B-School Reveals Secret Contracts

Secrecy was partly lifted yesterday on another of Harvard's government projects soon to practically vanish from the University scene. The Business School's Mobilization Analysis Center "will keep up its current activities this summer and continue on a reduced basis next year," Donald T. Clark, Administrative Officer of the Center, said last night.

The last three of the Center's nine semi-secret government projects are due to be completed this summer after which the Center will operate with a skeleton staff. Contracts have been completed with the Air Force, the Army's Munitions Board, the Commerce Department, and the Office of Defense Mobilization.

The principle project that the Center is working on now should be finished by the end of June. Since last fall a 12-man group has been analyzing the Air Force's over-all logistics problem "on the basis that aircraft are a normal means of transport." Logistics, as defined by the Air Force, includes procurement, delivery, storage, shipment, and scheduling of military supplies and personnel.

Visits Bases

The logistics group has visited various Air Force bases throughout the country and will prepare a report. It is headed by Paul W. Cherington, assistant professor of Research in Business Administration.

Called "The Monetary Accounting Project," a second group is advising the Air Force on various ways of improving accounting systems to give better control operators. Ross G. Walker, professor of Business Administration, and Robert N. Anthony, associate professor of Business Administration, are in charge of this five-man group.

Complete secrecy, however, shrouds the third contract which Edmund P. Learnard, professor of Business Administration, is running. It, too, is scheduled to be completed by July 1.

Founded in the fall of 1950 after the Chinese breakthrough in Korea, the Center was in full swing by December of that year. Since the projects are semisecret, the offices are closed to all except employees and official personnel.

All information about the contracts must be released by the government department concerned. Such technical details would not, however, be of interest to laymen, Clark said. He emphasized that the "material and reports, but not the projects themselves are classified."

About 15 Business School faculty members are currently employed by the Center. Associate Dean Teele of the Business School is in overall charge.

Skeleton Force

"In addition, men who are not on the Harvard faculty participate in this program," Clark said. This is done in two ways. People are hired directly from other colleges, especially M.I.T. and Washington University of St. Louis. Other projects have involved personnel from commercial companies such as Gulf Oil, Ford Motor, American Can Company, Hood Rubber Company, and several aircraft corporations.

The Center is "slowing down" because over a year the government's demands have lessened, Clark explained. "We will keep a skeleton office force and the know-how and thus always be ready to expand," he added.

Richard W. Pratt, Director of the Office of Government Contracts, yesterday denied rumors that this indicates any curtailing in the number of University government contracts. "We are always finishing up some contracts," Pratt explained. "This is nothing unusual." The University at present holds about 100 government contracts