Vellucci Hits Coronation Of Harvard's 'King Bok': They Didn't Consult Him

"King Pusey is dead and we have a new king," Cambridge Mayor Alfred E. Vellucci said yesterday. "Only no one in Cambridge knows who he is."

"What does Harvard think it is, a city within itself, like the Vatican?" Vellucci asked reporters at an impromptu interview in his City Hall office yesterday morning. He was sharply critical of the Presidency selection process, which he said made no provision for consulting the "duly elected officials of the City of Cambridge."

"I thought his name was 'Book'," the Mayor said. "The only Bok I know of is a beer."

Sargent Cares

Nothing that Lieutenant Governor Donald Dwight asked him to recommend people to fill the remaining spots in the Governor's cabinet, Vellucci said, "Governor Sargent thinks enough about the Mayor of Cambridge to ask his help in selecting his cabinet, and I don't see why Harvard should be any different."

Francis H. Burr '35, Senior Fellow of the Corporation and the man who led the search for the new President, declined comment yesterday on Vellucci's remarks.

Vellucci said that Bok's first priority as President of Harvard should be repairing relations between Harvard and the City, which he said have gone astray "somewhere on Massachusetts Avenue between little City Hall and the big palace where King Bok sits."

'Riding High'

Noting that Harvard has "a substantial amount of tax-free property in the six square miles of Cambridge," Vellucci warned, "Harvard is riding high right now but we may just tax them on the rebound, for sooner or later we will have to tax Harvard."

Vellucci has long been a strong critic of Harvard both as a City Councilman and as Mayor. Over the years he has concocted some unorthodox ideas for City policy toward the University.

Several years ago he offered a proposal to the Council to pave over Har-