Harvard students who supported Senator George McGovern need not fear voicing oppositions to the re-elected President. With a capacity of 12,000 persons, Harvard's fallout shelter can protect them from retaliatory attack.

Food, though may be a problem unless that attack comes soon. The animal-cracker-like substance stored in 20 strategic locations nine years age is expected to remain edible only one more year, according to Robert Tonis. Chief of University Police and Director of the Harvard Officer of Civil Defenses.

The original shelters were stocked with food, water, medicine and portable toilets in 1963 at the height of the Cold War scare. Because University officials were unwilling to pay for the stocking of the shelters and the Department of Civil Defense lacked funds, Boy Scouts were recruited to fill the 17 gallon water barrels.

Some water barrels in Dunster House have been stoles by students to use as trash cans, automobiles in the basement garage of Holyoke Center have damaged others, and a few have been described for lack of space.

But Tonis said that the water supply would not he a problem, because most buildings connect by steam tunnel to the Indoor Athletic Building, where the swimming pool can be tapped as a source of potable water.

Most students are unaware of Harvard's shelter facilities. Reactions to the question "What would you do in case of atomic attack?" ranged from "I don't know" to complete silence.

The proper response today is "Head for the basement." Two years ago, the Department of Civil Defense revised its standards declaring any basement a "potential shelter."

Tunis is not worried by this lack of awareness on campus. "We figured that most people would come here (police headquarters) anyway," he said. "This is always the shelter for the University. When the Faculty got kicked out of University Hall or the Administration out of Massachusetts Hall, they came here."

Tonis added that except for lack of space, the headquarters, located in the basement of Grays Hall, would provide ideal protection against nuclear attack.

Originally four Houses-Adams Dunster, Eliot and Quincy-were stocked, and marked with the yellow and black Civil Defense emblem. Today, three of those signs remain. Civil Defense authorities stopped replacing the sign on Dunster House after it was stolen for the third time.

After its initial work, the Office of Civil Defense at Harvard also suffered a decline. "In 1962 they opened an Office for Civil Defense in Holyoke Center, and Harvard treated the idea very seriously," Tonis said.

"When it started out," he continued, "I got a title and a special office. They took back the space in two years and fixed up an old laundry room for me in return. I don't think anyone's asked me about Civil Defense since 1963."