Idealists meet the real world

Neal I. Koblitz '69, a mathematician at the University of Washington, donates the royalties he receives from his books to a fund he and his wife set up to aid women scientists in Vietnam. Koblitz's Harvard classmate, Michael K. Fenollosa '69, now an assistant vice-president at Boston's Shawmut Bank, writes in recent Class Record Book: "Needless to say, and I suppose, somewhat regretfully. I have become a political conservative (it seems hard to believe that I once voted for George McGovern for President.)" The two men represent two of the many different solutions to the dilemma that faced the Class of '69 as it grew from adolescence to middle age: how to reconcile the concerns that motivated their college protests and the realities they face in the real world.

Fifteen years ago, an aberration in the tradition of serious, alma mater-loving Harvardians, the Class of '69 momentarily seemed to shake the ivy roots of the University. But just as the country swallowed up the 60s generations--leaving a little space for TM meditators and a burnt-out, tie-dyed fringe--Harvard digested the Class of '69, burped perhaps, and moved on.

The Class of '69 also moved on, with, some claim, indigestion from their atypical Harvard experience: a takeover of University Hall and subsequent re-taking by Cambridge police; a general "strike" of classes; demonstrations; campus-wide meetings; and highly confrontational struggles. This week is their 15th reunion, a chance for them to come back and assess whether Harvard has changed since they took to the streets and, more importantly, if they themselves have changed more than superficially in the intervening years.

Is it possible to say, 15 years later, now that they have children and careers and are only a reunion or two from mid-life crises that they are different from other classes? William W. Bushing '69 writes in the 15th year Class Record Book: "I can't shed the spirit of the 60s...How do the rest of you bear the psychological cross of living up to the Harvard promise?"

The "hard" evidence leads to conflicting conclusions. The class of '69 is generally considered to be a very poor benefactor to Harvard, giving less money to its alma mater than other classes. Yet according to a survey done for the Class's tenth reunion, the occupational choices of class members are not radically different from those of other classes. At that time, 93 percent of the "anti-establishment" Class had gone back to educational institutions and received some sort of advanced professional or a academic degree: 23 percent of the men and 15 percent of the women were lawyers, 18 and 12 percent respectively were in medicine: and 18 and 8 percent respectively were in business or banking. A large part of the rest were teaching or still studying or, if women, raising children.

Yet, the statistics only describe the surface of the story for many of the '69 classmates, the stereotypical version of the campus radical turned wealthy professional is clearly off the mark. While most of them have forsaken the counterculture, many members of the class contend that what motivated their activism in the 60s continues to shape the ways that they have decided to provide for families and stability. For some, like Ross C. Owens '69, the events of '69 were a brief prelude to a longer period of activism. Owens entered and dropped out of divinity school after Harvard, and did two years of service as a minister to fulfill his duty as a conscientious objector to the Vietnam war. After being involved in community organizing and issues of social justice during those two years. Owens went to law school and worked for several years in a federally-funded legal services organization. "It took me a little while to put it all together," he says.

Owens recently entered private practice and while he does not like having to evaluate the ability of his clients to pay, he defends the move by saying private practice gives him more freedom to engage in partisan politics.

For Owens, and others, a lot of the decisions of the past 15 years have involved trying to fit together different parts of a life--job, family, political and social convictions. Owens says that the "trade-offs now are okay...I don't feel I've sold out--I'm trying to figure out how much I can live out those convictions in the private sector." What Owens calls trade-offs, others may term "compromises."

Many of the former protestors feel there is a continuity between their campus activism on their activity later in life. On campus, the tactics were confrontational and emotional: later in life, the tactics are quieter, more subdued, and no longer have that "all or nothing" quality.

Robert H. Blumenthal '69 claims that his politics have remained consistent: "I was a liberal then and I'm a liberal now: everybody else moved to radicalism." Blumenthal, who was on the student Committee of 15 set up to handle the problems of 1969, is now a lawyer for the Massachusetts Board of Education, working on the Boston desegregation case. "I'm on the progressive side," he says, "not an activist per se, but political." Blumenthal, who also free-lances as a jazz reviewer, adds "I don't consider the fact that I own a house means that I sold out."

To Blumenthal, Owens, and others, finding the trade-off they feel comfortable with is not the same as selling out. Yet the process is almost completely uniform for the members of the Class of '69 raise a family, move into a stable career, buy a house, and--perhaps--lose a little idealism along the way. In its place comes a little realism some say; others perceive individual interest; and yet others just say that day-to-day concerns naturally push aside the urgency of their old campus activism.

