Pusey, In Annual Report, Calls Last Year 'Dismal'

President Pusey, in his annual Report to be released today, says that last year was a "dismal" and "costly" one for Harvard.

"If there is anything demonstrably false in our recent experience," Pusey said of the 1968-69 academic year, "it is that tactics of violence can be productive of good, that 'they get results.'"

The report, which Pusey delivered last week to the Board of Overseers, covers a wide range of topics, from ROTC, black studies, and last spring's disruptions to academic reforms and Harvard's financial position.

Pusey predicts a "measure of retrenchment" in the University's growth, details the academic and financial cost of last spring's strike, and defends his own decision to call police into University Hall.

He also questions the validity of the Faculty's action against ROTC and says that, despite the "extremely unrepresentative impression given by a few self- righteous zealots," most Harvard students are "thoughtful and concerned individuals" who "care deeply and sensibly about Harvard."

(The full text of Pusey's report will be published in Wednesday's CRIMSON.)

Beginning his description of last spring, Pusey says that "the distressing events of 1968-69 appear to have represented a culmination (if not yet a final resolution) of a sequence of misbegotten attitudes and events which began to evolve several years back."

Pusey traces the origins of the "new style and new intensity in campus political activities" to the 1966 protests against Robert S. McNamara and the 1967 demonstration in which a recruiter from Dow Chemical was held in a room for several hours.

In both cases. Pusey says, the issue was not "the war in Vietnam, but ratherthe coercive tactics employed by some of the demonstrators."

April No Surprise

After the Dow and Paine Hall protests, Pusey says, the "turbulent dramatic events of last April" came as no surprise. University administrators "had seen them coming for a long time, had in fact come to think of them as inevitable because of the dog-like persistence of some few determined young rebels."

"What was perplexing was the failure of the community at large accurately to have assessed the rebels' intent," Pusey adds.

Although the occupation of University Hall was "brought about by a small number of the revolutionaries against the wishes of the majority." their forces "were greatly swollen by many young people who were genuinely and seriously concerned about the professed issues advanced."

Under the circumstances, Pusey says, the decision to call in police was the "least bad" of the available alternatives.

Pusey says the costs of the "tactics of violence" must be measured in "hours wasted and opportunities missed. in the increase in internal political activity at the expense of learning and scholarship. in the erosion of confidence and trust and respect in the promotion of distrust and hostility. the injury done friendship, and the defeat of reason and love."

Specifically, he warns that disruptions might drive away professors and embitter Congress and the public.

Harvard Not Wicked

"It is perplexing to me why any people who live in universities... should turn on them as the enemy. reviling them as if they were the creators and sustainers of what they call an obscene industrial-military complex and an abhorrent way of life ... Harvard has never appeared wicked to me and does not now- nor uninformed, nor callous nor indifferent."

In the section of his report dealing with Harvard's black students and Faculty, Pusey says their protests- while "coercive"- have been aimed at "ends with which we all deeply sympathize."

"It is obvious that blacks at Harvard are far from a homogeneous population. he says, "and yet they tend now to coalesce as they increasingly see in their blackness a distinctive value and force."

"This seems to me both regrettable and sad."

Pusey says that the Organization for Black Unity's demands- that 20 per cent of the workers on Harvard construction sites be minority group members- are "virtually identical" with Harvard's aims.

Work Together

"They and we- if we must be separated- should at least be working together and not in suspicion or at cross purposes... The one thing we must avoid in these efforts it seems to me. is to get 'hung up' on disagreements concerning percentages."

Another of the year's products- the Faculty's vote on ROTC- was also unfortunate. Pusey says.

"It is difficult for me to explain the fierceness and the sense of haste which the Faculty of Arts and Sciences showed in dealing with this issue." he said. concluding that "the friendly association of many years between Harvard and the military services through which we assisted in providing for them many leaders of high competence will next year come to an end, a casualty of these troubled times."

Academic Changes

But Pusey says there have been other kinds of change going on at Harvard. Because of the feeling that "it is not sufficient to pursue knowledge for itself. but that somehow knowledge must be put to work for moral, social, and political ends." new programs have developed at several of the graduate schools.

Pusey specifically cites the Kennedy School of Governement's new Public Policy program as "the most vivid single example" of the new direction. The intent of the multi-disciplinary program is "to produce scholars. lawyers. physicians. business executives and others who will be able to work in and out of government, pursuing private careers and public service," Pusey says.

Money Problems

In his discussion of University finance, Pusey predicts hard fiscal times ahead:

"Costs continue to rise. Income will surely be harder to come by. Competition for federal funds will become more intense at a time when science and universities are both declining in public favor."

"Add the uncertainties occasioned by the Vietnam War by impending legislation, the general state of the economy, the declining market.... and it appears almost certain that the years immediately ahead will be more difficult financially .... than any we have experienced for a long time," he concluded.

But Donations Strong

But the report finds partial comfort in the fact that donations to the University were still strong last year.

What students want. Pusey says in concluding his report is a way "to put knowledge to work for social and moral ends."

"If we are to meet this commendable expectation," he says. "all of us ... must now work more diligently to channel into constructive advance the latent energy and fundamental goodwill which motivated so many Harvard people during this past year of stress and turbulence."