A Quarter Century Later, Two Graduates Reflect

The writer was managing editor of The Crimson for the class of'67. She is now senior producer and foreign editor of ABC World News Tonight.

No matter what the calendar says, the '60s actually began for most of us on November 22, 1963. I knew nothing about the attack on President Kennedy until I wandered into my Gen. Ed. A class that afternoon and found tearful classmates gathered around a radio, waiting for more bulletins from Dallas.

Our section man, ill at ease under the best circumstances, had no idea how to manage such a crisis and insisted we get down to business. some brave soul--was it Mary Butler? Ben White?--finally suggested that no one was in the mood for "Mother Courage," and we were dismissed.

In the yard, the Mem Church bells rang; crowdsgathered at the kiosk in the Square to awaitspecial editions of the Boston newspapers.

Who would ever have thought that, almost 30years later, historians and conspiracy theoristsand even a filmmaker would still be debating whokilled John E Kennedy '40(as The Crimson alwayscalled him)? Would anyone have guessed that,within five years of JFK's assassination, two morenational leaders would fall to assassins? Or thatall those Harvard men Kennedy summoned toWashington and bequeathed to LBJ would leadAmerica into the most divisive war of thiscentury?

The Kennedy assassination was the first majorpsychic dislocation, the first political shock, ofthe '60s. So many followed. And yet I rememberthat time as one of shining optimism, of highenergy; most of us felt we could change the world(an attitude I never detect in my children'sgeneration).

The summer after our first year, several dozenundergraduates went off to Mississippi to registerBlack voters; one was arrested and briefly jailedon a capital offense. Classmates threw themselvesinto new PBH projects at Roosevelt towers andLyman School for Boys. In the wake of the Wattsriots, more than 500 students signed up for EdwardBanfield's course on urban politics.

As the Vietnam War escalated, Students for aDemocratic Society confronted Defense SecretaryRobert S. McNamara outside Quincy House anddemanded that he account for civilian casualties.McNamara finally escaped the mob by ducking intothe University's underground tunnels. Nearly 2700undergraduates signed a letter of apology toMcNamara, but they seemed to disapprove only ofSDS's manners, not its opposition to the war. Thefirst major national anti-war rally in New Yorkdrew dozens of buses from Cambridge.

Fear of the draft shadowed nearly every malemember of the class. Full time students weredeferred "in the national interest," though draftboards desperate to fill rising draft calls were,by 1966, sending menacing letters to students onleaves of absence; most scurried back toCambridge, overflowing the Houses. ROTCenrollments climbed, graduate school applicationssurged. Many men developed a sudden interest inthe Peace Corps and teaching, two other draftdodges.

Eventually, some of us began to questionwhether student deferments were morallydefensible, whether it was fair for Harvardstudents to be exempt from a war that was beingfought primarily by disadvantaged 18-year-oldsfrom small towns and the inner cities. The facultyof Arts and Sciences avoided a vote on that veryissue, but The Crimson eventually called publiclyfor the abolition of student deferments.

I still remember, as that editorial boardmeeting ended, that one classmate surveyed theassembled editors--women, men with thick glassesand the sole surviving son of a world War IIveteran--and declared, "I'm the only one herewho's ever going to be drafted." he was right.

There may be some colleges that really areivory towers, but not Harvard, thankfully. Thereal world impinged on Harvard every day, andHarvard imposed itself on the world. I recall,during my first year, going to speeches by GeorgeC. Wallace and James Baldwin and Malcolm X andMartin Luther King Jr. Did that happen anywhereelse? And were professors at other colleges asmuch in demand on Capitol Hill as ours? That, ofcourse, could be a mixed blessing. I thinkProfessor Henry Kissinger missed almost as manyGov. 180 lectures as I did.

Despite the excitement of living in Cambridge,I never felt comfortable here until I found my ownlittle niche; without a circle of friends, Harvardcould be overwhelming. My niche was The Crimson;my world was RJS and RB and JF and TJM and LJG andMEM2 and MLR, my fellow Crimson editors, whoseapproval I craved, whose scrawled remarks in thecomment book meant more to me than anything agrader wrote in a blue book. I married one ofthose editors; I still count several others amongmy closest friends.

I suppose other classmates also eventuallyfound their own niches. The Loeb and the Advocateand WHRB and the Pudding and the Young Dems andthe Young Republicans functioned as fraternities,just as The Crimson did, and made life bearable.

I'm ashamed to admit that I paid so littleattention to classmates outside my own smallcircle. Can I blame the self-absorption of youth?Only occasionally did someone else's triumph ortragedy penetrate my consciousness.

