Harvard Ties Hinder New President

Mexico's next president will be sworn into office today with the opportunity to use his Kennedy School of Government training to help pull the nation out of its deepest economic crisis in decades.

But, say local experts on Mexico, President elect Miguel de la Maduad must be careful to play down his foreign connections and particularly his lingering reputation as a Harvard-trained technocrat or risk undermining his tenuous political legitimacy.

De la Madrid, a 1965 alumnus of the K-School's Master of Public Administration program absorbed much flak about his foreign ties from Mexican citizens during his year-long campaign for the presidency.

Eventually, the candidate began distributing separate resumes for his Mexican audiences that did not explicitly refer to his K-School background, saying only that he had studied abroad.

While experts agree that de la Madrid's exhaustive campaign did much to dispel his image as a U.S. educated technocrat not fully in touch with popular concerns, they say much of the Mexican Left continues to be skeptical of his commitment to the economic populism that is so central to the nation's political culture.

As a result, de la Madrid is considered highly unlikely to pay a visit to his Cambridge alma mater--or even to Washington, D.C--early in his six-year term.

K-School dean Graham I Allison Jr '62 a longtime acquaintance of the new chief executive, gave de la Madrid an open invitation to speak at Harvard back in September 1981, but the Mexican leader has apparently issued that offer indefinitely.

De la Madrid's concern over his image may also underlie his decision to keep today in augural ceremonies far simpler than those of outgoing President Jose Lopez pertillo six years ago. The new president has invited far fewer guests and no foreign heads of state to his swearing in a gesture that has also been widely interpreted as a sign of fiscal authority.

"He wants to make sure people don't see him as cavorting around with a bunch of rich people and inviting a bunch of foreign guests," explains John Womack Jr. professor of History.

However, K-School secretaries confirmed yesterday that two school officials--Allison and Robert F. Kligaard '68 assistant professor of Public Policy will be attending today's inaugural as guests of de la Madrid

Klitgaard and President Bok met with de la Madrid during a trip to Mexico in August 1980 Bok, who was in Cambridge yesterday, apparently has no plans to attend the swearing in.

In spite of his image concerns, Harvard experts said say de la Madrid would be wise to rely on his MPA training. Womack calls his task of reinvigorating the Mexican economy, now in its worst recession in more than 50 years, "very much like the kinds of stuff you learn how to do in the Kennedy School."

Specifically, the new President--formerly minister of programming and budget under

Loper Portillo--is faced with a combined rate of unemployment and underemployment of 40 percent an $81 billion foreign debt (largest in the Third World), and an inflation rate predicted to his 100 percent by year's end.

Mexico's economy plummeted last summer when foreign debt payment came due and when the word wide oil gulf significantly diminished in anticipated petroleum export earnings.

Juan Marichal, Smith Professor of the French and Spanish Languages and Literature, says de la Madrid's academic background here may inspire confidence among Mexico's bankers and private industrialists. They look with "great hope" on the new administration he adds

And James E. Austin, professor of Business Administration and a Mexican specialized says that while de la Madrid must still improve his image among some skeptical countrymen, his technical abilities could prove critical in coming months in improving the nation's economy