Probably the most noticeable thing about the past four months in Cambridge was that the streets, for the first time since 1968, were empty. Disillusioned perhaps by the dirt and heat, or by the hassles and riots in the Square, or maybe by the army of hangers-on that absorbed the city, that indefinable and elusive group of people that made Cambridge The Place to Be for three summers suddenly vanished.

Gone too were the Summerthing Concerts in Harvard Stadium that drew even more people into Cambridge and which last summer went hand-in-hand with disturbances in the Square. Like so many others, the organizers of Summerthing somehow arrived at the conclusion that Cambridge was fast becoming a massive bummer. They moved the twice-weekly concert series to the Boston Common.

About the only thing that remained the same in Cambridge this year was the police, who "kept 'em moving" in the Square on weekend nights, who made sure they maintained high visibility at all times, and who one weekday early in the summer arrested 30 freaks on charges of drunkenness in a late-night sweep through the Square.

After that episode, which was passed off as "routine" by police officials, those few street people who remained in the area decided that it was time to pack the old backpacks and find a new city in which to spend the summer. "I want to enjoy what little freedom I've got left," said Reggie Young, one of the "drunks" arrested by the police. "I can't take this kind of bullshit." He left town.

By mid-July, Forbes Plaza--the gathering place for kids on warm summer nights, the homebase for peddlers and pushers--had become merely a way-station on the way to the Mass Pike. Sanctuary, despite a planned move to the old Iroquois Club on Mt. Auburn Street, set up shop in the Old Cambridge Baptist Church in North Cambridge. The Cambridge Common was vacant and dusty on most days. Yes, it was a quiet summer in Cambridge--even Hare Krishna and Process split town.

There were some who remained, however. There was a gentleman named Daniel Ellsberg, and two of his lawyers. There were more Harvard alumni than usual. There was the Cambridge School Committee and the Election Commission. And students trying to register to vote. And, of course, there was Harvard with its normal share of problems, appointments and summer school students. They all played a part:

THE PENTAGON'S CAMBRIDGE CORRESPONDENT...

It didn't take the feds long to trace the "source" who leaked the Pentagon's massive study of U.S. involvement in Vietnam to Cambridge. After a "coming out" press conference at the Boston Federal Building (actually it was the occasion of his surrender to the U.S. Marshal), Daniel Ellsberg '52 enlisted two Harvard law professors to defend him on charges of theft and unauthorized possession of classified government documents.

Thus began long months of court arguments on Ellsberg's behalf for Charles R. Nesson '60, professor of Law, and Leonard B. Boudin, the prominent civil liberties lawyer who was visiting professor of Law during 1970-71. Ellsberg is now on trial in Los Angeles, where he faces a possible 20-year prison term and a $20,000 fine.

Court proceedings dragged on in Boston most of the summer before U.S. Magistrate Peter Princi and Federal District Court Judge W. Arthur Garrity ruled that Ellsberg must stand trial in Los Angeles when grand jury there returned indictments against him. Boudin and Nesson had sought to have the trial moved to Boston, and they had argued at various times that the government may have used illegal wiretaps to obtain evidence used in the Los Angeles indictment.

Ellsberg, the former Rand Corporation consultant, still has a year to go on his contract as a research associate at MIT's Center for International Studies.

MORE MERGER...

The non-merger merger between Harvard and Radcliffe gained final approval on June 29 when the Radcliffe College Council accepted the so-called 1971 Agreement already ratified by the Corporation and the Radcliffe Board of Trustees.

The new contract supercedes the concordat of 1943, under which Harvard assumed responsibility for Radcliffe instruction in return for 85 percent of Radcliffe's tuition income.

Specifically, the new four-year arrangement provides that: