Then as Now, Students Took on ROTC

Twenty five years ago, 300 students stormed University Hall and demanded that the University sever all ties to the Reserved Officers' Training Corps (ROTC).

The students opposed the Vietnam War and lashed out at ROTC, the "alliance between the University and the warmakers" that was a manifestation of the war on campus. They forced their demand on an unsympathetic administration and brought their concerns to an attentive, national press.

Today, the ROTC debate has refocused on the military's ban on gays and its band-aid solution for its discrimination, the "don't ask, don't tell" policy.

And despite the change in the ROTC debate, several campus leaders of 1969 say they see parallels between student objections to ROTC then and now.

"Harvard students don't like the military. We are intellectuals and they are different castes, in a way," says Richards E. Hyland '69, now a law professor at Rutgers University. "One felt that there was something wrong with having the military at a place like Harvard in the first place. Probably a certain part of that is still there today."

Students today, however, do not rally around the issue with the vehemence of their counterparts 25 years ago.

To the students in 1969, the attack on University Hall was not just a protest against ROTC, or a stab at University Hall. It embodied the anger of a generation--anger at the 1968 deaths of Martin Luther king Jr. and Robert F. Kennedy '48, anger at a conformist society and anger at the images of slaughter in Vietnam splashed all over the evening news.

The Year of Protest

"It wasn't just ROTC as ROTC. It was the whole bloody thing," remembers Associate Dean of Freshmen W.C. Burriess Young '55, who held the same pot in 1969. "It was a war where we were being butchered. It had everything bad. Everything that was wrong was locked up in the Yard."

"It all came together," Young adds. "Lots of people were angry and frustrated and frightened and torn by self-doubt and it was a terrible, terrible time."

A series of protests led up to the dramatic takeover of University Hall. In University Hall in 1968, students trapped a recruiter for the Dow Chemical Corporation, the manufacturer of Napalm. It was Harvard's first-ever sit-in an administration building.

Ten months later at Paine Hall, students crashed a Faculty meeting that was to consider Harvard's curricular ROTC ties. At the Time, ROTC students attended military science classes taught by military-appointed professors on campus. The protest forced the Faculty meeting to be canceled.

The Faculty voted in February 1969 to rescind ROTC's academic status and make it an extracurricular activity.

Weeks later, students felt the administration was not responding to the Faculty's recommendation and began to consider further action.

The night before the protest, one leader of the Students for a Democratic Society(SDS) led 300 students to the house of PresidentNathan M. Pusey '28 and tacked a list of sixdemands on his locked door.

The demands called for the University toabolish ROTC on campus, replace ROTC scholarships,with Harvard funs, restore scholarships tostudents who had lost them after participating inan earlier demonstration and, in three demandsunrelated to the war, treat working-classCantabrigians fairly.

That same night, SDS members considered thepossibility of attacking University Hall buteventually decided against it.

But the next day, 100 radical SDS membersstormed University Hall to publicize theirdemands. The number of protesters swelled to 450as more SDS members joined them. The studentsexpelled all administrators and prepared for along night.

Calling in the Riot Force

The takeover ended when President Nathan M.Pusey '28, in an unprecedented action, had 400Boston and suburban police officers break up theprotest.

Dressed in riot gear, the police officersbarreled through groups of students that hadsurrounded the building.

Students in University Hall joined hands in anattempt to block the entrances, but the policeknocked back the protesters with billy clubs,beginning a sweeping attack that many latercondemned as a police riot.

The Crimson reported that police officers threwmany students down the steps of University Hall.

Hyland, who chaired the meetings inside thebuilding, "was driven into the room screaming withtroopers clubbing his body."

"I'm not sure that was necessary," Hyland saidin a recent interview.

By the end, more than 300 students had beenarrested and 75 were injured.

"It was a very surreal experience to spend thenight in University Hall and all these light bluehelmets coming in at six in the morning," saysTheodore Sedgwick '71, a protester in thebuilding.

Moderate students condemned the police action,and 2,000 students met in Memorial Hall thatmorning, calling for a three-day College-widestrike.

"It was done in such a brutal way that that'swhat sparked the strike," Hyland says.

Many liberal members of the Faculty criticizedPusey's actions. the faculty voted almostunanimously to drop criminal charges against thestudents and set up a committee to "investigatethe causes of the crisis."

@D:Catalyzing Change

The protests against ROTC catalyzed changesthat would permanently alter the campus climate.They brought the end to a time when facultyfrequently visited dining halls and a dress coderequired students to sport suit ties to meals.

