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"WHY don't you say," said NAC leader Mike Ansara, "'Former War Criminals Go To Washington To Advise Their Successors'?"
"For whatever it matters," said Francis M, Bator, professor of Political Economy, "the kids are right. There is an establishment of men who have influence and power in Washington. Some of us here at Harvard have been working on the inside for a long time. But since Nixon's Cambodia speech, we are ready for political action. The inside game is over as far as we're concerned."
Perhaps the most remarkable of all the anti-war activities involving Harvard people recently was an odyssey to Washington a month ago by a dozen highly dis?inguished senior Harvard Faculty members, most of them with long-established ties in the government power structure, to publicly lobby for the first time against the war. They insisted that all their meetings-including an emotional encounter with their old associate Henry Kissinger-be on the record. And they went to encourage congressional action to curtail the foreign-policy-making power of the President-"Something most of us would have found horrifying even three weeks ago." said Richard Neustadt, professor of Government and author of Presidential Power. The dozen associated themselves with the Peace Action Strike led by charismatic professor Everett Mendelsohn-"which strikes us as a pretty radical thing for a bunch of old men to do"-but used their Washington connections and smaller size to get themselves in to see people the larger group couldn't.
Bator explained all this in his Littauer Center office the day before the group went down. His office is full of memories of the Johnson administration, in which he was from 1965 through 1967 Deputy Special Assistant to President for National Security Affairs in charge of European polities and international economic affairs. A dapper, distinguished-looking man, he speaks with a Mendel-sohn-esque elegance and just a touch of a European accent. (His biography lists him as being from Hungary via Groton.) His articulate speech is punctuated for effect with well-placed proletarianism. ("I'm willing to bet 100 to one considerable sums of money that all they'll find in Cambodia is a couple of holes in the ground and some Hershey bars.")
Bator said of the trip, "It might seem a very nuancy thing for someone who wants to burn down University Hall, but for us middle-aged squares to go to Washington in public like this and tell them to Get The Hell Out Of Cambodia. Stop The Idiot Bombing, and reaffirm the road being taken in the past to withdraw all troops, is a big deal. Those of us formerly of the Cabinet and subcabinet level are hereby announcing that we are no longer playing the private game. We publicly regard the change in policy as intolerable. Galbraith's been playing this game for a long time, but for us this kind of grandstanding is a new role."
Most of the professors flew down from Cambridge together Thursday evening, leaving the emergency Faculty meeting before any decision had been reached on what to do about grades and exams. Edwin O. Reischauer, University Professor and former ambassador to Japan, and Nobel Laureate Edward M. Purcell, Gerhard Gade University Professor, were going to meet them in Washington. Dean May, a professor of History and former Army historian, couldn't leave the Faculty meeting but planned to fly down Friday in time for the Kissinger confrontation.
At their rooms in the Hay-Adams Hotel, on Lafayette Park directly across from the White House, those there Thursday evening spent six hours planning strategy for the following day-mainly for their meeting with "Henry." It was a highly intense discussion between some of the most noted intellects of the country: they consumed two bottles of Cutty Sark Scotch in the process.
TYPICALLY, the first one up for breakfast at 7:30 Friday morning was Thomas Schelling, professor of Economics. Schelling, an almost frail-looking man with a crew cut shorter than Ernie May's, was the person who brought the group together. He was also the closest associate in the group of Henry Kissinger. He doesn't look or act like the leader type. His conversation is studded with long, long pauses which make you think he's probably forgotten the problem at hand: in fact, he's more probably solved it. Throughout the day he issued directives with quiet authority which the other distinguished professors obviously respected. After ordering English muffins and glancing at the sports section of the Washington Post, Schelling pulled out his yellow legal pad and started to figure out who should go at 9:30 to see Senator Edward Brooke, and who should join the Mendelsohn group of Faculty members, students, and employees for a meeting in the New Senate Auditorium. (The schedule for the rest of the day included Senator Edward Kennedy '54 at 10:30 lunch with Kissinger at 1:30 p.m., Undersecretary of Defense David Packard-a last-minute addition-at 3:30 p.m., and Undersecretary of State Eliot Richardson at 5:30 p.m.)
