Another problem is that Forum planners may exercise self-censorship when selecting topics. Jackson stated emphatically that ARCO's possible reaction to a particular event would never be a consideration. But self-censorship need not be conscious. For example, the subjects of oil industry corruption or "The Political Clout of Atlantic Richfield" might prove too embarrassing even to be considered. Again, business critics such as Cesar Chavez and former Iowa Senator Dick Clark have spoken at the Forum, and the School has also invited a couple of prominent socialists. However, the crucial point remains that there has been a conspicuous absence of energy iconoclasts.

Finally, even if the name has not yet influenced the Forum's agenda, it may nevertheless lose credibility because of that possibility and gain the reputation of having a pro-business tilt.

Already there is evidence that the Kennedy School deserves such a reputation. The invitation of Chairman Anderson to be one of the Forum's first speakers raises the question of the influence of ARCO's donation. His topic was "OPEC and U.S. Energy Policy." Participants in the sympathetic panel discussion that followed were all business professors.

The Kennedy School maintains this was not a quid pro quo. Jackson said, "Having the view of the private sector is indispensable for public debate of the energy crisis."

THE KENNEDY SCHOOL can educate future government leaders to sympathize with business interests. Lamont University Professor John Dunlop has worked to align the Kennedy School programs with those at the Business School. Last October he told Harvard Gazette, "... we need to work these two areas more together so that each can appreciate the setting, constraints, and personal context in which opposite number operates." Kennedy School Dean Graham T. Allison '62, told his School's Visiting Committee on March 14, 1977, "The natural alliance for a professional school of government should be the business school. We expect that the good relations which presently exist will be substantially improved by the proximity..."

Committee member Bradshaw must have been among Allison's more enthusiastic listeners. The oil executive received his MBA from the Harvard Business School in 1942 and taught there for the next ten years. In fact, two-thirds of the members of the Kennedy School's Visiting and Advisory Committees are corporate executives of partners in corporate law, management or investment firms. This is in spite of official University policy that Visiting Committees comprise persons who "are knowledgeable and experienced in the fields which they are called upon to examine." A Business School organ, happily echoing Allison's speech, said, "Now the two schools are moving closer together, both intellectually and physically..." The ARCO Forum is a symbol of this alliance between the School of Government and the School of Business.

Perhaps the reason the ARCO Forum has provoked no uproar is that at Harvard, such an alliance seems so natural. But it is not too late to begin to change this situation. Students should demand that the Kennedy School disavow this alliance and the political bias it represents. The School should heed the Biblical dictum, "A good name is rather to be chosen than great riches," by returning the money and renouncing ARCO's name in order to restore its own.