Vietnam Morass

UNDER ALMOST any circumstances, a formal vote by the Harvard Faculty against the Vietnam war would offer some help to anti-war efforts. And-as the press coverage yesterday and today has shown-the votes at Tuesday's Faculty meeting did attract some national interest. President Nixon may say he doesn't care, but he and the rest of the newspaper-reading public now know that a prestigious group has taken a public stand.

Unfortunately, the sloppy manner in which the Faculty handled the vote on the anti-war resolution guaranteed that its "public stand" would have the minimum effect. And its defeat of the Mendelsohn resolution on the Vietnam Moratorium was an inexcusable rejection of a relatively non-controversial motion.

From the start, the lines that split the Faculty were clear: while most members were personally ready to oppose the war, a large group of them feared the damage a "political" vote might do to the Faculty's academic integrity. Their fears were not well-grounded: if a Faculty member can admit there are some conceivable circumstances that might justify a step away from neutrality, then he should see that the Vietnam War calls for such a step.

But even granting those fears were sincere, the Faculty's handling of the motion on the Vietnam Moratorium is difficult to understand. The Moratorium resolution may have seemed tainted with political content, but the Moratorium itself has gained such widespread support that a mere expression of "support" could hardly have been viewed as a precedent. If the Boston City Council finds this protest worthy of endorsement, and three local universities have cancelled classes to observe it, then the Faculty should have been able to suspend its long-guarded neutrality.

As it is, the amended motion says in essence, nothing. Anyone who can read a newspaper "recognizes that October 15 is a day of protest," and Faculty members already had the right to call off their classes without getting any "re-affirmation" from an amended motion.

The series of votes on the anti-war resolution showed mainly how easily the Faculty can lose its legislative way. For some unexplained reason, the 268 votes that joined to amend the Moratorium resolution couldn't get together to call a recess-the obvious strategy for avoiding a formal vote. And when they finally faced a vote, the opponents seemed to have no ready plan for voting or abstaining.

If those who opposed the resolution were sincere in their protestation that they wanted to make the "most effective" statement against the war, they might have arranged some better way of putting themselves on private record once the formal vote was past. As it was, the slapstick convocation only reinforced the sense of disorder and confusion. If the turbulent meetings of the last nine months have shown nothing else, they have proved how much the Faculty needs sweeping legislative reform.