Finally: "Any lack of candor on our part will only force our Black and Hispanic students to labor under a greater burden of ambiguity, insecurity and distrust."

This last quotation resounds loudly. Over the course of this school year, Bok has proved the fulfillment of his prophecy. After ten years as president, he has unmaliciously, but nonetheless effectively, alienated the minority constituency at the University, even though his rhetoric suggests it is not in his interest.

THERE ARE SEVERAL reasons for Bok to endorse the Gomes Committee proposal vocally and wholeheartedly. Following his administration's characteristic cost-benefit approach, it would seem that the benefits far outweight the meager costs associated with the establishment of this halfway measure. He should recognize that since Harvard boasts the highest reputation of any school in the country, every University president has a vested interest in maintaining that prestige, in preserving the status quo. Bok has succeeded admirably in avoiding risk and minimizing conflict, but he has arrived at a critical moment. If the carefully constructed equilibrium at Harvard is to remain intact, Bok might consider the "reform in order to conserve" principle classically stated by Burke: meaningful reform now might avoid a full-fledged revolution later.

But these are crass arguments, arguments that accept the institution on its own terms, arguments ment to appeal to technocratic maximizers. Bok should take a stand on moral grounds, have the boldness to risk alienating the members of this community who oppose concessions to "racial separatism." He should come out for an even stronger financial commitment to Third World organizations, to minorty admissions, to the hiring of minority faculty. There is a point where delegation ends and leadership, both here and nationwide, begins. And although Bok's predecessor Pusey was widely assailed for taking matters into his own hands too often, for going so far as to call the police to evict with force students mainly protesting for peace, he at least showed his humanity, his capacity to love and hate, his faith in Old Harvard and what it stood for. Bok's presidency has largely proved a holding action, marked by a reluctance to come to terms with the possibility of a New Harvard and a correspondingly diminutive willingness to support a belief in a progressive University.

BOK COULD DISPEL much of the latent tension on campus by assuming an active leadership role in both race relations and Third World student interests. When Pusey was asked what qualification he considered most important to his successor, he answered, "a belief in God." A Crimson editor commented in January 1972.

Imagine the contempt and derision with which this was received in Langdell, Baker, Littauer, William James and the Computer Center. With all the important skills necessary to manipulate a great university, the godstruck old fool had cited something as intangible as a belief. For it was not only Pusey's belief in God which was pitiful and funny: it was his belief in belief of any kind. Nothing more amuses the men who run this university--and their compatriots who run our society--than men with beliefs and no power.

I do not doubt that Bok has beliefs, and I admire his willingness to put down his thoughts in open letters where they can be dissected and criticized. Anyone who attended last week's men's basketball game against Cornell will agree that Bok is capable of showing emotion. After Harvard won in overtime on a last-second jump shot, Bok raced down to the floor and embraced Crimson captain Tom Mannix. Maybe it is time for President Bok to embrace, publicly, the minority community at Harvard not just for the sake of better race relations but also for the sake of morality and humanity.

A spring evening in 1969. A few weeks earlier, former Harvard President Nathan Pusey had called in the police to evict students occupying University Hall. Many campus moderates became radicalized by the brutal display of force, and undergraduates went on strike.

On this night, the frenzy of the strike spilled over from Arts and Sciences to the hallowed halls of the Law School, and a group of impetuous first-year students held a "study-in" at the Law Library, refusing to leave at closing time to dramatize their demand for changes in the grading system.

Derek C. Bok, dean of the Law School, impressed the University's powers-that-be with his cool handling of this miniature crisis. He showed up to drink coffee and chat with the self-styled rebels. He assured them he would consider their demands very carefully. They went home. The Law School escaped turmoil, and Bok became known as Harvard's finest crisis manager.