Resenting the Act

Though he is often remembered as the villain of 1969, students who were dragged from University Hall during the police bust are less critical of the late Harvard president in retrospect.

“Pusey didn’t understand our anger,” said Michael Kazin ’70 yesterday, one of three co-chairs of Students for a Democratic Society. “But that doesn’t make him a bad guy.”

Thirty-two years later, Kazin said he doesn’t resent Pusey’s decision, which was much criticized at the time. The atmosphere at the time of the takeover, Kazin remembers, was extremely hostile.

“He was a good liberal and we were radicals,” Kazin said. “At the time we saw liberals as the enemy.”

Kazin said students at the time were critical of Harvard and Harvard authority figures. “Lookng back,” he says, “Harvard was a good place.”

Mark R. Dyen ’70, another student involved in the building takoever, is reluctant to single out Pusey for criticism.

“The administration was supportive of the American war effort,” Dyen said. “We shouldn’t personalize it to only Pusey.”

Dyen aso has mixed feelings about how students will remember Pusey.

“Of course, he is the guy that called in the police,” Dyen said. “But at the same time, Pusey did many other things.”