To the Editors of The Crimson:

As an undergraduate in the mid-1970s. I never had too hard a time second-gusting Harvard University's investment policies with respect to shareholder responsibility. But I always reserved judgment on the financial aspects of the matter.

Well, with everything else, things have changed since then. Judging by the March 2 Crimson story about Harvard selling Floor Corporation stock, I now feel I can respectfully have issue with both Harvard's amoral investment policy and its financial wisdom.

Although the Crimson article neglects to name the company's shares Harvard owned which led to the ownership of Fluor shares, one must presume that Harvard's interest was in St. Joe Minerals, which was the object of Fluor's friendly takeover bid in April of 1981. It doesn't take much of a political observer to know that Fluor's work on South Africa's coal gasification plans has enabled that racist regime to further sustain itself, reason enough to sell, of course.

But what astounds me about Harvard's financial managers is that Wall Street was also giving off highly contrary signals about the Floor move, for different reasons. Quite simply, most analysts felt Fluor paid far too much for St. Joe--about $2.7 billion--and the stock of Fluor reacted negatively, falling out of the 50s range. The prudent move at the time was somewhat obvious: Take all of the $60-a-share bid for St. Joe that was offered, in cash, and then trade any of the shares that Fluor was offering of its own stock as soon as possible. (The article doesn't indicate whether Harvard got stuck holding shares instead of cash, by choice, but the shares, could have been dumped of a near profit right after the deal, nonetheless.)

Ironically, Fluor is starting to come back into favor among some analysts and although its lead, coal, zinc and gold properties are still depressed, owing to worldwide prices plummeting in all of those markets, it is probably the lowest cost producer in most of those fields, giving it a solid chance to rebound from its current low position. But, no, Harvard held on to it all during its slide, and waited until it just about hit its 52-weeks-low to unload, thus cheating the endowment of a solid profit, and ignoring a chance to make a needed statement about the racist apartheid regime of South Africa.

Sometimes, Harvard, finance and morals do mix. James J. Cramer '77