Harvard, Gore Deny Leaking Grades

The Washington Post published the Harvard grades of Vice President Al Gore '69 in addition to his grades from high school and law school on Sunday, but sources within the Gore campaign and Harvard's registrar's office said they were not responsible for leaking the information.

The White House press office said Gore played no role in the transcripts' release and had no prior knowledge of it.

David Marannis, the presidential historian who wrote the story for the Post on Sunday, agreed that Gore was not his source.

"I can't say where they came from, but they didn't come directly from Gore," Marannis said.

Marannis also said he had not gotten the transcripts directly from Harvard or any of the other schools Gore attended.

. According to the Post, Gore earned "one D, one C-minus, two C's, two C-pluses, and one B-minus," during his sophomore year at Harvard. His classmates remember him that year as spending a lot of time "shooting pool, watching television, eating hamburgers, and occasionally smoking marijuana."

However, his junior year, he earned a B, B-plus and A-minus in three government courses.

His strong senior thesis on the impact of television on the presidency allowed him to graduate cum laude.

Before coming to Harvard, Gore graduated from St. Albans in Washington, D.C. ranked 25th in a class of 51. There, he had three straight years of C's in French, although he did receive four years of straight A's in art.

According to the Post, Gore's SATs were a strong 1355 (625 verbal, 730 math) as compared to Texas Gov. George W. Bush's 1206 (566 verbal, 640 math). On IQ tests taken in 1961 and 1964, his freshman and senior years in high school, Gore scored 133 and 134--well above average.

"This just proves that many of the preconceived notions of Al Gore have been stiff and boring," said Gore Press Secretary Chris Lehane to the Post. "He in fact has a very rich and well-rounded background--artist, athlete, and academic."

Gore campaign spokesperson Doug Hataway said that Gore had not made the transcripts available in any way.

"The vice president did not release his grades for that story, we're not sure how they got them, as far we know the school did not release them either, so it's a bit of a mystery, but he did not release his grades," Hataway said.

The Post article refers also to Newsweek writer Bill Turque, who obtained Gore's transcripts independently from the Post and published some of Gore's grades in the recent unauthorized biography, Inventing Al Gore.

The book has been available for three weeks in major cities, but review copies had been floating around the Washington Post as early as January, Turque said. The book will become available nationally on Thursday.

Turque said he does not feel that Gore's right to privacy has been violated by the publication of his grades.

"If you're running for president, the rules are much different," Turque said. "I think people have a right to know."

Marannis agreed.

"There is a distinction between running for president and being a regular person," said Marannis, who has written a biography of President Clinton and said he will probably turn his eight-part Post series on Gore into a book.

Registrar Arlene Becella said Gore's transcripts could not have come from her office unless their release was authorized by Gore.

"We would never release his grades, nor yours, nor anyone else's," she said.

The registrar's office must follow Family Education Rights Protection Act, which prevents schools from making transcripts available without the student's consent, she said.

"Most people here don't have access to his records," Becella said. "Maybe two or three people."