaining $28,500 of the loot taken from the Rte. 3A branch of the Union National Bank Friday afternoon.

They said two of the suspects led them to the money, in woods off the Middlesex Turnpike. Judge Paul Fitzgerald continued until Sept. 20 the cases of James Marks, 28, of Edgar Roxbury, Paul Coughlin, 29, who gave a Boston hotel address, and Richard K. Megna, 24, of Clyde Arlington. Bail was set at $50,000 each.

Marks was arraigned while laying on a stretcher. He was brought to court from St. John's Hospital here, where he had been treated for gunshot wounds in his left leg. He said someone not the police fired a shotgun at him as he ran through a backyard before his capture. Three gunmen robbed the Billerica bank at about 2 p.m.

They fired one warning shot into a filing cabinet and held bank manager Frank Mullin and 10 other persons at gunpoint. The bandits fled in a white station wagon which they abandoned for a second car. The second car was also found smashed against a tree near the Billerica-Bedford line. It contained about $3000 of the loot and a .22 caliber pistol. Two of the suspects were captured at 9 p.m.

near the Shawsheen River in Bedford after a search by local and state police, aided by dogs and a Coast Guard helicopter. A third appeared at the home of a Billerica resident and gt've himself up. Police said that Megna and Coughlin Saturday morning led officers to a wooded area where the balance of the loot was recov-ered The money was brought into court, wrapped in a shirt. 4 windows is Rev. Johnson.

v. 1 iiti in-" -1 -'-'ffi 'I naiiiniriiif TOM SANDERS, Boston Celtics forward, shows two youngsters how it's done as the South End Neighborhood Action Program's new playground opens on Columbus Ave. near Massachusetts Ave. (Globe Photos by-Donald C. Preston) SNAP Playground Dedicated I nil i 4 1 mounds of dirt and leveled the grounds.

They built a re- taining wall of railroad ties from the Saugus Dump. 'i Boston Gas Co. provided a back hoe to dig trenches, and Boston" Edison Co. donated and sunk poles to be supports for a basketball backboard. The architecture students advised in the designing of playthings, but, as Willis put it, "This is really the kids' thing.

They decided what they needed." i Two local artists who have been doing quite a bit of work for neighborhood projects, Dana Chandler and Gary Rickson, painted a mural on building facing the playground. The kids then 1 painted what they felt sig- nifkant on the lower part of i the wall. I The innovative and unique playground, with its modern etric-shaped play, things, was actually finished a month ago, but the youngsters wanted Sanders to dedicate the basketball court and he wasn't available. Tom (Satch) Sanders of the' Boston Celtics officially opened the South End Neighborhood Action Program playground on Columbus av. Saturday while admiring youths who can call the playground their own looked on.

The playground is a result of the combined efforts of the young men, and the Visual Arts Program of Mayor White's Summer-thing. Everyone agrees that roost of the credit must go to the young people. Last June the playground consisted of moun'ds of undistributed sod, piles of stone and gaping holes. John Cheatham and Bill Willis of S.N.A.P. thought something ought to be done about it, so they enlisted the aid of three graduate students of Massachusetts Institute of Technology's School of Architecture and sought funds, which they received from Summerthing.

Neighborhood youths were then asked to do the It CHILDREN enjoy modern jungle gym at S.N.A.P. playground. labor, and the new playground began to emerge. They ripped into the rnirili-i iti ii.jimfc.,.Miiii,Mi.riMiiM ihiit i n.i n.aujWMi BILLERICA bank robbery suspect Richard Magna, 24, is escorted from Lowel District Court after arraignment Saturday. (Globe Staff Photos) ifft t- lit ff i if fcmt rt.a tinrtiWl 01 ii.