Talking Nukes

HARVARD OWNS more than $20 million worth of General Electric stock, almost $5 million of Du Pont, and about $20 million of AT&T, according to the 1980-81 University financial report, the most recent available. A new report is due out shortly, and it can be expected to show similar figures. After all, these three behemoth companies are blue-chippers, the buckbone behind Harvard's monstrous $1.6 billion endowment.

They also make nuclear weapons--or parts of nuclear weapons--and that pisses off some people around campus. Backbone or not, these stocks, like other kinds of Harvard investments before them, have aroused some degree of controversy in recent months. And in fact, the Corporation's watchdog on moral and social issues involved with the stock portfolio, the Advisory Committee on Shareholder Responsibility (ACSR), will be holding an unusual open meeting next week on this very subject.

It would be safe to say that the open meeting and the ACSR's coming evaluation of nuclear-related companies in the endowment reflect the country's growing concern over the rapid nuclear arms buildup. In the past, both the Corporation and the student-faculty-alumni ACSR voted against largely symbolic shareholder resolutions asking companies to curb their nuclear weapons work. They argued that nuclear arms policy was the province of the government, not the private sector. Last year, however, the ACSR approved several similar resolutions concerning GE, Du Pont, and AT&T, and the Corporation, not wanting to abruptly renege on past policy, abstained on strong messages to the three major companies.

Trying to establish a coherent policy on how Harvard should vote on such resolutions is first on the ACSR's agenda this year, and it will not be easy, or, possibly, even attainable. The path to unanimity is strewn with uncertainty on this fractious 12-member body, and this path is cluttered now by the enormous complexity of the nuclear issue. This complexity dwarfs such heated topics South Africa investments.

For one thing, while a firm is either in or out of South Africa, some corporations are tied to the sprawling weapons industry in an indirect fashion, and these ties are often a very minute part of its overall operations. For another, many of the shareholder resolutions seem awfully misdirected. For instance, Harvard last year had to consider a resolution asking AT&T to set up a committee to examine the implications of its non-profit running of a nuclear weapons lab for the Department of Energy. What the resolution failed to address, however, was the upwards of $700 million worth of Defence Department contracts earned by the communications giant Moreover, the arguement that the government must take prime responsibility for nuclear policy is alluring. After all, much of the companies' pure work on nukes is done on a non-profit basis.

Not that these arguments can't be gotten around. A compelling case can be made that the nuclear crisis is so great that Harvard should take any symbolic step it can to register resistance to the arms race, regardless of the details of a specific resolution. Likewise, many critics of the arms industry have pointed out that defense contractors do indeed influence nuclear decision-making, with their extensive lobbying and political contributions--which of course negates the position that the private sector ought to have nothing to do with nuclear policy.

Nuclear policy is the issue of the day, affecting all our lives, overawing even other undisputably worthy subjects like South Africa. Whichever way they go on the complicated question of nuclear investments, you have to be glad the Corporation and the ACSR are finally giving it its due attention. It's an outstanding example to present this often esoteric policy debate in a unique way to the Harvard community.