"Not only would people turn down grants, but now they are thinking twice about applying for any grants with strings attached," he remarks.

Faculty members doing basic research--which is not intended to lead to a specific product to technology--used to be free from restrictions such as pre-publication review and technical direction clauses. But the line between basic and applied, or mission-oriented, work has become blurred, leaving all research work vulnerable to checks in the name of national security.

"What is basic research in one area may be applied in another or to a person with another objective," says Dean of the Division of Applied Sciences Paul C. Martin '51. For instance, some Harvard work in high-energy physics, funded by the Department of Energy, or NASA-funded projects could be considered to have practical applications in the long-term future, making them important for national security.

Proponents of the new Defense Department regulations and executive orders on research have cited the potential threat of "sensitive" information getting into the wrong hands as just cause for limitations on academic freedom.

At the 1982 gathering of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, then high-ranking CIA official Admiral Bobby Inman juxtaposed national security and academic freedom:

There is an overlap between technical information and national security which inevitably produces tension. This tension results from the scientist's desire for unconstrained research and publication, on the one hand, and the federal government's need to protect certain information from potential foreign adversaries who might use that information against this nation.

By Inman's yardstick, just about any scientific field--including research in agriculture, computers, and manufacturing procedures--has the potential for damaging U.S. national security.

Even a report authored by physicist Dale Corson, a former president of Cornell University, pointed out "gray areas" of research which might necessitate publication and other security checks.

But Shattuck insists that there need not be a trade-off between national security and academic freedom. "I think we get in a very dangerous bind when we face academic freedom off against national security," he says. In fact, he continues, the "great openness" of the "American scientific community is one of the country's national strengths.

Although many on the national level have attributed the stepped-up limitations on government-funded research to heightened concern with defense and national security issues, some at Harvard cite other causes for the tightening.

"My feeling is that it's trend that's been building gradually in the federal government, not specific to [the] Reagan [Administration]," Martin says, adding. "It just reflects a growing bureaucracy."

The "national security" debate, Reagor says, seems to confuse military with other issues of importance to the country's future. "Agencies seem to be moving more towards separating the government's interests from the public interest," she adds. This climate, she says, supports such research restrictions as the pre-publication and technical direction regulations.

But a top official in the Office for Sponsored Research, Patricia R. Benfari, disagrees. Benfari says the problem has been greater under the current Administration. Harvard negotiators have been successful in working out clauses which, if grants were accepted, would violate the Faculty's guidelines, but "It's harder to deal with Washington agencies now. It takes longer, and they're more rigid," she says. Last year, Benfari's negotiating team had to modify between 25 and 30 sponsorships to bring them up to Faculty standards of academic freedom.

The Office of Sponsored Research tackles the problem on a case-by-case basis, but other elements of the University go straight to the source--in groups.

Several organizations of colleges and universities plan to lobby heavily this year to prevent further encroachments on researchers' autonomy. These include the Council on Government Relations, "Little Eleven"--an informal group of the nation's top 11 research universities--and the Association of American Universities (AAU), to all three of which Harvard belongs.