The Patrolmen's Association, the union of the University police force, ratified a new contract with Harvard last week after five rocky months of negotiations, and yesterday spokesmen for each party called the settlement a strategic victory.

The new 18-month pact will give Harvard's 49 patrolmen a raise of about 12 per cent retroactive to July 1, the date the old contract expired--a jump from $5.34 an hour to $6.00 an hour for police who have been working more than a year.

After October 1, 1976, the rate of pay will go up to $6.15 per hour, for the final three months of the contract.

Patrolmen working shifts beginning at 4 p.m. or later presently receive an additional 12 cents per hour, a differential that will rise to 18 cents starting March 1. The 50-per-cent raise on the differential goes into effect only after the contract is nearly half over.

Although the police union was originally demanding a raise of 21 per cent to meet the rise in the cost of living, Henry Wise '18, the association's lawyer, said yesterday that "Harvard has broken through," and added that he was "surprised" by the size of the increases in the new contract.

Wise said he thinks that the new pact makes Harvard patrolmen the best paid campus police in the country.

Edward W. Powers, Harvard's director of employee relations and chief labor negotiator, yesterday contradicted Wise, noting that Yale's police are higher paid than Harvard's, and called the new agreement with the Patrolmen's Association "no more than an average package."

Powers said the cost of the contract to the University is no greater than its cost in a contract offer "which we proposed three months ago."

The new contract also includes provisions for the addition of a floating holiday, an extension of funeral leave to include the deaths of grandparents as well as more immediate family, and an agreement that no patrolmen will be laid off during the next 18 months as a result of the assignment of students or watchmen to police-related duties.

Policemen injured in the course of duty will receive full pay for four weeks under the new pact, instead of the three weeks provided for in the old contract.

Lawrence Letteri, the president of the Patrolmen's Association, was unavailable for comment on the new contract yesterday.

Powers said no date has been set for a formal signing, but said all details have been settled