Most students at Harvard don't see using a fake I.D. as a matter of breaking the law.

It's more like fighting a war. And as in any war, where morality is tailored to the cause, students here have a self-righteous pride about their ability to subvert the enemy.

Subversion, of course, requires different techniques for different substratum of the enemy's ranks. With liquor store clerks and bouncers, for example, most underage drinkers try the friendly approach. With police, students use pure deceit--either that or they run like hell.

In any case, though, one weapon is essential to the cause: a good fake I.D..

Students who would avoid even minor infractions will shamelessly commit felonies like infiltrating the Department of Motor Vehicles with older siblings' birth certificates and forging false documents that could rival the papers of a World War II spy.

Most students think they're winning. Alcohol is relatively easy to obtain around campus. And even the strictest bars in Harvard Square are peppered with underage drinkers on weekend nights.

Bouncers at area bars and the management of local liquor stores disagree. They say they reject all comers who are not of legal age.

On both sides, however, there's an element of truth and of wartime propaganda.

THE SOURCE

Some students told The Crimson of starting their quest as early as thirteen, and many are still on the look-out up until their twenty-first birthday. The sources of the prized possession are diverse.

"A relative stole it from a friend of his who looked like me," says one first-year from Los Angeles.

Those without thieves as relatives, however, take matters into their own hands, visiting inner city passport parlors of questionable repute.

The cards these places sell are usually obviously fake but manage to work in equally disreputable bars.

One first-year woman who would only identify herself as Trixie bought her "Traveler's I.D." from a basement shop in Chicago.

"The men were sort of shady," she says. "They didn't ask us to see any information. I didn't even know my social security number...We were 16, for God's sake."