"It changed the institution terribly," Youngsays. "The relations between the houses changed.There was a camaraderie and a collegiality betweenfaculty and students that suffered."

Student protesters now say that thisrelationship met its end in the anit-establishmentsentiment that was inextricably part of theprotest.

"It was a generational protest on the onehand--protest against a bureaucratic society, ofthe uniformity coming out of the '50s," saysMichael Kazin '70, the former co-chair of SDS atHarvard.

The start of the Vietnam War brought a newsense of urgency to stunts' general criticisms ofthe status quo, protesters say. It was the warthat turned the protests of a few radicals into amass student movement.

"It intensified the ordinary disruption ofbeing that age, many items over," remembers DavidI. Bruck '70, a protester and then-editorial chairof The Crimson. "The images of the war hung in theair like a noxious gas."

Students at the time say they felt they couldliterally change the world. Kazin says theprotesters acted according to deep moral beliefs.Hyland calls them philosophers.

"The most incredibly interesting questions ofpolitical theory were posed in the mostimmediately possible way," Hyland says.

"I remember too the idea that we were playingin a big sandbox full of ideas," Bruck says. "Wewere all stoned on the notion that the world ranon ideas, that ideas could instantly transformlife forever."

The administration met the student's narrowidealism with its own blindness, Hyland says.

Law Professor Emeritus Archibald Cox, whoadvised the administration during the studentprotests, says he was surprised by the students'actions.

"I think they did surpass me," says Cox, whowrote a book on Columbia's 1968 protests. "I don'tthink I foresaw anything like the occupation ofUniversity Hall that started all this."

"Everyone refused to believe that this was apossibility. There was a kind of cognitivedissonance," Hyland says.

Vietnam to the Gulf War

The ROTC debate settled down considerably afterthe faculty ended the three-day strike on April17, 1969, by voting to allot ROTC onlyextracurricular status and effectively forcing theprogram of the Harvard campus.

After the administration's 1970 decision,Harvard students could participate in ROTC byenrolling at MIT. In 1976, the Faculty voted toallow students to cross-register in ROTC coursesat MIT without receiving Harvard credit.

Today, Harvard gives $130,000 per year to MITfor the approximately 80 students at the collegeenrolled in MIT's ROTC program.

Delaying a Decision

In May 1990, the Faculty Council voted on theUniversity's ROTC ties, just as it had in 1969.The Council "issued a statement deploringdiscrimination by the military services againstgay and lesbian students," according to a 1992report of a faculty committee on ROTC.

If the military did not make significantprogress on fighting such discrimination withinthe next two years the council said, Harvardshould stop its involvement in ROTC programs.

In 1992, after the Faculty's two-year deadlinehad passed, President Neil L. Rudenstineestablished a committee on ROTC, headed byPforzheimer University Professor Sidney Verba '53,to examine the University's ties to ROTC.

The Verba Committee did not suggest a total endto ties with ROTC. But it recommended that theUniversity cut funding to ROTC unless the militarysignificantly altered its stance on homosexuals.

"If the Department of Defense policy remains ineffect, Harvard should stop paying the MIT feebeginning with the class entering in 1994," thereport stated.

The report, however, gave the President leewayto postpone a decision if he saw fit. "Werecommend that... 1994 be a target or planningdate, not a rigid requirement. This flexibility,however, is not meant to be a license for delay,"the report said.

Despite the changes in military policy underthe Clinton administration, the Faculty decidedearlier this year that the Verba Committee'srecommendations still stand.

And in February, Rudenstine used the loopholein the Verba report to extend ROTC for yet anotheryear. He said he was working out a agreement withMIT to allow Harvard students to participatewithout the University paying MIT for theirinvolvement.

"I think the President is still involved innegotiations with MIT, and he convinced thefaculty that the delay was warranted," says Verba,who, along with other committee members, says hebelieves Rudenstine is in negotiations with MIT."Our report left a loophole in it, veryself-consciously and carefully, and I think forgood reasons."

But Sara Gallop, assistant for governmentrelations and liaison in the MIT President'soffice on ROTC, says she is not aware of anynegotiations with Harvard.

"We've never been formally asked by anybody atHarvard to consider that arrangement," she says.

Marc L. Goodheart, special assistant topresident Rudenstine, has refused to comment.Rudenstine could not be reached for comment.

Different Issues

The issues today surrounding ROTC arefundamentally different from the issues in 1969.Then, students sought to abolish ROTC entirely.Now, students seek to end discrimination withinthe program.