Purcell and Reischauer had been unable to come to Washington, so the final group included Schelling, Bator, May (who hadn't arrived), Seymour Martin Lipset (government and Social Relations), Richard Neustadt (government, aide to President Truman), George Kistiakowsky (chemistry, chief science advisor to President Eisenhower), William Capron (associate dean of the Kennedy School, former assistant director of the budget), Adam Yarmolinsky (law, advisor to Presidents Kennedy and Johnson), Paul Doty (biochemistry, former member of the President's Science Advisory Committee), Konrad Bloch (biochemistry, nobel laureate), Frank Westheimer (chemistry), Gerald Holton (physics), and Michael Walzer (government, sterling dove credentials).
Kistiakowsky soon strolled in with his copy of the Post. which the Hay-Adams sells right in the dining room. "There are many ways of changing things by operating through channels," he said in his thick accent, towering over his orange juice. "Frequently they are by far the most efficient. This method probably tends to harder attitudes. But at a point one decides that sort of thing is hopeless. I've reached that point." Asked if he'd rather see Brooke or join Mendelsohn, Kistiakowsky said, "I'd like to see Brooke. I saw Kennedy last week, so it will be a nice change." Others arrived, bought a Post, and sat down. "What a strange bunch we've got today." the maitre d' whispered to his assistant.
Waiting for the elevator, Walzer said, "No maps. We won't look at any maps." Then he suddenly looked around and reflected, "You know, I've never come to Washington before to do anything but carry a picket sign around the White House."
Shortly before 9 a.m. the entire group, including those who had not made it up for breakfast, poured out of the elevator and stood on the sunny sidewalks as Schelling choreographed the taxicabs, and sent his men off into battle.
THE SENATE Office Building was swarming with Harvard people-all from the Mendelsohn group, trying to make appointments to see their various Senators. Delegations from the Harvard Law School and Newton High School were being put off by Brooke's secretary as the professors were escorted under a picture of Brooke and Nixon arm-in-arm and into the Senator's office. Brooke, elegantly tailored and smiling energetically, had barely begun, "Thanks very much for coming gentlemen," when Schelling broke in:
"Senator we're all appalled at the turn of events in Southeast Asia. What Nixon's done is at least as bad as Johnson's actions. We're expressing concern to everybody we could find. We have lost trust in the executive branch."
Neustadt puffed on his pipe and said, "Some of us have regarded the executive branch as our home for twenty or thirty years. This is a hard turn to come to-to be here urging congressional intervention which two or three weeks ago we would have regarded as unacceptable."
Capron said, "If this had happened while I was in the budget department, I would have been appalled."
Kistiakowsky said, "We ran into Javits in the cafeteria. He said he felt the same as we do about the need now for Senate action."
Seymour Martin Lipset said. "There is a credibility gap. The President's position is unredeemable. We're not just reporting the situation on campus. It's much, much more."
Bloch added, "It's an issue of morale and morality in the country."
After ten minutes, Brooke regained the floor. "You're well aware." he said, "that I share your grave concern and frustration. I know your experience in the executive. Many of us in the Senate have been meeting regularly to try to reverse the President's policy. I was frankly shocked. I could scarcely believe my ears. Why, Nixon had disarmed the students. They'd packed up here just last week and gone home." He was referring to the closing of the New Mobe office. This was the first of many times that day the professors would be treated as representatives of a discontented academic community, though this was exactly what they didn't want.
Brooke said he had gone to the White House with the rest of the joint armed services committee and had spoken to the President, who had insisted that the invasion had been called to protect U.S. forces. "I can't believe that," Brooke told the professors. "I don't like to say the President is not telling the truth, but it does seem as if the reason he did it was because he has the support of the present Cambodian government."
Schelling said, "Then he even lied to members of the armed services committee."
Brooke quickly interjected, "I do not question the President's integrity. I believe the military sold him a bill of goods." They asked him how he would vote on the upcoming legislation to limit the President's power to wage war in Southeast Asia. He said he believed the Church-Cooper bill that would cut off expenditures for any military activity in Cambodia would surely pass, and that he supported it. Likewise, he said, he might be favorable to repeal of the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution. "However," he said, "the one move I'm most reluctant to take is the one the students mostly want-the McGovern-Hatfield Amendment [which would bar appropriations for any military operations in Southeast Asia except withdrawal of troops]. I share your concern about the constitutionality of that method of pressuring the President. Why, the students want you to just get out-to pick up and leave Southeast Asia!" He reached for a globe to demonstrate. The professors grimaced.
