When they met in Littauer on Jan. 16, May and Wofford pressed the SDS leaders to define just what sort of meeting with Goldberg they would accept. A large, public meeting with him, they said, might not be the best idea; the larger the meeting, the greater the chances for its getting out of control.

They proposed several arternatives--and one of them sounded good to the SDS delegation. Goldberg would discuss Vietnam with a small group of people selected by SDS; the discussion would be carried to auditoriums around the University through loud speaker and, perhaps, closed-circuit television. The Institute would prefer, Wofford and May said, that the meeting be "off-the-record"--that is, closed to newsmen.

The delegation, which included David Loud '68, one of SDS's co-chairman, and Ronald Yank, at Law School student and member of the executive committee, took the proposal to an SDS meeting the next day. The meeting didn't buy it. What SDS wants is to make Goldberg confront anti-war critics before the entire University community, members argued; it shouldn't settle for anything less than a full public meeting.

Michael Traugot '67, another co-chairman, summed up SDS's position at that point in a letter to Neustadt Jan. 23, ". . . Ambassador Goldberg should engage in a public debate with a serious critic of our government's Vietnam policy. This confrontation should take place in one of Harvard's large lecture halls... The spokesman for the anti-war position should be chosen by SDS from among the Harvard community."

Then Traugot added another proposal--that, following the debate, a panel of students question the speakers on their remarks.

He asked for an answer by Feb. 7. During the next two weeks, SDS had no meetings with Institute officials and only one with the Administration--a two-hour conference with Dean Monro and, for part of the time, Dean Watson.

Monro told a group of SDS representatives (more than he had expected; he had only invited Traugot) that he would be meeting with Dean Ford, Neustadt and other Institute officials to make a final decision on the Goldberg visit. What, he asked them -- as they had been asked before -- were their minimum demands?

They told him that they wanted to see a debate between Goldberg and an anti-war Faculty member. But this was not essential; what was essential, they said, was the opportunity to pursue questions. They did not want to see Goldberg, like a professor answering questions in a large lecture hall, move from one raised hand to another without ever having a prolonged exchange.

Monro also pressed them, to their annoyance, on whether they would use "disruptive" tactics if Goldberg did not meet their demands. Monro urged them to pledge that they would not disrupt the visit. The Faculty is adamant, he said, on guaranteeing the rights of visitors; "disruptive" demonstrations would be met by severe disciplinary action.

The SDS leaders insisted, to Monro's annoyance, that it was up to the membership, not to them. The conference broke up without resolving the issue.

Monro the next day told Neustadt and Ford what had happened; they decided that Neustadt should pass it on to Goldberg. Under the circumstances, they thought it likely that he would decide not to come. On the one hand, they felt, he would not want to face a large public meeting, but he also would prefer not to be the cause of disciplinary action.

Still, if Goldberg wanted to come under the terms of the original invitation--without a public session--the Institute would have felt bound to arrange it. "We would have surrounded him with policemen and gotten him through somehow," an Institute official said.

Goldberg opted for the public meeting. He had, it was learned later, a ready-made excuse to postpone the visit in President Johnson's request that he go within the next few weeks to Vietnam. He didn't take it, Institute officials say, because he thought the public meeting was a good idea; it could correct, as he said there, "a failure to provide facilities for this kind of expression."

SDS leaders disagree. Goldberg could not have postponed his visit indefinitely, they argue. It would have been a clear sign of weakness, a giving in to pressure. He had to come; and, because SDS had not ruled out the possibility of a "disruptive" demonstration, he had to agree to the public meeting.

The Institute worked out an agreement to "release" Goldberg to the Faculty -- to Dean Ford -- for the first day of his three-day visit. Thus, informally, the Institute was still no "speaker's bureau." Goldberg was speaking publicly under other auspices. But everyone at the Institute admitted that the speech would make havoc of its plans. A number of meetings with undergraduates, which had been planned for Sunday, were scratched. And Institute officials realized that the two-hour public session would probably overshadow the rest of the visit, that Goldberg would spend the next two days tired and "tied up in knots."