IN THE BEGINNING there were no committees. Then Harvard was created, and the next day there were committees.

But in the EBB (cra before the bust) there were so few committees that either people knew what they were, or they didn't know and couldn't care less. James Q. Wilson knew what the Wilson Committee was, for instance. But as he complained to the CRIMSON in late March, just before the close of the EBB, no one else knew or cared. Not the Faculty or the students.

But the tide changed on April 9.

At first it was the Committee of Fifteen. Everyone understood the function of that committee and a lot of people even knew who was on it. Then the Wilson Committee became prominent because its report was so widely circulated that people began to browse through it in the bathrooms of Lamont. Then it was the Committee of Sixty-Eight, the Committee of Five, the Fainsod Committee, the Friendly Committee, and on ad infinitum.

For the first few weeks people knew what the committees were and what they were supposed to do. But after that you were lucky if you could remember that the Stadium Committee was not a committee of the Faculty investigating the possibility of selling Harvard Stadium to the Volpe Construction Company.

By June the situation still seemed managcable if you did a little homework. But in September when the University got going again they put the whole mess out of reach of the average comprehension. Even the lady in the University News Office said she thought things would be cleared up a little if the CRIMSON ran a feature on the Committees.

Now the confusion that surrounds the growth of the University's committees is mind-boggling. The only thing to compare it to is the confusion that shrouds the factions of SDS. Indeed, both segments of the University have grown so complicated that you need a program to know the players.

The Committee of Fifteen

The Committee of Fifteen is the most visible and vocal of all the committees created out of the chaos of last April. According to the motion of the Faculty on April 11 the committee had three responsibilities: "investigate the causes" of the April crisis, assume the responsibility of disciplining students involved in the building take-over, and, after consultation with all concerned parties, "recommend changes in the governance of the University."

The first charge of the committee to investigate the causes of the crisis was also the easiest. It involved the collection and assimilation of hundreds of pages of statements of opinion, and culminated in the pamphlet that was sent to all students before they returned to school this year.

The second charge-of disciplining students-presented the committee with a more controversial problem. It was a problem they managed with masterful timing, making known its decision just before Commencement and just after final exams were over.

The third charge-that of suggesting changes in governance-was not quite as easy as timing announcements or publishing reports. The essential problem with this issue was that a committee of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences could not properly suggest how the whole University should be governed. A solution to this turned up when a new committee was proposed, the Committee on University Governance (to be explained shortly).

Probably the most interesting facet of the Committee of Fifteen was its undying nature. Instead of being a temporary committee elected to solve some limited issues it now appears to have become the workhorse of the administration. It is as changeable as a chamelcon and it has as many uses as a baggie. And because of this, as you will see, one keeps meeting its members in the strangest places.

A final note on the Committee of Fifteen must be made for the students of Harvard College. This reporter remembers being told in his House that the rather strange arrangement of having each House and the whole Freshman class elect one member each, and then having three members selected at random from the resulting eleven candidates, was a makeshift process. Many students had the impression that the student selections for the Committee of Fifteen were simply a temporary arrangement. This impression was reaffirmed by the fact that the three students who were finally selected were all graduating seniors.

But at the beginning of this year, new students simply appeared on the committee. Their positions were apparently sanctioned by the fact that they were the alternates, elected last spring; yet no announcement accompanied this change. Consequently, there was never any discussion about the possibility of new, and perhaps more equitable, elections.

The Friendly Committee

The Friendly Committee was one of two special committees set up by the Board of Overseers at their first meeting following the April 9 incident. The purpose of the committee was to study "those factors in the University and in Society which made possible the recent events "at Harvard, and to recommend appropriate action.