Scrutiny
‘Ideological Authors’: Harvard’s Hidden Ties to Dirty Wars in Latin America
In the 1960s and 70s, U.S. Cold War involvement in Latin America and the violent regimes it supported were hardly discussed at Harvard. Yet these two worlds — political upheaval in Latin America and the rarefied academic spaces of the University — were far less separate than one might think.
Volume XXXV, Issue VIII
Dear FM, We finally did it — we won the lottery. And by we, I mean myself and my blockmates. After Cabot House announced it would be gutting its selection of prized n+1 suites next year, leaving many seniors to live out their final semesters sharing a double bedroom like first years, my blockmates and I were terrified. So we ruminated. We strategized. We pored over the rule book searching for plausible schemes. And in no way due to any of that labor, our suite was randomly assigned the second-highest lottery number today. But whether you’re rejoicing after getting a furnished apartment in the Prescotts or struggling to figure out how to divide your 82 sq. ft hallway double in Dunster, you can all take comfort in another stroke of luck: the arrival of another issue of FM. In this week’s scrutiny, OGP and JKW uncover Harvard’s connections to the destabilization of Latin American countries during the Cold War. Under the guise of academic freedom, professors shook hands with (and sometimes became) military and intelligence officials, covert operatives recruited students, and the CIA discreetly channeled funding into research projects. Ultimately, professors and institutions like Henry Kissinger and his Defense Studies Program engaged in covert planning that enabled the destabilization of a region and the loss of tens of thousands of lives. The legacy of these men and their actions reverberate to this day not only across the region but within the University as well. On a less somber note, YAK asks fifteen sharp questions and gets fifteen fascinating answers from HLS Professor and Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Annette Gordon-Reed, covering everything from her take on the philosophy of originalism in constitutional law to her thoughts on the musical “Hamilton.” Speaking of biographical musicals, it wouldn’t surprise me to see one written eventually about the subject of KJK’s latest must-read profile. Dr. Michael Ferguson is a professor at Harvard Medical School and the Divinity School who studies the neuroscience of spirituality. Did I mention he’s a former Mormon, a practicing Catholic, and the first recipient of a gay marriage license in Utah? What a remarkable guy — and what a remarkable story. Lastly, sports writer TH joins FM for an endpaper about how YouTube shaped his childhood and the strangeness of recently seeing some of his favorite creators retire. As a former Minecraft YouTube fan myself (yes, I was very cool in fifth grade), this one brought all the nostalgia. Of course, it took a lot more than just luck to make this issue happen. Thanks to CJK for a multi-day madness of scrut proofing and OGP + JKW for “G overloaded.” Thanks to XCZ, JND, OWZ, for excellent graphics. Thanks to LLL and BHP for being way more on top of it than we are. Thanks to MJH, CY, and EJS for reigning us in while letting us flourish. Thanks to our social chairs for bringing us to the moon with fringe prom. Thanks to JL and YAK for $65 million worth of EAL expertise. As always, thanks to KT for perpetually pulling through for me. And to all those still awaiting their housing assignments for next year, thank you for sticking with FM during this stressful time — I wish you all single bedrooms, spacious common rooms, and a cozy nook to curl up and read our latest issue. FMLove, HD + KT
Stephen Reifenberg Courtesy Photo
Steve Reifenberg, a former executive director of DRCLAS, argues that exposure to Latin American culture was crucial to expanding the worldview of Harvard affiliates.
Morton Halperin Courtesy Photo
“I never was really sure what the Defense Studies Program was,” says Morton Halperin.
‘The Line’: Questions of Comedy, Speech, and Accountability
While maybe not popularly identified with “freedom of speech” concerns, comedy clubs on Harvard’s campus are still beholden to concerns about what might be appropriate to say and what might cross the line.
