Kissinger

Cambridge over the Christmas holidays. A staff assistant at Kissinger's office refused to comment on the subject.

Washington sources said last night that Kissinger was considering leaving his present post before Nixon's term expires-perhaps within as little as a year. But the sources described him as "fearful of being snubbed" by liberal and anti-war ex-colleagues on the Faculty who might resent his prominent role in shaping the administration's Vietnam strategy.

At a meeting in Washington December 11 at which Kissinger met privately with Stanley H. Hoffmann and 15 Harvard and Radcliffe students, Kissinger reportedly said with bitterness, "I would like to come to Cambridge to discuss this with you further, but there are some among your number who would seek to prevent me."

James Q. Wilson, professor of Government, said last night that the Government Department, had decided the matter "by simply not looking around for someone else to fill the chair," adding, "That's all the action that was necessary."

Wilson-who will become chairman of the Department in July-said the chair would be open for a year and perhaps more "unless, of course, it stretches on to an indefinite period. We certainly want to stretch it as long as we can."

Wilson, who was on leave last semester, did not attend the departmental meetings.

Lipset said that the meetings had taken no formal action because "to take formal action would be in effect to reverse the policy of the President" on the rule removing tenure after two years' absence.

Sources in the Department said last night that any teaching shortage created by the failure to fill Kissinger's chair could be alleviated by creating more junior Faculty or short-term appointments such as instructor or lecturer.

However, Arthur Maas. Thompson Professor of Government and former chairman of the Department, said last night that the International Relations section of the Department-in which Kissinger held his appointment, was adequately staffed at present.

Samuel P. Huntington, chairman of the Department, was not available for comment last night.

One junior member of the Department said last night, "If they want to rehire him there's nothing anyone can do to stop them. If they don't want to rehire him, there's nothing anyone can do to help him."

Born in Franconia, Germany, in 1923, Kissinger emigrated with his family to the U.S. 15 years later. He enrolled as a private in the U.S. Army and became the personal translator of the commanding general of the 84th division in Europe.

He enrolled at Harvard College after the war, scrambling up the academic ladder to a full professorship in 1962. He gained fame as a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and as a consultant to Nelson Rockefeller.

Kissinger maintained close contact with several Harvard-launched Kennedy-era intellectuals, notably McGeorge Bundy and Arthur Schlesinger. In 1967, he made a secret trip to Hanoi on behalf of Secretary of Defense Robert S. MacNamara to sound out the North Vietnamese government.

He left Cambridge to assume his present post in January 1969. Joseph Kraft, a columnist who has known Kissinger for 15 years, writes in the current issue of Harper's, "It is perhaps not too much to say that he is the second most powerful man in the world."