N.Y. Firm Holds Stolen Termpapers

More missing Harvard termpapers were discovered yesterday, as Alan Kawadler, head of a New York termpapers firm, revealed that his company was in possession of at least 20 of more than 40 recently stolen Harvard papers.

"When I bought them, I assumed the papers had not been taken unethically," Kawadler, head of Minuteman Research, said last night. "The guy who sold them to me said he had friends in a lot of schools who got the papers for him."

Kawadler offered to return the papers to any authors who wish to claim them, and said the other missing papers may have been sold to other New York termpaper companies.

Barry Levine, manager of Termpapers Anonymous, said yesterday that his firm would check to see how many of the Harvard papers it had received in an exchange last Saturday with Kawadler. Crimson reporters, posing as prospective termpaper buyers, discovered a stolen Harvard paper at Termpapers Anonymous Wednesday.

The University moved yesterday afternoon to offer assistance to the Attorney General's office of New York State for possible legal action against Minuteman Research. Daniel Steiner '54, general counsel to the University, said yesterday that he had been "in consultation" with Stephen Mindel, department head of the state's Consumer Protection and Fraud Division.

Steiner requested an affadavit yesterday from Arthur H. Lubow '73, author of the stolen paper recovered Wednesday, for possible use either by Harvard or the State of New York. Lubow said yesterday that he would swear the affadavit.

In a conversation with the Crimson last night. Kawadler speculated that the Harvard thefts had been part of an "organised operation." The man who sold him the Harvard papers, he said, had included them in a batch with nearly 200 other papers from Columbia, Syracuse, New York University, UMass and Cornell.

Columbia has reported more than 120 termpaper thefts in the past several weeks.

"I plan to track down the guy who sold me the papers," Kawalder said. "He owes me a lot of money--about $600." Kawadler said he paid to the man in cash and had only one clue to his identity.

"My secretary told me his first name was John," he added. "He took her number and said he would ask her out."

Kawadler yesterday expressed few fears that legal action against him--whether by Harvard or the State of New York--would be successful. "I talked with my lawyers today," he said. "Since I wasn't aware that the papers were stolen, they think there are extenuating circumstances."

Dave Martin, owner of Champion Termpapers and a past trading partner of Kawadler's viewed the discovery more pessimistically. "Up to now, when (Dean of Students) Archie Epps said termpaper companies damaged the Harvard degree, it wouldn't stick," he said. "Companies would pretend they were offering research materials or study aids, and the general opinion of the universities was that it would be better not to go into this."

"Until (Wednesday)," Martin continued, "there was probably no chance that legal action would be taken against us."

Steiner said yesterday that he expected the current case might provide "sup- porting basis" for a suit against virtually all termpaper companies on the basis that they breached an "implicit educational contract" between universities and students.

Plagiarism

"There is nothing against use of study aids, but there are very explicit University rules against plagiarism," he said.

Blame for the release of the stolen papers in the Boston area was disputed by Kawadler and Levine. Kawadler maintained that "binding legal documents" signed by Termpapers Anonymous prohibited the firm from selling the Harvard termpapers to Harvard students, while Levine said the contract only prevented his firm from selling the papers outside New England.

"He knew what colleges the papers came from--I didn't," Levine said.

Kawadler said that the stolen papers would be returned, if the authors wrote to Minuteman Research, 70-09 73rd Place, Glendale, Queens, N.Y. 11227.

Three more Harvard courses reported stolen papers yesterday--Linguistics 102, "Linguistics in Anthropology," Linguistics 201, "Philological Techniques," and Linguistics 210, "Theory and Method of Linguistics"--bringing to eight the number of classes reporting missing termpapers