Volume XXXV, Issue VII
Dear FM, Not to say the world is ending, but the world is ending. There was an earthquake in New York; there’ll be a solar eclipse on Monday; it was raining, hailing, and snowing (??!?!?!) these past few days here; and I am writing this closeout on (gasp) a Sunday while The Crimson’s admin site is down. Is the apocalypse upon us? I’ll let the evidence speak for itself. With trying times often comes ~comedy~, and that is the subject of this week’s scrut by AC and TNR. Witty and incisive, it is an exploration of how students on campus engage in comedy and navigate the broader social forces that impact what they deem appropriate to joke about. As they write, “The audience has their dispositions, but the buck is then passed to the comic: what should you do with the tastes of this audience? And then there’s the more interesting question. What do you do?” As you read their scrut, think about those questions. It’ll be extremely illuminating of the various social tensions underlying what it means to engage with and do comedy. Going along with the apocalyptic theme, XSC strikes a double-whammy with an inquiry and a retrospection. In the former, she questions the extent to which privacy has, in some ways, become at odds with friendship through the common use of Find My to track others’ locations. In the latter, she explores the history of the Social Museum Collection, which was criticized for its categorizing of human beings. Still, not everything is doom and gloom. In fact, some things are even on the come-up, like my.harvard, whose makeover EDDPT outlines through her conversations with some students working with HUIT to revamp the website. If you want even more wins, IYG offers us advice for writing a strong grant application by writing one herself — for very posh, definitely not exorbitantly-priced research on the Royal Family. And keeping up our streak of strong profiles, YAK talks to Eva Shang ’17 on dropping out, being a hedge fund CEO, and storytelling. SSL sits down with Jazz Jennings ’25 to learn about how she navigates life at Harvard after being a public figure for so long. From abroad, SJ talks to Adam V. Aleksic ’23 about etymology, being an influencer, and Internet slang. Finally, wrapping our issue to a close, DH reflects on her Kurdish-Syrian identity through an endpaper on her relationship with her mother’s language and culture. It is as honest as it is tender, a nuanced and genuine exploration of heritage and family history. And with that, happy apocalypse-era reading! FMLove, HD + KT
Rave and Jack photo
HUSUCS presidents, John “Jack” F. Griffin ’25 and Rave S. Andrews ’25, lead a meeting for the stand-up group on March 30.
Harvard Princes, Russian Reformers: When Harvard Ran Moscow
In 1992, a group of Harvard-affiliated experts arrived in Moscow and attempted to transform the Russian economy into that of a Western capitalist country. Instead, the economic development project crumbled in scandal.
Volume XXXV, Issue VI
Dear FM, On Thursday in my Gen Ed, three other students and I went in front of the class “Shark Tank” style and gave five minute pitches for a hypothetical intervention to combat fake news, misinformation, or polarization. At the end of class, we all voted on which two proposals we would fund, and, by a wide margin, my presentation came dead last. Luckily, I have a different intervention in mind now — a completely free, non-hypothetical way to address the worrisome deficiency of top-tier campus magazine writing in your life — the latest issue of FM. Who needs Shark Tank: Gen Ed edition anyway? In this week’s scrutiny, CPRJ and MTB take questions about Harvard’s influence abroad back to a major flashpoint from decades past — and uncover the history behind it. In 1992, a group of experts affiliated with Harvard’s Institute for International Development arrived in Russia aiming to transform its economy into that of a Western capitalist country. Instead, they left in scandal, eventually leading Harvard (along with some of the experts) to pay a $31 million settlement to the U.S. government. As Harvard faces criticism today over its wide-ranging influence and lack of institutional neutrality, the story of HIID and its Russia project provides a fresh lens into the risks of Harvard’s global power. This was a massive reporting and research effort (and, to my knowledge, the first Crimson article written in at least four different countries) by first-time scrut writers, and I am so proud of them. To CPRJ and MTB, your perseverance and dedication fills me with hope about what this magazine is capable of. Elsewhere in the issue, SSL peppers computer science professor Elena Glassman with fifteen questions, covering everything from her takes on CS education to the time she walked on to the MIT men’s wrestling team. In a fitting twist for our first issue post-spring break, DRZ brings back a time-tested classic FM medium — the Venn Diagram — to compare the four shops in the Square that sell boba and a spring break trip to Cordoba. Back again for another conversation, SSL sits down with Hist & Lit concentrator and distance running star Maia Ramsden to talk about her thesis, fashion, and her impending transition from full time academics and part time athletics to full time athletics. Finally, comp director extraordinaire JKW delivers a stunning endpaper on her relationship with her grandmother and how to grieve in a way that measures up to the complexity of a person. I struggle to describe how beautiful, vivid, and life-giving this piece is — you really have to read it. Many thanks are in order. To AEP, thanks for a thorough and crucial scrut proofing job. To XCZ, JND, OWZ, and all the rest of design, thanks for seeing our vision even when we don’t have one. To LLL and BHP, thanks for grounding our words in the material world. To MJH, CY, and EJS, thanks for having our backs. To our FM execs (FMdashes? FMdashes.), thanks for great banter and sharp sentences — y’all are superstars. To JL (and YAK in absentia), thanks for excellent EALing and hanging in there. Finally, a special thanks goes to CY, for bringing the soap and the wand into the FMoffice, and to KT for joining me as we unleashed our inner kindergarteners and blew some bubbles. FMLove, HD + KT
From Bob Dylan to This? Surviving a Shrinking Cambridge Arts Scene
Artists imbue the Square with the culture and charm that give the city its character — and its market price. But what would a sustainable arts culture look like in Cambridge, and who is willing to pay for it?
