* excising ROTC descriptions from the catalogues,

* ending rent-free building use, and

* giving Harvard scholarship money to any students who might lose their ROTC scholarships because of ROTC's changed status.

After the SFAC' decision, the December 3 Faculty meeting was ready to consider three proposals -- Putnam's, Lipset's, and SFAC's. The meeting came went, however, without voting on any of the resolutions. Instead, Faculty members argued that they had not had enough time to consider the alternatives. A special meeting was scheduled for Dec. 12 to vote on the three plans.

Before the Sit-in

Two important developments emerged in the days before the scheduled special meeting. After students had vainly tried to enter the Dec. 3 meeting. Dean Ford quietly affirmed the Faculty's conturies-old rule against student attendance. Ford's insistence on the rule, of course, was the prelude to the mammoth sit-in on Dec. 12.

But at the same time, the CEP was working frantically to came up with its own proposal on--ROTC. Through the fall, the CEP had heard testimony from nearly every group that had anything to do with ROTC. The HUC, the HRPC, and even ROTC cadets had spoken before the CEP; and only the Harvard Young Republicans claimed they had been left out. And despite the political nature of some of the testimony it had heard, the CEP was mainly interested in academic principles: whether ROTC courses deserved credit, and what effect the removal of credit would have on the ROTC program.

Three days before the Faculty meeting, the CEP held a special session to decide its recommendations. The resolution it produced was milder than SFAC's. Admitting that some ROTC courses might not meet current academic standards, the CEP said that all ROTC courses and professors should reapply for academic status through any of Harvard's existing departments.

"What Department?"

Widespread confusion followed as to what the real effect of the CEP resolution would be. Wilson hinted that the plan would be as effective as the SFAC's in ending credit. "What department would approve the courses?" he said. But Colonel Pell's reported comment that the CEP resolution "couldn't have pleased me more" cast doubt on its potential effect.

On the morning of the incident at Paine Hall, the chairmen of HRPC, HUC, and SFAC issued a joint statement, which asked that, if the Faculty was to the CEP proposal, it first amend it to preclude any course "whose primary purpose is the training of military officers," from receiving a department's stamp of approval.

The last minute proposal by the CEP was put on the December 12 docket along with the SFAC and SDS proposals. Other resolutions, including those by the HUC and Lipset, were sent to Faculty members as "supplementary material."

Uneasiness about the CEP proposal increased in January with the revelation of Colonel Pell's now-infamous memorandum to the CEP. On the day that the CEP has heard testimony from ROTC cadets, Pell had also given CEP members a long memorandum describing the national effect that removal of academic credit here would have. The reasoning Pell used was, ironically, the same that many ROTC opponents relied on: Harvard's national prestige made its decision vastly important, Pell said. Removing credit here might deal a widespread blow to ROTC programs across the country.

Edward T. Wilcox, the CEP's secretary, quickly denied that Pell's letter had any effect on the CEP's watering-down of the SFAC proposal. Most of the CEP members hadn't even bothered to read Pell's statement, Wilcox said; purely academic considerations determined the CEP's position.

The Paine Hall sit-in of Dec. 12, of course, effectively diverted any debate about ROTC for more than five weeks. As the various institutions--the SFAC, the HRPC, the HUC, the SDS, and the Faculty--turned their attention to issues of punishment and student participation, the question of ROTC's future disappeared temporarily.