Autumn Divinity Ave.

WHY IS THIS MAN SMILING? His name is Robert Bowie and he is standing on Divinity Avenue at 1:30 Wednesday morning. Mr. Bowie runs the Center for International Affairs and a bomb had gone off a half-hour earlier in the building where he works. Not a happy occasion, to be sure. But Mr. Bowie stands there, chatting with a dozen reporters who will not leave him alone and, from time to time, he smiles. Maybe it's because the bomb did not get his office. Who knows?

Mr. Bowie was only one of about 150 concerned citizens, journalists and plain old voyeurs who trooped down to Divinity Ave. to survey the damage on that warm night, and he was not the only one to view the scene with an equanimity approaching amused resignation. Indeed the whole crowd-radicals and jocks, professors and police-seemed to be light in spirit. Smatterings of laughter and calm, friendly conversations among strangers were the sounds that dominated; it could have been an outdoor summer cocktail party or a campfire, were it not for the lateness of the hour, the fire trucks, and the wreckage one could see by looking up at the third story CFIA windows.

So, why did the bombing of the CFIA prove to be such a non-event? Perhaps because it was more or less predicted by Neivsweek in an issue that hit the newsstands less than 24 hours before the bomb went off. Perhaps because bombings are about as extraordinary as thunder-storms these days. Perhaps because no one was killed.

In any case, the one person who might have displayed outrage, Robert Bowie, gave no indication of any distress as he chatted with the swarms of media people. He had taken the time to put on a grey Brooks Brothers suit and a tie before coming over, and he was very much a man in control. No, he had not worried in advance about possible violence at the CFIA. No, he didn't think any files had been removed from the building in anticipation of such an incident. No, he didn't think X (one of the more prominent student propagandists against the CFIA) was responsible for the bombing, because X "was just a talker." The scribbling reporters seemed to appreciate Mr. Bowie's wit.

Archibald Cox (trouble-shooter for the Harvard administration) soon arrived. Rather nicely, he gave Mr. Bowie something to do: he offered to escort him into the building to check out the damage.

Mr. Cox was also very much a man in control. When several of the men on Bowie's staff started to follow him into the building, he turned and said to them, "We don't want a whole crowd here." And then, sweetly, to Mr. Bowie, "You can come in."

A few minutes later, Mr. Cox called a press conference. A couple of Buildings and Grounds men gave him what were surely the most angry looks of the night when he elected to conduct his conference on the lawn of newly planted, fenced-off sod next to the CFIA. But the B and G men restrained themselves from interfering with the horde of sod-trampling newsmen who walked over to hear the former Solicitor General's statement.

Cox put on those half-glasses of his and, in his best owl-like manner, listed the know facts of the bombing. He spoke from notes and smiled frequently as he did so. Like Mr. Bowie, he was most ingratiating and was perfectly willing to take the reporters' questions.

"Would you call the damage extensive?" asked one guy.

"I don't know what extensive means," said Mr. Cox. "Let's just say that it's a terrible mess up there."

The questioner smiled, for, as every journalist knows, "terrible mess" is even better copy than "extensive."

A Boston newspaper man, out of ignorance and not malevolence, then asked what exactly it is that they study at the CFIA.

During the perhaps two second pause that followed, the WHRB and CRIMSON reporters in the crowd exchanged quick anticipatory glances. When Mr. Cox started to speak, he could only get out the words, "A variety of..." before he was interrupted by none-too-well suppressed giggles.

The speaker recovered quickly with a few random descriptions. Finally Mr. Cox said, "I wouldn't want to say what they study." He added, though, that the Center puts out an annual report, which, of course, is available to the public.