Volume XXXV, Issue V
Dear FM, Vast, malignant forces were conspiring against this issue. Midterms. Sleep deprivation. Housing Day condemning many FM first-years to the river. But in the end, nothing — not even this week’s scrut writer suffering a concussion the weekend before publication — could stop us. In this week’s scrutiny, TCW goes searching for what happened to the arts in Cambridge. Artists used to define the city, but over the past years, rising rents and a changing city landscape have forced many artists to relocate and many art spaces — galleries, studios, and venues — to shut down. Though the city government is trying its best to preserve the culture, the few spaces still open are rarely paying market price. With vivid detail and colorful on-the-ground reporting, the article asks what would a sustainable arts culture look like in Cambridge, and who is going to pay for it? TCW persevered through so much to get this piece out into the world — from biotech sludge to editing by hand after her concussion — but her talent and dedication (along with a boatload of excellent editing from YAK) made the piece turn out brilliantly. In this week’s 15 Questions, AEP hears from Classics chair and incoming Eliot House dean David Elmer about oral traditions, The Iliad, and why he still hasn’t seen or read “Percy Jackson.” AGF gets the scoop on Eng-Sci 24, a class on food fermentation whose experimental student projects at one point led Berklee students to make yogurt-inspired music compositions. CJK and SIR visit a course on oral history, where they learn how to listen to silences in the archive and hear how students use the class’s methodology to document the stories of their communities. Who said history wasn’t practical? A trio of phenomenal profiles rounds out the issue — all with larger-than-life subjects. Sungjoo Yoon ’27, better known as the datamatch leaker, tells JBT, KJK, and AEP about his day of infamy on Sidechat, the book he’s writing, and his non-presidential political aspirations. Professor Gary King, who has founded six companies, written 9 books, and published over 170 scholarly articles, lets NHS in on the secret of how he simultaneously succeeds in industry and the academy — and leaves him with an idea for a startup. Finally, FM^2 (Fifteen Minutes x Folk & Myth) legend SWF falls into the orbit of Caroline Calloway, a former Instagram influencer who got even more famous for repeatedly scamming those around her. “The coin of her realm is attention,” and with a story this well-written, how could you not give her yours? We could not have made it to publication this week without so many wonderful people. Thanks to our AMEs CY and EJS for quick proofing, and especially to MJH for helping us handle the opps. Thank you LLL, BHP, XCZ, JND, OWZ, and all the rest of the multi and design folks for bringing our content to life. Thank you to YAK, whose quick wit, sharp words, and superb editing are undoubtedly aspirin for FM’s body politic. To JL, for being EAL-tastic. To KT, for inexplicably slaying when there’s no slaying involved. And to all the FM Execs, you are my favorites — I wish you the best spring break. FMLove, HD + KT
Foundry photo
At the Foundry, you can reserve studio space, host an arts event in a maker studio, sell your wares at a night market, or apply to display in The Point, their conference room and gallery.
