Questionnaires

gist with ACE, said yesterday his organization has worked closely with university presidents.

Pusey Instructs Von Stade

In recent years, ACE has conducted less-political polls of undergraduates at 400 schools. F. Skiddy von Stade '38, dean of freshmen, said yesterday he had ordered the ACE questionnaires placed in freshman registration envelopes for the last several years "against my own wishes but by instruction from President Pusey." Bayr said the results of those polls will be given to the Carnegie Commission, which will be doing an undergraduate study in the fall.

Edwards said the Commission obtained the names of all Harvard graduate students from J. Petersen Elder, dean of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, who was contacted through von Stade. Elder and von Stade said yesterday they had not heard of the graduate questionnaire.

Edwards said the questionnaire was sent to 51,000 graduate students selected at random from the available lists. A complete survey would have been too costly, he added.

ID Numbers

Bayr said the fund shortage was the only reason for the use of identification numbers. The numbers will allow the researchers to limit follow-up letters to those who have not yet answered the questionnaire, he explained.

Bayr said that if a subpoena were issued for the information by individuals "I think we'd inadvertently lose the name and address file. If it meant a jail sentence, I just don't know. . ."

"We've been spending a lot of time with our confidentiality problem," he said, adding he would "almost welcome" a court test of the government's authority to subpoena such information.

Logan Wilson, president of ACE, said he doubts that a government subpoena is "within the realm of likelihood, but there's always that possibility." He said ACE tries "to make it virtually impossible for anyone to get at individual respondents."

His organization is willing to go to court if necessary to protect respondents, but he hasn't discussed the possibility of destroying the records in defiance of a court order, Wilson said.

Edwards said "The contract [with National Computer Systems Processing Center in Minneapolis, tabulators of the responses] specifies that all tapes, records, and documents with individual identification be burned--except for one to be kept by the Carnegie Commission." He said that the Commission's tape would also be destroyed, but that he could not say when.

A separate questionnaire has been sent to 100,000 of 117,000 available faculty members, Edwards said. Countryman said the objectionable questions were not included in the faculty poll.

Seymour M. Lipset, professor of Government and Social Relations, said last night he will take a leave of absence from Harvard next year to work on data from the faculty poll.