"Today, it's bout a policy within themilitary," says L. Fred Jewett '57, dean of theCollege. "By and large, it's not that people areopposed to having ROTC, it's that certain peopleare excluded."

Nevertheless, ROTC is once again a source ofdivision on campus. A few hundred studentsprotested the University's ties to ROTC whenHarvard announced Gen. Colin L. Powell, thenChairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, as the 1993Commencement speaker.

Student protesters saw the University'sinvitation to Powell as a tacit approval of themilitary's policy.

Clinton's election quieted protesters for awhile, but since his August 1993 "don't ask, don'ttell" policy statement, ROTC opponents on campushave been rethinking their tactics and gatheringspeed.

"When I was here freshman and sophomore year,[ROTC] was very much discussed. I guess it hasdied down over the past few years," says Dennis K.Lin '93-'94, co-chair of the Bisexual, Gay andLesbian Students Association (BGLSA).

"Once Clinton got elected, people thought thatClinton would lift the ban, because he promisedduring the campaign," says Lin, who criticizesRudenstine for the delay in cutting financial tiesto the MIT program this year. "Then, last summer,when people saw that he wasn't going to lift theban, momentum picked up again."

And the momentum on campus picked up yet againthis week, when the BGLSA and the Civil LibertiesUnion at Harvard (CLUH) sponsored a posteringcampaign to make students aware that about $20 oftheir tuition goes toward ROTC fees.

A member of Harvard ROTC believes that ROTCwould be hurt if Harvard withdrew support.

"For Army ROTC, the top of the cadet chain ofcommand is all from Harvard," says Curtis L.Pierce II '94, cadet sergeant major of the ArmyROTC MIT battalion. "It would hurt the programwithout Harvard."

And on administrator says ROTC's critics shouldnot lose sight of its benefits.

"One thing to think about with ROTC is that itis a source of free education," Young says. "I'vealways thought you can do more good if you staywith what's happening that if you hide in a cave,if we can say, damn it, we stand for this, ratherthat sit back and let things happen."

Another Harvard professor who was here in 1969sees the new tenor of the ROTC debate as anindication how society has changed.

"We as a people are more conscious of theseissues now than we were in 1969," says Douglas W.Bryant, professor emeritus. "You can be sureHarvard won't take the [ROTC] decision lightly.What Harvard does becomes--in many ways--abellweather."

Students in the BGLSA and CLUH look forward tonext year as a watershed, knowing that whateverRudenstine decided on ROTC could move the campusinto another phase of the ROTC debate.

"What I would like to see is PresidentRudenstine make a statement with his explicitposition on ROTC," says Jeff A. Redding '96, gayrights project chair for CLUH.

Lin says he expects protests if nothing isdone.

"You can delay this for only so long before itbecomes obvious that people want to resolve it,"Lin says. "Now, We're taking this in good faith,but if it goes on for another year, it wouldn't beacceptable anymore."

A Different World

The change in the ROTC debate was a change inissues--from an objection to militarism to astance against discrimination. But the nature ofthe dabate was also recast by a new political era.

"[The issue then] really had this kind oflife-and-death urgency that's hard to replicatenow," notes New York Times opinion columnist FrankRich Jr. '71. "It's such a different world now.It's almost apples and oranges."Crimson File PhotoTop: Soldiers march in Boston's 1969Veterans' Day parade. Bottom: Students during lastyear's Commencement hold pink balloons reading'Lift the Ban,' a reference to the military'sformer policy on gays.CrimsonMelody A. LeeTies That Bind: Harvard and ROTC

The demands called for the University toabolish ROTC on campus, replace ROTC scholarships,with Harvard funs, restore scholarships tostudents who had lost them after participating inan earlier demonstration and, in three demandsunrelated to the war, treat working-classCantabrigians fairly.

That same night, SDS members considered thepossibility of attacking University Hall buteventually decided against it.

But the next day, 100 radical SDS membersstormed University Hall to publicize theirdemands. The number of protesters swelled to 450as more SDS members joined them. The studentsexpelled all administrators and prepared for along night.

Calling in the Riot Force

The takeover ended when President Nathan M.Pusey '28, in an unprecedented action, had 400Boston and suburban police officers break up theprotest.

Dressed in riot gear, the police officersbarreled through groups of students that hadsurrounded the building.

Students in University Hall joined hands in anattempt to block the entrances, but the policeknocked back the protesters with billy clubs,beginning a sweeping attack that many latercondemned as a police riot.

The Crimson reported that police officers threwmany students down the steps of University Hall.

