Iran Cuts Funds for Harvard Project

Political upheaval in Iran has forced Harvard officials to halt indefinitely their work in planning a graduate research facility to be located in the outskirts of Tehran.

Although almost 95 per cent of Harvard's work to prepare the architectural design for the new Reza Shah Kabir University (RSKU) is complete, the Iranian government cannot pay the outstanding sums needed to finish, Harold L. Goyette, director of the Planning Office, said yesterday.

The five-member team of Harvard architects, which frequently traveled to Iran to work on the project, no longer works for the University, Thomas P. Huf, planning director of the RSKU project, said yesterday.

"We [the team] are terminated," Huf said. "There is nobody here now working on the project."

"Reports of My Death..."

Goyette said the contract has not yet been officially terminated, but declined to comment whether work would resume, or under what conditions.

Dormancy

"The RSKU project is dormant," Goyette said. "My feeling is that due to terrible trauma it will remain dormant until there is a stable situation, at a time when payments can be made," he added.

Harvard signed a $400,000 contract with

Iranian government officials in 1974 to draw up site plans for the university. That contract was renewed in 1975 and again in the fall of 1977.

Harvard's contracts funded by the Iranian government equal a total of $1 million, including consulting fees for a television network and the creation of the "New Community" to be located outside Tehran.

No construction has begun on the new university buildings, and students have been meeting in temporary buildings.

Edward L. Keenan '57, dean of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences and a member of the governing board of RSKU, said yesterday that classes may be suspended at RSKU by a recent government decree which includes all schools in Iran.

Keenan declined to comment as to when the planning work could resume. He noted that he had some idea of the tensions that were brewing in Iran but added, "It is very hard for foreigners and specialists to get a sense of a place."

Both Goyette and Keenan said they last spoke with RSKU officials in October.

RSKU is intended to educate advanced English-speaking Iranian students, and is partly staffed by American professors.

Two years ago, however, Harvard decided not to participate in academic counseling at RSKU because some members of a Harvard advisory board ofjected to the Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlevi's reported violations of human rights