Former Johnson Aide To Teach Presidency Course

A former aide to President Johnson, Doris H. Kearns, will take over Government 154, "The American Presidency", next fall from Richard E. Neustadt, professor of Government.

Miss Kearns, assistant professor of Government and Dunster House tutor--Harvard's first unmarried woman resident tutor--was a White House fellow from September 1967 to January of this year. She will replace Neustadt for one year while he works on an experimental course for a new degree program in the Kennedy School.

More Emphasis

The course next fall will emphasize the Johnson administration more than it has under Neustadt, Miss Kearns indicated. It will also deal more closely with concrete issues such as poverty and civil rights. "The main concern of the course at present is analytical," Miss Kearns said yesterday. "I would be more inclined toward grounding the analysis in substantive issues."

Working first for the Secretary of Labor, W. Willard Wirtz, on the problems of ghetto youth, Miss Kearns joined the White House staff in April '68 after Johnson had announced he would not run. "I was allowed great independence in the White House," Miss Kearns said.

Dump LBJ

In April '67, two days after she was awarded the White House fellowship, an article co-authored by Miss Kearns appeared in the New Republic entitled "How to Remove LBJ in 1968." The article was written with Sanford Levenson. Both authors were Dunster House tutors at the time.

Johnson's reaction to the piece was very mild, Miss Kearns said. "I think he took it as a challenge," she said. "Every time I saw him he'd ask 'Written anything about me lately?'"

After next year, Neustadt and Miss Kearns will either alternate or teach the course jointly.