Hyland, who chaired the meetings inside thebuilding, "was driven into the room screaming withtroopers clubbing his body."

"I'm not sure that was necessary," Hyland saidin a recent interview.

By the end, more than 300 students had beenarrested and 75 were injured.

"It was a very surreal experience to spend thenight in University Hall and all these light bluehelmets coming in at six in the morning," saysTheodore Sedgwick '71, a protester in thebuilding.

Moderate students condemned the police action,and 2,000 students met in Memorial Hall thatmorning, calling for a three-day College-widestrike.

"It was done in such a brutal way that that'swhat sparked the strike," Hyland says.

Many liberal members of the Faculty criticizedPusey's actions. the faculty voted almostunanimously to drop criminal charges against thestudents and set up a committee to "investigatethe causes of the crisis."

@D:Catalyzing Change

The protests against ROTC catalyzed changesthat would permanently alter the campus climate.They brought the end to a time when facultyfrequently visited dining halls and a dress coderequired students to sport suit ties to meals.

"It changed the institution terribly," Youngsays. "The relations between the houses changed.There was a camaraderie and a collegiality betweenfaculty and students that suffered."

Student protesters now say that thisrelationship met its end in the anit-establishmentsentiment that was inextricably part of theprotest.

"It was a generational protest on the onehand--protest against a bureaucratic society, ofthe uniformity coming out of the '50s," saysMichael Kazin '70, the former co-chair of SDS atHarvard.

The start of the Vietnam War brought a newsense of urgency to stunts' general criticisms ofthe status quo, protesters say. It was the warthat turned the protests of a few radicals into amass student movement.

"It intensified the ordinary disruption ofbeing that age, many items over," remembers DavidI. Bruck '70, a protester and then-editorial chairof The Crimson. "The images of the war hung in theair like a noxious gas."

Students at the time say they felt they couldliterally change the world. Kazin says theprotesters acted according to deep moral beliefs.Hyland calls them philosophers.

"The most incredibly interesting questions ofpolitical theory were posed in the mostimmediately possible way," Hyland says.

"I remember too the idea that we were playingin a big sandbox full of ideas," Bruck says. "Wewere all stoned on the notion that the world ranon ideas, that ideas could instantly transformlife forever."

The administration met the student's narrowidealism with its own blindness, Hyland says.

Law Professor Emeritus Archibald Cox, whoadvised the administration during the studentprotests, says he was surprised by the students'actions.

"I think they did surpass me," says Cox, whowrote a book on Columbia's 1968 protests. "I don'tthink I foresaw anything like the occupation ofUniversity Hall that started all this."

"Everyone refused to believe that this was apossibility. There was a kind of cognitivedissonance," Hyland says.

Vietnam to the Gulf War

The ROTC debate settled down considerably afterthe faculty ended the three-day strike on April17, 1969, by voting to allot ROTC onlyextracurricular status and effectively forcing theprogram of the Harvard campus.

After the administration's 1970 decision,Harvard students could participate in ROTC byenrolling at MIT. In 1976, the Faculty voted toallow students to cross-register in ROTC coursesat MIT without receiving Harvard credit.

Today, Harvard gives $130,000 per year to MITfor the approximately 80 students at the collegeenrolled in MIT's ROTC program.

Delaying a Decision

In May 1990, the Faculty Council voted on theUniversity's ROTC ties, just as it had in 1969.The Council "issued a statement deploringdiscrimination by the military services againstgay and lesbian students," according to a 1992report of a faculty committee on ROTC.

If the military did not make significantprogress on fighting such discrimination withinthe next two years the council said, Harvardshould stop its involvement in ROTC programs.

In 1992, after the Faculty's two-year deadlinehad passed, President Neil L. Rudenstineestablished a committee on ROTC, headed byPforzheimer University Professor Sidney Verba '53,to examine the University's ties to ROTC.

The Verba Committee did not suggest a total endto ties with ROTC. But it recommended that theUniversity cut funding to ROTC unless the militarysignificantly altered its stance on homosexuals.

"If the Department of Defense policy remains ineffect, Harvard should stop paying the MIT feebeginning with the class entering in 1994," thereport stated.

The report, however, gave the President leewayto postpone a decision if he saw fit. "Werecommend that... 1994 be a target or planningdate, not a rigid requirement. This flexibility,however, is not meant to be a license for delay,"the report said.

Despite the changes in military policy underthe Clinton administration, the Faculty decidedearlier this year that the Verba Committee'srecommendations still stand.

