They didn't think he would accept the challenge (this was 1974) but he did, as only someone like John Wayne could.
John Wayne knew someone in the National Guard, and he convinced them to give him a ride down Massachusetts Avenue to the Cambridge event in a M113 Armored Personnel Carrier!
The Harvard Crowd hated him, and fully expected to rake him over the coals and make a fool out of him, but when all was said and done, he had the Harvard leftists cheering for him!
One student student asked him about his pro-war support. Wayne quipped back: “Good thing you weren’t here 200 years ago or the tea would’ve never made the harbor.”
Another tried to skewer him about his hair piece, and he felt his head and said something like "This is real hair. It’s not mine, but it’s real!"
I am a big fan. I recall hearing story a long time ago about him confronting a bunch of antiwar protesters outside a VA Hospital in California, and by he end of it, he had them listening to him.