Doris Kearns Says Reports Of Settlement Are Premature

Doris Kearns, associate professor of Government, yesterday denied published reports that the suit surrounding the publication of her book about Lyndon Johnson has been settled in favor of Harper and Row, Inc.

"Things aren't worked out yet," she said yesterday. "Things will be settled soon, probably in the next week or so."

The Boston Globe reported yesterday that Kearns would publish her book with Harper and Row and that she had already met with her new editor there.

Brooks Thomas, executive vice-president at Harper and Row, is reported to have said that his firm--which was battling with Simon and Schuster for rights over the work--is "ready to press ahead with the book" and could have it out by as early as next May.

Kearns called the reports innacurate, and spokesmen for both publishing firms were unavailable for comment.

A source in the Government department said yesterday that a settlement of the suit would be a positive development in her case for tenure, "but was probably not all that important."

Final Decision

"We weren't going to wait until the lawyers battled it out," the source said, adding however that he was unsure whether a final decision on Kearns's tenure would come this year or next.

Kearns's appointment to a tenured position in the Government Department was held up last spring when she announced plans to revise the manuscript she submitted to the department, co-author it with her lover Richard N. Goodwin and switch to Simon and Schuster as her publisher.

The move prompted Harper and Row, which had given her a $24,000 advance five years ago, to sue Kearns for breach of contract.

A Wall Street Journal editorial then criticized Harvard for considering Kearns's tenure on the basis of "scholarship she would never publish" and charged that Goodwin's participation would turn Kearns's book into a "polemic."