Elliot Richardson Will Be Speaker At Commencement

Former Attorney General Elliot L. Richardson '41 will be the Class Day speaker at Commencement this year.

Richardson was the senior class's fourth choice for Class Day speaker, behind novelist Alexsander Solzhenitsyn, journalist I.F. Stone and comedian Woody Allen.

John R. McCambridge '74, chairman of the Class Day subcommittee of the senior class committee, said yesterday that the committee dismissed the idea of inviting Solzhenitsyn as "unfeasible." Stone declined the committee's invitation in March.

The committee did not invite Allen to speak because "we asked him last year and he backed out and hinted that he wanted an honorarium," McCambridge said. "After Stone, we had to think in terms of who we could get."

McCambridge said Richardson's June 12 speech will be "the major Commencement address."

Lukewarm

Susan G. Cole '74, Radcliffe senior marshall and a member of the Class Day committee, said yesterday she was "lukewarm" to Richardson's selection. "He'll do a number. It'll be all right," she added.

Cole said that while "not very many people on the committee were thrilled with Richardson," there was "almost unanimous opposition to Allen."

"I didn't want Allen because I knew he'd be sexist," Cole said. "Asking Woody Allen not to be sexist is like asking Richard Nixon not to lie."

McCambridge said the committee invited Richardson a month ago, and that he accepted its offer last week, although "we had indications all along that he'd do it."

Richardson, who has been secretary of defense and under-secretary of H E W under President Nixon, resigned as attorney general last fall when Nixon ordered him to fire then-special Watergate' prosecutor Archibald Cox '34, Williston Professor of Law.

Richardson was unavailable for comment yesterday.