"I have not yet reached a decision on what to do," Brooke said. "Coupled with my idealism is a bitter pragmatism, gentlemen. I know I can't feed this to the students, though. What would you suggest?"
Neustadt suggested. "For the first time I can remember, we have what Reston has always been heralding-a constitutional crisis."
Schelling said, "What Nixon took is a risky bet. And even if he wins, he would be winning on a bad bet so it doesn't make any difference. I have no confidence that this is the worst thing he'll try to do."
Bloch said, "We have a long, hot summer ahead of us."
"Thank you gentlemen." Brooke said. "One last question: Are you Harvard people going to have commencement this year?"
KENNEDY'S office was about twice as big as Brooke's, and twice as crowded. On the bookshelf in the waiting room, the Harvard University Catalogue stood next to the Selected Writings of Bolivar. Bator, Walzer, Yarmolinsky and Holton reappeared after an hour with the Mendelsohn group. Kennedy greeted them without the aid of a suit coat or an administrative assistant, and led them into his office. He apologized for being late, saying he had been lining up Coretta King and Judy Collins-"she's the new Joan Baez, you know"-for a Kent State memorial service that night. This time, Neustadt started off.
"We want to tell you where we are: Cambodia was worse than the worst decisions of Lyndon Johnson."
"That must be pretty bad." Kenn?dy laughed.
Neustadt continued, "We're not prepared to work quietly anymore. We want you to know; we want Henry to know. Civilian control of the military is sufficiently at stake that congressional control of the President is urgently needed. This leaves us executive-branch lovers in tough shape-but it has to be said." He gulped at his pipe.
Kennedy said, "I've met with a few student leaders, and I've got a terrific insight into the intensity of student involvement. I think personally that now's the time to get something through Congress. You gentlemen have extraordinary contacts; you could work wonders." There ensued a long discussion of tactics. Kennedy said the important thing was to get as many votes as possible for the Hatfield-McGovern amendment now, even if it loses. "We can work around the gymnastics of letting people change their minds later." As the names flew around the room, Bator and Yarmolinski, at least, were clearly enjoying themselves tremendously. This part of the game was not entirely foreign to them.
Holton said, "This is a watershed. Most students don't even believe in Congress anymore. Congress can save the President from himself, and save the credibility of the system. That's why action on your part is so important. All the time-scales now coincide. We have an election in 1972. The remaining young people who aren't alienated now will be if the war isn't over by that time."
Neustadt added, "I think it's safe to say we're afraid."
But Schelling countered, "If Cambodia succeeds, it will be a disaster not just because my Harvard office may be burned down when I get home, but it will even be a disaster in Laird and Packards own terms. It's not the speech, not the action even, but what if all says about the way decisions are being made, that makes old conservatives like Neustadt and myself come out of the woodwork."
Kennedy suggested they talk to Senate majority leader Mike Mans-field. When they mentioned it might be difficult to get an appointment for the next few days, Kennedy picked up the phone and had them an appointment in ten minutes. As they rushed out the out the door, Kennedy handed Capron a flyer about the memorial service.
"That's the first time I've ever been leafleted by a Senator," Capron said.
IT WAS quite a sight to see twelve senior Harvard Faculty members chasing down the halls of the Senate Office building, shouting at each other like little boys, "Wait for me!" and "Well then keep up, damn it!" As they crowded into the elevator, Bator explained "Mansfield knows we favor the other side-the executive. He will be impressed that the author of Presidential Power (nods to Neustadt) is going to him to say that he is now ready to risk 'mobocracy.'" The little electric trolly that runs between the Senate office buildings and the Capitol is fun for all ages. The gang poured abroad. Bator smiled, "The last time I rode this trolley, I was lobbying for some obscure textile bill and I thought I was on a foray into enemy territory."
