Conservative Manchester 'Union-Leader' Endorses New President-Designate Bok

Acclaim for Harvard's new President-designate, Derek C. Bok, continues to pour off the presses.

Bok, who has already been praised by the New York Times, the Boston Globe, and the Boston Herald-Traveler, has now added the Manchester Union-Leader, a fixture of New Hampshire conservatism, to his growing circle of admirers.

In a Friday editorial, the Union-Leader called Bok "a man of absolute integrity and honor." The editorial said that "this newspaper predicts ... a vast improvement in the University on the Charles under the leadership of its new president, Derek Curtis Bok."

To call the Union-Leader's political views reactionary would be an understatement. During the 1968 New Hampshire Presidential primary, the newspaper referred to McCarthy canvassers as "a bunch of punks led by a couple of pinko punks." The day after McCarthy's unexpected success in the primary, the Union-Leader draped its front page in black, to signify mourning.

Friday's editorial said that although Bok "probably could be accurately described as a liberal," the editors of the newspaper had had extensive personal experience with Bok, and were impressed.

Bok had been assigned by Federal District Judge Charles Wyzanski '27 to determine the extent of damages the Union-Leader would be forced to pay in a 1962 lawsuit.

The paper was being sued by 32 New England newspapers and newspaper officials for $3 million. Wyzanski had found the newspaper guilty, and assigned Bok to determine the extent of damages.

The editorial said, "Bok held hearings approximately three days every week throughout the entire summer of 1962. After the hearings he brought down his decision in March, 1963 and reduced the $3 million claim for damages made by the newspaper syndicate to all of $29,000."

The newspaper praised Bok for his impartiality in the case. "It would have certainly been to Professor Bok's interest ... had he found very heavily against this newspaper," the editorial said, citing Judge Wyzanski's ill feelings against the Union-Leader.

"You hear much of the impartiality of judges ... sitting in such situations as Professor Bok, but alas, in many cases the integrity and absolute impartiality are more honored in theory than in fact," the editorial concluded. "In Professor Bok's case, he carried out his scrupulous sense of justice."