Kennedy Library Drive Will Solicit in Houses

A student-faculty committee will launch a door-to-door solicitation drive in the College and Radcliffe Monday as part of a University-wide effort to raise $12,500 for the Kennedy Memorial Library. Similar drives are being conducted at over 2100 other colleges and universities across the country.

Although only the Harvard Combined Charities has been permitted to conduct door-to-door drives in recent years, the Harvard Council on Undergraduate Affairs voted last night to exempt the Harvard University Committee for the Kennedy Memorial Library from this restriction for a three-day drive next week.

Dean Watson said he would recommend the HCUA's action to the Masters who have not yet approved the move. Mrs. Bunting has already approved door-to-door solicitation at Radcliffe. Earlier in the day, Watson granted the Library committee the use of the Harvard name "for as long as the committee serves its function."

The local drive is expected to receive the endorsement of President Pusey today. Pusey will also issue a separate statement praising the national drive.

Robert Joffe '64, chairman of the Harvard committee, said last night the goal of the drive is "to involve actively every member of the Harvard community." Coordinators have been appointed for the GSAS, the Law School, the Medical School, and the Faculty.

The graduate school drives will be conducted only in the dining halls, according to Joffe, and the Faculty will be solicited by mail under the direction of James A. Rousmaniere '40, director of the Harvard College Fund. More than 300 people will participate in raising the $12,500 with the slogan "Buy a book or a brick for the Kennedy Memorial Library."

At Harvard, the committee plans to solicit door-to-door on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, and then finish the week with collections outside the dining halls. Mrs. Bunting, however, has given the group permission to collect door-to-door throughout the week at Radcliffe.

Watson noted last night that allowing the committee to use the Harvard name was also a departure from usual University procedure. An exception was justified, he said, by the special nature of the cause. He pointed to the deep emotional tie between Harvard undergraduates and the late president, Kennedy's Harvard education, and the ideals which Kennedy represented as grounds for his decision.