The meeting with Mansfield was brief. In the cab on the way back, Neustadt said, "He's a man who gave the soundest advice of any senior member of government in 1964 and '65. But no one listened."
Bator said, "Unlike other Senators, he never grandstands. On the McGovern amendment he's playing majority leader while trying to build bipartisan support. He realizes how vulnerable Congress is when playing with Constitutional issues while 'our boys are dying.' He's just pushing for as much as he can get. But he just has no charisma."
"We really need Ted now," Neustadt sighed.
The cab rounded a corner and the White House came into view-which cheered them both up considerably. "Since 1945 I've been either in the White House or next door. To be doing this-" a wave of his pipe at the activities of the day "-boy, it's something else."
THE MOMENT they'd all been waiting for was now at hand-the meeting with Kissinger. Dean May had arrived at the hotel in time for a last-minute strategy session, so at about 1:15 they all strolled together across Lafayette Park and into the White House basement to "shock Henry into realizing he's living on the other side of the moon." Will Henry realize he's living on the other side of the moon?
FRANCIS BATOR leaned back in his Littauer Center office a few days after the excursion to Washington. "You might ask me," he suggested, "Why not get an appointment with the President?' " I obliged.
He answered, "Well, my strong view is that in the Oval Office one is the guest of the President and he conducts the conversation. And the discourtesy involved in trying to override his management of the conversation is too much when dealing with the President of the United States. So you see for our purposes Henry Kissinger wasn't second-best. He was the absolute best we could have done-he was the closest we could get to the President without having to feel like guests. But even in our meeting with Kissinger there was nothing harsh, but rather the tone was muted and painful. You see we broke two long-standing rules: First, one doesn't announce such a meeting in the papers ahead of time. (I feel this especially strongly given that I too was special assistant to the President for National Security Affairs. I won't dissociate myself with Johnson's Vietnam policy even though I wasn't on that particular area. It wasn't even my part of the world-it was Rostow's. But I knew what was happening, so I won't dissociate myself.) And second, the fact that we were thinking seriously about Congressional restraints. I had always thought of Congress as at best a nuisance, sometimes an adversary, often the enemy...."
Thomas Schelling, professor of Economics and organizer of the group, said at dinner that night in Washington, "Not that all our other meetings weren't helpful, but the crucial purpose in coming here was really to communicate something important to Henry Kissinger. I would guess that Henry's boss will hear of this meeting with a group that has affected him so much. We have all known Henry and-to the extent that this is possible-loved him. That's the one that mattered and that went as well as it could have gone."
According to the participants, the meeting with Kissinger was one of intense emotions painfully suppressed. "We made it clear to Henry from the beginning," Schelling said, "that we weren't here lunching with him as old friends, but were talking to him solely in his capacity to communicate to the President."
As reported by one member of the group, Schelling then turned to Dean May, who had flown down especially for the Kissinger confrontation and would have to return immediately afterwards, for a comment. May is a professor of History at Harvard and has worked as a military historian for the Defense Department. "Ernest told Henry, "You're tearing the country apart domestically.' He said this would have long-term consequences for foreign policy, as tomorrow's foreign policy is based on today domestic situation.
"Then Bator and Westheimer [Frank H. Westheimer, Morris Loeb Professor of Chemistry] chimed in with an explanation of how difficult it was for us to have Henry read in the newspapers beforchand of our coming. But despite that, they explained, we felt that the only way we could shock him into realizing how we felt was not to just give them marginal advice. We wanted to shock him into realizing that this latest decision was appallingly bad foreign policy in the short run.
"At this point Henry got called out to see the President. He asked to have someone explain to him when he returned what short-term mistake the Nixon policy made. We decided to let Tom do it, as he was the one who organized us and he was Henry's closest academic colleague in the group. So when Henry returned after a few minutes, Schelling gave him the Monster Speech."
SCHELLING'S Monster Speech was one he used frequently during that day. It's a metaphorical analysis similar to those he uses frequently in his undergraduate course on game theory and decision-making, Ec 135. The speech goes something like this: "It's one of those problems where you look out the window, and you see a monster. And you turn to the guy standing next to you at the very same window, and say, 'Look, there's a monster.' He then looks out the window-and doesn't see a monster at all. How do you explain to him that there really is a monster?
