Former Secretary of State Dean Acheson, whose Harvard accent is known to have impressed former President Truman, has now made a speech urging in effect that the United States pull the rug out from under Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek on Formosa.

At the same time, Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas has just made another speech demanding that Red China be admitted to the United Nations and be recognized by the United States.

Also, the newly appointed Secretary of State Dean Rusk, reportedly Dean Acheson's personal choice for this important Cabinet post, is said to favor "greater flexibility" in our current U.S. policy toward China, though not, necessarily, recognition of Red China as yet.

While we refrain here from entering into the many pros and cons of the China question--more specifically the nationwide signal that seems to have been given for Red China recognition--it strikes us as worthy of attention to note the increasingly influential roles being assigned in our top echelons of government to former Harvard graduates, including also the new Budget Director David Bell and the new Defense Director Robert McNamara.

Not that there is anything wrong in itself about Harvard. On the contrary, Harvard has an old and venerable history. But it is also true that, in more recent years, its reputation has not been exactly enhanced by its evident drift from earlier Christian-American moorings. The fact is this tendency has become so pronounced in recent years that it has prompted one observer to remark: "No matter what trail of left-wing thinking or activity you investigate, it will lead ultimately and inevitably to Harvard University, whether it deals with Keynesian socialism, Marxism, or Bolshevik Communism."

The source of this quotation (to be found in the November 17th, 1960 parish bulletin of Glenview, Ill.) cites Frank W. Taussig, former teacher of economics at Harvard, and other good men at Harvard, as having consistently attempted "to liberate left-wing doctrinaires" at Harvard for many years, only to be frustrated and disappointed in the end.

Thus we read:

"Taussig took one Joseph A. Schumpeter, old-time socialist of the Austro-German school, into his own home, built him up as an international authority in economics. Unwittingly Taussig also aided the career of Harry Dexter White who, because of his Harvard prestige, became in our Treasury Department, the chief financial policy maker. He repaid the U.S.A. as we all know by becoming a Soviet agent."

The same source continues:

"The list of pinks and reds from Harvard would take a whole page here: There is W. E. B. DuBois, the current darling of the Kremlin; Harry F. Ward, Harvard '58; Felix Frankfurter, Harvard '06, who today is a Supreme Court Justice and who was dubbed by Teddy Roosevelt a Trotskyite red; Walter Lippmann '10; Roger N. Baldwin '05; Stuart Chase '10; Bertrand Russell, who taught his Fabianism at Harvard; Harold Laski and John Reed '10, studied there before they left for Moscow; and Lauchlin Currie, Allen Rosenberg, and Irving Schiller. The over-all foe for all these and so many others was capitalism and their individual enemies were men of business.

"There are those Americans who say: These chaps don't say they are socialists. Why call them socialists? To them we quote Roger Baldwin, Harvard Class of '05: 'Please do steer away from making it look like a Socialist enterprise. We want to look like patriots in everything we do. We want to get a lot of flags, talk a good deal about the Constitution and what our forefathers wanted to make of this country, and show that we are really the folks that stand for the spirit of our institutions.'"

Does this mean that every Harvard grad is suspect? Of course not. One wonders nevertheless why always, or almost always, we must apply to Harvard when the really important posts need filling. Is Harvard the only school that turns out experts? "The Wanderer," St. Paul, Minn., Dec. 15, 1960