ROTC Poll

The New American Movement collected signatures from roughly one-fourth of all Harvard and Radcliffe indergraduates in the first two days of its petition campaign in support of a student referendum on ROTC.

NAM petitions returned by Thursday included over 1500 names, and roughly 500 were believed to be on petitions still outstanding, Steven Carlip '75, a member of NAM, said yesterday.

NAM will continue to collect signatures until the October meeting of the Committee on House and Undergraduate Life, Carlip said.

NAM plans to present the names it has collected to CHUL and request that the committee assist in conducting a student referendum.

President Bok, whose June 13 speech to alumni resurrected the ROTC issue at Harvard, said Thursday that his opinion "would not be formed on the basis of a referendum."

Bok said his position had not changed since the speech, in which he said he was "inclined to agree" with alumni who thought Harvard had shown "a willingness to sacrifice the freedom of a minority of students in order to accomodate the moral indignation of the majority."

These alumni "sensed... that Harvard had not opposed ROTC solely for academic reasons but had behaved expediently in the face of pressure," Bok said.

Bok said in August he had no plans to bring the issue before the Faculty. Dean Rosovsky said last week he had issues more important than ROTC to deal with this year, and that he also would not initiate a Faculty discussion of ROTC.

Neither the Faculty nor the Faculty Council currently has a discussion of ROTC on its agenda.

The Faculty voted in April 1969 to reduce ROTC to the status of any other extracurricular program. Because the Faculty's conditions failed to meet ROTC's usual contractual arrangements, ROTC withdrew after a long and bitter debate.

Only three Ivy League schools now have ROTC in any form. Cornell, as a land-grant university, is required to continue the program.

Penn has continued its Army and Navy programs, but Arts and Sciences students get no credit for the course.

Princeton's trustees issued a report last week in support of reinstating Army's ROTC. A student-faculty committee, however, concluded that "a strong case" existed against ROTC at Princeton.

It is likely that the program will continue at Princeton, but without course credit or university financial support.