October 1: At its second meeting of the year, the Student-Faculty Advisory Council jumped onto Dean Watson's statements about "sons of active Communists." By a 22-3 vote, the SFAC decided to ask Watson to "prepare for this body an Explanation" of his remarks.
SFAC members also called on James Q. Wilson, head of the special committee investigating Harvard's relations with Cambridge, to come tell them about his committee's tentative findings. Near the end of the meeting, SFAC appointed a special committee to look into ROTC issues and report back in three weeks.
With less than a year to go before the schedule opening of Mather House, L. Gard Wiggins started off the long season of speculation about whether the new House really would open on time. Wiggins said on the 1st that despite some summer strikes, the House would be ready to take in its nearly 400 residents by September, 1970.
October 3: Student and Faculty members revived the yearly struggle over dress standards in the Houses. The Faculty Committee on Houses--made up of deans and House Masters--offered to scrap the "rule" requiring coats and ties at all meals and replace it with a "well-defined expectation" that students would wear coats and ties at dinner. The Harvard Undergraduate Council objected, saying that individual House Committees should be able to decide for themselves.
James D. Watson, best-selling author and one of the Faculty's Nobel laureates, admitted that he had served on a secret Presidential panel investigating chemical and biological warfare. Watson, who said he served from 1961 to 1964, left the panel because "the decisions we were being asked to make were primarily political, not scientific."
October 4: The full Soc Rel Department faculty finally approved Soc Rel 148, with the stipulation that course grades be handed out by "Corporation appointees" -- specifically, Cottle. The department turned down plans for random assignments of grades.
Recruiters from the Georgetown University Medical School said they would cancel their regular visit here because of a new recruiting ruling. The new rule, passed by the SFAC after the 1967 Dow demonstration, said that any recruiting organization would have to publicly discuss its policies if 500 students petitioned it to do so.
October 6: A panel headed by a Law School professor reported on the 1968 Columbia protests and blamed nearly every side involved. The committee chairman--Archibald Cox, professor of Law--and the other members said that the administration's "authoritarianism" antagonized students, that the police used "excessive force" in ousting protestor from buildings, and that the students who seized Columbia halls used indefensible disruptive tactics."
October 7: For the first time in the Harvard Coop's history, a group of students and Faculty members said they would challenge the Coop's slate of nominees for the Coop Board of Directors. The challenge slate, running on a pledge of injecting "social conscience" into Coop policies, said it was not seeking a head-on confrontation with the Coop management, but mainly wanted to "find ways of making the Coop more sensitive."
Under the threat of a strike by Radcliffe employees, the Radcliffe College Council pondered possible action. Claiming that it was not the proper body to weigh specific labor grievances, the Council delegated its negotiating power to administrative vice president J. Boyd Britten. Most of the workers' complaints centered on low wages.
The HUC moved toward a concrete resolution on ROTC when it heard a report recommending the end of ROTC's academic credit.
October 8: Dean Watson came to the SFAC to explain his sons of Communists" remarks. Watson said he was "profoundly sorry for this lapse of judgement, and I offer my deepest apologies to all concerned.
At the same meeting, James Q. Wilson outlined some of the general topics his committee was stressing, but decided not to discuss any specific-proposals. The main community relations problem that Harvard should worry about, Wilson said, was the University's impact in the Cambridge housing market.
October 9: Peace came to two lingering problem areas. The CEP gave final approval to Sec Rel 148, while still noting that it had reservations about the course's overt political content."
On Garden Street, Local 254 of the Building Services Union voted unanimously to call off strike threats against Radcliffe. The janitors, dormitory workers, and buildings and grounds employees said they "jubilantly accepted" a pay increase that boosted their wages above Harvard's and cost the Cliffe treasury about $46,000.
