The Corporation still clings strongly to the notion that the presidency of Harvard is the end of a career rather than the beginning. "We do not want what happened at Brandeis with Morris Abram to happen here," one Corporation member explained. Abram took over as president of Brandeis two years ago, and after gaining fame for his handling of a black student protest last year, resigned to run unsuccessfully for the Senate seat in New York.

Last year, there was only one man in this University who could walk into a crowd of demonstrators and tell a State Department official, "On the authority of the President of this University, I command you to get out of that cab."

His name is Archibald Cox. His occupation for the last year has been right-hand man. Among those who count, he is thought to have exercised this power with great finesse and strength.

Unfortunately, his strength has been a little too much and his finesse a bit too clever. If there is any one "law and order" candidate for the presidency, Cox is it. As such he is getting a large boost from conservative professors on the Faculty who think of his role last year as primarily a judicial one, and who believe a judicious man is a man in whose hands the university should be placed.

To alumni and some Faculty, Cox's credenuals are impeccable. His public notices mark him as a moderate liberal: the man who sorted out the meaning of Columbia and was one of the first to give the official stamp of approval to the theory that college administrators were out of touch.

TO STUDENTS, however, Cox was no more than the Administration enforcer, and it is unlikely that as president, he could shake such an image. He has always been aloof and evasive to undergraduates, the only administrator on the campus who could say fewer words per public appearance than Pusey.

Still, Cox is not to be discounted, because there is a prevailing opinion that Harvard needs such a man: A distinguished older president who through sheer prestige and demeanor might hold the university together for five or six more years while it straightens itself out.

This idea (the "Pope John" theory as it is called in the inner circles of Harvard's search committee) has been neither heralded or rejected to date. Should the Corporation not find an ideal candidate in the prescribed age range of 40-55 years old, it might choose an older man to sit at the top for a few years and let the innovators and their innovations run their course.

Like Brewster and Gardner, however, it is doubtful that Cox would take the post even if it were offered to him. There have been persistent rumors that he turned down a top administrative post at Harvard last Spring, opting for the trouble-shooter spot. In that position, he has quite likely had his fill of student crises equally as much as students have had their fill of him.

Mary I. Bunting, 60, president of Radcliffe College: You can count the number of women that have been seriously suggested for Harvard's presidency on one finger, and her name is Mary 1. Bunting. Unfortunately, the headline of this article tells the story.

Perhaps next time around, Harvard will have advanced to the point where they will deny that sex is a criterion in choosing a president. Right now, the Corporation doesn't think it's worth the effort. The mention of a woman president last week brought an abashed smile to the face of one Corporation member and that silent, plaintive look best interpreted as "Now, come on, get serious."

As president of Radcliffe, Mrs. Bunting has been a favorable contrast to the present Harvard president. Where he is reticent and formal with students, she is relaxed. While he watched the 1969 bust at University Hall from his balcony with binoculars, she arrived at the scene and mingled with the students. When Pusey refuses to sign a letter of protest to the President, her name is usually near the top.

Although Mrs. Bunting is beyond the desired age range (40-55) it would be nice to think she is in the running. But she's not.

Elliot L. Richardson, 50, Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare: Any man who the Record-American thinks is going to be president of Harvard, isn't. Any man who is so closely tied to the Nixon Administration as Elliot Richardson is, isn't. Any man who has spent his entire life in politics may be a good choice for heading the alumni association, but a Harvard president, he isn't.

As a former president of the alumni association (1957-60), it is not surprising though that Richardson, a liberal Republican Brahmin from Beacon Hill, should be popularly mentioned. Descriptions of his qualifications from some supporters boil down to the fact that he is a "good man" and one need only look to his enthusiastic participation as a member of the Boston Council of the Boy Scouts of America in 1964 to confirm it.