The first breathtaking news about $100,000 lifted from a University safe reached here recently when the man who masterminded the heist made a full confession in the pages of last week's Collier's magazine.

In an article titled "I Was King Of The Safecrackers," the literary yegg gives a gripping account of how he, at the head of the most picturesque mob this side of Sherwood Forest, "cracked the safe at Harvard University."

A baffling feature of the case is that no one in the Bursar's Office had ever heard of the burglary until its perpetrator confessed. In fact, the $100,000 had not even been missed. This looks like poor memory on the purloiner's part, or pretty sloppy bookkeeping.

As the "King" tells it, in a lively stylistic blend of Baron Munchausen and Dan Turner, Private Eye, the Harvard job was really an accident. He had come to Boston to knock over a Liggett drug store, but after casing the joint he vetoed the job.

Had to Make Expenses

"I didn't want to leave without making expenses some way," His Majesty explains," so I wandered over to Cambridge one afternoon. There were a lot of students up in front of an office . . . paying fees and depositing valuables for safe-keeping, and I got a good look at the safe. . . I figured I could almost hit it with a can opener."

The Dead is Done

The safecrackers hung around for a week, can openers in their pockets, "carrying books and trying to look like graduate students." Finally, late one night they eluded the Yard Cop ("a frosty character who didn't even pack a rod"), jimmied open a cellar window, went in and blew the safe, escaping undetected with the loot--"some $100,000 worth."

John Connelly, dean of Yard cops, emeritus, is unable to recall the spectacular crime described in the "King's" autobiography. Within Connelly's memory, which stretches over 40 years of Harvard history, there has been only one safe burglarized in the University, and that was on registration day in September, 1918. "An amateurish job at that," says John.

Crimson Reports Theft

At the time, the Bursar's Office was temporarily installed in the Varsity Club, having just previously been burned out of its location in Dane Hall (where Lehman now stands). The thieves broke in on a Monday night, and four days later an alert CRIMSON legman reported the incident.

"When the Bursar's Office was opened Tuesday morning, it was found that it had been entered by thieves during the night and the small safe in which the petty, cash was kept had been blown open. Owing to the fact that practically all of the money taken in during the day in tuition fees was, according to the custom, deposited in the bank before night, the thieves got only $378.67 in cash, plus $300 worth of Liberty Bonds."

Office workers found the detonating wires still lying on the floor, along with several Blackjack chewing gum wrappers. It was deduced that the gum was used to tamp the explosive into holes drilled in the safe door. The police found finger prints all over the place, but no one was over apprehended for the robbery.

Liable to Prosecution

If, in spite of the $99,331.38 discrepancy, the 1918 job is the same one the King of the Safecrackers is claiming credit for, the old boy may have to start shelling out some of his boasted 15,000,000 ill-gotten dollars for a good lawyer.

Ordinarily, the Statute of Limitations prevents prosecution for a crime six years after it is perpetrated, but the hitch is that the Statute doesn't "run" for time spent outside the state. His Majesty, now in retirement in British Columbia, might yet end his days sticking wads of Blackjack under a cot in Charlestown State Prison.

The University could conceivably bring a civil action to get back the money it lost, by attaching the King's salary from Collier's. More than 30 years' interest added to the $678.67 might make it worth a try. Maybe endow a small chair in Criminology.

The only other heist in Harvard's history occurred some 20 years ago when a person or persons unknown pilfered a little strong box from Dean Brigg's desk, took it to a nearby men's room and pried it open. There was only five or so dollars in it, so clearly this cannot be the exploit recounted by the King of the Safecrackers