Community Arts Center photo
A hold in the Port neighborhood since the 1930s, the Community Arts Center — part-childcare, part-community space, and part-arts school — began out of the basement of Newtonne Court, one of the oldest public housing developments in the country. The center provides a vision of the arts as a public service, done from the bottom-up.
Gallery 263 photo
David Craft, a former assistant professor at Massachusetts General Hospital, founded Gallery 263, a non-profit arts space that hosts weekly yoga, critique workshops, music nights, and exhibit openings that routinely spill out into the street.
Cambridge Artists Coop photo
The Cambridge Artists' Cooperative has faced a rising rent on their two-year lease, which forced them to negotiate their three-floor space down to one floor. Since paring down their space, they’ve had to limit how many artists they display.
The Painful Progress of Native American Repatriation
Over three decades after the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act was passed, the Peabody Museum has repatriated less than half of its holdings. For tribes who are waiting to receive their ancestors and funerary belongings, this slow progress has taken a heavy toll.
Volume XXXV, Issue IV
Dear FM, Spring is in the air. The air today may have been rainy and still a bit chilly, but it’s there. We are crawling out of the 30º weather, crawling out of dark-at-4pm-days, crawling out of the trenches, and facing the light — of our biggest FM issue yet. Opening this issue is another incredible scrut by iconic duo JL and ESKS on Harvard’s efforts — or lack thereof — in fulfilling the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act. Progress on this front has been slow, spanning over three decades now, and time after time, we have covered this. But what’s missing has been the emotional toll that such slow work takes on Indigenous tribes who are waiting to be reunited with the remains of their ancestors and burial items. With a balance of human-centered reporting and retrospective research, this scrut brings out exactly that, set on the foreground of questions surrounding colonialism and what it means to repair relations. This theme of bringing out the faces in our reporting runs through the rest of our issue. DRZ strikes with yet another extremely well-reported 15Q with psychiatrist and medical anthropologist Arthur M. Kleinman that touches on not just his academic work, but also his experiences caring for his late wife until her death. It is profound and touching and made both HD and me cry — and got raving reviews from MJH, who said, "Good 15Q." Next, DRZ and SSL embark on a journey to Vilna Shul in Boston, where they make pickles while talking to people about finding Jewish community in the city. KJK writes an incredibly colorful profile of Wesley Wang ’26, whose short film “nothing, except everything.” won him national attention, and who is now on a path to creating a full-length feature film. Language, too, is a theme in this issue as TMR writes about the complex history of the Eliot Bible, which was originally written in 1663 in Wôpanâak to Christianize local Indigenous tribes but is now being used in language preservation efforts. MTB talks to Ava E. Silva ’27 about a project she is spearheading to preserve the endangered Alabama language. In a retrospection that reads almost like historical fiction, AI brings to life the philosophers’ camp that would happen in the Adirondacks in the 19th century — except it was really “far more ‘philosopher’ than ‘camp.’” In the spirit of spring, FM staff gives Josh advice again, this time, on when winter ends. Finally, wrapping up our issue is an poignant endpaper by XSC exploring what it means to be Asian non-American; an international student living in the U.S., trying to figure out who and how to be. Now, a huge list of kudos are in order! Super duper special shoutout to SET, LJPE, XCZ, JND, OWZ, and all the other design execs for not just churning out fire graphics as usual, but for making our VERY FIRST GLOSSY possible!! (Extra love to SET and LJPE for answering all of HD’s and my glossy questions.) Special shoutout to AHL and IYG for all the how-to videos and guides that literally carried me through glossy production, and also for the emotional support slug plush. Thank you to LLL and BHP for coordinating multi things for us, and to JJG and AYL for amazing Quad Bikes photos + glossy spread. Thank you to MJH, EJS, and CY for diligent proofing, editorial wisdom, and, of course, vibes. Thank you to YAK, SSL, and DRZ for planning a very flower very power mixer. Thank you JL and YAK for helping us handle our ever-growing! content and for the best pitch email conceits. Thank you all FM execs for pulling through for our biggest issue yet and staying on top of shit even though it’s been midterm hell for a lot of you. And finally, thank you to HD for being my partner-in-chaos and for becoming an InDesign master overnight so our next glossy will go by even more smoothly. FMLove, HD + KT