One problem that universities and all Federal contractors required to set up affirmative action plans have in common is discovering what the pool of qualified minority and women applicants consists of and then using this information in connection with estimated vacancies to set up workable goals for hiring.

The problem of determining the applicant pool is made more difficult for universities such as Harvard because they recruit professors and high administrators from a national and sometimes an international pool

Richardson said HEW did not intend to do research to discover what the applicant pool is for university hiring. "This is something each institution will have to assess for itself."

HEW IS CURRENTLY attempting to implement an internal affirmative action plan to end discriminator job practice within the department. Judging from HEW's own recent experience. Richardson foresees "ultimate problems down the road when-all of us have the same lists available. Also it becomes more difficult for smaller institutions to attract quality people while they are forced to compete with the larger more prestigious institutions such as Harvard for people from the same pool."

Richardson humorously remarked that "Perhaps the most valuable quantity in America today is Spanish surnamed black woman."

David Martin, special assistant to the Secretary, pointed out some of the difficulties and successes that HEW has had with its own plan which was passed this January.

"For example we recruited 14 new women for upper level posts but during the same time period 13 others left the department, so how do we rate our progress?" Martin asked.

Martin said that the area where perhaps the most progress has been made within HEW is in appointing women to each department's advisory committee membership."

HEW has appointed to each of its regional offices and affirmative action coordinator to insure that each of HEW's own offices are in compliance with HEW's own guidelines. Only a few of these coordinator have as yet been appointed.

According to Richardson one of the most difficult remaining problems with university affirmative action is the question of access to university files.

"I don't know how this can be solved. I respect the universities feeling that they don't want the long sticky finger of government probing into their files, yet on the other hand we do need some sort of tool whereby to ascertain whether or not there has been discrimination in individual cases and on the large scale."

Noticing that many upper level HEW administrator--including Richardson '41. Pottinger '62. Marshall Moriarity, special assistant to the secretary, and Robert Smith '62. assistant director for public affairs-were all Harvard graduates, we asked Richardson if this might have any bearing on the way Harvard is treated by the department.

"If anything it would end to make us harder on Harvard." Richardson said with a smile.

While on the subject of our collective alma mater, we asked Richardson what his personal opinion was on one-to-one admissions for Harvard.

Richardson's thoughts in the subject were these:

"I think we do need to draw a distinction between what has historically been a coed institution and what has not. Yale for instance. Now Harvard is a special case, all along it has been a kind of hybrid institution.

"I think you will have to agree that if we began admitting women and men on a purely academic basis the women would outnumber the men very quickly. But what we have to ask is, is this an optimal social use of resources?.

The process of answering this question will take a considerable amount of time before we know whether women, given the choice which they do not now have, would decide to spend their lives the way men now do, Would a high enough proportion of women admitted to college on a purely academic basis choose to become stockbrokers, bankers, contractors, professors, the way men do to justify the equal admissions policy?"

Hopefully women will not use positions in education and private institutions gained through plans such a s the affirmative action way men do no,. Women will bring their own capabilities and talents to bear if given adequate opportunity. Maybe women would not show enough agressiveness to be like male bankers and stockbrokers, but is that after all, what we need?