Councilman Mike Sullivan To Be Buried Here Today

Michael A. Sullivan, 59-year-old Cambridge councilman and long-time nemesis of Harvard undergraduates and officials, will be buried at Cambridge Cemetery this morning. Sullivan died Friday after a heart attack suffered New Year's Eve.

Flags throughout the city fly at half-mast today in memory of the hot-headed and charitable. Cambridge-born politician who often received national publicity for his incurable antics and clashes with political and personal enemies. A violent anti-Communist. "Mickey the Dude" could never reconcile his theories with those of the University which he felt "dominated" the Cambridge scene.

Mickey the Character

Sullivan pulled no punches in his dealings with either the University or its representatives, and his schemes were seldom disguised or minimized. At various times he wanted to change the name of Harvard Square to Washington Square, he tried to ban several "Communist-tinged" student productions, and he introduced a council resolutions to have the words "Lenin" and "Leningrad" stricken from all printed matter in Cambridge.

Mickey also wanted to trade off three "surplus" Harvard professors for three tankers full of "surplus" Milwaukee beer when both Cambridge and the beer city were celebrating their centennials. He suggested that if the Harvard Community didn't want Plan E government it could secede from Cambridge, and when marching, students roughed him up a bit, he filled Harvard Square with cops armed with tear-gas guns and grenades. Mickey was always full of ideals.

But there was another side to "the Dude, "a side than won him re-election after re-election and an unshakable spot in the hearts of local citizens and constituents. This was Mickey the Good Samaritan Mickey the friend who stuck by the veterans in issues, on housing, a memorial plaque, and additional burying space at the Cambridge Cemetery. This was the "politico" who took enough time to drive hundreds of Kerry Corner youngsters out into the country on Sunday mornings. This was the bespectacled little man who on Saturday morning, personality delivered baskets of food to poor and needy families. This was Councilman Michael A. Sullivan the vote getter.

For all his activities, Mickey is slated to go down-in Harvard's history as well as that of Cambridge. He stands alone as the only man who over dared call John Harvard "just another foreign or who never entered this country." And his judgment goes unchallenged when, during a $100,000 lawsuit with the Lampoon, he promised to tear down the Bow Street aviary and build either a saloon or gas station on its razed foundations.

Ballots cast for Michael A. Sullivan a year ago November will be recounted to determine an immediate successor for the late councilman.

The recount will be based on the theory that secondary choices on the ballots should share political views most like those of Sullivan. Election officials will redistribute his votes among the previously unsuccessful candidates who might have been elected had Sullivan not been running