In its strongest statement ever, the Advisory Committee on Shareholder Responsibility (ACSR) yesterday issued a comprehensive 35-page report calling for sweeping changes in Harvard's investment policy toward companies that do business in South Africa.

By a plurality of six to five, with one abstention, the 12 member committee recommended for the first time in its 12-year history that Harvard unconditionally divest its holdings in companies that operate in the white-ruled state.

In a second, more general part of the report the committee called by a vote of 11 to none, with one abstention--for broad changes in the way Harvard handles its over all policy on investments in the apartheid state.

All four student representatives to the student-faculty alumni ACSR--Claude D Convisser '85, Jack Dunlevy, a Kennedy School student, Edward J. Hoff, a Business School student, and Thomas Mackall, a student at the Divinity School--voted for the divestiture recommendation according to the report.

Three of the four administration representatives voted against the measure. One administration official abstained and the four alumni representatives split evenly.

Corporation representatives said yesterday the University's governing body is unlikely to accept the recommendation for divestiture but will probably be more receptive to other reforms proposed in the report.

The meticulously argued report, which is the ACSR's most thoroughly researched statement since 1978, offers its strongest critique yet of Harvard's stated policy of "intensive dialogue" with companies in the University portfolio.

Should its call for divestiture be ignored, the ACSR recommended that the current policy be "expanded and strengthened."

The report, coming a year after President Bok reaffirmed Harvard's commitment to continued investment combined with pressure on companies to improve workplace conditions for non-whites, runs counter to many of Bok's arguments.

"The minimum standards of ethically responsible behavior adopted by Harvard six years ago must be reassessed and modified in light of subsequent experience," the section of the report approved by 11 committee members states.

Specifically, the ACSR proposed that Harvard:

*In cooperation with other universities strengthen the so-called Sullivan Principles, a set of minimum fair labor standards for companies operating in South Africa.

*Require that corporations it holds stock in adopt the so-called Tutu Principles as a prerequisite for continued University investment, and institute a specific time-limit for compliance with those principles.

The principles call for direct corporate involvment in the South African political process to oppose influx control laws, the legal underpinning of the South African system of apartheid Companies that endorse the Tutu Principles also must agree to invest massively in education programs for non-white citizens of South Africa, permit unionization of Black workers, and a number of similar measures.

*In conjunction with other universities "develop information" on the direct involvement in asparteid of U.S firms.