Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr. '38 has told University officials that he "does not expect to return to teaching" in the foreseeable future.
In Cambridge last week as a member of the Overseers Committee to Visit Government, Schlesinger told Dean Ford that he plans to remain in Washington until he completes his book on the late President Kennedy.
The former professor of History, who resigned from his post as Special Assistant to the President on March 1, told the CRIMSON yesterday that he almost certainly will not return to teaching even after he completes his volume on the three-year term of President Kennedy. He said that he will continue work on his history of The Age of Roosevelt, and that "I want to keep my life as clear as possible for my writing."
According to Ford, the University extended no formal offer to Schlesinger when he visited last week.
Schlesinger said that he has no idea where he will work on the Roosevelt volumes once he has finished his work on Kennedy. Several sources had indicated last month that he would consider an offer from the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton, N.J. If he accepted such an offer, Schlesinger said, he would insist that he be kept free from teaching obligations.
The historian has not yet begun the actual writing of his book on Kennedy. He said that the number of books recently published on Kennedy and his family presented him no problem. His book and the one planned by Theodore Sorenson on the late President will "reinforce each other," he said.
When he was interviewed last October, before President Kennedy's assassination, Schlesinger denied that he would write a history of the Kennedy era. He said then that he did not have the "proper perspective on the President's life. I know intimately what he does with about 15 per cent of his time and absolutely nothing about the other 35 per cent."
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