HUC Puts Off ROTC Decision At 'Showdown'

The HUC battled its way through two and a half hours of wild and vociferous debate over ROTC only to bog down to an indecisive adjournment in the third straight week of ROTC discussions.

Council members defeated by a 12-4 vote one resolution by Jeffrey C. Alexander '69, vice president of the HUC, which called for ROTC units to be reduced to the status of undergraduate organizations.

But it was unclear whether the vote was against the idea or the hasty wording of the resolution. Thomas Shields '69 introduced an alternate proposal that the HUC reconvene as soon as a prepared statement could be drawn up and that motion passed by the same 12-4 margin.

The Alexander resolution to the faculty form of a recommendation to the faculty asking that it:

* elminate academic credit for ROTC courses.

* abolish Corporation appointments for ROTC instructors.

* allow all ROTC units to apply to the HUC as undergraduate organizations.

* not give ROTC units specially assigned meeting places such as the Shannon Hall complex.

* withdraw descriptions of ROTC courses from the course catalogue.

Advertised as the showdown on the ROTC issue, the HUC meeting drew more than fifty people to discuss the topic, including Archie C. Epps, assistant to the Dean of the College, who appeared as an HUC witness to discuss faculty inquiry into the ROTC courses.

Epps urged the Council to consider all implications of the issue. "History complicates your reading of the situation," he said. "You have a particular situation here and you should be careful that you are not looking beyond it."

Most of the more than thirty observers who spoke at the meeting were presently in the ROTC program and came to the HUC to defend it.

After the meeting, Stephan A. Kaplan '69, president of the HUC, said "apparently a few guys wanted to check on some more facts to make sure that we can come out with the right thing."

Today he will contact the Pentagon to check the status of ROTC scholarships and the future of ROTC units at Harvard if academic credit is denied. When the Pentagon calls back, the HUC will convene again.