I do remember John Lithgow's stunning Gilbertand Sullivan performances and Greg Craig'sinspired interrogation of UN ambassador ArthurGoldberg at a massive gathering in SandersTheatre, which brought down the house.

I almost never went to football games, but evenI was aware that Bobby Leo("Leo the Lion" in theBoston sports pages) scored Harvard's onlytouchdown against Princeton our junior year (withone leg swathed in bandages), then, in our senioryear, led Harvard to its best season in half acentury.

Like most other women students, I always felt abit detached, one step removed, from the rest ofHarvard. Yet, in the face of overt discrimination,we Cliffies were remarkably passive--and so wasthe Radcliffe administration. President MaryBunting threw her considerable energies intobuilding a separate house system and undergraduatelibrary for Radcliffe instead of integratingHarvard's institutions.

I've always wondered whether she was aremarkably astute politician who recognized thatHarvard couldn't be hurried toward fullco-education--or whether she was just willing tosettle for crumbs. "Gracious living" wasRadcliffe's hallmark until sit-down dinners anddemitasse disappeared our senior year. Complainingtoo loudly about the Cliffe's second-rate housingand athletic facilities, about our exclusion fromthe Pudding, the Signet Society and (until 1966)Lamont, wouldn't have been gracious.

By the time we graduated, my only connection toRadcliffe was though Coggeshall, a smalloff-campus house on Walker Street, which I sharedwith 15 other women, mostly seniors. Several ofus--Nancy Wexler, Ellen Hawkes, Susan McCrenskyand others--struggled through our theses togetherin Coggeshall's basement typing room. We wrote andrevised and polished our manuscripts as earlyLinda Ronstadt played on the radio.

I remember stopping occasionally to proofreadthe chapters pouring out of the others'typewriters, to engage in spirited discussions ofour thesis subjects--George Eliot and VirginiaWolff and the New Left and Congress's power to putwarnings against smoking on cigarette packages.There, in that basement, was the only time I feltI belonged to the fellowship of educated persons.Photo Courtesy of Jay and Linda MathewsThe Harvard Crimson's executive board forthe class of'67. From left to right: JAY MATHEWS,ROBERT J. SAMUELSON, LINDA MCVEIGH(now LINDAMATHEWS), JONATHAN FUERBINGER, RICHARD BLUMENTHAL,MARVIN MILBAUER, BOISFEUILLET JONES JR. '68 andFRANKLIN E. SMITH '68 . Inset are LINDA MATHEWS(left)and SAMUELSON (right).

In the yard, the Mem Church bells rang; crowdsgathered at the kiosk in the Square to awaitspecial editions of the Boston newspapers.

Who would ever have thought that, almost 30years later, historians and conspiracy theoristsand even a filmmaker would still be debating whokilled John E Kennedy '40(as The Crimson alwayscalled him)? Would anyone have guessed that,within five years of JFK's assassination, two morenational leaders would fall to assassins? Or thatall those Harvard men Kennedy summoned toWashington and bequeathed to LBJ would leadAmerica into the most divisive war of thiscentury?

The Kennedy assassination was the first majorpsychic dislocation, the first political shock, ofthe '60s. So many followed. And yet I rememberthat time as one of shining optimism, of highenergy; most of us felt we could change the world(an attitude I never detect in my children'sgeneration).

The summer after our first year, several dozenundergraduates went off to Mississippi to registerBlack voters; one was arrested and briefly jailedon a capital offense. Classmates threw themselvesinto new PBH projects at Roosevelt towers andLyman School for Boys. In the wake of the Wattsriots, more than 500 students signed up for EdwardBanfield's course on urban politics.

As the Vietnam War escalated, Students for aDemocratic Society confronted Defense SecretaryRobert S. McNamara outside Quincy House anddemanded that he account for civilian casualties.McNamara finally escaped the mob by ducking intothe University's underground tunnels. Nearly 2700undergraduates signed a letter of apology toMcNamara, but they seemed to disapprove only ofSDS's manners, not its opposition to the war. Thefirst major national anti-war rally in New Yorkdrew dozens of buses from Cambridge.

Fear of the draft shadowed nearly every malemember of the class. Full time students weredeferred "in the national interest," though draftboards desperate to fill rising draft calls were,by 1966, sending menacing letters to students onleaves of absence; most scurried back toCambridge, overflowing the Houses. ROTCenrollments climbed, graduate school applicationssurged. Many men developed a sudden interest inthe Peace Corps and teaching, two other draftdodges.

