Bok Joins Prominent Talking Heads (of State)

King, prime ministers, writers, ambassadors and Nobel laureates have all spoken a Harvard's Commencement. This year, outgoing President Derek C. Bok will be joining this procession.

Historically, speakers have used Commencement's principal address to discuss the most pressing issues of the day. Some have made weighty proclamations, like Aleksander Solzhenitsyn, who announced the decline of Western culture. Former U.S. Secretary of State George C. Marshall disclosed a plan, later named after him, which was to shape the post-World War II era.

Marshall spoke in 1947, and Solzhenitsyn spoke in 1978. Are these the only two memorable characters? Hardly. As evidenced by the past 10 Commencement speakers, Harvard can still draw a celebrity or two.

1981

The decade had an inauspicious start when then-U.S. President Ronald W. Reagan declined Harvard's invitation to speak, despite strong indications that the chief executive would have liked to do so. Harvard quickly rallied its forces of persuasion, however, and successfully invited IBM chief and former U.S. ambassador to the Soviet Union Thomas J. Watson.

Hailed by Fortune magazine as the most successful capitalist who ever lived, the 1937 graduate of Brown received an honorary degree from Harvard in 1975. Watson is believed to be the first person since Benjamin Franklin to have received honorary degrees from both Harvard and Yale in the same month.

Harvard had hoped to set a different record with the Reagan speech, which would have been the first time a sitting president had spoken since Theodore Roosevelt (Class of 1880) in 1905.

Watson is said to have "awed" Wall Street by generating $36 billion for IBM. In his capacity as ambassador under former President Jimmy Carter, Watson played a pivotal role in determining foreign policy during the initial Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.

It is believed that Watson was the force behind recommendations that the U.S. boycott the Olympics and institute a grain embargo and restrictions on the export of high technology.

1982

In 1982, Harvard decided to break tradition by inviting one of its own to speak at Commencement. Eliot Professor of Greek emeritus John H. Finley Jr. '25, described as the last immortal professor at Harvard, agreed to speak at the graduation exercises.

Finley, who was master of Eliot House from 1942 to 1968, was an undergraduate and doctoral student at Harvard. His association with the University extended over 50 years, and according to outgoing Eliot Master Alan E. Heimert '48, Finley was "an embodiment of the Golden Age of Harvard."

Talking of life in the Harvard houses, Finley said, "the more fetching sex, among its many superior gifts, heeds life's enticing summons. In this pre-medical era, a girl of course takes chemistry and biology but, life being beautiful, does some fine arts and acquires a picture or two. She reads, and her bookcase shows some Shakespeare and Emily Dickinson. In deference to modernity, she even does some sociology. Then when a member of my obsessive sex who simple-heartedly looks to business school via economics seeks to make headway with her, she starts educating him--needless to say, a lifelong process."

1983

Harvard's reputation seemed to be taking a dip when Polish President Lech Walesa, who was then the leader of the Solidarity movement, declined to speak in 1983 after earlier agreeing to do so.

Worse yet, the Polish Communist Party newspaper decided to comment on Harvard's invitation by saying, "By the way, I wonder what this learned group wanted to hear from Walesa, a man who had proudly announced in an interview with Oriana Fallaci that he had...never read a single book from cover to cover."

In place of Walesa, Harvard invited novelist-poet Carlos Fuentes to speak at Commencement. Fuentes had also been an ambassador to Mexico from France. According to Bliss Professor of Latin American History and Economics John Womack, Fuentes had at one time been suspected of being a Soviet agent by the CIA and was denied a visa to the U.S. during the 1960s.

In his talk, Fuentes urged that a non-interventionist policy be followed by the United States in Central American affairs. He also urged understanding for the relatively inexperienced governments of Central America when he said, "Let us walk together outside the night of repression and hunger and intervention, even if for you the sun is at high noon and for us at a quarter to twelve."

1984

Then in 1984, a monarch accepted Harvard's invitation. King Juan Carlos of Spain, the man who had guided his country from the totalitarianism of Gen. Francisco Franco to a fragile democracy, came to speak to the graduating class.

The king had very adroitly approached the moderates of his country, without antagonizing the outlawed Communists. As a result of his successful diplomacy, Juan Carlos was able to sign a constitution in 1978, and the first free elections in over 40 years were held in Spain.

