Adminstration and Police Officials Block Lampoon Mock Battle Plans

"Neither the deans nor the police seem to be up for a pitched battle this year," Robert Hoffman, a member of the Harvard Lampoon, said yesterday.

And so, the Lampoon's planned re-enactment of the battle of Hastings will have to be put off for another century. By then, perhaps, the police will have developed a sense of humor.

Members of the Lampoon had fairly definite ideas about how the 900th aniversary of the battle should be celebrated. With profits gained from their sell-out Playboy parody, the Poonies had ordered Navy surplus rafts in which the invaders were to cross the Charles, $600 worth of harmless bows and arrows which were being manufactured for them specially, and blue-prints for a catapult loaded with 1000 tennis balls were in the making.

But the battle, which was scheduled for Columbus day and not October 14, was canceled by Dean Watson after he had consulted with the five police departments which would have been involved in the spectacular. "If we were out in the country, a mock battle with 300 participants might be possible, but in an urban area, it seemed too risky," Dean Watson said.

"It was all terribly vague," Watson continued. "If they had been more concise perhaps we could have worked something out." But after waiting nine days for permission from the Administration, the 'Poonies would have had a hard time making the necessary preparations, even if the battle had been approved.

There had been some question about where the skirmish should take place. At first the Poonies wanted to stage it in front of the Lampoon castle on Mt. Auburn St., but later they conceded that it might be safer in Soldiers Field.

"We admit that the battle has a certain riot potential," Walker W. Lewis, president of the Lampoon said, "but then that decision was up to Watson and the police."

The 'Poon, in an effort to make the battle as authentic as possible, did some research and found that elephants had taken part in 1066. To complete the event they had considered having six elephants cross the Larz Anderson bridge. One of them, Big Tom, "would have come for peanuts," Hoffman said.