"As we see it, there are two possibilities: Either one, the President didn't understand when he went into Cambodia that he was invading another country; or two, he did understand. We just don't know which one is scarier. And he seems to have done this without consultation with the Secretary of Defense or the Secretary of State, or with leaders of the Senate and House. We are deeply worried about the scale of the operation, as compared with the process of decision."
Bator reportedly continued, "We are full of anxiety about what more things Nixon could do. And if we're scared, then the people in London, Paris, Moscow and Bonn that we care about must really be concerned. It's a scary situation-that's the foreign policy consequence. The hawks in Moscow can now say that the Americans occasionally go nuts. What does that mean for the SALT talks?" Bator gave two explanations of Nixon's behavior. The first he called the "Kennedy-Vienna syndrome." When President Kennedy returned from his Vienna talks with Krushchev in 1961, Bator said he was afraid he had given Khrushchev the impression he was soft. ("Some say this is the explanation of the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962," Bator now says, "but I doubt it.)" Bator said, "Maybe Nixon is also afraid of appearing weak."
But the more likely explanation of the sudden invasion of Cambodia, Bator said, is the enormous leverage the military field commander has over the President. "The field commander can tell the President that he will be carrying the blood of American soldiers on his conscience unless he backs him. And if pressure from the field commanders can create an invasion of Cambodia in 10 days-well then, what next?"
"Each of us spoke to Henry at least once," the member reported. "Michael Walzer [professor of Government], told him that as an old dove, he was impressed by the intensity of the concern of us old government boys. Gerry Holton [professor of Physics] talked generally about the lack of restraint in Nixon's policies. Adam [Yarmolinsky, profesor of Law] questioned the credibility in Saigon of the withdrawal strategy.
"When we were all through, Henry asked if he could go off the record. We said no. Schelling said one reason we had brought non-ex-government types like Walzer was to keep us honest. Henry replied that the nature of his job as an advisor to the Preisdent was such that he never spoke on the record."
KISSINGER did tell his colleagues three things.
"First, he told us that he understood what we were saying, and the gravity of our concern. Second, he said that if he could go off the record he could explain the President's action to our satisfaction. And third, he said that since we wouldn't let him go off the record, all he could do was assure us that the President had not lost sight of his original objective or gone off his timetable for withdrawal.
"There was not much else any of us could say.
"So afterward we all got up and shook hands, with a sense of sadness. It was painful for us, but it wasn't a personal thing. It was an impersonal visit-to try to save the country. I think Henry fully understood the gravity of what we were talking about."
Back in their headquarters-a room in the Hay-Adams Hotel across Lafayette Park from the White House-the professors discussed their confrontation lunch with Kissinger.
Block said, "Kissinger told us 'When you come back a year from now, you will find your concerns are unwarranted.' " Holton: "But he doesn't understand that the end-justifies-the means philosophy is exactly the problem, and what is antagonizing the large part of the population. Kissinger just did not realize that we'd crossed the threshhold. He said our concerns would be brought to attention upstairs."
Westheimer: "He said the invasion of Cambodia will not affect the withdrawal of troops from Southeast Asia, that Nixon's withdrawal schedule will eventually be met. Someday that statement will be true like the stopped clock which is true twice a day."
Schelling said, "We had a very painful hour and a half with Henry, persuading him we were all horrified not just about the Cambodia decision, but what it implied about the way the President makes up his mind. It was a small gain to be had at enormous political risk."
"He did just right with his response, actually," Bator commented. "He could have done two other things that would have scared me more: He could have said things on-the-record that he shouldn't have said, or he could have given us a canned war briefing, which would have demeaned whatever relation we have with him. If he'd tried to dissociate himself with the policy, I would have walked out. But he behaved with great grace and dignity and courage under intense emotional pressure from his peer group."
Seymour Martin Lipset, professor of Government and Social Relations, said, "I think we have a very unhappy colleague-on-leave tonight."
Schelling added, "I hope so." Then, as with a flushing of toilets and a straightening of ties the professors swirled out of the room to catch cabs for the Pentagon and a meeting with Undersecretary of State David Packard, he turned back into the room and perspired, "You know, this is hard work."
