There's an old, unwritten rule in Cambridge politics: don't make promises you can't keep. Before the Yale game, City Councillor Alfred E. Vellucci promised the Crimson football team that if they beat Yale, he would treat them to a free, fullcourse Italian dinner. Last week, the football team found out just how good a politician Al Vellucci is.

In the Stephen James House, a North Cambridge restaurant, the football team had its three-course Italian dinner. In fact they cleaned out the place.

Al Vellucci treated his dinner table to something more: an introductory course in his own brand of town-gown politics. "This is what ya call a softening up campaign," Vellucci confided to the football players. "I'm launching a campaign to become President of Harvard in a year."

Vellucci motioned to Charles P. Whitlock '48 assistant to the President for civic and governmental relations, who sat next to him: "You see Charley Whitlock here. Well, in a year he'll still be assistant to the President--President Alfred E. Vellucci."

But the beauty of the whole thing is that Al Vellucci didn't lay out a penny. Steve Zaglakas, owner of the restaurant and a friend of Vellucci's, agreed to give the dinner as a favor. And that's how good a politician Vellucci is.