"The campaign experience was interesting," he said. "But it was always disconcerting to be shaking hands in a movie line and talking to people from Idaho who couldn't vote in the election."

Steiner finished second with about 40 per cent of the vote. He is proud of his performance: "I was the second highest Democratic vote-getter in the district, even though my name was at the bottom of the ballot."

THE STEINERS then journeyed to Washington, where Steiner joined the State Department. Due to a fortuitous pair of job vacancies, within six months he became Chief of Legislative Programs for the Agency for International Development (AID).

He was responsible for helping to steer foreign aid bills through Congress. He appeared at Congressional hearings to advise State Department officials, including then Secretary of State Dean Rusk, about the legal ramifications of aid bills pending before the committees.

In the middle sixties, Congressional liberals were joining conservatives in directing increased fire toward the foreign aid program. Steiner, always a hard driver, was pushed to extremes: "We were in hearings once from 10 a.m. one morning until 5:30 a.m. the next day. I was so tired one morning I had difficulty coordinating myself when putting on my tie bar."

In 1967, Steiner left State and became general counsel for the Equal Opportunity Employment Opportunity Commission, an independent Federal agency charged with administering a section of the 1964 Civil Rights Act.

The EEOC had no coercive power, so Steiner had to employ informal pressure to increase the pace of minority hiring in large concerns. He and his staff traveled to New York and Los Angeles and held widely-publicized hearings into employer racial and sex discrimination.

"We would ask a list of banks or corporations to testify about the percentage of minorities and women on their payrolls," he said. "We would always schedule a company with a good record first to prevent other companies from successfully arguing that not enough qualified minority people were around."

Steiner worked closely with the NAACP during this time. Because the EEOC could not file suit on its own behalf, Steiner filed many "friend of the court" briefs for the black organization's Legal Defense division.

AFTER THE 1969 change in national Administrations, Steiner came back to Harvard as secretary to the special University Committee on Governance. The Committee was established following the 1969 student strike to explore new methods of administering the University.

In the Fall of 1970, President Pusey appointed Steiner to the newly-formed post of general counsel to the University. He was charged with responsibility on a University-wide basis "for the legal aspects of the University's affairs."

This catch-all job description has in practice gradually expanded to include matters far removed from strictly legal considerations. In addition to watching out for Harvard's interests in contracts, insurance, local tax policy and endowment policy, Steiner must deal with the tricky problems of discipline and relations between the Faculties.

"My job runs all over the lot," he said. "The lawyer's role within the University has expanded. Almost any problem has its legal component and people feel confident with a lawyer."

Another reason Steiner's duties are so eclectic is because, as he explained: "I tend to get involved in odd-job kinds of problems that do not clearly fall under anyone else's jurisdiction."

Steiner said that only about 10 to 15 per cent of his time is spent in crisis-handling, although he explained that the prominence of such activity tends to give a markedly different impression.