ONE OF THE purposes of the Harvard professors' trip to Washington was to get publicity for the anti-war campaigning then going on. But the kind of publicity they got was not what they expected. The first person to pick up the story (besides the CRIMSON, which had it a day and a half carlier) was Mary McGrory of the Washington Star. McGrory wrote Friday that the professors were "descending" on the White House "with blood in their eyes" to tell Henry Kissinger that "if he doesn't quit soon-or reverse policy-Harvard will never have him back again." The same story was reprinted in McGrory's syndicated column, and appeared in Saturday's Boston Globe. The next week's Time magazine improvised further on the same theme. Time had Kissinger replying to this threat, "quietly" (if somewhat disingenuously): "I want you to understand that I hear you."
McGrory called Neustadt at the Hay-Adams Thursday night with this interpretation already uppermost in her mind. Neustadt told her that the group was talking to Kissinger purely as a surrogate for the President, and that his relation to Harvard would not enter the discussion at all. Unsure that he had communicated this to her, he had Bator call her back again with the same story. Then Yarmolinsky called her too, for good measure. After this final phone call, Yarmolinsky told the group, "Mary's message is that no one else needs to call her."
"But she printed the story exactly the way she wanted to anyhow," Bator said.
The story was picked up by the Montreal Star, and following his return from Washington Bator received an incensed phone call at his home from a professor at McGill University. "He asked if we had lost our wits, and if we had no respect for academic freedom," Bator said. Then the Washington editor of the (London) Sunday Times, a friend of Bator and Neustadt' called Bator at 11:45 Monday night to say he had heard that at a lunch Sunday at the home of KatherineGraham (publisher of the Washington Post and Newsweek magazine), someone had alleged that the Harvard group had arrived at Kissinger's office Friday with a tape recorder.
"Imagine myself and Dick Neustadt and all the others arriving at the basement of the White House with a tape recorder" Bator sputtered. "It's grotesque! It's incredible how utterly grotesque paranoid rumors circulate as reality."
THE PROFESSORS returned to the Hay-Adams from their meeting with Packard-barely an hour after they'd left-in a highly agitated state. William Capron, associate dean of the Kennedy School and former assistant director of the Budget. complained. "He gave us the straightforward party line-he sounded just like John Foster Dulles. It was nothing like Kissinger in terms of emotional content. We gave it to him very hard and he said to please wait six weeks and we'd see that everything will turn out all right. He said he understood our concern, but asked for our forebearance! In six weeks, he said. we'll be out and it will be a great victory! We were just talking past each other."
Neustadt (author of Presidential Power ): "Mr. Packard heard us out, then responded in a perfectly canned way that we should be patient. His explanation was irreivent to our concern. It was a matter of our reporting our feelings to him and hearing no attempt at exchange. Perhaps we underestimated the credibility gap. Ghastly. The President's credibility is hopeless. And nobody can call us radicals, either. The purpose of giving our views was precisely that. We're not voicing our concern because of Harvard or the domestic impact. We were offering our professional judgment as former advisors to Presidents that it was a horrendous act of foreign policy.
"We said to Henry, we said to Mr. Packard that the military-civilian imbalance today is the greatest threat to the Presidentcy since MacArthur and Truman. I myself don't see anything that can restore military credibility."
Konrad Bloch, Higgins Professor of Biochemistry, said. "It was the straight-forward drivel. It's like leaving the radio on. Later Packard started talking about Stanford-he said it is infiltrated by a hard core that will have to be eliminated. He said tension in this country will have to come to a head some day, and it might as well be now."
Walzer commented. "It's one of the most frightening things we head all day."
A bellhop brought Pepsi and Michelob for the overheated professors. Bator had iced coffee. The phone rang. Bator answered it.
