THE BIRTH of the Kennedy Institute of Politics has not been a quiet one. Right from the beginning the Institute has been under fire for its controversial Honorary Associates program which brought both McNamara and Goldberg to the Ivory Tower. Since then Henry Fairlie, British freelancer, has labeled the Institute a "recruiting college" for future Kennedy advisors.

More recently, a growing number of Harvard professors have begun to voice their concern about the direction the Institute may take. Conceived of as a link between the worlds of politics and academia, the Institute is now being attacked for blurring the line between the two worlds.

Stanley H. Hoffmann, professor of Government and faculty associate of the Kennedy Institute, said that one of the most challenging problems is to "maintain the thin line between studying the Establishment and accepting everything it stands for." Hoffmann saw the purpose of the Institute as twofold:

First, by bringing Washington officials to Cambridge, the Institute could provide those professors interested in policy problems with valuable information which is unavailable elsewhere. As a reciprocal gesture, Hoffmann continues, the professors could "psychoanalyze" the experiences of the officials and help them reflect on current policy problems. If this kind of relationship isn't achieved, the faculty-associates meetings will degenerate into social occasions -- too general to be useful.

The Institute's second function should be to promote research on public policy problems. The research should not only devote itself to a study of what policy should be, but also to questions of how policy is made, what the structure of policy-making is, and where the pressures come from.

"I would hope that this kind of research would not turn into a recruiting or seducing agency calculated to attract young scholars to the Government," Hoffmann said. To ensure that it doesn't, he continued the Administration must not be presented as something beyond criticism. "I have frankly found the reaction of many of my colleagues annoying," he continued. "They act as if students didn't have the right to ask questions of policymakers."

Voyeurs of Power

Hoffmann's main criticism of the Institute's programs thus far was directed at the Honorary Associates program. The large meetings with the Honorary Associates (McNamara and Goldberg) have only symbolic value --a real dialogue of any kind is impossible under this format. "We are all, by nature, voyeurs of power, but all we see in these public meetings is the political animal in his cage, and not in his natural environment." All too much time and energy is devoted to prominent public figures who can only either give the hard line or else be elusive and vague.

Instead the Institute should devote more time to lower-level officials, Hoffmann argues, because they are more at liberty to speak their mind.

Another problem which Hoffmann identified was the relationship between the Institute and the various departments of the University. Currently, the Institute is conducting undergraduate seminars without giving credit. A number of students, however, have complanied that they have to give priority to their credit courses before they can do any work for their non-credit seminars. If, on the other hand, the Institute decides to try to make their seminars for credit, they will run into a great deal of resistance from the Harvard faculty.

Abolish It?

But the solution to many of the problems which the Institute faces at this early point in its career, Hoffmann says, is not to abolish it. Even for many of the people who are dissatisfied with the Administration's policies, a working knowledge of how policy is made, and closer contact with Washington, would help them criticize the Establishment more intelligently, he maintains.

Although the Institute will tend to put a greater emphasis on policy-oriented studies, Harvard has strong Political Theory and Philosophy departments which will not be submerged. "The Institute will present tools for those interested in studying policy; it will not force anyone away from studying equally important questions of theory."

MICHAEL L. WALZER, associate professor of Government, takes a slightly less tolerant view of the Institute: "In the final analysis, I am not convinced that the Institute is necessary; both its intentions and its functions have yet to be made clear." Walzer (who taught what he described as the first and only theory course at the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs) said that the primary danger of the Kennedy Institute is that it will create an over-fascination with policy questions, and will entice students away from studying history and philosophy.

To Walzer, public meetings such as the Goldberg affair, were not intellectual experiences, but they were not worthless either. "The meeting caused many students to reevaluate our Administration's policies," Walzer, who participated in the Goldberg confrontation, said. However, the smaller meetings give politicians a chance to be plausible, and they also give students the impression that they are being let in on state secrets, he said. "In formal meetings there are formal ways of being impolite, but when an official is 'letting his hair down' it is virtually impossible to be critical," he said. To ensure that politicians are not just given a platform, Walzer suggests that students be appointed to study the visitors' positions so that they can question him as a panel when he comes to Harvard.