No Great Debate

A flurry of objections has greeted the announcement that Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara will speak to only two small groups of undergraduates during his visit to Harvard this Sunday and Monday. The critics insist that McNamara should debate Ramparts magazine editor Robert Scheer, or at least talk to a larger audience. But they miss the point of inviting public figures to be honorary associates of the Kennedy Institute.

The purpose of visits such as McNamara's is to bring important men in government in close contact with undergraduates under conditions that will allow a free exchange of ideas. In a relaxed atmosphere, with all comments off the record, the Institute's guests will provide interested students with a frank idea of the problems of policy-making and administration.

The feeling of those running the program is that officials will be more likely to accept an invitation to the Institute if they do not expect to be pushed before a battery of microphones and an audience of thousands. There is nothing in McNamara's acceptance that obligates him to deliver a major speech.

Few people would deny that McNamara should publicly discuss the Administration's Vietnam policy, or even that he should debate articulate dissenters such as Scheer. But a stay under the auspices of the Kennedy Institute is not necessarily the occasion for a Great Debate.