"Hello, Averill!" He smiled. "Well hello governor! Yes governor, I'm here. This is Francis." As Bator talked to Harriman, Yarmolinsky dashed to the extension phone in the bathroom to listen. "Yes governor, well Scotty said..." When Bator finished Yarmolinsky started talking on the bathroom extension. Neustadt quickly established possession of the bedroom phone. Alarmed to discover the conversation wasn't over. Bator scurried to the bathroom to listen in when Yarmolinsky was finished. Finally they all said goodbye and hung up."That was Averill." Bator explained. The professors nodded appreciately, put on their coats, and poured back out of the room for their meeting with Undersecretary of State Eliot Richardson, muttering at McGrory in the Star over each other's shoulders.
THE meeting with Richardson was long, but uninspiring. It began at 5:30 and the professors did not return to the Hay-Adams until ten minutes of 8 p.m. All the professors except Yarmolinsky. Lipset and Neustadt were trying to catch a 9 p.m. plane. These three had promised to appear at a meeting of Everett Mendelsohn's larger Harvard student-Faculty delegation-the Peace Action Strike-at the Cleveland Park Congregational Church that evening. So the professors washed up, took their messages (Max Frankel of the New York Times for Yarmolinsky: National Educational Television, which wanted Schelling to debate Herb Klein on T.V. about the strategic implications of the invasion), and rushed down to dinner as Bator reserved a cab to take them to the airport. A sign in the elevator warned guests that all the hotel's vital functions would be shut down and guards placed at every door in preparation for the huge anti-war demonstration Saturday. Over double martinis for most and Caesar Salad (the quickest thing on the menu). they summed up the day.
"Richardson was different from Packard because many of us knew him." Bator said, Richardson '43 is former Lieutenant Governor of Massachusetts. "But he was different from Kissinger because no one knew him really well, and we didn't regard him as a stand-in for the President."
Schelling said, "I used my lugubrious pitch-words like 'horror' and monster.' I think he felt we were overreacting, therefore he felt he could go back and try to convince us that the foreign policy was not wrong, but maybe merely mistaken. It was late in the day: perhaps we did get carried away. But he was his usual urbane, deft, intellingent self-a fine human being. He can disguise his pain."
Capron: "Packard had talked about the 'problems of liberals'-as if he were going to end the war to do you a favor."
"I found our meeting with Kissinger deeply moving. It went better than I could have hoped for. It must have impressed him deeply-it did me. Did it make any difference? I don't know," Schelling said.
Bator continued, "In the executive branch we've shot the bolt today. From now on we just have to work on Congress. If these guys get us all out of Vietnam in 90 days, we'll have the biggest crow dinner-and we'll all vote for Richard Nixon in 1972," Nervous laughter all around.
Bater flew out the door with a cheery "Goodbye Gentlemen." Others followed, including Schelling, who instructed Neustadt to take care of the bill, saying they would straighten out the finances Monday. Yarmolinsky left for the church.
Neustadt and Lipset relaxed briefly over strawberries and cream.
"You know," Neustadt said, "one of the most remarkable developments of going public like this-this is the first time in years that I've come to Washington and stayed at the Hay-Adams and had to pay the bill out of my own pocket.
"Many of us will now have to decide whether we will resign from all our consulting positions with the government. It's sort of silly. I have some on which I haven't been consulted for two years. But it's hard after a thing like today to keep operating in the executive branch. Doris Kearns [assistant professor of Government, who taught Neustadt's course on the Presidency this year], who's been down here with Everett Mendelsohn's group, resigned today from the White House Fellows Commission, despite the fact that final selections are this weekend and she had considered her appointment a great honor. People whose advice was being asked on a number of issues have now cut themselves off by announcing that they're going to the Hill to lobby. But there's so much disaffection within government that us academics resigning will be no big deal. That's why we put so much emphasis today on those of us who were ex-officials of government. We were trying to distinguish ourselves-today at least-from those who are 'merely' professors."
Lipset said, "Packard today dismissed us as 'professors' and 'liberals'-same thing." He shrugged.
THEY asked me to call the CRIMSON to find out what was happening in Cambridge. I returned to report that a group of 500 had left the stadium meeting and had trashed the CFIA and was now heading for the Square.
Lipset, a CFIA asociate, sighed. "I don't leave anything important there anymore. I just hope Schelling remembered to take his stuff out before he came down here yesterday."
They paid their bill, and caught a cab to the Cleveland Park Congregational Church, to continue the fight against the war in the best way they know how.
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