Eventually, some of us began to questionwhether student deferments were morallydefensible, whether it was fair for Harvardstudents to be exempt from a war that was beingfought primarily by disadvantaged 18-year-oldsfrom small towns and the inner cities. The facultyof Arts and Sciences avoided a vote on that veryissue, but The Crimson eventually called publiclyfor the abolition of student deferments.

I still remember, as that editorial boardmeeting ended, that one classmate surveyed theassembled editors--women, men with thick glassesand the sole surviving son of a world War IIveteran--and declared, "I'm the only one herewho's ever going to be drafted." he was right.

There may be some colleges that really areivory towers, but not Harvard, thankfully. Thereal world impinged on Harvard every day, andHarvard imposed itself on the world. I recall,during my first year, going to speeches by GeorgeC. Wallace and James Baldwin and Malcolm X andMartin Luther King Jr. Did that happen anywhereelse? And were professors at other colleges asmuch in demand on Capitol Hill as ours? That, ofcourse, could be a mixed blessing. I thinkProfessor Henry Kissinger missed almost as manyGov. 180 lectures as I did.

Despite the excitement of living in Cambridge,I never felt comfortable here until I found my ownlittle niche; without a circle of friends, Harvardcould be overwhelming. My niche was The Crimson;my world was RJS and RB and JF and TJM and LJG andMEM2 and MLR, my fellow Crimson editors, whoseapproval I craved, whose scrawled remarks in thecomment book meant more to me than anything agrader wrote in a blue book. I married one ofthose editors; I still count several others amongmy closest friends.

I suppose other classmates also eventuallyfound their own niches. The Loeb and the Advocateand WHRB and the Pudding and the Young Dems andthe Young Republicans functioned as fraternities,just as The Crimson did, and made life bearable.

I'm ashamed to admit that I paid so littleattention to classmates outside my own smallcircle. Can I blame the self-absorption of youth?Only occasionally did someone else's triumph ortragedy penetrate my consciousness.

I do remember John Lithgow's stunning Gilbertand Sullivan performances and Greg Craig'sinspired interrogation of UN ambassador ArthurGoldberg at a massive gathering in SandersTheatre, which brought down the house.

I almost never went to football games, but evenI was aware that Bobby Leo("Leo the Lion" in theBoston sports pages) scored Harvard's onlytouchdown against Princeton our junior year (withone leg swathed in bandages), then, in our senioryear, led Harvard to its best season in half acentury.

Like most other women students, I always felt abit detached, one step removed, from the rest ofHarvard. Yet, in the face of overt discrimination,we Cliffies were remarkably passive--and so wasthe Radcliffe administration. President MaryBunting threw her considerable energies intobuilding a separate house system and undergraduatelibrary for Radcliffe instead of integratingHarvard's institutions.

I've always wondered whether she was aremarkably astute politician who recognized thatHarvard couldn't be hurried toward fullco-education--or whether she was just willing tosettle for crumbs. "Gracious living" wasRadcliffe's hallmark until sit-down dinners anddemitasse disappeared our senior year. Complainingtoo loudly about the Cliffe's second-rate housingand athletic facilities, about our exclusion fromthe Pudding, the Signet Society and (until 1966)Lamont, wouldn't have been gracious.

By the time we graduated, my only connection toRadcliffe was though Coggeshall, a smalloff-campus house on Walker Street, which I sharedwith 15 other women, mostly seniors. Several ofus--Nancy Wexler, Ellen Hawkes, Susan McCrenskyand others--struggled through our theses togetherin Coggeshall's basement typing room. We wrote andrevised and polished our manuscripts as earlyLinda Ronstadt played on the radio.

I remember stopping occasionally to proofreadthe chapters pouring out of the others'typewriters, to engage in spirited discussions ofour thesis subjects--George Eliot and VirginiaWolff and the New Left and Congress's power to putwarnings against smoking on cigarette packages.There, in that basement, was the only time I feltI belonged to the fellowship of educated persons.Photo Courtesy of Jay and Linda MathewsThe Harvard Crimson's executive board forthe class of'67. From left to right: JAY MATHEWS,ROBERT J. SAMUELSON, LINDA MCVEIGH(now LINDAMATHEWS), JONATHAN FUERBINGER, RICHARD BLUMENTHAL,MARVIN MILBAUER, BOISFEUILLET JONES JR. '68 andFRANKLIN E. SMITH '68 . Inset are LINDA MATHEWS(left)and SAMUELSON (right).