Survival Kits

The salesman of snack-filled "survival kits," who offered his product to parents of Harvard freshmen by mail, is not liable for mail fraud, a spokesman for the Postal Inspection Service said yesterday.

The spokesman said that since the fictitious names signed to the letters were not explicitly identified as belonging to Harvard students, the kit salesman was guilty only of "slight deception," not fraud. The signed names, Dave Lill '77 and Gerri Pastreck '77, are not registered with the University.

For $7.98, the mail-order kit offers an assortment of candy, snacks, and a special "knowledge hammer."