Relaxing in the lull before the storm, Bok said the period of speculation about his candidacy "hasn't been too bad, partly because people around the Law School, my colleagues, really have been exceedingly good-not poking fun or asking questions.

"I'm really happy in the work I'm doing now. If I really wanted to get out, I suppose I'd be on tenterhooks."

Bok said his interviews with Corporation members have taken place only within the past month. They have not raised the point that he is not a Harvard College graduate, he said.

"Actually there wasn't much conversation with me at all. I understand there were exhaustive conversations with other people" about his candidacy, he added.

Fans who expect to watch the new President move into his official house on Quincy Street will be disappointed. Asked if he would live there, Bok said, "Quite clearly not if I can help it."

Bok intends to move from his present home in Belmont to somewhere in Cambridge, but he hopes to keep his current home as "a summer place."

"After you've painted the inside of a house three times, you get quite attached to it," Bok said. He recently painted his kitchen a bright yellow.

Bok's wife, Sissela, the daughter of Gunnar Myrdal, arrived in his office just before 10:30 this morning to await with him the expected call from the assembled Governing Boards.

Bok described his wife as "a member of the Ph.D. glut you've heard about." But she hopes to find a teaching post soon.

"I think it's very exciting," she said of Bok's new job.

"If anything, she had less difficulty making up her mind than I did," Bok said.