On the Carpet

The commuter train to Groton offers the same barren, monotonous trip every evening. But a couple of times each week, an argument in one of the cars provides diversion for those sitting nearby. One of the debaters is a critic of the University, carping about the Corporation's stand on ex-Communists on the faculty. His opponent is William Bentinck-Smith who, in varying capacities, has had ample opportunities to defend Harvard.

As managing editor of the Alumni Bulletin for eight years, Bentinck-Smith had to ward off irate alumni who complained about Harvard's teams, its academic freedom policy, or its inhospitality to old grads. The answers he gives his fellow commuter are paraphrases of the balm he has dispensed through the columns of the Bulletin and to the many visitors to his office. Bentinck-Smith was evidently effective in this missionary work, for in February President Pusey appointed him as Special Assistant to the President.

In this new post, Bentinck-Smith meets not only the world's leading scholars, but its leading screwballs as well. "Strangely enough," an associate on the Bulletin says of him, "dealing with screwballs is the forte of this good, solid, man. He has enough humor to appreciate screwballism." So, the incensed anti-Communist or the Fcencyite to whom the President is always busy, might find himself ushered into Bentinck-Smith's office where he will find a patient listener.

But as yet the job has not evolved into final form. "The President is so busy," Bentinck-Smith says, "I just do what I can, or he thinks I can, to try to help him." This means doing research for special reports, answering the less routine of the President's mail, and showing up at receptions when the President can't make it.

The job is somewhat removed from Bentinck-Smith's past experience, but Pusey felt he could use the tact and the interest in Harvard which marked the successful Bulletin years. On his side, Bentinck-Smith accepted the offer for two reasons: "First, it will give me a chance to serve Harvard in a larger field. And then, too, my admiration for Mr. Pusey influenced me to accept his unexpected offer."

Bentinck-Smith's literary aspirations began back in 1935 when, as a sophomore, he went out for the Advocate competition. He was a bit soured on extra-curricular activities because he had been cut from the football managers' competition the day before the Yale game. The Advocate caught him on the rebound, but not as a writer. He was elected to the advertising board, and considers the training excellent experience: "As Roy Larsen, the president of Time-Life, points out, 'If you can sell ads for the Advocate, you can sell anything'."

After graduation, Bentinck-Smith enrolled in the Graduate School of Journalism at Columbia. One year later he went west, where he almost decided to buy a small paper in Nevada. He gravitated back to Boston, however, married, and began raising his four-child family. Up to 1940, Bentinck-Smith did rewrite for the Boston Globe, later alternating with leg work and the City Hall beat. The experience was brief but intoxicating. "I don't think I'll ever get over the feeling of being a newspaper man," he reflects. But when he heard about an opening with the Bulletin, Bentinck-Smith found irresistible the appeal of having an entire publishing outfit in his hands. In the '40s, the Bulletin was undergoing a reformation from a drab, shaky publication to a nation-wide magazine with wider appeal. Since that time, the Bulletin's circulation has more than doubled, and it president, Joseph Hamlen, gives Bentinck-Smith much of the credit. After three years of war service, Bentinck-Smith took over as managing editor up until Pusey's surprise offer in December.

Before the war, Bentinck-Smith's occupations were literary in one form or another, and the the prospect of military service was not an appealing one. "I was," he recalls, "a green, innocent fellow from Harvard; a guy, more a writer than a warrior, who found himself on a battleship in the Coral Sea." He served on Rear Admiral Willis Lee's communications staff and later was stationed in Washington.

After discharge, he was well ready to return to Harvard and the Bulletin. In spare moments he worked on The Harvard Book, an anthology about the College and its history. Published last fall, the volume has been chosen as the Harvard prize book, to be given to about 600 of the country's top juniors in prep and high schools. Bentinck-Smith denies any literary pretentions, however. He has tried creative writing and poetry, but "I don't think my mind works that way. I've always been very fond of editing."

As he speaks of his recent change in occupation, Bentinck-Smith leans back and surveys his new Massachusetts Hall office. "It's kind of a wrench to change your whole way of life," he says. One of his favorite contrasts is the linoleum floor of the Bulletin's Wadsworth House offices with his present red carpet. "I sometimes wonder," he concludes, "if I'm not a linoleum man at heart."