Donald S. Shepard '69 left Harvard and entered the Harvard-Africa Volunteer Program. He wanted to teach high school in socialist Tanzania but was denied a work permit. When his work permit was denied--he believes because he came from capitalist America--Shepard says he realized that "unbridled idealism was not what the world was looking for," that reformers need to work within existing organizations that have their own rules and procedures. After the experience. "I went into less idealistic, less grassroots sort of activity," he adds.

Yet Shepard too does not believe he has sold out: "There is a consistency and overall purpose to my activities; although there has been a change in method," he says. Shepard explains that he still addresses the concerns for greater equity in the world through his teaching and research and points in particular to a course he teaches at the School of Pulbic Health on health issues in developing nations.

Like Shepard, Dr. Katherine A. Daufer '69 has also found a way to incorporate concerns from her college days in her professional work, Kaufer, now a pediatrician in Chicago, says that it is no coincidence that she runs into classmates at public health-oriented meetings. Although she and her classmates have acquired a long-term perspective for themselves and families, "no one has changed their fundamental values." Kaufer says.

The radicals of the 60s witnessed first hand the resilience of institutions to progressive change. Others have seen the establishments at Harvard and other places withstand challenges from outside. But for the idealistic students whose hopes were high, the strength of institutions caused sharp disillusionment with the possibility of fundamental, rapid change. If the revolution was just around the corner, then the block stretched out indefinitely. And before they could reach the end of the block, their four years at Harvard were over, and they had to make decisions about how they were going to support themselves.

Shepard, observing the slowness of change, says pressuring institutions and the government is "like leaning on an elephant." The recognition of this, he says, allowed him the opportunity to "keep my basic values and live my own life at the same time." Others in his class say the same thing: a more realistic appraisal of the chance for change allowed them to moderate the intensity of their activism and thus they had more space to pursue other goals and enjoy their own personal lives with friends and family.

Whether this is selling out, or compromising ideals, is not an easy question. But it is enough to note that the activists' ability to tone down their political or social involvement without contradicting their beliefs is much easier once they have concluded that fundamental change is a slow, long-term process that does not occur in a blinding flash. Emmanual P. Krasner '69's statement in the 15th year Class Record speaks for many of his classmates: "I recall that I once intended (with a few friends) to wreak massive changes in the world and I haven't done it...I am devoting less time to saving the world and more time to carving my own space in it."

But not all of those who graduated in 1969 have had to struggle to come to a working agreement between their conscience and their materialism. Some, who did not agree with the direction the activists took, found themselves moving toward the right. After graduation, these conservatives (or more centrist liberals) seemed not to encounter conflicts between their ideals and their conception of the good life that were special to their generation.

Elliot Abrams '69, currently assistant Secretary of State for human rights, remembers the campus radicalism as "mindless, anti-intellectual...it made me wary of these people in national politics; I gravitated further to the right." Abrams says he is not surprised that his classmates, who "screamed that they were the best generation and were going to change the world, end up in corporate law firms." It was a big fraud, he says of the activism back then, and involved a great deal of adolescence. This is why, he adds, the leftists in the Class of '69 have abandoned their former positions. For his part, Abrams opposed the strikes, and was the founder of the ad hoc Committee in Keep Harvard Open (which was comprised of five people).

Kaufer rejects the criticisms that the activists were a fraud because they were adolescents: "it that necessarily negative: We were adolescents. Adolescence is a constructive period of trying to decide for ourselves, putting things on the line and making decisions. In addition, Kaufer and others claim that as they passed out of adolescence into the "real world," they maintained their positions and values they had come to in college.

If the revolution was just around the corner, then the block stretched out indefinitely.

Most of the members of the Class of '69, it seems, never sheltered themselves from the outside world when they left Harvard, nor automatically moved to the right as a reaction against emotional mass struggles. The students graduated and slowly built their own lives trying to negotiate the inevitable conflicts as best they could.

One thing that made a large difference in the shape of their trade-offs was the lack of a community of like-minded peers facing similar situations and conflicts. Moving into the world, by ones or twos, they had to start from scratch. The political convictions of many, though without the same intensity of political practice, survived; for others, these convictions were not strong enough to weather the pressures of the American Dream; in short, there are some who sold out.

Yet, leafing through the 15th year Class Record, one finds statement after statement referring not only to "an earlier interest in liberal politics" (Jeffrey C. Alexander '69), but also to new issues and struggles which arise from the same consciousness of concern as in '69:"...my views on the likelihood of a nuclear obscenity are essentially unchanged...Perhaps each of our efforts over the next five years, mobilized by a common interest in avoiding oblivion, can make a difference. We believed it could and did in 1969." (David L. Ach '69)Harvard Strike T-shirt, now in the Harvard archives.