A Different Cup of Tea

At every subway stop and elevator bank, parchment broadsides carried the message: "Citizens of Boston, be prepared to make history." They were summoned to a re-enactment of the Boston Tea Party -- the opening act of America's bicentennial celebration.

Despite sleet and freezing drizzle, some 10,000 spectators watched at Griffin's Wharf while history buffs crept aboard the 97-ft. brigantine Beaver II, a replica of one of the three ships sacked in 1773. Like the 18th century patriots, the raiders masqueraded as Indians.

They smashed wooden tea chests and threw them into the harbor.

The re-enactment was a curious blend of 18th and late 20th centuries. Because of protests by Indian groups, the raiders wore no feathers or war paint.

To mollify environmentalists, most of the chests were empty so as not to pollute the harbor waters, and the crates were later retrieved.

After the tea party, hundreds of jean-clad young people, proclaiming themselves to be the "People's Bicentennial Commission," demonstrated.

They carried sardonic, sometimes blunt placards that demanded the impeachment of Richard Nixon but also cried confidently that THE SPIRIT OF '76 LIVES.

Some of the young people seized the Beaver II -- with the permission of the Boston authorities -- and threw empty oil drums into the harbor to protest the petroleum industry's failure to head off the fuel crisis. As a final ingredient in the Watergate-laden atmosphere, many Bostonians noted only half in jest that the site of the original tea party has now been filled in. It is occupied by the head quarters of the Sheraton hotel chain, a division of ITT, a company that has been deeply implicated in the Administration scandals.

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