Cleaver Lecture Is Still in Doubt

Eldridge Cleaver, Black Panther Party Minister of Information, will lecture at 4 p.m. today in Sanders Theatre, according to a spokesman for Social Relations 148. But there is some doubt that Cleaver will actually come.

James Kilbreath, a Soc Rel 148 sectionman, said yesterday that Cleaver "really wanted to come to Harvard," even though his speaking schedule was crowded since he is the Presidential candidate of the Peace and Freedom Party in California. The Institute of Politics at the Kennedy School of Government--a co-sponsor of the lecture--was told on Friday that Cleaver would break other commitments to come to Harvard.

But the New York Times reported yesterday--and the Columbia Daily Spectator confirmed--that Cleaver was slated to speak at Columbia at 4 p.m. An editor of the Spectator said that, as far as he knew, Cleaver would be at Columbia as planned. Neither Cleaver nor his secretary was available for comment yesterday.

Twice before this year, Cleaver has cancelled plans to speak at Harvard at the last minute. If he does appear this time, he will lecture to students in Soc Rel 148, and also Social Sciences 5--"The Afro-American Experience." The lecture will be open to the public.

Cleaver, author of Soul on Ice, is also a lecturer at an experimental course at the University of California at Berkeley. That appointment has been opposed by conservative forces in California, who denounced Cleaver's criminal record and lack of formal qualifications.