Security Precautions Are Mild For Visit of Juan Carlos I

When His Majesty Juan Carlos of Spain visits Harvard University this week to deliver the Commencement address, he will enjoy the tight security measures accorded most heads of state--a combination of University Police, Cambridge City Police, and Secret Service officers--Chief of University Police Paul E. Johnson said yesterday.

When the King and his wife, Princess Sophia of Greece, check into a luxury hotel in Boston on Wednesday they will be provided with standard V.I.P. accomodations--one entire floor, wine, and fruit baskets, a hotel official commented yesterday.

Johnson added that the monarch will meet President Bok and see the usual campus sights, including the Fogg Museum, before departing Friday morning.

But although Carlos is not what Deputy Chief of University Police Jack Morse described yesterday as a "lightning rod" for security problems, and although Karen Powers of the Harvard Alumni Association described the precautionary measures surrounding the royal visit as "routine," King Carlos is anything but an uncontroversial figure in his own country.

The king "blew everyone away," said assistant professor of government Terry L. Karl yesterday, instituting a constitutional monarchy immediately after ascending the throne upon Generalissimo Francisco Franco's death in 1976.

Carlos, Karl explained, had been groomed by Franco since childhood for a fascist kingship, but instead became "probably one of the single most important symbols of transition to democracy." In doing so, Karl emphasized, the new ruler aroused the enmity of "old, entrenched, right-wing, fascistic elements" in Spain. In 1981 Carlos warded off a military coup.

In a University News Release Juan Marichal, Smith Professor of the French and Spanish Literatures, called the atypical Bourbon monarch an important democratic symbol to Spaniards and Latin Americans alike.

By 1960 Carlos had become the first officer in Spanish history to hold commissions in all three armed services--army, navy and air force--but since assuming the throne he has been, to Karl, a proponent of "non-military action."

"He's Mr. Detents, Mr. Democracy, and Mr. Peaceful Resolution of Conflict," Karl commented yesterday referring to Carlos's restoration of Spanish-Soviet relations for the first time since the Spanish Civil War and his advocacy of non-intervention into Latin American affairs.

The 46-year-old monarch is the father of three high-school age children--two daughters and one boy. Princess Sophia is reportedly a teacher at the University of Madrid