Henry A. Kissinger '50, who is expected to reject a tenure offer from Columbia University, will probably not accept a Harvard offer to return as a Government professor, Harvard officials said yesterday.

In January, the Harvard Government Department voted nearly unanimously, with only one abstention, to invite Kissinger to return to the department, provided he would perform the full duties of a professor.

Kissinger, sources in the Government Department said yesterday, has been cool to the offer because he does not want to be burdened with those duties which include teaching courses, and holding office hours.

The New York Times reported yesterday that Kissinger may turn down Columbia because he is concerned, among other reasons, that his government papers are still in Washington, making it inconvenient for him to write his memoirs and commute to New York very often to teach at Columbia.

President Bok said yesterday he knows of no reason to suppose Kissinger would be coming back to Harvard, and added he believes that if Kissinger's proposed appointment at Columbia would interfere with his research, a Harvard appointment would also. Bok said he has had "no discussion with Kissinger whatsoever" about the matter.

Kissinger's negotiations with Columbia have touched off a heated controversy, as students and faculty members have protested the tenure offer.

But at Harvard, although neither incoming Chairman Sidney Verba '53 nor outgoing chairman Harvey C. Mansfield '53 would discuss Harvard's offer, sources said there was little dissent within the January department meeting concerning the invitation to Kissinger.

"The only expressed concern was whether Kissinger would perform the duties of a full professor," one source said.

"We didn't want to punish a man for public service in Washington," the source said. "We didn't want a Rostow in our faculty. We had strong feelings that shouldn't happen here. Anyway he is at the top of his field in international relations."

Walter W. Rostow left MIT in the 1960s to work for former President Johnson as chairman of the Policy Planning Council during the Vietnam war and was not invited back to MIT in part because of his involvement with the war