Harvard Men Dominate Kennedy Appointments

Press, Volume C, Issue 29469, 22 March 1961, Page 22

Harvard Men Dominate Kennedy Appointments

[Specially written for the N.Z.P.A. bp FRANK OLIVER] WASHINGTON, March 14. A Washington columnist recently quipped that President Kennedy had taken into Government so many of the faculty of Harvard University that about all that institution had left was Radcliffe. Radcliffe is to Harvard what Girton is to Cambridge.

In fact, of course, Harvard is still well supplied with brilliant teachers, but enough of them have come to Washington to make it possible to say that in America the egghead has come into his own. What the new President has done is to give the nation’s universities, especially Harvard, a new role in both society and government. The nuclear and space age has made the world a world of experts and it is apparent that no organisation can supply the number of experts required as can the great universities. One writer has said the world is dealing not only with an explosion of population but also an explosion of knowledge and “governments and the universities are wedded today. Neither could do its work without the other.” In the business of supplying experts, Harvard is clearly the leader. This seat of learning, three and a quarter centuries old this year, is unique among American universities and the fact that the new President himself studied there has perhaps had little to do with him selecting so many Harvard men to assist him in Government. It is argued that he would have had to go there anyway. “SETS STYLE” Harvard is not the biggest university by any means, but it has been said “it sets the style. It has so many scholars of distinction in so many different fields that it is . . . a national resource.” And it has been described as a set of automomous institutions, “a group of schools connected only by a name and a set of steampipes.” It is an institution that has been keeping pace with world events. Its president, Dr. Nathan Pusey, has said he sees Harvard responding to three great forces at work in the world—the need for a level of education higher than anything demanded before; the great demand made on universities for the direct services of experts; and the in-

ternational demand on universities.

out his programmes have been sent and many more are on the way. They include with drafts of bills detailed reports from the departments affected. Many of these communications have been based on studies by Kennedy task forces, among which are to be found many university experts. One Senator recently said: “This year it’s not just the normal flow of messages—it’s a freshet. Whatever else may be said of this Administration it certainly is articulate. . . . The dazed silence on Capitol Hill and the torrent of words coming from the President makes one wonder if the filibuster has moved from the Senate to the White House.” The flood of Harvard appointees to be confirmed by the Senate has been such that when recently a Yale man was appointed to the Trusteeship Council of the United Nations he got a tremendous hand and his appearance was greeted as a belated effort to “balance the representation.” There is a good sprinkling of university men in this Administration who do not come from Harvard but Harvard easily leads the way as the universities move into the business of Government administration. Ship’s Captain Carries Gift Before the Chowa Maru, one of the Nitto Shosen Company, Ltd.’s, vessels plying between Yokohama and New Zealand, left Lyttelton, the captain (Mr Masatoshi Kimura) was presented with a sack of milk powder by representatives of the Christchurch branch of the United Nations Association of New Zealand. The presentation was made by Mr D. Mason, convener of the U.N.I.C.E.F. committee of the association. He was accompanied by the Rev. Father J. Cunneen, branch secretary, and Mr C. Lewis, a branch council member. The milk powder will be given by Mr Kimura to a Japanese orphanage or children’s hospital on his return home.

One Harvard law professor says the world is shrinking, thanks to the jet aeroplane, and is forcing Harvard to learn whole new bodies of law. Indeed, today two-thirds of books and periodicals bought by the Harvard libraries are in languages other than English. The director of those libraries recently said: “A generation ago we looked to public groups, pressure groups, to take the lead )n reforming social organisations. Today, though, it is the expert—like the penologists who are rapidly reforming our prisons. This is a world of experts—and Harvard is in the business of supplying them.” FEW IVORY TOWERS The ivory towers have all but disappeared, the cloistered community of scholars is no more. Harvard always held a balance between teaching and research and today a third activity has been added, consulting. It has also become a body of experts to commute to American cities and indeed all over the world. Now a considerable number of Harvard experts have commuted to Washington, to consult and to run departments and offices where their expertise is needed. The new President has Staggered old-timers in Congress by what he asked for in the first 50 days of his presidency. A Washington “Post” report describes them as "agape” at the many explicit communications he has addressed to Congress in that period. He delivered nine formal addresses to Congress in that period. Seven more are scheduled in the next 20 days. No other President, not even Franklin Roosevelt during his 1933 “honeymoon” with Congress, sent up anything like the spate of communications that have come from Mr Kennedy. TASK FORCE STUDIES In addition 11 specific requests for legislation to carry