Overseers Will Meet in Washington, Hold Annual Dinner in White House

The scene for President Pusey's annual dinner with the Board of Overseers and the Corporation will shift this year from 17 Quincy St. to 1600 Pennsylvania Ave., the University announced yesterday.

The announcement confirmed rumors circulating in Cambridge and the capital that the Overseers would go to Washington for their May meeting so that John F. Kennedy '40 could attend. The President is winding up a six-year term on the Board.

It had been expected that Kennedy would come to Harvard for the meeting, but when this became impossible the Overseers altered their plans and decided to go to Washington.

The two-day meeting will begin on Monday morning, May 13, with a business session at Dumbarton Oaks, the Harvard research center for the study of the Byzantine and medieval humanities. The Overseers will lunch with a number of Harvard men now working for the government, and will spend the afternoon touring the buildings at Dumbarton Oaks and discussing some of the recent acquisitions of its library.

White House Dinner

In the evening the Overseers will retire to the White House for the annual dinner given by President Pusey as head of the Corporation. It will be the first time the Board of Overseers has ever met in the White House.

On Tuesday the Overseers will convene at the new Center for Hellenic Studies on Whitehaven St., established by the University with the aid of the Old Dominion Foundation. One reason for holding the Overseers' meeting in Washington was to let them get acquainted with the center and its work in the art and literature of ancient Greece.

The meeting will conclude on Tuesday with a luncheon for the Overseers and for officers of the Old Dominion Foundation and the Hellenic Center.

President Kennedy hopes to attend at least the Monday morning business meeting, in addition to the White House dinner that night, but final plans have not yet been prepared.

The last Overseers' meeting which Kennedy attended was on Jan. 9, 1961, two weeks before his inauguration. At that time he was nearly mobbed by students as he tried to walk across the yard to the Loeb Drama Center. Kennedy was elected to his six-year term on the Board of Overseers in 1957. Overseers are not eligible for re-election.

Although plans for the Washington meeting have been in the works for some time, the University had to wait for a formal invitation from the White House before making its announcement.