Womack Refutes Claims

History Department Chairman John Womack Jr. '59 yesterday described as "sorrowful" leaflets attacking him which were distributed by the Harvard Republican Club last weekend.

In an interview, Womack also refuted the leaflets' charge that he "organized and led a student demonstration against American intervention in Grenada."

In a letter appearing in today's Crimson, Womack describes the allegation as a "libelous error," adding that he does not know who organized the demonstration, and had spoken at it at the invitation of some Law School students.

Club members distributed the leaflets at Womack's lecture on the Kissinger Commission report during Junior Parents weekend to "let parents know about the lack of conservative or even moderate professors," at Harvard, said club president Maria J. Lucca '85.

The leaflet said that "a virtual monopoly of political thought and discussion has been achieved by the left wing of the students and faculty in three major respects.

"First, leftists--many extreme in their views--have saturated the University with their communitarian beliefs to the utter exclusion of other options. Second, socialist thought permeates the community in defiance of its irrelevance and lack of influence in the real world of the United States. Lastly, those who are conservative or moderate are few in number and unwilling to fight in earnest for middle-of-the-road debate," said the leaflet.

Political Slants

It also criticized Stanley Hoffman, Dilion Professor of the Civilization of France, Stephen Jay Gould, Agassiz Professor of Biology, and other unnamed professors for the political slant of their lectures.

The leaflet called for more conservative professors to be appointed, but Womack said they would have "no effect in the world on the History Department tenure policy."

Womack said he thought that distributing the flyers was a "fair enough" means of protest, but that he was disturbed by what he felt to be the Republican Club's misrepresentations of him.