HE OFFERED MARK the choice of how he wanted to handle the situation," Bok said last week. "He wanted it to be made clear that we wanted him to leave. He chose to be fired."

Bok promised Carroll six months' severance pay, with the condition that he would receive six months' more if he were unable to find a job by the end of the first half year. To date Carroll is still unemployed.

After the dismissal, Carroll, at the Administration's request, wrote a note to the employees of the Press, explaining what had happened. The note was not immediately delivered, and Carroll left Cambridge for a holiday in Philadelphia. On the following Thursday, when the story was on the verge of leaking to the news media, Hall went personally to the Press and read a similar note to the employees, explaining what had transpired. The next day, Carroll's memorandum was circulated among the Press's staff.

"We wanted the news to come from management," Hall said last week, "rather than to have the employees find out via the news media." Unfortunately, the Administration in Mass Hall did not issue any official explanation (other than a brief notice in the Harvard Gazette).

The Board of Syndics was miffed at Bok's lack of consultation with them on the decision. However, Bok moved to smooth their ruffled feathers, when, on March 11, he met with the Syndics and presented his position. At that time Bok assured them that in the future all major changes at the Press would come only after consultation with both the Board of Directors and the Board of Syndics.

The question "Why was Mark Carroll dismissed?" is still, four months later, largely unanswered. Administration officials, particularly Bok and Hall, are reluctant to discuss specific reasons for the action. Bok, contacted last week, withheld comment, and Hall would say only that he and Carroll "couldn't get on common philosophical wavelengths."

The relationship between Hall and Carroll was delicate, at best. However, while personal antagonism made the relationship of the two men more difficult than it could have been, the differences between them go beyond personality.

Hall and Carroll split greatly in approach to the problems facing the Press. And their individual styles were both uncompromising. Hall brought with him commitment to making his business ventures sound in every way. Carroll was totally dedicated to the academic and scholarly aspects of his work. He was concerned primarily with the editorial aspects of his position. The conflict between economics and scholarly pursuits was inevitable. Furthermore, there was indication that Carroll was less than enthusiastic about the new innovations that Hall was in the process of bringing into the operations of the Press.

Under Hall's administration, the Press was brought under a general management plan which includes ten service organizations of the University. The grouping of the Press with the other organizations (Buildings and Grounds, Faculty Club, Food Services, Personnel, Planning, Police, Printing, Purchasing and Insurance, Real Estate) is historically motivated, rather than based on similarities in the administration of the individual organizations.

The general management plan required that each director prepare a "milestone programming report," which would indicate what the goals of each organization were and which would give direction to the activities of the respective groups. Carroll was not enthusiastic about the milestone programming idea, and there is evidence that he felt it to be an unnecessary exercise for the Press.

THE GENERAL PLAN attempted to put into one general framework a number of diverse elements," Carroll said last week. "You just can't do that."

Hall did not agree and felt that Carroll was being unnecessarily difficult to deal with. However, Hall disclaims any insinuations that he was trying to shove his program down Carroll's throat.

"All we wanted Carroll to do," Hall said last week, "was to check around, to make some tests, to find out what was wrong and why we were losing money."

These conflicts between Hall and Carroll, while significant, were not the only reasons for Carroll's dismissal. The question of the half-million dollar deficit was still to be resolved. Administration officials have steadfastly refused to discuss Carroll's business talents. However, there remains the unalterable fact that Harvard Press was running in the red. What was responsible for the losses?

Carroll attributes them to a number of variables that have gone bad for university presses in the last five years, and three factors in particular. First, a general falling off of the economy has cut into university presses more than others because the type of material that they publish is not what the public buys for pleasure. Today the readers of scholarly works are apt to pick them up at the library instead of purchasing them for themselves. Secondly, there has been a cut in Federal appropriations to libraries which further depletes the University Press's market. Thirdly, Carroll cites an inefficient order fulfillment procedure as a reason for the Harvard Press's huge fiscal deficit. During Carroll's directorship the Press's warehousing and shipping was run by Harvard's Computer Center. The Press had its own warehouse and staff, but could not efficiently handle its volume of business. Carroll wanted to switch the warehousing and shipping procedures over to Technical Impex Corporation (TIC) in Lawrence, but was stymied by executive decision.