Jimmy Breslin Gets 'Episodic Response' At Class Day Talk

"You might have something to overcome coming out of here," Jimmy Breslin told graduating seniors at the first combined Harvard-Radcliffe Class Day yesterday.

Breslin, the author and columnist, referred to Harvard as "the place that originated the phrase 'the episodic response' and 'sustained reprisal'." Referring to animosity toward construction workers on the part of college students, he said, "Who told them that the war in Vietnam was all right? It wasn't the head of Local 14-it was Rostow, McNamara, Bundy ...."

Breslin went on to say that a neighbor of his, killed in Vietnam, "died to keep alive the lies of some people who thought they were very important."

Women and Men

In the Radcliffe oration Carol R. Sternhell '71 called for equal admissions of women and men at Harvard. "Harvard can no longer afford to treat half the population as second-class ... if Harvard is to continue its role as a leader in education and in our society it must lead the change, not wait for it."

"Harvard has a responsibility," Sternhell said, "to its women, who are one half of humanity; to its men, who deserve an institution responsive to a changing world, both in the sense of a more progressive education and a more natural and realistic environment; and to the society it sends its men and women into."

Also at the Class Day ceremony, Dean May presented Ames awards for excellence of character to John Edwin Atwood '71, Paul S. Goodof '71, and John A. Hagerty '71.