Buckley Defends Council Head

William F. Buckley, Jr has stepped into the Howard J. Phillips '62 controversy in the June 3 issue of National Review. In a piece entitled "Guilt by Association," Buckley defends the President of the Student Council against those who charged him with misuse of the prestige of his office.

"To begin with," Buckley writes, "no one in his right mind would believe the Harvard student body is 'conservative'..."

Furthermore, Buckley claims, "Harvard is hardly going to be hurt by here and there a few cultivated mis-impressions. . . If the Harvard students are really concerned about misrepresentation, let them examine some of the generalities that issue furtively out of Harvard's Development Council, or whatever it is at Harvard that does the fund-raising."

Buckleys third argument--"so what?" --concludes in a sentence that can stand as a model of his pellucid prose:

"The notice served by Harvard students upon Time magazine to the effect that its story of a national conservative renaissance stands impeached as witness the fact that Harvard students did not vote Phillips into power because he is a conservative, reminds one of the celebrated wire by the Chamber of Commerce of Italy, Texas, to the League of Nations in October 1935, stating that it should be made absolutely clear to the nations of the world that it was not Italy, Texas that was invading Ethiopia."