Harvard has many "good men" to choose from, however, and Richardson appears to be everyone's second choice. The statement today that the Corporation is seeking a man "with a primary academic commitment" applies most directly to a man like Richardson. He does not.

McGeorge Bundy, 51, president of the Ford Foundation: In 1953, when Nathan Pusey was announced to be the 24th president of Harvard, classicist John Finley remarked "sic transit gloria Bundy." The then 34-year-old bright star of the Harvard government department moved into the number two position at Harvard, dean of the Faculty, where he made many friends and admirers that stand him in good stead today.

With a reputation as a tough, quick-witted problem solver, Bundy is the kind of man the Corporation probably wished it had chosen 10 years ago. He is someone who can shuffle through the exigencies of crisis, come up with a practical and quick solution, and have the problem in control before the Corporation comes up for its Monday meetings-not afterward as happened so often with President Pusey.

Now it is too late. "He's logical, a tough reasoner; in short, a tough nut. Yet out of hand he's unacceptable even though he was the best Dean the Faculty ever had," a Washington friend said. "He's got a 'A' on his forehead. People know he was wrong on the War and consequently, they think he's wrong on everything."

"Mac," Kingman Brewster said in 1968, "is going to spend the rest of his life trying to justify his mistakes in Vietnam."

Bundy's deep involvement in the Vietnam strategy through the bitter end days of Lyndon Johnson is likely to rankle more anti-war Faculty members than students. The average freshman was 14 when Bundy bailed out of the Johnson Administration in 1966, and never got a good chance to get up a hate for the man.

Still, the image which Bundy projects is that of a corporate man. A ?ale graduate, Harvard dean, State Department power, Ford Foundation president-Harvard could not choose a man more intimately tied to the bureaucratic side of every major establishment institution in the country. And with the least bit of forethought, it won't.

( Monday: now that you know seven people who won't be president, read about five who might. )