And in February, Rudenstine used the loopholein the Verba report to extend ROTC for yet anotheryear. He said he was working out a agreement withMIT to allow Harvard students to participatewithout the University paying MIT for theirinvolvement.

"I think the President is still involved innegotiations with MIT, and he convinced thefaculty that the delay was warranted," says Verba,who, along with other committee members, says hebelieves Rudenstine is in negotiations with MIT."Our report left a loophole in it, veryself-consciously and carefully, and I think forgood reasons."

But Sara Gallop, assistant for governmentrelations and liaison in the MIT President'soffice on ROTC, says she is not aware of anynegotiations with Harvard.

"We've never been formally asked by anybody atHarvard to consider that arrangement," she says.

Marc L. Goodheart, special assistant topresident Rudenstine, has refused to comment.Rudenstine could not be reached for comment.

Different Issues

The issues today surrounding ROTC arefundamentally different from the issues in 1969.Then, students sought to abolish ROTC entirely.Now, students seek to end discrimination withinthe program.

"Today, it's bout a policy within themilitary," says L. Fred Jewett '57, dean of theCollege. "By and large, it's not that people areopposed to having ROTC, it's that certain peopleare excluded."

Nevertheless, ROTC is once again a source ofdivision on campus. A few hundred studentsprotested the University's ties to ROTC whenHarvard announced Gen. Colin L. Powell, thenChairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, as the 1993Commencement speaker.

Student protesters saw the University'sinvitation to Powell as a tacit approval of themilitary's policy.

Clinton's election quieted protesters for awhile, but since his August 1993 "don't ask, don'ttell" policy statement, ROTC opponents on campushave been rethinking their tactics and gatheringspeed.

"When I was here freshman and sophomore year,[ROTC] was very much discussed. I guess it hasdied down over the past few years," says Dennis K.Lin '93-'94, co-chair of the Bisexual, Gay andLesbian Students Association (BGLSA).

"Once Clinton got elected, people thought thatClinton would lift the ban, because he promisedduring the campaign," says Lin, who criticizesRudenstine for the delay in cutting financial tiesto the MIT program this year. "Then, last summer,when people saw that he wasn't going to lift theban, momentum picked up again."

And the momentum on campus picked up yet againthis week, when the BGLSA and the Civil LibertiesUnion at Harvard (CLUH) sponsored a posteringcampaign to make students aware that about $20 oftheir tuition goes toward ROTC fees.

A member of Harvard ROTC believes that ROTCwould be hurt if Harvard withdrew support.

"For Army ROTC, the top of the cadet chain ofcommand is all from Harvard," says Curtis L.Pierce II '94, cadet sergeant major of the ArmyROTC MIT battalion. "It would hurt the programwithout Harvard."

And on administrator says ROTC's critics shouldnot lose sight of its benefits.

"One thing to think about with ROTC is that itis a source of free education," Young says. "I'vealways thought you can do more good if you staywith what's happening that if you hide in a cave,if we can say, damn it, we stand for this, ratherthat sit back and let things happen."

Another Harvard professor who was here in 1969sees the new tenor of the ROTC debate as anindication how society has changed.

"We as a people are more conscious of theseissues now than we were in 1969," says Douglas W.Bryant, professor emeritus. "You can be sureHarvard won't take the [ROTC] decision lightly.What Harvard does becomes--in many ways--abellweather."

Students in the BGLSA and CLUH look forward tonext year as a watershed, knowing that whateverRudenstine decided on ROTC could move the campusinto another phase of the ROTC debate.

"What I would like to see is PresidentRudenstine make a statement with his explicitposition on ROTC," says Jeff A. Redding '96, gayrights project chair for CLUH.

Lin says he expects protests if nothing isdone.

"You can delay this for only so long before itbecomes obvious that people want to resolve it,"Lin says. "Now, We're taking this in good faith,but if it goes on for another year, it wouldn't beacceptable anymore."

A Different World

The change in the ROTC debate was a change inissues--from an objection to militarism to astance against discrimination. But the nature ofthe dabate was also recast by a new political era.

"[The issue then] really had this kind oflife-and-death urgency that's hard to replicatenow," notes New York Times opinion columnist FrankRich Jr. '71. "It's such a different world now.It's almost apples and oranges."Crimson File PhotoTop: Soldiers march in Boston's 1969Veterans' Day parade. Bottom: Students during lastyear's Commencement hold pink balloons reading'Lift the Ban,' a reference to the military'sformer policy on gays.CrimsonMelody A. LeeTies That Bind: Harvard and ROTC