1985

With Juan Carlos it seems, started a streak of sensational Commencement speakers. America's money man came to Cambridge, three years after America's greatest capitalist did. Federal Reserve Board Chair Paul A. Volcker--considered the second most powerful man in the nation--took office with the aim of achieving low inflation and steady growth for the American economy.

To reduce inflation, he responded by shrinking the money supply. As a result, "Fed bashing" came into vogue, and Volcker became a frequent visitor to Senate committees, testifying about monetary policy. In addition, he shuttled between banking capitals and ultimately helped in the restructuring of the international debt.

1986

Having had a king, ambassador, poet, professor and economist at the podium, Harvard decided to extend an invitation to a baron. As a result, Lord Peter Alexander Rupert Carrington addressed the 336th Commencement exercises.

Carrington, secretary general of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), was at one time considered a strong candidate for British prime minister.

Previously, Carrington had been foreign secretary under then-Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, but had resigned soon after Britain became involved in the Falkland Islands conflict.

In 1979, Carrington successfully concluded negotiations for the creation of a democratic Zimbabwe.

1987

In 1987, Harvard's decision to invite West German President Richard von Weizsacker was accompanied by an extended controversy. Professor of Law Alan M. Dershowitz declared that he would protest the decision because he believed that the president had continually denied that his father knew about German war atrocities. Weizsacker had defended his father in the Nuremberg trials.

But then controversy has been Weizacker's best political friend. He was the first German head of state to visit Israel. On his visit, he asked a student if she had ever visited Germany. The woman replied that she would never do so. In response, Weizsacker extended a state invitation to her, and the woman visited Germany for 10 days.

So Weizsacker came to Cambridge and, in honor of the 40th anniversary of the disclosure of the Marshall plan, praised American post-World War II foreign policy in Europe. He called for a new version of the plan to help developing nations, and also called for a world in which political freedom would be respected.

"Borders should lose their divisive nature for people. This is the crux of the open question for all Europeans, a question concerning human rights and human dignity for everyone, not just for one nation or solely for the West," he said.

In the end, Dershowitz was the only visible protester and was seen distributing leaflets.

1988

Come 1988, Harvard hosted Costa Rican President Oscar Arias Sanchez at the Commencement exercises. Arias won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1987 for his successful efforts at diplomacy in Central America.

During the speech, Arias spoke about his hopes for Central America, saying, "We seek in Central America not peace alone, not peace to be followed someday by political progress, but peace and democracy, together, indivisible, an end to the shedding of human blood, which is inseparable from an end to the suppression of human rights."

Arias, who considers former U.S. President John F. Kennedy '40 to be his idol, is a member of the wealthiest coffee trading family in Costa Rica. He further urged his audience to take control of their world by saying, "You will live most of your lives in the next century. The history of humanity has not known a single century of peace. The opportunity for writing a different history belongs to you... You will have to change 20 centuries of war into a century of peace."

1989

Pakistan Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto '73, who was the first woman to lead an Islamic state, spoke in 1989. She is the daughter of deposed Prime Minister Zulfikar Bhutto, who was overthrown in a military coup by Gen. Zia ul-Haq and later executed.

After completing her graduate studies at Oxford, Bhutto spent the next five years in and out of prisons. Even while under house arrest, she formed the Pakistan People's Party and came to power in 1988, after Zia died in a plane crash.

In her first acts as prime minister, Bhutto freed political prisoners and removed constraints on the press.

During her speech, Bhutto called for the establishment of an alliance of democratic nations to see that human rights are protected and free elections are held worldwide.

"Democratic nations should forge a consensus around the most powerful political ideal in the world today--the right of people to freely choose their government," she said.

1990

In 1990, West German Chancellor Helmut Kohl came to Harvard.

In his speech, he called for the United States to work with Germany to help in the establishment of a united states of Europe. He also used his speech to quell fears that a united Germany might not respect Poland's borders. He added that the European Community would not exclude any countries.

"The united states of Europe must therefore be open. It must not exclude the Poles, Czechs, Slovaks or any other Europeans who want to join this federation," he said.

And with Helmut Kohl ended yet another decade of Harvard's Commencement exercises.

Bok, who will speak this Thursday, is guarding the text of his speech closely. And although he may not be a head of state, a member of royalty or a wellknown culture hero, rumor has it his address will discuss more than education policy. Yet 44 years after the Marshall Plan, Bok has a hard act to follow.